Suicide by Cop: Difference between revisions

''Don't take me alive!''|'''[[Steely Dan]]''', "Don't Take Me Alive"}}

Instead, they engineer a situation in which someone else will be forced to do it for them. The "classic" scenario involves a criminal indiscriminately attacking [[Innocent Bystander|Innocent Bystanders]] or police so that they will be forced to shoot. More sympathetic characters, however, will simply pull an unloaded gun or realistic toy gun on a police officer and hope they respond with lethal force.

The [[Up to Eleven]] variant of this trope is '''Suicide by State''', in which the person commits a crime which bears the death penalty and gets executed. This has really happened in [[Real Life]] - it was a popular method used by really desperate Scandinavians in a time when suicide was considered an unforgivable sin. By killing an innocent child, it was figured, both win; the child is innocent and goes to Heaven, you get to repent and prepare for death, and in the end the state lops your head off and it's [[Goodbye Cruel World]]. [[Sarcasm Mode|Fair dinkum]]. It's also happened more recently: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_David_Duty John David Duty] is widely suspected of having committed the murder that got him executed (when he was already in prison, for kidnapping) as a form of suicide.

This is a [[Death Trope]], so '''expect spoilers'''.

== Anime and Manga ==

* Done in ''[[Gantz]]'' by Izumi, who guns down hundreds of civilians in a crowded Tokyo train station so that he'll be killed and sent to the Gantz.

* Pretty much the MO of the person who brings Layton into the case in ''[[Professor Layton and The Eternal Diva]]''.

** Unfortunately, as soon as he saw [[The Ace|Conrad]] in town his goal became to get his homeland's famous swordsman to kill him, and to that end he attacked the guy [[The Ace]] was protecting...then found out that that was the new king of his country, and he was now a traitor as well as an exile.

* In the anime version of ''[[Trigun]]'', this is an interpretation for Vash's complete failure to say a word or make a move in his own defense while being [[What the Hell Townspeople|lynched]] by the town that recognizes him as the Stampede, in the episode after {{spoiler|he shoots Legato in the head}}. He wasn't actually catatonic, but he kept acting as though he was while they tied him to the back of a truck and dragged him around on his face.

* All of the events of ''[[Soul Calibur]] 3'' are [[Xanatos Roulette|orchestrated]] by Zasalamel in an attempt to kill himself using the two [[MacGuffin|MacGuffins]] as fuel for a ritual to cease his endless cycle of reincarnation.

* Squall can attempt this in the D-District Prison segment of ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' by insulting the prison warden during his [[Electric Torture]]. He doesn't succeed, but choosing the option [[Violation of Common Sense|nets the player a reward a little later on]].

*** He even has a couple of possibly-hallucinatory [[Talking to The Dead]] moments with Zach later on.

** Before resorting to turning into a spectacularly ugly chimaera he tried to get Zach to kill him as part of their oath to "destroy anything that threatens the world." Zach had attacked him a while back when he believed he'd murdered his own mother, but since that and his going AWOL were really the only things to make Zach think he'd gotten himself an [[Evil Mentor]] and he'd just been disabused of the mistake, it didn't go well. Afterward they have a heartfelt [[Take Up My Sword]]--the iconic buster blade Zach passes on to Cloud at the end of the game.

* The entire plot of the ''[[.hack GU Games|.hack//G.U.]]'' games basically revolves around this. [[The Chessmaster]] Ovan effectively manipulates Haseo into killing him, because only if Ovan's (extremely high-level) PC is killed by Haseo's special PC, his special ability will be activated, resetting the entire internet and cleansing it of the corruption that has been sending gamers (including [[Ill Girl|Ovan's own sister]]) into coma.

* Andrew Ryan in ''[[Bio Shock]]'' pulls a Suicide By Cop, by manipulating Jack into bludgeoning him to death with a trigger phrase.

* In ''[[Suikoden]] 2'', there is a difficult-to-do subplot involving a couple of gunners from Harmonia. If you are able to follow it all the way through to the end, it ends in a quick-draw duel between the two. As the loser lies on the ground dying, she laughingly reveals her gun wasn't loaded...

* It's not explicitly stated, but it's fairly clear this is what Caster did in Heavens Feel route of ''[[Fate Stay Night]]''. Her Master and reason for living has just been killed and she's standing over his body, covered in blood and horrified when Saber and Shirou show up. When she finally notices them, she doesn't explain and, most tellingly, puts away her contract nullifying dagger and simply attacks. Normally she'd teleport out or something. But why bother?

** Her master pulls the same trick in the Unlimited Blade Works route when Caster is killed. Even though the heroes are willing to let him go (he's completely harmless to them), he still picks a fight he cannot win with Archer to "finish what he started", and is killed instantly.

* Sol in ''[[Final Fantasy Legend]] 3'', who was merged with Xagor and said, "I'll hold Xagor's soul for you, kill me!" to the party. Knowing that Xagor attempted to conquer Sol so the entity flooding the world would never stop, Sol also knew that he could get himself killed, and take Xagor down with him and stop the entity in its last stage.

* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'' Matriarch Benezia chooses this path (by Protagonist, who is ''sort of'' a cop) after briefly breaking [[Eldritch Abomination|Sove]][[Sapient Ship|reign's]] indoctrination. She knew Sovereign's indoctrination was permanent and her respite would only be temporary and chose death over continuing its evil.

* Sniper Wolf in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' really just waits for a soldier who is able to kill her. But as a world class sniper who doesn't hold back with her skills in combat, she's not making it particularly easy for her enemies.

* One sidequest in the ''[[Morrowind]]'' expansion ''Bloodmoon'' involves an old man who feels like he has nothing left to contribute, and is only a burden on his family, so he tries to do this. The player character can either kill him, or endure his attacks and talk some sense into him when he wears himself out.

{{quote| '''Blackarachnia''': You'll regret this!<br />

'''Rampage, softly''': I regret ''everything'', my dear. }}

{{reflist}}