History InfantImmortality / Literature

** Did you actually read it? Even after it was proven that Renesmee wasn't a danger, the Volturi still tried to find an excuse to kill her and thus provoke the Cullens AND they still started a fight...well, attempted to, anyway.

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[[folder:Played Straight]]

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[[folder:Exceptions]]
* In Michael Grant's ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' series, it is averted, and how. Sam and some others find a dead baby inside an abandoned house. Also, the final battle scene in the end of ''Gone'' kills a lot of children.
** Averted again near the end of ''Fear'' to a horrifying degree.
* In Creator/RaymondEFeist's ''[[Literature/TheRiftwarCycle Serpentwar]]'' series, a squad of reformed criminals located a creche containing the eggs of a race of evil humanoid snakemen, and destroyed every last one, dooming the race to extinction. Justified by the fact that all snakemen are inherently evil from the moment they hatched, demonstrated when one hatched while the squad was busy.
** Also during the Serpentwar, a magic-wielding protagonist on a scouting mission, discovers a village attacked by deserters from the BigBad's army, including a hut containing only small, charred corpses. In a CrowningMomentOfBadass, she took down several trained soldiers, WITHOUT using magic.
* Young Tad Trenton dies in Creator/StephenKing's novel ''Literature/{{Cujo}}''... but [[SparedByTheAdaptation survives]] in the {{Film}}. King also kills off toddler Gage Creed in ''Film/PetSematary'' (this death, crucial to plot, also happens in the movie version).
** All of the above is topped by his novel ''Literature/{{It}}'', where there is a monster that specifically targets children.
** In ''Literature/UnderTheDome,'' supporting characters are killed off left and right; adults, children, dogs equally.
** Also, there's [[spoiler: the little girl in ''Literature/TheLangoliers''.]]
*** It's safe to say that Stephen King casually crushes this trope under his boot he starts writing.
* Considering that it's about the horrors of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel's ''Literature/{{Night}}'' firmly crushes InfantImmortality underfoot. The first chapter doesn't fly by without the mention of babies being used as ''target practice'' by the Nazis. Then we see children casually being shot and thrown into crematoriums, and later get a somewhat graphic scene of a child slowly being hanged.
* Creator/GuyGavrielKay's ''Literature/TheLionsOfAlRassan'' has a particularly nasty example during an unsanctioned Jaddite raid near the beginning of the book.
* And in another OlderThanFeudalism entry, Literature/TheBible features, among other acts of evil, the killings of firstborn children ordered by Pharaoh and King Herod in order to try to prevent both Moses and Jesus from growing up to cause trouble, and God himself killing all of the Egyptians' firstborn children, and the firstborn calves as well.
** When the words Molech/Baal-Hammon, Astarte/Astarthe/Astaroth/Ashtoreth, the Valley of Ben-Hinnom/Gehenna, the Ammonites/Amorites, the Canaanites, etc. are mentioned, these are specifically referencing the sacrifices of children, born and unborn, to the gods of some of the cultures of the time. Sometimes the Jewish people (such as Kings Solomon, Achaz, and Manasses) messed up and took on this practice as well, despite God calling such a practice an abomination, and demanding the death of those who did such things. Those people ended up in a lot of trouble. It's the whole reason that Gehenna came to be the Jewish word for Tartarus/Hell (which is different from Sheol/Hades/Purgatory).
** In 2 Maccabees, when the Jewish people rebelled against the corrupt high priest Jason, who had been appointed by King Antiochus IV, and ran him out of town, the king left Egypt for Jerusalem. Once in Jerusalem, he massacred many, young and old, women and children, virgins and infants. In 1 and 2 Maccabees (2 Maccabees is not a "sequel', it's another viewpoint of what happened in the the first book), King Antiochus IV then decreed that everyone take up the customs of everyone else, except the Jewish customs. He outlawed all Jewish customs, including circumcision. The children who were circumcized were killed, as were their mothers and whoever performed the circumcision.
* As has been mentioned, literature is much less uncomfortable about killing children. Sometimes, but not always, this carries over to adaptions. Take for example the animated movie version of Creator/RoaldDahl's ''The BFG'', wherein we see into a boys dream and are allowed to at least on some level "bond" with this kid only for him to be ''very'' heavily implied to have been '''eaten'''. Oh, and when Sophie and The BFG discuss the other Giants' plans to eat some school children it is acknowledged to have happened.
