Would You Like to Hear How They Died?

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can't savor all the... little emotions. In... you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did.
 *beat*

Would you like to know which of them were cowards?
—The Joker, The Dark Knight
You had friends there, as I recall. Tasty ones, too...
—Rampage, Beast Wars

Villains generally have big egos, and they love to gloat. Given the chance, they can't resist the temptation to insult the hero or to revel in their own wickedness when they think they have the upper hand. A particular brand of Evil Gloating favored by those who enjoy relating their many evil deeds is to describe in detail to the hero how the villain has murdered the heroes' friends or loved ones, preferably in the most unpleasant way possible.

Sometimes the villain does this to mess with the heroes' emotions, or because he wants to frighten them, or he just plain loves causing pain and can't resist the chance to confront the hero with this source of anguish.

However, it is important to note that this trope often has the tendency to backfire on the villain in question. Not only relevant to the dangers that Evil Gloating can cause, a villain who mercilessly mocks the hero about how he just butchered their True Companions has a tendency to cause an Unstoppable Rage or just give the hero that extra incentive to fight back that he needs to put the villain to his end. And woe to the villain who inadvertently awakens a Mama Bear or Papa Wolf by gleefully telling them they just killed their kids...

That said, a reasonably common variation is for the villain to be self-destructive, and actually be goading them into attacking and / or killing them; in some such cases, the villain wasn't a "villain" at all, and either deeply regrets what they did deep down, or even were totally innocent of the crime and are just trying to provoke a reaction for some end.

Usually takes the form of the phrase "Would you liked to hear how he/she died?" but doesn't have to, the villain may just start giving lurid details unbidden about the last moments of the person they've killed, possibly accompanied by an Evil Laugh, or make things up about how the victim begged for death, or outright lie about killing them entirely just to generate a reaction.

A variation on this is Post-Rape Taunt, in which a rapist gloats about how his victim "loved it." This is also a prime way to push the Relative Button. The exact opposite, on the other hand, is But for Me It Was Tuesday, wherein the villain can't even remember who it was he killed, never mind how they died.

Examples of Would You Like to Hear How They Died? include:

Anime and Manga

  • A villain does this to Jubei in Ninja Scroll: The Series, however he is lying, and just trying to piss Jubei off to help him kill a parasite in him.
  • Gauron from Full Metal Panic! loves to do this. He's shown doing this to a minor character, and does this in a more notable instance to Sousuke during TSR. Towards the minor character, Gauron laughs and tells the guy that he's the last one, and that some of his comrades died crying and begging for their life. This pisses the guy off enough to send him into a berserk rage. Too bad he's just a small side character that ends up getting blown up. And in TSR, Gauron volunteers a (fake) detailed description of how Kaname died to Sousuke. Including how her cute uniform was in tatters, but that she never begged for her life, and that her last words were "I'm sorry" to Sousuke. This pisses Sousuke off to the point where he shoots the hell out of Gauron. Which was exactly what Gauron wanted, the Manipulative Bastard.
  • Kimbley pulls this on Major Miles in Fullmetal Alchemist. Considering its Kimbley, this maybe less trying to antagonize Miles, as it is a twisted way to try and connect with him.
    • And of course, Miles was only pretending to take it personally to keep Kimblee distracted.
    • Also used by Envy in the manga and Brotherhood to brag to Mustang about how easy it was to kill Hughes by taking the form of his wife. Of course this backfires.
  • Bleach has Mayuri Kurotsuchi describing to Ishida in horrific detail, what happened to the Quincy during his experiments on them. The one that really makes it personal is when he described what happened to Ishida's grandfather. And even produced a picture of his remains. Worst thing is he didn't even know that the man in the photo was Ishida's grandfather. He just carries the picture around to randomly show people it seems.
  • Hansel does this to Balalaika in Black Lagoon when describing how one of her men died—given how insane he is, whether or not it was an attempt at enraging her or just his general sadism is anyone's guess. Whichever way, Balalaika's response was probably not one he was expecting.
  • In Dragonball Z, after incapacitating Goku, Frieza lies to Gohan and claims that Goku died begging for mercy and crying like a baby.

Film

  • The Joker does this to a police officer in The Dark Knight, although he seemed to have been purposefully trying to provoke him to violence, seeing how he did shoot most of the cops he'd killed up to that point.

Carmine Falcone (to young Bruce Wayne): Yeah, you got spirit, kid. I'll give you that. More than your old man, anyway. In the joint, Chill told me, uh, told me about the night he killed your parents. He said your father begged for mercy. Begged. Like a dog.

      • This earns him an especially choice headbutt from the Batman later on.
        • Of course, in this case Falcone is wrong and Chill was obviously just trying to sound tough to his mob-boss cellmate (or Falcone was lying). Not only is that not what happened; Bruce knows it wasn't because Bruce was there.
  • Gladiator: "They tell me your son squealed like a girl when they nailed him to the cross."
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Early in the movie we learn that Eddie Valiant's brother was murdered by a Toon. After Judge Doom is revealed to be the killer:

Judge Doom: Remember me, Eddie?! When I killed your brother, I talked [falsetto] JUST... LIKE... THIIIIIIIIS!!!

