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Rasputinian Death: Difference between revisions
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'''This is a [[Death Trope]], so [[Spoilered Rotten|EXPECT SPOILERS!]]'''
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
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* In ''[[Naruto]]'':
** Zabuza Momochi is bitten by a half-dozen dogs, his arms rendered useless, and stabbed with an armory's worth of weapons during his [[Self Destructive Charge|run on Gato]] before giving a tender goodbye to his loyal companion Haku. Having accomplished his goals he died apparently because he didn't have anything else to be badass at doing.
** Orochimaru has his arms devoured by the Shinigami, his transfer form torn to shreds by Sasuke, and finally gets stabbed by a sword that forces him into a permanent illusion when he [[One
** Kakuzu was stabbed through the heart twice and blown up with a jutsu that essentially killed him on a cellular level. And then Kakashi had to kill him ''again'' [[Make Sure He's Dead|just to make sure.]] {{spoiler|And now he's back thanks to the Impure World Resurrection by Kabuto.}}
** Jiraiya gets an arm taken off by a surprise attack, is stabbed in the shoulder of his remaining arm, then gets his throat crushed and get stabbed by a half-dozen metallic bars, and dies... before ''willing himself back to life'' so he can send a message before finally drowning in a lake.
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* The older brother in the Korean war epic ''Taegukgi'' ends up taking on what seems like the entire North Korean army by himself. This is after he is viciously beaten to a pulp by his own brother. His opponents take no chances and literally drown him in gunfire.
* [[Implacable Man|Kim Sun-Woo]], the main character of ''A Bittersweet Life'', is beaten by three men with clubs, gets hanged and punched in the stomach, has his hand broken by a wrench, gets buried alive, gets stabbed in the gut at least six consecutive times, has his ear shot off, and takes three rounds of machine gun fire to the chest. This subdues him, to be sure. But he doesn't die until a merciful gunman ''shoots him in the head.''
* Like [[The Good the Bad And The Ugly|the movie it's based on]], ''[[The Good the Bad The Weird]]'' ends with a three-way [[Mexican Standoff]]. Unlike the original, in which the Mexican Standoff is resolved with one shot, all three main characters shoot one another over and over, slowly fall to the ground, then shoot each other ''another'' sixteen times or so [[Made of Iron|for good measure]], while lying down. Whether or not this is a [[Kill
* Parodied unto absurdum in the [[Broken Lizard]] film ''Club Dread'', to the point that the final shot features the killer's disembodied legs swimming after the survivors.
* The villain from [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[Torn Curtain]]'' takes a good long while to go down, including spending most of the climactic fight with a butcher knife sticking out of his chest. Hitchcock's main goal with the film was to show how hard it could really be to kill someone.
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* In ''[[Return of the Living Dead]]'', the medical cadaver zombie. The characters are [[Genre Savvy]] so they immediately brain it with a pick axe...[[Wrong Genre Savvy|which doesn't kill it]]. Then they saw off its head with a hack saw...which doesn't kill it...Then they slice it up into small individual pieces...which doesn't kill it. They finally have to cremate it just to get rid fo it.
* In a hilarious [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment]] from ''[[Me Myself and Irene]]'', Charlie and Irene come across a cow that's been hit by a car. Charlie shoots it multiple times to put it out of its misery, but the cow keeps raising its head and mooing. He pistol whips, strangles, and smothers the poor animal before it stops moving. {{spoiler|The cow is shown alive during the credits.}}
* Although he eventually becomes a superpowered zombie, ''[[Friday the
* ''[[Zeiram]]'':
** In its debut film, the title character demonstrates its notorious "immortality", first by having its chest blown out with a rocket launcher, only for its skeletal system to rip out of its ruined body and continue to move on its own. It continues to scuttle after the protagonists, even through several point blank grenade blasts, only so much as losing an arm when one is strapped directly to its ribcage. It continues to press on until it takes a point blank shot from a BFG, obliterating the skeleton... and leaving the head to fly around and grow an entirely new body minutes later. Finally, its primary head is shot to bits, and it dies... at least until the sequel
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* The movie version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' was Boromir's ''less'' bad-ass [[The Last Dance|last dance]]. In [[The Lord of the Rings|the book]], Aragorn never arrived to "save" him: Boromir defeated ''dozens'' of Uruk-hai on his own before going down, with many of them shooting at him instead of just one. And there are none left standing by the time Aragorn and the others reach him. Of course, the actual scene isn't written; we just see the aftermath. Fits the trope even more in that Boromir's shield and sword were broken to pieces by the time the fight ended, indicating truly brutal melee combat amidst being shot full of arrows.
