| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/les_misrables___franois_flameng___javert_draill_suicide_de_javert_3.jpg]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:350:[[Literature/LesMiserables Javert's suicide]] by François Flameng]] |
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| 5 | %% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks! |
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| 8 | '''As a {{Death Trope|s}}, expect spoilers, both marked and unmarked.''' |
| 9 | |
| 10 | ->''"Then I see Ma's pill bottles open on the table, they look mostly empty. Never more than two, that's the rule, how could they be mostly empty, where did the pills go?"'' |
| 11 | -->-- '''Jack''', ''Literature/{{Room}}'' |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Times where somebody is DrivenToSuicide in {{Literature}}. |
| 14 | ---- |
| 15 | !!Authors: |
| 16 | * Creator/{{Amoridere}}: |
| 17 | ** This has happened to Toki so many times, once in ''[[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=Toki#/d4z8cib Insanity and Resentment]]'' and, before that, possibly, she tried to get herself runover by a car in ''[[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/gallery/34256876#/d5j8gg1 Flashbacks I]]'' (no one knows her real motives and Toki may never tell them, though, she could have been leaving to die in peace but, at that point, getting runover with a car would most certainly prove fatal). Both are understandable because, in the first one, she is mentally ill [[labelnote:Hmm?]]Toki has multiple mental illnesses, one of which is schizophrenia and, for those who don't know, schizophrenics have been known to attempt suicide more than once.[[/labelnote]] and, the latter, is because she is really sick with leukemia and was being abused and neglected at the time (in conjunctions with the fact that she in the later stages and is virtually dying). Neither has anything to do with her heritage. Deconstructed to a decent extent with her motives in the poem ''[[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/art/A-Plea-To-River-Seine-373510427 A Plea to River Seine]]'', in that they are very well thought out and were pulled apart from what they are. |
| 18 | ** In the ''Literature/MadgieWhatDidYouDo'' story ''Requiem'', Madgie felt so much regret about her time travel experiment that, before they could reverse it, she jumps into a ravine, dying shortly after impact. She does it again in ''Memories'' to keep from losing her memories, the things that she would have lost as what little sanity she had possessed would unlikely have withstood the great amnesia. |
| 19 | * Creator/IsaacAsimov: |
| 20 | ** "Literature/AllTheTroublesOfTheWorld": Stressed due to the demands of ''every'' human being treating Multivac as [[ThereAreNoTherapists their personal advisor]], providing guidance for trivial and life-changing decisions, [[PrecrimeArrest predicting crimes ahead of time]], and now [[OneWorldOrder the world government]] wants to add medical diagnosis and prediction to the load. [[WhamLine The last line of the story has Multivac admit it wants to die.]] |
| 21 | ** "Literature/BreedsThereAMan": |
| 22 | *** Dr Ralston believes that people try to commit suicide because of aliens. He argues that it's an automatic thing, where "strains" of humanity are controlled by unknown effects from the alien experiments. Other people don't believe him, and dismiss evidence (such as the high-than-averge suicide rate amoung atomic scientists) as being due to the stress of keeping their work secret. |
| 23 | *** Ross, an engineer working on secret atomic research, walked into the path of an oncoming car after he finished constructing a prototype [[DeflectorShields force field]]. This is entirely unexpected and had [[InstantIllness no prior symptoms]] of suicide. This causes some of the government agents to wonder if Ralston might be correct about the aliens. |
| 24 | ** "Literature/TheFeelingOfPower": Technician Aub hates that his little hobby of reinventing the lost skill of {{UsefulNotes/Mathematics}} has become part of the [[ForeverWar war effort]] against Deneb. |
| 25 | ** "Literature/LightVerse": Some of the witnesses to Mr Travis's murder claim that he moved towards the weapon, as if he ''wanted'' to die after having learned that he had destroyed his chance at learning from his idol. |
| 26 | * Famed mystery novelist Creator/AgathaChristie uses this trope a few times: |
| 27 | ** In ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'', Emily Brent had caused Beatrice Taylor to be driven to suicide. Additionally, [[spoiler:Vera Claythorne is Driven To Suicide.]] |
| 28 | ** In ''The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side'', the killer is found dead of an overdose after TheReveal. [[spoiler:It is implied in the book that this was because the killer's spouse had done it to prevent further murders.]] |
| 29 | ** In the two Literature/HerculePoirot SameStoryDifferentNames short stories "The Market Basing Mystery" and "Murder in the Mews", [[spoiler:the supposed murder victim was DrivenToSuicide, and someone close to them dressed the scene up as a murder to punish the person they felt was morally responsible for the death]]. |
| 30 | ** The [[Literature/TheMysteriousMrQuin Mr. Quin]] stories have lovers in dire straits as an integral part of the premise; consequently a disproportionate number of them include somebody admitting, explicitly or tacitly, that when Mr. Quin took a hand in their problem they were ''this close'' to ending it all. [[spoiler:The central character of "Harlequin's Lane" goes through with it in the end; when it comes to love, not all problems have a neat solution that includes everybody.]] |
| 31 | ** Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd begins with the death of Mrs Ferrars, who is driven to suicide by a blackmailer. [[spoiler: It ends with the suicide of the murderer (and narrator) Dr Sheppard, who kills himself to escape a trial.]] |
| 32 | * Creator/MarieCorelli's ''The Mighty Atom'' has eleven-year-old Lionel, homeschooled (more like 24/7/365 CramSchool) by a series of tutors by order of his FantasyForbiddingFather, who allows no speculation on religious or spiritual subjects, as he's supposed to have OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions. A chance encounter with Jessy, the daughter of the village sexton, introduces Lionel to the elements of the idea of a personal and loving God. Upon her sudden death a few weeks later, Lionel decides to interview God in person.[[note]]Marie wrote this after hearing of an epidemic of child suicides in France -- 443 cases in one year -- possibly linked to an educational system based on atheistic freethinking (itself an attempt to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_France#Third_Republic:_1871-1940 free elementary and secondary education from the control of the Catholic Church]]) -- actively telling kids that God didn't exist and it was a mistake to believe in him. The district of Nantes had responded with a decree that the basic idea of God should be allowed in school.[[/note]] |
| 33 | * Creator/StephenKing: |
| 34 | ** In ''Literature/TheDeadZone'', serial killer [[spoiler:Frank Dodd]] commits suicide [[spoiler: when he learns psychic Johnny Smith has been brought in to help solve the case.]] |
| 35 | ** In ''Literature/{{IT}}'', [[spoiler:Stan Uris]] breaks and kills himself when faced with the prospect of returning to the TownWithADarkSecret. Dorsey and Eddie Corcoran's step-dad also commits suicide after he's released from prison for beating Dorsey to death with a ball-peen hammer. |
| 36 | ** Dayna Jurgens from ''Literature/TheStand'' impales her neck on a piece of glass to prevent Flagg from interrogating her. Nadine Cross also does this to prevent Flagg's offspring from being born, and she's probably AxCrazy by this point. Rita (Larry's first traveling companion) and a number of the early survivors also commit suicide. |
| 37 | ** Suicide is a running theme in the trilogy revolving around mass murderer Brady Hartsfield. Fascinated by suicide, he {{gaslight|ing}}s someone into killing herself as part of a plot to cause a mass murder in ''Literature/MrMercedes'', and uses [[MindControlDevice a hypnosis-inducing game]] to manipulate people into killing themselves in ''Literature/EndOfWatch''. |
| 38 | ** Several of King's other characters are also DrivenToSuicide. The lady in the tub in ''Literature/TheShining''; the patient who eats himself to death in ''Literature/{{Dreamcatcher}}''; the protagonist in "I Am The Doorway," and so on. |
| 39 | ** Basically ''all'' the characters in ''N'' are driven to suicide eventually, in a last-ditch attempt at keeping the dimensional door sealed, hoping that without themselves there to be aware of it, there's no risk of them failing to perform the OCD-esque rituals they've all become obssesed with and belive will keep it sealed (the story revolves around a stone ring in a field in Maine that functions as a SealedEvilInACan) though it's never revealed wether or not it actually IS a doorway, or if the ring is just some sort of memetic virus that infects anyone who sees it. When the stone ring is the subject of a news article after a psychologist becomes the latest victim, the journalist eventually develops OCD too and returns to the ring, only to find [[OhCrap 12 other people there]], wanting to "check it out". He promptly shoots all of them, and then himself. |
| 40 | ** [[spoiler:Eddie Jacubois]] at the end of ''Literature/FromABuick8.'' Just couldn't take his life anymore. It's speculated that the Buick may have had something to do with it, but it's unlikely. |
| 41 | * An alarming number of Creator/JohnLeCarre's novels end with characters killing themselves, or deliberately allowing themselves to be killed. |
| 42 | ** ''The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' ends with [[spoiler: Alec Leamas allowing himself to be shot by East German border guards rather than escaping after his girlfriend is killed]]. |
| 43 | ** ''A Perfect Spy'' ends with [[spoiler: Magnus Pym shooting himself in the bath]]. |
| 44 | ** Harry Palfrey, the narrator of ''The Russia House'', throws himself in front of a bus in ''The Night Manager.'' |
| 45 | ** In ''The Tailor of Panama'', Harry Pendel wanders out into the night, [[spoiler: with every intention of being killed by invading US forces]]. |
| 46 | ** ''The Constant Gardener'' ends with Justin Quayle [[spoiler: arranging things so that he will be killed in the same place by the same people who killed his wife]]. |
| 47 | * Happens to quite a few of Creator/HPLovecraft's characters after surviving some form of [[CosmicHorrorStory Cosmic Horror]] or another. |
| 48 | ** "Literature/TheHound1924": The story is one long suicide note, starting with the narrator's intent to blow his brains out to avoid being killed by the Dutchman and ending with the assertion that he'll pull the trigger soon for he hears his hunter approaching. |
| 49 | ** The narrator of ''Literature/{{Dagon}}''. |
| 50 | ** ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth'': The protagonist's uncle after he learns of the family's monstrous heritage. |
| 51 | * In Creator/DorothyLSayers' Literature/LordPeterWimsey stories, particularly the earlier novels, this is a convenient way of disposing of those responsible for tragedies without the need for a trial. |
| 52 | ** ''Whose Body?'': The killer writes out a detailed confession in a long suicide note addressed to Lord Peter, but is arrested before the suicide can take place. |
| 53 | ** ''Clouds of Witness'': [[spoiler:The victim was a suicide whose only note was a letter to his ex-mistress, who didn't bother to read it properly.]] Much later, in ''Gaudy Night'', Lord Peter indirectly refers to this case as the time when he appeared to have the choice between hanging his brother or his sister; Harriet Vane said that in one of her own mystery stories, etiquette would demand a written confession, followed by poison for two in the library. |
| 54 | ** ''The Dawson Pedigree'' (a.k.a. ''Unnatural Death''): The killer commits suicide in jail at the end of the story. |
| 55 | ** ''The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club'': The killer is persuaded to write out a confession and commit suicide at the end of the story. |