** Dahl seemed to be fairly fond of averting this trope. He did it a lot in ''TheWitches'' too, having the main character's grandmother regale him with stories of kids who turned to stone, were transmogrified into slugs and killed by their parents, trapped in pictures, etc.
* In the AnneRice series, it's generally frowned upon to turn a human into a vampire who hasn't lived to adulthood, but Lestat, that LoveableRogue, turns Claudia who was, maybe, seven at the time. This results in an eventual BreakTheCutie, turning her into a bitter creature who has a mature woman's mind but is trapped in a child's body.
* ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies''. The children ''kill each other''.
* ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', notable in that baby-killing isn't seen as ''exceptionally'' dramatic or vile, because the world is already saturated with evil. Though it is cited as one of the more notorious of Gregor Clegane's many, many, many horrible acts.
** There's also the Unsullied, who have to kill babies as part of their training.
* The title character in the novel version of ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' had no compunction feeding a baby to his three vampire wives. Then the baby's mother to a pack of wolves. And one of his victims, Lucy Westenra, gains a reputation for preying on children.
* In Nancy A. Collins' ''Sunglasses After Dark'' series, Sonja comes across an ogre who is in the process of lowering a baby into his maw. He would've been successful in eating the baby if she'd been two minutes slower.
--> '''Sonja:''' Uh-uh. No veal for you.
* Averted in the ''LeftBehind'' Kids' Series. Of the original four kids, ranging from ages 18 to 12, the youngest is the first to go. Rather violently.
* In ''Literature/SamanthaStoneAndTheMermaidsQuest'', a large group of girls, aged 8 to 12, are all kidnapped in an attempt to find the heroine, 10-year-old Samantha Stone. When each one is shown to the main villain, one by one, he orders their execution when he discovers the girl is not Samantha. Which actually gets carried out in one case. Yup, a children's book where a child is executed.
* In the Russian book ''[[Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture Secret of a Black Stone]]'' by Creator/KirBulychev, child protagonist Alice investigates kidnapping of 84 children. Turns out they were kidnapped to be used as child soldiers. While no children are shown dying [[spoiler: and Alice, being drafted as a child soldier as well, is rescued seconds before the planned execution]], the number count in the end clearly shows that some of the kidnapped children died. Also Alice befriends a child kidnapped from another planet, and he tells that out of 30+ children kidnapped with him, only 8 or so are alive now.
* In ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'' the heroine [[spoiler: discovers ghosts of children previously taken by Other Mother. And the only thing she can do is liberate their spirits so they rest in peace...]]
* ''Literature/AmericanGods'': Hinzelmann.
* In the ''Literature/KeeperOfTheSwords'' series by Creator/NickPerumov, DarkMagicalGirl Sylvia, being in a city overrun with monsters, hears a plea for help, coming from a 6-year old girl. She rushes in, but cannot save the girl anymore. This sets Sylvia in a [[BerserkButton deep rage]]. Cue one big CrowningMomentOfAwesome where Sylvia [[spoiler: invites ''all'' monsters in a city to feast on her, and when they really come proceeds to hack them all in pieces with her sword. She single-handedly defeats a monster army capable of overrunning dozens of local wizards.]]
* Though Jason never kills any kids in the movies, he does it quite a bit in the ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' books.
** Jason kicks and stomps a baby and two toddlers to death in ''Friday the 13th: Jason's Curse''.
** ''Friday the 13th: The Carnival'' has kids being mangled and fried when the carnival rides go haywire and fires break out.
** ''Friday The 13th: Hate Kill Repeat]]'' had Jason attacking a family of campers, killing them all, including the little boy and baby girl.
** A zombie baby shows up in ''Friday The 13th: The Jason Strain''.
** Finally, ''Friday The 13th: Carnival Of Maniacs'', after Jason's rampage in the titular carnival, a dead father is found holding his son's body in his arms.
* In Cormac [=McCarthy=]'s masterpiece ''Literature/TheRoad'', the two main characters come upon a campfire abandoned by cannibals. A baby has been left roasting on a spit.
** The man had seen a pregnant woman and a few other men passing by a few days before, too.
* In Erich Maria Remarque's novel ''A Time to Live and a Time to Die'' (set during WorldWarII) the protagonist is on the streets of a German city during an air raid, and sees a five-year-old girl with an infant. Then a bomb hits the place; when the explosion is over, the girl is dead, and the baby has disappeared.
