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Suicide Is Painless: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
<div style="float:right; margin-left:5px; margin-bottom:3px; padding:0px; border:1px solid #ffffff; font-size:100%; line-height:120%; padding:0.4em; background-color:#eeeeee; border-bottom:1px solid #ffffff"><youtube width="480">CVBATYWFKp8</youtube></div>
{{quote|''Cause suicide is painless''
''It brings on many changes''
''And I can take or leave it if I please''
''And you can do the same thing if you please!''
|"[[Trope Namer|Suicide is Painless]]", from ''[[M*A*S*H (film)|M*A*S*H]]''}}
The opposite of [[Driven to Suicide]]. A character is just tired of life, wants to see what death is like, or knows he only has a short time to live anyway, or is just plain crazy. So, usually while sporting a huge smile, they kill themselves, often by jumping off of a building. Either played straight for creepy effect to establish how out of touch a character is with reality, or alternately used in [[Dead Baby Comedy]] for laughs.
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* The movie ''[[Flatliners]]'' is entirely based around this concept and the people who intentionally enter a death-like state.
* The film ''The End'' is a [[Black Comedy|dark dark dark comic take]] on this subject. Burt Reynolds plays a man who finds out he only has six months to live and wants to off himself before any serious pain sets in. Dom DeLuise is the delusional mental patient who gleefully volunteers to help him. In the end Burt decides not to go through with his suicide, but Dom's character doesn't believe him and won't give up trying to kill him (even during the ending credits.)
** ''The Odd Job'', featuring a post-[[Monty Python]] Graham Chapman, has a similar plot (though in this case he considers suicide due to a breakup with his
** Yet another black-comedy variant, 1990's ''Short Time'', stars Dabney Coleman as a police officer who learns he has a terminal disease and attempts to get himself killed in the line of duty so his family can collect the life insurance. {{spoiler|None of his attempts are successful, which turns out to be a good thing since the diagnosis [[Mistaken for Dying|turns out to have been erroneous]].}}
* The finale of ''[[Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon]]'' appears to involve this in mimicry of a legend earlier told, except that it's been established that the character in question can fly, and she's seen again in a sequel.
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== Literature ==
* [[H. Beam Piper]] wrote a story titled "Last Enemy," about a culture that had accepted reincarnation as a scientifically proven fact. As a result, they'd developed a rather ''different'' attitude toward
* Cruelly subverted in Dostoyevsky's ''The Possessed''; sympathetic (if batshit insane) nihilist Kirillov, [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] and [[Anti-Villain]], wants to kill himself for his own philosophical reasons, and wants his suicide to be a serene, noble apotheosis. Everything is prepared, and he has been anxiously waiting for the right moment since ''years''. However, when the time comes he hesitates. [[Complete Monster]] Petr Stepanovic, who needs his death for his own diabolical schemes, tries to kill him, and fails; Kirillov, humiliated and disgusted for his own cowardice, finally shoots himself. It's worth noting that his death basically allows Petr Stepanovic to pull a [[Karma Houdini]].
* In Richard Hooker's ''[[MASH (novel)]]'', "Painless Pole" Waldowski decides to commit suicide during one of his frequent attacks of depression, and the rest of the camp pitches in to "assist" him. Subverted, in that he doesn't actually die.
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== Live Action TV ==
* In the ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' episode "97 Seconds", House sticks a knife in an electrical socket so he can have a near-death experience and prove there is no afterlife after one patient claims his experience was proof and mocks House's skepticism as a lack of a similar experience. Besides being just plain weird, it's also very out of character for a man who already ''has'' had two near-death experiences. At least he sent a page to a fellow doctor to make sure he'd be revived. [[Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth|Hell probably would have sent him back anyway]].
* ''[[Life On Mars]]'': The
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* In ''[[Lost]]'' season 4, Regina wraps herself in chains and casually jumps off the freighter. It is implied she's not the only freightie to commit suicide lately.
* An episode of ''[[Farscape]]'' introduced a tribe of young hedonists who celebrate their 22nd birthdays by hurling themselves off a cliff- AKA "Taking The Stone". It's eventually revealed that the alternative is to spend the rest of their lives outcast and dying from cumulative radiation poisoning, so most of the tribes people hit the ground with a smile on their faces.
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* In Season Two of ''[[True Blood]]'', Godric tired of his existence and allowed himself to be captured by the anti-vampire fanatic group The Fellowship of the Sun, hoping that his death would help bring about reconciliation between humans and vampires. After he is rescued by Sookie and Eric, he tries briefly to hide his reasons for allowing his capture, but eventually confesses that he is tired of living. He later kills himself by 'meeting the sun' on a rooftop, bursting into flame and crumbling into dust.
