Choosing Death

10 Following

An index for tropes dealing with suicide.

Tropes about suicide:

• Accidental Suicide: Killing yourself unintentionally.
• Action Bomb: Someone who blows themself up, often killing themself in the process.
• Ate His Gun: Someone commits suicide by firing a gun after putting it in their mouth.
• Attacking Through Yourself: The only way to harm an enemy is by harming yourself (such as shooting yourself so that the bullet passes through your body into theirs).
• Bait-and-Switch Suicide: Someone looks like they're going to kill themselves, but they're not.
• Barefoot Suicide: Someone takes off their shoes before killing themself.
• Bath Suicide: Someone commits suicide in the bathtub.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: A character commits suicide rather than fall into the hands of someone trying to kill them.
• Bullied into Depression: Bullying can possibly lead someone to commit suicide.
• Bungled Suicide: A (failed) suicide attempt.
• Cut the Safety Rope: Two characters are in peril. One character chooses to die so that the second can be saved.
• Cyanide Pill: A means of suicide carried on one's person in the event one is captured.
• Death Before Dishonor: A character commits suicide rather than do something immoral or against their moral code.
• Death Is the Only Option: The only way to achieve victory is to die.
• Death Seeker: A suicidal character seeks out dangerous situations without regard for their survival.
• Dressing to Die: The character picks out a special outfit before killing themself.
• Driven to Suicide: A bad event leads a character into committing suicide.
• Dying as Yourself: A character trapped in circumstances that will permanently alter their basic personality, humanity, or dignity may choose to kill themself before the transformation is complete.
• Electrified Bathtub: If the death by active electronics being dropped into the tub while bathing was deliberately done by the person bathing.
• Face Death with Dignity: A doomed character accepts their death with serenity.
• Fake Assisted Suicide: A character assists another character in killing themself only to sabotage the attempt.
• Forgiveness Requires Death: In order to be forgiven of their crimes, the character must die.
• Gayngst-Induced Suicide: A character commits suicide because of issues around their homosexuality.
• Going Down with the Ship: The commander of a vessel chooses to remain on said vessel as it is destroyed.
• Goodbye, Cruel World!: A character leaves a goodbye note before committing suicide.
• Hanging Around: A character commits suicide by hanging themself.
• Happily Failed Suicide: A character fails a suicide attempt, but is happy about it.
• Hereditary Suicide: Suicide and/or suicide attempts run in families.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Sacrificing your own life for the greater good.
• Heroic Suicide: Killing oneself is necessary to accomplish some heroic goal.
• Honorable Warrior's Death: A warrior attempts to die in battle or by using some method considered worthy of a warrior in their culture.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: A character is literally unable to end their own existence.
• I'm Not Hungry: If someone refuses to eat food to the point that they let themself starve to death. This has been the fate of some political protesters who went on hunger strikes.
• Indirect Serial Killer: Some serial killers kill people by making them commit suicide.
• Interrupted Suicide: A character's suicide attempt is interrupted.
• Jumping on a Grenade: Sacrificing oneself by using one's own body as a shield against a deadly threat in hopes of sparing others
• Kryptonite Ring: A character gives another character a special deadly weapon to kill them with in case they turn evil.
• Last Survivor Suicide: Someone kills themself over being upset that they're the last one left alive.
• Leave Behind a Pistol: Giving the option of suicide before dishonor.
• Life Insurance Suicide: A character commits suicide so their life insurance beneficiary will receive a payout.
• Main Character Final Boss: The main character finally snaps and becomes the final boss, leading to the party ending their life.
• Mercy Kill: If a suicidal person begs another person to put them out of their misery.
• Mercy Kill Arrangement: A character plans their own euthanization.
• Mid-Suicide Regret: A character decides they want to live in the middle of a suicide attempt.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: A character determines they will kill themself once a list of tasks is complete.
• Mistaken for Suicidal: A character is thought to be suicidal when they're really not.
• More Expendable Than You: A group of people have to sacrifice one of themselves. Everyone else volunteers because they don't want one member to die.
• Murder-Suicide: Someone kills another person before killing themself.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: A character deliberately kills themself in order to start an even more lethal chain of events.
• Never Suicide: A murder is covered up by making it look like a suicide.
• Nothing Left to Do but Die: Someone kills themself out of boredom and/or satisfaction, believing they've accomplished or done everything they want and have nothing left to live for.
• Ordered to Die: A character is ordered to kill themself by someone with authority.
