Disney Villain Death - Television Tropes & Idioms

The Queen/Witch in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs is struck by lightning and falls off a cliff and the huge boulder she was trying to use to kill the Dwarfs instead falls down the cliff after her, making this Older Than Television.
- Somehow, though, it didn't stop her from becoming a recurring antagonist in the Disney Comics, and still in her disguised form to boot. Some of the stories in which she appears are admittedly pretty strange (ie, the Seven Dwarves meet a pirate parrot and sail off on an adventure with him).
A strange thing happens in Cinderella. Lady Tremaine and Cinderella's step sisters don't really get punished at all. But their Right Hand Cat Lucifer, who is mean even by Disney cat standards, terrorizing the mice and basically doing horrible things when Lady Tremaine isn't available, falls from the window of Cinderella's tower. (The comics and sequels, however, show him to have survived the fall.)
- No he didn't. The thing is, he's just down to eight lives. (Or less).
Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty pulls her One Winged Angel act, is killed by Prince Philip (but it's okay because she's a dragon), and falls off a cliff.
One Hundred And One Dalmatians: Cruella De Vill crashes her Cool Car into her goons' truck sending them both plummeting off the cliff they were on. Oddly, despite the fact that the cars are totaled at the bottom of the ravine, all three are alive and Cruella is in good enough shape to throw a hissy-fit. Apparently, she survives in the book as well, so this is one of the rare cases where Disney Just DID Care about the original story. What weirds us out is this: According to Disney, you can do acts of unspeakable evil to Gargoyles, Humans, monsters, aliens, demons, lions, ect., but if you hurt puppies, your fall will not kill you. We are not sure what to make of this.
A very cool variation happens to the Horned King in The Black Cauldron. He was sucked into the very same magical cauldron that he intended to use to conquer the world. Once inside, he disappears forever. Hey, no fuss, no muss... (Of course, in the book, he melted. He wasn't even the main villain either but let's not even go there.)
The Great Mouse Detective: Ratigan... oh, Ratigan. Of course, considering his direct inspiration, Professor Moriarty, also got taken out by a fall, it's not much of a surprise.
- Also happens to a minor villain, who is, ironically, a bat. That didn't stop Disney Adventures from doing a comic story where he had apparently survived and also did a Heel Face Turn, though.
Exceptions to this in the Disney movies tend to be very extreme. In one year we got the Family Unfriendly Deaths of both Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (dissolved by his own Dip) and Sykes in Oliver And Company (just saying he's run over by a subway train doesn't even cover it.)
- Roger Rabbit is only half Disney, technically.
This is actually subverted somewhat in The Little Mermaid, when Ursula pulls a Make My Monster Grow transformation, whereupon she gets killed by being impaled upon the prow of a ship steered by Eric.
Played straight with Merlock as a result of him losing his talisman in the Duck Tales movie.
MacLeach in The Rescuers Down Under escapes a group of crocodiles only to meet the Inevitable Waterfall. This is followed immediately by a fakeout when the heroes face the exact same chain of events. (It helps to have a whacking great eagle on your side.)
Beast initially goes out of his way to spare Gaston from this in Beauty And The Beast... then Gaston goes and brings it on himself anyway, in arguably the most epic and amazing Disney Villain Death to date, which is why there's a picture at the top.
An article titled "The Gargoyles Drinking Game" instructed players to take a shot for every trope common to Gargoyles (i.e. every time Xanatos admitted to the failure of the plan being part of the plan or every time Elisa's Cool Car is seen.). Disney Villain Death was not included because the sheer number would cause people to succumb to alcohol poisoning.
- Specific examples, for the curious: The Captain and Hakon, in the Middle Ages part of "Awakening". Demona, at the end of "Awakening", though she turned out to have survived. The Archmage, in "Long Way to Morning", who also later turned out to be alive because David Warner is just that awesome. Subverted in "The Journey" with John Castaway, who had a helicopter ready.
  - And then there's the "City of Stone" arc: In part one, a villain killed the hero's father by falling off a castle. In part two, the villain himself was killed by falling off the same castle. That could be justified as poetic justice, but the creators didn't want to have to do it again in part three for the other villain. So, Macbeth gets a magical ball of... something that causes the villain to be electrocuted. And after he's burned through, his body... falls off a cliff. Oh, well.
  - And the modern Hunter's vendetta against Demona specifically? A fight between their father and the Gargoyle led to the Hunter falling off Notre Dame cathedral. To his death.
Jafar's defeat in Aladdin plays with this a bit, since he technically does fall, sucked into his own lamp. Subverted in the sequel, however, when he explodes...
Nastily subverted in The Lion King. Scar survives his fall off Pride Rock. He meets Shenzi's Hyena pack down there. She's not too happy about being blamed for all his wrongdoings. Let's just say that Scar's actual demise is... messy.
- Zira in The Lion King: Simba's Pride falls off a cliff into rapids and drowns. Note that, in the original Darker And Edgier ending, she was intended to be seen letting go. (Some argue that this is still the case in the release. It's a bit ambiguous.)
- Her son Nuka suffers a similar death, but it's not just the fall that kills him: the logs that fall after him are definitely a factor as well.
Since he's one of the most downright evil Disney villains of all (although he wasn't too bad in the book), Frollo's demise in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is particularly spectacular. He stands atop a gargoyle and is about to kill Quasimodo and Esmeralda — but the gargoyle's head cracks, causing him to lose his balance. As he grabs onto the gargoyle for dear life, it starts glowing and snarling at him, as if Satan himself was saying he deserved it. It finally breaks off and he plummets to his doom, landing in molten lead. (Note that in the book, Quasimodo threw him off.) Mere seconds before the gargoyle cracked, as he was about to slay Esmerelda and Quasimodo, Frollo gave some dramatic last words:
Frollo: And He shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery pit!.
- Irony!
  - Don't you mean Leady?
  - A Disney Adventures article about the movie lampshades this trope by listing all the previous villains with deaths by falling, but says it won't reveal Frollo's fate. Guess what ends up happening to him.
Hades' defeat in Hercules might be considered an inversion. As a god, he can't die, but he was defeated by being thrown into the river Styx, where the souls of the dead dogpiled him. He couldn't fall to his death, so he fell into a bunch of other people's.
In Mulan, the writers shot Shan Yu with a rocket launcher (in a kid-friendly way) specifically because they didn't want to have another falling death in a Disney movie. (And yet, similar to what happens in "City of Stone", we still see his body fall off the roof.
Clayton's death in Tarzan may be the most violent of all Disney Villain Deaths. Falling out of a tree and accidentally hanging oneself with jungle vines. We even get to hear his neck snap...
- An alternate ending averts the trope, but is arguably less gruesome than the one that made it to theaters. In this ending, Tarzan confronts Clayton on Clayton's junk. A small fire breaks out when Tarzan frees all the gorillas that the hunter had captured. Tarzan then pins Clayton's shirt sleeve to an oil barrel with a knife (after choosing not to simply cut out his heart) and leaves him there as the oil from the barrel seeps towards the flames. The last shot is of the ship exploding.
Emperor Zurg falls down an elevator shaft in Toy Story 2, yet somehow survives to play catch with his son. It's a long story...
- That entire subplot is a parody of Star Wars, so you should know the (earlier) twist.
Apparently part of its effort to cover every Trope overused by Disney, this happens to the Carnotaurs in Dinosaur. Under circumstances that are very similar to those in The Land Before Time (detailed below) now that we think of it...
- Only one of them. The other died when rocks fell on it.
Yzma falls in The Emperors New Groove — but there's a hilarious twist to that...
Guard: For the last time, we did not order a giant trampoline!
Delivery Man: You know, pal, you could have told me that before I set it up!
While she isn't the main villain (or really a bad guy at all, arguably), Helga Sinclair in Atlantis The Lost Empire is killed by a fall... but not as cleanly as the other examples. We see her badly injured but still alive, and she manages to take a revenge shot at the guy who threw her before she expires. The main villain's death is surprisingly fall-free, especially given that the final struggle takes place on an airship. He crystallizes and EXPLODES.
- It's also heavily implied that, since Helga lay at the bottom of the chimney when the airship blew up, she would have been crushed by the flaming debris whether she had survived the fall or not.
A neat variation occurs in Treasure Planet: the truly nasty Scroop dies by falling upward when the ship's artificial gravity gets turned off. This is obvious payoff for his murdering the kindly First Mate Mr. Arrow (one of the few heroes who dies by falling — into a Black Hole no less) through similar means.
And fitting an Affectionate Parody of other Disney movies, in Enchanted Queen Narissa falls off New York City's Woolworth Building... after, yes, going One Winged Angel. She explodes into glitter on impact.
- WHO THE HELL GOT SPARKLES ON MY DRAGONS?!?!?
- King Kong: "It wasn't the fall. It was the beauty who killed the beast"
Syndrome of The Incredibles subverts this by getting sucked into a jet engine. Note that Mr. Incredible meant to kill him as it was a result of chucking a car at him... just not in that particular way.
In the Kingdom Hearts series, while there are a few falling villains (of which Captain Hook subverts by being thrown off into the ocean with the alligator chasing him... only to survive the ordeal and return in the interquel 358/2 Days), most Disney Villain Deaths are replaced with "Beaten to death with a Giant Key".
- Amusingly, of all the Disney villains in the series, the three who did not fall off something in their source material (and they still don't in the games) technically originate from outside of the Disney Animated Canon: Oogie Boogie (gets his skin ripped off and crumbles in the movie, beaten to death and crumbles in Kingdom Hearts), Barbossa (shot as his curse of immortality is lifted) and the MCP (It's an AI represented as a giant red cylinder with a face in Cyberspace. Go figure.). This might be telling something.
Sympathetic villain Davy Jones dies after his heart is stabbed, and he falls into the Maelstrom in Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End.
Subverted in Kim Possible So The Drama, where Kim kicks Shego into a building, where she gets electrocuted and the entire things falls on top of her. She survives, and is perfectly fine, though.
In National Treasure, Shaw gets the distinction of being the only character to die in the entire movie by plummeting through an ancient staircase.
GO-4 gets a messy one (for a machine) in WALL-E.
Charles Muntz in Up. Those balloons tangled to his feet don't seem to have helped him any.