* {{spoiler|Moriarty}} follows this trope in the Series Two finale of ''[[Sherlock]]''.
== Real Life ==▼
* [[Truth in Television]]: The suicide note left by the actor George Sanders attributed his actions to simple boredom.▼
** As did [[Hunter S. Thompson]] in his famous suicide note (titled "Football Season Is Over"):▼
{{quote|''"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun - for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax - This won't hurt." ''}}▼
** Timothy Leary (although he didn't commit suicide) recommended something similar.▼
** And George Eastman, founder of Kodak, had a suicide note that read, in total, "Dear friends: My work is done. Why wait?"▼
* The Roman historian Tacitus describes the suicide of Petronius this way -- although it was forced on him by Nero, he uses the opportunity to say "screw you" to the emperor:▼
{{quote|Yet he did not fling away life with precipitate haste, but having made an incision in his veins and then, according to his humour, bound them up, he again opened them, while he conversed with his friends, not in a serious strain or on topics that might win for him the glory of courage. And he listened to them as they repeated, not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves he gave liberal presents, a flogging to others. He dined, indulged himself in sleep, that death, though forced on him, might have a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, as did many in their last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus or any other of the men in power. On the contrary, he described fully the prince's shameful excesses, with the names of his male and female companions and their novelties in debauchery, and sent the account under seal to Nero.}}▼
** Henryk Sienkiewicz's dramatization of Petronius' death, in his novel ''Quo Vadis'', imagines a letter to Nero of equal parts wit and snark, almost savaging his ex-friend more for his artistic "skills" than his crimes.▼
{{quote|"Be well, but don't sing. Kill, but don't write verses. Poison, but don't dance. Burn cities, but don't play the lyre. This is the last friendly bit of guidance you will ever get from Petronius, the arbiter of elegance."}}▼
* It's well documented that many people who commit suicide after being depressed for a long period of time often seem to be at peace right before killing themselves, because making the decision gives them a sense of finality. The result is that those left behind are often shocked, especially if the person suddenly appeared to be getting better before their death.▼
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** Let's not forget the recent episode where, after learning that Meatwad recruited the Aqua Teens into the Marine Corp, Shake promptly blows his own head off with a shotgun so they can't take him, and ''they take him anyway.'' (he also shows up miraculously alive in the next shot, with his head taped back together.)
* One of the more disturbing episodes from ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' (and that's really saying something) features a ghost who tries to scare the title characters away from his house. When he fails miserably, he decides to stab himself to death. The protagonists stop him, only to convince him to drink poison instead. This actually leads to him being resurrected. As a black man with a completely different voice and personality.
▲== Real Life ==
▲* [[Truth in Television]]: The suicide note left by the actor George Sanders attributed his actions to simple boredom.
▲** As did [[Hunter S. Thompson]] in his famous suicide note (titled "Football Season Is Over"):
▲{{quote|''"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun - for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax - This won't hurt." ''}}
▲** Timothy Leary (although he didn't commit suicide) recommended something similar.
▲** And George Eastman, founder of Kodak, had a suicide note that read, in total, "Dear friends: My work is done. Why wait?"
▲* The Roman historian Tacitus describes the suicide of Petronius this
▲{{quote|Yet he did not fling away life with precipitate haste, but having made an incision in his veins and then, according to his humour, bound them up, he again opened them, while he conversed with his friends, not in a serious strain or on topics that might win for him the glory of courage. And he listened to them as they repeated, not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves he gave liberal presents, a flogging to others. He dined, indulged himself in sleep, that death, though forced on him, might have a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, as did many in their last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus or any other of the men in power. On the contrary, he described fully the prince's shameful excesses, with the names of his male and female companions and their novelties in debauchery, and sent the account under seal to Nero.}}
▲** Henryk Sienkiewicz's dramatization of Petronius' death, in his novel ''Quo Vadis'', imagines a letter to Nero of equal parts wit and snark, almost savaging his ex-friend more for his artistic "skills" than his crimes.
▲{{quote|"Be well, but don't sing. Kill, but don't write verses. Poison, but don't dance. Burn cities, but don't play the lyre. This is the last friendly bit of guidance you will ever get from Petronius, the arbiter of elegance."}}
▲* It's well documented that many people who commit suicide after being depressed for a long period of time often seem to be at peace right before killing themselves, because making the decision gives them a sense of finality. The result is that those left behind are often shocked, especially if the person suddenly appeared to be getting better before their death.
{{reflist}}
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