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[[You Have Been Warned]].
 
{{examples|Examples:}}
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* In the finale of the first [[Fullmetal Alchemist]] anime, Ed is killed by Envy. Al, who is the new Philosopher's Stone, transmutes himself a few moments later to revive him.
* This counts for the second death of Yusuke Urameshi in ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', not in the beginning when he's [[Dead to Begin With]].
* Jonathan Joestar dies at the end of the first part of ''[[Jo JosJo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure]]'', sacrificing himself to take Dio with him. It isn't until part 3 that we find out that his death was in vain, as Dio's head took his body and used it to revive himself.
* Nana from ''[[Nanas Everyday Life]]''.
* Seita and Setsuko from ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]''.
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* Spike from ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'', though he may actually be a subversion. While there's a boatload of evidence that Spike is walking up the stairway to heaven, [[Word of God]] is that Spike's status is completely open to interpretation.
* [[Byronic Hero]] [[Code Geass|Lelouch]] is killed at the end of the series, dying in the arms of his sobbing sister Nunally. [[Magnificent Bastard]] that he is, Lulu planned the entire thing to atone for the horrible things he'd done trying to build a better world and to give Nunnally, Kallen, and the rest of humanity a chance for a better future.
** He didn't plan it from the very start of the series, but as [[It Got Worse]] and his actions caused or helped cause countless deaths, he has a [[My God, What Have I Done?]] moment and decides that the only way he can truly up for all the tragedy he caused is with his own life.
* Aya was ''supposed'' to die in the final episode of ''[[Weiss Kreuz]] Gluhen'', but a manga sequel was greenlit and they retconned it so that he survived.
* ''[[Legend of Galactic Heroes]].'' Both of them. Yang Wen-Li didn't even make it into the last season.
* The ending to ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh]]'' is that Atem passes on to the afterlife, finally freed from the Millennium Puzzle.
* Ichise in ''[[Texhnolyze]]''.
** Along with [[EverybodysEverybody's Dead, Dave|the entire]] [[The End of the World As We Know It|human race.]]
* Though inconclusive, the nameless Gun God, the main character of ''[[Angel Notes (Literature)|Angel Notes]]'', which is part of the [[Nasuverse]], is possibly dead.
* In ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'', the titular Chrono's source of his powers is [[Cast From Hit Points|Rosette's own life]], meaning every time he uses his powers it shortens her lifespan. When the series starts, she's not expected to live beyond thirty. And at the end of the manga, when the epilogue skips ahead eight years...
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* ''[[The Sky Crawlers]]''. The anime film's Hero goes one-on-one with, and dies at the guns of, [[AFGNCAAP|the Teacher]] who was previously known as Lynx/Cheetah, the player character of the Wii game, The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces.
* ''[[Witchblade (Anime)|Witchblade]]''. In the anime, Masane performs a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to destroy the Witchblade and every single I-Weapon that crowded around her.
* ''[[Toward the Terra]]'' ends with [[The Hero|Jomy]] dying side by side with [[Anti -Villain|Keith]]. Except then there's [[Distant Finale|the coda]]...
* Munsu from Shin Angyo Onshi, aka [[Blade Of The Phantom Master]], dies like a true warrior after the antagonist is killed.
* ''[[Wolfs Rain]]'' does this with pretty much everyone.
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* Lester from ''American Beauty'' tells us that he's dead in the beginning of the film.
* Ah Jong of John Woo's ''[[The Killer]]'' dies without fulfilling his promise to have Jenny's eyes fixed. The [[Big Bad]] is finished off by Inspector Li Ying, the other primary hero, but Li is arrested by his fellow officers afterward because he did it in cold blood right in front of them.
* ''[[Three Hundred300 (Film)|Three Hundred]]'': With the sole exception of Dilios, whom Leonidas sent back home to rally Greek support by telling the tale of the 300 Spartans, everyone on the Spartan side ends up dead on the third day of the Battle of Thermopylae. Most definitely ''not'' a case of [[The Bad Guy Wins]], since their sacrifice delayed the Persian army long enough for Athens to be safely evacuated before it was destroyed, and for the Greeks to begin their own campaign to drive the Persians out of Greece forever. The movie skips past a year of this campaign during the epilogue, but there's another graphic novel in the works that will be set in that missing year; a movie sequel based on this new novel has not been ruled out.