Man in Black: He died well, that should please you. No bribe attempts or blubbering. He simply said: "Please. Please, I need to live." It was the "please" that caught my memory. I asked him what was so important for him. "True love", he replied. And then he spoke of a girl of surpassing beauty and faithfulness. I can only assume he meant you. You should bless me for destroying him before he found out what you really are.
[...]
Buttercup: You can die too, for all I care! [shoves him over the side of a hill]

Peter: I'm the bloke who changed the course of your life, mate. When you was a narc back at Long Beach you were getting too close to us, so we put a contract out on you. I handled it myself. Ran your car right off the road, bam! But of course it wasn't you, was it? I pulled back this mop of blood-soaked hair to see this woman's face. Your wife, right? (pause) She didn't die right away. Took a bit of time.

    • Needless to say, since Riggs is a Determinator, and this revelation is essentially Riggs' Berserk Button, it doesn't turn out well.
  • Frank Nitti tells Elliot Ness how he killed Jim Malone in The Untouchables. It doesn't end well for Nitti.

Literature

  • When Harry Potter confronts Voldemort for the first time in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldy starts by telling him "you'll meet the same end as your parents... they died begging me for mercy...." But when Harry doubts that version, Voldemort quickly agrees that Harry's parents did indeed fight courageously... and still goes on to describe how they died.
    • Which, ironically, did involve Lily begging for mercy before she died... mercy for him to spare Harry's life.
    • The Dementors force Harry to hear his parents' final moments every time he gets near them.
  • In Dean Koontz's version of the Frankenstein myth, at one point Victor Frankenstein tells one of his modern-day enemies, a female police officer, that he killed her parents personally and her father (also a cop) begged for mercy. She just shrugs and mentions that she's sure he begged for her mother's life, anyway, by this point her contempt for Victor is so total that he can't get to her at all.
  • In The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara. Cree Bega puts Ahren Elessedil through this during the lead-up to their final Knife Fight, asking him if he'd like to know what happened to his crush, Ryer Ord Star, after she was handed over to Cree Bega and his henchmen.

She took ssso long to die, little Elvesss. Ssso long it ssseemed that it would take forever...

Live-Action TV

  • On Lost, Psycho for Hire Keamy gloats about killing Ben's daughter and is promptly stabbed to death by him a few minutes later.
  • Criminal Minds:
    • One team of unsubs tortured women to death and then sent DVDs to their families.
    • The Boston Reaper threatened to do this to Jack: "I'm going to find that little bastard son of yours and show him your dead bodies and tell him it's all your fault."
  • In the Highlander episode "Innocent Man", Sheriff Crowley does this to Duncan MacLeod: "Your friend died on his knees, begging for his life."
  • In the Sky One production of Going Postal, the psychopathic banshee assassin tells Moist while attacking him that one of his previous victims the brother of Moist's love interest died pathetically. The guy's death is shown at the very beginning, and the banshee's claim isn't really true.
  • Happens in the Tracker pilot. Rhee gloats that Cole's daughter "went slowly", and Cole responds with "So will you" and proceeds to make the life force collection very slow. Apparently it's more painful when done slowly.
  • In Supernatural, Azazel's purpose in ordering the killing of Sam's girlfriend Jessica was to drive Sam to The Dark Side, and this works better if he admits to Sam that he was responsible, sooner or later. The demon who did the actual killing, Brady, also brags about having done so, and his motive appears to be significantly more about evil for its own sake than his master's.

Video Games

  • In Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Swami tells Altair that, right before Altair's son, Sef, was killed, Swami told Sef that it was on his Altaïr's orders, so that he died thinking his father had betrayed him.
  • Fuminori does this to Kouji in Saya no Uta.
  • Seymour does this in Final Fantasy X when he describes how he slaughtered the Ronso tribe.
  • Curtis Blackburn does this to his partner Pedro in one of the more infamous (and horrific scenes in Killer7. "Your wife... has a mole in a very unique place..."
  • In the Safe Ending of Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Ace decides to tell Snake how great it was to kill his sister. This results in Snake, after taking six shots from Ace's gun, getting up and pinning Ace down inside an incinerator that's about to turn on, killing them both.
  • There's a couple of rather nasty one for the Human Noble origin in Dragon Age Origins: "Your parents died on their knees. Your brother's corpse rots in Ostagar; and his brat was burned on a scrap heap, along with his Antivan whore of a wife. And what's left? A fool husk of a son likely to end his days under a rock in the Deep Roads". You can find out later that Fergus is alive, though it will hardly be obvious.
  • In World of Warcraft Cataclysm's Dragon Soul raid, Deathwing, when facing Alexstraza, taunts her about how he turned many members of her flight into mindless Twilight drakes, and how painful a process it was. She, with forced stoicism, says they are no longer of her clutch, and the raid has to kill them.
  • One of Pigma's possible dialogue pieces while facing him and the rest of Star Wolf in Star Fox 64 gives a slight bit of detail into his killing of Fox's dad.

Pigma: Daddy screamed real good before he died!

Web Comics

  • In Order of the Stick, V does this to the Ancient Black Dragon during their confrontation.

Ancient Black Dragon: Did you...did you really think a Disintegrate spell would kill me?
Vaarsuvius: It was the spell you requested, was it not? Besides, I wanted you to experience what it felt like for your baby when I shredded him into a trillion lifeless specks of ash. Incidentally, he mewled helplessly while I did so.

Web Original

Western Animation

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