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[[quoteright:350:[[Series/{{Oz}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boys_from_oz_oz_hbo_2282011_404_500x.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Nope, not even [[GreekChorus the guy in the wheelchair]] is safe - and neither are the later additions to the main cast who aren't pictured.]]
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->'''Arya Stark:''' They say he rides into battle on the back of a giant direwolf. They say he can turn into a wolf himself when he wants. They say he can't be killed.\\
'''Tywin Lannister:''' And do you believe them?\\
'''Arya Stark:''' No, my lord. (''{{beat}}'') Anyone can be killed.
-->-- ''Series/GameOfThrones''

Most of the time when you finally grasp who the main characters of the story are, you can expect that [[PlotArmor these characters will survive]] through the end of the story (or at least until the last episode). Like, c'mon, [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt there's no way]] the writers would actually have the young and innocent TagalongKid actually die without being saved at the last second, let the loyal [[TeamPet team dog]] be mauled to death by wolves, or allow a sweet ol' granny to be run over by a speeding truck. Right?

WellThisIsNotThatTrope.

This is very common in DarkerAndEdgier works. When the writers want to impress you with their ruthlessness, they may trumpet that TonightSomeoneDies, then kill off a random second-stringer that nobody cares about much. They might even kill off a major character because [[RealLifeWritesThePlot their actor was leaving anyway]], or because they needed a good cliffhanger to convince people to watch the next season. That is also ''not'' this trope (although it's merely pretending to be).

Anyone Can Die is where the SortingAlgorithmOfMortality is thrown out the window from eight stories high, then further tenderized with a lead pipe; '''no one''' is exempt from being killed, including pets, children, the elderly, even the [[SacrificialLion main characters]] ([[TheHeroDies maybe even the hero]]!) The SacrificialLamb is often used to establish the writer's willingness to kill off important characters early on. To really be the Anyone Can Die trope, the work must include multiple deaths of named characters, happening at different points in the story. Bonus points if the death is unnecessary and devoid of HeroicSacrifice.

This trope is very helpful in keeping fans from being SpoiledByTheFormat. War shows like ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' benefit from having a larger cast since there are so many people to kill off. The frequent deaths within a wide cast make the storyline unpredictable, forcing you to wonder who'll be left standing once the dust settles.

Still, even if all characters are allegedly up for [[MatterOfLifeAndDeath the possibility of a dance with the reaper]], the general laws of storytelling (and, more importantly, how actors are contracted) tells us that you can expect the chances of main-character death to increase as you approach the climax of an arc, the final episodes of a season, the final chapters of a book, or the final instalment of a series, even if the work averts DeathIsDramatic. A creator needs to be quite committed to the concept to kill off an important character in a completely plot-irrelevant way.

When used poorly or too frequently, this trope can cause TooBleakStoppedCaring, possibly with audiences uttering the EightDeadlyWords, as the audience won't see any point in getting attached to characters that they expect to die sooner or later.

Note that the character needs to be KilledOffForReal for the trope to have the desired effect; it does not work if the writers cheat and [[DeathIsCheap bring back the guy later]] (see NotQuiteDead, DisneyDeath, NegativeContinuity, and ClimacticBattleResurrection). As such SuperHero Comic Books as a medium have gained a reputation of "Anyone Can Die... [[FirstLawOfResurrection until someone wants to use the character in a later story]]."

Compare SurvivedTheBeginning, when the story begins with a cast massacre, and the few who survive get some PlotArmor.

A good way to check if this trope applies is to see if who survives is an important plot point, rather than only how they survive.

Contrast with TonightSomeoneDies, SortingAlgorithmOfMortality and ContractualImmortality. Compare SecondLawOfMetafictionalThermodynamics, SurvivedTheBeginning, and CharactersDroppingLikeFlies.

Opposite of NobodyCanDie and PlotArmor, where not even situations that ''should'' kill people manage to. See also DwindlingParty, where the deaths are evenly spaced rather than near the end. Easier to do in works with large casts. Can be expected in a {{Tragedy}}. RedShirt is (usually) when the deaths are reserved for nameless extras. This trope tries to upgrade them to MauveShirt first.

This is easily defined as definite TruthInTelevision, because [[WeAllDieSomeday all living organisms are mortal and are bound to, by statistics at least, eventually die for any number of reasons]], with no fiction writers to determine how it happens, so Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease

!!As this is a {{Death Trope|s}}, all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. ''Beware!''
[[noreallife]]
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%% If you have time, please take time to put examples in alphabetical order.
%% This page Administrivia/HowToAlphabetizeThings should help you with that.
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!!Examples
[[index]]
* AnyoneCanDie/AnimeAndManga
* AnyoneCanDie/ComicBooks
* AnyoneCanDie/FanWorks
* AnyoneCanDie/{{Film}}
* AnyoneCanDie/{{Literature}}
* AnyoneCanDie/LiveActionTV
* AnyoneCanDie/TabletopGames
* AnyoneCanDie/{{Theatre}}
* AnyoneCanDie/VideoGames
* AnyoneCanDie/{{Webcomics}}
* AnyoneCanDie/WebOriginal
* AnyoneCanDie/WesternAnimation
[[/index]]

