Heroic Sacrifice - Television Tropes & Idioms

Segata Sanshiro, mascot of the Sega Saturn, heroically gave his life defending his beloved Sega from a terrorist attack. He lives on in our hearts.

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In Angel Sanctuary there are many heroic deaths, though some are more 'I'll die as a hero' by characters who'd die anyway but want to show off a little. e.g:
- Zaphikel, after his wings are cut off — the most cruel torture and death sentence to an angel — uses the last of his strength to kill the warden endangering a big part of the main cast and his then-revealed son Raziel.
- In front of heaven's gate, Kato Yue gives his life when stopping the nearly closed gate to the highest sphere, so Setsuna can slip through, leaving him to be vaporized by a giant meteor he himself has summoned to kill Lucifer minutes ago. He was about to die anyway, because his 'biomechanical' body was about to decease. He had sacrificed himself twice before when saving Setsuna, and both times had to be resurrected from the brink of near-afterlife existence.
In Saint Seiya, Dragon Shiryu attempts such a sacrifice, but ends up surviving. Phoenix Ikki follows one trough and is vaporized...but has trouble staying dead.
In Code Geass, The Scrappy Rolo Lamperouge redeems himself by overloading his Evil Eye to carry Lelouch to safety, fully aware that the strain from using it for so long with so much range would be too much for his heart to endure.
- Also, earlier in the season, one of Toudou's lieutenants, Urabe, sacrifices himself to distract Rolo and buy Zero time to escape.
- Also, Gilbert G.P. Guilford believed he was sacrificing his life to save his princess, Cornelia, but he was actually saving Zero, his mortal enemy, who had hypnotized Guilford into thinking Zero was Cornelia.
  - Later, it turns out he's Not Quite Dead.
- All these are nothing compared to Lelouch, who, as part of Zero Requiem, took over the entire world and convinced everyone he was a Complete Monster so that all the world's hatred would be focused onto him, allowing Suzaku (disguised as Zero) to publicly assassinate him, thus ending the international conflicts plaguing the series.
  - At the cost of how many lives?
In the same episode of Brave Express Might Gaine, Guard Diver dies Protecting a child and Battle Bomber dies tacking a fatal blow for Maito and Great Might Gaine
Played with in Death Note. Done straight with Rem sacrificing herself to kill L and Watari for the sake of Misa's life and happiness. Less traditionally, Souchiro accepted the Deadly Upgrade to gain the power to stop Mello, was killed before he could write the name...but in the end, Takeda did use the name to finish off Mello.
In D.Gray-Man, For fights against the Level 3 Akuma, instead of Allen, adopting his form, ans getting seriously damaged, until Allen awakes his Innocence and defeats the akuma.
In each season of Digimon, there is almost always a Leomon or Leonid Digimon who sacrifices himself to either save the world or the heroes.
- In Adventure01, it's Leomon himself but it's rather minor.
  - In fact, every good Digimon who dies in Digimon Adventure does so in a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Subverted in Adventure02 where Blackwargreymon actually sacrifices himself.
- Again in Tamers Leomon again, which is in fact a major turning point for Jeri's character, taking her from an almost Hufflepuff House character to a Damsel In Distress and an Ascended Extra.
- And in Frontier... Kouichi sacrifices himself to save the kids from Lucemon, and like with the other Heroic Sacrifices, his purified digimon forms are actually Leonid.
- In Savers, Bancholeomon. SURPRISE SURPRISE!
Subverted in the most mean-spirited manner possible in Neon Genesis Evangelion, where Kaji rescues Fuyutsuki, and is later shot, and in End of Evangelion, where Ritsuko tries to blow up the Geofront in front of Rei and Gendo, but fails, and is then shot by Gendo. Then Misato escorts Shinji to EVA-01, but shortly dies from a fatal wound and an explosion. Finally, Asuka makes a superhuman effort to defeat the Mass Production Evas, but is apparently killed in a brutal fashion after running out of power, while Shinji is stuck inside the EVA-01 launching bay, it having been filled with an adhesive bakelite as a security measure attempting to stop the military from fully infiltrating the base. All of this is in vain as the Human Instrumentality Project and Third Impact occur anyway.
- i cant believe Rei has not been mentioned yet as she represents Freuds concept of the Super Ego, the selfless part of the soul and it can be argued that all three Rei's die from a heroicSacrifice the first; picking a fight with the old hag because her "father figure" no longer had a use for the aforementioned old hag, the second whilst fighting the 16th(?) angel Armisael(?) after it combines its self with her, she learnes that she loves Shinji then she selfdestructs her Eva to destroy the angel and save him. this scene even has the iconic seeing loved ones before you die cliche complete with single tear. And then there is the third one, this Rei chooses to risk sacrificing her own personality so that Lilith's soul would return to her in her true form and the apocoplyse might begin and the Lilim (read human) race would be able to be reborn. (kinda) and dont get me started on Kaworu, the angel of free will who chose to die so that the Lilim (human) race could continue
This one gets a bit of a workout in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. By the end of the series, we had several significant Heroic Sacrifices that saved other people, most memorably Kittan, who destroyed a space ocean with his dying laugh, and Lord Genome, who stopped and absorbed the shot from a Wave Motion Gun powered by a Big Bang. Additional materials and the creators have also confirmed that Nia knowingly went to her death rather than ask Simon to save her, in order to avert the Spiral Nemesis, although it wasn't entirely clear in the anime itself.
Cedie, and his successor Carris, in Soukou No Strain. One could argue for Ralph, too.
- Melchi attempts one of these but ended up getting rescued before the ship can explode.
In Houshin Engi, during the Sennin war, Fugen ordered an attack from all of the other Juunisen on Bunchuu all at once. This gave him the chance to slip in behind Bunchuu and use the explosive power of his Paopei, destroying him and the other Juunisen. Unfortunately, this attack barely hurt Bunchuu.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
In One Piece, during a life-or-death (well, life-or-exile) game of dodgeball, Chopper takes a ball to the face to prevent Luffy from being knocked out of the game. The opposing team is so impressed by his Heroic Sacrifice that they demand that the referee not declare him out, because "the face is safe". The ref is reluctant at first, because Chopper is in a spherical form at the time, and it's difficult to tell where his face begins and ends, but eventually succumbs to the pressure. And then declares Chopper out anyway, because he was knocked out-of-bounds.
- For examples that aren't exclusive to the anime, see Alabasta Arc, which has several:
  - Igaram getting himself blown up to give Vivi and the Strawhats a chance to safely escape Whiskey Peak.
  - The Duck Claw Squad all took a poison that gives the imbiber immense boost in strenght before killing them, in hopes of beating Crocodile. Unlike just about everyone else who's ever made a heroic sacrifice in One Piece, they actually die.
  - Very brutally subverted in that they don't win against Crocodile. Heck, they don't even get to fight him. Crocodile just stands on a rooftop and lets the potion kill them.
  - Chaka taking on Big Bad Crocodile, knowing he can't even wound him, to buy time for Vivi and Kohza.
  - Pell grabbing a giant bomb intended to level the entire city and flying high into the sky with it, thus saving thousands of lives.
- Recently, in Thriller Bark, Zoro offers to let Kuma have his head to prevent him taking Luffy's. All that happens, however, is Kuma making him take all the damage Luffy has sustained on top of his own injuries, in exchange of sparing the rest of the crew.
  - That was hardly an act of mercy: Kuma expected Zoro to die horribly from this. It's a testament to Zoro being a complete and total Badass that he survived
- Heck, 2/3s of the Strawhat Pirates have flashbacks in which someone close to them sacrificed themselves heroically to some extent. And of those 6, only 2 of them ended with his mentor surviving with a lost limb.
- This trope is often subverted by Luffy, who adamantly refuses to let any of his crewmates sacrifice themselves for the sake of the crew. As he famously told Vivi, "YOU THINK RISKING ONE LIFE IS ENOUGH?! WHY DON'T YOU TRY RISKING OUR LIVES TOO?! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!!"
- The Impel Down arc ends with Mr. 2 Bon Kurei staying behind to ensure the prison break gets past its final obstacle.
  - The guy has a special talent for this trope. You may recall that at the end of the Arabasta arc, Mr. 2 saves the Straw Hats by having himself and his crew act as decoys, then taking on the pursuing Marine fleet in a clearly hopeless battle in order to buy said Straw Hats time to escape. I don't care how he acts or dresses, I can't possibly imagine how anyone can not admire the guy.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED's Mu La Flaga pushes this to a near limit when he flies the Strike Gundam into the path of a positron cannon blast aimed at the bridge of the Archangel and blocks it with his shield, despite the beam being nearly as big as the Gundam. The Strike is destroyed in the process, and Mu's helmet is seen amongst the rubble. Ironically, the Special Edition of the series would edit that detail out, in a Ret Con to prepare for Mu's eventual return as the brainwashed Neo Roanoke, though he eventually got his memory back by the end of the series.
