History Main / SecondLawOfMetafictionalThermodynamics

* In relation to the comics above, ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' is an exception. In the comics, it's a rare, rare person who escapes the attentions of ComicBook/TheJoker alive, much less un-maimed. In the movie, many do so, even cops who are usually the first to go. ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' and ''Film/BatmanBegins'' seem to be working very hard to present Batman and his world in a '[[{{Demythification}} realistic]]' setting. In a superheroic setting where the main characters are far more powerful and capable than normal humans, ComicBook/TheJoker can go omnicidal easily enough. But when you present Joker as a 'realistic' psycho, he's more limited.

* [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]] comics seemed to go through a period when blowing up or wrecking cities, or killing off characters, was the flavor of the decade. Especially [[Franchise/TheDCU DC]] with its Coast City debacle, Gotham City's "No Man's Land", and three-quarters of Metropolis being wrecked. And Montevideo (wonder how the real city took the news?). The capital of Nebraska gets nuked by an alien thingy, with the aftereffects blowing over half of Smallville. They seemed to be reverting to this again around ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' with several [[ThrowAwayCountry throw-away countries]] being violently depopulated and Bludhaven drowning in toxic chemicals/going boom.

* CloningBlues

-->-- '''Creator/TomSka''', on ''WebAnimation/asdfmovie''

-> ''Oh yeah, [=ASDFMovie=] 7 was the one where all the suicide jokes show up. Because.... I started suffering with mental health issues.''
-->-- '''Creator/TomSka''', on ''WebAnimation/ASDFMovie''

* Anything not critical (anymore) to the plot in ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' blows up. The spacecraft visits MIR for refueling? It blows up right after they're done. There are 2 spacecrafts? One crashes. The drill of the crashed spacecraft survives? The one from the other spacecraft blows up.

* Narrowly averted by ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind''... kind of. It certainly has the most brutal deaths and hero in the manga, but there was a plot point that Hirohiko Araki scrapped. [[spoiler:During the mid-way point of the story, Fugo would not leave, but would instead stay as a mole in Bucciarati's group. Eventually, he would be outed and fought against, with Giorno giving himself immunity to Fugo's Purple Haze presumably being a ChekovsGun that would allow him to fight Fugo more directly than the others.]] However, Araki decided against this, as he was well aware that he was in a bad mental state and that this would be too much. [[spoiler:As such, he simply wrote him out of the story instead, with Fugo staying behind out of fear that going against the boss would spell everybody's deaths, with his ultimate fate staying ambiguous in the manga.]]

Unfortunately, writers cannot destroy all their fictional creations without ruining the story. Some of those creations have ContractualImmortality. Even when they don't, killing characters off or nuking cities can change the flow of a story in rather unfortunate ways. And [[KillEmAll destroying everything]] means there's no more story, and thus no more paychecks for the writer.

* KillEmAll

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is actually famous for its CreatorBreakdown and subsequent [[spoiler: KillEmAll ending]]. It's a great example of this trope even before the ending, with more and more damage being done to Tokyo 3 and the cast each passing episode. This could also be tied to Creator/HideakiAnno's building depression.

** Infinity Gauntlet was an example of the reset button. ComicBook/IronMan loses his head, ComicBook/SpiderMan's head is crushed, [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]] is turned to stone, half the universe suddenly dies, etc.

* StuffedIntoTheFridge

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Granted, the point of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft "Turn Left"]] is to show how hopeless Earth would be in a timeline without the Doctor, but come on. The characters from ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' or ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' have plenty of PlotArmour on their own shows, but as soon as they're thrown into an alternate timeline, the writers can't help but kill off those entire casts.
* It becomes clear that there are so many people with abilities in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' so that the writers have lots of cool people to kill off in shocking ways. They take it one step further with their alternate futures where something is always about to be blown up, a virus will kill everyone, or some other cataclysm will take place, but thanks to the ResetButton, it never comes to pass. This of course allows for more alternate timelines to be created and averted.

* Every AlternateUniverse episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', most prominently in "There But For The Grace Of God," in which all main characters bar Daniel Jackson are killed and the Earth is taken over by Apophis and 2010 in which all main characters are killed and 90% of Earth's population has been sterilized by an alien race that plans to make them slaves.

