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The Japanese words for "Four" and "Death", despite being written differently, are pronounced identically (shi). As a cultural trope, it's often treated like the number 13 in the west, to the point building floors and apartments are (mis)numbered accordingly, and some prefer to say "yon" (another word for four) instead of "shi". This is also apparent in other Asian nations; this trope, despite being often shown through Japanese media, actually originates from Chinese roots, where the two words also sound nearly homophonic and carry the same stigma; for instance, in Mandarin, the only difference between them being the tone: "four" has the falling tone ( sì) and death has the falling-rising tone ( sǐ). In Korean, the Chinese-derived name for the number four ( sa) sounds like the first syllable in the Korean word for death ( samang). To a lesser degree, seven ( shichi) and nine ( ku suffering) are also considered unlucky numbers in Japan.
Villainous groups of four are often given the name of Shitennou, a reference to the Four Heavenly Kings, Buddhist guardian gods of the four cardinal directions. Historically, the name Shitennou was applied to a samurai lord's four best men, which is the root of the "four subordinates to a powerful leader" trend in many Japanese stories (while you're more likely to see heroes in groups of three or five).
On an unrelated note, Christianity also has several examples of Four Is Death, with the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse and the Four Last Things (Death, Judgement, Hell, and Glory). In Judaism, the number four is also prominent, some examples being the four worlds described in the Kabbalah, the four brothers, the forty days of raining during the Deluge, and the four matriarchs (not to mention the Tetragrammaton, YHVH, the written name of God).
Compare One Hundred And Eight, Thirteen Is Unlucky and the Number Of The Beast.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Sailor Moon manages a set of four lesser villains per story arc (the Amazon Trio are red herrings for the proper Amazones Quartet). The first set was explictly called the "Shitennou" (roughly, "four heavenly kings"). The Witches Five from the third arc is a partial subversion, as they are composed of five members (with the fifth able to split herself in two), but in the manga, four of the members are explicitly paired off against the four Guardian senshi twice while the fifth tends to show up against whole groups.
- Also subverted in that Sailor Senshi tend to come in groups of four: the Guardian Senshi, the Outer Senshi, the Sailor Quartet, and (if you include Sailor Kakyuu from the manga) the Starlights.
- Plus, the four from the Earth/Moon system - Sailor Moon, Sailor Chibi Moon, Tuxedo Mask, and Sailor Chibi Chibi Moon/Sailor Cosmos
- In Neon Genesis Evangelion, the fourth Evangelion unit (shi-gouki - really the fifth unit if you count the prototype 00, but being called the 04 was all it took) disappeared into a Dirac sea during a startup experiment, taking a large chunk of the southwestern United States with it. Also, Unit 03 — the real fourth Evangelion — got taken over by an Angel and had to be destroyed, nearly (manga, actually) killing the pilot too, who was, of course, the Fourth Child.
- In Naruto, megavillain Orochimaru sends his followers the Sound Four to retrieve Sasuke for him. The pursuit team of good guys sent after them, by contrast, are a five-man squad. (Which conveniently allows everyone on the team to face down a Sound Four member, with Naruto himself facing Sasuke).
- Later, Naruto's Superpowered Evil Side becomes dominant and goes into "kill everyone" mode when he grows four fox tails.
- It's also worth noting that the Fourth Hokage spent the shortest time in office, a tenure that ended with him saving the village with a "Seal Evil" technique that required him to sacrifice his own life and damned his soul to eternal torment. Yeah, number four had it rough.
- Meanwhile, the Fourth Kazekage seemed to be the worst thing to ever happen to Suna. He sealed a Tailed Beast in his son (in this case Shukaku, the One-Tailed Tanuki) which was already contained in a tea kettle. Gaara wasn't born yet and as a result the Kazekage’s wife died delivering him. He then proceeded to alienate the boy from birth and when Gaara showed signs of being Ax Crazy (like all of Shukaku’s previous hosts) he ordered the poor kid’s uncle (the only person up to this point who had shown any kindness to him) to assassinate him.
- According to the Fifth Mizukage, the Fourth Mizukage was like this for the Mist Village, and is largely responsible for the "Bloody Mist" image held by most other countries.
- It's widely believed among the fans that, following the pattern, something seriously bad is going to inevitably happen to the recently-revealed-to-be-the-Fourth Raikage. (Though maybe losing an arm was enough)
- One episode of Chobits deals with an apparently haunted Room 104.
- XXX Holic refers to this early on.
- Ulquiorra Schiffer is currently the most powerful of the ten Espada Ichigo has currently fought, leading Ichigo to assume he's Number one. Guess what number he really is? Exactly.
- Also, Ulquiorra's general deathly appearance [pale, white skin, black hair, permanently cold-looking eyes with lines underneath running down his cheeks like tear marks... you get the picture.]
- Not to mention that his released form is essentialy a giant bat.
- To top it all off(ignoring the fact that none of the heroes ever die in Bleach), Ulquiorra has come closest to killing Ichigo out of anyone.
- It's also implied that the top four espada (Ulquiorra, Halibel, Barrigan and Stark) are possibly Vasto Lorde class Menos (which are supposed to be more powerful than a Soul Reaper captain).
- ...before 10th/0 Espada Yammy complicated things.
- Bleach also subverts this with the 4th Division - the healing squad, lead by Mama Bear Retsu Unohana.
- Also, This Troper would not be suprised if Rukia gained another dance for her shikai (Fourth Dance, White Death)! It would probably be awesome! I means she stabs the ground four times! You Should Know This Already !
- Also, one of the reasons there are no current fourth seats specified except deceased ones and promoted ones! Yumichika is the fifth seat of the Eleventh Division for this reason! They never explain why "Fourth Seat just does not sound beautiful"! An Ass Pull and Blatant Lies!
