History Main / HappilyFailedSuicide

* In ''Film/{{Titanic 1997}}'', after her suicide was stopped by Jack, Rose goes on to live a long and meaningful life.

* In a one-shot GirlsLove manga ''Rooftop Miracle'' by Creator/{{Natsuneko}}, two girls try to commit suicide after having been cheated out of all their savings by a lesbian swindler. However, they pick exactly the same spot to do it and soon discover that they were ripped off by exactly the same girl in exactly the same manner. The more they talk, the more similarities with each other they discover, and [[LoveAtFirstSight you know where]] [[EarnYourHappyEnding this is headed]].

* In the animated film ''WesternAnimation/MaryAndMax'', Mary unintentionally deeply offends her friend Max, which begins a spiraling descent in her life that culminates in an attempt to kill herself, [[spoiler:and, unknowingly, her unborn child. Thankfully, the day is saved when Mary's neighbour overcomes his own fears just in time to deliver a letter to her, in which Max tells her that all is forgiven]].

%%* Aravis in ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy''.

* Deconstructed in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses''. During Dimitri and Gilbert's B support, the former demands the latter kill him so he can be TogetherInDeath with his family. Though Dimitri plays the whole thing off as a joke, Gilbert sees through it. After the TimeSkip, he returns in their A ostensibly to carry out the deed: deliberately striking and missing to scare Dimitri into realising the value of his own life. This technically succeeds in making Dimitri feel grateful for being alive but it does not actually make him happier, as his traumas from losing his family still haunt him [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome and are not so-easily cured]].

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Vanilla Ice. After failing in his suicide attempt, he turned his life around, gave up drugs, and went on to have a very productive music career.
* Music/YoshikiHayashi, though whether he actually attempted it or not, he ''felt'' suicidal, which inspired his song ''Art of Life.'' The song is about exactly this and his own experience of it to the time of its writing-of realizing suicide wasn't the answer and he desired to live despite feeling like he wanted to die.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/8-tiny-things-that-stopped-suicides/ This]] {{Website/Cracked}} article lists many ways in which small, random things - a well-timed "How are you?" phone call, a puppy, or even a poignant song playing on the radio - stopped suicides. As the final lines of the article put it:
-->The point is that a person is driven to suicide [[DeathOfAThousandCuts by a whole bunch of different things]], which build a wall around them, piece by piece, until the last piece falls into place and the wall is sealed so that there's no way out. Sometimes we look at all the problems that build up someone's wall of hopelessness and think there's no way any of the insignificant things we could do would be able to take it all down. But to break the illusion of there being no way out, you don't need to take down the whole wall, you just need to make one crack in it. One puppy lick, one phone call from Laila Ali, one corny song, one Internet stranger, one old Australian guy asking if you want to come in for a cup of tea. Just one ray of light. And one crack in that wall might be all it takes to turn things around and begin the long, tough job of tearing the whole thing down.
** [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20396_5-mind-blowing-facts-nobody-told-you-about-guns.html Another article]] brings up this point as well, and also states that this is why guns are such a huge risk factor for suicide: [[InstantDeathBullet it's pretty hard to fail at suicide with a gun]].
* One of the main advocates for installing a 'suicide fence' that would prevent suicides from leaping off UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco's Golden Gate bridge went through the same ordeal.
* One person trying (but failing) to suicide by jumping off a bridge was quoted as saying, "On my way down, I realized that every problem in my life could be fixed, except for the fact that I had just jumped off a bridge."
* Music/LudwigVanBeethoven contemplated suicide after his loss of hearing, which usually would be a death sentence to a musician. Instead, he [[HeroicWillpower resolved to live his life as a composer]]. It's likely that this was a ''happily'' averted suicide for Beethoven himself, and the world is a far better place for it. This is because Beethoven went on to create some [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic awesome works, such as the ''Moonlight Sonata'' and his ''Eroica/Pastoral/Choral Symphonies'']], leaving his mark as one of the greatest composers ever in the history of classical music.
* Hunter Doherty "Patch" Adams tried to kill himself ''three times in one year'' while at school. He now is a prominent and brilliant health activist.
* In his autobiographical film ''Film/IAmBigBird'', Caroll Spinney discusses his contemplating jumping out of a skyscraper window to end all of the emotional pain he was in, then thinking better of it. Not too much further into the film, the subject turns to Carroll meeting his eventual wife Deb.
* [[Series/ProjectRunway Tim Gunn]] recounts in his autobiography how after he attempted suicide by taking every pill he could find in his parents' house after getting sent to yet another boarding school and feeling conflicted over his (at the time undiscovered) homosexuality that he was glad to have failed at it once he'd spent several years in a psychiatric hospital with a doctor who helped him turn his life around.
[[/folder]]

