History Main / SpitefulSuicide

Note that, while there have been several high profile examples of this trope being carried out in reality, this trope [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement by its very nature is highly controversial]], so Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease

Note that, while there have been several high profile examples of this trope being carried out in reality, this trope [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement by its very nature is highly controversial]], so NoRealLifeExamplesPlease.

* ''VideoGame/GhostofTsushima'': In the "Tales of Lady Masako", Lady Hana, Masako's older sister, kills herself as a final act of spite against Masako, telling her that now she had nothing to live for, since with her death her quest for revenge was over due to Hana being the one who killed her family.

* ''VideoGame/GhostofTsushima'': In the ''Tales of Lady Masako'', Lady Hana, Masako's older sister, kills herself as a final act of spite against Masako, telling her that now she had nothing to live for, since with her death her quest for revenge was over due to Hana being the one who killed her family.

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

%%* ''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, which is elaborated on much later on. In the end, Cornelia out-gambits him and CC saves him from a close call, proving his overconfidence and cockiness wrong.
* Ragyo in ''Anime/KillLaKill'' takes her own life rather than surrendering to the humans she looked down on after Ryuko defeats her, pulling out her own Life-Fiber infused heart and crushing it while promising that the Life Fibers will return someday. A single life fiber strand floats off into space.
* In ''Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess2016'', [[spoiler:after losing his final duel against Link and taking a mortal wound from the Master Sword, Ganondorf simply deactivates his Triforce of Power to die on his own terms, reasoning that some version of him will appear to torment Hyrule anyway]].

** 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.]]]]

* ''Manga/FullMetalAlchemist'': [[spoiler:Envy]] commits suicide by ripping out his own philosophers stone rather then [[DontYouDarePityMe live with the knowledge that his enemies pity him]].
* ''[[Manwha/IllRaiseYouWellInThisLifeYourMajesty I'll Raise You Well in This Life, Your Majesty!]]'': The series opens with this, as Empress Consort Ellisa's attempts to secure the throne for her son Leon only make him resentful of his mother to the point that he commits suicide in front of her. Leon deliberately does so only ''after'' she has succeeded at putting him on the throne, what he calls the happiest day of his mother's life, for the express purpose of making her efforts AllForNothing. When Ellisa finds herself in the past, back when Leon was still a sweet little boy, she resolves to make up for her prior misdeeds by raising her son to be happy instead of powerful.

* ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns'': After Batman nearly breaks Joker's neck, Joker finishes the job himself after the only witnesses have fled, [[ThanatosGambit leaving Batman to be accused of murder]].
* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'': At the climax of ''Ends Of The Earth'', [[spoiler:Rhino deliberately drowns himself [[TakingYouWithMe and Silver Sable]] to spite Spider-Man, knowing his GuiltComplex will make him blame himself for their deaths.]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder: Film]]

* 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]] 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.

* ''Film/TheDevilsAdvocate'' - [[AmoralAttorney Kevin]] choses to shoot himself rather than join [[TheDevil his father]] in his unholy crusade and conceive TheAntichrist [[VillainousIncest with his own sister]].

* The Literature/HerculePoirot story "Wasp's Nest" has a man named Harrison plot to destroy a romantic rival's life by committing suicide and making it look like a murder (Harrison has terminal cancer anyway). Fortunately, over the course of a conversation with him (having anticipated the plot), Poirot is able to switch out the poison with baking soda, ending with the would-be murderer tearfully thanking Poirot.
* In the film version of ''Literature/{{Holes}}'', "[[KissOfDeath Kissin' 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.
-->'''Kate:''' You, your children, and your children's children will dig for the next one hundred years and you will never find it. Start digging, Trout.

* A similar scenario to "Thor Bridge" is considered as a possible solution to the mystery in ''Literature/TheLawAndTheLady'' -- that Sara Macallan killed herself and framed her husband for the murder.
* Margaret Allingham's Literature/AlbertCampion novel ''Police at the Funeral'' takes this to an extreme, with the solution that the first victim not only killed himself in such a way as to fake it as murder and disrupt his family's lives with an investigation, but also filled the house they all shared with booby traps that killed or injured several of them.
* In G K Chesterton's Literature/FatherBrown story "The Strange Crime of John Boulnois", a man commits suicide and makes a crude attempt to frame another man, purely out of rage that the targeted man [[UnknownRival failed to notice that he was trying to anger him]].

