Times when characters make a Heroic Sacrifice in fan works.
Crossovers
- Avengers of the Multi-verse: At the climax of Night of the Beyond, Hex volunteers to serve as a container for Dagon's energy and let himself be banished to the Unworld. He knows that either of these things will kill him, but also that it guarantees that the energy will be safely disposed of and that Dagon can neither revive on his own or be revived by the Cabal.
- Children of an Elder God: During the Final Battle, Rei sacrificed herself to ensure that the Outer Gods remain sealed forever.
- In the Children of Time version of "Evolution of the Daleks," the half-human Dalek Sec offers himself in exchange for the liberation of the Daleks' captured Time Lord, Kit Bennett. It... doesn't work. Then he ends up taking the fire of his own children in defense of his one remaining brother, Jast. He dies after one last plea with his brother for peace.
- Code Prime: Cliffjumper and Dreadwing both perform this in Chapter 35 of R1.
- After being mortally wounded by Luciano Bradley, Cliffjumper takes the Knight of Ten with him in an electric generator explosion.
- Dreadwing blows up an Energon deposit on Kamine Island to ensure Suzaku escapes with Cornelia and Euphemia, as well as to ensure the Insecticons on the island are destroyed, and hopefully take Airachnid with them as well. Notably, he didn't intend to sacrifice himself, but Airachnid damaged his T-Cog to the point he couldn't transform, leaving him with no way to escape the blast.
- Subverted with Gino and Guilford, who stay behind to ensure the Black Knights and Autobots escape Tokyo when the Decepticons attack. The former is able to escape so he can form a resistance movement, while the latter is captured by the Decepticons.
- Cycles Upon Cycles: When Cerberus' Xel'Naga ship is about to destroy the Normandy, Anderson teleports onto the enemy ship and manually detonates a nuclear bomb, obliterating it at the cost of his life.
- Earth's Alien History has numerous examples:
- During the Battle of Thessia in the Mekon War, the crippled Asari dreadnaught Siege Perilous rams a Romulan warbird, the resulting explosion wiping out several other nearby Romulan ships and tipping the odds in the favor of the allied forces.
- During the Vinn War, there's at least one example of a ship — the Japanese cruiser Ashigara — self-destructing in order to both destroy enough Vinn vessels for its surviving squad to escape, and to deny the Vinn access to their Warp engines to reverse-engineer.
- Also during the Vinn War, Sky Marshal Erica Hernandez self-destructs her crippled ship in order to destroy a large number of invading Vinn ships.
- During the Continuum of Makers' battle with the Reaper Herald and its Indoctrinated fleet, a Maker ship destroys a larger Indoctrinated vessel's Ring Drive with their own, creating an event which destroys Herald and all its ships.
- A similar move is used during the Final Offensive of the Reaper War, in order to defend the Continuum's homeworld.
- Trapped in a Conspiracy of Light base being overrun by Collectors, Benezia and Hot Rod trigger the Self-Destruct Mechanism, destroying themselves and the whole facility in order to keep the Collectors from taking over the base's defenses and using them to destroy their colleagues' evacuation ship.
- Ramjet holds off a horde of Husks to allow Stealth Assault to escape with some Turian refugees, and gets overrun.
- Xerneas overclocks its powers to restore life to all the Husks on ARC3-US, burning out its own life force in the process.
- When the Reapers invade Romulus and an invasion force marches on the capital, Ael T'Vrahu drives among them and lets herself be the target of an orbital strike in order to wipe them all out.
- Aria and Yondu Hold the Line against an army of Husks to allow a Turian soldier to activate Palaven's planetary self-destruct, and are overrun just before it's triggered.
- When a Kryptohusk is unleashed during the Second Battle of Sol, Superman restrains her long enough to call down an antimatter torpedo strike on their position, obliterating them both.
- During the assault on the Reapers' Dark Space base, the Maker Admiral Carad allows the last Kryptohusk to attack his ship, keeping it distracted and still long enough for a Klingon ship to attack, destroying it along with the ship.
- Colonel Machimaki Benzo and his unit, trapped in a cavern full of Klikiss robots about to escape to the surface, set off explosives that kill them along with the robots.
- JJ Oliver sacrifices himself to destabilize Unicron's dark spark enough for the Doctor to drain it and merge it with the Super Energon in order to restore the worlds Unicron destroyed.
- Fallout: Equestria contains a number of examples, especially during the Last Day, when the zebra megaspells destroyed Equestria.
- When the zebras unleash the flesh-melting Pink Cloud on Canterlot, Rarity plugs a crack in a window with her hoof, buying her enough time to teleport Fluttershy and Angel to safety. The Pink Cloud melts her hoof into the glass and liquifies her flesh, dissolving her until nothing but half-melted bones remain dangling from the window.
- Princess Luna burns up her lifeforce maintaining a shield around Canterlot to keep the Pink Cloud from spreading beyond the city's borders.
- During the war against the zebras, Big Macintosh dies Taking the Bullet for Princess Celestia.
- In Fractured, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands crossover, a redeemed Lilith sets off a chain reaction by crashing a stolen ship into a temple to defeat the Reapers.