| 56 | ** ''Murder Must Advertise'': The killer of the first victim - the person that Lord Peter originally set out to find - commits Suicide By Criminal as an alternative to trial and conviction. |
| 57 | ** Arguably, this happens in ''The Nine Tailors''. |
| 58 | * Creator/JRRTolkien: |
| 59 | ** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': |
| 60 | *** Denethor attempts to burn himself and his son on a funeral pyre when he believes the battle against Sauron is hopeless, and that his son is dying through his own fault. [[spoiler:He succeeds in killing himself, but his son is saved just in time.]] |
| 61 | *** Éowyn also rides into battle wanting to die after being convinced that she'll spend the rest of her life taking care of her declining uncle as the House of Éorl becomes more and more dishonorable. |
| 62 | ** Happens several times in ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'': |
| 63 | *** [[spoiler:Fingolfin]] challenges [[spoiler:Morgoth]] to single combat (he does pretty well, but there was no way he was going to win, and he's smart enough that he must have known that); |
| 64 | *** [[spoiler:Niënor]] finds out that she's married to and pregnant by her [[SeparatedAtBirth long-lost]] [[BrotherSisterIncest brother]], and jumps off a cliff; |
| 65 | *** [[spoiler:Túrin]] finds out that he's married and impregnated his sister (and that killing all those other people may also have been a mistake), and doesn't so much fall on his sword as politely ask it to kill him; |
| 66 | *** [[spoiler:Húrin]], who has been forced to watch his son marry and impregnate his daughter and both of them commit suicide (and finding his wife again after decades of separation only to have her die almost immediately), despairs and casts himself off a cliff; |
| 67 | *** [[spoiler:Elwing]] jumps off another cliff [[spoiler:although she survives]], carrying a Silmaril, while [[spoiler:Maedhros]] was attacking her city to get it; |
| 68 | *** And later on, [[spoiler:Maedhros]] realizes that killing all those people was ''definitely'' a mistake, and jumps off a fourth cliff. This is after a much earlier ICannotSelfTerminate moment while he was hanging off a different cliff. |
| 69 | * Creator/JohnCWright: |
| 70 | ** In ''Literature/CountToATrillion'', Captain Grimaldi [[spoiler:at least according to Blackie]]. |
| 71 | ** In ''The Hermetic Millennia'', this is the proper Chimera response to disgrace, such as losing your weapons. Lady Ivinia orders the Chimera men to commit suicide if they fail. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | !!Individual works: |
| 74 | * ''Literature/ThirteenReasonsWhy'' begins with OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Clay receiving a series of tapes from his classmate Hannah Baker, who'd recently killed herself. The tapes are her suicide note, and if you've received them, then you're one of the thirteen reasons she decided to end her own life. The story follows Clay as he listens to the tapes and follows her story. [[spoiler: It turns out that Clay was a NiceGuy she featured on the list simply so she could apologize to him for having treated him strangely at a party.]] |
| 75 | -->'''Hannah:''' It's like that one song: [[spoiler: One of these things is not like the others.]] |
| 76 | * In Faulkner's ''Literature/AbsalomAbsalom'', Bon essentially commits suicide by continuing to travel with [[spoiler: Henry]] to his supposed wedding, because he cannot accept that [[spoiler: Henry would murder him rather than let him pollute the Sutpen line with his mixed blood.]] |
| 77 | * ''Literature/AdventureHunters'': When Claude discovers his family died in the goblin raid, he falls on his sword. |
| 78 | * ''Literature/TheAliceNetwork'': Charlie’s brother James and Captain Cameron both committed suicide because they couldn’t cope in peacetime. |
| 79 | * In ''Literature/AllOurYesterdays'', James kills himself to avoid becoming a monster; as a result his murderous future self vanishes. |
| 80 | * ''Literature/AlwaysComingHome'': |
| 81 | ** It is mentioned that a teenaged father in the Valley might be mocked to the point of exile or suicide. |
| 82 | ** In "The Miller", the titular character jumps into his mill’s machinery once he realizes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone what he did]]. |
| 83 | * Halfway through ''Literature/AmericanDirt'', Lydia and the readers learn the true motivation of Javier's slaughter of Lydia's family. [[spoiler:Javier's teenage daughter, Marta, had no idea her father was a cartel boss until she read the news article written by Lydia's husband. Soon after she hung herself in her dorm room.]] |
| 84 | * In Creator/KhaledHosseini's ''Literature/AndTheMountainsEchoed'', [[spoiler: Nila Wahdati commits suicide. It's heavily implied that she felt horribly guilty for allowing her adoptive daughter Pari to be kidnapped from her rightful parents and lying to her for her entire life that she was Pari's true mother. In addition, she was jealous of Pari since she is fertile and Nila is not, and that Nila constantly relied on her sexuality to sustain relationships with men but could not give them anything meaningful in return, namely a child]]. |
| 85 | * ''Literature/AnnaKarenina'': |
| 86 | ** Anna's lover Vronsky feels suicidal about half in the story but his attempt fails and he reconsiders. |
| 87 | ** Anna jumps and dies under a train after everything falls apart for her. Vronsky did love her till the end, but their life felt unsatisfying for Anna because she was too much of an outcast for a really long time. |
| 88 | * ''Literature/Area51'': [[spoiler:Johnny]], who had been brainwashed into believing he was abducted by aliens, jumps over a cliff to escape his delusions of them. |
| 89 | * In ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', after Cheryl Taggart realizes that her husband is evil and willing to destroy anything she would achieve for her own interest, and that the world is ruled by people just like him, she races to throw herself into a river. It's not exactly a subtle book. |
| 90 | * ''Backlash'' by Sarah Darer Littman is a young-adult novel seemingly [[RippedFromTheHeadlines inspired by the real-life story of Megan Meier]], who took her own life after her former best friend - and said best friend's ''mother'' - created a fake social media profile to troll her, pretending to be a handsome guy who had a crush on her and then one day unceremoniously dumped her, telling her the world would be a better place without her. That's exactly what happens in this novel, except that the protagonist, Lara (who has a history of being bullied because of her weight but is beginning to get her life together and even makes the cheerleading squad), fails in her suicide attempt, and begins a tenuous road to recovery while her family, and in particular her younger sister Sydney (from whose point of view some chapters are written), struggle to make sense of Lara's actions. Lara's ex-friend Bree, who created the fake Facebook page out of a misunderstanding between her and Lara and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone comes to legitimately regret what she did]] since she never expected Lara to try to kill herself, sees her and her family's life turn into a living hell after the deception is exposed, and at one point wonders if ''she'' should attempt suicide (she doesn't). |
| 91 | * In ''Literature/TheBadPlace'', Clint Karaghiosis kills himself after the teleporting, blood-drinking murderer Candy Pollard murders his wife Felina by drinking her blood. Candy watches him from the hallway, stunned and confused because he can't understand why a man would kill himself over a woman. |
| 92 | * ''Literature/BazilBroketail'': {{Subverted|Trope}}. After Rusp dies, Jak's comrades are worried about him and afraid he may commit suicide out of despair. It never happens, though, and Jak himself gets better once he bonds with Alsebra. |
| 93 | * EtTuBrute: He is devastated by Relkin's supposed betrayal in book four. |
| 94 | * In ''Literature/BeautifulLosers'', Edith kills herself by hiding in the elevator shaft so she would be crushed by it. Her motivations why are never explored. |
| 95 | * Esther Greenwood in ''Literature/TheBellJar'' attempts suicide a number of times before being hospitalized. Given the time period (TheFifties), Esther is terrified of the common reality that a married woman spends the rest of her life in the kitchen and giving up everything she ever worked towards. After finishing college, she has no idea what to do with her life and becomes saddened by the fact that "the one thing [she] was good at was winning scholarships and prizes and that era is coming to an end." After trying to slit her wrists in a warm bath and trying to swim out into the ocean, she crawls into a hole in her basement and downs a bottle of sleeping pills. |
| 96 | * ''Literature/TheBible'': |
| 97 | ** In the Literature/BookOfJudges, Samson prays that God will give him strength to bring down the Philistine temple--and that he will die there and so [[AFateWorseThanDeath escape]]. |
| 98 | ** In the Literature/BooksOfSamuel, having lost a battle as well as his beloved eldest son Jonathan, King Saul falls on his sword when his armorbearer refuses to kill him, figuring it would be better to die by his own hand than to be [[AFateWorseThanDeath mistreated]] [[HonorBeforeReason and killed by the Philistines]]. An Amalekite, attempting to ingratiate David, takes credit for killing his old enemy, but is executed for his troubles as the new King David goes into a HeroicBSOD, ripping his clothes and screaming for the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. This makes this trope OlderThanFeudalism. |
| 99 | ** Racked with guilt for having betrayed Jesus, Judas Iscariot returned the reward money and hanged himself. ([[Literature/TheFourGospels Matt 27:3-5]]) |
| 100 | ** In the Literature/ActsOfTheApostles, when an earthquake struck the jail at Phillippi, the keeper of the prison was going to kill himself, thinking the prisoners had fled, and he knew he'd probably die if that happened. He was stopped by Paul, one of the prisoners. |
| 101 | * In ''Blue Lights and Long Nights'' by Les Pringle (about his experiences during his first 18 months as an Ambulance driver in Birmingham in the 1970s), he and a colleague were once called out, only being told that it was a "woman burned." It was worse; it turned out that a woman had been getting her kids ready, had just given them breakfast, and then went outside into the garden, poured petrol over herself and set herself alight. The children then noticed what was going on, and then ran after her mother, trying to douse her with cups of water. When the Ambulance arrived, the woman was little more than a charred corpse on the grass. |
| 102 | * [[spoiler:Sammy]]'s suicide in the final year of high school in ''Literature/TheBookOfJoe'' has a huge impact on the lives of the characters around him and the novel essentially follows how his best friend is still struggling to deal with it, years since the event. |
| 103 | * This is how ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' ends. The protagonist, who never had a happy life at his old place but adopted their beliefs, moves with Bernard back to London. London is like all the world except where said protagonist came from and maybe the islands (unless those fall under ReleasedToElsewhere). It is a CrapsaccharineWorld where there is no free will and everybody is on drugs all the time. John eventually undergoes a HeroicBSOD which eventually makes him go against everything he believed in and cave into the peer pressure. He hangs himself in an act of honor. |
| 104 | * In ''Literature/TheBrothersKaramazov'', the character [[spoiler:Smerdyakov]] commits suicide close to the end of the novel. Why he does is left unexplained and up to the reader. He either did it [[spoiler:because he had a [[RedemptionEqualsDeath sudden attack of conscience over everything he had done]]]] which is unlikely, or more likely he committed suicide [[spoiler:as the final part of a hastily-schemed GambitRoulette to put Dmitri Karamazov in jail for the murder of his father, for which he was innocent]]. |
| 105 | * ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'': |