[[foldercontrol]]
%%[[folder:Advertising]]
%%* Any Brit over 35 and particularly those over 50 will likely associate "Public Information Film" (UK term for PSA) with horrifying deaths, particularly of children.
%%[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* The franchise for the ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'' has got a huge death toll, not only because the series spans for a thousand years and so almost everyone will die of old age by the time of the next arc, but because it's got multiple main characters to choose from and isn't picky about which ones they kill off. One of the plot points is ''everyone'' dying near the series' climax.
* In Paul Shapera's ''Ballad of Lost Hollow'' trilogy of albums, it starts with four main characters, two of whom are dead by the end of the story.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* In the ''Podcast/CoolKidsTable'' game ''Creepy Town''. Who survives each scene and who doesn't is dependent on the luck of the draw, which means at any moment a victim could meet their fate, no matter how much their player likes them.
* The first season of ''Podcast/DarkDice'' begins with a party of six people, and ends with three just barely escaping with their lives and sanity.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Whilst reality-based rather than in a storyline, sadly Professional Wrestlers seem to have very short life spans. Prior to drug testing (which was implemented after one such death), wrestling has had a number of high-profile deaths that seem to come out of nowhere, most notably Wrestling/ChrisBenoit and Wrestling/EddieGuerrero. Certainly fans are now conditioned to expect any wrestler to die at any time.
* You also never know when an accident may happen, such as the one that claimed the life of Wrestling/OwenHart in 1999, and another that claimed the life of [[Wrestling/TheBriscoebrothers Jay Briscoe]] in 2023.
* And of course accidents can occur outside the ring, as what had happened to Wrestling/RandySavage.
* This can also apply to {{wrestling famil|y}}ies, the Wrestling/VonErichFamily being a noteworthy and tragic example (with Kevin being the only son to outlive father Fritz).
* Due to Wrestling/LuchaUnderground being more of a TV show about Wrestling then a Wrestling TV show, They aren't afraid to kill off characters. While some characters come BackFromTheDead, others are KilledOffForReal.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' has begun to show traits of this trope. Ever since the web-serial chapters arrived (though mostly from 2008), former main and side characters have been dying left and right. Now that the happenings of the Matoran Universe have to be restricted to a web-serial, since non of the characters are part of the [[MerchandiseDriven main line of toys]], everyone who survived the story's first 8 years can begin to worry. Don't think of HeroicSacrifice, rather blowing up or being pulled beneath the ground for just the heck of it. Or simply eaten. Exceptions are, of course, some of the main heroes and the invulnerable BigBad. And if a side-story happens to take place in an AlternateUniverse, absolutely no one is safe, save for those who don't belong there and will eventually return to their own world... Although, that isn't guaranteed either.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''{{Franchise/Danganronpa}}'':
** In ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'', the plot revolves around 15 students with special talents that are required to murder to escape the school. Although it is obvious that a lot of them will die, [[NeverTrustATrailer the trailers for both the game and the anime based on it heavily promoted the characters who died earliest]], which made this trope come into effect even harder. The game seems to take great pleasure throughout in subverting SortingAlgorithmOfMortality, in fact, [[spoiler:with the protagonist's ImpliedLoveInterest with signs of a fascinating DarkAndTroubledPast as the SacrificialLamb, the ''less'' focused-on victim of the third chapter being the one who was in the middle of his CharacterDevelopment, and most of the survivors besides the protagonist seeming like walking death flags. Of note of the six survivors and the tropes that a first impression makes them look ''built'' for, there's [[ShooOutTheClowns the idiotic, superstitious, held-back-repeatedly clairvoyant,]] the [[{{Hikikomori}} unsociable]] [[StalkerWithACrush obsessive]] [[AssholeVictim novelist and her extremely]] [[SmugSnake snobbish, hostile crush]], and the detective {{Deuteragonist}} who [[MentorOccupationalHazard teaches many hard lessons to the others]]. Obviously, all death tropes listed here end up not being the case for them at all.]]
** The same applies to the sequel, ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair''. [[spoiler:Played with however as all the dead students are merely revealed to have gone into a coma by the end, hope is given they can be brought back, and the GrandFinale anime, ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' ultimately confirms that the only one who doesn't come back is the one who was actually dead the entire time.]]
** ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'' [[spoiler: completely subverts this. All but two of the "dead" characters are revealed as alive in the credits.]]
** This trope is back with a vengeance in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony,'' though, with the first two characters to die being [[spoiler:the cool, collected, and competent-seeming holder of the mystery talent and the much-promoted [[DecoyProtagonist "protagonist"]], when both of these positions had consistently come with PlotArmor in other installments of the series. From there, the game proceeds to have the lowest survivor count in the ''series,'' and only three of the five students at the final trial actually survive to reach TheStinger.