History Main / KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade

* ''[[Fanfic/AftermathOfTheGames Integration]]'': The three members of the Changeling mob who attempted to [[spoiler:kidnap Sci-Twi]] end up dead before they can be properly interrogated -- one hangs himself in his cell, one who was hospitalized by a GroinAttack after the event in question is given the "wrong" medicine, and the third is [[SuicideByCop killed while attempting to escape arrest]]. Everyone realizes this is too big a coincidence to actually be one.

* In ''Manhua/RavagesOfTime'', Xiao Meng -- formerly an assassin for the nearly-annihilated Sima clan -- attempts to avenge the clan by killing Cao Cao, the prime minister of the Han empire, Xiao Meng believing that the Sima clan heir Yi (yes [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms ''that'' Sima Yi]]) had since "capitulated" to Cao Cao and given up. Unfortunately, Sima Yi was merely hiding his own continued desire for revenge... a masquerade threatened by Xiao Meng's ''own'' desire for revenge, so to avert suspicion from himself [[spoiler:Sima Yi warned Cao Cao of the would-be assassination attempt and sends his "bedbug" [[TheDragon Jia Kui]] to incite Cao Cao's troops, condemning Xiao Meng to a brutally horrific death]] -- although ironically [[spoiler:a glimpse of the "bedbug" actually comforted Xiao Meng, who realized that Sima Yi had not in fact given up on vengeance after all]].

* Attempted in ''Fanfic/HowILostMyMother''; where Celestia was willing to imprison The Legion in stone forever at Discords' request [[spoiler:in order to hide the last trace of physical evidence from the public that [[RelatedInTheAdaptation Cozy Glow was actually Celestia's wrongfully-banished daughter]]]]. Keyword here being "[[ForWantOfANail attempted]]".

* ''[[Fanfic/AftermathOfTheGames Integration]]'': The three members of the Changeling mob who attempted to [[spoiler:kidnap Sci-Twi]] end up dead before they can be properly interrogated -- one hangs himself in his cell, one [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome who was hospitalized by a]] GroinAttack after the event in question is given the "wrong" medicine, and the third is [[SuicideByCop killed while attempting to escape arrest]]. Everyone realizes this is too big a coincidence to actually be one.

* The Volturi in ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'', Their main job is to destroy vampires who attract too much attention to themselves. It was mentioned that they wiped out every vampire in Mexico when the vampire civil war there got out of hand.

* ''Series/Forever2014'' features a strange case where someone is killed to uphold ''their own'' masquerade. Henry is immortal, whenever he dies his body disappears and he is reborn in a nearby body of water. In "The Frustrating Thing About Psychopaths", a serial killer [[spoiler: stabs Henry so he's bleeding out internally from a guaranteed fatal wound, then they both tumble down a flight of stairs and Henry winds up with a broken neck; the killer then [[AttackTheInjury stomps on Henry's broken spine]] for good measure. There is absolutely no way Henry could explain surviving this to Jo, who's upstairs. [[TheOlderImmortal Adam]] appears, and tells Henry he's doing him a favor before slitting his throat, killing him near-instantly before Jo gets that far in her search.]] Henry deduces by the cut to the throat that [[spoiler: Adam has killed people in this manner before]].

* ''Series/Forever2014'' features a strange case where someone is killed to uphold ''their own'' masquerade. Henry is immortal, whenever he dies his body disappears and he is reborn in a nearby body of water. In one episode, a serial killer gives him a fatal but slow-acting wound. With the cops closing in, fellow (and sociopathic) immortal Adam slits Henry's throat to kill him quickly and uphold both of their masquerades.

In a CrapsackWorld her death is pretty much guaranteed; good characters/[[PlayerCharacter players]] will probably agonize over this choice but [[IDidWhatIHadToDo ultimately do what they must]] and ShootTheDog. If the author wants to let the heroes off the hook, then VillainousRescue may come along and [[VillainsDoTheDirtyWork kill her for the heroes]] so they can avoid doing the deed, but not the guilt over having almost done it/strongly considered it. Often, this involves either faked suicide, suspicious accident, or messy murder.