| 106 | ** A member of the Wakecliff family, Kareem Wakecliff, killed herself upon hearing about four catastrophic events happening to her family in one day: a shipwreck, a fire that claimed the lives of every family member under ten, smoke inhalation and burns killing the adults who'd tried to save them, and a DeathByChildbirth. |
| 107 | ** It's also noted that men sometimes kill themselves to escape bad marriages. |
| 108 | * ''Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf Spine Tinglers'': The captain of the ''Jenny Nettles''. His death is what triggers the wind to return so the ship can get back to port... and it's implied to be because he was the one who killed Jenny Frasier, the woman whom the ship had originally been named after before its third owner got a hold of it, and who'd been haunting it effectively since its construction. |
| 109 | * In ''Literature/BurmeseDays'', a major character commits suicide at the climax of the novel. [[spoiler:After an incident ruins his reputation and destroys any chance of his marrying Elizabeth, Mr. Flory goes home, gets out his gun, blows his pet dog's brains out, and shoots himself in the heart.]] |
| 110 | * In ''Literature/BuryingTheShadow'', this is how the mental illness known as the Fear manifests in the [[FallenAngel eloim]], sparking the plot of the novel. |
| 111 | * ''By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead'' by Julie Anne Peters is a young-adult novel whose protagonist, Daelyn, 15, is planning her "final act," after a lifetime of being bullied and several botched suicide attempts, one of which left her [[TheSpeechless mute]] and unable to eat solid foods ([[spoiler:she drank household cleaner]]). She even visits a pro-suicide website for "inspiration" on the best way to do it. At the same time, she slowly and tenuously begins to open up thanks to the friendship of a terminally ill boy who is dying of cancer. [[spoiler:The book ends on a cliffhanger, with the final words ambiguous as to whether Daelyn has decided to go through with the suicide.]] |
| 112 | * ''Literature/CallahansCrosstimeSaloon'': |
| 113 | ** The character Cass Anders shoots himself in the short story "Fivesight" because he sees the future, but cannot change it or what he tries to prevent ends even more disastrously. He crossed his DespairEventHorizon when he foresees but fails to prevent his stepson's death by car accident. |
| 114 | ** More than one patron of Callahan's -- including the narrator, Jake -- is in a suicidal frame of mind the first time they walk in the door, since it's a place people find when they really, ''really'' need it. |
| 115 | * ''Literature/CaptivePrince'': Aimeric kills himself in prison after he's exposed as TheMole. Although he's portrayed as quite unsympathetic up to then, the later reveal that he [[spoiler:was sexually abused and manipulated by the [[BigBad Regent]]]] frames him as something of a victim as well. |
| 116 | * ''Literature/CardForceInfection'' One possible result of the titular infection is suicide. |
| 117 | ** Jimmy attempted to commit suicide, but Veronica stopped him by putting him in a coma. |
| 118 | ** Hector commits suicide after his father becomes emotionally neglectful. |
| 119 | ** It's revealed that Hikaru's friend Montana committed suicide before the story began. |
| 120 | * ''Literature/CarrerasLegions'': |
| 121 | ** In ''A Desert Called Peace'', the continual artillery bombardment of a Sumeri Army position by the Legion eventually drove a soldier to [[AteHisGun eat his gun]]. |
| 122 | ** An interlude in ''The Lotus Eaters'' tells of the High Admiral in command of the United Earth Peace Fleet around Terra Nova blowing his brains out after ordering [[spoiler:the nuclear bombing of two Federated States cities]] in response to such weapons being employed against Yamato in the Great Global War, unable to get the images of FS victims out of his mind. |
| 123 | * ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye'': |
| 124 | ** The protagonist, Holden, displays some suicidal ideation in the book. |
| 125 | ** Holden remembers a classmate who was bullied by other boys and ended up jumping out of a window. |
| 126 | * ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': |
| 127 | ** In book #6 (''The Cat Who Played Post Office''), the last death is made to look like one, until the very end when Qwill realizes that Penelope Goodwinter really did commit suicide, but made it look like her brother Alexander and their cohort Birch Tree murdered her. It's then implied Alexander commits suicide as well by crashing a plane to get out of being arrested for his role in the deaths of Daisy and Della Mull and Tiffany Trotter. |
| 128 | ** In book #12 (''The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal'') Dennis Hough, son of the late Iris Cobb, hangs himself in Qwill's barn after his wife calls and leaves him a message that she's filing for divorce and marrying someone else. |
| 129 | ** In book #13 (''The Cat Who Moved a Mountain''), while Qwill is away, Dr. Halifax Goodwinter deliberately overdoses shortly after his wife's funeral. |
| 130 | ** In book #14 (''The Cat Who Wasn't There''), Melinda Goodwinter kills herself out of madness and guilt from accidentally killing one of her best friends instead of her intended target. |
| 131 | ** The killer in book #24 (''The Cat Who Went Up the Creek'') had brought a drug and alcohol addict along to pose as his wife, along with her little boy Danny; the mother later leaves a note in her son's shirt and throws herself off a bridge to her death because she can't take it anymore. |
| 132 | ** In book #26 (''The Cat Who Talked Turkey''), the killer, who did it on orders from his boss, turns his own gun on himself after learning said boss had died in a traffic accident. |
| 133 | * In ''The Chalet Girls Grow Up'' by Merryn Williams, a sequel to the original ''Literature/ChaletSchool'' series by Elinor Brent-Dyer, [[spoiler:Jack Maynard]] commits suicide after falling into serious financial trouble and [[spoiler:Jo]] becoming increasingly absent-minded and difficult to live with (it is implied that she has Alzheimer's Disease.) This is part of the reason for the book's BrokenBase, since in the original series [[spoiler:Jack]] was a strict Catholic and would have considered it a terrible sin to commit suicide. |
| 134 | * In Creator/DorothyGilman's ''Literature/TheClairvoyantCountess'', after Mazda Lorvale commits suicide in a mental institution, Lt. Pruden smuggles her suicide note out to Madame Karitska, which reveals many things about her. |
| 135 | * Fernand Mondego] in ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo''. |
| 136 | * In ''Literature/DarknessVisible'' it is eventually revealed that [[spoiler: the incident at the Marsh house was not a random attack. After years of brutal abuse by her husband, Mrs Marsh told the Dark Tide to open the Thresholds, knowing it would kill her, and intending that it would MercyKill her children at the same time.]] |
| 137 | * In Creator/SarahAHoyt's ''Literature/DarkshipThieves'', Thena realizes that Kit intends this after she's burned by radiation and he goes, on her urging, for MercyKilling. |
| 138 | * ''Literature/TheDeathOfRussia'': Babchenko's commissar, who is all but outright confirmed to be UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin, ultimately shoots himself after [[spoiler: witnessing Russia be devastated by the nuclear exchange between Stalingrad, Petrograd, and the West, being unwilling to live in a world where Russia doesn't exist]]. |
| 139 | * ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'': |
| 140 | ** Peter somehow convinces Al to help out in a plot to kill Tris. He feels guilty afterwards, and when she refuses to forgive him Al throws himself into the chasm and takes his own life. |
| 141 | ** Actually instituted in Dauntless. There are very few elderly in the faction, because they value mental and physical fitness, and those who have neither are not seen as worthy to be Dauntless and must become Factionless. Those who reject being banished choose to kill themselves, which is seen as a glorious way to die. It's mentioned that Uriah's father chose such fate. |
| 142 | * This tends to happen to a lot of Syph's "followers" in ''Literature/DivineMisfortune''. One past "follower" literally died when his heart gave out, dying from a lack of will to live. |
| 143 | * Brought up in one ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' novel. See, the Eighth Doctor of the novels is even more of a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} than [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]] usually is, and sometimes cannot tell the difference between TV and movies and RealLife. There's "a popular [[BritishSeries British]] SoapOpera" (likely ''Series/EastEnders'') which, if he watched it while in such a confused state, even after all the horrifying things he's seen traveling through time and space which have mostly only ever upset him a little, would so thoroughly convince him of "the sheer futility and misery of life" that he'd try to kill himself.[[note]]This comes up in a footnote, which is worded oddly, so it's not clear if he's ever gone so far as to try doing away with himself when faced with the endless tragedy that is life in Walford.[[/note]] |
| 144 | * In the ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'' series, the mental bond between a dragon and its rider is so strong that, should one die, the other almost invariably commits suicide shortly afterward. In the rare cases where the rider does not kill himself, he's left as an EmptyShell. |
| 145 | * The ''Literature/DragonsOfRequiem'' franchise has Sena Seran. After being almost killed by his father, and being exposed to so much violence and blood, Sena realizes that he can't handle all the chaos bombarding him, or that he'll no longer be able to go back to his safe, pampered lifestyle. So he hangs himself. |
| 146 | * At the end of ''{{Literature/Dreamspeaker}}'', Peter hangs himself, while the mute "He who would Sing" [[AteHisGun shoots himself in the mouth]] with a shotgun, in gruesome detail. |
| 147 | * ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': |
| 148 | ** In ''Literature/WhiteNight'', one of the characters that Dresden is trying to save is driven to suicide by one of the [[spoiler: local White Court vampires that feeds off despair.]] It's implied that if the Denarians ever get their hands on Esperacchus (the Sword of Hope), they would try to drive someone to suicide in the hope that they would use the Sword as a way out, as that would be the ultimate expression of despair, which would destroy the power in the sword, and render it useless. |
| 149 | ** In ''Literature/GhostStory'' [[spoiler: the flashback reveals ''Harry himself'' is the one who hired Kincaid to kill him, in order to escape from being the Winter Knight. However, Uriel immediately draws attention to the mysterious shadow that spoke seven words to Harry, and purposefully pushed him to suicide. While Harry did try to kill himself, he was manipulated into it, so it's a bit of a grey area.]] |
| 150 | * ''Drowning Anna'' by Sue Mayfield is the story of Anna, a popular, promising student at a British private school whose life is just about perfect until, for unknown reasons, she is singled out for bullying by her class's AlphaBitch, Hayley. The first chapter is told from Anna's point of view as she attempts suicide with a combination of vodka and antidepressants; the remaining chapters alternate between the perspectives of Frances, Anna's mother, and Melanie, Anna's best (and eventually, only) friend. The tale of Anna's torment is told in flashback and through a series of journal entries read by Frances in which Anna describes, in harrowing detail, the emotional and physical abuse she's suffered at the hands of Hayley and her clique, from name-calling and public humiliation to physical assaults during P.E. class. By the end of the book, Anna's condition has stabilised, but she is still in a coma and it is still uncertain whether she will survive. |
| 151 | * In ''Literature/DustAndShadow'', the soldier that Literature/SherlockHolmes initially suspected of being UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper kills himself over the shame of having stabbed the (disputed) first victim, Martha Tabram, in an angry passion. He did not kill her, though no one but Holmes would have (and did) worked that one out. |