- Kirby himself pulls this off during Chapter 8
of The Frozen Heart's Star after noticing some of his other friends in danger, giving him the cue to run and stand in their place, and he even lets out his last, heartrending-- POYOOOO!!!
- -right before freezing into an ice statue... in his own home that the protagonists took a vacation on earlier. Get ready for some waterworks. However, he does get thawed and revived, so he gets better in the end.
- In The Great Starship Battle, Zaphod Beeblebrox, in a somewhat uncharacteristic move, sacrifices himself to help destroy the Borg.
- Kill or Be Killed: Yoona's seat breaks on a ride, and Yesung catches her before she falls. Yoona convinces him to let her go, since she feels she is ready for death.
- The Last Seidr: The Hat gives Harry a spell that can close the portal and end the Chitauri's invasion. However, it requires that a magical creature channel a deadly amount of magical energy to complete the ritual. Seeing as they are in the MCU, the only one capable of doing it is Fawkes. Because phoenixes are naturally good and noble, Fawkes sacrifices himself and closes the portal, ending the invasion but destroying his body. Luckily, he's a phoenix, so he doesn't die, he just turns into an adorable baby version of himself that everyone finds cute.
- The Lightning Strike;
- Ultimately, Odin sacrifices himself to destroy the Demogorge.
- Flashbacks reveal that in Harry's original world, Godric Gryffindor sacrificed himself in a fight with Hela to allow Rowena Ravenclaw time to seal Hela away with the Time Stone.
- It is eventually revealed that Harry arrived in his new universe to stop Death managing to escape into his original reality. In the present, as in canon, Natasha is willing to sacrifice herself to claim the Soul Stone, but Harry convinces her that he has to be the one to do it because if Natasha dies than the unborn Lily cannot come back.
- Contemplated in "Like Broken Glass", when Richard Castle and Maura Isles are abducted by terrorists planning an attack on a shipyard, Castle claiming that he knows the shipyards and Maura can redesign their bomb after the group's original experts were killed. While Maura deliberately draws out the work, she and Castle discuss the idea of her setting the bomb to go off in the terrorists' base before their associated colleagues arrive to rescue them.
- Lost in Camelot;
- While visiting the grave of Morgana's father, Bo deliberately stays behind to give Morgana a chance to escape from the forces of a warlord.
- When the Knights of Medhir attack Camelot, once Morgana realises that she is the vessel for the current sleeping curse, she explicitly asks Bo and Merlin to kill her to stop it.
- In "Lost and Found", when Paige Matthews (Charmed (1998)) is taking part in the mission to retrieve the Soul Stone (Avengers: Endgame), she summons Prue's spirit for help to find a way to get the Stone without Paige, Clint or Natasha having to sacrifice themselves. However, Prue confirms that there is no other way to get the Soul Stone without making a sacrifice, and volunteers herself for the Stone, even knowing that this will prevent her from even passing on to an afterlife so that Piper, Phoebe, and all those lost in the Snap can be restored.
- A non-lethal variant happens in May Your Heart Go Beyond. Midoriya places last in Eraserhead's quirk apprehension test, but before the teacher can reveal that his threat of expulsion for the one who placed last was a lie, Sora (who placed second and had his place at the school secured) volunteers to take the expulsion in Midoriya's place. Eraserhead decides to delay revealing the truth to see if Sora's heart is heroic enough to truly go through with his promise, planning to expel him if he decides to back down. Luckily for everyone involved, Sora makes it clear that he would take Midoriya's place in a heartbeat, at which point Eraserhead reveals the ruse and keeps both boys in his class.
- My Hero Playthrough: In Lesson 48, Mordred is shown a flashback of her adoptive father, the Sword Hero EMIYA charging into a burning home to save the family trapped in side. He created swords stabbed into the floor and supports to keep the house standing and create a path for the family to escape. But the effort of doing so leaves him trapped inside and he dies.
- Flt Lt. Fitzgerald sacrifices himself so the French pilot can get back to the Odyssey in Chapter Four of Reunions Are a Bitch.
- In the Sent to the Witch story The Love of a Vampire, rather than Phoebe killing him in revenge for everything he’s done, Cole explicitly asks for the Charmed Ones to kill him so that he can restore reality and give Angel another chance, as the new timeline he unintentionally created has destroyed Angel’s own chance of happiness.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man: Lost in Gotham: When an experimental portal machine goes haywire and threatens to suck in both Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man sacrifices himself so she'll be safe. He ends up fine (as the machine worked and created a portal to Gotham), but he was fully willing to pull this trope.
- Star Trek: Phoenix: At the end of "The Choices We Make", severe battle damage to the Enterprise causes its warp core to destabilize, and by the time the ship's crew is marshalled into the saucer and it's ready to detach there isn't enough time to get clear from the rest of the ship before the core explodes. As such, Sunset stays behind to use her magic to contain the explosion for as long as she can, buying the saucer just enough time to get clear before the explosion blows out of control and vaporizes the ship with her in it.