Close Disney examples, in rough chronological order

Gundam Wing featured an awesome variant in an early episode when Lady Une dumps a failed underling out the back of an airborne transport plane, then shoots him while he's falling.
In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Precia Testarossa falls off a crumbling floor into the extradimensional void.

Close Anime and Manga

The first volume of the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen ends with this happening to the Big Bad Moriarty, who it had already happened to before. Hmmm. Like the Treasure Planet example, he fell up. In addition, after the book proper is over, there's a small splash page featuring the silhouette of his corpse continually floating, presumably in space.
- In the Minions of the Moon text story in Century: 1910, during a trip trough space Mina comes across his corpse, still clutching the cavorite.
The Captain America villain Baron Zemo has gone this way about five times in his various incarnations. This troper has seen him referred to as "Gravity's Bitch".
In Preacher, this is the fate met by Allfather D'Aronique when Starr hijacked his helicopter in mid-air after rigging the Masada base to explode... and decided to kill the Fat Bastard once and for all. Starr tipped the copter, dropping the Allfather a hundred feet to his death. Although, this being Preacher, the messy result of falling is very much shown on the page◊
In Amulet, Luger dies this way. Arguably so does Emily's dad, but a) he's not a villain, and b) he was in a car at the time, making it rather less likely that he's still alive.
In the early Batman comics, the Joker did this at least four times, but always survived.