- Natarle also performs one, locking terrorist leader Muruta Azrael inside the bridge of the Dominion with her and refusing to open the door for him, even as he repeatedly shoots her.
- Subverted in Gundam SEED Destiny, when Mu La Flaga, finally remembering who he is, performs an identical act to his prior sacrifice with a superior mobile suit, and survives unscathed.
  - And played straight with Meer Campbell Taking The Bullet for Lacus Clyne
In the manga Konjiki no Gash!!, the former badass Vincent Bari puts himself in a mortal situation to allow the protagonists to enter Big Bad Faudo's innards. To avoid killing him, Umagon burns his book to send him back to the demon world.
- This is just one instance among way too many to count.
Subverted by Ryoko in Tenchi Universe, albeit with a particularly sadistic flare on the part of the writers. Having failed to convince Tenchi to abandon Ayeka to her fate and run away with her instead of heading into a seemingly hopeless battle with Kagato, Ryoko dedicates herself to making sure Tenchi arrives there alive. An elaborate space battle follows as the space pirate does anything and everything in her power to accomplish this. Only she's still grievously injured from her previous attack on Kagato, and the strain for her to just stand upright is noted by at least three characters (neither of whom tell Tenchi, naturally). After dropping Tenchi off at the palace, Ryoko reminisces about how the previous events have been really fun, even if it's just her and Ryo-Ohki again. She then closes her eyes, her arm slips off the armrest limply (complete with blood flowing down along it), and her head slumps forward with a small smile on her face. Ryo-Ohki presumably tries to wake her with her yowling, and the scene fades to black with one particularly mournful sounding howl. This continues into the wrap up episode, where Tenchi notes that no one had seen or heard from Ryoko since that battle, and includes an Antagonist In Mourning moment with Ryoko's rival, Nagi to boot. All this culminates with Ryoko popping up, none the worse for wear, in the last ten minutes of the series, ready to try again to win Tenchi's heart. No explanation as to how she survived is given.
In Planetes, Tanabe carries a wounded former associate across the lunar surface after crash-landing in an escape pod several miles from the nearest place with air. She runs out of oxygen before reaching their destination; however, her associate has plenty of oxygen left as a result of her being carried while nearly unconscious. Frenzied, Tanabe almost decides to take the oxygen tank from her colleague, but changes her mind at the last second, unwilling to kill at any cost. She begins to convulse in a painful Break The Cutie moment, and the viewer is left to wonder what happened to her until halfway through the next episode. She suffers terrible nerve damage and is wheelchair-bound, gradually recovering with physiotherapy.
In the second to last episode of Tokyo Mew Mew when Kisshu turns on Deep Blue for Ichigo's sake he gets killed by him. A few moments later when Kisshu is dying in her arms he tells her that he really does love her then dies trying to kiss her one last time.
- In the same episode, Pai is killed while protecting the rest of the Mew Mews from the energy blast unleashed by Deep Blue when the latter starts to lose control over Aoyama's body and the Mew Aqua inside him.
- And then there are Masaya and Mew Ichigo in the last episode. Masaya basically allows himself to be killed in order to get rid of Deep Blue for good, and Ichigo later revives him at the cost of her own life, requiring a True Loves Kiss to bring her back. Of note, in the manga version, Masaya disposed of the evil alien personally, by stabbing himself with his sword.
It's also somewhat subverted in Yu Yu Hakusho. Yusuke saves a small boy from a moving vehicle and dies. However, it turns out that not only was the boy going to survive being hit, but he actually would have been less injured than had Yusuke intervened.
- Humor aside, it was the intention of the act that counted, and earns Yusuke a chance to come back to life. The true sacrifice comes shortly after when Yusuke gives up this chance to save his girlfriend's life (which was the true test all along.) He gets revived.
Subverted on multiple occasions in Dragon Ball Z, most notably when Chaozu and Vegeta both blew themselves up to try and take Nappa and Buu with them, respectively. Neither attempt worked. Heroic Sacrifice almost never works in Dragon Ball.
- And is mostly meaningless anyway, since the afterlife practically has a revolving door...
- It did work once, at the very beginning of DBZ, when Goku and Piccolo were fighting Raditz. Goku grabbed him from behind and told Piccolo to shoot. The attack went straight through Raditz and Goku, killing them both, and Raditz stayed dead for the entire series.
- Another successful Heroic Sacrifice from the series, and in this troper's opinion, one of the most touching in any anime he's seen, is Piccolo putting himself between Gohan and Nappa's giant blast of death. Considering Gohan lives to the end of the fight, which was Piccolo's hope when he took the attack, I'd say that counts as a success.
  - Vegeta pulls one of these in the final arc by blowing himself to kill the villain (at this point a Psycho For Hire). It doesn't pan out.
  - Also in that arc, in another subversion, Krillin, to protect his family and friends (almost the entire supporting cast), himself at the villain (who upgraded to Big Bad), in order to give the others enough time to get away. He's killed while they run for safety. Then they all die anyway. In a bit of cruelty, the people he was mainly trying to protect, his wife and daughter, were the first ones killed after his sacrifice.
Unusual example occurs in the final episode of Fullmetal Alchemist, when Alphonse sacrifices himself to bring Edward back to life... and then Edward promptly sacrifices himself to bring Alphonse back.
- And then just as promptly subverted in the fact that Ed survives, albeit on the other side of the Gate.
Subverted in the Naruto: Shippuden movie when Shion almost succeeds in sacrificing herself to destroy the demon, though Naruto pulls her out of it at, literally, the last second, and destroys it through a different method.
Also in Naruto, the Third Hokage and his son Asuma Sarutobi die a heroic death, the first when fighting Orochimaru and nearly killing him, the second fighting two Akatsuki members and reavealing his strategies/weak points, so Shikamaru can figure out a strategy. Also Chiyo gives her life when resurrecting Gaara.
- The Fourth Hokage sealing the demon fox into Naruto. May double as a Fate Worse Than Death and/or And I Must Scream, seeing as he is stuck inside the belly of a Death God where he will be constantly tortured by hatred for all eternity.
- Hinata does this, with one of the most touching confessions ever, just to give Naruto a few more seconds of sweet, sweet life, with the knowledge that him being him, he'll get out of this somehow. after quite a bit of anxious waiting, we find out eventually that she got better
- And let's not forget Chouza Akimichi and Kakashi Hatake, both of whom do this to save Chouji. The former took a hit from Pein in order to save his son, while the latter sacrificed himself by using his Mangekyo Sharingan to prevent a missile from hitting Chouji, using the last of his chakra in the process, so that Chouji could deliver vital information to Tsunade. Chouza survived. Kakashi wasn't so lucky...until he got better.
Lockon Stratos in Gundam 00. And another one from season 2, Patrick Colasour (he got better).
Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex's Tachikomas have a penchant for Heroic Sacrifice. In the first series three of them get in a fight with an armored suit to save their friend Batou; one is destroyed by the suit, and the remaining two cheerfully perform a suicide attack on it, smashing a dud grenade inbetween them and the suit and blowing the whole group apart. In the second series they go one further; as a nuclear warhead is about to fall on the island the heroes are on, the Tachikomas decide the best way to stop it is to intercept it with a satellite. Too bad the only one close to the missile's trajectory is the one that's holding their own electronic brains. You can guess what happens next...
- Fortunately, after the first sacrifice, the Tachikomas were Genre Savvy enough to leave behind backups of their memories on the internet. The Major eventually finds them and they make a return in Solid State Society where they were thankfully not asked to lay down their lives for the third consecutive time.
The entire cast of GaoGaiGar (or at least the mecha cast members. The robots make up at least half the cast!) do this at least once. Possibly the most memorable is during a turning point in the original series, where Choryujin grabs a meteor that was hurtling towards Earth, and gets sent back in time, where he is rendered inoperable for millions of years. (Although this one was later reversed when the mech in question is eventually brought back online.) Even more tend to happen in FINAL during the final episode in order to defeat their Evil Counterparts. As a matter of fact, even the EVIL CLONES of the characters sacrifice themselves to stop GaoFighGar from killing J. To list each one here would be to ruin some great examples of Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
The anime version of Pretear has the protagonist overloading an evil tree with her own Life Energy until it disintegrates, bringing back characters who died in the battle (including the one who died protecting her), all at the cost of her own life. She doesn't stay dead for long, though.
Cosmo does this in the last two episodes of Sonic X by undergoing what in her species seems to equate to puberty and growing into adulthood — she turns into a tree. Her entire species does this, apparently, and her own development was merely sped up by a Magical Amulet because it was her destiny to save the galaxy from the beginning. She attaches herself to the giant evil seed which is about to wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy, therefore weakening it, requiring our heroes to shoot her, killing her and the Big Bad at the same time.
