Suicide Mission: Difference between revisions

'''Jensen:''' "Frankly, no. Not a chance in the world. I'll be surprised if they get halfway to Navarone. It's just a waste of six good men."|''[[The Guns of Navarone]]''}}

 

 

There are numerous reasons for a Suicide Mission to be ordered. [[Cornered Rattlesnake|Perhaps the situation]] is [[Darkest Hour|truly dire]], [[Last Stand|the line must be held]], and the advancing enemy [[You Shall Not Pass|must be stopped]]. Alternately, [[General Ripper]] may believe [[We Have Reserves|it's an acceptable tactic]], or [[Colonel Kilgore]] sets one up to [[The Uriah Gambit|eliminate a nuisance]]. A general that doesn't fall into the above categories will often be humanized by asking the Commander of the mission rather than ordering.

The members of the mission will usually be [[Red Shirt|expendables,]] [[Boxed Crook|criminals,]] [[Death Seeker|Death Seekers]], or [[Heroic Sacrifice|selfless heroes for the greater good.]] Expect [[Anyone Can Die]] to be invoked throughout the mission, [[Dwindling Party]], and [[Sole Survivor]] for anyone who manages to survive. If the characters repeatedly survive these missions, they might be [[Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder]].

 

 

 

{{examples|Examples: }}

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* ''[[Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja|Nth Man the Ultimate Ninja]]'' begins with a squadron of American commandos sent to rescue John Doe from the basement of the Soviet KGB. This includes flying a bomber over the city, a tank battle down the streets of Moscow, and a direct assault on the KGB itself. The mission started with over a hundred men, and only two survive to the end.

* This is a recurring idea in ''[[Sin City]]'', where almost every mission is said to be one in which the hero could easily be killed. Considering the [[Anyone Can Die]] structure of the narrative, it isn't far-fetched to believe that they really will meet their end.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[The Matrix]]''. Neo and Trinity's plan to rescue Morpheus.

{{quote|'''Tank:''' "This is loco. They've got him in a military-controlled building. Even if you somehow got inside, there are three Agents holding him. I want Morpheus back too, but what you're talking about is suicide."}}

* ''[[The Dirty Dozen]]'' centers around one of these.

* Played for laughs in ''[[Life of Brian|Monty Python's Life of Brian]]'': the "crack suicide squad" of the Judean People's Front shows up at the crucifixion, apparently to rescue Brian. Their leader cries "Attack!", whereupon all of the members stab themselves and die at Brian's feet.

{{quote|"That'll show 'em!"}}

== [[Literature]] ==

* The attempt to destroy ''[[The Guns of Navarone]]''.

** Aragorn leads a hopeless march against the gates of Mordor, to draw the orc armies out of Frodo's way. Fortunately, Frodo destroys the Ring before all the good guys are slaughtered.

** Frodo believes his own mission is this, since he holds very little hope that he and Sam will make it to Orodruin and is certain that there won't be a return if they do.

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* The series finale of [[Angel]]

* Shows up rather unexpectedly in the finale of ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'', where all magical and alien technology has been lost, all allies are captured or missing in action, and four of the five rangers go into space on a human space shuttle with the vague goal of "try to find the bad guys and fling ourselves at them in futility". Fortunately when they do randomly come across a member of the evil alliance in the first episode of ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'', there's also a convenient potential ally with four extra morphers to keep them from becoming instant corpses, but they hadn't been expecting that.

 

== [[Role Playing Games]] ==

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* The final plot mission of ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is named "Suicide Mission" because no ship (except the bad guys) has ever returned after trying to use the Omega-4 Mass Relay. Whether it actually results in anyone dying or not is dependent on how you played the game up to that point and your choices during the mission.

* One occurs at the end of ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2''. {{spoiler|With the rest of their squad dead, Soap and Price exact revenge against Gen. Shepherd by taking on the entirety of Shepherd's so-called "Shadow Company". As Soap put it best, "We've got one good UMP. They've got a thousand." And as a testament to their [[Badass|sheer]] [[Determinator|force of will]], they succeed and kill Shepherd, along with several hundred Shadow Company soldiers.}}

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Digger]]'', the statue of Ganesh sends Digger and Ed underground to deal with an undead god. He doesn't expect either of them to survive the task.

* Due to the nature of time travel in ''[[Homestuck]]'', anybody who goes back to change the past will die after their purpose has been fulfilled, and their timeline will cease to exist altogether. Aradia put this to good use with her temporal clones, using them as a psychic shield against the [[Final Boss|Black King]]'s [[Brown Note|Vast Glub]]. {{spoiler|And then they were all killed by Jack.}}

** Similar to Chernobyl, a recent example would the Fukashima power plant in Japan. After an Earthquake and a Tsusami, the Fukashima Nuclear Plant unexpectedly began spewing smoke and was in danger of going critical while leaking lethal amounts of radiation. The Fukashima 50, a group of maintainance and repair/support crews stayed behind to try and fix the Nuclear Plant.

* Happens from time to time in warfare:

** Any number of battles during [[World War One]] were similar to Cold Harbor in this respect, with men going over the top with little or no expectation of survival.

* As mentioned in the 300 example, the Battle of Thermopylae, which pitted 300 Spartans and their allies against the massive Persian Army to buy time for the rest of the Greeks to mobilize for war.

* [[Imperial Japan|Kamikazes.]] "Duty is heavier than a mountain; death is lighter than a feather." Doubled as a [[Senseless Sacrifice]] as the Kamikazi didn't inflict enough damage to balance the loss of machines and trained men.