* ''Series/CSIMiami'': In the episode "Whacked" a condemned prisoner gets a stay of execution when key evidence used in his conviction is thrown out on appeal. After Horatio and the team still prove his guilt through other evidence, the prisoner requests a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as his last meal. He then dies of anaphylactic shock in his cell, as he was deathly allergic to peanuts.

* ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' pretty much ends this way. Masamune/Kamen Rider Cronus, the BigBad, has [[AGodAmI a god complex]] that causes him to think only he gets to judge and decide people's life. After he is defeated in the final battle, he decided to kill himself so that others cannot judge him for his crimes, even implying his suicide as him judging himself to be "free".
* This is the motivation for the killer in one episode of ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'': The killer works at a dating agency and begins targeting men who dated a specific woman, murdering them in ways that look like suicides. Once caught she reveals that this is because of her ex-husband. After their divorce he was forced to take out a life insurance policy with her as the beneficiary when he learns about the incontestable clause; the insurance company can refuse to pay out if certain conditions are met, including the subject committing suicide within the first two years, prompting him to wait until the two years have almost paused and then killed himself, just to deny his ex-wife the payout. The killer then committed a series of lookalike killings in hope of getting her husband's suicide declared a murder, at which point the insurance company would have to pay out [[note]]For the record, the reason she was targeting men who'd dated the specific woman, aside from her having dated her ex-husband, was because she had an Ex-boyfriend who assaulted anyone who tried to date her, and thus was a useful scapegoat for the murders [[/note]].
* The ''Series/Charmed1998'' episode "Sin Francisco" deals with this trope. A demon infects people around San Francisco with concentrated representations of the SevenDeadlySins; when the Charmed Ones and Leo try to stop him, he zaps the four of them with a sin each. [[TheLeader Prue]] is infected with {{Pride}}, which manifests as her natural headstrong attitude becoming increasingly worse until she's deliberately putting herself in dangerous situations. Towards the end of the episode, the demon captures Prue and plans to throw her into a swirling vortex that will lead straight to Hell...only for her to jump ''herself'' while declaring "You lose, I win!" Thankfully, the others (now sin-free) show up, and while Phoebe and Piper vanquish the demon, Leo manages to save Prue. The trope is then [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] when he, Phoebe, and Piper reveal how they cured themselves of their own afflictions: by committing truly selfless acts. Prue protests that her attempted suicide would have saved the whole city and thus should have counted, but her sisters realize that the ''real'' motivation for said attempt was just to spite the demon and make herself look good, thus negating its potential selflessness.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' has Sherlock and Watson investigating what seems to be an open-and-shut murder case, only to discover the victim actually killed herself in such a way as to [[FramingTheGuiltyParty frame]] the man [[ConvictedByPublicOpinion she believed]] murdered her sister. [[spoiler:It turns out that [[ProperlyParanoid she was actually right about the man she was trying to frame]], even if the attempted framing was fairly inept. All it accomplishes is getting Sherlock onto the killer's trail.]]

* 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 unforeseen 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.''

* Music/EltonJohn's "I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself" uses this as a BlackComedy satire of teenagers with FirstWorldProblems.

-->''I guess this is our last goodbye''
-->''But you don't care, so I won't cry''
-->''And you'll be sorry when I'm dead''
-->''And all this guilt will be on your head''
-->''I guess you could call it suicide''
-->''But I'm too full to swallow my pride''

* In Myth/ClassicalMythology, Hippolytus upsets Aphrodite by becoming a disciple of Artemis and swearing off relationships, so she curses his stepmother Phaedra to fall madly in love with him. When he rejects her advances, some versions of the myth have Phaedra commit suicide and use her suicide note to [[FalseRapeAccusation frame Hippolytus for raping her.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}}'' 2: At the end of his boss battle, Colonel Radec shoots himself in the head to deny the main characters the satisfaction of killing him.
* ''VideoGame/Uncharted2'': Flynn betrays Drake at the start of the game and works with the BigBad Lazarevic for most of the plot. At the end, Lazarevic pulls a YouHaveFailedMe and mortally wounds him. When the protagonists run into him afterward, they try to help. But, being an utterly prideful dick, he refuses their aid and opts to try and kill them with a grenade, taking his own life just to satisfy some shred of his ego.