* AnyoneCanDie in ''Literature/WarriorCats'', so this trope is completely averted. Throughout the course of the series, we have seen kits carried off by hawks, starved to death, and fallen into crevasses. And that's just ''onscreen!'' Offscreen we have kits and apprentices mauled by dogs, frozen to death in winter, killed by diseases, hit by cars, and at one point the BigBad brutally murders an apprentice from another Clan whom the protagonist had saved earlier, [[MoralEventHorizon just to spite him.]]
* Averted in ''[[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Rising]]'', where the plot revolves around Hannibal seeking revenge on [[spoiler: the Nazis who killed and [[ImAHumanitarian ate his sister]].]]
* Averted in ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'': Dior's young sons are abandoned in a forest and it's strongly implied that they die there.
* Averted in ''Literature/TheBookOfTheDunCow'', in which [[spoiler: Chauntecleer's three sons]] are killed by basilisks, along with their nurse.
* The ogre-like titular monster from Creator/CliveBarker's ''Literature/RawheadRex'' devours a young boy alive, as well as dismembering and eating a little girl's riding pony. Much of the story is told from Rex's point of view, so although no infants are killed, the creature reminisces at length about eating them.
* In ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'', serial killer Patrick Bateman stabs a little boy to death in a zoo, just to see if he'd enjoy it. He doesn't (not because of guilt). He also kills a dog once (along with its owner).
* Subverted and averted in the ''AnitaBlake Vampire Hunter'' series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
** It starts strong in the second novel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laughing_Corpse_(novel) The Laughing Corpse]][[spoiler: where part of the plot deals with a flesh eating zombie that consumed a family, but having failed to find the body of one of the children ,an infant, it is assumed he is still alive. The assumption proves to be false in a very gruesome way.]].
** In the fifth novel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Bones_(novel) Bloody Bones]] [[spoiler: the criminal investigations concern gruesomely murdered teenagers, as well as a teenager turned vampire that burns to death at the end and her brother whom the main characters fail to rescue and have to watch die.]]
** The ninth novel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_Butterfly_(novel) Obsidian Butterfly]] takes the cake it has [[spoiler: whole families, including children of all ages, gruesomely murdered, having their skins completely removed and reanimated as zombies, a pair of children, a 6 year old girl and 10 year old boy, kidnapped, tortured and raped by the bad guys, and the Crowning Moment of Gruesome -- one of the previously mentioned skinless zombies getting loose in the maternity ward and eating several (like 20) newborns before the main character puts him or her down.]].
** The twelfth novel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_Dreams_(novel) Incubus Dreams]] gives the readers [[spoiler: several back stories, including a high school couple raped and murdered in such a gruesome way that the parents still haven't found closure after 3 years, and one of the lovers of the main character that witnessed at ten the death of his prepubescent brother at the hands of their father]].
* Shakespeare's ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'': Macduff's wife and children are murdered -- including a son, who is murdered on-stage.
* ''{{Redwall}}'' has gone into this territory several times, all of them being killed by vermin. There are at least four instances: 1) In ''The Long Patrol'', where one of the characters is shown a vermin blade that's been notched for every kill. The shallower notches are for creatures who couldn't fight back, such as women and children. 2) ''Taggerung'', where a vermin character causes a landslide that kills a family of dormice so that he could get their food. 3) ''Doomwyte'', though this one was done by a snake, the infant in question was a tree rat, and it was a KarmicDeath. After the tree rat ran away from a fight it ran into a snake and got eaten. 4) ''The Sable Quean'', where a young otter is stabbed in the neck with a poisoned knife and dies shortly afterwards.
* [[spoiler:The first book of]] ''HisDarkMaterials'' presents a full segment from the POV of a child character [[spoiler:who is introduced and given a name and backstory exactly ''for'' the audience to be shocked when he suffers a FateWorseThanDeath, which leads to actual death soon enough. The end of the book proper features the death of the protagonist's best friend (a boy about 10-12) as being ''plot relevant''. No other deaths are featured later, but the [[CorruptChurch Magisterium]] are nonetheless unhesitant in sending an assassin to kill children later on.]]