- The real TearJerker of the scene is the fact that Tails was falling in love with her at the time and he was the one who had to fire the gun. This troper cannot watch the original non-dubbed scene of his reaction to this both before and after the fact without breaking down in tears herself.
  - Never mind the fact that Sonic and Shadow were the ammo.
The first Reinforce of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Knowing full well that her corrupted self-defense program will come Back From The Dead since her recovery system is already working hard to repair it, and that it has become impossible for her to restore it to its normal state, she willingly destroys herself to prevent any chance of it going on an omnicidal rampage again.
In Macross Frontier, Micheal sacrifices himself to save Klan's life during a Vajra attack on the Frontier. What this even more painful was that was one of the more popular pairings in the series.
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: First Red Impulse aka Ken's long-lost father sacrifices himself to foil a Galactor plan, causing Ken to have a Heroic BSOD of the RAAAAAAGE variety. In the last few eps, Joe is told that thanks to a terminal brain injury he only has a few weeks left to live, so he takes on Galactor by himself in order to go out with a bang. His final speech to the team is a Tear Jerker that redefinies the concept of Nakama for this series. He does come back as a cyborg later on, and in the second series he sacrifices himself again to stop Big Bad Sosai X. He doesn't die this time, though. Finally, Dr. Nambu in final installment Gatchaman Fighter.
Memorably parodied in The Prince of Tennis. During a filler chapter/episode featuring an eating battle between several teams, Hyoutei's Shishido Ryoh nobly volunteers to drink the disgusting Inui juice (knowing full well he'll pass out after doing so) in order to allow his team to move forward. He gets a sunset-y "death" scene, his partner Ohtori pulling a Big No on him and everything. And it was hilarious.
Heroic Sacrifice is one of the central themes of Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still. No surprise then that the series involves a huge number of mind-blowing yet touching sacrifices from both heroes and 'villains' alike.
Musashi from Getter Robo, naturally, who is required to die in every incarnation he's had, most of the time via Heroic Sacrifice. Given that he's appeared in 3 anime series, a manga and every Super Robot Wars game bar a few (note that there are dozens of them), that's a whole lot of awesome deaths.
Two examples turn up in Figure17. First off, early in the series, DD's first "Figure" unit sacrifices itself in order to move him away from fatal attack that would have killed him had it saved itself by deactivating — this appears to be something of a standard for the semi-sentient bio-armour. The second is a bit curious: Hikaru attempts to do exactly the same thing to save Tsubasa from a similar attack, but Tsubasa somehow overrides her and forces them to keep fighting. This might, however, be the reason Hikaru's energy suddenly started to drain so fast later on, leading to heroic sacrifice at the end where she burns the last of her power to participate in the final battle, and subsequently protect Tsubasa during the fall from orbit.
Twisted upside down in the final episode of the second season of Sailor Moon. A large chunk of the season had been spent finding a Heroic Sacrifice in tangible form: a jewel that grants any wish but kills the wisher. Turns out that Sailor Moon had it, but unfortunately a Brainwashed And Crazy loved one from her future had a time-shifter version of it as well. It is expected that future gem will be used to destroy everything, so our Hero has to use hers to destroy the loved one before she can do any harm. The other breaks off from her brainwashing, so both end up wishing that the other will make it out of this somehow. The gems cancel each other out, the evil is destroyed, and everyone can go home. Aawww..
- In the manga version of this season, Sailor Pluto does this. She stops time itself in order to prevent the Black Moon Clan from destroying the world by bringing the two Silver Crystals together, knowing full well that she will die as a result. (Stopping time, as Neo Queen Serenity explains, is a taboo punishable by death.) She uses the same move in the anime when the Outer Senshi's helicopter is swarmed by daimons and explodes, buying time for Sailors Uranus and Neptune to escape.
  - And it's played straight just as many times.
One of the major parts of the ending of the series Mahoromatic. Foreshadowed HEAVILY by the countdown at the end of each episode, showing the exact date that Mahoro will stop functioning (hint: it's the same day at the death of Suguru's father, June 20). Events in the series force her to use a superweapon that shortens her lifespan each time she uses it; at the very end she uses it one last time to protect Suguru, destroying herself and her opponent in a blast that can be seen FROM SPACE. Naturally, this twists Suguru into a very bitter person as seen in the epilogue episode, which deals with how Suguru met his end.
The Galaxy Railways has a number of these, such as Manabu's father near the begining and Vega Platoon near the end.
Not death, but still a pretty big price to pay: in Mahou Sensei Negima, Tosaka tries to blackmail Negi into being his slave. Realizing that this would basically screw all the other girls, Ako, of all people, offers to be Tosaka's slave for life, as well as forfeiting any rights she has, if he leaves Negi alone. Fortunately, Tosaka is a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold, and just forks over the evidence. He still doesn't like her afterword though.
- Based on the goings on at the ball, This Troper wouldn't be too sure of that...
Now And Then Here And There has two of these: Kazam, and Lala Ru
Pokémon loves this trope, and uses it in almost every one of their movies.
- Ash actually dies in the first movie. He does come back, but, well...
- Latios in Pokémon Heroes, saving his town from an enormous tidal wave. The first onscreen Pokemon death in the entire series.
- Lucario does this in the 8th movie in order to save Mew and the Tree of Beginning.
- Darkrai is seen doing this in the 10th movie, although he randomly comes back at the very end.
Scryed has one of these with Sherice, whose ability involves sacrificing her life for someone else's. This is also an extreme example of I Want My Beloved To Be Happy considering that Ryuho is in love with someone else.
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Bakura does one of these. Whilst his body is under the influence of Dark Master Zorc, and the rest of the gang (bar the Pharaoh) are trapped as miniatures, Bakura seals part of his soul into the dice that Zorc was using, and then makes it shatter, which helps free the others. But, they get better.
In Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, Ange does a spectacular Heroic Sacrifice after Battler goes through an epic Heroic BSOD. In order to restore his faith in truth besides red text, she grabs him from behind so that he can't see her and declares her identity, thus breaking the rule that she could only exist in the past as long as Battler didn't know who she was. She then proceeds to beg him to continue the game and come home to her... as her body is being torn apart. Keep in mind the fact that even when he comes home, it won't be to her, since You Cant Fight Fate, but another her who doesn't have to experience the future without him.
- Beatrice does the same thing at the end of the third arc before Battler acknowledges and revives her. Subverted to heck and back a few minutes later, though.
In the anime version X/1999, Kamui in his showdown with Fuuma allows Fuuma to kill him in order to create the ultimate barrier field that would protect the world from the destruction of humanity. In the process his sacrifice touches Fuuma and restores him to his normal self.
- Also, Sorata's reason for existing is to die in place of the one he loves, which turns out to be Arashi.
  - In the manga version, Nataku does this for Karen, and in the anime he does it to heal Fuuma.
  - It was Daisuke's wish to protect Hinoto with his life also.. a wish that Fuuma obligingly grants.
  - Seishiro and Subaru each want to die for the other, or rather be killed by the other. Are we seeing a pattern here?
Subverted in Welcome To The NHK when Sato hallucinates that there is a giant 'final boss' monster standing by the cliff which he has just stopped Misaki from jumping off. He tries to defeat it and end the (imagined) NHK conspiracy by holding onto his cellphone, which he hallucinates is a bomb that will destroy the monster, and taking a running leap off of the cliff. Not only is he prevented from dying by a safety net installed along the side of the cliff to prevent suicides, but the show also strongly implies that his hallucination and attempted heroism were just another failed attempt to give his life some kind of meaning beyond the existential uncertainty that characterizes real life in contrast to fictional stories.
A particularly meme-tastic example occurs at the end of F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu. After having his Dark Reactors prematurely destroyed and his plans for destroying and remaking the galaxy ruined by Ryu Suzaku, Black Shadow tries to escape from the destruction so he can lick his wounds and plot anew. However, his escape is prevented by Captain Falcon, who FALCON PUNCH!!!es Black Shadow back into the radius of the explosion, incinerating the both of them while at the same time saving the galaxy.
Cloney/Syaoran Sr. from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle does this. Twice.
Towards the end of the Hellsing manga, Walter.