Close Comic Books

Don Bluth is fond of these. This isn't surprising, actually, given that he worked for Disney for a while and that classic Disney films had a huge influence on him:
- Jenner has a surprisingly violent one in The Secret Of NIMH
- The Giant Mouse of Minsk chases Warren T. Rat's gang off a pier in An American Tail. They don't die, but they're stranded clinging to the anchor of a boat bound all the way from New York City to Hong Kong. Ouch.
- Sharptooth's demise in The Land Before Time is actually quite an alarming variation (especially if the viewer is only familiar with the Lighter And Softer sequels): Littlefoot and his herd purposefully toss him off a cliff and drop a rock on him. And then, just to make the audience really weirded out, Petrie gets a Disney Death. Dude.
- Subverted in the 1995 flop The Pebble And The Penguin, where psychotic penguin Drake managed to escape his fall, but is then crushed by his own giant boulder and the entire tower. So he both fell and dropped a rock on ''himself''.
A particularly jarring example occurs in Michael Jackson's short film "Ghosts". This transcript of the film even calls the mayor's demise a "presumably... messy Disney Villain Death".
A weird subversion occurs to the hero of Virtuosity. Russel Crowe's sadistic villain (who happens to be a video game villain who has come to life through the magic of Applied Phlebotinum) knocks Denzel Washington's hero off a roof. Denzel gets to have a very graphic Disney Villain Death and a Disney Death immediately afterward!
- Of course, both Russel and Denzel fall through a glass rooftop earlier. Russel gets to fall through a series of glass panels on the way down. The result is not pretty.
Partial subversion in the 1989 Batman movie. The Joker falls off a building to his death. Why is that a subversion? We actually see his body on the ground. There's even cracks around the corpse on the concrete and everything.
- In The Dark Knight The Joker almost suffers this fate, but is saved by Batman.
- Two-Face has a similar demise in Batman Forever.
  - As well as in The Dark Knight, but it's ambiguous enough that there's the possibility he survived. Alas, Word Of God says he's dead; Aaron Eckhart actually asked Christopher Nolan about this!
  - Which means Batman broke his Thou Shall Not Kill rule, since he tackled him off the building, after going through the trouble of saving the Joker.
- This is a very popular move in the Batman films. In Burton's Batman, a mook got thrown over the side, while in Returns, Catwoman falls more than once, though she survives each fall. The Penguin also falls through a window during his final fight with Batman. In Forever, Edward Nygma throws his boss to his death. Finally, in Batman and Robin, all three villains jump off the Arkham tower, yet miraculously survive.
- The entire climax of Burton's first Batman movie is a big homage to Metropolis, where Freder Frederson chases Dr. Rotwang up into the cathedral and knocks him off the roof.
In the cult animated feature Rock And Rule, the Magnificent Bastard Mok, an aging rock star with dark magical power, summons a demon with an evil song sung by the captive Cat Girl Angel (this is another very kind of movie). Angel's repentant boyfriend shows up just in the nick of time and they banish both the demon and Mok down an interdimensional pit with a good song.
In Rambo: First Blood, sadistic head deputy Art Gault, ignoring Chief Teasle's orders to capture Rambo alive, tried to shoot him from a helicopter. After being cornered in a cliff, Rambo threw a rock at it, causing the helicopter to pitch heavily and drop Gault to his death into the gorge. Unlike Disney, we are shown proof-positive that Gault ain't coming back when Rambo picks him up to steal his gear and sees his face turned to hamburger.
In the Casper Live Action Adaptation, the villain is killed by falling off a cliff. Although, this being a movie about ghosts, that's not the last we see of her. In a twisted (uh) twist, Kat's dad is also killed by falling down a manhole, and goes Back From The Dead in one of the most downright awkward ways imaginable immediately afterward.
The Angry Video Game Nerd commented on this when discussing Walker's death in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III:
"Now, how many times have you seen this shot in a movie? TOO MANY FUCKING TIMES! This was one of the biggest cliches of the time. What happens at the end of "Batman"? The Joker falls! What happens at the end of Dick Tracy? Big Boy falls!"
In the Italian Sword and Sandal flick, Anthar L'Invincible, it first appears as though this trope is going to be subverted. The hero corners the villain and gleefully describes how he's going to murder him. The villain then accidentally backs into and falls out of a nearby window to his death, fulfilling the trope.
Though not a villain, William Shatner's character in American Psycho 2 was blown out his office window onto his head by Mila Kunis' character.
Thankfully subverted for Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda: not only is he hurled upward, not down (courtesy of Po's massive belly), but his death (if it even happens) occurs due to the Wuxi Finger Hold, not a fall or any other type of very final, Deader Than Dead denouement. Of course you know what this means...
- The director's commentary during this scene is particularly cagey: though they claim they had to 'get rid of' their villain and that he was 'wuxi-ed into oblivion', they also point out what happened to Tai Lung is never really explained and is 'one of the mysteries of the movie.' Covering their ass in case they want to bring him back, or just trying to be magical and mystical? You decide.
Several James Bond villains have fallen to their deaths, but the Big Bad of GoldenEye suffers a spectacularly gruesome version of this. Bond deliberately drops him from a giant satellite antenna, and we see him hit the ground and break every bone in his body. But he doesn't die until the antenna explodes and comes crashing down in flames right on top of him... as he watches, screaming the whole time. But considering who the villain is, he kinda has it coming.
- In The Spy Who Loved Me, a mook is almost falling, if not for holding Bond's tie. After 007 gets useful info outta him, he lets the henchman fall to death.
- In Moonraker, Bond throws Chang (the first The Dragon) through a glass window and he falls to his death, by impaling a piano.
Happens to all three of the main villains in the Rush Hour series of movies, though usually with a bit more proof they didn't survive the impact than at Disney. Lampshaded during the blooper reel of Rush Hour 2.