* Being only lightly fictionalized, averted in the ''Literature/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'' series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Although the death of Laura's baby brother occurs off-screen and is never mentioned, we do see the death by SIDS of her first son. And her subsequent depression was so crippling that [[ShootTheShaggyDog she failed to react in time to an over-burning pot and their house burned down.]] Wasn't the Old West romantic?
* In ''Literature/GoneWithTheWind'', not only does Scarlett miscarry, her daughter Bonnie is killed in a riding accident. These two incidents put the nail in the coffin of Scarlett and Rhett's marriage.
* In ''Literature/CityOfGlass'', all the teenage protagonists survive the final battle.... but Max; the cute, manga-reading youngest Lightwood who wasn't allowed to fight is brutally murdered.
* In ''Literature/TheInvertedWorld'', during an attack on the City, the creche where the children are raised gets set on fire. Many children die, including the protagonist's infant son.
* Averted in one of the Literature/{{Discworld}} novels. Granny Weatherwax is acting as a midwife in a...''difficult'' birth, and realizes she can only save either the baby or the mother. She chooses to save the mother, because she is otherwise able-bodied, and doing otherwise would leave the husband to take care of the child alone. Another character tells Granny she should have let the husband make the choice, and she asks in return [[TearJerker what the man has ever done to her that she should hurt him so]].
* In the ''Warcraft'' novel, ''Literature/{{Arthas}}'', Jaina Proudmoore, the title character's on-again, off-again LoveInterest, suggests that [[TheVirus Undead Plague]] might not [[OnlyFatalToAdults effect kids the same as adults.]] [[spoiler:It was then defied by Arthas, who made it clear that [[MoralEventHorizon he was going to kill every last person in Stratholme - adults and children alike.]]]] Luckily, we never see THAT ugly tidbit in the games.
* In ''Eon'', the infant future emperor is publicly executed by sword to ensure all other lines of power are wiped out.
* ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' averts this trope by having [[spoiler: Bianca di Angelo]] die at the age of twelve. The rest of the deaths were teenagers and adults, not counting the off screen deaths.
* In [[AnneOfGreenGables Anne's House of Dreams]], Anne's firstborn child dies the day it is born.
* ''Literature/TheBoyInTheStripedPyjamas'' subverts this. You expect one of the children to die because he's in a Concentration Camp [[spoiler:but the ending has both the protagonist and his friend killed]].
* ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing'' has multiple infanticide [[spoiler:''committed by King Arthur'']], albeit off-stage (and [[spoiler:revealed to us decades afterward]].
* In the book ''Lost'' by Jacqueline Davies, two of the protagonist's siblings were stillborn. [[spoiler:Her younger sister also dies from being trampled by a carriage horse.]]
* ''Stealaway:'' Crackspear avenges the theft of his horse by Walt of Wideopen by killing the latter's young son.
* ''Literature/RaptorRed'' has several aversions and at least one near-aversion. The Trinity Turtle's earliest memories include her siblings being devoured by pterosaurs, Raptor Red and her sister [[spoiler:seriously consider abandoning the chicks during a famine, and one of the chicks dies of an infection]].
* ''Literature/TheFoxAndTheHound'' has a lot of cute fox pups fathered by Tod romping around in a few chapters. [[spoiler:All but [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse possibly one]] die.]] There's also a human child who's accidentally poisoned by bait meant to cull rabid foxes.
* In ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio'' Pinocchio's friend Candlewick dies as a donkey as a result of exhaustion and the injuries inflicted by his master, and who knows how many children suffered similar fates in The Land Of Toys.
* ''TheHungerGames'', obviously. But even apart from the Games, there's [[spoiler: the District 12 bombing, Prim, the Capitol girl with the yellow coat...]]
* Creator/TamoraPierce really likes to hold nothing back in her portrayals of medieval life in the Literature/TortallUniverse:
** Particularly noteworthy are the last two books of ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall'', where the hideous "killing devices" are apparently powered by the souls of dead children and infants who cry out for their mothers when released. [[spoiler:It turns out that the necromancer who makes the devices doesn't need to use children. He does it because he ''likes'' to.]]
** In ''Literature/DaughterOfTheLioness'', the children of rebels are thrown into a piranha moat. (Mercifully, this does not ever happen onscreen.) Also, [[spoiler:Kyprioth persuades Rubinyan and Imajane to kill the four-year-old King Dunevon and his closest cousin, Elsren Balitang, who is the same age]].
** The first ''Literature/ProvostsDog'' book has the Shadow Snake, a kidnapper who kills the children they abduct if the parents don't give up the valuables that the Snake wants. One of Beka's best friends lost her boy this way. There's also a woman who commits infanticide on her own. In the third, [[spoiler:one of the child princes is murdered]].
* ''Literature/RunningOutOfTime'' is about a girl from a 19th century-themed historical preserve who leaves and stumbles about the "modern day" in order to find a cure for the diphtheria that has afflicted the children of her village. Two of them later die from it.
* In the [[EvanHunter Ed McBain]] short story "Kid Kill" a pair of policemen answer a call where a boy has found a gun in his mother's house and while playing with it accidentally shot and killed his little brother. [[spoiler: But the cop narrator realises there was too much dust on the gun for the boy to have just picked it up without smudging it... in other words, he ''murdered'' his brother. And there's nothing they can do about it.]]
* The ''Literature/EarthsChildren'' series includes a number of aversions:
** All Ovra's pregnancies end in miscarriages, eventually prompting Ayla to start giving her the secret contraceptive herbs to spare her from the physical and emotional strain of repeatedly losing her babies.
** At the Clan Gathering, Ayla and Uba meet Oda, a woman from another clan, whose baby daughter was killed when a man of the Others ripped off her wrap and carrying cloak (with the child inside) and raped her. Oda's daughter died after hitting her head on a rock and Oda, finding herself pregnant again, wished for another daughter, against the wishes of her mate, who, when Oda's second child, Ura, was born "deformed", made her keep the baby as punishment.
** After Jetamio [[DeathByChildbirth dies trying to give birth to her and Thonolan's son]], the Shamud, hoping to at least save the baby, performs an emergency caesarian. But it is already too late.
** While on the way to the Summer Meeting, the Mamutoi of the Lion Camp, along with Jondalar and Ayla, stop off at a Sungaea camp, where two young siblings have recently died.
** And, during the Summer Meeting, Rydag, the "child of mixed spirits" raised by Nezzie (the mate of the Lion Camp's headman, Talut) dies from the congenital heart defect which has weakened him.
** In the final book in the series, a young boy dies from the severe head injuries he sustained in an earthquake.
* ''Literature/TheObituaryWriter'' makes the aversion clear when it begins with a child in Claire's neighborhood being abducted and killed. [[spoiler:And by the end of the novel, both Vivien and Claire experience this trope firsthand, with the death of the former's best friend's daughter and the latter's unborn baby]].
* In both the book and film adaptation of ''Literature/WhereTheRedFernGrows'' Billy's bully Rubin dies when he tries to kill Billy's dog Old Dan with an axe for fighting with his dog Old Blue which he trained to be vicious, Billy tries to take the axe from him but he pushes him aside and as he's running Rubin trips over a rock and accidentally stabs himself in the chest with it.
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[[folder:Partial Aversions]]
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' is the exception that proves the rule. BigBad Voldemort tries to kill him when he's a baby, but fails (leaving the iconic lightning-shaped scar). In the end, the cause turns out to be ThePowerOfLove by way of magical AppliedPhlebotinum. Let's recap: '''''The BigBad can't even kill a baby'''''.
* In ''Literature/EndersGame'', Ender [[spoiler:kills ''two'' other children with his ''bare hands''. The adults don't tell him, trying to keep him marginally sane]].
* ''Several'' children die in ''Literature/SalemsLot'' - and most of them [[CameBackWrong end up as vampires]].
* One of ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' books opens with Harry and Michael fighting the ghost of a woman who accidentally killed her own child (they were hiding from her drunk and abusive husband and the little girl started crying, so she covered her mouth to keep her quiet and when she looked down...) and is now insane and gunning for a whole hospital nursery full of newborns. She comes very close to killing them all before being stopped.
* In Morgan Howell's ''Queen Of The Orcs: King's Property'' novel, they rather subvert this. After the main character, Dar, presides over the birth of her friend's child, and swears to the dying mother that she'll take care of the baby (typical fantasy novel thoroughfare), she allows the baby to be taken by her father, High Murdant Kol. He then ''casually'' tosses the baby in the river and walks away. This is never spoken of again. Similarly, Twea, the seven-year-old girl Dar more or less adopts, is murdered by soldiers near the end of the book.