- Sudden Contact: Tassadar (like in canon) and Adrien Victus give their lives to destroy the Overmind.
- In Thousand Shinji, Misato got killed when she shielded Shinji from the bullets of a firing squad.
- More of a moral sacrifice than the traditional one, but still an important decision; in the Twilight Storm take on "The Day of the Doctor", Bella offers to join the War, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors in their plan to set off the Moment and destroy Gallifrey, Bella reasoning that the three Doctors setting off the Moment together is still the Doctor doing it ‘alone’ and this way she can bear the burden with them.
- Wonderful (Mazinja): Danny died to save his daughter Taylor and everyone else from psychopathic mass murderer Jack Slash.
- In "Impact", when a future version of Cordelia arrives in the past shortly before Doyle's death, when facing the threat of the Beacon she knocks Doyle out and makes the jump herself. Future Cordelia not only disables the Beacon, but just as she 'dies', she finds herself back in the future at the moment before she was sent back, but now in a new timeline created by her actions in the past, while her past self returned to her own time just after the Beacon's destruction.
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs:
- In "What if Tobias wasn't stuck in morph?", Jara Hamee is killed while creating the distraction that allows Tobias to escape from the Yeerk Pool.
- "What if they saved Jake's family?" ends with Jake, Eva, Toby, Arbron, and General Sam Doubleday putting themselves in the Yeerks' line of fire as a distraction so that their allies can sneak onto the ships.
- In "What if they had the chance to do it over again?", Elfangor explicitly makes one even when the Animorphs ask him to come with them, arguing that Visser Three would be willing to destroy the entire continent if he thought Elfangor was still alive but if he knows that Elfangor is dead Visser Three would assume any remaining Andalites aren’t a serious threat, allowing the Animorphs to mount a more discreet campaign against the Yeerks.
- Subverted comically in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series during the TV movie "Calvin's Batman Adventure"- Hobbes pulls one of these off while fighting Clock King, and while Calvin dramatically monologues over his body, Hobbes walks in with ice cream, revealing the sacrificed one to be Socrates.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
- In Alternate Destination, Gaia knows very well that by tampering with the timeline to bring Linka Back from the Dead, she could lose her powers, spirit status, and immortality. She still does go through with her plan, but its long-term consequences eventually kill her.
- In Ojos Que No Ven, Miguel pushes his baby sister Coco out of the way from an oncoming truck and he gets killed instead, which starts the story.
- One of Lelouch's Shadows in Darwin was meant to drive a truck into the most important naval base in Area Eleven and trigger a bomb hidden within that would knock out every Sakuradite powered electronic (functionally all electronics) in the base. But because the base got word of the attack on the Tokyo Settlement early, she couldn't arm the bomb and leave, forcing her to detonate it while still in the truck.
- Happens twice in Danganronpa Redemption:
- To set off the fourth case, Kiyotaka Ishimaru ends up Taking the Bullet (or, more accurately, arrows) for Kaede when she accidentally activates the trap Miu had set for the traitor.
- At the end of the sixth case, one of the survivors must die in order to get rid of the despair virus. Rantaro and Kokichi both volunteer, and Kokichi is the one who abstains from voting, therefore being executed with the mastermind.
- Adventures of a Screwed Up Clone: The Danny from the current timeline sacrifices himself to save Dani from Vlad, since Vlad wouldn't have stopped until one of them was dead, having been informed by the Danny from the timeline where Dani was killed.
- Happens twice in Hedgi's History Repeats series. First in A Captive Light when T.K. takes an energy blast meant for Kari and appears to be dead and second in A Fading Hope when Kari puts herself in harm's way to save T.K. again, she survives, but Gatomon does not.
- Tamers Forever Series:
- Kazu receives a Flame Inferno attack meant to kill Suzie.
- Takato also sacrifices himself to kill Daemon.
- Takato receives a "Trump Swords" attack meant for Taomon.
- In The Curse of Blood, Laharl blocks a spear strike that kills him to protect Etna. From his brainwashed mother no less.
- In the fic "Wolf at the Door", when the Eighth Doctor and Rose learn that the Master changed history to prevent the Time War by allowing the Daleks to conquer Earth, the Doctor is prepared to put history back even though that will force him to destroy Gallifrey to save the universe, but Rose accepts the current timeline, reasoning that it’s better for Earth to be battered by the Daleks than for the Doctor to lose his planet.
- Much like in the game, Victoria insists on being the one to do this at Haven in All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird. She points out to her counterpart Mahanon that his Dalish clan needs him to survive, while the world can get on just fine with one less Trevelyan. It's arguably more painful than in the game, because instead of showing her making the sacrifice, the narrative focuses on how Mahanon deals with his Survivor Guilt.
- Since Beyond Heroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium is an AU retread of the source material, readers who have played the game may think they know what to expect during the siege of Adamant, when one character is chosen to remain in the Fade so the rest can escape. However, the casting of the AU changes things. Instead of either Hawke or the Warden contact making the sacrifice, they both do - because the Warden contact is Carver Hawke, and both brothers insist on remaining behind in order to save their sister Bethany, who is the Inquisitor.