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!

* ''Fanfic/FamilyGuyFanon'': "[[https://familyguyfanon.fandom.com/wiki/Between_Sanity_and_Madness Between Sanity and Madness]]" has Francis and Thelma attempt to jump off the Holy Christ Church after Peter tells them he'll never love them again. This, however, causes Peter, who was acting cold throughout the third arc, to melt and save them from death. And ends up being what gets Francis to apologize to Peter for being awful to him and reconcile a new relationship together.

* "Minor Character" by Lloyd Cole has a very undecided girl - she threatens to throw herself from a bridge, but is laughed out of it. Cutting her wrists is also just an announcement.

* A darker take on this comes in the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' franchise: John Kramer opted to go out on his own terms after receiving a cancer diagnosis, but to his amazement, he survived his suicide attempt and gained a new outlook on life as a result. Unfortunately, this is what inspired him to become Jigsaw, in the hopes that he could get other people who he viewed as wasting their lives to gain the same appreciation for life he did, the same ''way'' he did.

* ''Anime/WelcomeToTheNHK!'': At the end of the series, [[spoiler:the perpetual loser Satou]] throws himself off a cliff in an honest-to-God suicide attempt, but discovers that a hidden metal net has been installed just below the cliff after the previous suicide on that spot. After that, he seems to become quite happy with his life again.

* In ''Manga/SevenSeeds'', Arashi had attempted to commit suicide by letting himself drown because he thought Hana had died [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt during the apocalypse]], meaning he had lost her forever. Taka gets his dog to pull him out in time, though Arashi remains suspicious, abrasive and very [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness unlike himself]], until he ends up getting physical proof that Hana is alive in this post-apocalyptic world. Arashi is happy that his suicide failed, returns to his usual self, and makes it his goal to [[IWillFindYou reunite with Hana]].
* Kyoko Honda in ''Manga/FruitsBasket'' attempted to jump off a bridge in her grief of having her husband Katsuya die unexpectedly. Before she can do it, she hears a little kid and a mother, making her realize she severely neglected her three year old daughter during that period. She proceeds to run back and become the DotingParent we know her as in the present ([[PosthumousCharacter at least for another 13 years]]).

** Later, in the [=CP9=] saga, her inner demons caught up with her, and she feared that her friends would eventually betray her and throw her away, as did everyone who took her in when she was a child. Preferring to die here and now rather than live a life she's going to lose someday, she decides to surrender to the World Government, on the condition that they leave the other Straw Hats alone. However, when the Straw Hats raid Enies Lobby to save her, and even burn down the World Government's flag, essentially ''declaring war on the entire world'', Robin realizes that her friends will never betray her, and that she really wants to live, a fact that she screams from the bottom of her heart.
* In ''Manga/{{Planetes}}'', a couple with a young child in episode 5 were planning to commit suicide due to some extreme financial burdens. But then a thief aboard the spaceship steals the medicine, and later takes the young girl hostage. They try to dissuade the thief from killing her and begin to realize that they themselves were about to decide her future in a bad way themselves. After the girl is saved, she tells her parents about her hopes and dreams of going into space and piloting a spaceship, and they seem to reconsider killing themselves, and instead promise the little girl that they'll work hard for her as well.