* The captain, the sub, and a whole load of the crew in ''[[Das Boot]]''.
** In fact {{spoiler|the captain survives. We see him hurt, not dead, and according to [[Word of God]] he lived (and so did the real person he is based on).}}
* In both the book and the movie of ''[[Cold Mountain]]'', Inman dies after making it home to Ada and fathering a child.
* ''[[Carlitos Way]]''
* ''[[No Country for Old Men]]'', in particular the movie, takes full advantage of this trope. Not a [[Kill 'Em All]], but definitely a [[The Bad Guy Wins]] and a [[Downer Ending]].
* The ''[[Three Ten to Yuma]]'' 2007 remake ends with the death of the protagonist. ''After'' he had survived all the obstacles, too. Not a case of [[The Bad Guy Wins]], though, as even the self-styled heartless villain was touched by his [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and [[Determinator|stubborn determination]].
* Jericho in ''[[End of Days (Film)|End of Days]]''. Not a case of [[Downer Ending]], as we clearly see he's headed for a better place.
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* ''All Quiet on the Western Front''.
* [[Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]] as of the end of ''Changes''. He then spends the next book, ''Ghost Story'', solving his own murder. As a ghost.
* The novelization of the original ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', aside from many other differences from the plot of the anime, has Amuro Ray die several chapters before the end of the book. Despite [[Yoshiyuki Tomino]]'s reputation as "[[Kill 'Em All]] Tomino", he said that he only did it because he thought it would be a single complete story and that if he had planned on making sequels from the start, Amuro would have lived.
* ''[[Nineteen Eighty -Four|1984]]''. Winston and Julia are caught, tortured and [[Mind Rape|Mind Raped]] by O'Brien, a guy who was supposed to be their link to "the Brotherhood," but is actually a member of the Inner Party. They are broken so thoroughly that all love that they had for each other is dead (particularly since the two were forced to betray each other through means of [[Room 101]], which faces them with their worst fear -- for Winston, it was rats, though since the story is in Winston's perspective, we never do find out what Julia's worst fear was), and then executed by being shot in the back of the head. Not just a [[Downer Ending]], but a [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]], given the last four words: He loved Big Brother.
* ''[[Outbound Flight]]''. [[Outbound Flight|Lorana Jinzler]] died in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. She was the only unambiguously good character in that half of the novel. The other major characters, who might be called heroes, survived -- but Thrawn and Car'das and Doriana weren't entirely good people.
* In ''[[Firewing]]'', Shade the Bat kills himself in the Bat Underworld to give his son, Griffin, and his friend, Luna, life force to feed on and become living, breathing bats again. In the end, he still survives, but in the form of the foliage of the forest floor. When he's dead, he flies around the world and can be anything he wants to be.
* Jean Valjean dies at the end of ''[[Les Misérables]]''. Admittedly, [[Kill 'Em All|so does almost everyone else]].
* ''[[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]''. Guess what the Persian translation of the main character's new official title is? Yeah.
* In The Last Chancers last novel, Kage, possessed by a Slaaneshi daemon, decides to commit his first ever act of altruism and jumps off a cliff to his death, taking the corrupt governor with him.
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* [[Xena]], after "dying" several times throughout the series, dies for the [[Killed Off for Real|final time]] in the series finale.
* [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy]] died at the end of the Season 5 episode "The Gift." The next season, they [[Back From the Dead|brought her back]]. She also died at the end of the first season, but only for a few minutes and was revived with CPR.
** A minor example--in the [[Alternate Universe]] episode "The Wish," Cordelia Chase, the episode's central character and [[Be Careful What You Wish For|the one who wished the universe into existence]], is killed halfway through. The rest of the main character (besides Oz and Giles) are later [[Kill 'Em All|killed in quick succession]] before the original universe is restored.
* When Flower died on ''[[Meerkat Manor (TV)|Meerkat Manor]]'', the show was completely shattered. Next Generation with Rocket Dog just wasn't/isn't the same... She was their star and the pillar that held the show up.
* Victor "I don't believe it!" Meldrew was stuck down by a car in the finale of [[One Foot in The Grave]]. Noticeably, the climax of the episode wasn't his death, but rather his wife's reaction to it.
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* Bobby Strong, the hero of ''[[Urinetown]]'', dies midway through the second act.
* Antigone commits suicide out of spite.
* [[Hamlet]]. Granted, he [[Kill 'Em All|doesn't go alone]].