- Amazingly, inverted by Guru in Dragon Ball Z Abridged. He senses that the dragon has been summoned and is granting wishes, and says to himself, "Would be a reeeeaaaal dick move to die right now." Which he does. Which banishes the dragon. Basically, he kills himself strictly For the Evulz. A Jerkass Sacrifice, if you will.
- The Warrior's Daughter: Bulla puts Cell in a chokehold and then shouts Gohan to shoot Cell through the head, well aware that the energy beam will also kill her."Gohan!" She screamed. "I can't hold him much longer."
"Bulla, but..." his heart sank.
"Don't worry about me," she said, Cell writhing against her. "Just get him!"
"You'll die!"
"You died for me once," Bulla replied, gritting her teeth. "It's my turn to repay the favor."
- Byleth sacrificing themselves to save Bernadetta in the Final Battle against Nemesis is what triggers the plot of A Chance for a New Dawn.
Godzilla / King Kong / MonsterVerse
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): The story hangs a lampshade on Vivienne Graham's first death during the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), which occurred partly due to her choosing to stay behind and save Mark Russell's life instead of saving herself.
- Kaiju Revolution: Robomusume heroically faces down Godzilla at Mount Fuji despite being severely outmatched, though luckily the trope is ultimately subverted thanks to Biollante's efforts. She does go on to pull an actual sacrifice later on, allowing Godzilla to explode her Primal Stone to trap him.
- The Sangheili/Elite Zuka in the Halo story Enemy of My Enemy, who flies his nearly-destroyed Banshee, piloted by his nearly-dead self, directly into the exposed core of a hostile Scarab, saving the city.
- In Harry Potter and the Spiritus Crystalus when Death Eaters break into the Hogwarts hospital wing, Cho's sister Wan intercepts a Killing Curse that was meant for Snape's wife.
- In Human Curiosity, a number of Nations sacrifice their own chances to escape the HCS facility - leading to their own deaths - in order to secure the freedom of their friends and family. Among them were Scotland and Switzerland (who stayed behind and drew HCS fire so England and Liechtenstein respectively could escape), Denmark (who held back HCS soldiers so Estonia could continue on) and Russia and Belarus (who held off the HCS soldiers that tried to stop England and Liechtenstein from making it outside).
- In HetaOni (a fan-made Hetalia: Axis Powers video game based off of Ao Oni), after Italy dies, England sacrifices himself to rewind time to save Italy.
- Twitchy in the Golden Age series dies saving Karkat from falling debris during the Condesce's attack on Excelsis-Five.
- A Thing of Vikings:
- Heavily injured and knowing they're slowing the group down, Fritjof and his Zippleback, Nott and Delling, face off against their pursuers and take about one hundred horsemen and their horses down with them, saving his tribe's heir and the rest of their retinue.
- Fearless, Toothless's sister, sacrifices herself to set off a volcanic eruption that kills the Screaming Death that was once her nest-lord, the subsequent eruption also killing Mildew and his Whispering Death.
- Spitelout falls in battle against Henry the Sinister's army, holding them off until the ships full of refugees can get past.
- Played with since they're not exactly the good guys, but Özhan sacrifices himself so that all of the other Pecheneg forces present can survive the Nest Lord they were combating.
- In this Iron Man: Armored Adventures fanfic, both of Gene Khan's parents. Aung managed to nearly kill Zhang while bleeding to death, and Sarantuyaa let herself be killed in order to ensure her son would survive.
- Queen of All Oni: Amongst the Three Sages who imprisoned Tarakudo and his generals in the Oni masks, White goes down fighting the Generals alone after sending Dark away so that the latter at least would survive.
- In Comic 25 of Kill la Kill AU, we have this with Ragyo, going into the basement to save Nui's life from whatever was down there. This left her mortally injured.
- In The Seven Hunters, Skytail sacrifices himself in a last ditch effort to poison Calin. This is an act of vengeance for the loss of one of his packmates, but it also buys his surviving followers time to escape.
- This is attempted in Ozma Sees Herself. The recently-transformed Ozma doesn't recognize her reflection while bathing in a pool and mistakes it for a nymph. When the Hungry Tiger shows up and desires to eat Ozma, Ozma offers herself up so that the beautiful nymph doesn't get eaten. As it turns out, while the Hungry Tiger is hungry, he is too moral to eat Ozma.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest Rewrite: Done by Heckapoo to save Mina from Prospero/Nyarlathotep.
- In the backstory of The Legend of Genji, a group of terrorists detonated a Fantastic Nuke in the heart of Ba Sing Se. To save the city, Avatar Korra used her energybending to redirect the bomb's blast upward into a Pillar of Light visible from miles away. Although she was successful in preventing Ba Sing Se's destruction and saved millions of innocent lives in the process, the strain caused by channeling that much spirit energy through her body wound up killing her.
- In Technomad's AU Fic "Death Seeker" Grima Wormtongue, having been inadvertently freed from Saruman's influence when Theoden was, rides with the host of Rohan, seeking to die. He ends up helping take down the Lord of the Nazgul and finally gets his wish.
