History Main / SpitefulSuicide

* The Japanese samurai [[HonorBeforeReason focus on honorable lives and honorable ends]] led to ''{{seppuku}}'' being viewed as an acceptable alternative to an ignoble fate, such as living in defeat. However, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsunaga_Hisahide Matsunaga Hisahide]] managed to turn the act into one of spite when, after his defeat by UsefulNotes/OdaNobunaga at the siege of Shigisan Castle, he committed suicide to [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled deny Nobunaga the gratification of having him executed]]. On top of this, Hisahide destroyed a priceless antique teapot he owned which Nobunaga greatly coveted ''and'' had his son destroy his head so Nobunaga wouldn't even be able to claim it as a prize. Finally, his castle was somehow burned to the ground, so Nobunaga wouldn't even get ''that''.
* Supposedly the founder of ''Website/SomethingAwful'', Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka, committed suicide to avoid paying alimony to his ex-wife.

%% * ''Anime/CodeGeass:'' Lelouch threatens to do this if CC doesn't let him attack Cornelia in s1e7, who is trying to lure out his alter ego Zero after he killed her brother Claudius and defeated the Brittanian army at Shinjiku. He justifies this on the spot by stating he was dead before CC gave him his power (due to the inability to achieve his goals, though he stated he intended to strive to achieve them before gaining the power anyway), and to die would be to revert to that state (which he wouldn't mind if he cannot achieve his goals of destroying Brittania, avenging his mother's death and building a better world for his sister to live in, since it would revert things to the previous status quo, he sees no point in living ). This occurs after CC threatens to shoot him in the leg to prevent him from doing it since CC needs him alive to fulfill the "contract“ they made (the same one through which he gained his power). She relents, partially because she believes he would go through with it, and partially because she sympathises with him for having lived a life without a purpose, whitch is elaborated much later on. In the end, Cornelia out-gambits him and CC saves him from a close call, proving his overconfidence and cockiness wrong.
%%

* ''Film/TheWaterMargin'', another Shaw Brothers output, ends with the BigGood fighting his EvilFormerFriend-turned-BigBad. The latter gets defeated, and chose to end his own life rather than admit defeat.

* In the film version of ''Literature/{{Holes}}'', "[[KissOfDeath Kissing Kate]]" Barlow is cornered by Trout and Linda Walker, who demand to know where she buried her treasure. She gives the two a DyingCurse before allowing a [[KillerRabbit yellow-spotted lizard]] to bite her, instantly killing her with its venom.

* ''[[VideoGame/FatalFury Real Bout Fatal Fury]]'': In Terry and Andy’s endings, [[BigBad Geese]] [[TheRival Howard]] is accidentally knocked off his tower during the ensuing FinalBoss battle. Terry or Andy try to save him by grabbing his arm, but Geese refuses, wrestling himself free from their grasps and proceeding to [[EvilLaugh laugh at the Bogards the whole way down]]. The story canon, where the brother that did the deed was Terry, actually doubled the spite: Geese has a neglected son with the name Rock, and he also killed the Bogard family patriarch Jeff, orphaning Terry and Andy. By putting Geese in a position to choose death, he aimed to get the last laugh beyond his death by burdening Terry with the guilt of orphaning Geese's son the same way he orphaned Terry.

As this is a [[DeathTropes death trope]], all spoilers will be unmarked.

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': After Peggy rips into him with a vicious TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about how he's a miserable, evil old man living in a hell of his own making and how [[CruelMercy she hopes he lives forever just to suffer more]], [[spoiler:Cotton]] just says "Do ya now?", then promptly ''wills himself into dying from his wounds'' just to spite his [[spoiler:daughter-in-law]] one last time.

Often done as part of a ThanatosGambit. Compare and contrast BetterToDieThanBeKilled, which may overlap with this trope if it occurs as a matter of pride. This can be one of the reasons why characters believe SuicideIsShameful.

Can overlap with SuicideNotMurder if the character kills themselves in order to frame someone they hate. Subtrope of SelfDisposingVillain.