Chris Tucker "Damn! He ain't gonna be in Rush Hour 3!"
Happens so much, to both heroes and villains, in the Star Wars films that Robot Chicken did a series of sketches spoofing it by showing a Janitor at the bottom of the shaft/ground/wherever that has to pick up the body and decides to take another job, right where the next person gets dropped.
In The Lord Of The Rings series, both Gandalf and the Balrog fall off the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, though it's revealed in The Two Towers that they both survive the fall. However, the Balrog actually takes a second tumble off the mountain tower.
- In Return of the King, Denethor hurls himself off the top of Minas Tirith. While on fire.
- In the extended edition, Saruman is stabbed in the back and falls backwards off the top of Orthanac and is impaled on a spiked wheel.
- Gollum actually gets this treatment twice. The first time, he slips and falls off the cliff outside Shelob's Lair. It's revealed he survived, and shows up for the final battle. He grapples with Frodo in Mount Doom and...well, you should get the idea by now. The odd thing is that the fall isn't really what kills him (though it arguably should have). Instead, we get to see Gollum sink into the lava with the Ring.
In the Stephen Loncraine version of Richard III, the title character (Ian McKellen) jumps off a building just before Henry Tudor can shoot him. Into a fire. While grinning maniacally. And Al Jolson plays.
"Well, Denham, the airplanes got him."
The girl in Vertigo. Twice.
- Well... two different girls, actually
The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari: Cesare. Or did he?
The film adaptation of The Name Of The Rose features an example of this; the Dominican monk and inquisitor Bernardo Gui is chased by a peasant mob while trying to burn a girl as a witch at the end of the film. Gui attempts to escape in a cart, gets stuck, and is pushed over the edge of a cliff by the mob. This troper can't understand why the producers felt the need to include the scene, particularly since the real historical Bernardo Gui lived quite happily to a ripe old age before dying of natural causes. (Because Karma Houdinis suck.)
- Also, a monk throws himself out of a high tower.
Being a Cliche Storm, this is how the villainess in Delgo meets her end.
Was this troper the only one who immediately thought of this near the end of Murder By Numbers? Although to be fair, you do get to see Richard splayed out all dead and stuff. It even took place after an epic fight scene on a precipice overlooking the sea.
Mola Ram gets a Disney villain death in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which was fitting since the movie is a live-action cartoon.
- The other Indiana Jones films love doing this to other villainous characters as well: The car full of Nazis in Raiders, Vogel in Last Crusade, and the Russians on the cliffs near the waterfalls in Crystal Skull.
  - The two non-mook examples at least show what happens when they hit bottom.
The first Robo Cop film ends with the Corrupt Corporate Executive Dick Jones falling to his death — after Robocop's shot him around half a dozen times.
In Star Trek III The Search For Spock the Klingon commander Kruge gets a Disney villain death when he is kicked off by Admiral Kirk.
- The Reman Viceroy gets a similar death when he is kicked by Commander Riker in Star Trek Nemesis.
- As does the Borg Queen in Star Trek First Contact, although in her case, she falls into a cloud of corrosive gas that dissolves her organic flesh.
Henry Evans from The Good Son. It's made chilling when you take into account that the character was a kid played by Macaulay Culkin. Additionally, his mother deliberately dropped him rather than just falling off. She could only keep hold of one of them though.
Hans Gruber in Die Hard.
"Oh, I hope that's not a hostage..."
- Also from the Die Hard series, John took out a mook and The Dragon of Die Hard 4 while fighting them in an elevator shaft.
The villainess in Catwoman not only falls (after a Take My Hand exhortation from the heroine), but lands upon a lit-up sign for her company and is apparently, though not graphically, electrocuted as well.
Near the end of the Judge Dredd film, Dredd is hanging from an edge over a long fall with Rico about to kill him. Dredd turns the tables on Rico and throws him over the edge to his doom.
Total Recall. While fighting Quaid, The Dragon Richter has his arms ripped off by an elevator and falls to his death.
Commando. When interrogating a major mook, the John Matrix holds him over a cliff. When he finishes, he just lets go.
In the ending of Antz, General Mandible tackles Z, and they both have a huge fall. Z falls into water and after being rescued, survives. Mandible falls into a branch and isn't so lucky.
At the end of Shanghai Noon, the villain, Lo Fong, is killed when a bell falls from a tower and its rope gets wrapped around his neck. The pulley effect drags Fong upward, in a sort of inverse hanging.
- Also in Shanghai Knights, the Big Bad of the movie lures the heroes into a clock tower, where he and Chon Wang engage in a spectacular sword fight. Close to defeat, Wang cuts the support of a catwalk, sending both combatants hurling out of the clock tower window. Wang is saved by Roy, but the villain falls to his death, complete with a Wile E. Coyote puff of smoke when he hits the ground. Damn.
Speaking of Jackie Chan, the two villains of The Forbidden Kingdom get taken out this way.
In the Marvel film series, both Doctor Doom and Doc Ock sink into the water in Rise of the Silver Surfer and Spider-Man 2, respectively.
- Also, Sabretooth fell off the Statue of Liberty, though he may or may not have survived.
- Bullseye was thrown out of the church window in Daredevil.
  - The Big Bad in Elektra was thrown down a well after getting impaled.
- Stane fell into the reactor in Iron Man.
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle actually had three villains fall to their deaths, with two Dragons falling off a rooftop and the Big Bad suffering a fall into a fire. If you listen closely, you can hear her scream even after she's hit the bottom.
Though already dead, Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
In GI Joe The Rise Of Cobra, Storm Shadow is stabbed in the chest by Snake Eyes and falls off the weird, electrical tower thingy...well, he falls off a platform and into the frosty waters. Rumor has it though that the sequels have him returning.
Nero's dragon, Ayel is shot and falls to his death in the recent Star Trek movie.