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Heroic Sacrifices are a staple of Superhero books (since, it's what makes them Superheroes and not just Supers), and one of the main cause of Comic Book Death.
Kingdom Come: After spending most of his teenage and adult life under Lex Luthor's mindcontrol, Captain Marvel dies by taking Superman's place and making a nuke detonate in mid-air, saving countless other superheroes. His death sends Superman in a roaring rampage of revenge.
Comic book example: Vibe, one of the most maligned members of the Justice League of America, sacrificed himself to save his teammates from killer robots built by a Mad Scientist.
In a classic Thor storyline, Skurge The Executioner sacrificed himself to buy Thor and his companions time to escape from Hel (the Norse underworld). Double points because Thor had intended to do it, and Skurge knocked him out. Also qualifies as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome due to his beating a demon to death with an empty machine gun.
The Heroic Sacrifice is a longstanding tradition of DC's Legion of Super-Heroes:
- In a particularly convoluted example, Lightning Lad sacrifices himself in battle with Zaryan the Conqueror, and every member of the pre-Crisis Legion participates in what amounts to a lottery to determine who will sacrifice their own life to bring him back. Saturn Girl, his Love Interest, cheats to make sure hers is the life sacrificed - but she is in turn replaced by Chameleon Boy's shapeshifting pet Proty, which sacrifices itself in her place.
- Ferro Lad sacrifices himself to destroy the Sun-Eater.
- Chemical King dies preventing the start of World War VII.
- Karate Kid sacrifices himself to save his wife's home planet.
- Magnetic Kid dies to unlock Sorcerer's World during the "Magic Wars" storyline, in an effort to prove himself to his older brother Cosmic Boy.
- Leviathan, thanks to a Literal Genie granting his "heart's desire" to die a hero, sacrifices himself to stop Dr. Regulus in the post-Zero Hour reboot.
- Live Wire (the post-Zero Hour version of Lightning Lad) resigns from the Legion and sacrifices himself to save his friends and Love Interest from former-teammate-turned-Omnicidal Maniac Element Lad in the limited series Legion Lost.
  - Heroic sacrifices seem to be a sort of pattern for Lightning Lad; don't be surprised if it happens again in the Threeboot.
Easily the most famous Heroic Sacrifices in the ~~superhero genre~~ DC universe are the deaths of The Flash and Supergirl in Crisis On Infinite Earths.
In the first issue of the current series of Justice Society Of America, we meet Mister America, a patriotically-themed super-detective... who has no problem beating up suspects. His family is killed by a villain, to destroy his legacy. He shows up to beat the tar out of the villain... and then he gets mortally wounded. His response is to run from the Boston dockyards to New York's Battery Park (using Le Parkour), jump through the Justice Society's skylight, and hit the table in the main meeting hall, dying on impact. In response, the Justice Society tracks down his family's killer.
According to writer Tad Williams, if Aquaman Sword of Atlantis had not been canceled, the second Aquaman, Arthur Joseph, would have sacrificed his life to revive the original Aquaman by giving up the piece of Aquaman's soul that had revived Arthur Joseph. This was so that the original Aquaman could fight an evil entity only he was capable of defeating. Then perhaps poor Arty Joe would have gained a little more sympathy from fans.
In Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, Kitty Pryde phases a giant bullet through the earth...and then is stuck out there. If it had been less of an Idiot Plot, it would've been horrifying and touching, but all it did was make a lot of fans mad.
- Also, there was Colossus infecting himself with the Legacy Virus a few years earlier, thereby releasing the cure into the air deleting Legacy from existence. Of course, that got retconned in Astonishing...
In Astro City, the Confessor sacrificed his "life" and reputation to stop an alien invasion — the reputation because the sacrifice revealed that he was a vampire, and made him appear to be a serial killer.
Captain America's death was like this. Wearing power dampening handcuffs, Cap notices an infrared sniper pointer on one of his captors. Being the selfless man he is he throws himself in the line of fire and promptly gets shot. Was the villain's evil plan to begin with, so here's one for the bad guys.
Mr. Immortal from Great Lake Avengers did a Heroic Sacrifice in the end of Issue #4 by commiting suicide. Since his power is to return from the dead, that wasn't that heroic, or much of a sacrifice to begin with. Doorman on the other hand let himself die by getting Mr. Immortal to that very place, but he returned to life as some sort of angel of death.
X-Man ended with Nate Grey destroying his body, becoming Pure Energy, and merging with every organism on the planet in order to prevent a Planet Eater alien from harvesting all mitochondria on Earth (From the alien's perspective, Nate's energy contaminated the "crop").
In the X Wing Series comics, it's revealed that Wedge's parents sacrificed themselves when a pirate set their fueling station on fire by going in with extinguishers to slow down the fire before it could get to the tanks, allowing enough time for everyone else to get away. Wedge is horribly, calmly furious at the pirate in question.
Brutally averted by Peter David in the Spectacular Spider-Man storyline, "The Death of Jean DeWolff". Exactly What It Says On The Tin, the story concerns the death of police officer DeWolff in the first two pages of the arc, shot while she was resting in bed. As mentioned in the introduction to the TPB, Peter David was told by his editors that he was breaking all of the conventional Comic Book tropes, particularly the one having her death as the Heroic Sacrifice at the climax of the story.