* ''ComicBook/DeathTheHighCostOfLiving'': A woman at the bar tells Sexton about a friend of hers who was raped repeatedly by older men in her life. She tried to kill herself, but was somehow glad when she still woke up at the hospital. Her point is that there's never a good reason to kill yourself, but Sexton's ennui is a particularly insufficient reason.
* In ''ComicBook/JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac'', Johnny tries to kill himself with a gun-toting robot that will shoot him if he tries to turn it off or answers the phone. After an indignant conversation with some of the voices in his head, he changes his mind and decides he wants to live after all, switching the robot off. As it turns out, the robot doesn't work, and Johnny exclaims that he was extremely lucky. The moment after, the phone rings and Johnny, happy to be alive, turns to answer it. [[spoiler:The robot then shoots him. [[{{Irony}} He forgot to turn it on in the first place and only did so when he thought he was switching it off]].]]

* Crossing over with RealLife, the disillusioned [[spoiler:Marjane]] in ''ComicBook/{{Persepolis}}'' deliberately overdoses on anti-depressants. The result is that she passes out for three days then has several hours of hallucinations. When she meets with her therapist, he's at a loss to how she survived, saying the amount she took should have been enough to kill an elephant.

* ''Manga/{{Evangelion 303}}'': In chapter 12 [[spoiler: Shinji manages to stop Asuka's SurvivorGuilt driven suicide and give her a lecture about how she's the one that taught him about actually having something to live for (and suggesting they go make dinner to lighten the mood) which ends in her giving her first actual smile since she got out of her coma. Then it gets subverted in the next chapter when she runs off to Jessika's grave with the intention of leaving forever. It takes Shinji proposing to her for her to finally be able to lay her inner demons to rest.]]
* ''Fanfic/FamilyGuyFanon'': "[[https://familyguyfanon.fandom.com/wiki/Between_Sanity_and_Madness Between Sanity and Madness]]" has Francis and Thelma attempt to jump off the Holy Christ Church after Peter tells them he'll never love them again. This however, causes Peter, who was acting cold throughout the third arc, to melt and save them from death. And ends up being what gets Francis to apologize to Peter for being awful to him and reconcile a new relationship together.

* ''Film/TheHandmaiden'': Lady Hideko is driven to despair upon realizing that she has fallen in love with Sook-hee, whom she has been planning to con and who has, apparently, been trying to con her, in turn, without requiting her feelings. As she tries to hang herself, Sook-hee catches her mid-air and holds her up, tearfully proclaiming to have abandoned her con because she loves her, too. Eventually, Hideko is taken out of the noose, and the girls hatch a ''new'' con, that would see them escape together.

* ''Film/InsideDaisyClover'': Towards the end, not wanting to return making a film for ControlFreak producer Raymond Swan, actress Daisy Clover (Creator/NatalieWood) attempts suicide by opening the gas in her kitchen (in order to suffocate herself at first). People keep ringing at her door, she stops to go open every time, then it's the phone. She then tries to put a burner on (to make the gas explode) and only manages to burn her hand. After that, she abandons her suicidal thoughts, puts the gas on again along with the burner, goes out and happily lets the house blow up instead.

* A darker take on this comes in the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' franchise: John Kramer opted to go out on his own terms after receiving a cancer diagnosis, but to his amazement, he survived his suicide attempt, and gained a new outlook on life as a result. Unfortunately, this is what inspired him to become Jigsaw, in the hopes that he could get other people who he viewed as wasting their lives to gain the same appreciation for life he did, the same ''way'' he did.

* In ''Literature/EnchantressFromTheStars'', Elana , an agent from TheFederation, is captured by TheEmpire. To avoid mindprobing, Elana runs towards the imperial rock-chewer, intent on being crushed by debris. However, Georyn, one of the natives, whom she taught telekinesis, sees this and [[DeusExMachina stops the whole load of debris in mid-air]], saving her. This scares the Imperials so much that they leave the planet and liberate all prisoners, conveniently removing the reason for Elana to die.