- Invoked in the fanfic Daughter of Fire and Steel. Kara suggests Kal to leave Earth with the Codex, thus forcing General Zod's crew to following them around until finding another habitable planet. She expects them to be executed as soon as the Black Zero catches up with them, but she and her cousin are willing to accept that fate provided that Earth remains safe.Kara: "I'm not giving them a choice. I'm going to launch the World Engine and jump us to another system. Zod and the others will follow us and we can lead them on a war-kite chase until we find a suitable planet for terraforming."
Kal: (frowning) "And then what? Bygones become bygones and we all become one happy family with Zod?"
Kara: "No... I expect Zod will execute us both. This is the only way our people can begin anew and not at the humans' expense. I'm willing to give my life for that. Are you?"
Kal: "If it means Earth stays safe then yes."
- In Collateral Damage, Vision is fatally damaged and spends the last of his life restoring JARVIS's code within his body.
- in People Turning Into Smith Clones Charlie lets himself be infected by the Smith clones in order to protect his girlfriend. However, it’s later revealed his transformation was only physical, and it’s shown that Ava loves him even more as a Smith clone.
- Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race: This has happened a couple times.
- In episode 3, Doc the Metool does this to save Roll.
- QN-60 and Dr. Cossack almost do this to save some innocents, but Mega Man saves them.
- In episode 10, Ballade does this against Bass.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Antipodes: In the climax, Jigsaw allows Tantalus to kill him, in order to power a magical ritual that will allow the princesses to instantly reincarnate.
- Daylight Burning:
- In the climax, Shield Banner is fatally injured while shielding an injured Fluttershy from a fall off of Canterlot's mountain.
- Shortly afterwards, the unnamed government agent and the Night Guard Chyornyj Slon keep the Nightmare-possessed Celestia incapacitated long enough for her to be caught in an explosion strong enough to demolish a large chunk of the royal castle; the agent gets better; Slon doesn't."What are you doing?" she screamed at them. "You're going to die too!"
"Fair trade," said the agent.
- A Diplomatic Visit: The sequel, Diplomat at Large, reveals that, during the invasion of the Storm King's army, Queen Skydancer acted as the last line of defense for her people, ultimately sacrificing herself so they could escape to safety.
- Everfree Infection AU: In "Hold the Door", Cheerilee stands her ground against aggressive infected ponies to buy time for her class to hide in the closet. When help arrives, she's covered in bites but her students are completely unharmed.
- The Ending of the End - Love and Tolerance Edition: During the attack on Canterlot, early in the story, it's clear Grogar and the other villains are too much for the heroes. So Princess Celestia orders Twilight to teleport her friends and herself away, while she and Luna hold off the villains. And the last glimpse the heroes get as they are teleported away, is the royal sisters' force field being punched through
- The Flash Sentry Chronicles: Attempted by Springer. After finding a bomb that will blow up Ponyville, and no way to transport it due to an anti-magic field, Springer puts his own shield around himself and the bomb and instructs Twilight to contain the both of them once the bomb goes off and the anti-magic field disappears. It is subverted when the countdown reaches zero and it is revealed Springer had actually just finished a "Vision Quest", and thus did not die from his supposed sacrifice.
- The God Squad: Tidal has pulled this twice:
- When Discord first attacked Equestria Tydal fought him to buy Celestia and Luna the time to get to the Tree of Harmony and in the end held Discord down so they could fire the Elements at the two of them; Discord was turned to stone and Tydal was so injured Celestia and Luna had to turn him to stone as well so he could heal.
- During the Tydal vs. Tirek arc it quickly becomes clear to Tydal that Tirek, with Celestia, Luna, and Cadence's magic, is too powerful for him to stop. He distracts Tirek just long enough for him to figure out how Tirek performs his Magic Theft spell and uses it against Tirek, stealing his natural magic so that Tirek can never again steal another pony's magic. Tydal then uses the last of his strength to cast a spell that causes him to seemingly explode, distracting Tirek just enough that Twilight and her friends can defeat him.
- The Immortal Game: Subverted. Twilight Sparkle throws herself into Titan's free will-removing spell in order to disrupt it at the last second, fully expecting to die in the process. Instead, she absorbs the remnants of Harmony's power and is transformed into an alicorn.
- Inner Demons:
- Rarity fights Trixie, despite knowing she's far more powerful, in order to buy time for Spike and Apple Bloom to escape. Nonfatal example, as, while she's defeated, she lives.
- There's an example from a villain later on, as when Apple Bloom tries to immobilize Queen!Twilight with a nonfatal sword strike, Trixie pushes her out of the way and is fatally run through instead.
- According to legend, Bayonet (the original Master of Harmony) sacrificed her own life force to use all of the Elements of Harmony in order to defeat Midnight (the original Queen of Darkness).
- Ultimately subverted with Apple Bloom, who is willing to do the same as Bayonet to defeat Queen!Twilight (and later, the Darkness), but survives.
