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{{trope}}
[[File:loveblind03_924.jpg|link=Superman (Franchise)|rightframe|Protip: [[Superman (Franchise)|Superman]] can probably [[Immune to Bullets|survive that gun]] [[Taking the Bullet|better than you can]].<ref>Now, is his [[What an Idiot!]] expression intentional or not?</ref>]]
 
{{quote|''Alright, it's time to redeem myself. Through one final act of redemption [Stands between Gohan and a fairly slow Beam], I'll save Gohan an- wait a second, [[Fridge Logic|why didn't I just grab him?]] I can probably still do that now, actually. Yeah, that's it, I'll grab him, and '''throw''' him out of the wa-'''[[Killed Mid-Sentence|AAAARRRRRGH!]]'''''|'''Piccolo''', ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged (Web Video)|Dragon Ball Abridged]]''}}
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'''If the sacrifice is stupid because it didn't accomplish what it was supposed to but was still the logical choice, that's [[Senseless Sacrifice]], ''not'' this trope.''' The two tropes can overlap when a [[Stupid Sacrifice]] doesn't accomplish its goal, but it is rare.
 
[[Counter Trope]] to [[Negate Your Own Sacrifice]]. Subtrope of [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. Compare [[Shaggy Dog Story]]. [[No Real Life Examples, Please]].
 
'''This is a [[Death Trope]]. Spoilers ahoy.'''
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** Tereus in ''Appleseed Ex Machina'' tries to have a [[Stupid Sacrifice]], but gets kicked out of it by other protagonists.
* ''[[Gantz (Manga)|Gantz]]''. An alien throws a highly corrosive acid at Katou. Instead of, say, pushing him out of the way, Kishimoto runs ''around'' him, blocks him with her body, and takes the blast.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice|Heroic Sacrifices]] [[Senseless Sacrifice|rarely work]] in ''[[Dragon Ball (Manga)|Dragon Ball]]''. The truly pointless sacrifice in the series, however, has got to be Piccolo's in ''[[Dragon Ball GT (Anime)|Dragon Ball GT]]'', in which he decides to die so that the Black Star Dragon Balls wouldn't be used ever again. Despite the fact that the series had already established that they could destroy the Dragon Balls, or hell, just outright kill the dragon.<br /><br />Piccolo wanted to share the Earth's destiny. However, [[Fridge Logic|that means he should've been revived along with the Earth]]. Thanks to the [[Sci -Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|sheer distance between the balls]], the fact that it's all but impossible to find one without ''very'' specialized equipment, and the fact that absolutely everybody crazy/powerful enough to want the things was dead, he could have just done ''nothing'' and still had the same effect.<br /><br />Never mind the fact that Dende had to recreate the regular dragon balls because Kami wasn't around anymore, which means that the black dragon balls shouldn't be active either.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho (Manga)|Yu Yu Hakusho]]''. Yusuke tries to prevent Kurama from sacrificing his life to save his mother's life, saying it doesn't make logical sense because Kurama's mother would be condemned to a life of grief. So in turn, Yusuke offers up his life instead. Eventually they both live and the wish is granted anyway, but only then does the [[Fridge Logic]] kick in for Yusuke: if he'd done that, his ''own'' mother would've been condemned to a life of grief. He prevents this (in some translations and adaptations) by suggesting that the mirror take '''part''' of his life, so Kurama won't have to die and his mother will be saved. Then again, the act is reckless enough to impress the Forlorn Hope into not taking either of their lives.
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* The same thing as the KGBeast example above happens in [[The Film of the Book]] of ''[[The Silence of the Lambs|Hannibal]]''. Hannibal Lecter, supergenius, who once got out of restraints using ''part of a ballpoint pen'', cuts off his own hand to escape from ''normal handcuffs''. As [[Roger Ebert]] put it, "I'm disappointed [[I'm a Humanitarian|he didn't take it with as a snack]]."
** Some people theorize he DID cut the handcuffs and was wearing the cast to conceal it on the plane. He probably got it through the metal detector using the rest of the pen.
* In ''[[Harry Potter (Film)|Harry Potter]] and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer's Stone'', Ron sacrifices himself as a chess piece so that they can win the magical game of chess and reach the stone. [[Adaptation -Induced Plothole|Noted by Hermione and Harry in the book]], where he himself is the knight, so he has to stand still and let the queen 'take' him. In the film he's sitting atop a massive stone horse, and many people have asked themselves why he just sat on that horse and watched as the queen approached, rather than jumping off... Granted, he doesn't die, but he could have. It's likely that Ron jumping off of the horse could have screwed up the game (that is, he only counts as the knight as long as he remains on the horse).