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3 Citadel'', the ArcVillain, [[spoiler: Shepard's clone]], will opt to [[DisneyVillainDeath fall to their death]] rather than let Paragon Shepard save them because the alternative is admitting that Shepard is better than they are.
* ''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 straightforward 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]]
* ''[[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 tries 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.
* ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'': During the [[KarmaMeter High Chaos]] finale, Overseer Martin will try to shoot himself to deny Corvo the satisfaction of killing him. A short while later, Admiral Havelock does something similar by leaping from the top of the lighthouse, but he attempts to bring Emily Kaldwin, the imperial heiress and Corvo's {{Protectorate}}, with him. Failing to save Emily results in the game's [[DownerEnding darkest ending]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Indivisible}}'': After the heroes defeat [[FallenHero Garuda Cruel]], he spitefully [[SelfDestructMechanism blows himself up]] rather than let them deal the killing blow.
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'': Once [[KnightInShiningArmor Oersted]] saves [[DamselInDistress Princess Alethea]] at the end of the eighth chapter, she renders his efforts to save her utterly pointless by declaring her love for his rival Streibough, the man who ruined his life, and kills herself in front of him. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero This ends up being the last straw that drives Oersted to become]] [[BigBad Odio]].
* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': Once [[BigBad Shido]] realizes that the Phantom Thieves have stolen his mental treasure to [[HeelFaceBrainwashing change his heart]] so he confesses his crimes, he takes a suicide pill that his Metaverse researchers developed to purge the Thieves from his Palace, making sure they die in there. He would rather die with the knowledge that he killed the people trying to stop him rather than let his heart be changed to confess his crimes. Thankfully, it doesn't work. The Thieves survive and his heart is changed.

* Played with in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'' in that it's a {{Jerkass}} screwing with everyone to save them. Kokichi disables the hidden cameras monitoring everyone and forces Kaito to murder him in a press and then hide in an Exisal so that the killer and victim cannot be determined. During the trial, Kaito impersonates Kokichi to further obfuscate his identity and complicate things. The entire point of it was to make the case impossible to solve while simultaneously ensuring Monokuma could not judge it fairly, thereby ending the killing game. While it's possible he was lying, Kokichi stated his reason for doing so was because he hated the killing game and especially the audience watching it, so he wanted to ruin it for everyone.

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': After the hospitalized [[spoiler:Cotton]] repeatedly fakes his death by slowing his heart to the point of flatlining the monitor, purely for the sake of {{troll}}ing everyone to came to visit him, 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 so he can suffer more]]. [[spoiler:Cotton]] just says "Do ya now?", then promptly forces himself to die for real, just to spite his [[spoiler:daughter-in-law]] one last time.

* ''[[Manwha/IllRaiseYouWellInThisLifeYourMajesty I'll Raise You Well in This Life, Your Majesty!]]: The series opens with this, as Empress Consort Ellisa's attempts to secure the throne for her son Leon only make him resentful of his mother to the point that he commits suicide in front of her. Leon deliberately does so only ''after'' she has succeeded at putting him on the throne, what he calls the happiest day of his mother's life, for the express purpose of making her efforts AllForNothing. When Ellisa finds herself in the past, back when Leon was still a sweet little boy, she resolves to make up for her prior misdeeds by raising her son to be happy instead of powerful.

* ''Manga/ThePromisedNeverland'': Ray's original plan to help Norman and Emma escape the [[PeopleFarms orphanage]] was to [[HeroicSacrifice burn himself alive as a distraction]] the night before he would be eaten by the demons. He spent his entire life building himself up as the most valuable product that would only be eaten by the demon leadership. Burning himself would destroy all of his value and Norman and Emma's escape meant there would be no replacement. He could have come up with any other plan but chose this one because it screwed over everyone involved in the orphanage. Thankfully, [[TheSmartGuy Norman]] figured out Ray's plan and came up with a new one that only required faking his SelfImmolation and allowed all the kids over four to escape.