| 152 | * The title character in ''Literature/EdenGreen'' becomes infected with a horrible needle symbiote that keeps her alive no matter what; most of the book chronicles her attempts to find a way to end her own life. |
| 153 | * The titular character of ''Literature/EleanorOliphantIsCompletelyFine'' spends most of the story getting ready to meet a local singer she fell [[LoveAtFirstSight head over heels with]] at a gig, convinced they are destined for each other. Though she spends a great deal of time on her plan, she realizes right when she sees him again that [[spoiler:she's obsessing over a crush on an absolute stranger, and that her "love" is actually a desperation for companionship. This drives her to trying to drink herself to death, though her friend Raymond saves her.]] |
| 154 | * ''Literature/ElijahOfBuxton'': Down in the United States, Elijah comes across a group of slaves chained up inside a cabin, all of them wearing just a robe. After they shoot down all of Elijah's idea to free them, the woman asks Elijah to leave Mr. Leroy's gun with them. Elijah soon catches on as to why she asked that. |
| 155 | * Keel from ''Literature/TheEmberBlade'' [[spoiler: hangs himself after betraying his best friend Garric to the Krodan Empire in exchange for money to buy some expensive Krodan medicine to save his dying son.]] |
| 156 | * Shai in ''Literature/TheEmperorsSoul'' has five Essence Marks (powerful magical items capable of rewriting a person's history). Four simply grant new skills and some physical changes, but let her remember who and what she is. But the fifth, if ever used, would totally erase her old life. As far as she would then know, the simple farm-girl life that Mark gives her would be the only life she'd ever had. She has no plans to use it, but just the fact that she made the thing (Essence Marks take years of dedicated labor to make) is a bit disturbing. |
| 157 | * ''Literature/TheEmpiriumTrilogy'': |
| 158 | ** The death of King Bastien wrecks his wife, Queen Genoveve, in both mind and body. By the time Corien makes mental visits, she was contemplating suicide so she could see Bastien again. |
| 159 | ** A significant subplot in ''Lightbringer'' is dedicated to Audric's growing depression, thanks in no small part to learning that the love of his life had a hand in his father's death and then watching her leave to join his worst enemy on the same night they married. During the darkest point of his depression, he stands in the middle of a room and ponders suicide. Subverted, in that he ultimately doesn't go through with it. |
| 160 | * In ''Literature/EnchantressFromTheStars'' Elana, a 14 years old girl from TheFederation, is captured by colonists from TheEmpire. The colonists intend to bring her to their home planet, where she will be dissected and interrogated (and thanks to their tech, TheEmpire can extract any information they want). Not wanting to end like this, Elana runs towards the imperial rock-chever, intent on being crushed by falling debris. [[spoiler: luckily, she is rescued JustInTime]] |
| 161 | * By the end of ''Literature/{{Eva}}'', humanity as a whole has lost the will to live and people are committing mass suicides. |
| 162 | * In ''Literature/EverythingIsIlluminated'', by Creator/JonathanSafranFoer, [[spoiler: Alex's grandfather]] commits suicide after 'Jonfen' leaves, being confronted with his past , where he saved his life and his son's, at the expense of his best friend's, at the hands of the Nazi's. [[spoiler: To bury his guilt, he built himself an anti-Semitic persona, despite being Jewish himself.]] This is one of the few differences between the book and the movie, where in the movie he does so before he leaves. He is found in a bathtub by [[spoiler: his grandson]] with his wrists slit. |
| 163 | * In ''Literature/AnExaltationOfLarks'' by Creator/RobertReed, the dean of the university calls the journalist protagonist to his office after being ousted for corruption. After the journalist sits down, the dean pulls a [[AteHisGun revolver from his desk and blows his own brains]] out against the ceiling. Fortunately for him, TheSingularity has happened without anyone knowing it, and he finds that he is suddenly and surprisingly very much not dead despite half his being head on the wallpaper. As the journalist leaves the office, [[ICannotSelfTerminate he hears five more shots]]. The dean later shows up none the worse of wear, working as an agent for the time travelers from the heat death of the universe. |
| 164 | * In ''Literature/EyeOfAFly'', Warren's mental illness finally gets the better of him, and he downs a bottle of ant poison. He lingers for about a week before finally dying. Aunt Cynthia is so despondent that she commits suicide herself with sleeping pills. |
| 165 | * Clamence in ''Literature/TheFall1956'' begins his descent in earnest when he witnesses a woman's suicide and does nothing to stop it. |
| 166 | * Creator/JacquelineWilson wrote an early (and now largely forgotten) novel called ''Falling Apart'' in which a teenage girl attempts suicide after being dumped by her boyfriend. She survives, and towards the end of the story her life seems to be improving; but the story shows that she is ''not'' over her ex, and hints that she might attempt suicide again. |
| 167 | * In the ''Literature/FatherBrown'' story "Paradise of Thieves", Father Brown discovers that someone was carrying a bottle of poison. Discovering who it is takes a little longer. |
| 168 | * Two of Creator/EllisPeters' ''Literature/FelseInvestigates'' novels (''[[spoiler:Flight of a Witch]]'' and ''[[spoiler:The Knocker on Death's Door]]'') end with the murderer turning his weapon on himself to avoid capture. |
| 169 | * In ''Literature/TheFiresOfAffliction'', protagonist Khan Eilon's wife Sarah walked into the sea to drown herself after [[spoiler:the death of their daughter]]. |
| 170 | * ''Literature/{{Forbidden}}:'' After their incestuous relationship is discovered, Lochan commits suicide while under arrest to prevent Maya from going to jail and the family from falling apart. Maya also seriously considers it after his death but ultimately decides not to, realizing that if she does, the kids will be separated and Lochan’s sacrifice will be in vain. |
| 171 | * ''Literature/ForestKingdom'': Multiple characters do this in the spinoff series ''Hawk & Fisher''. Sometimes, they're successful. |
| 172 | ** In book 1, Katherine Blackstone thinks she drove her husband to suicide by telling him about her affair with Edward Bowman, and subsequently stabbed him with his own dagger to make it look like a murder and preserve his reputation. She's wrong -- he was poisoned by another person. |
| 173 | ** In the same book, [[spoiler: Adam Stalker commits suicide in the end to avoid arrest for the murders and other crimes he committed]]. |
| 174 | ** In book 2 (''Winner Takes All''), after realizing the woman he'd loved was just using him and the man he was Advisor to now things him a traitor, Stefan Medley attempts to kill himself by slitting his wrists. Luckily, Roxanne realizes she's developed real feelings for him, and so finds him and gets him medical help in time to save his life. |
| 175 | ** In book 4 (''Wolf in the Fold''), the spy "Fenris" jumps to his death to avoid arrest for his crimes, and to avoid publicly embarrassing his family and friends by having them associated with a known criminal. |
| 176 | * In the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''The Armour of Contempt'', [[spoiler: Sabbatine Cirk]] kills herself with a poisoned dart due to having sold out the Gereon resistance to the Inquisition. |
| 177 | ** The ''Double Eagle'' spin-off novel has the suicide death of [[spoiler: Major Heckel]] most likely cauesd by feeling of guilt and the strain of being an officer during an overwhelming Chaos offensive. |
| 178 | * Subverted in ''Literature/{{Ghostgirl}}''. One of the characters died from SelfHarm, but ''not'' from bleeding out from a suicide attempt. She accidentally died of infection. |
| 179 | * In ''Literature/TheGirlFromTheMiraclesDistrict'', it eventually turns out that Robin has killed himself five times (he has ResurrectiveImmortality), because the organization that's been holding him has been wiping out his memories, turning him into a BlankSlate, which was what made him kill himself. Applying some FakeMemories fixed this. |
| 180 | * In ''Literature/TheGiver'', [[spoiler:Rosemary couldn't take the horrors of the memories she received, and applied for Release, which, unknown to most of the characters, is a lethal injection. And she knew exactly what it was--she asked to perform the Release herself]]. This prompted the community to add a new rule, in that future Receivers of Memory cannot ask to be released. |
| 181 | %%* ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' series. |
| 182 | %%** Mary. It doesn't take, and she reappears outside of the FAYZ. |
| 183 | %%** Panda, by the beginning of ''Lies''. |
| 184 | %%** Jasmine. |
| 185 | %%** Orc tries in ''Plague''. |
| 186 | %%** Hunter in ''Plague'' with the bugs. |
| 187 | * ''Literature/GrandmasterOfDemonicCultivationMoDaoZuShi'': |
| 188 | ** At the beginning of the story, Mo Xuanyu, unable to take his family's abuse any longer, sacrifices his own soul in a ritual to summon an evil spirit to take revenge on them. |
| 189 | ** Xiao Xingchen slits his own throat after learning that Xue Yang had tricked him into [[spoiler:killing a lot of innocent people, including his close friend Song Lan]], shattering his soul. |
| 190 | ** Qin Su stabs herself with a cursed dagger not long after finding out that her husband is [[spoiler: [[SurpriseIncest actually her half-brother]]]] and that he may have [[spoiler:played a role in their son's death at a young age]]. |
| 191 | * Since the majority of ''Literature/HalfWorld'' takes place in the eponymous purgatory, this is a given. There are people in Half World caught in an endless loop, repeating their suicides over and over again. Subverted with Ms. Wei, who contemplated suicide but ultimately decided not to, but played straight with a character in ''Darkest Light''. |
| 192 | * ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy'': |
| 193 | ** Danalis, one of the other street urchins recruited by Garris Shrike, killed herself after finally realizing he would never have her face fixed in return for her work (she'd been horribly disfigured as a child). |
| 194 | ** Moff Sarn Shild kills himself after his fleet is defeated at Nar Shaddaa and he's been summoned for an inquiry on Coruscant, knowing that he's just delaying the inevitable otherwise. |
| 195 | * ''Literature/HaremInTheLabyrinthOfAnotherWorld'': Michio starts the series suicidal. In fact, it's only because he was searching suicide websites for a way to die that he stumbled across the site that caused him to be isekaied in the first place. |
| 196 | * At the end of ''Literature/Harmony2016'', [[spoiler:Scott shoots himself in front of all the campers over the destruction of Camp Harmony's reputation]]. |
| 197 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 198 | ** This trope applies to the story of [[spoiler:The Bloody Baron]] from ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', who did precisely this after killing his lover, [[spoiler:The Gray Lady]], in a fit of rage. Both of them return as ghosts afterward. |
| 199 | ** From the same book, Hermione points out that the wizard or witch who split his/her own soul to create a Horcrux must feel deep and genuine remorse in order to fix their soul fragments back into one whole piece. The drawback? Said wizard or witch may be overwhelmed by the pain of it to end up with this trope. |
| 200 | ** Gellert Grindelwald commits [[SuicideByCop suicide by letting Voldemort kill him]] without any sort of fight. He even tells Voldemort, "I welcome death." Given that he was in his 110s, had been locked in prison for going on 55 years, and had recently lost the only person he loved and therefore any reason he had to live, it makes sense that death was the only comfort he had left. |
| 201 | ** In the in-universe story The Tale of the Three Brothers (which was later featured in ''Literature/TheTalesOfBeedleTheBard'') this happens to second brother Cadmus Peverell after his dead fiancee he brought back via the Resurrection Stone doesn't feel she belongs in the living world anymore. |