- The Light Never Goes Out: Spike saves the Mane Six from a collapsing mountain in their last adventure together fifty years prior to the story. The sequel explains that he helped keep the ceiling of a mountain cave up long enough for a dazed Rarity to be carried out by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash when a meeting with the half-dragon, half-pony Greyhorn goes south.
- My Choices: Twisted Tales Through Time: It is heavily implied by her surviving notes that, after becoming trapped in the past, Twilight took the Nightmare into herself to prevent it corrupting Luna.
- The Palaververse:
- In The Motion of the Stars, Rarity sacrifices herself and binds her soul to the Sun to restart and guide its motion, like the ancient unicorn monarchs did before the time of the Sisters.
- In Thunderstorm and the Four Winds, Thunderstorm sacrifices herself to destroy the High King and free the pegasi from the scourge of wild, uncontrolled weather.
- In Past Sins, Nightmare Nyx fights off all the monsters of the Everfree Forest in an attempt to invoke Death Equals Redemption. Actually, she's not attempting to invoke Death Equals Redemption so much as she's simply willing to die if that will help save the town.
- Pony POV Series:
- G1 Mimic pulls a You Shall Not Pass! on Discord to let her friends and daughters escape. In the process, she manages to shatter his fang before he kills her in his fury, being the only mortal to ever hurt him permanently.
- Amicitia sacrifices herself to create Shining Armor and the Interviewers from her existence.
- The Bushwoolie Wishful sacrifices himself to make sure the Green Smooze is cast into Discord's realm, also fusing with it in the process and rendering it innocent and child-like.
- Minuette throws the fob watch containing The Master at the Blank Wolf after the Master threatens to harm her friends. Since she was created by the Master, she did this believing she would be destroyed as soon as the Master was destroyed. Fortunately, she survives.
- During the Finale Arc the Dark World Nightmare Mirror (who's actually purified internally but still a Nightmare on the outside) sacrifices herself to protect Prime!Applejack from one of Nyarlathotrot's attacks, giving Applejack her power and transforming her into Princess Veritas. While they're separated, it's made clear that the original Mirror is dead and gone and the new being created from her is more a Reincarnation.
- During the Finale Arc Button Mash realizes that if Discord is stopped, this version of him may cease to exist, as his past had been altered by the Rumors and everything he'd done since the Rumors started would have never happened. At first, he attacks Apple Bloom to stop her from advancing, fearing for his life and existence, but eventually decides to be a true hero and lets her pass. When the crisis is over, the Elder Gods reward him by bringing him back with his memories intact.
- Rarity performs one by splitting her soul apart to merge with the Spirits of Dark Magic to both save Diamond Tiara and complete the Spirits to prevent any further Nightmares from ever existing again. While her body is given a new soul from her G3 self's Light of Existence, it's explicitly not her, but rather a successor.
- Sharing the Night:
- In the flashback episode, the white moon begins to fall out of the sky when its alicorn Somni, having fallen into catatonic despair, loses the will or strength to hold it up. To prevent it from destroying the world, the other lunar alicorn, Fati, smashes her own moon into it, destroying both and ending her and Somni's lives in exchange for allowing the world to live.
- In Chapter 20, Astri tries to destroy the moon in order to kill Luna, but is prevented from doing so when Harmony charges into her attack, deflecting it at the cost of her own life.
- In the epilogue, Discord secretly gives up his essence to resurrect the dead alicorn Harmony, which interacts with Celestia's plan to do the same by absorbing Harmony's weakened essence and then splitting in two to create a pair of smaller, identical Celestias with Discord's draconic features.
- The Things We Leave Behind: After an Ursa Major attacks Ponyville, Twilight decides to try using an age reversal spell to stop it. Doing so uses up so much of her magic that she has to resort to drawing power from her Life Force to continue. She succeeds, but falls into a coma and dies shortly afterward.
- What a Strange Little Colt: In the end, Gabriel decides on his own to return his piece of Luna's soul, sacrificing himself to save her.
- HERZ: Shinji, Asuka and Rei were willing to sacrifice themselves to stop SEELE and give Akiko a chance to be happy. After the Final Battle Shinji and Asuka survived, but Rei sealed herself out of Earth to save them.
- Higher Learning: Rei III replaces Rei II right before the battle against Armisael to give the latter a chance to keep living. As a reward, Rei II shares her memories with Rei III in the last moments before her death, and Rei III dies happy, knowing exactly what she's giving her life to protect.
- In Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide, Gendo of all people gives his life to save Rei when a SEELE strike team attempts to kill her.
- Ships Ahoy!: Just like in canon, Oscar puts himself in the line of fire for Olive during the pienado attack, being hit with pies so she can get a clear shot with the Triangu-lator and seal the pienado for good. However, with the added tidbit of the pies being contaminated that isn't present in canon, the sacrifice becomes more lethal in nature, although Oscar manages to survive the ordeal.
Persona Franchise
- Hours 'Verse: During the sinking of Shido's Palace, Akechi helps tip the ladder to the lifeboat controls so Ryuji can make it back to the boat safely, meaning he can't make it back himself before the cruiser goes under. Subverted when it's revealed that his death in the metaverse meant he ended up in the Velvet Room.