Close Film

Tolkien did it with Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings. Justified because it turns out that the only way to throw the One Ring into the Cracks of Doom was to have someone accidentally take himself with it.
- Somewhat subverted in the movie version of Return of the King when Saruman gets stabbed in the back, falls off his tower, and is impaled through the chest on a spiky mill-wheel which turns and dunks him in the water. (Not exactly how it happened in the book.)
- Originally Peter Jackson was going to have Frodo "come to his senses" and push Gollum over the edge, which would have messed with the story considerably since Gollum wasn't really the villain, and even hard-core villains don't usually get pushed off cliffs in adventure stories.
It's funny how we've mentioned so many characters influenced by Moriarty without noting his death. In the Sherlock Holmes story, The Final Problem (link goes to the E-book), he falls off a cliff — but he takes Sherlock Holmes down with him! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle intended for this to be the final Sherlock Holmes story until the fans pressured him to bring the detective back, inadvertently creating an early example of a Disney Death in the process.
Magua dies this way at the end of Last of the Mohicans, making this Older Than Radio.
- Interestingly, in the movie version, Chingachgook will not dignify Magua's body with a Disney Villain Death, since the heroes are the ones who fall heroically off the cliff.
In the fantasy parody? Homage? Deconstruction? Book Dark Lord of Derkholm, the main character is hired to play a dark lord for groups of people from another world (possibly our world) who get to act out the typical High Fantasy story. However, he runs out of time to come up for a interesting "death" so simply creates a pit made to look bottomless. And pretends to have a Disney Villain Death. Multiple times a day.
In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Dumbledore is hit with the killing curse and falls off the highest tower at Hogwarts. The fact that there was even a body to bury when he hit the ground suggests that the lawn at Hogwarts may be magical as well...
Obligatory Discworld examples:
- At the end of Wyrd Sisters, after Duke Felmet has gone over the edge and started believing himself to be a ghost, he literally goes over the edge of a parapet while dramatically ranting to Death about how he plans to haunt Lancre Castle.
- Near the end of Guards! Guards!, the Night Watch has the bad guy cornered, and Captain Vimes orders Constable Carrot to "throw the book at him". Carrot, who was raised by dwarves and has trouble with metaphors, literally hurls his copy of "The Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork" at the villain, knocking him over a ledge.

