History Main / GutPunch

Whoa. ''That's'' why.

* ''Literature/ChirinsBell'' has a scene in which a wolf kills a lamb's entire flock, establishing that this is ''not'' just a cutesy little children's book about sheep.

* ''Literanture/Chirin's Bell'' has a scene in which a wolf kills a lamb's entire flock, establishing that this is ''not'' just a cutesy little children's book about sheep.

* ''Anime/RingingBell'' has a scene in which a wolf kills a lamb's mother, establishing that this is ''not'' just a cutesy little cartoon about sheep.

{{Subtrope}} of FromBadToWorse, CerebusSyndrome, DarkerAndEdgier, and MoodWhiplash. Super Trope to SacrificialLion, SurpriseCreepy, KillTheCutie, DecoyProtagonist, and especially WakeUpCallBoss. The KnightOfCerebus, TragicMonster, and the HeroKiller are three characters extremely likely to cause one of these. Sometimes related to PlayerPunch. [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Do not confuse with]] GroinAttack.

* The original ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' gets two back to back in the same sequence. First we get something that looks like this, specifically the deaths of [[spoiler: Tom and Judy]]. In any other horror movie made at the time, that sequence alone would have been enough to qualify as this trope. It doesn't, but only because the '''real''' punch comes immediately afterward when we see an extremely gory (for its day) image of the zombies chowing down on the recently charred corpses that changed the film from "goofy b-movie" to "terror incarnate." Creator/RogerEbert's reaction provides the page quote. It's worth emphasizing the "[[SurpriseCreepy Darker than the audience has been led to expect]]" bit:

* Seems to happen at least once per game in ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' which isn't too surprising considering [[SurpriseCreepy what the stories end up as]]...

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode 'Q Who', Riker blames Q for the deaths of 18 crew members when the Borg slice out a section of the hull, and Q responds with a chillingly dismissive "oh, please", indicating this is all very real and permanent.

* The second season of ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' has the death of [[spoiler:Misaka 9982]]. The first season tended to lack blood, let alone death, so the arrival of the hero [[HopeSpot initially appears]] as a rescue before [[YouAreTooLate the death occurs]].[[note]]Familiarity with the series it spun off from (''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'') can downplay this.[[/note]] It doubles as a bit of an in-universe GutPunch for the hero as well, resulting in a HeroicBSOD that leads to her [[spoiler:resolving to get herself killed]] in the climax of the arc.

* ''Anime/MagicKnightRayearth'': Saving princess Emeraude from the bad guy seems like a difficult, if not standard, quest for the newly chosen heroes...[[spoiler: but having to kill the bad guy for [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy wanting to free the aforementioned princess]] AND THEN also having to kill the princess for being [[StarCrossedLovers in love with the bad guy]] and thus unable to fulfill her duties, is [[TearJerker a whole different stew]] ]]

* ''Film/DeadPoetsSociety'' starts out as a ComingOfAge story about a group of students learning to live life to the fullest, and for [[TheLeader Neil]], that means turning to acting, landing the part of Puck in a local production of ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream''. Despite getting a standing ovation for his performance, [[FantasyForbiddingFather Neil's father]] isn't moved and he takes him home, where he tells him he's transferring him to a military school, instead. Heartbroken that his father refuses to accept what he wants, [[spoiler:he commits suicide,]] and Neil's friends are left in a state of shock, particularly his roommate Todd.

* ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' is basically a RomanticComedy... right up until the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt. [[KillEmAll Things go straight to hell from there]].

** ''Film/RogueOne'' is somewhat DarkerAndEdgier, but nothing that we haven't seen before in ''Star Wars''... up until the moment when [[spoiler: [[PluckyComicRelief K-2SO]]]] pulls a YouShallNotPass to protect the leads, signalling that not all the heroes are gonna make it out of this movie. [[spoiler: [[KillEmAll Or any of them.]]]]