** Also Harry himself. Although he realises that he has little to no chances against the thief, be it Voldemort or Snape, he doesn't consider simply sending an owl to the absent Dumbledore until well into the "obstacle course". Neither does he heed McGonagall's assurances that the Stone was perfectly safe, which, big shock, it actually was.
* The 2007-version of ''[[I Am Legend]]'' has a particularly bad example of this, when the main character spontaneously decides to blow himself and all the vampires up while a perfectly fine escape route was available. Some times you can rewrite the script's ending at last minute without any ill effects. Other times, not so much.
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** Invoked in ''Traitor General''. When the hounds find their scent, Landerson sees that his fall had torn off his bandage, and tells Gaunt that it's his blood, and he will try to draw them off. Gaunt refuses to let him because they would still be chased "no matter how heroic and stupid you decide to be."
** Likewise invoked in ''Guns Of Tanith''. After being shot down while inserting the Larisel teams, Jagdea has to be rescued by the same teams from a Blood Pact patrol looking for downed pilots. She volunteers to stay behind and let the next patrol capture her (after a suitable fight). Mkvenner and Domor shoot this plan down on the grounds that a) the bad guys are very good at torture and b) the only way to make it vaguely plausible that Jagdea'd killed the patrol would be to leave the kind of weapons that would cause those wounds, and a 'downed pilot' toting a sniper rifle and the signature combat knife of a different regiment just raises more questions. Not to mention that they'd need those weapons themselves.
* In the final climax of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's ''[[Green-Sky Trilogy]]'', protagonist Raamo is about to throw a deadly ray-gun (encased in a heavy lead-lined urn) into a deep watery chasm. Does he simply throw it in? No, because he's telepathic and is picking up confusing thoughts/feelings from onlookers who think the weapon should be kept just in case (it's literally the only weapon on the planet). So he slips and falls in, the urn still in his hands, literally dying for the sins of his people. Obviously meant as a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], it came off as an [[Esoteric Happy Ending]] at best -- the kind that Snyder has all but trademarked in the endings of her novels. After being called on this by roughly 90% of her readers, she made a [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Below_the_root:Below the root|computer game sequel]] to the series where you can save him, as an [[Author's Saving Throw]].
* ''[[Twilight (Literature)|Twilight]]'' is horrible about this. Whenever a hostile vampire appears, Bella immediately decides to try to get herself killed in order to "save" her [[Nigh Invulnerable]] boyfriend.
** She only needed to save Edward once and she was the only one that could do it. However she did this when trying to save her mother because James told her he kidnapped her and she decided to go alone, when it was more logical to tell her powerful vampire family James's plans, and it was unnecessary either since James was using an old video with her mother on it.
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** In ''Eclipse'', we are told the story of a werewolf chief who had to fight a vampire. The chief's wife stabbed herself, so the vampire would be distracted by her blood and the chief could kill it...except, she really could have done that just by cutting her hand, as Bella herself does at the climax of the book.
* Karen Traviss' ''[[Star Wars (Franchise)|Star Wars]]'' novel ''Order 66'' has one of her characters (Etain) [[What an Idiot!|sacrificing herself to save a clone trooper from Jedi after Order 66 is issued.]]
* Many readers have [[Fridge Logic|come up with ways]] to save the life of the stowaway girl who dies at the end of the short story ''[[The Cold Equations]]''. In fact, [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations:The Cold Equations#Reactions |author Don Saker wrote a solution story]] which incidentally [[Gender Flip|swapped the genders of the protagonists]]. It was published in ''[[Analog (Magazine)|Analog]]'' science fiction magazine over thirty years after the original story ran in that publication. It turned out that ''Analog'' editor [[John W Campbell]] had insisted the story end with the death of the girl and had sent the story back three times because the author kept finding ways to save her.
* In Alma Alexander's ''The Secrets of Jin-shei'', Nhia knows someone is trying to poison the Empress, and so when a servant appears with a goblet of wine, she's suspicious. Her solution? Taste it to find out. It never occurs to her to simply pour out the wine rather than drinking it herself to protect her friend. Given the [[Kill'Em All]] ending, it's clear the author just needed to get rid of her.