• Painless Death for a Price: Someone on death's doorstep is offered a Mercy Kill in exchange for something valuable.
• Please Kill Me If It Satisfies You: Character permits another character to kill them.
• Prelude to Suicide: A character exhibits signs of being suicidal before they attempt.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Using mind control to make a person kill themself.
• Russian Roulette: You pull the trigger on yourself, and there is a one-in-six chance that you die.
• Seen-It-All Suicide: Someone kills themself after seeing something unusual or outrageous.
• Self-Disposing Villain: The hero doesn't have to take care of the villain because the villain ends up (inadvertently or deliberately) causing their own death.
• Self-Immolation: Lighting oneself on fire as a means of suicide. Sometimes done as an extreme form of political protest.
• Self-Sacrifice Scheme: A plan by a character to sacrifice their life for someone or something else.
• Seppuku: Ritualized suicide to avoid disgrace.
• Spiteful Suicide: A character kills themself/gets themself killed to spite someone else.
• Spurned into Suicide: A character kills themself because they were rejected by a love interest.
• Starts with a Suicide: When a show starts with a character committing suicide.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Threatening suicide in order to end a conflict.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: You provoke your enemy to kill you.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: A character decides to kill themself and everyone else.
• Suicidal "Gotcha!": An apparent suicide turns out to be a preplanned form of escape.
• Suicidal Lemmings: Lemmings off themselves by way of jumping off of cliffs.
• Suicidal Sadistic Choice: A Sadistic Choice where one option is death.
• Suicide as Comedy: When suicide is Played for Black Comedy.
• Suicide Attack: An attack on an enemy that will almost certainly lead to one's own demise.
• Suicide by Assassin: Hiring someone to kill you.
• Suicide by Cop: You provoke someone into killing you.
• Suicide by Pills: A character intentionally overdosing on medication in pill form to kill themself.
• Suicide by Sea: Committing suicide by calmly and deliberately walking into a body of water and drowning.
• Suicide by Sunlight: A vampire (or another supernatural creature) can be destroyed by stepping into sunlight, and does so voluntarily.
• Suicide Dare: Telling someone to kill themself.
• Suicide for Others' Happiness: A character wants to take their own life because they believes that other people will be happier if they were dead.
• Suicide Is Painless: A suicide method that doesn't inflict any pain.
• Suicide Is Shameful: Suicide is seen as morally detestable.
• Suicide, Not Accident: A character arranges their suicide to look like an accident or it's mistaken for an accident.
• Suicide, Not Murder: A character arranges their suicide to look like a murder or it's mistaken for a murder.
• Suicide Pact: A group of characters agree to commit suicide.
• Suicide Watch: A person is monitored to prevent them from killing themself.
• Symbolic Serene Submersion: A character is revealed to have drowned themself by a shot of their body floating in the water.
• Tag Team Suicide: A character commits suicide under the mistaken belief that their loved one is dead. The loved one learns of the character's death and kills themself for real.
• Taking the Bullet: A character deliberately places themself in front of a lethal threat intended for someone else.
• Taking You with Me: A person who gets killed makes it so that their killer dies with them.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: A character tells someone not to kill themself.
• Teenage Death Songs (a subcategory of it): Songs about the tragic death of a young person (sometimes by suicide), often meant as a cautionary tale.
• Temporal Suicide: Killing your past or future self.
• Terminal Diagnosis Suicide: A character commits suicide because they have a terminal illness or debilitating condition.
• Tongue Suicide: A character bites off their tongue to commit suicide.
• Wall Street High-Dive: A businessman or executive jumps from their office to their death after a catastrophic failure.
• We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: Society has progressed (or devolved) to the point of allowing its citizens to kill themselves without intervening. May also be a society in which social engineering has determined that all citizens must die at a specific age/circumstance (with or without the consent or knowledge of the citizens) to maintain stability.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: If an immortal being grows so sick of eternal life that they just want it to end already.

Metaphorically about suicide:

• Martyrdom Culture: A society that encourages people to die for a purpose.
• Metaphorical Suicide: A despondent character willingly resigns themself to a fate similar to death without actually dying.
• Resurrection Gambit: A character plans their own death, with contingencies that should, in theory, result in their resurrection.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Video game enemies rush in to attack the player character, despite the fact that they are clearly hopelessly outmatched.
• Suicidal Pacifism: A character believes so strongly in pacifism that they refuse to harm others even in self-defense.
• Suicide Mission: A mission will almost certainly end in death for whoever accepts it.