History MercyKill / Literature

** In the fifth book when a brainwashed Theon Greyjoy is sent to treat with Ralf Kenning the suffering the dying Kenning is going through is enough to make him break out of it and cut [[PetTheDog Kenning's throat in an act of compassion]].

* In ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' (novel and film), Katniss [[spoiler: mercy kills Cato to put him out of his misery when he's being ravaged by mutations]].

* ''Literature/{{Quarters}}'': Healers in Shkoder swear to euthanizes patients who are beyond all other help so they won't suffer anymore as part of their vows.

* In ''The Skin Trade'' by Creator/GeorgeRRMartin, P.I. Randi Wade is attacked by police officer Michael Rosoff who's secretly the werewolf that killed her father. He's on her before she can load her gun with silver bullets when [[EldritchAbomination the summoned demon Skinner]] teleports in through the police car's rear view mirror. The Skinner catches werewolf Michael and it'll kill him it like does its other victims: ritually bind them with silver chains (these inflict 3rd degree burns to a lycanthrope) before skinning them alive with its [[WolverineClaws silver claws]]. Before the Skinner can totally drag Michael through the mirror, Randi shoots him in the head with a silver bullet.

* In ''Skin Trade'' by Creator/GeorgeRRMartin, P.I. Randi Wade is attacked by police officer Michael Rosoff who's secretly the werewolf that killed her father. He's on her before she can load her gun with silver bullets when [[EldritchAbomination the summoned demon Skinner]] teleports in through the police car's rear view mirror. The Skinner catches werewolf Michael and it'll kill him it like does its other victims: ritually bind them with silver chains (these inflict 3rd degree burns to a lycanthrope) before skinning them alive with its [[WolverineClaws silver claws]]. Before the Skinner can totally drag Michael through the mirror, Randi shoots him in the head with a silver bullet.

* In ''Skin Trade'' by Creator/GeorgeRRMartin, P.I. Randi Wade is attacked by police officer Michael Rosoff who's secretly the werewolf that killed her father. He's on her before she can load her gun with silver bullets when [[EldritchAbomination the summoned demon Skinner]] teleports in through the police car's rear view mirror. The Skinner catches werewolf Michael and it'll kill him like does its other victims: ritually bind them with silver chains (these inflict 3rd degree burns to a lycanthrope) before skinning them alive with its [[WolverineClaws silver claws]]. Before the Skinner can totally drag Michael through the mirror, Randi shoots him in the head with a silver bullet.

* ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr:'' The very scene in the series has the horrified protagonist watch while his superior officer sniper-shoots a young girl who has been captured by the eponymous aliens, because what they probably had planned for her was far, far worse.

** ''Literature/NightWatchDiscworld'': "Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes removed his knife, and... gave what help he could]".

* In the ''Literature/DreambloodDuology'', the basic purpose of the Gatherers is to allow a peaceful death to those who are too old or too sick to be healed and who do not want to be a burden to their family and society.

* The above entry also applies to ''Literature/TheWars'', only with a horse instead of a dog and the man was shot for refusing to help when he should have. [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible Or something.]]

* The villain of ''Literature/{{Rubbernecker}}'', a murderous doctor who works in a neurological ward, sees himself as a hero who puts hopeless vegetables in their families out of their misery. The only murder he feels even slightly bad about is [[spoiler:Sam Galen, who awoke from his coma just on time to see Spicer murder the man in the next bed and was slowly regaining the ability to communicate when Spicer killed him to stop him from talking]]. He gives a MotiveRant about how people can live for decades with severe brain damage, [[ThisIsReality unlike in films]] where you're either in or out of a coma.

* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Star Guard'', every Terran soldier carries a special dagger whose sole purpose is to "give Grace" to a direly wounded comrade. The main character uses it ... at the specific request of a severely burned man.

* The above entry also applies to ''The Wars'', only with a horse instead of a dog and the man was shot for refusing to help when he should have. [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible Or something.]]
* In ''White Wing'' by Gordon Kendall, the eponymous fighter squadron is pretty much all that's left of the human race after [[EarthShatteringKaboom Earth is destroyed.]] The other species [[FantasticRacism don't like them much]], especially the "barbaric" custom where a badly wounded pilot requests "the Mercy of the Wing" -- the other fighters form up and solemnly blast him and his ship to atoms. Public opinion does change a bit by the end of the book, when two facts have come to light: [[HumansAreSpecial humans are immune]] to the enemy's {{Brainwash}}ing, and Earth was actually destroyed not by alien invaders but ''by humanity'', in a DefensiveFeintTrap that invoked the same principle of "Mercy" on a much larger scale.

* In the ''Arcana Chronicles'' by Creator/KresleyCole, main character Evie does this to an entire valley full of people dying from an illness with no hope of survival and a guarantee of a long, agonizing death, by blowing poisonous spores into the valley.

* In Jo Graham's ''Black Ships'', the narrator is forbidden from seeing blood shed. Nonetheless, when she and her companion Xandros come across a man whose insides are... not so inside anymore, she gives Xandros the go ahead, and he slits the man's throat.

* At the end of ''Calculating God'', euthanasia is given to relieve pain for the terminal main character.

* In ''Literature/FrostflowerAndThorn'', Frostflower speeds up a condemned warrior's time to help her die faster.
** [[spoiler:Later on Thorn threatens to kill them both unless Frostflower uses her powers, believed to have been lost due to her [[VirginPower rape]] earlier in the story. The threat backfires when Frostflower agrees it's probably for the best.]]

* A variation occurs in various swashbuckling novels -- Sir Creator/ArthurConanDoyle's ''The Refugees'' for instance -- the hero and heroine find themselves facing a FateWorseThanDeath from which the heroine requests the hero to save her by shooting her (usually TheCavalry arrive just in time to prevent this). Usually takes place ''before'' the FateWorseThanDeath can occur and while the suicidee is still undamaged. Not ICannotSelfTerminate as the emphasis is on dying by the hand of someone who loves you rather than being functionally unable to do it oneself.

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains\\

* ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'': At the climax of ''High Deryni'', this resolves the four-on-four duel arcane between Torenth and Gwynedd. After Stefan Coram reveals he's poisoned Wencit and his colleagues with an incurable and slow-acting toxin, Kelson is advised this is a good idea. Bishop Arilan claims to recognize the substance Coram took to speed his own death, and it's said that the others will take at least a day to die. Also, the terms of the duel will keep all of them there in the circle until all of one side are dead. Wencit himself asks for death. Morgan offers to do it, but Kelson insists on doing it himself and all but commands Morgan to show him the means: the same spell Charissa used to murder King Brion months earlier.

* In ''Literature/BlackBeauty'', Captain, Beauty's fellow cab horse, is injured in a cab accident to the extent that he can no longer work. Jerry, the cab driver, cares deeply for Captain but can't afford to keep a horse on the books that isn't earning money, but he knows that Captain's prospects anywhere else would be grim; in the end, he decides the best thing he can do for Captain is to put him down quickly and painlessly.