* At one point in ''Videogame/{{Arcanum}}'', the player character is asked to investigate the death of Wrath, an insane elf wizard who died after drinking from a poisoned wine glass. If you investigate thoroughly enough, you can conclude that Wrath was jealous of Sharpe the apothecary for his happy relationship with Ivory, and decided to [[InvertedTrope invert]] MurderTheHypotenuse by committing suicide in a manner which he hoped would get Sharpe framed for murder.

* ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'': The Gung Ho Guns were created with the express purpose of making Vash suffer, as he was taught that [[ThouShallNotKill all life was precious]], even those that are utterly immoral to boot. A good chunk of them is NotAfraidToDie and more than willing to kill themselves when defeated. Probably the most notable being TheDragon of the bunch, Legoto Bluesummers, who goes out via SuicideByCop explicitly to prove Vash's TechnicalPacifist ideals are wrong by threatening to kill Milly and Merryl if Vash doesn't kill him instead.

->''"Hmm, I feel that they have finally summoned the dragon. Would be a ''reeeeeeal'' dick move to die right now... ''hruuurgh!''"''
-->-- '''Super Kami Guru''', ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged''

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': At the end of the Deidara vs Sasuke fight, the former chooses to use a DangerousForbiddenTechnique: [[SuicideAttack turning himself into a high yield bomb]]. Not necessarily to kill Sasuke, mind you, but just to spite him because he didn't take Deidara's "art" (of explosions) seriously.

* ''VisualNovel/YourTurnToDie'': Occurs near the end of the second Main Game. When faced with the idea that one of the gamemasters, Gashu, has tampered with the game, the players attempt to prove it and expose it as a transgression for the chance to retry the Main Game in 24 hours. Then, Gashu reminds them of the rule and it says that if misconduct is found, the Main Game must be retried in 24 hours... ''or'' proceed with the transgressor's death. [[EvilIsPetty Gashu shoots himself in the head just as they find this out, ripping away their last hope to save everyone from a less than ideal situation.]]

* A deleted scene from ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'' reveals that Zira was going to do this to Kiara. After Zira gets stuck hanging precariously from the edge of a cliff over a raging flood beneath her, Kiara offers to give her another chance at fixing her life by making peace with Simba and the reformed outlanders ([[HeelFaceTurn who had just turned on Zira]] [[NotSoDifferentRemark after a speech Kiara had given earlier]]). Zira however, [[MonsterFanGirl being a devoted follower of Scar]], chose death over peace, and lets herself fall to her death, all with a smile on her face.

%% * ''Anime/CodeGeass:''Lelouch thretens to do this if CC doesn't let him attack Cornelia in s1e7, who is trying to lure out his alter ego Zero after he killed her brother Claudius and defeated the Brittanian army at Shinjiku. He justifies this on the spot by stating he was dead before CC gave him his power (due to the inability to achieve his goals, though he stated he intended to strive to achieve them before gaining the power anyway), and to die would be to revert to that state (witch he wouldn't mind if he cannot achieve his goals of destroying Brittania, avenging his mother's death and building a better world for his sister to live in, since it would revert things to the previous status quo, he sees no point in living ) . This occurs after CC thretens to shoot him in the leg to prevent him from doing it, since CC needs him alive to fufill the „contract“ they made ( the same one through whitch he gained his power). She relents, partially because she believes he would go through with it, and partially because she sympathises with him for having lived a life without a purpose, whitch is elaborated much later on. In the end Cornelia outgambitts him and CC saves him from a close call, proving his overconfidence and cockiness wrong.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': In the end of the Deidara vs Sasuke fight, the former chooses to use a DangerousForbiddenTechnique: [[SuicideAttack turning himself into a high yield bomb]]. Not necessarily to kill Sasuke, mind you, but just to spite him because he didn't take Deidara's "art" (of explosions) seriously.

* This is a WhatCouldHaveBeen for ''Film/FatalAttraction''. Glenn Close, the {{Yandere}}, kills herself with a knife which has Michael Douglas' fingerprints on it to frame him. Test audiences didn't like it, as it would have made Glenn too much of a KarmaHoudini.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'', a man is investigated for the murder of his wife, who was found chained to their bed and force fed two tubes of fluoride toothpaste. At the end, it's revealed that she tried to frame her husband for murder, and when the evidence is presented, the husband says that he was a successful real estate banker that lost everything when the recession hit. Having practically no money at all and swimming in debt, they couldn't afford to get a divorce and were stuck living together in a house they couldn't sell.

