Line #9 Main/BuryYourDisabled


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7	->''"Cito necatus insignis ad deformitatem puer esto"''[[labelnote:Translation]]An obviously deformed child [[OlderThanFeudalism must be put to death]][[/labelnote]]
8	-->-- [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Law of the Twelve Tables]]
9
10	Bury Your Disabled happens when a disabled character (be it physically or mentally) is killed off in a movie or TV Show. There are four types of Bury Your Disabled:
11
12	* '''Accident:''' Someone who is disabled and dies at the end of the movie due to natural causes. Usually due to complications arising from their disability (''Film/RoryOSheaWasHere''). Depending on the nature of the disability, may be TruthInTelevision.
13	* '''Murder:''' The disabled person is killed off in a violent manner. This can be because they (the disabled character) were considered, by the writer and audience, an easier victim because of their disability. Tends to carry the unfortunate implications that someone who is disabled can't protect themselves.[[note]]This ''can'' be TruthInTelevision, but that depends on the specific disability — and even the crippling ones can be compensated for these days. Before the 20th century... not so much.[[/note]]
14	* '''[[DrivenToSuicide Suicide]]:''' May carry the unfortunate implications that one is better off dead than disabled. Or, worst-case scenario, the writer who uses this trope [[TheSocialDarwinist really does believe that one is better dead than disabled]].
15	* '''MercyKill:''' Someone close to the disabled kills — or even murders — the disabled, either by their request or thinking that life as a disabled person would be too hard to bear. This may overlap with suicide, mercy killing, euthanasia, and even murder, and may carry the same unfortunate implications as suicide.
16
17	More than likely the character in question is being killed off by the writers specifically because they are disabled. This is usually a plot point that is supposed to be a TearJerker or, in the case of horror movies, meant to be shocking. This can also combine with LittlestCancerPatient: the frail, wheelchair-using waif is TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth, and their death will be a sweet release at the end.
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19	Bury Your Disabled will most likely happen to a current or (near-)future wheelchair user, but other disabilities are not discriminated against as much. See also DeathByDisfigurement, which has some similar implications, IWillOnlySlowYouDown, where a disabled person volunteers to be left behind, LivingIsMoreThanSurviving, which is sometimes used to justify the "Suicide" and "Mercy Kill" examples, and ThrowingOffTheDisability, the other common way to "dispose of" a disabled character. Compare to BullyingTheDisabled (which can also lead to this) and AbandonTheDisabled.
20
21	!!As this is a {{Death Trope\|s}}, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff unmarked spoilers abound]]. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned Beware]].
22	----
23	!!Examples:
24
25	[[foldercontrol]]
26
27	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
28	* Zigzagged in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''. Commander Erwin Smith loses an arm during a critical battle, and his life is soon threatened when the government arrests him for treason. He escapes death, successfully organizing a coup to overthrow the corrupt government. But two months later, he leads the mission to reclaim Wall Maria from the Titans. During the climactic battle, he sacrifices himself by leading a suicidal charge against the Beast Titan — all to give [[WorldsBestWarrior Levi]] a chance to kill the enemy commander. However, Erwin remains a vital player even after being crippled and his decision to sacrifice himself is because no one else is capable of rallying the troops and leading them on a suicide mission to save humanity.
29	* At the end of the first season of ''Manga/MadeInAbyss'', Nanachi enlists Reg's help in killing their best friend Mitty, who was left horribly disfigured and barely sentient as a result of ascending from the Sixth Layer. Nanachi loves Mitty and had been prepared to care for her indefinitely, but believes that Mitty is in agony and wants to relieve her suffering. After Reg reluctantly kills Mitty with his Incinerator, Riko assures him that while she was comatose, she had a vision of life from Mitty's tortured perspective and that death was truly a mercy.
30	* Subverted in ''Manga/ASilentVoice''. Shouko, who is deaf, tries to [[DrivenToSuicide kill herself]] in the [[FestivalEpisode Festival Chapter]], however, Shouya [[InterruptedSuicide saves her]].
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:Comic Books]]
34	* ''ComicBook/{{Fray}}'', set in the future of the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' timeline, features, as the heroine's friend, the one-armed, one-eyed, absolutely adorable, radiation mutant Loo. But Creator/JossWhedon is writing the script, so...
35	* In ''ComicBook/TheOrder2007'', quadriplegic Heavy dies after Stane disables the nanites that keep his badly damaged lungs functioning.
36	* ''ComicBook/XMen'' does this so much you'd think this would be shocking considering the bloodbaths they've been through. A large number of the Morlocks, for example, were all physically different to the point of having to stay out of sight of humans were slaughtered by the Marauders, and when they decide to include characters with disabilities in the comic, you're lucky if they survive one month in comics time let alone real time, and by far one of the most embarrassing events occurred during ''Creator/GrantMorrison's'' run, where a group of different mutants who were outcasts in the school, became the Special Class. These included both Beak and Angel Salvatore, who have recently been seen again in ''ComicBook/NewMutants2019'' but also they included one of the most embarrassing mutants in their history Dean Boswell or "Dummy". Dean was autistic, and his mutant power was that he was a sentient gas cloud and had to live in a latex suit. The class on an outing was attacked by the U-Men and Dean's suit was lightly torn, meaning he had to be saved by a condom, and later on when Kid Omega tried to take over the school, Dummy was skewered by a piece of shrapnel and possibly died. Later on Basilisk, another member of the class, said that he could smell him, meaning that his existence was as a fart. Hopefully, Hickman can remember him.