Close Comics

The character Maleus, in this World of Warcraft fanfic.
The Sangheili/Elite Zuka in the Halo story Enemy Of My Enemy, who flies his nearly-destroyed Banshee, piloted by his nearly-dead self, directly into the exposed core of a hostile Scarab, saving the city.

Close Fan Works

Gran Torino: Walt Kowalski.
Although he's already badly wounded, Brendan Gleeson's character in In Bruges.
Perhaps include here also ANY war movie where the flawed character with the shady past calls in an air strike (or artillery barrage, etc) on his own position to save his partner or teammates and redeem himself and his reputation although it means certain death.
- Flight of the Intruder is the definitive example.
Aliens: "You always were an asshole, Gorman."
Subversion: in Constantine the main character, John Constantine, commits suicide so Satan will personally turn up to collect his soul (he's got a bit of a grudge), and John can point him over to their shared supernatural enemy in the next room. When Satan gets back, John is being assumed into heaven, so Satan snatches his body up, heals it, and cures it of its lung cancer, so that John will live long enough that he can sin enough to bring him back to a damned state.
- Personally I got the feeling that curing the cancer was an unexpected bonus.
In Coraline, Other Wybie and Other Father are created for the sole purpose of adoring Coraline. And they do, enough to defy the Other Mother. Other Wybie is killed for helping Coraline escape back to her own world the first time, and Other Father is drowned and then destroyed entirely when the mechanical giant mantis that was forcing him to fight Coraline falls through the garden bridge, but not before he succeeds in giving her something she needs to win against the Other Mother.
Selma in Dancer In The Dark. In the latter half of the film, Selma is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. She meets with a new lawyer who says her previous lawyer was incompetent and new evidence has been brought forth that could save her from death. The only way to pay for this new attorney is to use the money that Selma had been saving for her son to get a surgery that would cure his hereditary degenerative blindness. Believing that it is important for her son to be able to see his own grandchildren some day, Selma chooses to die. Just before Selma is hanged, her close friend tells her that the surgery was a success.
Occurs in the Death Note live-action movies (but not the original manga or anime). Like in the anime/manga, Light gets Rem to write L's name in the Death Note. When L is apparently dying due to that, Light admits that he's Kira to him... but then it's revealed that L outwitted Light by writing his own name in the Death Note before Rem did, setting himself to die in 23 days and overriding Rem's attempt to kill him. L thus proves Light is Kira, but still dies less than a month later due to writing his own name in the Death Note.
The wizard Ulrich, who sacrificed himself twice in Dragonslayer (1981). His first death placed part of his life force into a gem and his 2nd death when the gem was crushed killed the dragon, as he exploded while being carried by it.
In End of Days, Satan has until midnight on New Year's Eve to impregnate the chosen bearer of his child, and having been thwarted once by her bodyguard Jericho Cane and running out of time, he possesses Jericho himself in a last ditch effort to rape her. Jericho is able to resist Satan's control just long enough to allow her to escape and impale himself on protruding sword of a nearby statue. Midnight passes, Satan is driven out of his body and back to hell, and Jericho dies. Since Jericho regained control with only five seconds left on the time limit, this may also double as a Stupid Sacrifice.
Enemy At The Gates. In the middle of a sniper stalemate inbetween main protagonist Vasily and the German Cold Sniper, Vasily's friend-slash-sentimental-rival, quite jealous that the Love Interest (now presumed dead) has chosen Vasily over him and disillusioned with the communist cause, exposes himself to the enemy's field of fire as a final act of friendship and gets a bullet in the head as a result; this allows Vasily to pinpoint the bad guy's position and kill him.
In Event Horizon, Miller blows the ship in half just before the hyperspace portal opens, allowing the survivors on the other side of the ship to escape while leaving himself to an unknown, horrible fate in the Lovecraftian hyperspace dimension.
The original Godzilla has Doctor Serizawa using his Oxygen Destroyer to kill the titular monster, but, fearing that it will become weaponized by governments, destroys all his notes and allows himself to be killed by it as well, destroying the knowledge of its creation forever.
- In Mothra vs. Godzilla, Mothra goes into battle against Godzilla knowing full well that she will die.
- And in Godzilla and Mothra — The Battle for Earth Battra sacrifices himself to help Mothra trap Godzilla at the bottom of the sea.
- Topping that, in Godzilla: Final Wars, Mothra, mortally wounded, kamikazies into Gigan's head, blowing both of them up
- Then there's Godzilla: Tokyo SOS in which Kiryu (A cyborg version of The ORIGINAL 1954 Godzilla) Carries Godzilla over the ocean and both of them sink to the bottom of a trench.
- Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack gets three of these with Baragon, Mothra (Who Gives her life-force to Ghidorah to revive him and make him stronger) and King Ghidorah.
Independence Day, the bit where the often drunk, semi-washed up crop duster flies his plane into the alien superweapon just before it fires, and blows the whole ship to pieces.
‘’The Iron Giant’’: Su…per…man…..
The Star Crossed Lovers Uncas and Alice in Last Of The Mohicans. May count as a Stupid Sacrifice if you think about it too much, since Uncas is the Last Of His Kind and apparently decided Only I Can Kill Him.
Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; nearly everyone except the main characters that attacked Miraz's castle in Prince Caspian. Averted when Aslan sacrifices himself to save Edmund, as he knew he would live.
- This Troper never got the impression that he (Aslan) knew he would live. When Aslan was telling Susan and Lucy about the Deeper Magic from before the dawn of time, there seemed to be the implication that even Aslan couldn't read it while he was alive.
Mission to Mars: The rescue mission's leader does a slightly accidental Heroic Sacrifice when he purposely overshoots the satellite the four-man band need to land on Mars, going out of range of both the team and their grappling hook and a more deliberate one when he removes his helmet so his wife won't risk her life trying to save him, and the two other guys' to save theirs.
The Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy is rife with Heroic Sacrifice and attempts at same, including the fate of James Norrington.
Subverted in Serenity, where River pretty much declares You Shall Not Pass to the Reavers and locks herself in a room filled with them to save her friends and family. Five minutes later, after everyone pretty much believes that she's been raped, killed, eaten, and possibly worn like clothing by the horde (in that order, if she's lucky), the doors slide back open....to reveal her standing completely uninjured and knee deep in enemy corpses.
During the final assault on Ecoban at the climax of Sky Blue, Goliath jams a bomb onto Locke's tank and detonates it, destroying the tank and killing himself in the process. Unfortunately, Locke survives.
Spider-Man 2: After getting the senses smacked back into him, Dr. Octavius pulls his very unstable sun-generator into the water with him, saving New York City.
Spider-Man 3: Venom grabs Harry's glider and tries to kill Spider-Man, but Harry intercepts and is stabbed instead, in the same manner his father was.
Spock's death in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan is another Heroic Sacrifice where he fixes the Enterprise's warp core and enables the ship to escape the impending blast of the Genesis Device, but dies from radiation poisoning.
- Data does the same thing in Star Trek: Nemesis.
- And we would be very remiss to forget George Kirk staying onboard the Kelvin to protect the escape shuttles from enemy fire. The conversation with his wife, where he tells her he loves her steers this straight into Tear Jerker territory, no pun intended.
Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi: Darth Vader.
In Terminator 2, Miles Dyson — one of the scientists primarily responsible for the development of Skynet and its technologies — is mortally wounded by a swat team infiltrating Cyberdyne Systems. He stays behind while the heroes escape in order to detonate their explosives and destroy all the research on Skynet.
- The T-800 himself also gets one, when he lowers himself into the molten metal to destroy himself and ensure that Judgement Day never occurs.
- Terminator: Salvation absolutely takes the cake. When John Connor's heart is pierced and failing, Marcus offers his own heart as a transplant.
In Transformers: Revenge Of the Fallen, Jetfire rips his own spark out so that Optimus can use his parts to fight The Fallen.
- Optimus Prime himself kinda has one of these, after fighting Megatron, Starscream and Grindor and assuming them beaten, he drops his guard to see if Sam is still alright and Megatron stabs (and shoots) him from behind, which kills him. With his last words, he tells Sam to run. He Got Better at the end of the film though by coming Back From The Dead (in true Optimus Prime tradition).
In Volcano, a train supervisor is going in with the rest of the men to save passengers and the train operator, who have been trapped in a rail car that is being engulfed by lava. He chases the others out before they succumb to fumes or heat and goes to get last person left, the operator, dragging him out "fireman's carry" on his shoulders, and we can see the train has already gotten so hot from the approaching lava that his shoes are melting, as he starts reciting the Lord's Prayer ("Our father, who art in heaven...") As he reaches the front of the train, lava has already gotten around in front of the train. The other railroad employees, who have escaped into the clear and can't reach him, implore him to jump and save himself. With only seconds to spare, holding the man on his shoulders, he jumps, landing in the pool of lava, then, with the last of his strength, throws the other man clear.
- Also, the SWAT team/demolitions guy who gets pinned under some rubble while he and his partner place explosives critical to the survival of L.A. Knowing that they'd never get the guy out in time, they give the "all clear", leading to the explosives going off, saving L.A. Touching.
Subverted in The Hunt for Red October. As the Soviet sub is being evacuated following the false reactor accident, Captain Ramius tells the ship's doctor to go with the crew in the life rafts while Ramius and the officers submerge and "scuttle the ship" (to which the doctor replies that Ramius will "receive the Order of Lenin"). Unbeknownst to the doctor and crew, Ramius intends to meet up with an American sub to defect and hand over the Red October. The crew is rescued by a US destroyer, upon whose deck they see the surface elements of an undersea battle, culminating in an explosion which they believe destroys the Red October.
Ken in the film In Bruges sacrifices himself in the name of Ray's redemption by tossing himself off the top of tower and splattering on the cobblestone pavement below. The original intention was to deliver a gun to Ray and warn him so that he could defend himself, but the gun was apparently crushed under his massive body, so he was only able to give the warning. Ken even prepares for the event by putting on a black suit, leaving his will tucked away on the dresser, and displaying an almost stoic attitude towards his boss (but getting shot in the leg still hurts like a bitch).
In The Dark Knight, Batman confesses to the killing of Harvey "Two Face" Dent and takes the fall in order to protect Dent's image as the 'good guy' that the city needs. He becomes a fugitive from this point on, even though he did not kill Dent.
Nearly EVERYBODY in Damnatus. Injured Oktavian stays behind and blows himself up when discovered. Adeodatus grenades himself to both try and destroy the daemon and prevent his own possession (he only succeeds on the second count). Von Remus pulls a You Shall Not Pass to let Nira escape. Nira herself then dies trying to banish G'guor. Farseer Phaer makes one too...from beyond the grave!
- "In this universe, one is either sacrificed or sacrifices themself." Arc Words indeed.
In the original cut of the I Am Legend movie, Will Smith's character blows himself up with a bunch of zombies in the end so that the woman and her child can escape with the vaccine that would cure the zombies.
In ReturnOfTheJedi, after Luke refuses to take Darth Vader's place as The Dragon, the Emperor tortures him to death but Vader grabs the Emperor from behind to stop him and is electrocuted in the process.