- While it may just be an excuse, it should be noted that Yumichika actually does state that the reason he prefers being the 5th seat is that he doesn't like the look of the character for the number 4. His ideal seat is 3rd, because he believes 3 is the most beautiful of the character, but since his friend Ikkaku Madarame is in that position, he settled for 5, which in his words "looks most like 3". For those with Japanese fonts installed, the comparison of 3, 4, and 5 respectively looks like this: 三 四 五
- Moroboshi Ataru of Urusei Yatsura was marked out as a Cosmic Plaything by being born on the second most ill-omened day in the Japanese calendar, the thirteenth of April: 4-13. (This was also on Butsumetsu, the anniversary of the Buddha's death; the only unluckier day is April 4th, which is Four Is Death squared.)
- In episode 4 of FLCL, Naota gets beaned by Haruko during the 4th inning of the baseball game at the beginning of the episode. The umpire even shouts "dead ball!"
- Gundam's sequels and Spiritual Successors like toying with this:
- Somewhat subverted with Quatre Rebaerba Winner, Pilot 04 of the series Gundam Wing. Raised a pacifist, he is a reluctant soldier who expresses sorrow at having to kill his enemies. In addition to having a fondness for animals, he also has an implied ESP power that he calls "the heart of outer space" that seems to enable him to sense others feelings and even other's thoughts. This ability seems to be rather limited though. However, this trope is played straight when Quatre used the resources of the Winner estate to construct the Wing Gundam Zero, a powerful mobile suit based on the original Gundam blueprints, which he intended to use to bring about an end to the war. Unfortunately, he was unprepared for the mental stress caused by the Wing Zero's neural interface; it drove him to the point of insanity, ending in the destruction of an Oz base and a civilian colony. He was eventually stopped by a fellow Gundam Pilot when on the brink of destroying a second civilian colony. Eventually, he is able to control the Zero Suit without going insane.
- Being the protagonist's Temporary Love Interest, Four (!) Murasame in Zeta Gundam was so predestined to die. And she did. Twice. And again in the Compilation Movies with a bullet to the head. Something tells me the director had something against her.
- G Gundam uses this trope in a similar way as Sailor Moon, with the Dark/Devil Gundam having four principal minions known as the Four Heavenly Kings.
- In the case of the Four Heavenly Knights, they were more than likely supposed to represent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, what with Gundams named God and Devil in the series.
- Also worth mention is the fact that both Gundam 00 and Gundam SEED skip the obvious fours in their Gundam lineups (there is no GN-004 or GAT-X104). We then later find out what became of 004: it's hidden underneath GN-005, Tieria's Gundam Virtue. It's a girly looking Fragile Speedster down to the flowing red "hair" coming out of its head and is called Gundam Nadleeh, which is incidentally the word for people of the third, fourth, and fifth genders in Navajo culture, which only deepens the mystery of whether Tieria's a Gender Bender.
- The second season of Gundam 00, on the other hand, seems to go to complete overkill with regards to the number four: it takes place 4 years at the end of the first season, the main Gundam Meisters are still composed of 4 members, the protagonist unit's designation number is 0000 and it is also the only 4th generation model at the start of the series. And if you want to take things further, the said unit is powered by two GN-Drives, one's from the very first (O) Gundam, while the other is from the protagonist's previous unit which is part of the third generation. Want to do the math? 1+3=4. Oh, and the Innovades are four pairs, and it includes the Big Bad and Tieria.
- Also don't forget that the Twin Drive system that is the core of Gundam 00's incredible power is supposed to square the power of the GN Drives. What's 2 squared? Guess.
- In New Getter Robo, the final battle has the titular mecha fight the actual Four Heavenly Kings.
- In the 1000-Year Demon story arc of Konjiki No Gash Bell, the main bad guys our heroes have to get through to get to mastermind Zofis are the "Shitennou", the four strongest demons from last millennium's battle.
- Claymores work in fours when participating in group demon-exterminating missions. In addition, when Number 6 (Claymores are ranked by power) lists the top five for her companions to watch out for, the only one to warrant emphasis and additional description is not Number 1 (by definition the strongest) but rather Number 4, who "cares nothing for the lives of her comrades or the lives of humans in general... A woman who lusts for battle and the blood spilled." The Number 4 to take over for her, Miata, is also little more than a Psychopathic Manchild, leading at least a few to conclude that all Number 4 Claymores are crazy.
- Ryoko, Ikuno, Yuji and Kitano, from Angel Densetsu, are the four scarier "delinquents" in town. Despite two of them being girls. Of course Kitano adds a whole new level to "scary".
- There are powers of four all over Death Note... for obvious reasons. Take the Note's rules as one example: once a name is written in it, that person dies 40 seconds later. In addition, you have six minutes and forty seconds to write the details of the death after the name and cause - in other words, 400 seconds. One of the rules unmentioned in the series is that writing a name incorrectly four times in the Death Note by accident will grant the person who the user was trying to kill immunity to that Death Note. However, writing the name four times incorrectly on purpose will not only not render the target immune to that Death Note, but kill the user who wrote the name.
- As well, 64 (as in 6:40 minutes to write the details of death) is also 4^3.
- On a far more obscure note, Light's given name is spelt as "moon" (月). This has four strokes, which is ... crashingly unlucky and symbolic. Poor Light, doomed from birth.
- Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure: In the 5th arc Guido Mista has a problem with the number 4. This is seen in not only his normal life where any time he is around anything that has 4 of itself he freaks out, but in his Stand which is six bullet-kicking creatures that have numbers on their heads... that of course skip the number 4. He himself said that whenever he is around the number 4 bad luck follows him. Ironicly he is Italian, not Japanese.
- Near the end of that part, after a bunch of people end up switching bodies... (It Makes Sense In Context) Guido accidentaly ends up dropping four bullets on the ground. He begs another character to drop another, but then the villain attacks and kills Narancia. After that, the number of protagonists left is, in an instance of twisted humor, four.