* In ''Series/TwentyFour'' this happens a few times during season 5 [[spoiler:by the order of President Logan]]. There are a couple of subversions which include the attempts on the lives of Jack Bauer and [[spoiler:James Heller]] as they both survive.

* In the reimagined ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', [[spoiler:Cally Tyrol]] follows [[spoiler:her husband]] to discover a meeting of the four Cylons who live in secret in the fleet. [[spoiler:Tory Foster]] ensures that she won't live to tell anyone about it ... [[spoiler:Which comes back to haunt her a long time later …]] Interestingly, [[spoiler:Cally]] wasn't planning on telling anyone. She was about to [[ThrownOutTheAirlock step out the airlock]] with [[spoiler:her baby]]. [[spoiler:Tory]] appears to convince her they aren't evil, only to take [[spoiler:the baby]] and kill [[spoiler:Cally]]. To be fair-ish, [[spoiler:Cally]] was in the grips of postpartum depression and drug overuse, it's not unlikely she would have inadvertently revealed the secret or changed their mind. This ''was'' one of the characters who murders Cylon agents in cold blood out in the open.
* ''{{Series/Bitten}}'' has this as the job of the Pack. They kill anyone who threatens their existence and it was enforcing this rule which drove Elena away. It is later revealed that one of the reasons why Clay bit and turned Elena into a werewolf was because Jeremy thought that Elena saw him transform back into human form. Knowing that he could not stop Jeremy from killing Elena, Clay bit her instead hoping that against all odds Elena might survive the transformation. Elena actually saw nothing and for years thought that Clay acted for purely selfish reasons.
* In ''Series/Charmed1998'':

* In the second season of ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', James Doakes discovers Dexter's secret. Dexter keeps him locked in a cabin for several days while he deliberates on whether to kill him, [[VillainsDoTheDirtyWork only to have Lila do it for him]].
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]], Donna interviews a woman who is taking the Adipose pills. The woman goes to the bathroom and Donna absentmindedly twists the capsule that she took from Adipose Industries while waiting. We then see the woman fixing her makeup when something... odd happens. [[spoiler:She sees an Adipose pop out of her stomach into the sink. Back to Adipose Industries, where the unscheduled birth is recorded and it is easily decided to turn the entire woman into Adipose babies — just because she saw the Adipose. Not that they wouldn't have done it eventually anyway ...]]
* In ''Series/TheExpanse'', the crew of the Rocinante is put in this position when a medical crew, illegally entering Eros station, discover the [[ToxicPhlebotinum Protomolecule]]. Jim pleads with the crew not to broadcast this information, as it will lead to a system-wide war. [[spoiler: The medic in charge doesn’t back down, and the Roci is forced to open fire, killing them.]]
* ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'' features a strange case where someone is killed to uphold ''their own'' masquerade. Henry is immortal, whenever he dies his body disappears and he is reborn in a nearby body of water. In one episode, a serial killer gives him a fatal but slow-acting wound. With the cops closing in, fellow (and sociopathic) immortal Adam slits Henry's throat to kill him quickly and uphold both of their masquerades.
* ''Series/ForeverKnight''. Those few humans who witness vampire activity and prove resistant to posthypnotic suggestion are usually killed, but occasionally they become a SecretKeeper (such as Natalie and Tracy). Nick seems to have no problem showing his NightmareFace to the VillainOfTheWeek though; it's not clear if he hypnotises the survivors or just figures that no one will believe a perp who said his arresting officer had fangs and could fly. One episode also shows there's a vampire SecretPolice called Enforcers whose job it is to cover up such things, and they're willing to kill anyone (human or vampire) to do so.
* On ''Series/{{Haven}}'', a Boston cop, Tommy, comes to Haven to investigate the Bolt Gun Killer case and ends up stumbling into some of the Troubles. He ends up staying there as a detective. [[spoiler: It's revealed near the end of the season that the Bolt Gun Killer murdered him and stole his identity in the first episode he was introduced.]]
* In the third season finale of ''[[{{Series/Highlander}} Highlander: The Series]]'', the bitter widow of a murdered Watcher decides to out both Immortals and Watchers to the press. Joe goes to kill her but Duncan stops him, more for Joe's sake than hers. Kalas then conveniently kills both her and the newspaper editor she went to but tries to hold her evidence to ransom himself. Fortunately, Duncan manages to kill him and destroy the evidence in one fell swoop.
* Played with in the ''Series/JonathanCreek'' episode "The Curse of the Savant's Thumb". The apparently accidental death of a media personality turns out to be [[spoiler: the work of intelligence agents who think he has video evidence of the government inventing the weapons of mass destruction story to justify invading Iraq. Except he doesn't: It's just a rather po-faced comic sketch featuring a lookalike of UsefulNotes/TonyBlair. Whether there actually is anything to cover up is left vague.]]
* In ''{{Series/Moonlight}}'', a vampire (or possibly more than one) named the Cleaner has the job of covering up evidence of any vampire activity. Any vampire who threatens to expose them, either by carelessness or deliberately, is killed.