37	** Charles Xavier could have qualified as this a few times, though he always comes back.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Fan Works]]
41	* Attempted in the ''Warriors'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7506379/1/The-Broken-Cat The Broken Cat]]''. A newborn is kicked out of her Clan for being three-legged. [=BloodClan=] ends up adopting her and naming her "Snowy".
42	* Attempted in ''Fanfic/{{Bubbles}}'': Derpy's mother doesn't want to deal with her disabled daughter anymore and tries to poison her. It backfires when Derpy's dad comes home, notices she's ill, and takes her to emergency. No one connects the poisoning to Derpy's mother so a few days later she tries this again. When her husband is away at work, she takes Derpy into a forest and abandons her for dead. That, however, also didn't work because the story is about the [[ForegoneConclusion childhood of an adult character]].
43	* In the oneshot ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7805193/1/Life-Lessons Life Lessons]]'', [[AbusiveParents Ozai]] kills a baby turtle-duck with a bad leg in order to teach Azula a lesson about "survival of the fittest".
44	* ''Fanfic/{{Paradise}}'': In Celestia and Luna's home herd, a pony's "Time" was considered up when they couldn't run with the herd anymore.
45	* Subverted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGUcS1txpB4 this]] ''Warriors'' FanAnimation. The artist didn't like that Snowkit was killed off just because he was deaf, so they drew an AU where he was SparedByTheAdaptation. Snowkit escapes the hawk and is reunited with his family (his mother Speckletail and his [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse forgotten-in-canon]] litter sister Mistlekit).
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
49	* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/AlphaAndOmega''. As a pup, older wolves tried to kill Daria because she's blind and can't hunt. Her mother hides her but [[MissingMom ends up killed]] herself. Daria is then [[InterspeciesAdoption adopted by porcupines]].
50	* Francis' first love interest in ''WesternAnimation/{{Felidae}}'' is a blind cat named Felicity. Felicity only lasts a few minutes before she ends up killed and beheaded.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
54	* In ''Film/BarbWire'', the titular heroine's blind brother is tortured to death by the bad guys.
55	* ''Film/TheBlackStork'': The film's main aesop is that it's better to let disabled infants die than save them since they will only live unhappy lives, using a lot of [[ScienceMarchesOn outdated "science" to support it]]. Harry J. Haiselden (who plays the film's physician, who's based on himself) did exactly that, leaving a baby boy with birth defects to die after persuading the boy's parents it was the best thing. After he had been acquitted by a jury, Haiselden launched a massive public campaign in defense of his action, the film being one part, and it got disturbingly high support.
56	* In ''Film/BladeTrinity'', one of the Nightstalkers, Sommerfield, is blind. She doesn't make it to the end of the film.
57	* In ''Film/BreakfastOnPluto'' Patrick "Kitten" Braden's childhood friend dies in an IRA bomb blast. The police sent in a simple robot to disarm it, and he rushed out assuming it was a toy. The friend in question, [[spoiler:Lawrence, had Down Syndrome]].
58	* Inverted in ''Film/{{Cube}}'', as the severely autistic Kazan is the SoleSurvivor - every neurotypical character fails to escape the titular Cube.
59	* In ''Film/TheCurseOfFrankenstein'', the Creature kills an old blind man.
60	* In the first ''Film/FinalDestination1'' they make a point of showing that one of the passengers on the ill-fated Flight 180 is a physically and mentally handicapped man.
61	* One of Jason's kills in ''Film/FridayThe13thPart2'' is wheelchair user Mark, who gets a machete buried in his face, which sends him rolling down some stairs.
62	* The Viet Cong sniper girl in ''Film/FullMetalJacket''. Joker is compelled to perform a MercyKill for the sniper who has gotten a paralyzing wound in the firefight with Animal Mother.
63	* ''Film/{{Gattaca}}'' subverts this trope then plays it straight. The subversion comes along in the form of InspirationallyDisadvantaged Vincent [[MeaningfulName Freeman]], who is disabled by society's standards by not being genetically engineered. He has a life expectancy of 30.2 years due to a heart condition, yet he's alive by film's end. Played straight with Jerome [[MeaningfulName Eugene]] Morrow, who is paralyzed from the waist down and commits suicide at the end of the movie by climbing into an incinerator. [[spoiler:Toyed with, however; Jerome's disability is revealed to be from a failed suicide attempt earlier in his life.]]
64	* ''Film/HeadInTheClouds'': Mia has an injured leg that makes her limp, and dies in the Spanish Civil War. She was the film's only disabled character.
65	* Derek, the TokenMinority in ''Film/HellraiserHellworld'', has very severe asthma, and "dies" in his hallucination when he wanders off alone to look for his inhaler after losing it. In the real world, he just had an attack and died from it.
66	%% * ''Film/{{Mama}}'' : Lily
67	%%* Kevin Dillon from the film ''The Mighty''.
68	* ''Film/MillionDollarBaby''. A combination 3 and 4, [[spoiler:Maggie would rather be dead than quadriplegic]].
69	* ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet''
70	** One of Freddy's kills in ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet3DreamWarriors'' is a wheelchair-using kid, whom he torments with a more monstrous version of the wheelchair.