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Quattro (four in Italian) of the Numbered Cyborgs is the nastiest of them all, and she was also the most brutally pwned one by Nanoha.
- In Yakitate Japan, Kazuma's Ja-pan Number 44 is rather dangerous. It's so delicious, anyone who eats it for the first time has a Near Death Experience.
- Appears repeatedly in Weiss Kreuz: not only is the titular team of hitmen with hearts made up of four members, so are three different groups of antagonists they go up against, and one team of allies. This doesn't change until sequel series Weiss Kreuz: Gluhen adds two new members to Weiss and changes the role of one of the originals... and even then, by the climax of the series both of the new characters have been killed and the old character rejoins the action one last time.
- In Outlaw Star, the #4 Caster bullets are capable of killing the shooter if they fire them in sucession.
- As do the #9 and #13 bullets, both also being unlucky numbers.
- Usagi Yojimbo is actually an American manga, but takes place in feudal Japan. At one point the hero Usagi has to fight an infamous band of four assassins called... Shi. It is made explicit that this is an intentional pun on their part.
- In Get Backers, Ginji led a gang called VOLTS, and his direct subordinates were known as the Shitennou. They inspire equal amounts of terror and admiration among the population of Lower Town, and in the series proper are re-introduced to him and Ban as antagonists. According to one of them, Shido, the title "Shitennou" is for someone who has cheated death countless times.
- Another one, Makubex, attempts to duplicate their success with his "New Four Kings." After his Heel Face Turn, one dies and the other just vanishes, leaving him with the Unfunny and The Idiot From Osaka, plus his Team Mom.
- Ironically, Kazuki, the least hostile of the four, has his own set of four subordinates who mirror the situation between Ginji and the Shitennou—including the aforementioned Unfunny in Shido's place as the angry-but-ultimately-forgiving one. The aforementioned Team Mom mirrors Kazuki himself: clearly working against her former leader, but not directly threatening him.
- Shido's Maryuudo tribe also boasts the four Shiki clans, which correspond to the four seasons. Their mortal enemies, the Kiryuudo, greatly fear the reunion of the four leaders, because it literally does mean death for them. Shido has the power to awaken hidden abilities to their fullest potential, and the other three have the powers of putting everything to sleep, healing, and instantly killing everything. They massacre the entire population of Kiryuudo pretty much in the blink of an eye.
- In the Rosario To Vampire anime, Tsukune arrives at the bus stop at 4:44 pm and is attacked by rivals for Moka's love. Later on, 4:44 pm is the scheduled time for his execution for being human.
- Kuyou, the leader of the Student Police, is a youko with four tails.
- In Digimon Adventure, the four Dark Masters are the bad guys of the final arc.
- Violinist Of Hameln has the four Mazoku Generals as acting Big Bads.
- The Catch Phrase of Fist of the North Star, Omae wa mo shinderu, whenever in raw version, or translated into You are already dead, always constitute of four words. Sure enough, whenever Kenshiro utters the line, someone in the universe is going to have one messy death.
- There's also the Four Hokuto Brothers, which is comprised of Kenshiro himself and his Master Ryuken's three other students (Raoh, Toki, and Jagi), although the series stops addressing them as such after they exclude Jagi from the group postmortem.
- In Soul Eater, weapon meisters use a form of spiritual telephone to keep in contact — the number for direct contact with Shinigami-sama is 42-42-564 ('shini, shini, koroshi' out loud — in other words, 'die, die, kill').
- The 'shini' part gets used for Kid in the increase in the size of his soul - one scanlation translated Liz's comment as "42 soul-widths") and the Sanzu Line-enabled form for the Thompsons - Death Eagle .42.
- Of the Five Pillars in Mai-Otome, the fourth spot was vacated by a woman who abandoned her duties to find a husband. The position is later filled by Nao, who is very unenthusiastic about her promotion, and was formerly content with just living life as it came to her.
- In addition, four girls are seen leaving to sign up for the Valkyrie Dark Magical Girl squad once the announcement is posted, one of whom had already been plotting against her classmates from the beginning.
- The Godhand in Berserk originally had four members before Griffith did his epic Face Heel Turn.
- Lord Genome's four generals in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, who are also given a "Heavenly Kings" nickname. Mind you, in this particular case the choice of four is most likely because that's the amount of base pairs in DNA that they're named after.
- In Dot Hack GU, Tri-Edge's mark looks like a stylized rendering of the arabic numeral "4", rotated to its side (or mirrored, depending on how you look at it). The mark signifies those that have been killed by the enigmatic Tri-Edge, making the people that got killed fall into comas left and right.
- In Code Geass R2, the first person with any screen time to die against Suzaku's new Lancelot Albion is the debuting Knight of Four. In the same series, the Valkyrie Girls, a group of pilots under the command of Luciano Bradley, are four in number- and they are the first to be killed by Kallen in the Guren SEITEN.
- Tohdoh's "Four Holy Swords" are an example of Shitennou, though they aren't bad guys and they don't (all) die. In fact, they all survive the first season....
- In D Gray Man a Level 4 Akuma could take on Generals easily and was close to annihilating the Black Order.
- In Black Lagoon, Roanapur is controlled by four criminal organisations - the Triads, the Russian Mafiya, the Italian Mafia, and a Columbian drug cartel.
- Partial subversion in Yu Yu Hakusho - the main group (except for the Dark Tournament) consists of four heroes. Partial because one is essentially a zombie, one is a psychic who can sense ghosts, and the other two (Bishounen and Emo Kid) are demons. So Yeah.
- The Shisheiten and the Holy Red Cross Knights from Samurai Deeper kyo
- Though they haven't all had screen time yet, One Piece has four superpowerful pirates known as the Yonkou (one of whom happens to be someone extremely important to Luffy) who act as a counterbalance to the Marines and the Shichibukai.
