Suicide Is Painless: Difference between revisions

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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.SuicideIsPainless 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.SuicideIsPainless, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license)
 
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'''Unmarked Spoilers''' ahead, since this is one of the [[Death Tropes]].
{{examples|Examples:}}
 
== Anime and Manga ==
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* The first movie of ''[[Kara no Kyoukai]]'' has to do with this, as half a dozen schoolgirls throw themselves off of an abandoned building seemingly without reason. In the end, the one who's been astrally projecting herself from her hospital bed and is responsible does the same thing.
* In ''[[Alive the Final Evolution]]'' those infected by the suicide virus behave this way.
* This is [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|Maiza's]] reasoning for approaching Firo and [[I Cannot Self -Terminate|asking the kid to kill him]] (more specifically, he's both [[Seen It All]] and finally received closure over his [[Dead Little Sister|Dead Little Brother]]) at the end of the first arc of ''[[Baccano (Light Novel)|Baccano]]!''. Firo's response is to nod, smile...and then give a number of entirely bullshit reasons for why he [[Two Thousand One|can't do that, Dave]], before admitting that he really just doesn't want to lose his mentor.
 
== Comic Books ==
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** ''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 wife-- and then reconciles but can't find the man he hired to kill him). Interestingly, [[Dueling Movies|both were released the same year]] (1978).
** 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.
* In ''[[Batman Forever (Film)|Batman Forever]]'', Edward Nygma hacks Wayne Industries' video feed to cover up his murdering his boss, and he edits the video to make it seem he commits suicide this way.
* In ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', when The Joker is thrown off of a building, he starts laughing. Then when he is saved by Batman, he's actually incredibly disappointed. In a variation, his pleasure was due more to his desire to corrupt Batman by tempting him to break his no-kill rule, rather than wanting to die.
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== Literature ==
 
* [[H Beam Piper|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 death -- it was, at worst, a (temporary) inconvenience; often enough, it was a social event. "Evidently when the Akor-Neb people get tired of their current reincarnation they invite in their friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere of general conviviality."
* 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 (Literature)|Mash]]'', "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.
** [[Robert Altman]]'s [[Mash (Film)|film version]] has the character deciding to end it all because he can't face his future as the "latent homosexual" he's convinced himself to be. During his "funeral" the [[Trope Namer|trope-naming]] song is performed. (Altman ensured that the lyrics would have an appropriately mawkish tone by assigning the task to his fifteen-year old son.)
* A common cause of death in [[The Culture]]: some people are immortal and almost everyone lives for hundreds of years.... but when they feel that they've seen it all, they typically decided to end their lives painlessly.
* In ''Dream Science'', a novel about people who have somehow become detached from normal reality into a fractured group of partial alternate reality scenes (some apparently-normal alternate worlds, but also things like an office in a square hallway that has no exit, or an endless department store), death only sends these people into a new reality. After a while, people who are bored with their current world or can't find another way out tend to just kill themselves.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novel ''Interference'', Fitz gets a severe case of the [[Cloning Blues]]: separated from the Doctor, he's had to take up with a group of people who, after their members die, will just [[Replacement Goldfish|make a new one]]. Later copies become more and more simplified, but he theorizes that they all have a significant part of the person's personality at the time they were first copied in them, and he doesn't [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|live indefinitely]] with a personality he's developed after decades on a planet he doesn't much like. So he decides to jump off a building... but he decides to take advantage of the fact [[Waxing Lyrical|you can take it or leave it if you please]] and doesn't go through with it.
* Since everyone has [[Resurrective Immortality]], "suiciding" is a frequently-used way to get a new body in ''[[Biting the Sun]]''.
 
== Live Action TV ==
 
* In the ''[[House (TV)|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 famous -- and famously controversial -- series finale had Sam [[All Just a Dream|waking up in the real world]] and going back to his old job... only to realize that the world of 2008 is lifeless compared to the 1973 of the mind, and then to calmly get up, excuse himself from a meeting, and [http://youtube.com/watch?v=aOEfvMMcw_A take a flying leap] from the roof of the police station in an attempt to get back. He seems to succeed.
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' Dualla, after the disappointing discovery of a ruined Earth, finds comfort with her ex-husband Lee, celebrates his big speech, goes back to her bunk, smiling and humming a little tune, admonishes Gaeta for trying to bring her down, then takes off her ring, hangs it up, and still humming and grinning, shoots herself in the head.
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