Close Literature

In the Doctor Who episode "The Hand Of Fear", the villain falls down a deep black pit after being tripped up with the fourth Doctor's scarf.
- In "The Age of Steel", Dr Lumic falls to his doom after Pete Tyler cuts the ladder he was climbing. The place he's seen falling towards happens to be on fire.
  - Yet strangely averted in "The Idiot's Lantern", despite the finale taking place on Alexandra Palace Radio Tower.
  - Subverted in "The Daleks" when a heroic character brings it on himself as a Heroic Sacrifice, as he's dangling over a ravine attached to a rope that's pulling his comrades over the edge too. The sight of him disappearing into blackness, coupled with the thunderous noise as he hits the bottom, is quite shocking for a young viewer.
On 24, Habib Marwan, main baddie on Day 4, decides to go out this way, plummeting off a parking garage.
Lionel Luthor is taken out of the show this way in Smallville, also an example of Klingon Promotion and Dying To Be Replaced.
Murdoc in Mac Gyver gets two of these. First, he falls off of a mountain. Then, he falls down a mine shaft. Of course, in both cases, they Never Found The Body (although considering the series was canceled shortly after that second example, maybe he did finally die in spite of a lack of evidence).
In the season five finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Buffy has a two second fight with Doc that ends this way.
- Hell, technically, Buffy herself gets this treatment at the end of the episode, as her Disney Death doesn't take place until the following season.
Also from Joss Whedon, the torturer from the episode War Stories falls into the abyss after being shot to death in Firefly.
Another good guy (technically) example: in the latest season finale of Lost (technically by Disney too), Juliet bows out in a way very similar to Helga Sinclair. They fall down a deep pit—and survive. In a final Heroic Sacrifice, they trigger a bomb that was tossed in the pit earlier and then fade to white...
- You know, we can't bring up Lost without mentioning what Locke's father did to him can we? Although it doesn't qualify as "Death", it broke his spine.
On Las Vegas, Monica Mancuso stands on the rooftop of the Montecito in season three and rants about how, one day, she will own the entire Las Vegas strip. Then, in a bizarre twist, a huge gust of wind catches her ridiculous outfit and she flies off the roof and into a shoe store.
- And in the season five premiere, Sam's kidnapper falls out of his airplane to his death.
In Alias, Sydney faces off against her mother, Irina Derevko in the series finale. After a rather brutal showdown, the fight ends on a rooftop, where Irinaends up falling through a skylight to her death. Mmmm, closure.
- In an earlier episode, Sydney throws a foe out a plane. He doesn't get to hit the ground, however, as he is sucked into the wing turbine.
On Bones, Howard Epps hangs off a balcony and Booth grabs his hand and tries to stop Epps from falling the 50 ft. to his death. It fails, however, and Bones and Booth watch Epps fall and hit the pavement, ridding them of a major antagonist.
In Stargate Atlantis Michael returns in the final season to kidnap Teyla's son. Mama Bear instincts kick in, and she ultimately throws him off the top of Atlantis' central spire. And that is NOT a short drop by any stretch of the imagination.
The Cold Case writing staff has this as the preferred method of killing off the Victim Of The Week.
Merlin - Aredian the Witchfinder dies by falling out a window rather than being killed by Merlin like most of the villains.

Close Live Action TV

Peter Nguyen's "essay" on Jimmy McPerson's role in World War II culminates in this happening to Hitler by way of a Heroic Sacrifice. No word on what happened to President Japan.