Close Film

Many, many, many in Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts novel.
- At the climax of Honour Guard: Several Ghosts attempt to get an icon to where it will activate a weapon, knowing that the person doing it will die. Several suffer crippling injuries. Finally, Vamberfield does it as he saw in his vision, after suffering nine wounds as the martyr (whose icon it is) suffered, and dies.
- In Traitor General, shortly after their meeting, Landerson tells Gaunt that the hounds have his scent and says he will lead them off; Gaunt dismisses this as a Stupid Sacrifice and saves him. He offers again, in the Untill, to carry the unconscious Feygor because it will not matter if he falls behind.
- In Only In Death, when the Blood Pact are climbing a net of ropes, Gaunt, also on the net, cuts the ropes so they all plummet.
- Necropolis has one that serves as the Crowning Moment Of Awesome for a character who's been a pain in the neck for Gaunt and the other heroes, as Commissar Kowle, in the face of a Chaos Beast, allows the beast to bite off his own arms... which were holding a belt of grenades, which explode and kill the Chaos Beast, allowing Gaunt to reactivate the Shield.
In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000 novel Titanicus, Varco, in command of a handful of soldiers because he had given orders when they were in disarray, finds a tower hiding the engines about to attack the planet. He brings it down at the cost of every life in the company. This not only alerts people to their existence, it stems off internal disputes as their engines go to fight them off.
In Lloyd Alexander's Black Cauldron, the titular cauldron can only be destroyed when someone willing enters the cauldron, fully aware that he will die. At the end, the Jerk Ass of the story redeems himself by jumping in.
Cazaril in The Curse of Chalion by Lois Mc Master Bujold. Three times. He still ends up alive.
Sydney Carton from Charles Dickens's A Tale Of Two Cities is an enduring, classic and saddening version; he looks exactly like the man whom the woman he loves loves, so Sidney saves the other man from execution by replacing the other man during a visit to his cell. The last words of the book are the page quote, illustrating his possible Last Words, though more of an expression of his last thoughts than anything said out loud.
Diane Duane's Young Wizards series takes it as a given that defeating the Lone Power will require someone making a Heroic Sacrifice. In particular, Deep Wizardry concerns one of the protagonists unintentionally signing away her life in payment for a previous act. Played even straighter when Ed, the Eldest Shark, willingly substitutes himself.
- Also in Young Wizards, the avatar of a Power is taunted with the fact that to fully embody, his passenger would have to kill the host and "he would never do that". The avatar promptly responds with "But I would", and throws a spear intended to be deflected so that it veers back around and hits him in the chest. He doesn't die, but the intention of a heroic sacrifice was there, and he comes close enough that the Power is released.
Eponine in Les Miserables, kind of. She only gets shot to save him because she wanted to die first, she still wanted him to die though.
Madame Akkikuyu, the rat fortune-teller in Robin Jarvis's Deptford Mice trilogy. In volume one, The Dark Portal, starts off as an unscrupulous trader who descends into fully-fledged villainy under the influence of Jupiter, rat god of the sewers, but demonstrates the possibility for redemption when she momentarily considers running away with Audrey instead of delivering her to Jupiter's altar. In volume two, The Crystal Prison, she has lost her memory and appears to have changed for the better in Fennywolde but unwittingly is still under the influence of Jupiter. Finally earns redemption at the last minute, when she recognises Jupiter and realises his evil plan, then throws herself into a fire to save Alison Sedge, the mouselet she was supposed to sacrifice, and prevent Jupiter's return to life. Of course, she also inadvertently starts a massive fire in Fennywolde and unwittingly completes Jupiter's spell anyway, so her sacrifice is all the more tragic in that she earned personal redemption but failed to hold Jupiter back.
In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 Ultramarines short story "Chains Of Command", Captain Idaeus sacrifices his life to bring down a bridge the enemy are using. (After passing on his sword to a subordinate.)
- In Nightbringer, Virgil Ortega and his fellow Arbites seize the armory and rig it to explode, to keep it from the hands of the rebels, without regard for the danger. Even when it becomes clear that it will cost all of them their lives.
- In Dead Sky Black Sun, Leonid, having persuaded Uriel to leave him behind because he is dying, explodes a grenade, taking out monsters that could have chased the escaping Marines.
The climax Garth Nix's Abhorsen. To bind Orannis, Lirael goes in assuming that she will die, as symbolised by her ringing of the bell Astarael. Then the Disreputable Dog bites off her hand to save her and sacrifices her own life instead. Tear Jerker indeed.
In the ending of Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce, Liam Ironarm for all his shang-dragon-ness realizes that he can't catch eight arrows at once and takes them to save Jonathan's life. Later the Shang Wildcat delivers a letter to Alanna, written by Liam before the last battle, which confirms that his death had been foretold.
The title character in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (He Got Better).
- Additionally: Lily Potter, Dumbledore, Snape, Neville, Hagrid, Regulus Black, Wormtail (okay, maybe not quite that heroic), and everyone who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. Not all of them were deaths, though.
In The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Nathaniel, the main character, dies in the final pages of the book while defeating an evil spirit. He dismisses Bartimaeus and sacrifices himself.
In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, the housecarl Kaleb thinks his master Garro chosen by the God-Emperor and so faced with a viral weapon, he saves his master for the Emperor's work. The Apothecary with Garro explicitly says that he gave up his life to save them.
In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 novel Faith & Fire, Iona takes up the mask of Repentia, because honorable death is her only good fate, and it spares the rest of her squad.
In Gav Thorpe's Warhammer 40000 novel Angels of Darkness, the Dark Angels are in a fortress where a virus is free. Boreas convinces them that their duty is to remain there, and die because their suits can not preserve their lives longer than the virus can last, rather than unleash it on the world. Fearing what they might do when desperate, they commit suicide together.
The Sacrifice of HMS Thunderchild in HG Wells' The War of the Worlds: in a Crowning Moment of Awesome the battleship destroys two martian vessels at the cost of itself and her crew just to allow a few refugee vessels to escape. Although London has fallen to the Martians, they are now shown to be not invincible.
Belbo in Foucaults Pendulum. Also Redemption Equals Death.
Played straight in the Ea Cycle with the Heroic Sacrifice of Alphanderry. Subverted in the case of Bemossad whose death turns out to be pointless and counter-effective for the most part and the benefit to the heroes, such as it is, comes in a way he didn't intend.
Sturm Brightblade, a Knight In Shining Armor in deed, even if he wasn't one officially through most of his life, performed one in the second Dragonlance novel, giving the other heroes a chance to activate the Lost Superweapon and giving the Knighthood an example to strive for, pulling them from their slide into corruption.
- It may be that she was just an old, mad, half-blind and technically evil dragon and only a supporting character anyway — but without Matafleur's last flight to protect 'her' children from Highlord Verminaard and his dragon mount, the attempt to free the prisoners at Pax Tharkas would have ended in fire and blood thanks to Eben's treachery and the whole original trilogy might well have ended then and there (which is to say, with the first book).
In the Stuart Slade-authored novel The Salvation War: Armageddon, in the last chapter before the epilogue a number of (dead) Romans who were enslaved by the demons of Hell are rescued by U.S. Marines in 2008 — but when the Marines' sergeant is about to walk into a tripwire for a rock trap, the dead Simplicus without thinking pushes him backward, inadvertently hits the tripwire himself, is crushed and dies a second time. Despite being dead to begin with, it's a Heroic Sacrifice because nobody knows if humans get another extra life.
- Mildly subverts the trope in that the heroic sacrifice is not intentional, and in the original thread where this story was posted there was actually a discussion before the chapter about such.
Jangotat, of The Cestus Deception, a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel, is a clone who has just been given the knowledge that his life has meaning- he's an individual person, he can love...then calls down an orbital strike on his own position to save millions, leaving a final loving message recorded for the woman who taught him he could be more.
- Jedi Knight Lorana Jinzler and Syndic Mitth'ras'safis in Outbound Flight, in order to land the dying vessel in such a way that the last fifty-seven survivors weren't killed, had to spin the entire thing around so the side they are in is crushed into the planetoid. They aren't very happy about this, and each suggests that the other move and save themself, but they both know it will take two to pull it off, and they take it calmly.
  Thrass: "It appears we will both be dying to save your people."
In the Halo novel, The Fall of Reach, the orbital drydock Cradle moves to absorb the Covenant fire and protect the human ships. Pretty much every single human who saw this was stunned by it.
- Earlier in Fall of Reach, a wounded Sam stays aboard a Covenant ship to buy John and kelly time to escape, and to ensure a bomb goes off inside the ship's reactor.
- Kurt goes out in a similar way in Ghosts Of Onyx - badly wounded, he stays behind and delays an entire Covenant army as the rest of the caste escape through the slipspace portal. He then sets off a dozen nukes, taking the Covenant with him and simultaneusly generating both the book's biggest Crowning Moment Of Awesome and Tear Jerker moment.
At the end of The Night Angel Trilogy, Elene consents to become the host an evil entity which is looking for a body to inhabit, and then stops said entity from escaping in order that her lover Kylar) can destroy the both of them.
Ezri Delmastro, Jean Tannen's love interest, gets one in Red Seas Under Red Skies in a naval battle, when The Mole triggers a fire bomb. Jean is about to go and grab it when Ezri punches him to the deck, grabs the extremely hot bomb herself, and throws it onto the opposing vessel before it explodes, burning herself alive in the process.
In the second novel DavidWeber's Hells Gate series, Prince Janaki uses his precognitive abilities to successfully defend a fort from enemy attack - despite the fact that the strength and clarity of his vision means that he will die during the battle.
In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars, Thuvia attempts to let John Carter escape by sliding from his mount, thus lessening the burden. He thinks that she does not know him well to think he would accept it — but it is Cathoris who actually rescues her, and Carter admires his son, even though his self-sacrifice would prevent their escape.
- Later, when Phaidor, a Woman Scorned, goes to stab Dejah Thoris, Thuvia throws herself between them.
King Haarahld at the end of David Weber's Safehold book, Off Armageddon Reef. Haarahld, needing their victory to be as complete as possible, tried to intercept the last of their enemy fleet only for the enemy flagship's crew to board the King's in a suicide attack. Haarahld ended up fighting alongside an eleven-year-old midshipman, who threw himself between his king and an attacker with an arbalest. Immediately upon realizing what the boy was doing, Haarahld threw him aside and took the arabalest shot in his leg, ultimately causing him to die of blood loss. This act, combined with his last words and his gallantry at sea, make King Haarahld a hero among his people.