71	** Freddy kills a deaf kid in ''Film/FreddysDeadTheFinalNightmare'' by tricking him into wearing a hearing aid that amplifies sound so much [[YourHeadAsplode that his head explodes]]. [[AbusiveParents You can thank the boy’s own mother for that.]]
72	* ''Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'': Randle [=McMurphy=], after [[spoiler:Big Nurse has him lobotomized]].
73	* The Creator/StevenSeagal film ''Film/OutForJustice'' has the villain shoot dead the paraplegic Chas the Chair. Right before he does so, he tells him he's putting him out of his misery.
74	* ''Film/PowerRangers2017'': The one Ranger who's KilledOffForReal is Billy, the one with Asperger Syndrome. [[spoiler:Fortunately he's revived via ThePowerOfFriendship]].
75	* Marvel Ann from ''Film/PsychoBeachParty''. Though it may be possible she was killed because she was a huge bitch.
76	* In the film version of ''Film/TheRelic'', the wheelchair user Dr. Frock is killed by the monster plaguing the museum (in the original novel, Frock lived).
77	* The eponymous character from ''Film/RoryOSheaWasHere'' (aka ''Inside I'm Dancing'') died due to complications from his Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]; Duchenne is a life-limiting condition and those affected rarely survive beyond early adulthood.
78	* One of the many Jews that Amon Goeth murders in ''Film/SchindlersList'' is a man with one arm.
79	* The wheelchair user Franklin Hardesty from the original ''Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974'' has the dubious honor to be the film's only person to be actually killed with a chainsaw.
80	* ''Film/TrickRTreat'': The segment "The School Bus Massacre Revisited" recounts how a school bus driver was paid off to kill a busload of mentally disabled children [[OffingTheOffspring by their parents]], who couldn't stand to care for them anymore. [[spoiler:Thirty years later, the children rise as zombies and exact horrible vengeance on the bus driver.]]
81	[[/folder]]
82
83	[[folder:Literature]]
84	!!By Author:
85	%%* ''The blind man'' in Creator/GuyDeMaupassant's short story.
86	* Played straight in Louisa May Alcott's books. Between ''[[Literature/LittleWomen Little Men]]'' and ''Jo's Boys'', two minor characters die, one physically disabled ([[spoiler:Dick, the young hunchback]], the other mentally ([[spoiler:Billy, the boy driven to mental illness by his dad]]).
87
88	!!By Title:
89	* Played straight in the second-to-last ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' book, where all of the Auxiliary Animorphs (all of whom had been handicapped at some point and most of whom still were) are [[MoralEventHorizon ruthlessly murdered]] by Visser One/Three.
90	* ''Literature/BlackHouse'' by Creator/StephenKing and Creator/PeterStraub, includes a blind character who is killed by a murderer wearing his dead wife's perfume.
91	* The death of the titular character of Creator/StephenKing's novel ''Blaze'' is a combination of this and SuicideByCop.
92	* Not all the weaker and older badgers make it through ''Literature/TheColdMoons''. This is prepared for in advance by allowing several to stay behind, but some die even before they can make it to the rendezvous point.
93	* Option 3 is encouraged by the Tendu of ''Literature/TheColorOfDistance''. They're fantastical healers, but if an injury is too severe to be completely restored within a year they expect the injured party to "die honorably". One even asks a human [[DeliberateValuesDissonance why her wheelchair-user brother hasn't killed himself yet]]. The two who go to Earth quickly learn to think past that mindset, and in the end [[spoiler: Ukatonen, given a traumatic brain injury and losing much of his old healing skill, decides that he will live.]]
94	* In the German ScareEmStraight book ''Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn'' (''Literature/TheLastChildrenOfSchewenborn''), which is set in a Germany devastated by nuclear war, a boy whose legs were lost in the catastrophe commits suicide following the death of the girl who took care of him. In another book by the same author, titled ''Literature/DerSchlund", the disabled younger sister of the main character falls victim to a mass murder of disabled children, perpetrated by Germany's new far-right dictatorship.
95	** Also, the narrator's youngest sister (conceived shortly before the bombs dropped) suffers radiation damage in-utero, resulting in her being born with no eyes and stumps for arms. She is [[MercyKill mercy killed]] by her father.
96	* ''Literature/ADogsLife'': Squirrel's mother gave birth to a runt with misshapen legs. She kicked him out of her birthing wheelbarrow and ignored him, causing him to quickly die. This is TruthInTelevision as animals will usually abandon sickly offspring.
97	* In the protagonist's first life in ''Literature/ADogsPurpose'', he received a permanent injury to his leg during a fight. It was just a limp but when taken into a crowded shelter he was euthanized with other "unadoptable" dogs (namely a too-aggressive dog and a too-old dog).
98	* ''Literature/DragonQueen'': Trava's father is blind, but dies of natural causes.
99	* ''Literature/FalseMemory'': Dusty's older sister Dominique, who had Down Syndrome, was officially a crib death. Dusty accuses their mother of intentionally killing her because of her condition. Claudette does not deny this accusation.
100	* ''Literature/TheGoodEarth'' - one of Wang Lung's children is mentally handicapped due to being malnourished in infanthood. While she's cared for by Wang Lung, he tells Pear Blossom to poison her after he passes away - expecting that her life will be miserable without his protection. [[spoiler:Pear Blossom spares her, however]].