- This one is a little more obscure, but Takumi's fourth battle against a named opponent (after beating Keisuke twice and Nakazato once) in Initial D is Shingo Shoji, the driver of Honda Civic. It's rather appropriate that the conditions of the battle were to tape their hands to their steering wheels to limit the amount of steering they could do, a condition that was very disadvantageous for Takumi's RWD AE 86 vs Shingo's FWD Civic, but Shingo also tried to ram Takumi off the road several times. Takumi won by baiting Shingo into ramming him before a corner, an act which could have potentially sent Shingo off the road, through the barrier and over the cliff.
- In Saint Seiya, the local Psycho For Hire resides in the Fourth Temple of the Sanctuary, the Temple of the Giant Crab. He's actually named Cancer Deathmask.
- In Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, the 4th episode is the end of the first arc. Keiichi goes apeshit, leading to the first on-screen murders, followed by him killing himself. And the fourth arc takes place 20 years in the future, long after Hinamizawa turns into a Ghost Town.
- In a Fictional Document in Monster, called "The Nameless Monster", the Nameless Monster goes through four hosts. The first three are consumed from the inside out. The fourth consumes everyone who knows his name.
- Albert Heinrich, aka Cyborg 004, is the most heavily reconstructed and had most of his body replaced with various weapons. The original manga even saddled him with the nickname "God of Death", and his original personality was that of a rather frightening vengeance-seeker that enjoyed battling Black Ghost. However, his character evolved over the years, and in the 2001 version, he's more of a withdrawn, Big Brother Mentor who's very disturbed by his enhancements.
Film
- Minus "Snake Charmer" Bill, The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad has four members - Vernita (Copperhead), O-Ren (Cotton Mouth), Elle (California Mountain Snake), and Budd (Sidewinder) - who brutally punish reformed member The Bride (Black Mamba) for leaving them.
- In the film Kangaroo Jack, the main characters resort to tracking down their target (a kangaroo wearing a red jacket with $50,000 in the pocket) in a bush plane called the Flying Dingo IV. Disaster ensues: Louis accidentally shoots the pilot with a tranquilizer dart, and so the plane crashes, stranding Louis, Charlie, and the pilot in the uncivilized outback. Also during this scene, Louis recites the three stages in which the tranquilizer worked as each began to affect the pilot. "Stage one: temporary blindness. Stage two: partial paralysis. Stage three: complete shutdown of all motor skills." A few seconds later, he added a fourth stage. "Stage four: FIERY CRASH!"
- Ju-on, the Japanese movie on which The Grudge is based, features a scene in which Mizuho, who has gone back to her school to meet her boyfriend, Tsuyoshi, only to find that he isn't there. All she discovers is a mysterious cell phone that happens to be lying around. She ends up having to wait inside the school whilst a member of staff searches the building - suddenly, the room goes dark, Toshio starts running around out of her eyesight, and the cell phone she found earlier begins to ring when she is hiding underneath a desk. The number displayed on the screen is simply "4444444444". And when she takes the call, she only hears Toshio's creepy mewing noise. (Of course, Toshio also happens to be right behind her at this point.) Obviously, these are ghosts who like making culturally appropriate dark jokes.... When she watched this movie with a friend who was also a Japanese language learner, this editor spontaneously exclaimed "Shi!". (and four is this troper's "lucky number" at that...)
- There's also the Ju-on short film, which is simply titled 4444444444. It is set during the first movie, and is directly connected to the scene above - it details just what happens to poor Tsuyoshi after he also discovers the mysterious phone.
- Shutter features a horror sequence where the protagonist is running down a series of stairs. No matter how many flights he goes down, it's always level 4. Creeeepy.
- In the Robert Duvall vehicle Broken Trail, his character rescues from sexual slavery five immigrant Chinese girls. Since none of them speaks English, and he obviously doesn't speak Chinese, he names them "Number One" to "Number Five". When the girls realize this, "Number Four" objects to being given an unlucky number for a name. One of the other girls eventually accepts to be "Number Four", and she does so because she fully expects a tragic fate to befall her—which indeed it does.
- Inverted in the Swamp Castle scene in Monty Python And The Holy Grail. On the first and second attempt of building the castle atop of a swamp, the castle sank into the swamp. On the third attempt, the castle burnt down, fell over and sank into the swamp. On the FOURTH attempt, the castle stays up.
- Invoked in Stealth, where Jamie Foxx objects to the addition of a fourth member to his team (which includes Josh Lucas and Jessica Beil). The fourth 'member' is actually an AI-driven stealth fighter, which does turn out to be the primary antagonist later.
Literature
- Features heavily in one of the stories in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, although with the Chinese sz instead of Japanese shi.
- In the Shadowrun short story "It's All Done with Mirrors", the characters go to meet with a Yakuza boss who has recently arrived in Seattle because of mishaps in his business to ask what will appease him into leaving. The Yakuza boss then outlines a task they will have to do for him. One of the mob boss's servants lays out sake with cups, and the boss offers to pour the drink for his guests. When The Smart Guy asks what will happen if they fail, the mob boss doesn't answer, but pours three times into his cup and four times into the cups of his guests. Only The Smart Guy, the Genius Bruiser, and The Professor in the group get the message.
- The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse is a western example.
- The Agatha Christie novel The Big Four has everyone's favorite egg-headed detective and his "little grey cells" go up against a team of 4 supervillains: a American Tycoon, a French Scientist, a British Assassin and Master Of Disguise, and a Chinese Mastermind.
- House Of Leaves has a lot of this: the Navidsons put four locks on the door leading to the scary parts of the house; the house is explored in teams of three with one person remaining behind to man the radios; there are four members of Will Navidson's nuclear family; there are four Exploration videos; and lots of little things peppered throughout the text.