** The animated version is this trope plays it straight like the book,except we can see it happen. Four arrows land in his chest and he just pulls them out and hacks away until the exact same thing happens,by the end he is bleeding all over and pinned to the tree by the arrows
* In ''[[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince|Harry Potter]]'', Dumbledore has been dying of curses put on the Peverell ring throughout the entire book. He then ingests a bowl of magical torture-poison that must be consumed to stay removed in order to get at a Horcrux. Before either of these things can kill him, Snape does [[I Cannot Self
* Arhys in [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''Paladin of Souls'' is actually dead when the book starts, but doesn't realize it (he's being sustained by magic being done by his young wife). The climax involves him riding out on a suicidal mission sustained by an amped-up version of the same spell, over the course of which he suffers several more fatal wounds and is eventually chopped to pieces.
* One standard [[Our Vampires Are Different|version of vampire lore]] (dating back at least to ''[[Dracula (Literature)|Dracula]]'') says that, to kill a vampire, you need to stake him through the heart ''and'' chop his head off (not to mention filling his mouth with garlic/holy wafers). And sometimes burn the body to ashes and toss said ashes into a fast-flowing river. And in at least one version of the lore, even when all the steps are taken it wasn't really dead. A drop of blood on the ashes would reform it -- stopped only by the fact that the ashes are scattered too widely.
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* In ''[[Battle Tech]]'', specifically ''Mechwarrior: Dark Age'', Victor Steiner-Davion faces down the Clans and wins, fights a brutal civil war against his sister and claims victory while personally leading the charge, survives the Jihad, becomes a Paladin of the Sphere, and is finally snuffed by no less than ''four'' assassins in the dead of night. At the ripe old age of 107, he takes two with him.
* In ''[[Angelas Ashes (Literature)|Angelas Ashes]]'', the main character is reading about saints and decides that his favorite is St. Christina the Astonishing because she "takes ages to die".
* Patroclus, in ''[[The Iliad (Literature)|The Iliad]]'', is slapped and unarmed by ''Apollo'', stabbed in the chest by Eupharlus, finally finished off by Hector, and ''still'' lives long enough to hear Hector's [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] and respond with his own [[Final Speech]].
* [[Word of God]] has it that historical [[Necromancer]] [[Big Bad]] [[Evil Sorcerer|Kemmler]] suffered one of these in the backstory of [[The Dresden Files]]: In addition to magical swords, there were "guns, axes, shovels, ropes, a flamethrower, and a number of other extremes." This is after a fight with ''every combat-competent wizard in the world''. After they killed him once, decades earlier, and it ''didn't stick''.
* [[Jim Butcher]] also gives us <s>Invidia Aquitaine</s> Nihilus Invidia's death in the ''[[Codex Alera]]'': She was shot with a ballast bolt, one of which can go through two heavily armored legionaries. The ballast bolt was poisoned with two different kinds of poison: One that kills immediately and one that causes a nearly-incurable long-term infection in the wound. She was declared dead by a doctor, but her body disappeared; she'd [[Healing Hands|watercrafted]] herself to the point where she could move despite being mortally wounded. She mentions, later, that the crows had come for her. She was found by the Vord Queen, who stuck a great big Vord parasite on her as life support. She acted as [[The Dragon]] for a while, then came up against her (ex-)husband Attis; she sliced him in half, but he burned most of her face and a good bit of her body off. A bit later, she gets into a fight with a bunch of [[Person of Mass Destruction|the High Lords]]... and dies from being [[Death By Irony|literally stabbed in the back]] by Amara.
* In [[Oleg Divov]]'s [[Night Watcher]], the [[Big Bad]] ends up being delimbed, partly encased in cement, hit in the face with a shovel several times and finally injected with (lethal, to him and [[Our Vampires Are Different|his kind]]) silver. The main character actually sort of pities him, despite the fact that he (the [[Big Bad]]) is literally a [[Complete Monster]].
* [[Complete Monster|First Mate Cox]] in ''[[Nation]]'' takes an axe to the chest (blood loss, probable major organ damage), falls into a lagoon (drowning) and ultimately gets eaten by [[
* Take your pick of ''any'' of the sorcerers in the [[Black Company]] novels by Glen Cook. The Limper had a building collapsed on him, shot several times by a ballista, shot full of magical arrows, beheaded, burned, and cooked in a giant pot. To make sure he never came back (again), his enemies pushed his remains into another dimension. The [[Big Bad|Dominator]] was [[Sealed Evil in A Can|buried alive]], shot with magic arrows, stabbed countless times, then burned. Shadowspinner was also shot with ballista bolts then impaled on a spear and took around a day to die (and that spear was poisoned). Another case in these books was a magical wereleopard called the "forvalvaka". One fought in a battle survived that and was crucified and took days to die with some magical help. Another one of the forvalvaka took 30 or so people shooting it with poisoned crossbow bolts, and magical fireballs, plus being stabbed with a magical spear, before it died.