[[folder:RealLife]]
* Perhaps the UrExample, Cato the Younger killed himself to deny Julius Caesar the satisfaction of capturing him. To clarify, Cato did not fear what would happen to him upon capture, as he was aware Caesar intended to show mercy, but he refused to live under an obligation to his enemy. This episode in history gives us the expression, "the pride of Cato".
* Hermann Goering committed suicide in his jail cell after he was sentenced to death in the Nuremberg Trials. While suicides were rampant throughout Nazi Germany right before and after it collapsed, Goering was doing it mostly out of spite for being denied a military-style execution, hanging being reserved for common criminals.
* Japanese samurai normally viewed ''{{seppuku}}'' as the acceptable alternative to an ignoble fate, such as living in defeat. However, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsunaga_Hisahide Matsunaga Hisahide]] turned 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''.
[[/folder]]

** In an SVU episode, the owner of a wine company who was exposed as [[MeanBoss a tyrant to her employees]], gives a spiteful press conference in which [[NeverMyFault she blames everyone else for her downfall]] before taking out a gun, putting it under her chin on live TV, and pulling the trigger.

* In the [[Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaAkiraHimekawa manga adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', [[spoiler:after losing his final duel against Link and taking a mortal wound from the Master Sword, Ganondorf simply deactivates his Triforce of Power to die on his own terms, reasoning that some version of him will appear to torment Hyrule anyway]].

One reason may be that they want to frame them for something. Another reason might simply be because the character is a {{Jerkass}} and this is their way of getting the last laugh. The other common reason is that the character wants to avoid being interrogated and [[SuicidePill does this to deny their captors the precious information]]. If the protagonist is vengeful, the avengee do this to [[VengeanceDenied deny them of their vengeance]]. Related to the previous one, if a certain group/person [[IWantThemAlive wants them alive]] for some reason and they know it, then they may kill themselves to deny their potential captors that opportunity.

* ''Webcomic/{{Aurora}}'': Erin suffers from a bad case of DemonicPossession by a DestroyerDeity, but manages just enough control to use his own lightning magic to paralyze himself, leaving him dead open [[TakingYouWithMe for a nearby monster to kill him and thus destroy the god's vessel]]. The god attempts to reason him out of it by claiming Erin may be smart enough to work the possession to his own advantage.

One reason may be that they want to frame them for something. Another reason might simply be because the character is a {{Jerkass}} and this is their way of getting the last laugh. The other common reason is that the character wants to avoid being interrogated and [[SuicidePill does this to deny their captors the precious information]]. Related to the previous one, if a certain group/person [[IWantThemAlive wants them alive]] for some reason and they know it, then they may kill themselves to deny their potential captors that opportunity.

* ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'': In the original canon, Namekian leader Guru suffers DeathByDespair from the sorrow of his people being slaughtered by Frieza. In ''Abridged'', Guru is given a heaping dose of AdaptationalVillainy and [[AdaptationalJerkass Jerkassery]], and the context behind his death is changed so that he actually wills himself to die ''specifically'' to cause the Namekian Dragon Balls to be rendered inert. This isn't even the most dickish thing Abridged Guru does.

One reason may be that they want to frame them for something. Another reason might simply be because the character is a Jerkass and this is their way of getting the last laugh. The other common reason is that the character wants to avoid being interrogated and [[SuicidePill does this to deny their captors the precious information]]. Related to the previous one, if a certain group/person [[IWantThemAlive wants them alive]] for some reason and they know it, then they may kill themselves to deny their potential captors that opportunity.

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

!!As this is a {{Death Trope|s}}, all spoilers will be unmarked. Beware.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' episode ''Video Ouija'', Shake kills himself just so that he can haunt Meatwad through the latter's new video game that apparently allows him to talk to the dead.

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, and FaceDeathWithDignity, where one chooses to face the music (and the bullets). This can be one of the reasons why characters believe SuicideIsShameful.

* ''Webcomic/{{Aurora}}'': Erin suffers from a bad case of DemonicPossession by a DestroyerDeity, but manages just enough control to use his own lightning magic to paralyze himself, leaving him dead open for a nearby monster to kill him. Even as he's about to die, the god attempts to reason him out of it by claiming Erin may be smart enough to work the possession to his own advantage.