101	* Narrowly averted in ''Literature/TheGreatBrain'' when Andy Anderson loses his leg to gangrene and tries to kill himself with J.D.'s help. Neither attempt is successful to begin with, but Tom [[InterruptedSuicide walks in on]] the two trying to hang Andy in the barn and offers -- for a fee, of course -- to teach Andy to do his chores and play games with his peg leg.
102	* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'' reveals that Dumbledore's younger sister Ariana was left mentally disabled after an incident involving three Muggle boys. She lived for a few more years with erratic magic but eventually was killed in a duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Neither of them knows which cast the curse that killed her.
103	** Moody, an Auror disabled while fighting Dark wizards is killed by Death Eaters (after spending most of his time in Goblet of Fire being impersonated by Barty Crouch Jr.), and Umbridge gets hold of his magical eye.
104	** Additionally Wormtail, who lost his hand to Voldemort's resurrection ritual and has it replaced with a silver one under Voldemort's control, is killed by said hand when he shows mercy to Harry.
105	* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'':
106	** The District 10 boy has a crippled foot. Despite this, he manages to survive for a few days in the arena before dying from unknown causes. Katniss suspects he was killed by the Careers, but this is never confirmed.
107	** Rue mentions an incident where a boy with the mental capacity of a young child was killed for stealing a pair of the night-vision glasses which District 11's agricultural workers use if they have to continue working after dark. The boy in question only wanted to play with the glasses, but this made no difference to the local Peacekeepers.
108	** Averted with Katniss (permanently deafened in one ear) and Peeta (leg amputee), who survive the entire trilogy.
109	* In ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Iron Fist]]'', [[spoiler:Ton Phanan]] crashlands on a hostile world and his wingmate follows to try and save him, but though [[spoiler:Phanan]] tries his best he refuses to let them be captured by the enemy, who after all would treat the injuries created in the crash. He suffered from a great deal of [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul Cybernetics Eat Your Future]], and WordOfGod is that though he feared death and tried to avoid it, he didn't feel any great impetus to live. It was more important that the mission continue and the BigBad be killed than that ''he'' lived and the BigBad went on making more people like him before he could be stopped.
110	* The books ''Film/JasonX: Death Moon'' and ''Film/JasonX: To the Third Power'' both feature blind characters who get their heads chopped off.
111	* The book and subsequent movie ''Film/MeBeforeYou'' has its male lead Will (who has quadriplegia) commit suicide, with all the unfortunate implications that entails. It then goes further and has him leave the female lead a ton of money so that she can [[BrokenAesop "live boldly."]]
112	* Lenny from ''Literature/OfMiceAndMen'', is [[MercyKill killed by his friend]] George because he was incapable of controlling his strength and accidentally killed a woman, and George couldn't bear the thought of Lenny being subjected to imprisonment or (even worse) the savage violence of a lynch mob.
113	%%* [[spoiler:Smike]] in ''Literature/NicholasNickleby''.
114	* Creator/MarquisDeSade's ''Philosophy in the Bedroom'' features a pamphlet saying all the deformed should be killed. He has characters propose this as well, or that they be used as guinea pigs in experiments. This is justified on the basis that they are useless (except as test subjects).
115	* ''Literature/TheRedTent'' mentions that babies born with some kind of deformity or defect would simply be left outside to die of exposure. When Leah was born, the midwife called for this to happen, because Leah had heterochromia, and the midwife thought she was cursed or a demon child or something like that. Her mother, Adah, however, firmly told the midwife that she would not be abandoning Leah.
116	* In ''A Single Shard,'' Crane Man (who has always been forced to live as a beggar due to his bad leg) dies. However, it's justified for three reasons: one, it's established that Crane Man was very old, two, he had a heart attack from a fall into a river, and three, DeathByNewberyMedal demands it.
117	* ''Literature/TheShipWho Sang'' starts with the assertion that Helva's birth defects (deformed limbs and dim senses) meant she was born a "thing" and "as such would be condemned" if she didn't pass the encephalograph test required of all newborns. Because she was found to be intelligent, her grieving parents were presented with the choice of euthanizing her or surrendering her to be [[ManInTheMachine converted into a "shellperson"]] who would one day be the [[WetwareCPU "brain"]] of a LivingShip. By implication, most disabled babies in this setting are killed.
118	** The other books in the series, published a good thirty years later, try to soften this by portraying non-shelled disabled adults who are happy, reframing shells as life support, and explaining to a NaiveNewcomer that shells are the end point of assistive technology made to allow the disadvantaged to live as normal a life as possible. It's still the case that the sheer expense of becoming a shellperson leaves them as [[IndenturedServitude indentured workers]] for often decades or longer.
119	** However, several {{Politically Incorrect Villain}}s do still despise shellpeople. It's noted in one book that this is a society where people with money can change their appearances quite readily, and the very concept of shellpeople discomforts and disgusts some. Polyon gets into a snit realizing that he's being transported on a [[SapientShip brainship]], sneering that it's absurd that something like [[ItIsDehumanizing "it"]] has not just been allowed to live but given a job that someone like ''him'' could have filled instead. The Kolnari in ''The City Who Fought'' are such [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinists]] that their standard response to "disabling illness", any disease that can't just be shrugged off, is for the afflicted to either kill themselves or be killed as weak. Injured warriors who won't pull through with nothing worse than scars face the same choice, and Kolnari even kill their own children for perceived flaws.
120	%%* Nick Andros from ''Literature/TheStand''.