* A big part of the plot of ''[[Return From the Stars]]''. The protagonist, along with his colleagues, has dedicated years of his life ([[Time Dilation|and 127 years of Earth time]]) and risked his life for a deep-space research mission, which he considers to have been a worthy achievement. In contrast, the Earthlings in the meanwhile have decided that sending people on such missions is a staggeringly useless waste of human life and resources, and that space exploration in general was but one of the many blind alleys in human history. (Though it's mostly due to the fact that the [[Restraining Bolt|obligatory anti-aggression treatment]] and the permanent safety and convenience offered by future technology also renders everyone in the future incapable of taking risks, or even comprehending the idea of heroism.) This does not make the protagonist happy.
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** On the other hand, {{spoiler|Sayid's sacrifice was utterly stupid, since he could have just as well taken the bomb immediately instead of waiting for his turn to speak to Jack, and close a door behind it. He could have made time.}}
* The first episode of the ''[[Tek War]]'' series has the [[Robot Girl|robot girlfriend]] of the hero spy another robot approaching them, recognizes it as filled with explosives somehow, says some dramatic last words, then runs over a block away towards the killer robot so that she can throw herself at it and cause it to explode. This is done solely to give the hero something to be really mad about to power his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|revenge moment]] against the [[Big Bad]]. The distance between the hero and evil-bot presents hundreds of alternatives to her throwing her life away. It's not like they haven't been dodging deadly attacks for the whole of the episode so far.
* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' has had a few.
** The Doctor made a [[Stupid Sacrifice]] of his 10th life in "The End of Time". To summarize, Wilf is trapped in a man-sized box which will flood with radiation. The box will only unlock safely if the Doctor hits the unlock button in an identical box right next to it, letting Wilf out but exposing himself to the radiation instead. The box is too small for the TARDIS to fit, the sonic screwdriver is ruled out because it would set the whole thing off, and using the TARDIS to get help from someone else is ruled out because [[San Dimas Time]] rules apply in this setting. ([[Timey-Wimey Ball|Usually]].) Even so, the Doctor spends enough time angsting about it that he could probably have rigged up a crude method of hitting the button without being in the box.
*** Even if the Doctor lacked the resources to release Wilf from the machine without setting it off, he had ample time after being dosed to go around and visit each of his former companions, time he could have easily used to visit one of the many, ''many'' civilizations capable of treating radiation poisoning, such as the Vinvocci he had just met.
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*** Foon's is even less necessary, but at least there you can make a case that she didn't want to live without her husband. Still, given Bannakaffalatta's (legitimate) [[Heroic Sacrifice]], they [[Kill'Em All|began to pile up in that episode]].
** Adric in ''Earthshock''. He tries to pull a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], never realizing that the Earth had already been saved.
** Also, "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S4 E10 Midnight|Midnight]]". The hostess opens the airlock and then...just stands there for a few seconds with the creature before both being sucked out, rather than, you know, pushing the thing and getting the hell away.
** The end of "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S32 E6 The Almost People|The Almost People]]" too. There was no need to let their anti-Ganger weapon be used by Gangers when there were the originals around too. Plus, the creature was not really that speedy and there was no real need to hold the door down when it's just five meters running to the TARDIS.
* ''[[Stargate SG-1 (TV)|Stargate SG-1]]'' lampshades then averts this, thanks to the [[Genre Savvy]] O'Neill. After successfully destroying the shield system on an invading Goa'uld motherships, they ponder their next move. The following dialogue occurs:
{{quote| '''O'Neill:''' Now what?<br />
'''Bra'tac:''' Now, we die.<br />
'''O'Neill:''' Well, ''that's'' a bad plan. Where's the glider bay? }}
* Subverted with Topher's sacrifice in the series finale of ''[[Dollhouse (TV)|Dollhouse]]''. It is quite obvious that Topher could simply set a timer on the pulse-bomb. It is just as obvious that he wants this to be his final act.
* Kat's death in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]''. No real reason that she had to keep flying through the radiation when there were so many other pilots who could take more of it than she could. Possibly an actual suicide, since she was desperate to get away from Starbuck and motivated by guilt: for her shady past that may have contributed to the destruction of the colonies and for losing that previous ship in the crossing. She felt she had nothing to live for except being a Viper pilot (and that was about to be taken away from her) and that she had some massive karmic debt to make up. She had something to prove to herself. That said, her suicidal sacrifice, although understandable and sympathetic, was still pretty stupid and cost the fleet a talented pilot.
* The death of the Senator in the ''[[Stargate Universe (TV)|Stargate Universe]]'' pilot was rather senseless. Air is slowly leaking out a damaged porthole on a shuttle attached to the main ship and the control panel to close the door is in the shuttle. The Senator sacrifices himself to save the rest of the crew, but given an hour or two (which they had) any decent engineer could have built something to press the button remotely. A lever on a string for instance. Or a flying remote-controlled camera drone, available from a vending machine aboard the Destiny.