Close Real Life

At the end of Banjo-Kazooie, Gruntilda falls from a great height and a large rock falls on her. As the sequel Banjo-Tooie shows, death isn't enough to stop her, and she's back in action as a skeleton when the rock is removed.
There are quite a few level-specific Mortal Kombat Fatalities which allow you to finish your opponent with one of these. Usually upon a whole mess of Spikes Of Doom.
Let's not forget that the easiest way to defeat Bowser in Super Mario Bros involves a bridge, a lake of lava, some carefully-timed jumps, and a switch...
- And, of course, in SMB3, you have to resort to avoiding his stomps and fireballs long enough to make him stomp a hole all the way through the floor without taking you with him.
- Avoided in Super Mario 64: Trying to just push Bowser of the cliff makes him jump back up and create a shockwave in the process. You need to throw him into a bomb or three to actually defeat him. You can't defeat King Bob-Omb by throwing him of the mountain, either, or he will react pretty similarly to Bowser.
In Age Of Empires III: The War Chiefs, Billy Holme falls to his doom after Chayton shoots him and he backs into a mine shaft. And he takes several barrels of TNT down with him.
- In Age of Mythology, Kamos dies after being pushed out of a cliff.
Inverted in Final Fantasy VI, as supposed big bad Emperor Gestahl is betrayed by his dragon Kefka, by being struck by lightning, before being kicked off a floating continent.
- Given a Shout Out in Final Fantasy IX, where Kuja kicks his creator Garland off the Very Definitely Final Dungeon to steal the position of Big Bad back to himself.
In the original Prince Of Persia, many of the Mooks can be forced off their platforms if you keep parrying their thrusts and advancing as they are knocked back. This will kill them if the drop at the platform's end is high enough or is over a spiked pit. It's even possible to kill the Final Boss in this manner.
An arcade shooter game Silent Scope 2 does this, in a way; the last boss is fought atop the Palace of Westminster's Clock Tower, with a hostage handcuffed to him. After managing to shoot the boss (and not his hostage) enough times, he drops off the side, with the hostage barely hanging on at the top. Your last bullet has to hit the handcuff chain, thus saving the hostage's life. If you manage the shot, the game goes eerily silent as the Big Bad drops... and the last thing you hear before credits roll is a dull thud, and the scattering of birds.
Ghost Squad also does this in the end of the second mission. Egregious since it is achieved by a headshot of all things. This, of course, being Sega game...
This trope nearly happened to Rouge in Sonic Adventure 2. After a fight with Knuckles over the Master Emerald, she loses her footing and falls towards a pit of lava. Knuckles grabs her hand at the last minute, "saving her life," even though, as a bat, she could have just flown back up...
At the end of GBA RPG Golden Sun: The Lost Age, primary villain Alex meets his end when he falls into the crack in the earth that destroyed Mt. Aleph. The main villains from the first game met a similar fate when they fell into the well of the Venus Lighthouse.
Final Fight games have a tendency to end this way. In fact, the endboss' AI (at least in Final Fight II, and the first, probably in the third as well) is set so that when he is at critically low health, he suddenly jumps to and stubbornly insists on staying on the side of the screen with the obvious window (complete with a special otherwise-unseen form of ass kicking if you attempt to get behind him—you are not allowed to get between him and the window) specifically so that he can go flying through the window when you strike the final blow.
- Final Fight 3's last boss stubbonly stands next to a power switch on the roof of city hall. He is electrocuted when you land the final blow, and you character escapes off the roof as it explodes. But he doesn't fall.
Geese Howard gets his at the end of Real Bout, complete with a rejection of Terry's outstretched hand and evil laughter as he plummets toward the ground.
- Geese, of course, also gets this at the end of Fatal Fury. Assuming you beat him. Otherwise, he sends YOUR character to a Disney Villain Death.
In one ending of Clock Tower the villain dies a Karmic Death attempting to make you fall off a ladder when you shake free.
Joker attempts to give HIMSELF a Disney Villain Death at the end of the Batman: Vengeance videogame. You, as Batman, must save him, or face a Nonstandard Game Over as the game informs you that death is not the same thing as justice.
At the end of Def Jam: Fight For NY, the easiest way to defeat the Big Bad Crow is to slam him against his office windows until they shatter and he goes flying through them. You get a trophy for pulling it off. Of course, you also have to watch out because he'll try to do the same to you, and he's one of the fastest fighters in the game and often beats you to the punch.
In the video game of Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man and Venom have an aerial battle that ends after an Action Command sequence allows you to save yourself and allow Venom to plummet to the bottom of the construction site, getting impaled on at least twelve giant steel bars.
Also through an Action Command, Kratos rips the wings off Icarus midfall and uses them to fly to his destination. Icarus? Not so lucky...
Averted and played straight in Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII; Rosso the Crimson cuts away the chunk of masonry she's standing on and falls to her death rather than admit defeat and Azul the Cerulean falls into an elevator shaft after having a double-barrelled cannon thrown through his stomach.
Occurs in Chaos Legion, but it was a willing leap from the villain (which then summons the Big Bad.