* In [[Jane Yolen]] and Adam Stemple's contribution to the anthology ''The Dragon Book'', ''The Tsar's Dragons'', this happens to Rasputin, [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|naturally]]. It is his [[Real Life]] death, with the only exceptions being: 1) he was pushed under the ice by dragons and 2) he had a magic charm that stopped the other attempts from killing him. Presumably because [[Reality Is Unrealistic|that man was stupid hard to kill]].
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** William Birkin in ''[[Resident Evil 2]]'' has to be killed multiple times, but keeps coming back in a stronger form until finally being killed for good at the end. The B scenario requires the player to kill him two extra times, then ''another'' time in the [[Multiple Endings|extended ending]], followed by a cutscene in which he dies ''yet again'', presumably for good this time.
** There's also Nemesis in ''[[Resident Evil 3]]'', who has to be killed at least twice being completely destroyed, and it is possible to kill many more times before that.
** Nikolai to a lesser extent. He's probably more good at narrowly avoiding severe harm than withstanding massive amounts of it, but seeing as he gets into dangerous situations throughout the entire game, probably invokes [[Why Won't You Die?]] reactions from the protagonists after his [[Face Heel Turn]], and when he finally can die it's either [[No Kill Like Overkill|via an explosion, Nemesis-impalement, or in the novelizations getting ripped in half]]...
** Happens in ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' to Wesker. Rocket blows up in his hand, overdosed on his meds, falls from a high-altitude aircraft, whatever you do to him in the boss fight, immersed in lava, ''two simultaneous rocket launchers to the face''. Probably qualifies as overkill, but, then again, there was no body... <ref>[[Word of God]] claims the missiles finally did him in. {{spoiler|Though one does wonder, seeing as what it took to kill Albert, what exactly it will take to kill off his perfectly immortal "brother" Alex Wesker}}.</ref>
** Rachel from [[Resident Evil Revelations|Revelations]] qualifies to an extent: she gets eaten by an Ooze, mutates (it's debatable whether or not she's actually dead, seeing as she'll talk to you), gets shot with more bullets than almost any other monster in the series can handle, and then comes back repeatedly in the game (she appears quite a bit in Hell mode) where she will withstand a ton more damage. She's presumably killed when the entire ship explodes.
** HUNK is of the Nikolai variety: he's known in-universe for being constantly being sent into extraordinarily dangerous situations and returning completely unharmed. [[
* On the gameplay side of things, just about any video game character, from Mooks to [[Big Bad|Big Bads]] to the main characters have deaths like this, considering just how much ammunition/magic/sharp pointy objects you have to pump into them in order to bring them down. [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|Specially if unneeded]].
* Arguably the case for most [[Coup De Grace|Fatalities]] in [[Mortal Kombat]] and its long line of installments. Some examples from the 2011 reboot:
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** Noble six gets shot, beat up, blown up, and can spend most of the game on the edge of death depending on how good the player is; and by the end, Six is responsible for the death of multiple army battallions. In cutscenes, (s)he [[Cutscene Power to The Max|takes it about twenty times worse]]: (s)he gets tossed out of a spaceship, trapped in a downed aircraft, impaled bodily, and attacked by a plasma turret (in the open, no less), among other things. Given the numerous injuries the player sustains in gamplay and out, it's no small wonder that it takes an entire platoon of elite warriors to kill him (or her)...''while (s)he's alone and dying in the desert''. Even then, (s)he's impaled twice in the gut and decapitated before (s)he finally stops fighting.
** Also, given that Emile gets impaled from the rear ''and then snaps the neck of the alien who did it while he's being held in the air'', and can be heard heavily breathing over the radio for several minutes afterwards, he might count as well.
* In the second fight with Dogadon in ''[[Donkey Kong 64]]'' (see at the end of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIRjo4wCA58 this video]), it dies pretty damn spectacularly. First it gets punched backwards into the wall, then flies up, has a sort of [[Technicolor Death]] with light coming out from the boss at all angles and falls into lava head first, eventually coming up again while on fire, then sinking back in with it's hand going down last with smoke coming from it. Possibly a [[Family
* Adam Jensen from [[Deus Ex Human Revolution (Video Game)|Deus Ex Human Revolution]] gets thrown through a pane of ''really'' thick glass, smashes into a heavy computer frame (with glass shards still stuck in him), nearly strangled to death, then shot in twice in the head for good measure. That's just what we see; apparently, after getting shot, the heavily damaged wall behind him fell on top of him due to the fact that the building he was in was also ''on fire'' (strangely, this actually saved his life, as it protected him from the flames and the fumes). He survives, but has to become a cyborg.