* In Juliet Marillier's ''Literature/HeirToSevenwaters'', the changeling Clodagh was caring for is murdered by Mac Dara in an effort to lure Cathal (Clodagh's love interest) into his hall. However, the good fairies help her repair the baby's body and bring him to life again.
* As always with Robert Cormier and the tropes that have no place in a CrapsackWorld, this is often quietly averted, with the only subversion coming if you expected the book to run on the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality and not on [[ThisIsReality the rules of Cormier's bleak worldview]]. For instance, in ''After The First Death'' twenty kindergarteners are kidnapped by terrorists and used as hostages. [[spoiler:One dies of an allergic reaction to the substance used to put them to sleep, one is killed for refusing to eat the candies that contain a second dose of the substance, and one is shot during their attempted liberation. The rest live, because there was no reason to ShootTheShaggyDog.]]
* Max Brooks somewhat adhered to this trope in ''Literature/TheZombieSurvivalGuide'', mostly by barely ever mentioning that children exist (e.g. he recommends hiding from the ZombieApocalypse in schools, even though any school that's in session when news breaks of a zombie attack would be a ''madhouse'' of PapaWolf & MamaBear panic). He threw it out the window for ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', in which children starve, get eaten alive by zombies, or are mercy-killed by their own parents.
* Averted in a rather {{Narm}}y way in ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'': in the very first book, Eragon and Brom enter a town that was slaughtered by the BigBad's minions, leaving behind a pile of corpses... at the top of which is a baby impaled on a spike. A gruesome image normally, but the way it plays out in the books is ''very'' hard to take seriously, making it a failed attempt and a MoralEventHorizon.
* In ''Literature/{{Metro 2033}}'', [[spoiler:''every'' time]] Artyom travels with a child in the group, they die. First it's a man's [[spoiler:retarded grandson, who is shot by fascists, then it's Oleg who jumps into some weird sentient murk beneath the Kremlin]].
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'', many of the main characters die, but Kojak the dog survives.
** Averted in the case of one woman whose twin children were born dead. She went nuts and blamed the superflu, though other characters believed that it being a twin birth and her being a ''heavy smoker'' were the real causes.
** And averted again by the description of one toddler falling into a well and dying there. Also Baby Petey (one of the "no great loss" examples in the extended edition).
* Averted in ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' (see Film) and especially ''Mockingjay'' - in the aftermath of the climactic attack President Snow tells Katniss he's not above killing children [[spoiler: but he had no reason for firebombing a whole load of children being held in front of the presidential residence. Or the medical teams coming to help them. Including Katniss' sister Prim, ''who she sees incinerated right before her eyes'']].
* Initially played straight, but later averted, in Chelsea Quinn-Yarbro's novel ''Tempting Fate''. Saint-Germain finds a young girl as the only one alive in her house during the Russian Revolution and takes her in as his ward. Later, though, [[spoiler: she is killed by Nazi brownshirts, triggering a HeroicBSOD]].
* This is averted very early on in ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'', when Persephone makes it clear that a famine in Engadlin has become so bad that people are resorting to eating their ''own babies.'' Later, we discover that [[spoiler: Isengrim's first born son was killed at birth.]] Still later, [[spoiler: King Lionel, an eight-year old, is stabbed in the heart.]]
* The trope is generally averted in the ''Literature/{{Safehold}}'' series, as a detail that consistently makes the Church of God Awaiting's crossings of the Moral Event Horizon so horrific in the eyes of other characters is how frequently innocent children get caught up in them. The Ferayd Massacre saw the deaths of children as young as eight. The youngest stated victim of Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn's Rakurai suicide bombers was barely a year old. One time in which this trope ''does'' come into play is Clyntahn's purging of the Circle, a group of reformist vicars and other senior churchmen. Clyntahn has them, their families, their assistants, and ''their'' families tried and executed on charges of heresy, in the process executing children as young as twelve. Only the very youngest of children are allowed to live and are instead shipped off to be raised in highly orthodox monasteries.
[[/folder]]