121	* ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'': When the Imperial Order conquers a city, it's shown they kill a mentally disabled man as he's deemed "useless" (they only keep citizens with useful skills alive as slaves). This is used to highlight their cruel brutality in the book where it happens.
122	* ''Literature/TalionRevenant'': Nolan's little brother Aruk had a clubfoot and was specifically targeted when his family were murdered by a soldier whose culture says this means he'd been touched by a demon in the womb, thus worthy of death.
123	* In the ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' story ''The Mountains of Mourning'' infanticide (usually by the mother cutting the baby's throat) is the usual fate of children born with visible mutations born in the backcountry on Barrayar. Technically it's illegal but is rarely prosecuted since the isolated communities tend to protect their own. In stories set in later years, the practice seems to be finally dying out, with the arrival of {{uterine replicator}}s and gene cleaning.
124	** Defied by Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith, to the point of [[spoiler:Aral and Cordelia ordering that Aral's father should be shot with a stun gun if he tries to kill their child]].
125	* ''Literature/WarriorCats'':
126	** Snowkit is killed by a hawk because as a deaf kitten, he can neither hear the bird, nor warnings about it.
127	** Dappletail mentioned that she had a deaf kitten in her first litter. He disappeared at three moons old. They NeverFoundTheBody but guessed a fox killed him.
128	** It's mentioned that cats with disabilities rarely survive kithood. This is TruthInTelevision as disabled animals usually can't survive in the wild. Cats with less disabling issues may survive, especially if they're warriors or at least apprentices, but it can still end up a CareerEndingInjury.
129	* ''Literature/WingsOfFire'': It's mentioned that [[FictionalDisability dragons with too much, or too little, fire]] are killed by [=SkyWings=] not soon after hatching. On top of that, their parents are banned from the breeding program due to their "defective" genes.
130	* ''Literature/TheBrokenEarthTrilogy'': During a Season, anyone who is not required for the survival of a group may be mercy-killed or be exiled to die in the wilderness. Essun is threatened with this when she loses her arm and most of her ability to do [[DishingOutDirt orogeny]], but is allowed to remain in Castrima due to her friends and their skills. Minor characters are variously mercy-killed after barely surviving an animal attack and left to die as the community crosses the desert.
131	[[/folder]]
132
133	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
134	* ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'' has several examples:
135	** ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryMurderHouse'': Adelaide, who has Down Syndrome, is fatally hit by a car in the fourth episode. Although of the characters who die she probably has the best fate since she's not stuck as a ghost in the house for eternity and actually gets to pass on.
136	** ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven'': Nan, played by the same actress, has Fiona and Marie drown her and give her soul to Papa Legba.
137	** Most of the freaks in ''Freak Show'', notable exceptions being Jimmy, Dot, Bette, and Desiree, who are all played by disabled actors.
138	* ''Series/TheBarrier'': When the group of people alongside whom Julia is meant to escape Madrid is raided by the police, she briefly shares a hiding place with a disabled man and his elderly father. When the police find the hiding place, the fact that the two other people are killed first is what lets Julia live long enough for her brother-in-law to show up and help her talk the police into letting her go.
139	* In the ''Series/BlakesSeven'' episode "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS3E1Aftermath Aftermath]]", where we are introduced to Dayna, Servalan murders Dayna's blind father, after destroying the device that helps him see.
140	* Inverted on ''Series/ColdCase'', when a student at a school for the deaf kills his best friend because he'd gotten a cochlear implant and stopped living life as a profoundly deaf person, which made the culprit feel both insulted and abandoned. It's played straight with a disabled teenage boy, talked into standing before a train.
141	* Three {{evil cripple}}s featured on ''Series/CriminalMinds'' (horribly burned Randall Garner in "The Fisher King", paraplegic Ian Coakley in "Roadkill" and quadriplegic Mason Turner in "To Hell and Back") die at the end of their respective episodes. Averted with wheelchair user Jeffrey (another EvilCripple) in the episode "A Family Affair" and with the [=UnSub=] from "Into the Woods" (he only had a limp but still used a ton of painkillers).
142	* In ''Series/DeadSet'', the {{Jerkass}} producer, Patrick practically pushes a wheelchair user in front of a zombie so that it can eat him and [[DirtyCoward save his own skin by hiding in a toilet cubicle]].
143	* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E2TheDalekInvasionOfEarth The Dalek Invasion of Earth]]" sees Dortmun, the wheelchair-using leader of the rebels, die facing off against the Daleks.
144	* ''Series/Echo2024'': In "[[Recap/EchoEpisode1Chafa Chafa]]" Maya's mother, who it turns out was a deaf woman like her, dies in the flashback. She's the only relative aside from Maya's father who dies, and the very first chronologically. {{Downplayed}} however as Maya herself of course survived.
145	* In ''Series/{{Glee}}'': [[spoiler:Jean Sylvester, Sue's older sister, had Down's Syndrome and died of pneumonia. Subverted with Becky, who attempts suicide, but is stopped by Sue.]] Averted with the InspirationallyDisabled Sean from Season 1--he attempted suicide by driving into the pool but was found before he could succeed.
146	* Played straight in ''Series/{{ER}}'' when Dr. Romano is killed by a falling helicopter after having lost an arm to a helicopter in a previous season. Possibly subverted when Dr. Weaver has surgery that improves her gait and leaves the show to pursue a new career opportunity and new love interest.