| 202 | * In ''Literature/TheHeartIsALonelyHunter'', deaf-mute John Singer shoots himself in the chest after learning of the death of his best friend, Spiros Antonopoulos. |
| 203 | * In ''Literature/HideMeAmongTheGraves'', Lizzie commits suicide by drug overdose because she sees no other way to save herself and her unborn child from the vampiric creature preying on them. It succeeds in putting her soul beyond the creature's reach -- but not her child's. |
| 204 | * When Derry realizes the extent of Wencit's control over his mind in ''[[Literature/{{Deryni}} High Deryni]]'', he tries to kill himself to avoid betraying Morgan and Kelson. [[InterruptedSuicide His failure (caused by Wencit's implanted psychic compulsion)]] reduces him to weeping bitterly and stabbing the dirt floor of his cell with the dagger he cannot use on himself. |
| 205 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1''. In the book's climax, the Heart of Gold's crew is being fired upon by intergalactic police. [[spoiler:Then the cops suddenly die for no apparent reason. As it turns out, Marvin had been talking to the other ship's computer, giving it his views on the universe. The computer then committed suicide, taking the cops out with it.]] |
| 206 | * In ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'', [[spoiler:Holloway Roberts]] goes AxCrazy exploring the labyrinth, shoots both of his fellow explorers, and runs around inside the labyrinth talking into his portable camera, constantly repeating his name and where he was born. Several days later he finally shoots himself, having gone insane from fear of something he perceived was following him. |
| 207 | * In ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'', [[spoiler: Tam Lin drinks wine only he knew was poisoned as an atonement for planting a bomb that accidently killed twenty school kids.]] |
| 208 | * In ''Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' [[spoiler:Quasimodo]] kills himself, due to either being related to or participating in the deaths of everyone he loved. |
| 209 | * ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': |
| 210 | ** This is the climax of the first book: when the Capitol reneges on their previous ruling that Tributes from the same District could tie in the games, Katniss and Peeta Mellark threaten to both eat poisonous berries rather than fight to the death, meaning that the Games would have no winner. The Capitol allows the tie instead. |
| 211 | ** Subverted with Katniss Everdeen in ''Literature/{{Mockingjay}}'', but not for want of ''attempting''. She understandably attempts various suicidal things after the end of the war. None are successful naturally, although the fact she narrates the books isn't in itself a giveaway since the books are in present, rather than past tense. |
| 212 | * In ''Literature/HuntersMoon1989'', [[spoiler:A-konkon]] commits ritual suicide and causes the humans to worry there's a rabies outbreak. |
| 213 | * ''Literature/{{Hurog}}'': |
| 214 | ** In ''Literature/DragonBones'', Tosten, the younger brother of the protagonist, Ward, is driven to attempt suicide by his abusive father. Ward finds him just in time to save his life and take him to another town, where their father can't find him. |
| 215 | ** Also Oreg, who was MadeASlave and could only be [[ICannotSelfTerminate killed by his owner]]. He tried to provoke at least one of his owners into killing him. Unfortunately, the guy was clever enough to have someone ''else'' beat the shit out of Oreg, from which he recovered due to the near-immortality. |
| 216 | * [[spoiler:Simone]] most of the way through ''{{Literature/Idlewild}}''. Depression results from the many revelations of the plot, and escape is all too easy. |
| 217 | * At the beginning of the ''Literature/IncarnationsOfImmortality'' book ''On a Pale Horse'', after thoroughly screwing himself over with several bad decisions, Zane decides to kill himself. (He gets better when he winds up [[RelievingTheReaper killing and replacing Death]].) |
| 218 | * In "Literature/IronShadowsInTheMoon", Olivia tries to escape by telling her pursuer that she will drown herself if he comes after; he tells her that the waters are too shallow. |
| 219 | * In ''Literature/IShallWearMidnight'', Mr. Petty was Driven to Suicide after he went on a drunken rampage, bludgeoned his pregnant thirteen-year-old daughter and caused her to miscarry. Fortunately, Tiffany arrives in time. |
| 220 | * ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'': |
| 221 | ** Pam Knight, [[spoiler:mother of Ginny Knight]], hung herself before the events of "The Dangers of Gingerbread Men" after the victim, Dr. [=McCay=], botched an eye-lift on her and demolished her lawsuit against him. |
| 222 | ** In ''Pampered to Death'', it's revealed that Mallory Francis forced an assistant director named Pablo Sandoval to get her fresh mangos during a hurricane, which resulted in him crashing his car and needing a wheelchair for 15 years, ending when he eventually shot himself. This inspired his wife [[spoiler:Lorraine, AKA Cathy Kane]] to kill Mallory. |
| 223 | ** It's revealed in ''Killing Cupid'' that this happened to [[spoiler:Cassie's]] mother, courtesy of Joy Amoroso. |
| 224 | * In Creator/LordDunsany's short story ''The Jest of the Gods'', the title characters created a king's soul containing more pride, strength, and ambition than kings ordinarily had, then sent the soul to be born as a slave. Their jest backfired when the soul grew up and was Driven to Suicide, which they hadn't expected. |
| 225 | * ''Literature/JoePickett'': Happens to game warden Will Jensen in ''Out of Range'' as a result of {{Gaslighting}}. Joe gets called in to clean up the mess. |
| 226 | * In ''Literature/JohannesCabalTheNecromancer'' Horst, Johannes' vampire brother reveals to Cabal that his whole quest-to win 100 souls for Satan to get his own soul back, is going to fail because Horst had long-ago stolen a contract and tricked Cabal into thinking he had one more signed than he did. Knowing that this means Cabal will lose the wager, die, and then go to Hell, Horst decides to walk into the morning sun, unwilling to live on as a vampire who had killed his own brother. |
| 227 | * ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'': |
| 228 | ** In ''Chessman of Mars'', O-Tar is handed the dagger when they would replace him with his son as jeddak, because "There can be but one jeddak in Manator." |
| 229 | ** In ''The Warlord of Mars'', Phaidor [[DisneyVillainDeath throws herself overboard]] [[RedemptionEqualsDeath to repent]] for [[MurderTheHypotenuse her attempt on Dejah Thoris' life.]] |
| 230 | * In ''Literature/TheJoyLuckClub'' An-mei's mother, after getting kicked out of her home, raped by a man, forced into a horrific marriage and concubine to her rapist, and has her son by him taken from her by his Second Wife to claim as her own, commits suicide by poison. However, she times her suicide to fall two days before Chinese New Years', as folklore states that a dead person's spirit returns the third day after he or she dies to settle old scores, knowing that her husband and Second Wife are superstitious and would not want to deal with her vengeful spirit on such a holy day on New Year's, ensuring that her children would be treated well from now on. |
| 231 | * Michael, in the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries'', after [[CursedWithAwesome developing fullblown magic]] and getting chased by a mob into a ice cold river during winter. When he pulls himself out he decides that, as a magic using freak, it might be better if he dies. Thankfully, he's rescued and convinced that there's nothing wrong with him before this idea can have any time to grow. |
| 232 | * There are three notable cases in ''Literature/TheLegendsongSaga''. |
| 233 | ** Wind drowns himself as part of the {{Backstory}}. It is due to a deep dissatisfaction with the world and himself, and a perceived inability to make any meaningful difference. |
| 234 | ---> My arrow lies into the night\ |
| 235 | Seeking a target out of sight\ |
| 236 | If nothing draws it to the light\ |
| 237 | I fall to the Void, I drown\ |
| 238 | (Wind's SuicideNote) |
| 239 | ** Some versions of Shennavyre after the Unykorn has been imprisoned |
| 240 | ** Lanalor's death is also suicide, part of his atoning SelfSacrificeScheme. [[spoiler: Although actually his body is in a ConvenientComa on Earth, kept just alive as bait for the Chaos spirit.]] |
| 241 | * In Creator/RickCook's ''Literature/LimboSystem'', [[spoiler:Ludenemeyer]] does this to avoid capture with his knowledge. Later, Jenkins implies to [=DeRosa=] that Dr. Takiuji had to agree to do this if need be to avoid capture [[spoiler:to hide from spies that his actual plan was to substitute someone else for Takiuji and so prevent their having his knowledge]]. |
| 242 | * In Stella Benson's ''Living Alone'', Sarah Brown whimsically thinks of this when in too much pain to move. |
| 243 | -->Sarah Brown wondered whether she could cut her throat with a hoe.\ |
| 244 | "Suicide while of sound mind," she said. "The said mind being entirely sick of its unsound body." |
| 245 | * ''Literature/LonesomeDove'': [[spoiler:After the town has become a ghost town, Xavier tragically locks himself into the barroom and then burns it down so he can't escape out of loneliness.]] |
| 246 | * ''Literature/LookToTheWest'': Lavoisier offs himself when he learns that the primitive gas chamber he built has been used to execute the French Royal Family. |
| 247 | * ''Literature/TheLordsOfDiscipline'': A minor character, Poteete, hangs himself in the first act of the book. This foreshadows [[spoiler:Pig walking in front of a train after he's expelled from the Institute a few months from graduation]]. |
| 248 | * In ''Literature/TheLostFleet'', Captain Rogov commits suicide after the threat of a mutiny among his crew forces him to abandon his current (probably illegitimate) orders to start a war with the Dancers and formally accept Geary's authority. While his exact reasons aren't spelled out, it seems likely that it was a combination of guilt about getting seven members of his crew killed and the knowledge that no matter whether his orders were legitimate or not, he's going to face a CourtMartial once the fleet returns to Alliance Space. If the orders were illegitimate, then he'll get court-martialed for getting members of his crew killed while trying to follow them, and if they were genuine, then he'll almost certainly be made the scapegoat for failing to carry them out. |
| 249 | * ''Literature/MadameBovary'': Emma poisons herself with arsenic, feeling unloved and misunderstood by her husband and lovers and unable to pay her debts she owes to a usurer. She expects her death to be romantic and dignified, but it is anything but and she suffers horribly. |
| 250 | * ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'': |
| 251 | ** Back when Jedao was alive, he was raped by his superior, and would've committed suicide shortly afterwards if it wasn't for his friend finding him and dragging him out to spend some time with people. Hundreds of years later, he's still suicidal, though he has far more reasons for it and is unable to kill himself due to his undead nature. |
| 252 | ** Connected to be above, the EmotionBomb caused by the calendric rot makes Cheris suicidal until Jedao talks her out of it, because it makes some of his thoughts and emotions bleed through to her. |
| 253 | ** When chatting with Khiruev, Jedao mentions that one of his siblings committed suicide on the anniversary of Hellspin Massacre. |
| 254 | * ''Literature/TheMazeRunner'': |
| 255 | ** In the third book, it is revealed that Newt tried to kill himself sometime before Thomas arrived at the Glade, by jumping from a wall. [[BungledSuicide He survived]], but broke his leg, hence his permanent limp. |
| 256 | ** Explicitly averted with the Cranks. They live in a FateWorseThanDeath, being turned into mindless zombies who attack anything on sight, but none seem to choose suicide even before they pass the Gone. In fact, when Newt admits that he is turning into a Crank, he writes a message for Thomas to kill him before he completely loses his intellect, implying that despite their state, Cranks have an innate state of self-preservation. |