** The FateWorseThanDeath of [[spoiler:Nina Tucker]] followed some relatively lighthearted introductory chapters and served as a wake-up-call for both the audience and the main characters.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' had the deaths of [[spoiler: Portgas D. "Fire Fist" Ace]] and [[spoiler: Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate]] in the climax of the Paramount War. Up until then, One Piece got saddled with the term [[MemeticMutation "Nobody dies in One Piece"]].[[note]]Albeit with the "out of flashbacks" qualifier, since people often die in characters' backstories[[/note]] It has the added bonus of a literal gut punch, in the case of the former.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' starts off as a fairly lighthearted Disney film about a young African lion cub and his life in the Serengeti. [[spoiler: All that changes when King Mufasa is killed by his evil brother Scar, [[{{Gaslighting}} who convinces Simba to blame himself for it]], tries to have him killed, and then takes over Pride Rock and turns it into a tyrannical nightmare that Simba has to end.]]

** The Bombing of Narn in ''The Long Twilight Struggle''. The Narn-Centauri War had been mostly a background event at this point, important but not crucial to the overall MythArc. Then suddenly the war is over, the Centauri control Narn and have turned the aggressiveness UpToEleven, and once again, NothingIsTheSameAnymore.

* While ''Film/{{Balibo}}'' is never light-hearted, there is a fair amount of levity throughout the first half of the film and the Indonesian militsry's actions are kept offscreen for the most part. This all changes when Roger and José return to the village only to find it massacred by the military, including the children, for no reason whatsoever.

You've just been hit with the Gut Punch: the single moment when a work makes it abundantly clear that the gloves have come off. This is where you realize that playtime is over: PlotArmor has been switched off, the hero won't be getting up from that NoHoldsBarredBeatdown anytime soon, AnyoneCanDie, and [[TheBadGuyWins the bad guy winning]] has become a very real possibility. Maybe things go FromBadToWorse, maybe the story was always that dark and [[CrapsaccharineWorld just forgot to tell the audience]]. Either way, this is a clear indication that the creator has decided to get dangerous.

-->-- '''Creator/RogerEbert''', on ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968''.

* ''Anime/PsychoPass'' was dark from the start, being a show about a {{Dystopia}} controlled by [[BigBrotherIsWatching The Sibyl System]], which has made feeling any extreme emotion, mental illness or thinking differently from the masses illegal. The antagonists that the Ministry of Welfare and Public Safety Bureau took down already included all kinds of criminals from a suicidal rapist to a MadArtist who likes turning her victims' corpses into art. The show doesn't seem like it could get any darker, and then [[spoiler:after Shinya defeats [[SerialKiller Senguji]] [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame Toyohisa]] and saves Yuki, one of Akane's best friends, Shinya falls unconscious due to being shot. Sadly, [[BigBad Makishima]] appears at that moment and kidnaps Yuki and lures [[NaiveNewcomer Akane]] with her. Makishima gives Akane the chance to save Yuki, if Akane can shoot him with a shotgun. Akane tries to use the Dominator on him, a weapon which can only kill someone if the Sibyl System judges them as as mentally unstable or not pure of intention. It doesn't fire, as Makishima genuinely believes in his actions being normal and justified. Makishima gives Akane one more chance to shoot him, and Akane can't do it. Makishima then slits Yuki's throat, and after the next episode being a {{prequel}} episode, Makishima then proves to be more dangerous than all the other antagonists who only hurt or ended a few lives...Makishima aims to break down all society, and actually succeeds for at least a few weeks. Even after being caught, he escapes and continues upping the ante.]]

* This is a major part of the reason for the fame of ''Film/{{Psycho}}'''s iconic ShowerScene: not only did it immediately shift the film from a thriller about a couple on the run from the law into a prototype for the SlasherMovie, but it also communicated that no one was safe by [[spoiler: [[DeadStarWalking killing off the biggest name star in the film less than a third of the way through]]]]. This trick would later be repeated in the introduction of ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}''.