** The Senator was already bleeding internally without proper medical facilities to treat his injuries and his own daughter was one of the lives he was able to save with his sacrifice. Solving the leaking air problem also let them focus on the next immediate crisis of actually purifying the air to keep it breathable.
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* In ''[[Age of Mythology (Video Game)|Age of Mythology]]'', Chiron offers to slow down the oncoming horde of bad guys, by standing under a precarious pile of stones and kicking them. Never mind that he could have easily, you know, kicked them over from the other side, or even gotten out of the way of the path blocking the rockslide. And for that matter, there wasn't even that many bad guys. They could have ''fought'' their way out!
* In ''[[Fable II (Video Game)|Fable II]]'', the dog dies when he tries to attack Lucien, and unfortunately, Lucien was preparing to fire his weapon at the time. Sure, Lucien probably would have taken care of the dog later anyway, but the dog jumped into a bullet for no real reason. It didn't attack until then either, even though Lucien gave you a huge speech about how wrong you are. Of course, it's a ''dog''. [[Tear Jerker|He's only trying to protect his master.]]
* ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius (Video Game)|Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn]]'' has is a particularly sad case. King Pelleas has made a deal with the devil -- or in this case, the Begnion Senate. If he does not follow their orders, his subjects will start dropping like flies. Eventually he finds a solution - the signer must be killed to nullify the contract. Thus he asks the player to kill him (or the loyal general if the player refuses.) As it turns out, the country is still bound by the pact. You must kill a signer ''and'' destroy the contract to break the curse. And the other signer is someone you end up killing regardless of whether or not Pelleas is alive, which means the contract would have been broken either way. Pelleas essentially kills himself for nothing. Notable in that a [[New Game Plus+]] allows you to ignore [[Stupidity Is the Only Option]] and talk him out of it instead, making him a playable character.
* Do you know how [[The Ditz|Beat]] died in ''[[The World Ends With You (Video Game)|The World Ends With You]]''? When Rhyme was about to be hit by a car, he ''put himself in the way of the car''. Both of them died. Even [[Idiot Hero|he]] admits it was a stupid idea afterward.
** And later Rhyme does a similar thing, only substituting a [[The Heartless|Shark Noise]] instead of a car. Although [[Heroic Sacrifice|she succeeds in saving Beat]], Rhyme also dooms him, seeing as people who've formed a 'pact' can't survive for more than a few minutes if their partner gets erased. Although Beat survives, this leads to his [[Start of Darkness]]. In the end, {{spoiler|this actually comes around full circle. The fact that he'd made a [[Face Heel Turn]] allowed him to later make a [[Heel Face Turn]], screwing up the [[Big Bad]]'s plan to leave Neku without any allies the third week. Rhyme herself even comes back as a pin which is needed to defeat one of the final bosses, making her sacrifice worthwhile in more ways than one, but none of which she could have predicted.}}
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* Orsino in ''[[Dragon Age II (Video Game)|Dragon Age II]]'', when the player's Hawke pursues siding with the mages near the end of the game, becomes so desperate after Meredith and the templars storm the Circle that he ends up turning to blood magic and transforming himself into a Harvester, merging the bodies of dead mages with himself. As the Harvester is basically a mindless creature that simply feeds on blood and attacks both the templars and Hawke's companions, this means that the player ends up wasting time having to kill Orsino.
* In ''[[Space Quest (Video Game)|Space Quest]] 6'', Lieutenant Santiago teleports in to help Roger escape from a room filling with deadly gas, throwing him into the elevator as the piston keeping it open collapses and traps her in an exploding room {{spoiler|it was a ruse to kidnap her}}. Ignoring the question on why they didn't just teleport Roger out, if she hadn't appeared, they wouldn't have wasted precious seconds talking to each other about how they need to escape the room he was already trying to escape.
* According to Ammon Jerro in ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2 (Video Game)|Neverwinter Nights 2]]: Mask of the Betrayer'', the previous campaign's [[Spoony Bard]] [[Our Gnomes Are Weirder|Grobnar Gnomehands]] threw himself in front of a falling stone pillar to save the Construct. The Construct happens to be an eight-foot-tall metal golem. Anything big enough to smash it would turn Grobnar into jelly. [[Alas, Poor Scrappy|And it did.]]
 
 
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[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]
[[Category:Unexpected Reactions to This Index]]
[[Category:Stupid Sacrifice]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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