** In ''UnderTheDome'', supporting characters are killed off left and right; adults, children, dogs equally.

* In RaymondEFeist's ''[[TheRiftwarCycle Serpentwar]]'' series, a squad of reformed criminals located a creche containing the eggs of a race of evil humanoid snakemen, and destroyed every last one, dooming the race to extinction. Justified by the fact that all snakemen are inherently evil from the moment they hatched, demonstrated when one hatched while the squad was busy.

* ''PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' averts this trope by having [[spoiler: Bianca di Angelo]] die at the age of twelve. The rest of the deaths were teenagers and adults, not counting the off screen deaths.

* In ''[[Literature/TheMortalInstruments City of Glass]]'', all the teenage protagonists survive the final battle.... but Max; the cute, manga-reading youngest Lightwood who wasn't allowed to fight is brutally murdered.

* Max Brooks somewhat adhered to this trope in ''Literature/TheZombieSurvivalGuide'', mostly by barely ever mentioning that children exist (e.g. he recommends hiding from the ZombieApocalypse in schools, even though any school that's in session when news breaks of a zombie attack would be a ''madhouse'' of PapaWolf & MamaBear panic). He threw it out the window for ''WorldWarZ'', in which children starve, get eaten alive by zombies, or are mercy-killed by their own parents.

* In ''{{Metro 2033}}'', [[spoiler:''every'' time]] Artyom travels with a child in the group, they die. First it's a man's [[spoiler:retarded grandson, who is shot by fascists, then it's Oleg who jumps into some weird sentient murk beneath the Kremlin]].
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''TheStand'', many of the main characters die, but Kojak the dog survives.

** Also, there's [[spoiler: the little girl in TheLangoliers.]]

** All of the above is topped by his novel ''{{It}}'', where there is a monster that specifically targets children.

* Young Tad Trenton dies in Creator/StephenKing's novel ''Literature/{{Cujo}}''... but survives in the {{Film}}. King also kills off toddler Gage Creed in ''Film/PetSematary'' (this death, crucial to plot, also happens in the movie version).