Close Literature

Obligatory Joss Whedon examples:
- Doyle in Angel's first season.
- Spike's ultimate sacrifice in the Buffy series finale.
- Buffy in the season 5 finale. Bit of an Ass Pull, but hey, she saved the world.
- Simon Tam in Firefly was a very good one. He does not just die quickly as in most Heroic Sacrifices. He quite literally gives up his entire life, gives up fame, fortune and safety and lives the life of an outlaw just to be able to comfort his little sister in her distress. This is done without having him decay to Mary Sueishness. It is a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
  - Actually from that point on he seems to have regarded himself as living on sufferance as sort of a one man We Have Reserves for River.
Londo Mollari, one of the most complex characters on Babylon 5, saves his people from complete annihilation by allowing himself to be implanted with a mind-controlling alien symbiote.
- Years later, in the future of the Time Travel sequence, Londo, under the control of the symbiote, has the heroes at his mercy. In a moment of lucidity, he lets them go, then asks G'Kar — either his sworn enemy, his best friend, or both — to kill him so the symbiote won't alert anybody to the escape. This, G'Kar does, in a manner which Londo had foreseen decades earlier in a prophetic dream — which at the time he took to mean G'Kar would eventually murder him in cold blood. Londo is therefore an example of the Heroic Sacrifice, Redemption Equals Death and the Prophecy Twist.
  - The symbiote then wakes up, kills G'kar, and fulfills the rest of the prophecy.
- He'd also done it at the end of the Shadow War. In order to save his planet, Londo destroys the Shadow presence on Centari Prime by blowing up their island base (including a number of Centari who knew they were being asked to sacrifice themselves). When the Vorlon Planetkiller takes station above the planet, his sidekick Vir points out that there's still one person on planet who's been touched by the Shadows... Londo himself. Londo orders Vir to kill him. He doesn't, but events conspire to save Centari Prime anyway... temporarily, at least
- Kosh deserves a mention. By getting the Vorlons to strike at the Shadows, he opened himself up to be assassinated by them.
- To end the Minbari Civil War Delenn manages to trick the leader of the Warrior Cast to join her in a ritual which will decide the outcome of the war by whoever lasts in it the longest. She's replaced at the very last second by Neroon who realises that the only way to win is for one side's leader to die in the ritual.
- John Sheridan pulls one of these when he detonates a nuclear warhead in the capitol city of the Shadows ... using his own position to guide it in. He Got Better
Done rather problematically in a recent episode of Battlestar Galactica; after having her criminally shady past revealed, the pilot Kat voluntarily exposes herself to lethal levels of radiation while guiding a passenger ship through a star cluster. The episode was well-written and actually made sense, as well as providing an unexpected degree of depth to a heretofore slightly two-dimensional character, but... given that Kat had not only served quite adequately as CAG for the last year, but was one of maybe two or three pilots who'd never actually committed mutiny during the run of the series (and that one of the others was a Cylon), would anyone other than Starbuck actually have cared that much?
- Might even count as Driven To Suicide.
  - She's already taken too much radiation when she decides to fly the last mission. For her it's a choice between staying behind and probably dying anyway, or going out there, definitely dying but making a difference, atoning not only for her past but for losing the other ship earlier in the episode.
- People other than Starbuck would care because Fifth... I mean Enzo... suggested they may have (inadvertently) helped the humanoid Cylons get into the Colonies. A lot of people, including some recurring characters, would want them Thrown Out The Airlock over that.
The Fifth Doctor at the end of "The Caves of Androzani", which is seen as one of the best Doctor Who stories. Both he and Peri (a Damsel Scrappy if there ever was one) were suffering from fatal poisoning, and the Doctor gives the antidote to her. He then collapsed, and willed on by his past companions, regenerated into a new body in the best such sequence in the series.
- The Ninth Doctor performed a similar feat in "The Parting of the Ways", when he absorbed the energies of the spacetime vortex from his companion, Rose Tyler, so that they would not kill her. Instead, they killed him, forcing him to regenerate. (Actually, this episode has lots of Heroic Sacrifices, including the one made by the Doctor's other companion, Jack Harkness. (Jack gets Brought Back To Life, though.)
- Adric's death in the Doctor Who episode "Earthshock". Ultimately, he failed in his goal (and achieving it would have been impossible without a major paradox being created), but he was trying to be heroic.
  - He didn't fail completely - his actions prevented the entire population of the earth from being killed. Well, the human population, anyway.
- In "The Family of Blood", John Smith — a fake personality created by the Doctor while hiding from some villains — sacrifices himself and dies so that the Doctor can save the day.
- Gleefully subverted, however, in a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip; the Eighth Doctor is about to make a heroic sacrifice by crashing a military helicopter filled with canisters of gas into a slime creature, and makes a moving farewell speech to his friends. One of them — the spymaster whose helicopter it happens to be — sardonically points out that, whilst he appreciates the nobility of the gesture, if the Doctor just looks up he'll see a button that will allow him to eject to safety, thus negating the need for said sacrifice.
- Doctor Who has developed a very specific sub-trope of its own in which a (often unwilling) agent of the Daleks betrays them and tells them off, only to get exterminated, of course.
- Luke Rattigan in the New Season 4 episode "Poison Sky".
- The new series of Doctor Who has used this trope to the point where there seems to be more episodes with it than without. Davros actually calls the Doctor out on it in the NS 4 finale.
- There's also Harriet Jones (WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE !) whose personal timeline and career are destroyed by the Doctor and still sacrifices herself to allow the Companions the time to summon the Doctor
- In "Father's Day", after Rose destroys the timeline by saving his life, Pete Tyler allows himself to be run over by the car that was meant to kill him to restore it.
- In The Daleks' Master Plan, a desperate convict is holding Katarina hostage to hijack the ship to Kembel; he's so ignorant of Earth's history that he actually thinks the Daleks will help him. Rather than risk the Doctor risking all their necks and their chance to get word to Earth, Katarina blows the hatch.
The writers may get rid of The Scrappy in this way, in an attempt to change him from annoying pest to fondly remembered hero:
- In Doctor Who Adric, as mentioned above.
  - Also, Luke Rattigan in The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky, to an extent.
Eden, of Heroes, who kills herself to prevent Sylar from gaining her influencing abilities.
- Then subverted. D.L. takes a bullet from Linderman to save Niki. Enter season two, he is dead, and we are lead to assume that is how he died. But then a flashback to four months ago has him make a full recovery from the hospital, and is indeed well enough to go fight fires and stuff...only to get shot by some random crackhead with the hots for Niki.
In the third season finale of Lost, Charlie accepts his prophesized death and decides to go out doing something helpful. He manages to undo the jamming signal, but his real contibution is alerting Desmond to the fact that the people who have arrived at the island claiming to be rescue aren't who they seem.
- In the fourth season finale, the helicopter flying from the island to a ship waiting offshore is rapidly leaking fuel. To reach the boat, it has to lose a lot of weight. Sawyer jumps out and swims back to the island.
On 24, George Mason (the former director of CTU) is accidentally exposed to radiation early in the second season, and slowly begins to die. He secretly stows away on a plane that contains a nuclear bomb, and is being piloted into the Mojave Desert by Jack Bauer. He ends up convincing Jack to let him fly the plane on a suicide run, letting Jack parachute out and live, as well as saving millions of innocent people.
- In Season 7, a chemical plant manager called John Brunner attempts to cut off supply, when terrorists attempt to release it into the atmosphere. He instead releases a large dose into the chamber he's in, to minimize damage. Subverted, slightly, in that the attack is stopped by events elsewhere, but still, pretty damn heroic.
- A moment of silence for Bill Buchanan, who set off an explosion in a gas filled room with himself still inside it to save the President's life.
- Jack is a fan of this trope, too bad he never gets to pull it off.
Farscape — two words: "Talyn, Starburst!"
- A bit of a subversion in that the sacrifice, while incredibly moving and sniffle-worthy, isn't purely selfless, and Crais does take the opportunity to deliver a grand Just Between You And Me speech to Scorpius before he and Talyn self-destruct. Truly, he was a megalomaniac to the end. And we loved him for it.
- Don't forget when Talyn!Cricthon exposes himself to radiation to save everyone, knowing that he will die for it.
- At the end of The Peacekeeper Wars, Crichton arguably knew that both the universe and he might not make it if he used wormhole weapons to stop the war. And he did it anyway. Granted, he came out fine, but he very well might not have.
Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future: In the series finale, Corporal Jennifer "Pilot" Chase sacrifices herself to manually activate the Power Base's self-destruct mechanism, taking The Dragon and its invading horde down with her.
In Stargate SG-1, Dr. Jackson exposes himself to a fatal dose of radiation to deactivate a nuclear device and dies. Of course, dying has never actually stopped anyone in the Stargate universe (and most especially not Daniel Jackson, to the extent that other characters joke about it while he's alive and wait expectantly for his return when he's not), so two seasons later, he was Back From The Dead.
- Gerak, who chose to heal the Prior plage from Earth despite having been made a Prior himself, also qualifies. Especially when you consider that his last words were, "But I will die free!". "I die free!" was practically the rebel Jaffa's Catch Phrase.
In the pilot of Stargate Universe the senator seals a damaged shuttle through which they were losing oxygen, though doing so means being trapped inside and asphyxiating. His daughter got to watch.
- Of course he was going to die anyway from either internal bleeding or a heart condition, so he was just choosing a third option.
Supernatural: In the second season, John did this for his comatose son, Dean (who was surely about to die, or at least never wake up), causing the fandom to actually like him for once. Dean also did this for Sam, who died (and got better) in the finale, but the fanbase are torn between this being a true Heroic Sacrifice or something to do with being Driven To Suicide. In a subversion, the show treats these as destructive, selfish acts instead of noble sacrifices.
- Beyond those two big ones, Sam and Dean offer themselves up as Heroic Sacrifices on multiple other occasions. One example is Dean with the djinn in season 2. He sacrificed the ability to stay in his "dream world" - one where he doesn't have to "be a hero" and can have a normal life, including having his mother alive and his kid brother happy and not demon tainted - after realizing that in that world, all the people who the Winchesters have saved over the years are instead dead. The means for "returning" to the real world? He had to die. (Which could very easily tie this one back into Driven By Suicide, but this is *Dean* we're talking about; the two aren't exactly often far from each other when it comes to his motivations!)
- Not to mention Sam's season 4 Heroic Sacrifice which is averted when his own attempt to sacrifice his soul to save Dean is rejected. His resulting decision to damn himself slowly by using his powers seems like a noble act - until you get to the end and realize that Sam's efforts have been out of pride in his own abilities and his own innate sense of superiority, not an honest desire to do the right thing.
In lonelygirl15, Bree Avery does the Ceremony to stop the Order chasing her friends, and Gina Hart takes a bullet to save Jonas.
In Prison Break, Brad Bellick, who spent the first two seasons as a main antagonist and the third as a pain in the arse before joining the heroes in season 4, sacrificed himself to ensure the grand plan would be completed. They make a point to show the character's dead body by the time the episode is out, just to be clear.
- The series finale has Michael Scofield sacrificing himself so the final prison break can succeed and his wife and unborn child can be free.
Zordon, who, after being held hostage and drained of energy for a year, begged the man that had finally arrived to rescue him to stab his can, which was done after some convincing. The resulting magical explosion destroyed the enemy army throughout the universe, turned three villains human, and brought the rescuer's recently deceased sister back to life.