| 257 | * In ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'', reading Nisses' book will push you over the DespairEventHorizon and make you wish you were dead. The first person to read it flung himself out a window. The only other person we know to have read it was driven from a position of happiness and power to a life of wandering begging and shame and despair. |
| 258 | * In ''Literature/MidnightsChildren'', Saleem's uncle Hanif jumps off a building after Homi Catrack -- his sole source of income -- is murdered. Saleem blames himself, as he initiated the chain of events that led to Homi's murder. |
| 259 | * In ''Literature/MiracleCreek'', [[spoiler:Elizabeth]] escapes from custody and drives off a cliff because [[spoiler:she's desperate for the trial to just end, and she doesn't want her lawyer to pin the arson on an innocent person]]. |
| 260 | * In ''Literature/LesMiserables'', the original InspectorJavert can't accept that the same Jean Valjean whom he has chased for years has just spared his life and freed him; the cognitive dissonance eventually overwhelms him and [[ItWasHisSled he drowns himself]]. The circumstances probably didn't help in this case, as he had just gotten out of several extremely stressful situations with no rest in between (the department immediately putting him back on duty) and was confronted with said HeroicBSOD immediately after said situations. |
| 261 | * A particularly manipulative example in ''Literature/TheMonk'': Matilda swears that if she can't have Ambrosio or at least be near him, she will kill herself. This threat goes away later for reasons unexplained after he beds her. |
| 262 | * In ''Literature/TheMothDiaries'', Ernessa may or may not have committed suicide by slitting her wrists after her father's death (also a possible suicide), which act could have [[spoiler:made her a vampire, if she was one]]. The narrator theorises this -- no, she states it as a matter of fact - in one of the very last entries in her journal [[spoiler:before she tries to burn down her school]]; as her mental health was already deteriorating quite early on, we are left unsure. The narrator also [[spoiler:contemplates this act, but doesn't go through with it]]. Her father did this too, which did leave you wondering whether the narrator was imprinting her past onto Ernessa, and fantasising about ending her life in the same way. |
| 263 | * ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'': After the virus he made is unleashed by [[spoiler: Jock, Cornelius]] kills himself. Through burning, since he wants no evidence left behind that he's been castrated. |
| 264 | * ''Literature/NinaTanleven'': In the backstory of ''The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed'', the titular ghost died after her father Cornelius Fletcher was beaten and left to die, eventually making it to the wall of their home but unable to get inside and bring her the medicine that would have saved her life. The ringleader of the group that did the beating was Hiram Potter, and afterward discovered that not only had an innocent child died because of him, Potter's ''own'' first-born owed his life to Fletcher, who'd been badly injured while saving the young man during a battle in World War I. These two discoveries led a [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horrified]] Hiram to hang himself in his barn. |
| 265 | * A recurring theme or plot point in ''Literature/NorwegianWood''. By the end of the novel, four main or secondary characters kill themselves. |
| 266 | * ''Literature/OddThomas'': [[spoiler:Odd's mother, who is incapable of any responsibility whatsoever, threatens suicide with a gun any time anyone asks her something she doesn't want to deal with. She does this even to Odd as a child, along with [[AbusiveParents putting the barrel of the gun to his eye so he can see the bullet, and threatening to kill him]].]] |
| 267 | * At the end of ''Literature/OfMiceAndMooshaber'', Mrs. Mooshaber -- who is poor, widowed and terrorised by her children -- poisons herself and dies. It happens after TheReveal that she is [[spoiler:the rightful ruler of the oppressed country, Duchess Augusta, and she dies just before she returns on her throne]]. |
| 268 | * At the opening of the ''Literature/OldKingdom'' book ''Lirael'', Lirael decides to commit suicide at the age of fourteen, having not received the Sight and therefore still a child in her cloistered world. She climbs to a ledge in a Paperwing (airplane) hangar to jump to her doom. She is stopped when a Paperwing arrives, and witnesses the ensuing plot-relevant conversation. The other Clayr find her and deduce what she was doing. They convince her that there is still hope she will gain the Sight, and promptly erase her memory of the plot-relevant conversation. She tried again in the ensuing years, but was talked out of it by her companion, the Disreputable Dog. |
| 269 | * Narrowly subverted in ''Literature/OneFatSummer'' when Bobby Marks is so broken from his recent trauma that he contemplates lying still and letting the rising tide claim him. Fortunately, an InnerMonologue leads to an epiphany regarding his own worth as a person. |
| 270 | * [[spoiler:Billy Bibbit]] in ''Literature/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'', thanks to a manipulative Nurse Ratched threatening him and bringing him back to reality. |
| 271 | * ''Literature/OnTheBeach'' has ''everyone left on Earth'' who hasn't already been killed in the final nuclear war committing suicide via {{Cyanide Pill}}s administered by the Australian government, as it is [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled quicker and more painless than dying slowly from radiation sickness]]. |
| 272 | * ''Literature/OnTheJellicoeRoad'': [[spoiler:The Hermit and in a slower version Tate]] both commit suicide; [[spoiler:Jonah and Hannah]] were stopped [[InterruptedSuicide before they finished the job]]. |
| 273 | * ''Literature/TheOutsider2018'': Fred Peterson decides to hang himself after he loses his entire family in less than a week (first his youngest son, Frank, is brutally murdered, then his wife succumbs to a hearth attack, and finally his second son, Ollie, is killed by the police after Ollie kills Terry Maitland, the mans suspected of murdering Frank). |
| 274 | * ''Literature/PaladinOfShadows'': Many of the people listed in the files retrieved [[spoiler:during the Albanian operation]] in ''Choosers of the Slain'' have been quietly informed of the existence of the files, resulting in a lot of them committing suicide. [[spoiler:Japanese businessmen in particular are said to have ''all'' killed themselves after being informed their activities were recorded.]] |
| 275 | * This shows up a ''lot'' in ''Literature/ThePaleKing'': |
| 276 | ** Thanks to Leonard's unbridled optimism, his homeroom teacher threatens to kill herself with a pair of blunt scissors. |
| 277 | ** Garrity. |
| 278 | ** Training Officer Pam Jensen intends to soon, and [[spoiler: Lane Dean]] is considering it. |
| 279 | * In Richard Stark's first ''Literature/{{Parker}}'' novel ''The Hunter'', Parker's wife, Lynn, tried to kill him(and thought she did) and becomes wrought with guilt. When Parker comes back to find her, she is relieved at first. Considering it's Parker who comes back though, it doesn't last long. He doesn't even say a word to her before smacking her across her face. He doesn't care about her anymore, and only wants to find the man who betrayed him(and made Lynn try to kill him). She still loves him. She tells him that she can't sleep at night without taking pills. She thinks about how she killed him, and wished it was her. Parker offers a single piece of advice. "Take Too Many Pills." In the morning, when he finds her with an empty container in hand, he says "You always were dumb." |
| 280 | * ''Literature/{{Patternist}}'': TheAgeless biomancer Anyanwu wills herself dead the night after the TimeAbyss body-surfer Doro is permanently killed. It's left {{ambiguous|Situation}} whether it's because she's [[WhoWantsToLiveForever tired of outliving her descendants]] and no longer needs to protect them from Doro's predation, because she's lost the only other immortal being in her centuries-long life, or because she doesn't want to be part of the SuperSupremacist future that [[spoiler:Mary]] is building. |
| 281 | * ''Literature/PetalsOnTheWind'': |
| 282 | ** Paul's wife is driven to suicide, as well as [[DiedOnTheirBirthday killing their own 3-year-old child on his birthday]] in the process, when she can no longer tolerate her husband's abuse and infidelity. |
| 283 | ** [[spoiler:Julian is turns suicidal after an accident leaves him paralyzed and unlikely to even walk again, much less dance]]. |
| 284 | ** [[spoiler:Carrie commits suicide after her own mother pretends to not know her]]. |
| 285 | * In Gaston Leroux’s original ''Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', this was TortureTechnician Erik’s (the eponymous phantom) favorite method of disposing of his victims with his RoboticTortureDevice. If you are lucky, he only will strangle you to death. |
| 286 | * In the backstory of ''Literature/PilgrennonsChildren'', Pilgrennon's older sister Lydia, who had undiagnosed Asperger's, committed suicide via pills and electrocution after years of abuse by both parents and classmates. She lingered in the hospital for three days. She had MidSuicideRegret by the end, but it was too late to save her. |
| 287 | * In ''Literature/ThePrioryOfTheOrangeTree'', this is eventually revealed to have been the fate of [[spoiler:Galian Berethnet. When he discovered that he had married not his beloved Cleolind but his ''adoptive mother'' in hypnotic disguise, he hanged himself. The other six Knights of Virtue hushed it up, leaving the circumstances of his death unknown until Kalyba explains it.]] |
| 288 | * In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Literature/ProsperosDaughter Prospero Lost]]'', in the BackStory, Miranda had thought of killing herself when she thought Ferdinard had jilted her. |
| 289 | * The very first ''Literature/{{Raffles}}'' story, "The Ides of March", starts with the narrator, Bunny Manders, on the verge of financial ruin and disgrace. He asks his old friend Raffles for money; when Raffles explains he has none, Bunny attempts to kill himself in front of the other man. |
| 290 | * The legendary Roman matron Lucretia, most famously memorialized in Creator/WilliamShakespeare's poem ''The Rape of Lucrece'', commits suicide after being raped. |
| 291 | * ''Literature/{{Ravensong}}'': [[spoiler:Polly is assumed to had sex with Herb and]] is driven to suicide by the SlutShaming she endures. |
| 292 | * In the ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy'', Ann Clayborn, already of a depressive disposition, becomes suicidal because she thinks her son is dead and that it was her fault Frank died while they were fleeing private security forces. Once everyone is out of danger she leaves the rover and turns its heating off to freeze herself to death, but is interrupted by her husband finding her and dragging her back. She never attempts suicide in the rest of the trilogy, but she spends the vast majority of it a DeathSeeker. |
| 293 | * ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': |
| 294 | ** The Calvarians are prone to this due to their being a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]], who would rather die than live with the shame of failure. In ''The Baron of Maleperduys'', over half of the Calvarian survivors of a battle that ended in defeat request permission to fall on their own swords. Their commanding officer turns them all down, but only because he can't afford to lose any more soldiers. |
| 295 | ** Moire, the second mate of the Quicksilver, succumbs to this in ''Reynard the Fox'' when it dawns on her that she is pregnant with at least one [[MixAndMatchCritters Chimera]] child after having been subjected to a horrifying sexual assault at their hands. |
| 296 | * Applied with a twist in Creator/EdwardArlingtonRobinson's famous "Richard Cory". The bulk of the poem is a glowing but superficial description of the regal title character. In the final line, he shoots himself without warning or explanation; we see the suicide, but (uncommonly in fiction) we receive little sense of why he was driven to it. |