- In the fourth Harry Potter book, The Goblet of Fire, Harry is miraculously chosen as the fourth contestant in the Triwizard Tournament which, obviously, is supposed to have only three contestants. The Tournament doesn't end well as, during the final event, contestant Cedric Diggory dies and the series' main villain, Lord Voldemort, is revived with a new body and is able to begin his new reign of terror.
- Seen on occasion in BattleTech novels set in or involving characters from the Draconis Combine. Which isn't a big surprise, since being feudal Japan In Space! is basically that Successor State's hat; it just means the authors actually did do some research.
Live Action TV
- In Kamen Rider Den-O, Momotaros, who counts his attacks, ends up missing "Part 4" due to some combination of tiredness and feeling unappreciated. When Ryotaro calls him out on this, he claims that not using four is cool and proves it by counting from one to ten... while skipping four. Also Ryutaros, the 4th of the main Imagin more or less starts out as bad guy by planning to kill the protagonist Ryutaro. But he falls in love with Ryoutaro's sister so stops his plans to kill Ryoutaro.
- Kamen Rider 555 had the Lucky Clover, a group of four elite villains.
- The same happened in Kamen Rider Kiva, with the Checkmate four
- In Kamen Rider Blade, the 4th Rider Leangle was possessed by the evil spider undead and could defeat the other Riders with ease during his first appearances. Sadly almost his whole life gets ruined by this. But after a few Heroic Sacrifices and the power of love, he breaks free of the Undeads influence and was able to control his powers freely.
- The original villains from Power Rangers follow this. Rita Repulsa's henchmen (Goldar, Finster, Baboo and Squatt) were her own equivalent of the Shitennou.
- In Power Rangers Dino Thunder Tommy Oliver wears his fourth color (green, white, red, black) and is the fourth ranger to join the team...but isn't exactly the luckiest in the season: First he gets encased in amber by the evil possessed White Ranger. when, some episodes later, he breaks out of it, he couldn't morph back to human form. Then when his genius friend Hayley tries invention on him to turn him back to human, he turns invisible and cant turn visible for a few episodes. after another experiment, he turns visible again, but falls unconscious. During his unconsciousness he has a dream in which he must fight 3 of his previous incarnations. After he defeats those and wakes up, things start to go better for him.
- In the NCIS episode "Hung out to Dry" Tony initally refuses a switch of reserve parachutes with a marine because their reserve is number 4, citing the fact that four is unlucky in China. He relents when Gibbs points out they're not in China. Turns out that the reserve Tony had (Number 13, ironically) was unable to open as the marine he swapped with sabotaged it to kill the victim. It was up there as part of a Xanatos Gambit by Gibbs to expose him.
- In Doctor Who Easter special "Planet Of The Dead", a woman tells the Doctor that his song is ending (foreshadowing David Tennant's departure in The End Of Time part 2) and that "he" It turns out to be Wilf will knock four times on a door as it turns out.
- In "The Sound of Drums", The Master's subliminal carrier wave causes everyone to imitate the way he taps his fingers - in a rhythm with four beats.
- Numerous occurrences on Lost. Four is one of the show's Numbers. Boone wears multiple t-shirts in the first season containing fours or sets of four, and is the first regular character to die. In a season 5 flashback, Miles discovers his ability to speak to the dead by finding a dead man in Apt. #4. There are many other instances.
- Highlander, the TV Series brings us a 4-pack of imortals who are actually called the Four Horseman complete with Kronos, the pestilence (a somewhat charismatic Magnificent Bastard ploting destruction and domination), Silas, the death (a Chaotic Evil beligerant man with an axe) and Caspian, the famine (an Ax Crazy serial killer, though not the one with the actual axe). The forth member, Meethos, the death has long taken a Heel Face Turn by the time the series take place and now befriends The Hero, Duncan Mccleod.
- Similar to the Avatar example below, when the Five Man Band of Leverage lost one of its members they came very close to disaster. Things went a bit more smoothly when the missing member secretly sent in a Sixth Ranger.
- Completely averted in Stargate SG-1: The titular team comprised four members for almost forever.
- Food Network used to have a Chinese-cuisine show called East Meets West, whose chef/host Ming Tsai occasionally mentioned this trope and went out of his way to make servings consist of either three or five.
Tabletop Games
- The four Chaos Gods in Warhammer and Warhammer 40000.
- Also the surviving C'Tan.
- Also, anyone notice it's called Warhammer 40000? Yep, there's a lot of dying in that game...
- There is a Feng Shui RPG supplement called "Four Bastards"
Video Games
- Mega Man Zero's Four Guardians of Master X, who served as X's generals and bodyguards. They would later become good guys of a sort — but not before Phantom self-destructed, reducing their number to three.
- In the same franchise, Mega Man Battle Network 6 features EraseMan.EXE, an assassin Navi whose design draws on Japanese shinigami legends. When Mega Man fuses with EraseMan, he gains the ability to instantly kill viruses when the digit 4 is in their HP.
- In the same series, Battle Network 4 is widely considered to be where the series Jumped The Shark.
- In between the time periods of Mega Man Zero and X, there's the Elf Wars, resulting in a barren world, and a massive drop in the population (60% humans and 90% Reploids were wiped out), that lasted for four years. Partially subverted, the Elf Wars ended on the fourth year because Zero only reappeared at that time.
- In Silent Hill 1, an elevator in an Abandoned Hospital that previously had only three floors suddenly gains a fourth floor button. Travelling to this "fourth floor" triggers a trip to the town's hellish Alternate Universe.
- Neo Contra takes place in the year A.D.4444. The game also features a Four Elite.
- The Malice Four in the NES Ninja Gaiden.
- Several of the Final Fantasy games have a set of four major boss monsters, usually (but not always) representing the four Western elements.
- Also subverted in the earlier games, as the Five Man Band was usually comprised of four archetyped heroes.