* ''LordOfTheFlies''. The children ''kill each other''.

* Averted in ''TheSilmarillion'': Dior's young sons are abandoned in a forest and it's strongly implied that they die there.
* Averted in ''TheBookOfTheDunCow'', in which [[spoiler: Chauntecleer's three sons]] are killed by basilisks, along with their nurse.
* The ogre-like titular monster from Creator/CliveBarker's ''Rawhead Rex'' devours a young boy alive, as well as dismembering and eating a little girl's riding pony. Much of the story is told from Rex's point of view, so although no infants are killed, the creature reminisces at length about eating them.
* In ''AmericanPsycho'', serial killer Patrick Bateman stabs a little boy to death in a zoo, just to see if he'd enjoy it. He doesn't (not because of guilt). He also kills a dog once (along with its owner).

* In ''GoneWithTheWind'', not only does Scarlett miscarry, her daughter Bonnie is killed in a riding accident. These two incidents put the nail in the coffin of Scarlett and Rhett's marriage.

* While the [[DragonridersofPern Pern]] colonists' first encounter with Thread gruesomely killed several adults and at least one young girl, ''Dragonsdawn'' does honor this trope with babies. Two infants were the only survivors of the colony's Tuareg nomad camp, having been sealed inside a Thread-proof metal cabinet by their doomed parents, and a house in which a woman is giving birth was instinctively protected by hundreds of the settlement's fire-lizards.

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''TheStand'', many of the main characters die, but Kojak the dog survives.
** Averted in the case of one woman whose twin children were born dead. She went nuts and blamed the superflu, though other characters believed that it being a twin birth and her being a ''heavy smoker'' were the real causes.
** And averted again by the description of one toddler falling into a well and dying there. Also Baby Petey (one of the "no great loss" examples in the extended edition).

[[AC:Played Straight]]

[[AC:Exceptions]]

[[AC:Partial Aversions]]

* This is averted very early on in ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'', when Persephone makes it clear that a famine in Engadlin has become so bad that people are resorting to eating their ''own babies.'' Later, we discover that [[spoiler: Isengrim's first born son was killed at birth.]] Still later, [[spoiler: King Lionel, an eight-year old, is stabbed in the heart.]]

* In ''[[Literature/TheMortalInstruments City of Glass]]'', all the teenage protagonists survive the final battle.... but Max;the cute, manga-reading youngest Lightwood who wasn't allowed to fight is brutally murdered.

* In the ''Literature/MortalInstruments'' books, all the teenage protagonists survive the final battle.... but the cute, manga-reading little brother who wasn't allowed to fight is brutally murdered.

* Max Brooks somewhat adhered to this trope in ''TheZombieSurvivalGuide'', mostly by barely ever mentioning that children exist (e.g. he recommends hiding from the ZombieApocalypse in schools, even though any school that's in session when news breaks of a zombie attack would be a ''madhouse'' of PapaWolf & MamaBear panic). He threw it out the window for ''WorldWarZ'', in which children starve, get eaten alive by zombies, or are mercy-killed by their own parents.

* Initially played straight, but later averted, in Chelsea Quinn-Yarbro's novel ''Tempting Fate''. Saint-Germain finds a young girl as the only one alive in her house during the Russian Revolution and takes her in as his ward. Later, though, [[spoiler: she is killed by Nazi brownshirts, triggering a HeroicBSOD]].

* The very premise of Literature/HarryPotter, who is ''The Boy Who Lived'' because the evil overlord wanted to kill a baby but wasn't able to. "Trying to kill a baby but not being able to" is probably the most pathetic thing a villain can do. It's hard to think of things that ''couldn't'' kill a baby, but apparently Voldy just had to get cute with the killing curse, instead of just going the much more reliable ''kick to the head''.