| 297 | * In ''Literature/{{Room}}'', after an interview leads her to believe that she failed to do what was best for her beloved son, [[ChildByRape Jack]], by not getting him out of the titular room they were held prisoner in for 5+ years, Ma attempts to overdose on pills. |
| 298 | * A good chunk of ''Literature/SailorNothing'' derives dramatic tension from a "will she or won't she" situation, especially when it's revealed that [[spoiler:every Sailor to ever be in Himei's position ended up killing herself]]. |
| 299 | * In ''Literature/TheSecretAgent'', Winnie commits suicide by jumping off a steamer after she is robbed and abandoned by Ossipon |
| 300 | * The book ''Literature/Seventeen2004'' deals with a seventeen year old girl who decides to kill herself in seven days if her life doesn't improve. Her best friend abandons her to become a model, her other friend is raped, she's convinced that she's never been good at anything except diving, and her boyfriend dumps her on the side of the road when she refuses to sleep with him. [[spoiler: She goes straight to a bridge and jumps off. Halfway down, she changes her mind, puts her diving training into use, and swims to shore. The book ends without telling us if her life improves.]] |
| 301 | * ''Literature/TheShadowhunterChronicles'': |
| 302 | ** Prior to ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'', Céline Herondale killed herself when she heard about her husband Stephen's death, despite being pregnant at the time. Valentine Morgenstern cut her son Jace out from her body and raised him as his own. |
| 303 | ** ''Literature/TheInfernalDevices'': |
| 304 | *** Subverted. Tessa Gray makes the Magister ''think'' she killed herself so that he wouldn't get his hands on her power, but in reality she Changed into a woman who'd died by a gunshot wound seconds before the wound would prove fatal. |
| 305 | *** Benedict Lightwood claims that his wife, Barbara, died of despair after her brother, Silas Pangborn, committed suicide with his lover, Eloisa Ravenscar, as they as they were unable to marry because of their status as parabatai. However, it is later revealed that Barbara actually killed herself upon being infected by the demon pox. |
| 306 | ** ''Literature/TheDarkArtifices'': |
| 307 | *** Samantha Larkspear threw herself off the Basilias after being driven insane by the Pool of Reflection, which forced her to relieve her cruelty over and over again. |
| 308 | *** In [[BadFuture Thule]], Livia Blackthorn states that the Alec Lightwood of her world committed suicide after being forced to kill his boyfriend, Magnus Bane. |
| 309 | %%* ''Literature/ShadowsOfTheApt'': The Bee-Queen is driven to this. |
| 310 | * In Creator/JosephineTey's ''The Singing Sands'', the egocentric killer opts for a dramatic suicide and a long-winded suicide note to a Scotland Yard investigator, assuming that the murder has been a perfect murder that could not have been detected or proved and wanting to go out in a blaze of glory. Wrong on all counts, as it happened. |
| 311 | * ''Literature/TheSilerianTrilogy'': |
| 312 | ** Borall, after hearing that Elelar's appeal is going to be heard in Valda, kills himself knowing it will be revealed how much information Elalar got from him unwittingly. |
| 313 | ** [[spoiler: Alcinar]] drowned herself after Zarien was born, due to apparent trauma from being raped. |
| 314 | * ''Literature/SisterhoodSeries'' by Creator/FernMichaels: ''Lethal Justice'' reveals that an elderly couple did this after Arden Gillespie and Roland Sullivan sucked up all their money. Isabelle Flanders admits that when everything around her just went to hell, she was one step away from committing suicide before Nikki Quinn came into her life. ''Hokus Pokus'' implies that Maggie Spritzer was on the verge of this, but Jack Emery intervened before anything really bad happened. |
| 315 | * ''Literature/TheSisterVerseAndTheTalonsOfRuin'' has John trying this as a last-ditch attempt to end the torments of the [[EldritchAbomination Lord in White]], only to be immediately healed. Later, the story opens the third act with the protagonist jumping off a bridge. |
| 316 | * In ''Literature/SixGunSnowWhite'', Gun That Sings tried to cut her wrists after finding out she was pregnant. |
| 317 | * ''Slam Book'', a 1987 young-adult novel by ''Literature/TheBabySittersClub'' creator Ann M. Martin, details the feud between wannabe queen-bee Anna and her nemesis and ex-friend, [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior budding alcoholic]] Paige, as it plays out in the pages of Anna's titular slam book. Anna devises a scheme to humiliate Paige by forging messages from Paige in the slam book to Cheryl, the class outcast. When Cheryl realizes she's been tricked, she kills herself by slitting her wrists, and Anna, who had thought a slam book would be her ticket to popularity, is [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone wracked with guilt]], until her parents manage to convince her that Cheryl's suicide was [[NeverMyFault due to her emotional instability]], not to any direct action of Anna or Paige. |
| 318 | * ''Literature/SleepingBeauties'': From the first moment Aurora is reported, suicide rates among the men of the world drastically increases, with many men unable to live on without hope their wifes and daughters will ever wake up, or hoping to join them in the dreamland they went to. A schoolteacher named Eliot Ainsley announces his suicide on a radioshow before doing it. And after waking up from her Aurora-induced sleep, a woman named Rita Coomb finds her husband Terry has killed himself in the garage. |
| 319 | * In ''Literature/SmallPersonsWithWings'', this has been known to happen to people who drink the moonstone elixir, which confronts people with every AwfulTruth about themselves. Ogier's father died this way when Ogier was fifteen. [[spoiler:After Mellie's parents drink the elixir, Fidius keeps telling them even more awful things about themselves until they decide to jump off the roof of the inn, but [[InterruptedSuicide the other Parvi catch them]].]] |
| 320 | * ''Literature/TheSongOfAchilles'': It's pretty clear that neither Achilles nor Patroclus intend to spend much time around alive once the other dies. Patroclus says various times he intends to follow Achilles in death once the prophecy claims his life. Achilles's case is more tragic, as when Patroclus dies, his immediate instinct upon seeing his corpse is to grab his own knife so he can kill himself on the spot, and is only stopped by the minor inconvenience that he'd given his knife to Patroclus himself. Afterwards, Achilles becomes a DeathSeeker, going into battle for the express purpose of finding someone that can kill him. |
| 321 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': |
| 322 | ** In ''Literature/AGameOfThrones'', after seeing her father beheaded before her eyes, Sansa Stark briefly considers throwing herself off the Red Keep, but does not find the courage and instead [[BreakTheCutie returns to bed to continue sobbing]]. |
| 323 | ** Possibly Catelyn Stark in ''Literature/AStormOfSwords''. Seeing her firstborn, Robb, being killed during the Red Wedding, she begins clawing her face in insanity until one of the Freys slits her throat. Tyrion Lannister finds out that Cat was supposed to be taken as hostage, but the Freys realized that she would have tried to kill herself before they could do it. |
| 324 | ** Ashara Dayne, a possible lover of Eddard Stark, killed herself shortly after Robert's Rebellion. Nobody knows the reason, with speculation ranging from giving birth to a stillborn daughter, grief over her brother Arthur's death, or mental instability as a result of being "dishonored" during the Tourney at Harrenhal. |
| 325 | ** Gael Targaryen, the youngest child of Jaehaerys I, drowned herself after giving birth to a stillborn son. |
| 326 | ** Queen Helaena Targaryen during the Dance of the Dragons. After being forced to make a SadisticChoice to sacrifice one of her sons, only to see the other being beheaded, she became depressed and eventually jumped from the window of Maegor's Holdfast. However, people speculated that she was actually murdered under the orders of her half-sister, Rhaenyra. |
| 327 | ** Aelora Targaryen, niece and heir apparent of her uncle Aerys I, committed suicide after being assaulted by three men during a ball. She had been rather unstable ever since the death of her husband/twin brother, Aelor, and the assault was merely the last straw. |
| 328 | * Quentin Compson in ''Literature/TheSoundAndTheFury'' commits suicide because he's unable to cope with living in a world where he doesn't belong anymore. Quentin was born and raised on the values of the Old South, particularly about how women are suppose to be virtuous and upstanding. He begins to lose touch with reality when his older sister, Candace, begins to sleep around, destroying his aforementioned belief of women, his father preaches nihilism, and sees the Old South fading away. |
| 329 | * A [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werther_effect famous]] example: in Goethe's ''Literature/TheSorrowsOfYoungWerther'', Werther shoots himself in the head to escape an unbearable love triangle (he is in love with a married woman). A semi-BungledSuicide, in that he does not die instantly, but suffers for twelve hours before finally dying. |
| 330 | * ''Literature/TheSouthernReachTrilogy'': |
| 331 | ** All members of the second expedition to [[EldritchLocation Area X]] committed suicide. |
| 332 | ** The psychologist of the twelfth expedition has a list of commands that are supposed to trigger certain responses in the conditioned members of the expedition. "Annihilation" is the one that is meant to trigger a suicide attempt. |
| 333 | * In the ''Literature/SpiralArm'' series, there are a couple of examples during the civil war in the Lion's Mouth. Shadow Prime, the mentor of all Shadows, is driven to despair and eventually death by the sight of his students divided and slaughtering one another; and Kelly Stapellaufer, whose infidelity provided a pretext for the beginning of the civil war, kills both her lovers and then herself. |
| 334 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'': |
| 335 | ** [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic Randy Morrison]] in ''Literature/StarTrekTheEugenicsWars'', who was already paranoid and a little unhinged, goes completely insane when [[ActionGirl Roberta]] foils his terrorist plot. Convinced that (imaginary) black NWO helicopters are coming to claim him for a show trial, he vaporizes himself with Roberta's [[SwissArmyWeapon servo]]. |
| 336 | ** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' novel "Vendetta" the former Borg drone Reannon Bonaventure found herself unable to live with the trauma of having been assimilated and what she had done as a Borg drone, and committed suicide with a laser scapel she had smuggled out of sickbay. |
| 337 | ** Amkot Gorrell committed suicide in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' novel "Antimatter" after the USS ''Hannibal'' - an ''Ambassador''-class starship Amkot helped build for Starfleet - was launched. This was due to his feelings of guilt of not only working for the Cardassians, but also being forced to work for Bajoran extremist groups like "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E02TheCircle The Circle]]." |
| 338 | ** Fleet Admiral Krell commits ritual suicide in the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' [[Literature/StarTrekEnterpriseRelaunch relaunch]] novel "Live by the Code" due to the dishonor he feels for having failed to protect the late Chancellor M'Rek from a dishonorable death. |
| 339 | * ''Literature/StarWarsKenobi'': |
| 340 | ** Tusken warriors who are permanently injured are expected to kill themselves rather than become a drain on the tribe's resources. A'Yark gives one such young warrior, with a shrapnel wound in his arm, a knife and some privacy, in LeaveBehindAPistol fashion. |
| 341 | --->'''A'Yark:''' ''Whoever has two hands can hold a gaderffii.'' |
| 342 | ** Annileen's father killed himself after a wasting disease devastated his animals and ruined his ranch, forcing Annileen to go and work for the man who would become her husband. |
| 343 | * ''Literature/TheStormAravDagli'': The wife has held the kitchen knife to her neck many times before in the ideation of escaping her husband's abuse that way. She considers it beautifully befitting that the knife she attempted to take her own life with would be used to take her life back (by killing her husband). |