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', all the Masters and Servants can die. The only ones who are guaranteed to survive the non-bad endings are Rin and Sakura. The Bad Ends kick it up a notch, with several of them dooming everyone in Shirou's highschool or the entire city.
* ''VisualNovel/FullMetalDaemonMuramasa'' has an absolutely massive cast and that is just as well given just how high the mortality rate is in this story. By the end of each route, the number of characters left alive can be easily counted on one hand. Not even young children are safe, with them often dying just as gruesome deaths as the adults. This holds equally true for the main characters with most being either dead or dying by the end, some of which can die midway through with little warning depending on the route.
* All of the main characters in ''VisualNovel/TheLetter'' can potentially die. The True End even requires some of them to die.
* ''VisualNovel/LuxPain'' is a dark visual novel game where the main character outright states that if his mission fails, many people will die. While it's very easy to save the main cast, it's just as easy to lose them. Only eight people are killed canonically and half of them are villains. [[SacrificialLion Mako]], [[HeKnowsTooMuch Takano]], [[CruelAndUnusualDeath Naoto]] and [[TooCoolToLive Kyosuke]] are examples of the good guys. Also, if you mess up during a certain portion of the game, the number of people that die in the normal ending is higher. The most prominent example is [[TykeBomb Hibiki]] who is killed by [[CoolBigSis Honoka]] (and she too is killed by getting gunned down) when you fail to remove the Silent from Honoka that prevents her from going crazy. Oh yeah, and when Hibiki dies, [[PlayfulHacker Shinji]] dies too [[DisneyDeath (or at least never wakes up from his coma)]], and [[GenkiGirl Mika]] and [[CheerfulChild Nami]] go missing. In fact, out of all of your friends, the ones that are safe at this portion of the game are Akira, Rui, Yayoi and Ryo. The latter, however, is to be questioned because after Hibiki is killed, you can't talk to him.
* Played with in ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'': The 9th Man's early and brutal death by Zero's explosives sets the tone for the game, but [[spoiler:contrary to Zero's threats, none of the rest of the 9 have a bomb in them, none of them are actually on a sinking ship, and Zero actually intends to avoid harming anyone besides those responsible for running the previous Nonary Game. There are bad endings in which one of the 9 kills the rest either because they'd been EvilAllAlong or because certain events in the game had broken them, but each ending is really one potential timeline that Zero can see, and Zero is capable of guiding the protagonist's decisions to result in exactly what was planned (i.e. the True Ending)]].
** Its sequels ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' and ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'' kill off characters more often, to the point that some endings result in a TotalPartyKill (even including the BigBad).
* ''VisualNovel/RoseGunsDays'' has it the usual way in the first 2 Seasons, with only nameless mooks dying (but they are seldom explicitly stated as dead) and [[spoiler:Wang Yuanhong]] implied to breathe his last breath off-screen. Then at the very end of Season 3 [[spoiler:Stella Maiougi]], a fairly important character, [[KilledOffForReal actually dies in very graphic detail.]] In the Last Season, named characters suddenly start to drop like flies [[spoiler:starting with Yuuji Maiougi (a ''2 year old kid''), and continuing with Oliver Oribe (who may or may not be 20 years old at that point), Lee Meixue (one of the arc's main characters' girlfriend), James Tomitake, Maurice Monobe, Cyrus Saimura, Richard Maiougi (Stella's brother and Yuuji's uncle), Alan Aramaki (Meixue's boyfriend) and Gabriel Kaburaya.]] To these deaths we might as well add [[spoiler:Keith Kisaragi, who lost his best friend Alan ''and'' his entire new family (the Maiougis) in the span of a single season]].
* In ''VisualNovel/{{Sickness}}'', a reader may begin to realize this upon the death of Sara, if she indeed dies in your route. If Suoh gets killed, you'll definitely realize this.
* There are rather few characters in ''VisualNovel/TheShell'' who make it to the endings reliably. For example, Mizuhara, Tojiko and Orihime always die and Toko dies in every route except one in which she lives on as a torso.
* As the name implies, ''VisualNovel/YourTurnToDie -- Death Game By Majority --'' has several fatalities -- and in certain cases, it's effectively up to the player [[SadisticChoice who gets to live past that point]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/BattleForDreamIsland'', as shocking as it seems, in this care free world of sentient objects, anyone is capable of being killed. Wether it’s from natural hazards, dangerous challenges, or developing the insanity to kill eachother. This is later [[AvertedTrope averted,]] as the world revolves around [[AutoRevive recovery centers,]] [[DeathIsCheap so characters can just come back with ease.]]
** This show would later lead to a whole fan base of many ObjectShows to follow this same trope.
* ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' is one of the most infamous cases of this - almost everyone had died at one point in the series.
[[/folder]]
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