** For this and many other disasters, the regular Marvel Universe has 'Damage Control', a company that can apparently rebuild entire cities just by ... um ... being awesome. Or something. Don't look too closely.

* In relation to the comics above, ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' is an exception. In the comics, it's a rare, rare person who escapes the attentions of ComicBook/TheJoker alive, much less un-maimed. In the movie, many do so, even cops who are usually the first to go. ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' and ''Film/BatmanBegins'' seem to be working very hard to present Batman and his world in a '[[{{Demythtification}} realistic]]' setting. In a superheroic setting where the main characters are far more powerful and capable than normal humans, ComicBook/TheJoker can go omnicidal easily enough. But when you present Joker as a 'realistic' psycho, he's more limited.

** ComicBook/UltimateMarvel has had ''millions'' killed by the various {{alien invasion}}s (especially the worldwide mass suicides during Ultimate Galactus), Magneto's Brotherhood attacks, Proteus' RealityWarper rampage, and the Liberators' brief conquest of the United States.

** Early in ''ComicBook/SecretWars'', the Beyonder destroys everything in a galaxy except for one star.

* One of the earliest scenes in the first ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel, ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic,'' had the main characters accidentally burn down the city of Ankh-Morpork. Pratchett later talked about how this would be impossible to do subsequently, what with all the main characters, side-characters and even just general culture that sprang up in the forty-odd books since.

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* The intro sequence of ''Series/SevenDays'' (where the entire plot -is- the ResetButton) uses a shot of missiles striking the White House. That was in the pilot episode, and things only get more dangerous from there.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' liked to end seasons this way once a particular set became expendable: See Sunnydale High, the Initiative, to a lesser extent The Magic Box, and in the series finale the entire city of Sunnydale.
** Story-wise, the entire city was designed so expendable humans could be safely eaten.
* Granted, the point of ''Series/DoctorWho'''s "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft Turn Left]]" is to show how hopeless Earth would be in a timeline without the Doctor, but come on. The characters from ''Torchwood'' or ''The Sarah Jane Adventures'' have plenty of PlotArmor on their own shows, but as soon as they're thrown into an alternate timeline, the writers can't help but kill off those entire casts.

* Anything not critical (anymore) to the plot in ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' blows up. The spacecraft visit MIR for refueling; It blows up right after they're done. There are 2 spacecrafts; One crashes. The drill of the crashed spacecraft survives; The one from the other spacecraft blows up.
* ''Film/RogueOne'' heartily subscribes to the mentality that "anything that can be expended, will be expended." As such, most unnamed characters, whether they're rebels or a stormtroopers, are killed in droves, often by violent explosives or waves of gunfire. And further than that, [[spoiler:nearly everything new to this movie is destroyed; Jedha city, the Scarif base, the entire Rogue One crew, Orson Krennic, the Erso family, Saw Gererra, and all of Green Squadron, are all gone while the characters from ''A New Hope'' and on are safe because they have to be.]]

* E M Dutch does this in ''Literature/AnotherDayAnotherNightmare''. Every time she reached a plot hole, or suffered from writers' block, she killed someone off. In increasingly imaginative ways, including a flock of exploding pink [[strike:budgies]] parakeets. I really wish I was kidding. Apparently, the (as yet unpublished) sequel(s) contains more of the same, to the extent that the author has stated she can't write another in the series because everyone with unresolved plot has already been killed off...

* It becomes clear that there are so many people with abilities in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' so that the writers have lots of cool people to kill off in shocking ways. They take it one step further with their alternate futures where something is always about to be blown-up, a virus will kill everyone, or some other cataclysm will take place, but thanks to the ResetButton, it never comes to pass. This of course allows for more alternate timelines to be created and averted.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'', anything that touches Master Shake and then a surface (wall, ceiling, or floor) will explode. [[ConvectionSchmonvection With no effects on anything around it]]. [[EpilepticTrees Fans often speculate that this is Shake's superpower]]. Fortunately (for Meat Wad at least), neither Shake nor anybody else seem to really notice this effect.