| 344 | * ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': |
| 345 | ** ''Literature/TheWayOfKings2010'': After a long succession of absolutely everything in Kaladin's life going wrong, from his brother dying, to his squad being slaughtered, to being made a slave and tossed into the worst job imaginable, Kaladin finally decides to go to "Honor Chasm" and jump. Syl manages to stop him at the last second by [[ItMakesSenseInContext bringing him poison]]. |
| 346 | ** ''Literature/WordsOfRadiance'': Shallan and Kaladin finally connect when she describes his depression perfectly, in a way that makes him realize [[NotSoDifferentRemark she must have experienced it herself]]. We don't get a scene of Shallan actually considering the act, but one of the things she mentions is being so depressed you can't even work up the willpower to kill yourself. |
| 347 | ** Seems Radiants in general suffer from this, due to every single one of them being a BrokenAce. Teft even explains that part of their first [[BadassCreed Ideal]] ("Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination") is about not risking your life unnecessarily. So yes, there are ten entire orders of holy knights who are so depressed that they need "don't commit suicide" as an ironclad rule. |
| 348 | * ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde'' ends with Hyde committing suicide by poison after he's cornered by the protagonist and knowing he will be tried and executed for murder, and having no way of transforming back into Dr Jekyll due to running out of a vital ingredient for his potion (which had begun to lose it's effect to the point where Jekyll had transformed into Hyde without taking it at all). This of course also effectively kills Dr Jekyll as well, though Jekyll [[DeadManWriting in his last letter before the final transformation]] notes DeathOfPersonality will have taken him by that point and that he's made peace with that. |
| 349 | * ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'': [[spoiler: Sebastian]], unable to reconcile his love for Jennsen with his belief in the Imperial Order, takes poison. Jennsen herself said he should. |
| 350 | * ''Tears of a Tiger'' had the protagonist Andy feel guilty for the death of Robert, one of his best friends, after a car accident he (Andy) caused. [[spoiler: When his depression continued to linger (due to lying to get out of therapy sessions) and he started to grow distant from his friends and family, this concluded with Andy shooting himself with his father's handgun.]] |
| 351 | * ''Literature/{{Tease}}'' by Amanda Maciel is told from the point of view of a bully whose actions drove her victim to take her own life. Sara hated "slutty" Emma Putnam for trying to steal her boyfriend, and she and her best friend [[AlphaBitch Brielle]] harassed and tormented Emma every chance they got. Now Emma is dead, and Sara, Brielle and several of their classmates are facing charges in connection with her suicide. Sara initially denies any culpability, but in time comes to realize the role she had in the tragedy and to feel genuine remorse. |
| 352 | * [[spoiler:Howard Van Horn]] does this is the Creator/ElleryQueen novel ''Ten Days' Wonder''. This leads Ellery to prematurely conclude that the case is over. |
| 353 | * Charlie in the prologue of ''Literature/TerraMirumChronicles'', which is the catalyst for Alys's story. |
| 354 | * ''Literature/ThingsFallApart'' ends with Okonkwo hanging himself, unable to handle the changes wrought by the arrival of the Europeans. |
| 355 | * ''Literature/ThirdTimeLuckyAndOtherStoriesOfTheMostPowerfulWizardInTheWorld'': In "We Two May Meet" Antonio jumps into a lava flow after learning his entire people were killed by the volcanic eruption which left this. |
| 356 | * The villains of ''Literature/TheThreeHostages'' are a criminal conspiracy whose leaders are all highly placed in society. When the police start rounding them up at the end, several of the ringleaders commit suicide to avoid capture and public disgrace. |
| 357 | * ''Literature/ThisSideOfParadise'': Due to intense grief over his love interest, Rosalind Connage, leaving him for Dawson Ryder, Amory Blaine announces at the Knickerbocker Bar that he's going to commit suicide the next day. Due to initially not being dissuaded from his newfound suicidal tendencies, Amory ends up in discussion about depression and suicide. He eventually backs off from committing suicide. |
| 358 | * [[spoiler: Jeremiah Paulson]] from the Creator/DaleBrown novel ''A Time for Patriots''. |
| 359 | * ''Literature/{{Trilby}}'' has the eponymous character, having left her friends and supporters out of shame, contemplate throwing herself into the Seine; at the last moment she gives up and returns to her evil mentor Svengali. She doesn't say whether that's worse or not. |
| 360 | * In the ''Literature/{{Underdogs}}'' series, most dead members of LaResistance died trying to weaken Grant's authority. There are a few exceptions, including 28-year-old Mike Ambrose, who killed himself rather than continue living in Grant's totalitarian hellscape. |
| 361 | * In ''Literature/VampireAcademy'', shadow-kissed Anna, the guardian and companion to Saint Vladimir, grew unstable following his death and committed suicide. |
| 362 | * The overwhelming majority of vampires from ''Literature/TheVampireChronicles'' end up this way, because they can't handle the continuous changes in human mindset and lifestyle. |
| 363 | * The VillainProtagonist of the "penny dreadful" novel ''Literature/VarneyTheVampire'' is full of self-loathing at the evils he commits, and unable to save himself, eventually decides to end his life. He sure does it in style, however, [[DyingMomentOfAwesome leaping into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius in the finale.]] |
| 364 | * In ''Literature/VenissUnderground'', Nicholas is turned into a repulsive monster by Quin as a karmic punishment for his sins. He chooses to leap to his death rather than continue to live in his hideous new shape. |
| 365 | * Raoul de Bragelonne, the title character of ''Literature/TheVicomteDeBragelonne'', commits [[SuicideByCop suicide by Algerians]] after being dumped by his girlfriend. |
| 366 | * ''Literature/TheVillainessFlipsTheScript'': Count Royton Greenhalten kills himself, explaining in his suicide note he did it out of fear of facing Ruediger in the duel. He could technically refuse Ruediger's challenge, but it would mean losing his honor. However, Judith speculates said suicide might have been orchestrated by Franz wanting to clean up his loose ends, since Count Greenhalten was acting on his orders, and Judith planned to interrogate the count in exchange for Ruediger calling off the duel. |
| 367 | * ''Literature/{{Violeta}}'': One year after the Great Depression begins, the Del Valle family loses its fortune, and its home and Arsenio receives a warrant for his arrest. The next day, Violeta brings coffee to her dad and finds him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. |
| 368 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': |
| 369 | ** In the ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novel ''Cain's Last Stand'', when [[spoiler:Donal]]'s freedom from [[CompellingVoice mind control]] is lost as Jurgen steps away, he turns his gun on himself rather than attack Cain. Later, [[spoiler:the Battle Sisters whom Varan brought to his meeting with Cain are also freed by Jurgen's nearness, go insane realizing what they have done under his influence, and commit suicide]]. |
| 370 | ** ''Literature/{{Ultramarines}}'': |
| 371 | *** In ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', when the Ultramarines go through certain tunnels in [[{{Mordor}} the Eye of Terror]], their thoughts are filled with murder and suicide; Pasanius starts to kill himself before Uriel realizes the attack and encourages them to break free. |
| 372 | *** ''The Killing Ground'' opens with a former soldier trying to [[DrowningMySorrows drown his sorrows]]. He ends up blowing his brains out as more effective. |
| 373 | ** In the ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' novel ''Fulgrim'', Serena d'Angelus [[DreamingTheTruth realizes]] that her {{Past Experience Nightmare}}s stem from [[spoiler:murders she committed and forgot]]. She seeks out Ostian, thinking he could save her. She finds him murdered, weeps that [[ObliviousToLove he loved her and she hadn't seen it, and that she loved him]]. Then she commits suicide. Later, Fulgrim realizes how great his betrayal is when he [[spoiler:kills Ferrus Manus]]. He goes to kill himself. [[spoiler:His [[EvilWeapon sword]] says it's too noble for him, and tricks him into accepting possession]]. |
| 374 | ** In the ''Literature/SpaceWolf'' novel ''Wolf's Honour'', when [[spoiler:Ragnar and Torin]] speculate about the causes of the slow turn to ''wulfen'' [[TheCorruption encroaching on their minds]], [[spoiler:Ragnar]] thinks it may be his influence. [[spoiler:Torin]] dissuades him, and is not amused when [[spoiler:Ragnar]] says that it would be much better if he could end it by shooting himself. |
| 375 | ** ''Literature/BloodAngels'': |
| 376 | *** In ''Deus Encarmine'', when the second LastStand looks even more devasted than the apparent first, Turcio speaks of their defeat. Only when Arkio offers him a knife to cut his throat with does Turcio rouse himself to fight again. |
| 377 | *** In ''Deus Sanguinius'', Inquisitor Stele plays on Rafen's fears -- that he [[YoungestChildWins overshadows his younger brother]] and [[GreenEyedMonster is jealous of him]] -- to convince him that he has to free Arkio by killing himself. [[spoiler:Only a literal vision allows him to throw off the mind-witchery.]] |
| 378 | ** In Gav Thorpe's novel ''Angels of Darkness'', the Dark Angels are trapped in a fortress because if they leave it, they will release a horrific virus on the planet and its population, but their suits can not last as long as the virus. They fear what desperation will make them do and think it better to die together, quickly, so they each hold a bomb and have Boreas push the denotator to kill them all. |
| 379 | * Part of the premise of ''Literature/WhatSheLeftBehind'' by Tracy Bilen is Sara and her family dealing with the suicide of Matt, Sara's brother. It was a key factor into starting [[AbusiveParent the abuse from Sara's dad.]] |
| 380 | * In ''Literature/WhereAreTheChildren'', Nancy's first husband Carl drowned himself following Nancy's conviction for killing their children; he [[GoodbyeCruelWorld left behind a note]] stating he knew Nancy was troubled, but he believed he could help her and blamed himself for not realising she was a danger to their children. [[spoiler:Or that's what Carl ''wanted'' everyone to think. He's actually alive and well]]. |
| 381 | * ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'': |
| 382 | ** It's implied that after her lover [[spoiler:Fiyero]] was murdered, [[spoiler:Elphaba]] tried to kill herself. |
| 383 | ** A few years after graduating Shiz it's mentioned that Milla is miserable as Boq's wife in Nest Hardings. When Boq sends Fiyero letters every Lurlinemas, they mention that she has had at least one failed suicide attempt that year. |
| 384 | * In ''Wody Głębokie jak Niebo'', Arachne decides to commit suicide, when she is captured by Severo and faced with a FateWorseThanDeath. She tries to burn herself alive. [[spoiler:It doesn’t work, because fire she wants to use is a demon and she ends up [[DemonicPossession possessed]] by it.]] |
| 385 | * ''Literature/{{Worm}}'': |
| 386 | ** [[spoiler:Tattletale]] [[DefiedTrope saves]] [[spoiler:Taylor]] from this fate by arranging for her to gain friends and self-confidence by [[spoiler:recruiting her into the Undersiders]]. |
| 387 | ** TheEmpath supervillain Cherish likes {{Emotion Bomb}}ing people to death. |
| 388 | ** When hopelessly outmatched the heroes actually drive their enemy [[spoiler:OmnicidalManiac Scion]] to this by [[spoiler: bombarding him with images of his dead partner.]] |
| 389 | * In ''Literature/WutheringHeights'', [[spoiler:Catherine]] purposefully makes herself sick (and later dies) just to spite the two men who love her. |
| 390 |
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