Martyrdom Culture: Difference between revisions

== [[Literature]] ==

* The Sword Cult/Cult of Steel in Richard Adams' ''Horseclans'' novels has this attitude as part of its code of honor.

* In the ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' novels this became a big problem for new god of the dead Kelemvor when he tried to be more rewarding of heroism as people starting committing heroic suicide with alarming regularity and effective death cults started popping up. The experience was sufficiently troubling that Kelemvor eventually changed his alignment from Neutral Good to Lawful Neutral and after he couldn't be bothered to really care.

* Averted, strangely enough, with the [[Star Wars|Mandalorians]]. They're fine with dying in battle, but are rather pragmatic about it. They revere those who live long enough to raise families and pass on their ways. Their [[Battle Cry]] translates to "Today is a good day for someone else to die!"

* The Khanate of Orion in Task Force Games' ''Starfire'' game.

** Also the Rigellians, who regard ramming their ships into enemies as a perfectly valid combat tactic.

** By attest, we mean it takes up the entire page.

 

** The Vikings famously believed that the only way into the Warrior's Heaven of Valhalla was to die in combat. (An honorable execution would do in a pinch.) If you died in bed, of age or illness, you went straight to [[The Nothing After Death|Hel]].

*** This created occasional problems for those heroes of legend who were just too damn good to die, no matter how many battles they charged into screaming their heads off. For example, the Saga of Starkodder, takes him through many a battle, and he always somehow manages to survive. Eventually, when he's getting old and infirm, he starts to be afraid that he'll die in bed and thus make his lifetime of heroism moot. So he tracks down a worthy youth - the Prince of Sweden, as I recall - and offers him a little 'deal'... he'll let the prince behead him, so he can have a worthy death, and if the prince can leap between his head and his body before either hit the ground, Starkodder's legendary invincibility will be transferred to him. The prince takes him up on the offer, but after cutting off the head, he recants in the last second and leaps back instead, realizing that Starkodder's hugely muscular body would crush him if it fell on him - and that Starkodder had thus aimed to murder his executioner post-mortem. Sure enough, when the headless corpse falls over, it leaves a crater of impact - and the head, filled with bloodthirst even in its last seconds, bites the grass as it lands.

**** In order to deal with this problem, some Vikings interpreted the conditions for entering Valhalla simply as dying with your sword. Therefore, handing an aged hero a sword in his deathbed was seen as an acceptable solution to this dilemma.

** To straighten the record about martyrdom in Islam, those who died in battle in service of God is automatically granted a place at the third highest level of heaven. The problem is deciding whether suicide bombers are considered martyrs (contrary to popular western perception, the majority of Muslims doesn't approve suicide bombing) as well [[Leeroy Jenkins|those who blindly charge towards the enemy]].