- Ashes of the Past:
- The fate of Ash's father.
- On New Island, Ash slices his own hand open so he can use Ghost-type moves. He uses a lethal amount of his blood, and in a Dying Moment of Awesome, doesn't drop until he's managed to stagger his way over to the distracted Mewtwo and grab his shoulder for a Remind.
- In the Battle Finale of Legend, Ash responds to a Roar of Time by throwing Kari to the side. Well, most of her, anyways. Part of her tassel was caught in the beam, which is important. He's unable to dodge and is vaporized.
- In the Pokémon Reset Bloodlines sidestory "Twenty Gyarados Bill Gaiden", the titular Villain Protagonist is brought down by Elite Four member Denki Tekina. Their final clash ends up in a Hyper Beam collision between Bill's Mega Gyarados and Denki's Mega Ampharos, and the resulting explosion leaves the former two fatally wounded and kills the latter two.
- Officer Johnny takes one for the team in Pokéumans so Brandon and Reggie can make it back to the Long Island base.
- The backstory of the Pokémon fanfic Return of the Hero is that after rescuing Ho-Oh from the evil Sky Soldiers, Ash Ketchum transferred his Aura, or Life Energy, to the bird Pokemon in order to revive it after it was mortally wounded, and died as a result. Ten years before him, such an act was performed by Frank Ketchum, Ash's father.
- The plot of Rotten Luck kicks off when protagonist Jonathan, after just having brought a gift for his date, saves Sam Blueland (then just a nameless boy with a Zigzagoon playing with a ball) from getting run over by a car. Jonathan would reincarnate as a newborn Ralts almost immediately thereafter.
- In Blue Sky (Waffles), Wheatley decides to invade GLaDOS' systems, and overwhelm her with ideas that she considers bad, using a mechanism inside his own programming that made him think all his bad ideas are good. He succeeds in shutting down GLaDOS, but at an awful price: He is stuck as files. He is eventually going to essentially fade into nothing. He survives and gets a body as a thank you from Caroline.
- Wheatley in the Portal 2 fic Test Of Humanity invokes this while trying to save Chell and ends up getting caught in an explosion due to an escape plan gone wrong.
- In A History of Magic, Sadako Sasaki (the girl who died from leukemia as a result of the Hiroshima bombing, and the inspiration of the 1000 Origami Cranes trope) chose this when she used her wish to wish that the atomic bomb never was used again, rather than wish herself cured of leukemia. She thinks it a worthwhile sacrifice, bringing a rare moment of remorse from Kyubey.
- In the post-Madoka world, where the masquerade is broken and there's prejudice on both sides, the Puella Magi and the humans are on the verge of war, aggravated by humans sending brainwashed Puella Magi to kill the Magi in positions of power. Billy Kane, the man that technically broke the masquerade (long story why), decided to take the blame for the brainwashed magi assassins in an attempt to stop the war from happening. It somewhat works, though a huge Demon outbreak helped.
- At the very end of the fic, humanity and magi are almost completely wiped out. Kyubey tells Homura that the Incubators plan on taking the last human, cloning it, and using that to create a new stock of humans to make Puella Magi from, and they were willing to wait until Homura died from her fatal injuries to take the baby unless she killed the baby herself. Homura made a wish and sacrificed her chances of ever seeing Madoka again to ensure this baby made it into Madoka's heaven and they both died. The sacrifice was enough to reunite Homura with Madoka anyway, and bridge the heavens between Puella Magi and humans.
- In The Horsewomen Of Las Vegas, when the Bullet Club attempted a Decapitation Strike on Charlotte Flair and her organization, her head of security, Samoa Joe shoved her and her assistant, Dana Brooke, through a doorway, which shielded them from the blast of a grenade, but killed him, her lieutenants and much of her security force.
- Weight of the World:
- Discussed and Deconstructed after Blake dies protecting Yang. Amber points out how hurt Yang is that Blake died saving her, particularly since Yang did not need to be saved. Yang easily could have survived the Warden Grimm's attack since she had plenty of Aura, while Blake had no Aura left. Blake was as fragile as a normal human but jumped in front of Yang anyway. Amber says that no matter the sacrifice's intentions, the people they died to save will grieve and be plagued by guilt that their loved one thought they had to die to save them. She claims many heroic sacrifices are not as heroic and inconsequential as fiction makes them out to be because they leave a lot of hurt and grieving people behind.
- After Salem's Grimm begin laying waste to the City of Vale, Amber/Vale uses the Relic of Choice to kill herself and sever her nation's connection to America in order to save him from dying with her Kingdom. She gives her remaining Aura to heal his injuries before passing away. America is left grief-stricken and angry that after all of Amber's talk about how sacrificing yourself hurt your loved ones, she went and did it to save him.
- In The River Variations John pushes Sherlock out of the way in order to take the bullet for him. He is shot twice in the chest and is rushed to the hospital.
- In the Sleeping Beauty Rule 63 fanfic The Prince and the Spindle, Rory (male Aurora) touches the spindle when Malefor (male Maleficent) threatens to kill Petra (female Phillip) whom he had imprisoned in his dungeon. Fortunately, Petra was able to escape and defeat Malefor, and revive Rory with True Love Kiss.