- Romancing Sa Ga has 4 Elemental Lords; beings that embody the elements: Pyrix (Fire), Adyllis (Earth), Strom (Water), and Avi (Air) Fighting them is optional however failing their Ecology Quests forces you to fight a corrupted yet stronger version of them
- In Treasure of the Rudras There are 4 Greats (Legendary beings).
- A good number of Harvest Moon games do evil things to you at precisely 4:44 when you perform a specific action. For example: looking at the TV in Friends of Mineral Town. This feature is often removed from the US version, and in some cases is related to more serious glitches caused by a bad removal! Maybe it is cursed...
- Don't forget the battles that you can unlock in DS/Cute,when you sit behind your dog house at 4:40 am,and press A multiple times.
- In the original Shadow Hearts, the evil Spirit Advisors who torment the lead character are the Four Masks. They also each represent one of the four suits of the Lesser Arcana in tarot, and one of the four traditional Western elements. In a break from the four references, each one also represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
- Death-related bosses and enemies in video games often have 444 or 4444 HP. Castlevania's Death is usually an example of this. So is Mitsuki Konishi, aka Tigris Cantus, from The World Ends With You.
- Also, Master Tonberry, a robed green lizard like thing carrying a butcher knife and lantern that will slowly advance on your party before one hit killing you with said knife, or attack with 'Everyone's Grudge' doing 1 damage for each enemy a character has killed in the game, had 44,444HP in Final Fantasy VII
- Death-themed items in Castlevania play by this trope as well. The Book of Death in Portrait of Ruin has 44 ATK, while Death's Robe in Dawn of Sorrow boosts STR, CON and LUCK by 4 (and Int by 13!). Death's Ring is especially noteworthy, as it boosts 4 different stats by 44 each but turns you into a One Hit Point Wonder.
- The Four Heavenly Kings of Orochi in The King Of Fighters, each with control over a different element.
- The four bosses at the end of Street Fighter II are Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison, who form the "Four Devas" of Shadaloo (although this is downplayed in the later games, as the series introduced more members to the organization).
- The Fire Emblem series usually has a group of four bad guys who are tougher than any villain in the game except the Big Bad. The Four Wyvern Generals (initially three, but one is replaced after you kill him, meaning you fight four of them) in The Sword of Seal, Four Fangs in The Sword of Flame, Four Riders in Path of Radiance, etc.. The Sacred Stones looks like it'll subvert this at first — there are initially six characters in this group. However, one is betrayed and murdered by one of the others and another defects, leaving the number you actually have to fight and kill at — you guessed it — four.
- In Super Paper Mario, the Flower People's civilization went into the Dark Ages in their year 444.
- The first Golgo 13 NE Sgame combines this with Thirteen Is Unlucky, as you are given 52 chances (4 x 13) to complete your mission, or else it's Game Over.
- The Quirky Miniboss Squad in Monster Rancher calls themselves the Big Bad Four.
- Every iteration in the Pokemon handheld games has a group of champions known as the Elite Four. Defeat them, and you get to face off again the champion in an epic Pokemon battle for all the bragging rights.
- Of note is that, in the original Japanese, the Elite Four are actually called the Shitennou.
- Of more note is that in the Pokemon Adventures manga they want to kill everyone.
- In Platinum, Cyrus has four Commanders under him.
- There are also four Team Rocket Executives in HeartGold and SoulSilver
- God Hand has the Four Devas as the main villains (along with a mercenary they hire at one point, Dr. Ion). In addition, the Dynamic Difficulty has 1, 2, and 3, but the level after 3 is Die.
- There are four Acacia Dragoon Devas in Chrono Cross: Dario, Karsh, Zoah, and Marcie. Dario is killed before the plot begins. He isn't actually killed off for real, but rather passes into the Home dimension, where he can be defeated to gain the Mastermune.
- Not quite, In the Home world, Dario survives and all the other Devas, as well as Viper, die (you encounter them frozen in the Dead Sea). In another world, it's the opposite, Dario is killed by Karsh.
- Vexen, the fourth member of Organization XIII in Kingdom Hearts is the first one to die, assassinated by Axel when he attempts to betray the Organization in a bid for his life by revealing the existence of Roxas to Sora.
- Also, the fourth and final, in Sora's story member you fight in Chain of Memories is Marluxia. Fitting, what with having a scythe and all.
- The Reaper in Persona 3 has 4,444 hit points.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Link must visit four dungeons, kill the four boss monsters, and retrieve their four masks. It turns out, though, that the four masks hold the spirits of the Four Giants of Termina, who are good guys that help stop the moon from falling into the world at the end of the game.
- Given that the game is easily the darkest in the series, though, it still counts. Also, if you include the fierce deity mask, there are four transformation masks. The dungeons lie in the four compass directions. And if you count the cut scenes at the end of the game, Link is in Termina for four days. The number was very important to this game.
- The four main bosses in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots are The Beauty and the Beast Corps, a group of women suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the horrors of war that were turned into literal war machines.
- Metal Gear Solid 2 has Dead Cell, which is comprised of Vamp, Fatman, and Fortune, and are led by Solidus Snake. This was done unintentionally though, since Dead Cell was initially planned to have more members than the ones that actually made it to the game.
- Subversion: Metal Gear: Ghost Babel features Black Chamber, which is initially comprised of Hawk, Owl, Bison, and Viper. The game later reveals that there is a fifth member (who is revealed to be a mole in Snake's support crew).
- In Wild ARMs, the leaders of the Demon army are called... the Quarter Knights.
- Wild ARMs 2 follows this up with a four-member Recurring Boss squad known as Cocytus, who become the party's main antagonists for the first half of the game.
- Super Metroid calls attention to its four strongest bosses (excepting Big Bad Mother Brain) with a golden statue of the four clustered together that blocks the entrance to the final level. While the group is not explicitly given a name in the game, some sources refer to them as the Four Guardians (Kraid, Phantoon, Draygon, and Ridley).