Close Video Games

Partial subversion in The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. During the episode In the Realm of the Condor the villain of the episode battles Johnny on a bridge and they both fall off. Johnny grabs onto the ledge and the villain grabs onto Jonny. As you would expect, she loses her hold and falls down into the gorge. However, we actually see her, screaming all the way down, as she is seconds away from being splattered onto the sharp rocks below. (At least they didn't show the actual landing...)
- I seem to recall another episode involving a fight in an elephant graveyard. A villain falls and we see (from his point of view, no less) him fall towards the business end of an elephant skeleton tusk. The view cuts away before impact, but we do hear a rather nasty sound effect and see other characters flinch.
In the new Wallace And Gromit short movie: A Matter of Loaf And Death, the psychotic, baker-hating serial killer Piella Bakewell, meets her end by trying to escape in a hot-air balloon only to find out too late she's too heavy, and ends up eaten alive by crocodiles offscreen. Truly the darkest short yet. And the show's first death within in a short, in terms of shock it certainly pulled no punches.
Scorponok and Terrorsaur were removed from Transformers: Beast Wars this way. The last we see of them is Terrorsaur's outstretched hand sinking into lava. Note that this death was originally intended for Waspinator, whose popularity saved him at the last minute.
- This may be a Shout Out to the first season finale of Transformers, where after the rest of the Decepticons fell into the magma, Megatron went out the same way. (For a minute, anyway.)
Played with in Avatar The Last Airbender: While stopping Chin the Conqueror and creating Kyoshi Island, Avatar Kyoshi causes Chin to fall to such a death when he stands on the newly-formed cliff, refusing to accept his defeat, and the rock crumbles. However, Kyoshi makes it very clear that she doesn't see the the difference between a Disney Villain Death and killing him herself; the end result was that she was responsible for Chin's death.
- Azula looks like she is going to get one when she is knocked off her airship, complete with helpless rag doll flailing involved. So naturally, the Gaang is upset when she rockets to the nearby cliff by way of firebending, in a Crowning Moment Of Awesome way no less.
- Don't forget the end of Combustionman!
The episode "Sneak Peek" in Batman Beyond had a nifty variation. The episode introduced a muckraking journalist who could control his tangibility; he could sneak into locked rooms and spy on people unseen. Sadly, he lost the ability to control his powers and fell through the building! The sequence is brilliantly animated, though there's a bit of uncomfortable Fridge Logic when Bruce wonders aloud if the poor guy is doomed to fall to the Earth's core; kind of a harsh punishment for a relatively minor baddie.
The Powerpuff Girls Musical Episode See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey has this happen to the title villain, who, in the only dialogue in the episode that isn't sung, makes a final speech on the way down.
- The Powerpuff Girls episode called Power-Noia had Him battling the heroes in Dream Land, where he was defeated and thrown over a ledge.
In the Grand Finale of Codename Kids Next Door, the last we see of the Delightful Children is them falling from a broken roller coaster and into a giant broken toilet, sure victims of this trope. Incidentally, Father seemingly meets his demise by also falling into a giant pit earlier in the same episode (but not before literally transforming into The Dragon), but in his case it is subverted by showing him to be alive and well in the framing story.
Courage The Cowardly Dog pulled this on Courage's entire rogues' gallery at the end of a Villain Team Up episode. Just as they have Courage cornered, Courage, at Muriel's urging, screams so loudly that the floor gives way and they all plummet into a chasm. Never mind that one of them was a duck...
In the New Batman Adventures episode "Mad Love", the Joker mock-subverts this trope. He jumps from one rooftop to another but falls off and lets out a horrified scream as the camera cuts away. Cut back to him standing on the roof of a train that had been passing under him and yelling: "MADE YOU LOOK!" After a fist-fight with the dark knight atop the train, he does, however, fall into a normal false death.
- The Joker actually gets this a lot. He has fallen off trains, rooftops, roller coasters, and pretty much everything else that is more than ten feet off the ground. Besides him, most of the other Batman villains have suffered this fate at least once. Bane fell off a boat, Freeze fell in Sub Zero, and Two-Face nearly fell off a building to save his coin (but was saved by Batman). However, these villains were shown to have survived every single time.
- Harley Quinn, however, was shown falling down a pit in Return of the Joker, in a death that makes you just feel bad for her. Then again, she, uh, got better?
In Superman: Doomsday, the Evil Superman drops Toyman to his death. In front of the whole city.
In the Family Guy episode North by North Quahog, Mel Gibson suffers this fate after falling off of George Washington's nose on Mount Rushmore, because Christians don't believe in gravity.
- In another episode, Michael Eisner is thrown to his death, parodying Indiana Jones.
- An android version of Hannah Montana is taken out in the same manner as King Kong.
Happens to the psychotic hitchhiker at the end of the Tiny Toon Adventures movie "How I Spent My Summer Vacation". But being a Jason Voorhees Expy, it doesn't stop him from reappearing in the finale.
In Ice Age 3, Rudy is shoved off a cliff by Momma. Rudy survives to see the end credits, however.

Close Western Animation

In Homestar Runner's action movie parody Dangeresque, the title character entertains this idea but fails to follow through on it. What happens to Perducci is actually kind of unclear, but he survives to menace Dangeresque again in Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective.
Dangeresque: "Once we get to the top of this high-scraper, we'll hopefully be able to throw some people off. Maybe even Perducci."

Close Web Animation

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