* In ''Literature/JoeyAMechanicalBoy'', nine-year-old Joey's withdrawal from human interaction makes him so miserable that he attempts suicide three months before entering the Orthogenic School. [[ScienceMarchesOn His autism is successfully treated]], and in the end he is glad to be alive.

** Nicolai, who died in 1811, was one of the leading German literary critics of the Enlightenment and belonged to an older literary generation. He was rather sceptical of the new movements like ''Sturm und Drang'' and Romanticism. ''Die Freuden des Jungen Werthers'' is therefore correctly described as a parody, and it is worth noting that Goethe not only was angry at Nicolai specifically but was violently opposed to parodies in general. Nicolai meanwhile not only parodied Goethe, but also the folk songs that were then being eagerly collected by the early Romantics.

* The opening scene of the novel ''Literature/WhiteTeeth'' is a complex example. Archie Jones is devastated after his Italian war-bride from the 1940s leaves him three decades later to go live with her family (in her defense, she's a paranoid schizophrenic by this point and needs her family's care), and contemplates suicide mostly because he doesn't know what else to do. He finally settles for flipping a coin (his stock method of making decisions) but then doesn't immediately kill himself when the coin tells him to do so. He finally works up the courage to die about a week later and tries to gas himself in his own car but is rescued by a Pakistani butcher. Afterward, he is suddenly happy to be alive but he doesn't truly acquire a new lease on life until he journeys to a hippie commune and becomes infatuated with a Jamaican girl half his age, whom he later marries. One of those rare cases of a lighthearted book that ''begins'' with a DespairEventHorizon.

** Gomez is trying to find an artist who can tutor Gran-Mama, so he calls a guy another friend recommends, an unsuccessful artist. Said artist is about to hang himself, and gets the call from Gomez - with the job offer -right before he does so. (Of course, working for the Addams isn't all-too better...)

* An Eastern European cartoon from the 70s has a despondent man repeatedly trying and failing to kill himself. Then a man with a gun holds him up and, terrified, he hands over his wallet, watch, clothes, everything... and ends up overjoyed that he's still alive.

* In his autobiographical film ''Film/IAmBigBird'', Caroll Spinney discusses his contemplating jumping out of a skyscraper window to end all of the emotional pain he was in, then thinking better of it. Not too much further into the film, the subject turns to Carroll meeting his eventual wife, Deb.

* Deconstructed in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses''. During Dimitri and Gilbert's B support, the former demands the latter kill him so he can be TogetherInDeath with his family. Though Dimitri plays the whole thing off as a joke, Gilbert sees through it. After the TimeSkip, he returns in their A ostensibly to carry out the deed: deliberately striking and missing to scare Dimitri into realising the value of his own life. This technically succeeds in making Dimitri feel grateful for being alive but it does not actually make him happier, as [[AmbiguousDisorder his traumas from losing his family still haunt him]] [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome and are not so-easily cured]].

* Music/LudwigVanBeethoven contemplated suicide after his loss of hearing, which usually would be a death sentence to a musician. Instead, he [[HeroicWillpower resolved to live his life as a composer]]. It's likely that this was a ''happily'' averted suicide for Beethoven himself, and it's definitely so for us today. This is because Beethoven went on to create some [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic awesome works, such as the ''Moonlight Sonata'' and his ''Eroica/Pastoral/Choral Symphonies'']], leaving his mark as one of the greatest composers ever in the history of classical music.

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1476808248044580300
%% Please start a new thread if you'd like to suggest an image.

* In a one-shot GirlsLove manga ''Rooftop Miracle'' by Creator/{{Natsuneko}}, two girls try to commit suicide after having been cheated out of all their savings by a lesbian swindler. However, they pick exactly the same spot to do it and soon discover that they were ripped off by exactly the same girl in exactly the same manner. The more they talk, the more similarities with each other they discover, and [[LoveAtFirstSight you know where]] [[EarnYourHappyEnding this is headed]].