- Fallout 3:There are weapons that you can create. Each of those weapons require 4 components to create. Subversion:"One" of the components required to create the Bottlecap Mine is 10 "Caps".
- But then that means you need 13 different components (with one being worth 10) to create a Bottlecap Mine. So technically that's subverting itself into another trope.
- This troper would like to put forward the theory that the last Valve game of 2008 has an even more appropriate name, considering this trope.
- In the Shmup "Diadra Empty", flying dangerously close to one of the last bosses will give you a bonus called "Abyss Walker", worth 44,444 points.
- In the Sega Genesis RPG Traysia, the fourth party member turns out to be the Big Bad.
- Ace Combat 04 has Yellow 4, the first story-significant enemy who gets shot down by the main character, thanks to her plane being in disrepair.
- Slightly inverted for Ace Combat 5. The enemies see the four fighters of Razgriz.
- Played straight if you consider that they're also called the Ghosts of Razgriz because they're supposed to be dead.
- The Vicious Ones, the main antagonists of Beyond The Beyond, have four members (winged archer Dagoot, grotesque magician Yeon, and Big Bad Black Magic duo Ramue and Shutat).
- The Lufia series has four Big Bads.
- Referenced briefly in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.
- In Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, the Incredible Machine atop Altru Tower normally has three power levels, the highest of which allows it to hypnotize Pokemon from a radius of 500 miles. The Big Bad, after he unleashes Darkrai, pushes the Incredible Machine one level further: Level "Dark", which supposedly has more than enough power for him to assert complete control over the legendary Shadow Pokemon...or so he thinks.
- And there's the Go Rock Quad from the original Pokemon Ranger game.
- In Eversion, the first time you evert to World 3-4 will most likely be the time that you start to suspect that the game is not all that it seems. And then World 4 is the Wham Level—you start in the cute and colorful World 4-1, then almost immediately everse to the grim and Demonic Hand-filled World 4-5, and it only gets worse from there.
- Tetris is very popular in japan, even though it's a game based on fours. Tetris: The Grand Master: The Absolute Plus even has a mode called T.A. DEATH, where the pieces fall insanely fast at the start, and get faster from there. And Tetris: The Grand Master 3: Terror-Instinct also seems to play on this. Winning the game is sort of a way to cheat death, metaphorically. But it's very hard to do.
- TGM3 has Shirase Mode, a Harder Than Hard mode that starts off even faster than TAP's T.A. Death mode.
- Inverted with the upcoming Tetris: The Grand Master 4, whose graphical theme is...pretty colors and flowers?
- In Pop N Music, level 40 is the 4th-to-highest difficulty rating. Also, like in beatmania IIDX, you need to fulfill certain requirements to get a 4th stage.
- In O2Jam, on the other hand, level 40 is the highest difficulty rating a chart gets in most versions. Exceptions include the Chinese version, which shamelessly borrows songs from other games and has higher difficulties, and the now-defunct Malaysian version, which had one song that exceeded level 40 (the level-50 Gaussian Blur).
- In Armored Core 4/For Answer, the hardest missions (Marche Au Supplice and Occupation of Arteria Carpals, respectively) have you and your allies (or ally in For Answer) fighting 4 enemy NEXTs.
- Initial D Arcade Stage 4, unlike its three predecessors, uses a completely new game engine. A lot of fans complained.
- Some competitive-level Super Smash Bros players won't play four-player free-for-all matches, though for a different reason.
- River City Ransom has the Zombies, a faction of the Plague comprised exactly of four members. In the Japanese version, they were known as the Shitennou.
- Omega Five is a Shoot Em Up with four stages, a number of stages that has led to complaints about the game.
- DoDonPachi: Dai Ou Jou is the fourth game in the Don Pachi series (in-game art refers to it as such as well). The "Dai Ou Jou" subtitle means "great and peaceful death." It was the hardest game in the series at its time of release, and features a Darker And Edgier storyline than the previous three games.
- Metal Slug 4 is regarded by the majority of fans as the worst Metal Slug game in existence.
- The World Ends With You is about the dead there are exactly four player characters.
- Also, Tigris Cantis, Konishi's noise form, has 4,444 hit points.
- In La-Mulana, the last of the four seals which must be found is the Death Seal. The Sage of Death, though, will likely be the first of the four sages the player has to talk to.
- The Rune of Punishment, the True Rune central to Suikoden IV's plot, tends to fatally draw on the bearer's life force, destroying their body and absorbing their soul before jumping to the next unfortunate host.
- In Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter, the "names" of the
dragons D-Constructs are simply numbers in Gratuitous Russian. "Odjn" (One) is linked to the hero. "Dva" (Two, mistranslated as "Dover") is the Bonus Boss. And Chetyre (Four) is, of course, the Big Bad.
- Haunting Ground has four psychotic stalkers pursuing the main character trying to kill her.
- In Resident Evil 2, an unlockable minigame, the 4th Survivor features an Umbrella Soldier codenamed Hunk. In Resident Evil 3's epilogue files, it's revealed that Hunk is nicknamed "Mister Death", and has a habit of being the only member of his squad to survive.
- No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle has Margaret, who is a living embodiment of this trope. She is the 4th ranked assassin of the UAA, wields two gun/scythe hybrids and even has boss music that alludes to this . Definitely a strong case.
Western Animation
- Oddly enough, shows up in Avatar. When the Power Trio adds a fourth character, they experience a series of spectacular losses which includes an entire kingdom falling and failing to defeat the Fire Nation even when all Firebenders are depowered. However, as another character recently joined, it seems their luck is bound to improve.
- Not all that odd. Avatar is heavily based in Eastern mythology and culture.
