Thanatos Gambit: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Death comes to all folks, and [[Death Is Dramatic|to some people, it seems to come a lot more dramatically]]. Some people, when caught between a very large rock and a very spiky hard place, will [[The Last Dance|face death with aplomb]], realizing that if they're going to go, they might as well go out with style.

And then there are people who want to make sure that their death comes with benefits. After all, if they know they're going to plunge head-on into the undiscovered country, they might as well have a hell of a good time... and, quite possibly, screw over their enemies while they're at it. Especially if they're [[Secretly Dying]] anyway.

 

 

Named for the Greek personification of death. Not to be confused with [[Xanatos Gambit]], although it may well be a part of one.

** And then calls all her murderers in to listen to her last message. Which is ''really'' loud.

* Witches and wizards in the ''[[Discworld]]'' are graced with the ability to know when their deaths are coming. Witches typically use it to get their affairs in order, while wizards often use it to run up huge debts and drain their wine collections.

*** Even more so, she managed to die of natural causes, no less. Quite a feat when you have nearly every member of your late husband's family gunning for you. Those two crossbows on her desk weren't just fancy paperweights.

*** Hiring the assassin was even more farsighted than just keeping Moist in line. By taking out a contract against Moist von Lipwig herself, she ensures the rest of the Lavish clan ''can't'' do it because Assassins don't take more than one contract on the same person.

** Shucks, Moist's ''introduction'' is one. He was going to be hanged till dead. It's only because of [[Magnificent Bastard|Vetinari]] that he was hanged until declared dead, but still alive.

* In the opening piece for ''Beyond The Blue Moon'', a ghost reveals that he'd deliberately blown his entire fortune on wine and women in the final weeks of his illness, to the horror of some detested relations who've been tearing his house apart in search of the will. (Except for his nephew, who admires the ploy and only regrets that the deceased hadn't asked him to join in the fun.)

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', a wizard who is about to die can channel all his magic and [[Blood Magic|life]] [[Cast from Hit Points|force]] into a single final "Death Curse". This makes it unbelievably powerful and nearly unstoppable, allowing the wizard to do any number of nasty things to the victim—if killing one's own murderer is not possible, ''crippling'' him usually is. However, the wizard needs a moment of focus to do that (which is apparently possible even if he just had his throat cut or is on fire), so the safest way to kill a wizard is a sniper bullet from a few thousand feet away.

** This one is actually [[Truth in Television]], according to several histories of the time, including Josephus.

* The entirety of ''[[The Westing Game]]''. Except it turns out that {{spoiler|[[The Chessmaster]] had faked his own death and adopted three alternate identities, and the real object of the game was to see who could figure it out.}}

** In the same book, Harry deliberately submitted to Voldemort's killing curse, so that the horcrux within him would be destroyed. Also incidentally duplicating his mother Lily's sacrifice for him, essentially protecting everyone in Hogwarts from Voldemort to the point where Voldemort's spells wouldn't even work properly against them.

* Pamela Macx in Charles Stross' ''[[Accelerando]]'' contrives to launch a combination pyramid scheme/infowar weapon at the Vile Offspring, knowing she will die in the retaliatory blast: it's atoning for her sins, kicking her (VO) enemies in the groin and guilt-tripping her hated daughter, all in one pushbutton package. Also see below.

* In the ''[[Elder Scrolls]]'' series, hints regarding the fate of [[Trickster Archetype|Lorkhan]] indicate that he planned for the destruction of his Aedric body when the other Aedra learned of his deception, allowing his soul to become a driving force on the Mundus.

*In ''[[Undertale]]'', this is revealed to have been the plan of {{Spoiler|the Fallen Child, the human that the Underworld Royal Family adopted: [[Self-Sacrifice Scheme|poison themselves to death]] by using a poison that could be mistaken for an illness, then convince their adoptive brother Asriel to absorb their soul once they finally passed, then get trough the barrier under the guise of bringing their body back to the humans, and once there snag the other 6 souls needed to destroy the barrier}}. The plan as conceived failed, {{Spoiler|because, despite their combined form having enough power to do so, Asriel actually couldn't make himself murder other humans, which ended with him being mortally wound and dying as soon he managed to get himself and the Fallen Child's body back in the Underworld.}}

 

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