- The Raven's Plan opens with the last survivors of Westeros gathering at the Isle of Faces so that Bran and Melisandre can enact a ritual to send their minds back in time so they can Set Right What Once Went Wrong. But to buy time for that, their ragtag army — whose numbers include Jon, Jaime, Sam, Gendry, Edd, Tormund and others — have to make a Last Stand against the Night King's forces, which gets them all killed in the process. Somewhat downplayed, as the ritual ensures they're all brought back in their younger selves.
- When the ritual is enacted, and subsequently overloads, Melisandre takes the brunt of its energy in order to protect Bran, which leaves her incinerated and renders her younger self braindead.
- Just like in the original timeline, Jojen Reed dies protecting Bran from wights.
- In Episode 77 of Sonic X: Dark Chaos. Tails is crippled and nearly possessed by Dark Tails. He fights against the influence of Dark Tails for as long as he can, and Cosmo is forced to fire the Sonic Driver at them, permanently killing them both.
- The Stargate SG-1 fic "Inherited Emotions" opens with the Goa'uld attacking the Tok'ra base earlier than in canon, with the result that Daniel rather than Lieutenant Simmons becomes the "new" host to Lantash. As a result, Daniel volunteers to stay behind to use the symbiote poison on the attacking Jaffa, but unlike canon, Lantash is able to resist releasing the toxin as he dies so that Daniel stays alive long enough to be returned to Earth for medical treatment.
- Beat the Drums of War:
- Captain Jojo Appiah of Starbase 234 gives his life in a holding action against the Heralds to cover the fleet's retreat from battle, finally self-destructing his station to avoid capture.
- Double Subverted by Rear Admiral Zandra Taitt. She planned to use technobabble to make the Heralds gate into a black hole and then bail out of the USS Caelian before it was destroyed as part of the plan, but the Heralds showed up too early so she didn't have time to get off.
- The heavily damaged Benthan flagship sacrifices itself to shield the Bloodwing from a Herald ramming attack. At least some of the crew get out in the Escape Pods, though.
- Yiereth in The Form of Survival crashes her starfighter into the ship preparing to shoot down the Ghost, saving her lineage-nephew in the process.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
- Once Upon a December Night: April's parents both pulled this trope. When the O'Neill family was Kidnapped for Experimentation, April's parents figured out a way to escape. Kirby pulled the You Shall Not Pass! variant, staying behind to stall the Kraang. April and her mother made it into New York City, but they were followed. April's mother hid her daughter behind a dumpster before she pulled a defiant Last Stand on the Kraang bots (who shot her before they were defeated by Splinter). April's mother lived long enough to ask Splinter to look after April before she died in his arms. Because of how traumatic these events were, April blocked them out and didn't seriously think on them until her teens, fully accepting Splinter, the Turtles, and the Murikamis as her family.
- In The End of Ends, Count Logan's minions hold down Beljar to allow the heroes to land the final blow. Why? Because they trust Logan so much that they're willing to give their lives for him.
- Anne Littners dream is to "Go out in a blaze of glory" in The Spiral Path much to the disturbance of everyone who knows her.
- In A Cracked Ruby, Molly's brakes fail her just as she's made her way over Gordon's Hill, which causes her to rocket down the other side at break-neck speed towards Hiro. Luckily for her, James comes up behind her, calls for the points to be switched, and pushes her to safety, but ends up crashing himself.
- Wings Of The Fallen: Tintin and the Captain face off with Rastapopulus, and when Rastapopulus is about to kill the Captain, Tintin jumps in front and takes the fatal hit to save his life.
- Twinning With a Twist: After the Bears suffer their third loss, Beardo offers himself for elimination in the hope that if everyone is in agreement on who should leave, including the person eliminated, then the team won't devolve into distrusting each other. It works, and everyone is still on good terms moving forward.
- In Touhou Project fan PV "Loitering Darkness", Yuyuko, fearing her ability of being able to will death onto mortals would inadvertently drive people to death, sacrifices her own life to seal off the cursed cherry blossom.
- Integrity/K Lin sacrifices herself in Not As Simple As A Happy Ending.
- Better Bones AU: Deerfoot helps try to free the half-Clan prisoners during Tigerstar's reign and is killed for refusing to name his collaborators.
- Snowkit is killed by a hawk after pushing Tawnykit out of its way.
- During Breezepelt and his friends' mission to help the cats the Kin is slated to have executed escape through a tunnel, Brushblaze purposefully collapses the tunnel and dies in the process so the Kin can't pursue them.
- Firestar loses one of his lives saving Sorreltail when she is hit by a car. In general, this is expected for leaders - StarClan gives them nine lives for a reason, to be willing to throw themselves into danger to save their Clanmates, which is why some of them don't outlive all the normal cats of their generation.
- Longtail jumped into a gorge in Bitter Repercussions to save his Clan from dogs.
- In Atonement, Marquis takes one of Crawler's acid blasts to save his daughter Amy.