147	* There was a mentally disabled immortal in ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' who was killed off specifically because of his disability. He does the deed himself by laying his neck on a train track as a train approaches.
148	* ''Series/KillingEve'': In the first episode of Season 2, Villanelle meets [[spoiler:Gabriel]], who has been severely injured [[spoiler:in the car accident that killed his parents.]] She kills him due to believing he's [[MercyKill better off that way]].
149	* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'': In the eugenics-supporting alternate world created by the Nazis, the infirm are one of the groups targeted for extermination by the authorities.
150	** During Joe Blake's drive through the country from NYC to the Rocky Mountains, he passes a hospital that burns its disabled and terminally ill patients there at the end of every week.
151	** John Smith, a high-ranking SS officer in America, is horrified to learn that [[spoiler: his son has muscular dystrophy because it means he will have to be euthanized]].
152	** Smith's older brother, whom he worshiped as a child, [[spoiler: died of the same disease. His wife mentions how such people are not allowed to suffer, not knowing she was talking about her own son]].
153	** [[spoiler:Thomas Smith]] eventually turns himself in to be "euthanized", which he's lionized for.
154	** It's {{discussed}} after Juliana hears of this upon emigrating into the American Reich, and asks what would happen to a friend of hers who's disabled due to a respiratory ailment, learning about their policy.
155	* ''Series/Next2020'': Dr. Richard Parish, a scientist with tetraplegia, is killed using his robots by Next the same episode he's introduced.
156	* In ''Series/OurFriendsInTheNorth'', Mary's physically and mentally handicapped brother Patrick passes away of natural causes.
157	* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
158	** {{Discussed}} in the "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E7TheEnemy The Enemy]]" we learn that the Romulans kill all disabled children when Geordi is stuck with a Romulan soldier, who basically asked him why he's still alive. Naturally, Geordi is quite offended (and is living proof that disabled people can contribute greatly to society).
159	** Also {{discussed}} in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E13TheMasterpieceSociety The Masterpiece Society]]", where Geordi mentions that on Genome colony, he'd have been aborted as just a zygote due to the colonists terminating those with detectable disabilities before birth.
160	** Subverted in the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E16Ethics Ethics]]". Worf becomes paraplegic after an accident. By Klingon tradition, being disabled such that one cannot fight is a major dishonor, and the proper course of action is ritualistic suicide (and Worf comes close to it). However, he takes another presented option when a research doctor wants to try out an experimental treatment that will create a new spinal cord for him (which nearly ends up playing this trope straight -- Worf dies on the operating table, but recovers due to a quirk of Klingon anatomy). It was also mentioned that Klingon neuroscience had been severely lagging because of their "better dead than crippled" policy; the Klingon medical community had essentially no experience with actually treating spinal cord injuries.
161	* ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': After introducing to great fanfare a blind main character, Hemmer, played by the franchise's [[DisabledCharacterDisabledActor first blind actor]], the series kills him off [[BlackDudeDiesFirst after he appears in just six of the first nine episodes]] - fewer than any other main character in the franchise. However, this is a downplayed example -- his race, the Aenar, are naturally blind and are compensated by other; his death isn't because of his disability but [[spoiler:he's been infected with Gorn eggs and he decides to perform a HeroicSuicide to prevent the creatures from continuing trying to kill his crewmates]]; and his main goal in the series is to be a SacrificialLion: [[spoiler:as he's DoomedByCanon, his storyarc is for him to bond with an uncertain Cadet Nyota Uhura and guide her on the path to becoming the iconic member of the ''Enterprise'' and his LastWords are to tell her to take that risk and make more bonds rather than drift to try and not get hurt again]].
162	* The original ''Series/{{Survivors}}'' plays it straight with wheelchair user Vic Thatcher, who died at the start of the second season when a fire broke out in the BigFancyHouse the main cast had moved into. This was long before British fire-safety law was tightened up to ensure that escape routes were suitable for wheelchair users.
163	* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': {{Discussed}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S2E29TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]" as the Chancellor openly speaks of how anyone too disabled to do useful work is eliminated by the State (either by physical impairment, sickness or just age). He claims Adolf Hitler as one precursor of the State (whose own regime had murdered thousands of disabled people), but also that Hitler's killings ''didn't go far enough''.
164	* The DarkerAndEdgier second season of ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds1988'' started by killing off two characters from the first season, one of whom was a wheelchair user.
165	* In the final season of ''Series/TheWire'', Blind Butchie is killed off.
166	* ''Series/WorldOnFire'': [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]. The introduction of Aktion T4 leads to the mass murder of people with disabilities in Nazi Germany. [[spoiler:The Rosslers' daughter Hilda has epilepsy and her mother kills her and then herself in a MurderSuicide that could be seen as a MercyKill.]]
167	* ''Series/You2018'': James, Love's first husband who was deaf, is already dead by the time of the story-he thus appears only in flashbacks. It's somewhat {{downplayed}} though since Dante, a recurring visually impaired character, is introduced in the third season.
168	[[/folder]]
169
170	[[folder:Podcasts]]
171	* In the ''Podcast/SickSadWorld'' episode "The Dangers Of Being Disabled", the first case is about a disabled girl murdered by her father. The hosts vehemently disagree that it was a {{mercy kill}}.