* This is threatened a lot on ''Series/OrphanBlack'', though it doesn't seem to actually happen often, due to the fact that [[spoiler:DYAD needs the clones alive and (at least somewhat) cooperative in order to continue the experiment.]]

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. Northern Lights, the organisation tasked by the US government with handling the Machine, kills the engineers [[ShootTheBuilder who built it]] and [[YouKnowTooMuch anyone else who finds out about]] the existence of an artificial superintelligence [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou illegally plugged into every surveillance and computer system in the country]]. This is shown to backfire on several occasions; John Reese and Sameen Shaw both ended up joining Team Machine after being set up to be killed by their superiors. They also arrange for Nathan Ingram (who originally designed the Machine with Harold Finch's secret help) to die in a terrorist bombing they allow to go ahead to stop him speaking to a reporter, even though his help would later be needed when the Machine goes rogue. The Machine is also shown categorising people as a THREAT TO ADMIN [[spoiler:but in the penultimate episode is shown to have recruited such people into Team Machines in other cities.]]

** A Season Eight episode has an entrepreneur salvage some wreckage from a fight between the Asgard and Goa'uld in Earth orbit, and produce an empty Asgard clone to the press. He ''was'' going to be killed by the shadowy conspiracy, but the SGC rescued him via Asgard beaming, sending him to explore other planets (which he was happy to do). Of course, his case for the existence of aliens was disproved.
*** This was mostly because his company went bankrupt, causing him to lose all credibility.

[[folder:Tabletop RPG]]
* In ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' this is part of both [[BenevolentConspiracy Firewall]] and [[TheMenInBlack Project Ozma's]] SOP when their existence is discovered by civilians. Of course, most people after The Fall have [[HeartDrive cortical stacks]] and [[BodyBackupDrive off-site backups]] so that usually doesn't kill them permanently, but so long as the stack is disposed of and their last backup wasn't too recent their next incarnation won't remember the masquerade breach, and might even be recruited later.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In the opening chapter of ''{{Webcomic/morphE}}'' the man with the glasses is killed by Amical after non-lethally losing the fight with Asia. Amical claims he would be better off dead than living in a world where he knew magic existed. He could easily have had the man brainwashed and sent on his way, but that's not as intimidating to his new students.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Shadownova}}'' the Everto do this a lot. One attack on a group of people who can see through the masquerade sets the entire plot in motion. Cameron, one of the Everto, then tries to make Iris, the only survivor, feel like it's her fault everyone had to be killed because she could see through the masquerade even though the ability to do so is completely involuntary.