** Also [[Macbeth]], [[King Lear]], [[Othello]], [[Julius Caesar]]... essentially, the title character of every Shakespearean tragedy (although how heroic they are is a matter of some debate in each case).
** What's interesting about [[Julius Caesar]] is that the title character dies ''halfway through the play'', spending the rest of it as a corpse, a ghost and some military inspiration. Whether or not this in fact makes Brutus the hero is up for debate.
* The same applies to the title character of nearly every tragic opera as well.
* [[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Theatre)|Sweeney Todd]], although he's more of an [[Anti -Hero]].
* ''[[Repo the Genetic Opera]]'' kills off its title character, the Repo Man Nathan Wallace, near the end of the play.
* Jean Valjean in [[Les Misérables (Theatre)|Les Miserables]]. Also, pretty much everyone else in the cast... except the lovers Marius and Cosette, and the two most horrible people in the entire play - The Thenadiers - who become rich in addition to living. Pretty dramatic example of the trope.
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* The final story mission of ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' has John Marston walk out to face his doom at the bullets of an army, [[Heroic Sacrifice|in order to give his wife and son a chance to escape and live better lives]]. Widely considered to be a [[Dying Moment of Awesome]].
* Ash Crimson, the protagonist of ''[[The King of Fighters]] XIII'', [[Ret Gone|erased himself from existence]] when he eliminated the [[Final Boss]], his ancestor Saiki.
** This deserves more of an elaboration. Ash Crimson, being an [[Gorgeous George|effeminate]] [[Bishonen|pretty boy]] who was toted as the new protagonist of the current saga (The Tales of Ash, which began with ''KOF 2003'') [[Replacement Scrappy|did not hold well with the fandom]] ([[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|the Japanese notwithstanding]]). [[It Got Worse]] when Ash started upstaging '''EVERYONE''', not by means of skill, but by having better flame powers than anyone else and giving ''zero'' effect in battle. He simultaneously hit [[Villain Protagonist]] and [[CreatorsCreator's Pet|Creator's Pet-dom]] [[Brought Down to Normal|by stealing the powers]] of Chizuru and Iori. Then came ''XIII'', where it's revealed that he's a [[Fake Defector]] [[Guile Hero]] with a [[Jerkass Facade]] whose plans were carried out to protect [[The Rival|Elisabeth]], his older sister figure and the ''one person'' he cared about. With his [[Go Out With a Smile|smile-wearing]] [[Heroic Sacrifice]], he's gone... ''[[Cosmic Retcon|for good]]''. In a series where only the main villains die. [[Wham Episode|No one was expecting it to end this way]]. ''No one''. Ash got an [[Alas Poor Scrappy]] treatment from the majority of the fanbase, earning him some major [[The Woobie|Woobie]] points and possibly [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap|saving him from the heap]].
* Noble Six dies in a [[Last Stand]] at the end of ''[[Halo Reach]]''.
* ''[[Medal of Honor]] 2010'': Rabbit is captured by the terrorists and mortally wounded, and his rescuers encourage him to hang on while the rescue chopper arrives, with the first person view periodically blacking out, but he ultimately expires.
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* If you play the good Karma final mission against the beast in ''[[In Famous (Video Game)|In Famous]] 2'', Cole's actions will led to every conduit's as well as his own demise. The people of new Marais will honour and remember Cole as a hero for his deeds.
* {{spoiler|The lone wander}} of ''[[Fallout 3 (Video Game)|Fallout 3]]'' dies if you take the 'good' path, this was fixed by the add on ''broken steel''.
* One [[Multiple Endings|possible]] ending to ''[[Deus Ex Human Revolution (Video Game)|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]''. To ensure that mankind chooses its own destiny, Adam Jenson destroys [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|Panchea]], bringing it crashing down on him ([[Kill 'Em All|as well as every other character present]]).
* If you choose to fight the emperor, Starkiller in [[Star Wars the Force Unleashed]] will die fighting the emperor to buy time for the resistance to escape. Though he "indirectly" [[got Better]] in the sequel.
* [[All There in the Manual|According to the official timeline that was released in the artbook Hyrule Historia]], there are three splits in ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' timeline. One split eventually leads into the NES games, and involves Link from ''Ocarina of Time'' dying instead of fulfilling his destiny.
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[[Category:Ending Tropes]]
[[Category:The Hero Dies]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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