- This might explain a huge chunk of the Ninja Turtles' bad luck. Granted, in the original comics and 2003 cartoon mythology, avenging Hamato Yoshi makes a legitimate enemy of the Foot. But for a group of teens that would really rather train in peace, they run into a whole lot of unsolicited aliens, monsters, alternate dimensions, and messy space-time adventures. They tend to have a lot more luck with these events when joined by Splinter or one of their various allies.
- The Simpsons (Describing a skull) "That looks just like our number four."
Web Original
- Most of the best troops among the terrorist group in Survival Of The Fittest come in squads of four. Version one's "Terrific three" originally had four members, but one ran off before the group was thrown on the island. There's also the as-of-yet unseen "Card Squad", where each member has the codename of a specific card (more literally, "King" "Queen" "Jack" and "Ace), and they are implied to be very high up. However, the most skilled and highest ranking are the Big Four first debuted in v2, who answer only to Danya. Steven Wilson, Melvin Carter, Sonia Nguyen, and Jim Greynolds - each responsible for the abductions from a v2 high school.
- The four Dark Overlords from Dimension Heroes.
Webcomics
- No Need For Bushido, set in Feudal Japan, features the Four Demons of Sorrow, the four elite samurai or daimyo Wataro.
- Eight Bit Theater, as noted on its page, has the four Light Warriors (the protagonists and arguably the worst thing to happen to the world), the four Fiends (some of the few actually dangerous enemies) and the four orbs to go with them (which are being used by the Big Bad for some diabolical purpose), the four Dark Warriors (a group of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain characters), the four Other Warriors (inspired by Dungeons & Dragons classes), and the four real Light Warriors (making four warrior groups total). In addition, the average strip is four rows long. ... Yeah, that world is doomed.
Real Life
- The Chinese Language is the Trope Maker.
- This even carries over to technology. The Sony company has created several successive types of digital video tape, named D-1, D-2, D-3, etc. There was no D-4, due to the stigma associated with the number. Canon also has several product lines conspicuously skipping from 3 to 5, but not skipping 40 and other powers of ten.
- Music equipment manufacturer Roland/Boss do this as well. The Boss guitar pedals are generally named along the lines of DD (digital delay) or OD (overdrive) and then a number. Guess which number's nowhere to be found in their product lineup.
- This troper has been told repeatedly by his parents never to park at parking lot number 164, since it's a (Chinese) homophone for "one road to death".
- This was the same reason that the Alfa Romeo 164 was marketed in many Chinese-speaking societies as the 168 instead. Which, incidentally, is a homophone for "one road to prosperity".
- This troper used to live in a house numbered 168. Call it Fridge Brilliance.
- There is a popular shopping center in the Philippines called 168.
- This troper works for T-Mobile, and while FFC regs normally prohibit customers from choosing specific numbers, company policy specifically requires him to grant any and all requests for a phone number with no '4's.
- The Gang of Four from China were the four Communist party officials who were largely blamed for the Cultural Revolution.
- The Big Four Pollution Diseases of Japan were four major environmental disasters which led to the establishment of the Environment Agency (the Japanese equivalent of the American EPA) in 1970. Three of the incidents took place in the 1960s, but the 1912 outbreak of cadmium poisoning called "itai-itai disease" is lumped in because a lawsuit wasn't brought until 1968.
- Although most likely by coincidence, this troper personally became quite sick and came close to dying near the end of 2004.
- Sometimes, the number 4 is skipped over in things like rows of lockers and building floors in China (and possibly Japan, too, but this troper has never visited there).
- In Asian countries, the fourth floor is either skipped (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, ...) like the thirteenth floor is skipped in the West or, in an elevator, the buttons are numbered 1, 2, 3, F, 5 ... with "F" standing in for the English word "four" (which does not sound like death). Tea sets or chopstick sets are sold with 3 or 5 cups/pairs rather than 4.
- This is Up To Eleven in Hong Kong, as floor numbers with the number 4 are all skipped together in some newer buildings.
- Some believe that The Obama Administration is doomed to failure(or worse) just because he's the 44th president.
- A certain Image Board with a 4 in its name was at one point more famous for its sudden and prolonged "deaths" than any of its content or memes, to the point where the phrase "4chan dies" itself became a meme.
- The exploding reactor in Chernobyl that poisoned a good portion of the planet back in 1986? It was called the Number 4 Reactor.
- Four Kids Entertainment.
- You get the 404 message when a file is not found. Like when it has been deleted AKA killed.
- Mao Zedong announced that flies, rats, mosquitos and sparrows were four pests that had to all be completely exterminated.
- Winter is the fourth season to begin each year in the northern hemisphere, and therefore the season during which the year ends, or "dies." In addition, Winter is associated with snow, which in turn is also associated with death.
- In Numerology, the worst number you can get is a 4, because even its positive aspects aren't lively in comparison to others, and the negative aspects simply kill any chances of social and financial progress.
- In the San Jose, California area, the local bus authority excised a number of bus routes in January 2008. One of those bus routes was numbered 44.
- In June of 2004, Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States died.
- Some people thought he was going to end up as the Antichrist because each word in his full name, Ronald Wilson Reagan, has 6 letters.
- Dice in Japan, aside from arranging the pips differently, use red pips for the numbers 1 and 4 to ward off bad luck (as opposed to the standard black).
- The band Rush used to release albums in cycles of four. Shortly after the release of Test For Echo, the fourth album of their fourth cycle, drummer Neil Peart's teenage daughter died in a car crash, then his wife died of cancer not long after that.
- Christianity's New Testament brings us the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The name of the fourth horseman? Death.
- Inverted: There are four gospels, an archaic word meaning "joyful message".
- Used or avoided—take your pick—in military organization. A U.S. Army fire team consists of four members, most high level groupings (e.g. companies, battalions) have three combat groups + one headquarters group, fighter jets operate in flights of four (at least during the Vietnam War)...
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