* ''Creator/AllisonPregler'' in her ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' reviews notes that Season 8 Phoebe Halliwell is quite chatty about her status as a fugitive witch under a false identity in public spaces, and makes a joke that she probably blabs all that at random people who bump into her before murdering them to keep her cover.

* Averted in the [[WebOriginal/ProtectorsOfThePlotContinuum PPC]]. The offending characters are either [[EasyAmnesia neuralysed]] or recruited, depending on their importance to the main story of their continuum or how easily they would merge with canon.

* In the ''Franchise/ChildsPlay'' series, anyone who sees Chucky alive can be expected to die or otherwise be disposed off not long after, unless they're a main character.

* In the ''Franchise/ChildsPlay'' series, anyone who sees Chucky alive can expected to die or otherwise be disposed off not long after, unless they're a main character.

* In ''Fanfic/FateGenesis'', the [[Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Mage Association]] is perfectly willing to wipe entire ''cities'' in order to keep magecraft from leaking to the general population and in turn weakening their own power. The [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Holy Grail War]] is meant to be kept under wraps through a combination of the Association, Church, and the Masters working together, but [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Dr. Eggman's blatant attacks and Sonic the Hedgehog and company's efforts to stop him]] have pretty much [[BrokenMasquerade shattered the veil of secrecy]] as the military and police investigating Eggman are starting to figure out the strange things happening in Fuyuki both now [[Literature/FateZero and ten years ago]] with what little evidence [[HopelessWithTech the magi didn't scrub]]. Combined with Shirou and his allies fighting alongside Sonic and [[spoiler:[[TheCorruption The Shadow]] gaining a will of its own to start attacking people]], a ''lot'' of pressure is being put on, and Kirei, Rin, and Bazett are running themselves ragged trying to convince the Association not to nuke the city by pointing out the blatant threat of Eggman (and ironically enough, the military presence is biggest saving factor because wiping it out would likely start a [[FromBadToWorse war between Japan and Britain, which is the last thing the magi want]]).

* Attempted in ''FanFic/HowILostMyMother''; where Celestia was willing to imprison The Legion in stone forever at Discords' request [[spoiler:in order to hide the last trace of physical evidence from the public that [[RelatedInTheAdaptation Cozy Glow was actually Celestias' wrongfully-banished daughter]].]] Keyword here being "[[ForWantOfANail attempted]]".

* ''FanFic/TriptychContinuum'': It never happens on-screen, but every earth pony is taught the stories of those who threatened to reveal the Secret... and were killed to ''keep'' it a Secret. (Applejack realizes some of the stories are probably just that: scare tactics to get younglings in line -- but over the course of Equestria's history, having at least one fatality would seem to be guaranteed.)

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': A number of nations, organizations and {{MegaCorp}}s of the Sixth World have secrets they are willing to kill to protect, and any reporter, whistleblower or shadowrunner who uncovers or reveals them will end up suffering tragic deaths with various amounts of overkill, depending on how credible they would be. A common twist in higher-level play is for the {{Player Character}}s discovering this info as part of a run, in which case the question becomes what they can do to avoid being forcefully shut up.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': A number of nations, organizations and MegaCorps of the Sixth World have secrets they are willing to kill to protect, and any reporter, whistleblower or shadowrunner who uncovers or reveals them will end up suffering tragic deaths with various amounts of overkill, depending on how credible they would be. A common twist in higher-level play is for the {{Player Character}}s discovering this info as part of a run, in which case the question becomes what they can do to avoid being forcefully shut up.

* Attempted in ''FanFic/HowILostMyMother''; where Celestia was willing to imprison The Legion in stone forever at Discords' request [[spoiler:in order to hide the last trace of physical evidence from the public that Cozy Glow was actually Celestias' daughter. Keyword here being "[[ForWantOfANail attempted]]".]]