Strike Me Down

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"Take your Jedi weapon. Use it. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger!"
—Emperor Palpatine, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

When a character, usually after a defeat, commands the victor to kill them. Whether because they have despaired due to their defeat, were already a Death Seeker, or just because their Pride won't let them rest knowing they were beaten. They will also ask this if it is a Mercy Kill, and they are threatened by a Cruel and Unusual Death or a Fate Worse Than Death if the victor doesn't do this. Either way, they figure dying is better than going on living.

...Or do they? Alternatively, their death could be just the beginning, and they are using this opportunity to set their Xanatos Gambit in motion as being spared would be great but their death leads to other benefits. Then again it could be the latest move in Xanatos Speed Chess, as a Secret Test of Character, or even as the final step in their Batman Gambit. Of course, they could also just be doing it to screw over their enemy even in defeat.

Either way, it is crucial to them that they be killed, and if the potential killer be reluctant, they may try to provoke them in any way they can, whether through a particularly vicious Break Them by Talking or perhaps revealing (or lying) that they have his wife.

Please don't confuse with Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter!. Contrast Get It Over With, where the character usually doesn't want to die but sees it as a foregone conclusion. See also Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred.

Examples of Strike Me Down include:

Anime and Manga

  • One Piece had Zoro order Hawk Eyes to do this to him after he lost the duel. At first it seems that Mihawk complied, but Mihawk made sure the wound was non-lethal so they could duel again in the future.
  • This is the whole point of the two Mikos true purpose in Kannazuki no Miko:one must kill the other in order to fix the damage done to the world by Orochi. Too bad they are eternally in love with each other.
  • In Bleach, Ulquiorra asks for this before he dies. Ichigo doesn't, and, well, Ulquiorra ends up disintegrating anyway.
  • In Trigun, Legato uses his Mind Control powers to make a group of civilians tie up Meryl and Millie and hold them at gunpoint in view of Vash. This is an attempt to force Vash to break his refusal to take life, as any attempt to non-lethally subdue Legato would give him time to make his mind control victims shoot Meryl and Millie. Vash eventually stops Legato by reluctantly shooting him in the head, which leaves him horrified.

Comic Books

  • Rorschach from Watchmen. "Do it!"
  • Green Goblin does a legitimate version of this in the "Return of the Green Goblin" storyline; after receiving a righteous beating from Spidey, he quietly asks him to just kill him and end it (the story had revealed that he has considered killing himself probably more than once, but simply cannot do it).

Film

Obi-Wan: If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Literature

  • From Harry Potter, a Thanatos Gambit is set in place by Dumbledore when he urges double agent Snape to kill him - as he is already fatally wounded - to solidify his cover.

Dumbledore: Severus, please.

  • In The Elenium, a mortally wounded Martel asks for Sparhawk to finish him off. Sparhawk tells him there's no need.
  • Yellowfang from the first book of Warrior Cats does this out of pride.
  • To quote Glokta from the First Law, "I am ready." He says this a number of times.

Live Action TV

  • In Luther, Ian Reed tries to make the title character do this because he doesn't want to live with the shame of having his crimes exposed. Luther, however, decides to give him Cruel Mercy instead.

Video Games

  • This line is invoked twice in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. The first is when Kyle has to choose between the Light or Dark Side when Jerec has captured Kyle's pilot Jan Ors and goads him into killing her to get Kyle to turn to the Dark:

Jerec: Strike her down and realize your true power as a Dark Jedi - your true power!

Second time is in the Light Side ending, after Kyle has defeated Jerec. Again, Jerec is trying to goad Kyle into tapping into his dark side potential:

Jerec: I am defenseless! Strike me down, and the the power of The Dark Side will be yours.... I'm sure you haven't forgotten I was the one who murdered your father.

    • The line also shows up in the prologue, when Jerec has captured Qu Rahn, a Jedi Knight and friend of Kyle's father.

Rahn: Why hesitate? Strike me down.

  • Takaya Sakaki in Persona 3 requests—or rather, demands this of SEES after they defeat him near the top of Tartarus on the day of the Fall. They just walk past him, leaving him pissed off.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic, after your duel with Bastila on the Star Forge, she asks you to kill her. You can oblige her or, if you try and fail to convince her to turn back to the Light Side, she attacks you and makes you kill her.
    • Subverted in the sequel, where you can't kill the Big Bad after (s)he says this. Nope, you've got another fight on your hands instead.

Web Comics

  • Drowtales: Syphile: "Go ahead mother. Do what you do best. Do the only thing you know".
  • In Order of the Stick, Belkar keeps provoking Miko into fights so that he can try to pull this on her and make her fall from paladinhood. Mostly because it would be funny. When she finally does fall, it actually @#!*% him off - both because he can't kill a paladin and she does it by killing Lord Shojo, the only person he has any respect for that we know of.
  • Near the end of the Battle for Gobwin Knob in Erfworld, Wanda is lying broken and beaten before Prince Ansom and begs him to strike her down, just to let her touch "them" (the Arken Pliers). Ansom is so creeped out by it that he leaves her where she is without attacking again. Things might arguably have gone much smoother for him shortly there-after if he had just done as she asked at first. But then again, maybe not...
  • Dellyn Goblinslayer goaded Thaco to kill him, believing it would grant him a form of immortality. Thaco let him live.
  • Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi: After losing their epic fight, Mandark begs Dexter to kill him, having lost all will to live since DeeDee's death. Dexter refuses so Mandark triggers his base's self-destruct mechanism and is presumably killed in the explosion.
  • A particularly memorable instance occurs in Homestuck, since among other things it results in the destruction of Alternia's universe:

Sn0wman: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? DRAW, SLICK.

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