172	[[/folder]]
173
174	[[folder:Theater]]
175	* A {{Deconstruction}} of this trope is the main plot of the play ''The Cripple Of Inishmaan'' by Creator/MartinMcDonagh: Billy is born disabled, making him walk poorly and prone to illness. He claims to be [[IncurableCoughOfDeath dying of TB]] to gain a sympathy favor from Babbybobby (whose wife died of TB), and Billy is then seen to die from that. Then it is revealed that the death scene was Billy playing a cripple dying of TB in a film. Babbybobby is so furious to be deceived that he gives Billy a savage beating, but [[{{Determinator}} Billy survives]]. After being beaten, Billy plucks up the courage to ask his crush Slippy Helen out, and she rudely turns him down. Billy is seen to prepare himself for suicide in the same manner as his parents, only to be [[InterruptedSuicide interrupted]] when Helen comes back and [[{{Tsundere}} changes her mind]]. Billy's jubilation over his success is [[CruelTwistEnding cut short]] by an IncurableCoughOfDeath with BloodFromTheMouth.
176	* In the musical ''When The Switch Is Pressed'', almost all the characters have committed suicide by the end. One of them is a wheelchair user.
177	[[/folder]]
178
179	[[folder:Video Games]]
180	* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776'', Dorias, who is missing an arm from an earlier battle, eventually pulls a HeroicSacrifice to save his troops from an Imperial Army ambush.
181	* [[spoiler:Alexander Caine]] in ''VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney'', who dies at 47's hands due to his being the game's BigBad. He's a FlunkyBoss and a HandicappedBadass, so achieving this trope isn't easy.
182	* The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Tanakth]] in ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'' have this as part of their culture. They believe that anyone who can't fight is worthless so anyone who suffers a disabling injury is forced to fight a machine to prove that they are still able to fight which almost always results in their death.
183	* In the horror game ''The House 2'', the family that lived in the house had a daughter by the name of Alrena. Alrena was born severely disabled, and the couple poisoned her and stuffed her body in the safe because they didn't want to see her suffering anymore. But Alrena wanted to live, no matter what, and she was ''not happy'' about what her parents had done to her. After trying to "start over" with an adoptive daughter and killing the maid that they hired because she had found out too much, they eventually couldn't deal with the guilt of what they had done any longer and killed themselves.
184	* Strangely averted in ''Videogame/MassEffect2''. Joker, the brittle-boned pilot who walks very slowly (at times with a cane), is the only member of your crew who cannot be killed during a playthrough. You can kill literally everyone else in your crew, [[HeroicSacrifice including yourself,]] and still finish the game, but Joker simply will not die except under very specific circumstances, such as [[spoiler:when the crew is abducted by the Reapers while walking him around the Normandy. If he walks up the ladder too quickly in engineering, he'll be killed by a scion]]. This gives you a NonstandardGameOver, meaning he is the only playable character whose death guarantees that the player loses the game. It's also implied he may die in some of the worst endings for the third.
185	* ''VideoGame/PhantasmagoriaAPuzzleOfFlesh'': Paul Allen Warner and Dr. Marek have been feeding mental patients from Marek's asylum to [[spoiler:extradimensional StarfishAliens]] because no one would miss them. It's implied that they were used as HumanResources.
186	* Narrowly {{Averted}} in ''VideoGame/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaPortable''--in this version, [[TragicallyDisabledLoveInterest Kyosuke]]'s angst about his CareerEndingInjury is upped so that [[ActionGirl Sayaka]] actually [[InterruptedSuicide walks in on him trying to kill himself]], prompting her [[DealWithTheDevil contract]] to heal him.
187	[[/folder]]
188
189	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
190	* The final version of ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' contains only one death (which is only in a Bad End), though a leaked DarkerAndEdgier beta version does:
191	** Subverted with [[spoiler:Misha]], as she's the only student in her school who ''isn't'' physically disabled (she transferred to the school to [[spoiler:avoid the bullying she had at her old school]]). After [[spoiler:Shizune]] and Hisao begin dating, her StepfordSmiler traits come to light due to her being in love with [[spoiler:Shizune]] herself. Shizune's father bullying her helps increase her depression and accentuates her feelings of inadequacy. Eventually she is DrivenToSuicide. This causes [[spoiler:Shizune]], who is [[spoiler:deaf]], to become depressed. She ends up in the hospital due to dehydration and the Bad End has her [[spoiler:also DrivenToSuicide, as she pulls out her [=IV=].]]
192	** Hanako plays it straight. She doesn't seem to have any physical issues however she is severely burnt (and is implied to have an anxiety disorder and possibly [=PTSD=]). After undergoing a TraumaCongaLine she ends up DrivenToSuicide in her third Bad End.
193	** One of the Bad Ends in the final product has [[TheHeroDies Hisao]] (who has a heart ailment) accidentally falling off a building if he doesn't end up with any of the girls. In the beta game, he can die several different times in Hanako's Bad Ends.
194	[[/folder]]
195
196	[[folder:Web Comics]]
197	* [[spoiler:Fidolus]] in ''Webcomic/{{Astray3}}'' crawls under some rubble and refuses to go any further, explaining he's better off dead than legless. Emily's tears don't move him.
198	* [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' with Tavros Nitram, who spent most of the story in a wheelchair and was the first troll to [[KilledOffForReal die completely]], but only did so after [[{{Cyborg}} regaining his ability to walk.]]
199	[[/folder]]
200
201	[[folder:Real Life]]
202	* This trope is OlderThanFeudalism in real life:
203	** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Greece_and_Rome In the ancient world]] and in most of medieval Christian Europe around the Mediterranean sea, disabled newborns were "exposed": that is, left in the street to die by their parents.