* While ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' has always been bleak, the gut punch moments have not stopped since mid-season 2 when [[spoiler: 11-year-old Sophia, who was lost in the woods, was revealed to be both dead and now a zombie. Rick is forced to gun her down while her mother screams nearby.]] Season 3 continues the trend with [[spoiler: Rick's pregnant wife Lori dying from a medieval c-section birth while her 12-year-old son screams and cries; he then has to shoot her dead body in the head so she won't turn into a zombie. Rick has a full blown mental break upon finding out, goes to find her body and discovers a zombie has eaten it.]] Rick [[spoiler: mercilessly kills a hotheaded prison inmate in a "three strikes and you're out" situation]] and The Governor deliberately [[spoiler: shoots Merle in the gut so he will turn into a zombie, shortly before his younger brother Daryl catches up to them and is forced to put down his only surviving family member]].

* ''[[VideoGame/TalesofTheAbyss Tales of the Abyss]]'' starts out as a typical cliche packed Shōnen adventure. Then, about a third of the way through the game, TheReveal occurs ([[spoiler:The main character is a replica, having been created for the express purpose of playing his original's role in fulfilling a prophecy in which he's manipulated into destroying an entire city]]) and we are subject to one of the most ''vicious'' examples of BreakTheHaughty ever seen in a game.

%% * The death of [[spoiler:Mona Sax]] in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 1'' and [[spoiler:again]] in ''2''.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' sets itself up with an especially bleak DarkFantasy setting from the get go, which makes the subdued, sudden and un-dramatic NPC deaths (typically at your hands following their turning [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Hollow]]) gradually easier to deal with, except for [[spoiler:[[KnightInShiningArmor Solaire]]'s]] descent into madness and despair. [[spoiler:The fact that the majority of players would not [[GuideDangIt know that it was avoidable]] until later adds to it.]]

* [[CrapsackWorld True to its setting]], ''VideoGame/TelltalesGameOfThrones'' starts out fairly dark with the deaths of the Lord of House Forrester and his eldest son, leaving teenage Ethan to take the reins of the gutted remains of his household and try to survive the obvious squeeze which House Bolton and its bannermen will be putting on those who had been loyal to House Stark. [[spoiler:And then [[AxCrazy Ramsay Snow]] stabs him through the neck, killing him at the end of the first episode.]] Things do not get better, to put it lightly.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam'' has the player character being framed as the cursed human of legend who's existence would cause natural disasters that will lay waste to the world. Most of the game's second half is spent on the run from former allies and other dangerous Pokémon.

* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' is an [[TastesLikeDiabetes almost unbearably cutesy and saccharine]] platformer [[spoiler: up until the beginning of level 4, which begins the parade SceneryGorn, regular {{Gorn}}, jump scares and more general-purpose terror that makes up the meat of the game.]]

** ''Film/MillionDollarBaby'' is a story of a waitress who wants to improve her life: she learns how to box and manages to achieve international fame up to fighting for world title [[spoiler:which leaves her a quadriplegic for the last third of the movie]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' is [[FromBadToWorse a never-ending string of these]], one after another, practically once a chapter, but you're probably not going to put the comic down and reexamine your lease on life, the world, and humanity until chapter six, when we learn in an interrogation why [[SociopathicHero Rorschach]] is so screwed up: [[spoiler:When he was a private detective for hire, he accepted a job to find a little girl who'd been kidnapped. When he tracked her kidnapper down, he searched the house and realized that the man had [[MoralEventHorizon killed her, chopped her body up, and fed her to his dogs.]] At that moment, Rorschach ''snapped'', killed the man's dogs, and, when he returned home, chained him up in the basement, poured kerosene everywhere, tossed the man [[LifeOrLimbDecision a hacksaw]], and [[KillItWithFire dropped a lit match.]]]] What exited the building [[ThatManIsDead was only Rorschach.]] From this point onward, the story stops being a superhero comic and becomes a violent tragedy with superheroes in it. It's so bleak and despair-inducing that it ruins the marriage of the psychologist interviewing Rorschach and basically [[DespairEventHorizon destroys all faith he had in humanity.]]