* In ''[[Crisis Core]]'', [[The Hero|Zack Fair]] fights off tons of army guys, all armed with guns when he only has a sword; after being shot full of bullets, he still manages to give Cloud his [[Final Speech]].
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* ''[[Fallout New Vegas]]'':
** ''Attempted'' on [[Made of Iron|Joshua]] [[Implacable Man|Graham]], or as he's better known, [[Shrouded in Myth|the Burned Man]]. He survives (among other things) a hanging and at least five .308 rounds from NCR snipers on different occasions. Then, having [[You Have Failed Me|failed Caesar and the Legion]] at the Battle of Hoover Dam, he's covered in pitch, lit on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. ''It doesn't work''.
** Even Graham is absolutely nothing compared to Frank Horrigan, the Enclave's walking super weapon from Fallout 2. The only real way for the player to inflict decent damage on him is to repeatedly shoot him in the eyes with the [[Infinity
*** Note, the battle with Frank is only this tough if [[Guide Dang It|you didn't use the mutant toe on him.]]
* In ''[[Haunting Ground]]'', {{spoiler|Lorenzo}}, the game's final boss, is put through a rock crusher, thrown into a pit of lava, ''comes back as a flaming skeleton'', before finally disintegrating into dust. Not to mention all of the previous times you could have [[Kick the Son of A Bitch|kicked him]], laid traps for him, or [[Pet Interface|sicked the dog on him]].
* Ganondorf in [[The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess|Twilight Princess]] it takes four phases to take this guy down. First he [[Demonic Possession|possesses]] Zelda, gets [[Beat the Curse Out of Him|beaten out of her]], transforms into [[One
* Really, just about every RPG end boss that goes through multiple forms before finally going down (read: almost all of them) qualifies for this trope.
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** One bit character has a [[Rasputinian Death]] is [http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/25 this comic.]
** A later character, Rojave, has Benny in a corner. Cale and Pella both notice this and simultaneously kill him with two throw swords and a [[Rings of Death|bladed ring]] respectively. Richard then [[Incendiary Exponent|lights his head on fire]] for the fun of it. Of course, as Benny had previously [[Leave Him to Me|called the kill]], she [[Healing Hands|heals him from the brink of death]] and then smashes his head with her mace.
* ''[[
{{quote| '''Red Mage''': I have disposed of the zombie dragon's remains in the ancient ways. His bones I scattered and broke before I buried them. His head was buried upside down at a cross roads. I added the upside down part as an extra precaution.<br />
'''Black Mage''': Ideally, this is how we would deal with all of our enemies. }}
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== Real Life ==
* As said above, Rasputin's real death was the opposite of [[Truth in Television]]. [[History Marches On|His autopsy]], only made public after the end of the Cold War, showed that he was shot four times; one bullet entered his head and killed him instantly. Sadly, Prince Felix Yusupov's wildly implausible lies - the cakes and ale, the hypothermia, the roaring up after being shot, all that '''factually inaccurate''' and patently ridiculous nonsense - has permeated popular culture so strongly that even on this page editors are falling over themselves to ''explain'' in great detail how Rasputin's death really was Rasputinian. Unfortunately for them, [[For Science!|autopsies don't lie]]: Rasputin ''never'' ate the cakes and ale, he ''never'' roared up after being shot, he ''never'' suffered from hypothermia. His death was quick, clean, and completely unmystical, and the lies told for decades about it were nothing but self-serving hyperbole invented by Yusupov so that he could live in comfort without having to sully his hands with nasty plebian ''work''. (Readers interested in the matter may wish to read Professor Kossorotov's 1916 autopsy as reviewed by Professor Derrick Pounder.) The true story, though, will continue to be ignored because [[Rule of Cool|the fake story is much cooler]].
<!-- %% Please don't add the bullshit about him dying of hypothermia, roaring up after being shot, etc. again. It was a lie, it was always a lie, and it will always be a lie. -->
* Prince Alexei was difficult to kill, even with the rampant hemophilia and his self-inflicted injuries before he was murdered! [[The Woobie|Poor kid.]]
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[[Category:Death Tropes]]
[[Category:Rasputinian Death]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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