204	** Sparta's ''Gerousia'' institutionalized this practice, possibly the world's first state eugenics.
205	** Ancient Egypt and Israel defied this trope, outlawing infanticide in their societies and severely punishing those who committed it. The former group would even rescue children "exposed" by foreigners living in Egypt, and people with dwarfism were especially honored, some even rising to very high positions (possibly the only society on record with such attitudes). The latter group's influence on Christianity and Islam led to the rise of orphanages as unwanted children were left at the doors of mosques and churches instead of being left in the woods to die.[[note]]Unfortunately in the countryside most children born with birth defects were either killed at birth or, by necessity, left to die.[[/note]] Orphanages often had [[OrphanageOfFear poor conditions]] though. Newborn infants also had a high mortality rate regardless in those days.
206	** Another ancient group that defied this; the ancient Germanic peoples ... sort of. Historians disagree on this one. Some records like those of Tacitus state that they ''refused'' to kill children regardless of if they were disabled. However, this might have been Tacitus romanticizing the Germans. Modern scholars think they ''did'' practice this.
207	* Supposedly to improve Germany's food situation and genetic stock - but in reality to test efficient methods of mass murder which could be later used against Jews - Adolf Hitler issued an Emergency Order on 1 September 1939 implementing a program, Aktion T4, to murder German citizens with congenital disabilities. The administrators of the program "disinfected" (i.e. murdered) 70,000 innocent people who were said to threaten the national gene pool with ‘congenital physical degeneracy’; others had already been killed indirectly in the period 1933-39 through the defunding of asylums. It should be pointed out that the overwhelmingly vast majority of those “disinfected” were victims of non-inherited congenital conditions such as maternal thyroid deficiency and neonatal hypoxia, and that the Nazis knew that. It was really all about the murders. In a related measure to, again supposedly, uphold German racial hygiene (''Rassenhygiene'') 400,000 German citizens with so-called morally degenerate traits (long-term homeless and prostitutes, Roma-Sinti/'Gypsies', etc.) had already been sterilized from 1935 onward in accordance with the 1935 ''Preservation of German Blood And Honor'' ('Nuremberg') Laws. UsefulNotes/NaziGermany being Nazi Germany, many of those killed through neglect or murdered in T-4 had already been sterilized.
208	* Even before the Nazis, some eugenicists and euthanasia advocates (especially if they were both) advocated this idea. Because of the history, this remains one reason for euthanasia being very controversial, with a lot of disabled people and disability rights activists suspicious of it as a result.
209	* In modern times, a majority of fetuses with Down Syndrome are aborted, according to The Other Wiki: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome up to 92% in Europe and about 67% in the U.S.]], often with explicitly eugenicist motives. Worth noting is that the vast majority of people Down Syndrome report that they're happy.
210	* Peter Singer [[http://bigthink.com/videos/the-case-for-allowing-euthanisia-of-severely-handicapped-infants feels]] that it is perfectly acceptable to kill disabled newborns.
211	* Disabled people are more likely to be victims of crime, including murder, than non-disabled people. They are often [[http://disability-memorial.org/ killed by their own caregivers]].
212	* Unfortunately, suicide is more common among the severely disabled or terminally ill than we ever care to even think about.
213	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Haiselden Harry J. Haidelsen]] left several newborns with severe birth defects to die. Though a trial jury acquitted him, the Chicago Medical Board threw him out of practice. He even had a film, ''The Black Stork'' made defending this, and some notable Americans (even Helen Keller, herself disabled) wrote in favor of it.
214	* The horrific--and barely covered in national news--stabbing of at least 45 people in a Japanese care facility in 2016, 19 of whom died. The suspect had earlier sent a letter to Japan's House of Representatives, demanding that disabled people be [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-japan-suspect-in-mass-stabbing-wanted-disabled-people-euthanized/2016/07/26/bb56e948-52c7-11e6-b652-315ae5d4d4dd_story.html?utm_term=.09c829239e3f euthanized]]. Also notable as the largest mass attack in Japan's post-war history.
215	* Animals are prone to leaving sick or disabled members of their group or family to die. This is why mother animals typically abandon their offspring if they're not healthy enough. Some species do take care of their sick or injured, but most don't. Social Darwinists (including the Nazis) had claimed these animal habits supported exterminating disabled humans as well. After all, [[AppealToNature it was natural]], right?
216	* Part of the backlash against vaccines is fueled by one fraudulent study that purported to link vaccines and autism (the fraudster hoped to supplant the usual measles vaccine with one of his own). As both scientists and autistic people have pointed out, this leads to some unfortunate implications: better to die in agony than be autistic.
217	* In animal shelters, animals with disabilities tend to get euthanized more than ones without because they're harder to adopt out.
218	* Curiously enough, averted by [[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/17/878896381/ancient-bones-offer-clues-to-how-long-ago-humans-cared-for-the-vulnerable multiple stone age communities]] according to recent analyses of various groups of remains and artifacts. There are examples of both individuals born with severe genetic disorders as well as those who had sustained severe injuries whose remains show evidence of care, and who would've died young due to aspects of their conditions that their caregivers would not have been able to identify and treat. This disproves an old Social Darwinist argument that the opposite was the case.
219	[[/folder]]

Context Main / BuryYourDisabled