* In the ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' episode "Ham Radio", Frasier has organised an old-fashioned murder mystery radio drama, broadcast live and starring himself, which quickly goes OffTheRails due to unforseen problems with the rest of the cast.. Niles, who has been roped into playing multiple characters, finally brings the whole thing to an end by having one of his characters grab the gun, kill all the other characters, and finally shoot himself specifically to prevent Frasier's detective from ever figuring out what his motive was.
-->'''Niles''': And of course, one final bullet for myself, so that the mystery will die with me. Ha.

* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', Dutch is cornered by John Marston. Rather then let Marston capture him, Dutch jumps off the edge of a cliff so that Marston and Ross can't take him in. Downplayed in that he also expresses remorse for all the terrible things that he's done before jumping, so it was as much an act of despair as it was of spite.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has Lone Wolf, a thief who the party chases down in Narshe. At the end of the chase, he takes a moogle hostage... who turns out to be too wild for him to keep a handle on. The result is both him and the moogle hanging off a cliff. The party is then left with the choice of rescuing him to get the Gold Hairpin he has (which halves MP-usage), or the moogle. Saving the moogle prompts Lone Wolf to throw himself off the cliff he's on in a straight-forward demonstration of this trope to prevent you getting the Gold Hairpin from him. [[note]][[SubvertedTrope It's subverted]], however, in that you see him, apparently alive and well, once you revisit Narshe, which has all but become a monster-infested GhostTown, late in the game, in which he meets the party right at the entrance to inform the party members of the status of Narshe before leaving, [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse never to be seen or heard from again]].[[/note]]

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* ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'': During the [[KarmaMeter High Chaos]] finale, [[spoiler:Overseer Martin will try to shoot himself purely to deny Corvo the satisfaction of killing him. Depending on your reflexes, he may well succeed.]]

* ''Webcomic/CyanideAndHappiness'': In one strip, a death row inmate receives his last meal in the form of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from a prison guard, the latter expressing his desire to personally execute an irredeemable criminal. But the inmate gleefully reveals that he has a peanut allergy, basically committing suicide by peanut butter on the spot [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled just to spite the guard]].

* Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar: Shin is not in the least bit scared of dying after being beaten by Kenshiro. However, he'd much rather throw himself of the palace walls, than "die to an inferior technique." He falls to his death laughing, as Kenshiro calls out his name in vain.

* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', Dutch is cornered by John Marston. Rather then let Marston capture him, Dutch jumps off the edge of a cliff so that Marston and Ross can't take him in.

** In the second season of the anime, [[spoiler: Peter Ratri does this as well, choosing death over accepting Emma and the others' forgiveness. This is AdaptationalVillainy when compared to the manga, where he kills himself out of [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone genuine remorse for his misdeeds.]]]

* A deleted scene from ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'' reveals that Zira was going to do this to Kiara. After Zira gets stuck hanging precariously from the edge of a cliff over a raging flood beneath her, Kiara offers to give her another chance at fixing her life by making peace with Simba and the reformed outlanders ([[HeelFaceTurn who had just turned on Zira]] [[NotSoDifferent after a speech Kiara had given earlier]]). Zira however, [[MonsterFanGirl being a devoted follower of Scar]], chose death over peace, and lets herself fall to her death, all with a smile on her face.

* ''Fanfic/JauneArcLordOfHunger'': In "Death", faced with the prospect of having her mind enslaved by [[spoiler:Darth Nihilus]], [[spoiler:Cinder]] stabs herself in the throat to avoid becoming his SlaveMook as well as denying him access to the [[spoiler:Fall Maiden's powers]], making everything he did in this chapter [[AllForNothing completely meaningless]].

* In the ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' episode "Ham Radio", Frasier has organised an old-fashioned murder mystery radio drama, broadcast live and starring himself, which quickly goes OffTheRails due to unforseen problems with the rest of the cast.. Niles, who has been roped into playing a dozen characters, finally brings the whole thing to an end by having one of his characters grab the gun, kill all the other characters, and finally shoot himself specifically to prevent Frasier's detective from ever figuring out what his motive was.