* The WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse comic strip story "Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers" actually involved him trying to commit suicide in various ways, all of which failed. In one attempt, Mickey jumps off a bridge but lands on a boat. An angry sailor (who resembles [[YouALLLookFamiliar Pete]]) yells that he throws stowaways overboard. Mickey starts pleading by saying he can't swim.

-->"Did I turn off the stove?" *checks* "Yeah, I turned off the stove."
-->"Did I water the plants?" *checks* "Yeah, I watered the plants."
-->*Now with the gun at his head* "Did I '''load''' the gun?" *{{Beat}}, pulls the trigger... '''click'''*
-->*Jumping around happily* "Whooooohooooo!!!!!!"

* The ''K-On''/''Hyouka'' crossover video ''WebVideo/OurTapes'' ends with Houtarou saving his girlfriend Mio from suicide. Afterwards, he proposes to her and she accepts.

* ''Fanfic/RickAndTheLoudHouse'': In the story's retelling of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'''s "Auto-Erotic Assimiliation", Rick's attempted suicide is stopped by Lana innocently barging into the garage to ask if he could teach her how to fix the car. Rick agrees to do so, appreciating the distraction.

* In the animated film ''WesternAnimation/MaryAndMax'', Mary unintentionally deeply offends her friend Max, which begins a spiralling descent in her life that culminates in an attempt to kill herself, [[spoiler: and, unknowingly, her unborn child. Thankfully, the day is saved when Mary's neighbour overcomes his own fears just in time to deliver a letter to her, in which Max tells her that all is forgiven.]]

%%* Aravis in ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy''.
%%* The Dover cliff scene in ''Theatre/KingLear''.

* Pavela from ''Literature/IslandsEnd'' attempted suicide after the death of his wife by setting out in a small boat, lying down, and waiting for it to tip over. Instead, the boat carried him to one of the Andaman Islands, which was inhabited by a nonviolent isolated tribe. The islanders nursed him back to health, and while staying with them he learned to enjoy life again. Lah-ame, the tribe's spiritual leader, persuaded him to return to civilization so he could be an advocate for the rights of tribes to live in voluntary isolation.

* In Creator/NickHornby's ''Literature/ALongWayDown'', four people meet while trying to jump from the roof of a popular suicide spot on New Year's Eve. Feeling the mood's been spoiled, they end up going to a diner and forming a mutual support group. Ultimately, though, the trope's subverted as the characters don't like each other and only continue to hang out together because they have no one else to turn to, and what happiness they find is only just enough to keep them going.

%%* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': Kate in the second-season episode "Reprise."

* It was mentioned in ''VisualNovel/{{Hakuouki}}'' that Harada attempted to commit {{Seppuku}}. He didn't die, but [[EveryScarHasAStory he shows his scar off when he's drunk]].

* Sylvanas Windrunner in between ''Wrath of the Lich King'' and ''Cataclysm'' VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft expansions, tried to kill herself, and was very happy when val'kyrs brought her back... because she ''did'' die, and found [[TheNothingAfterDeath what]] [[AndIMustScream was]] [[{{Hell}} her afterlife]] horrifying.

%%* In ''Webcomic/ASofterWorld'':
%%-->I took a bottle of pills when I found the photographs of them together / But instead of dying I pooped all over our bed / which is a funnier story, in the long run.

* In ''Webcomic/FriendshipIsMagic'' (an AlternateUniverse webcomic based on ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'') [[spoiler: Fluttershy of all people nearly commits this after being bullied at her school. She's thankfully stopped by a passing Rainbow Dash who berates her for even thinking about doing something like that.]]
* minus, playing the role of a fairy godmother, grants a jumper's wish that his life didn't have to end. He splatters into miniature copies of himself and they're next seen contently working his desk job.

* In ''Felix Out of Luck'' (1921), a despondent Felix the Cat is trying to shoot himself with a pistol—but misses.

-->GoodbyeCruelWorld ''(falls into the ball)'' Hello ironic twist!