Close Live Action TV

Jesus is the archetype of this character, of course, though he's obviously not the first to have done so. Jesus had the advantage of knowing that there was an afterlife, and that he was going to sit at God's right hand... but He also knew he had to go through infinite pain, Hell.
- Three days is not that long for the reward of an eternal afterlife next to God.
- Also consider the fact that Jesus, being the Son of God according to Christianity, was one with God for all of eternity. When Jesus was crucified, He took on the sins of mankind. Because God could not look on sin, He turned away from His own Son! Imagine sharing the purest, closest, most wholesome relationship ever, and suddenly to become severed from that relationship. And Hell was more of that. The worst thing about Hell is that it is separation from God. And Jesus had to endure that. It gives new meaning to the words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The fact that this was supposed to be my and our punishment makes it even more of a heroic sacrifice.
  - This is even more starkly illustrated by the fact that He said the line quoted rather than something about the horrifying physical pain one would endure when dying of asphixiation and blood loss during the crucifixion process, to the point where a word was made specifically to describe such pain: excruciating, or "out of the cross." In other words, the pain of that separation was worse than torture that words literally could not describe.
- Because of this sacrificial act, the phrase "Pull a Jesus" is sometimes used to describe a heroic sacrifice, often by non-Christians seeking an example that their Christain friends can relate to.
Samson, anyone? Who mixed it with Taking You With Me, The Atoner and Better To Die Than Be Killed?
- Not really. He simply faced a Despair Event Horizon and went on a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge. Samson was simply a Heroic Sociopath whose actions providentially redounded to Israel's benefit. From what this tropper understands most theologians, both Jewish and Christian aggree on that point.
  - He didn't even do that. In fact, Samson was the only judge in the book who completely failed to bring peace to Israel.
Long before Jesus, a divine being helping humanity through self-sacrifice has been an enduring theme in religion and mythology. See Prometheus, doomed to be chained for eternity with an eagle devouring his entrails as punishment for giving mortals the gift of fire. Although he was eventually freed by Hercules after a few thousand years. Legends say that even then, his punishment meant Prometheus had to wear a wreath and a ring of his chains for all eternity- and in respect, humans began wearing wreaths and rings as well.

Close Religion

In Shadow Run just after his inaugural speach President Dunkelzahn rips out his own heart in an effort to stop the effects of Blood Magic and is assumed assassinated.
The Dungeons & Dragons supplement Book of Exalted Deeds advises DMs to go easy on resurrection penalties for good characters who go out on one of these; there's even the Risen Martyr prestige class.

Close Tabletop Games

At the end of Bionicle's 2007 story arc, Toa Matoro sacrifices himself by wearing the Mask of Life, which converts him into energy used to revive Mata Nui.

Close Toys

Gunstar Heroes. And its pseudosequel/remake, Gunstar Super Heroes.
Super Paper Mario feature not one, not two, but three heroic sacrifices of the other characters just before the final boss, leaving Mario all alone, temporarily anyway. They reveal to have survived their sacrifices (saving the villains at the same time), though at least one was saved by the Xanatos Roulette master villain Chessmaster, Dimentio.
- the game does have genuine heroic sacrifices on the part of Bleck and Tippi AKA Blumiere and Timpani.
In World In Conflict, you can see Captain Bannon and his subordinates doing this during an epic last stand against an overwhelming Soviet invasion force (large numbers of enemy tanks and infantry) with his already decimated forces long enough to let the main bulk of the U.S. defenders escape and get the Soviets concentrated in the area of effect of a nuclear tactical strike, more points for him since the sequence was neither corny nor cheesy.
Galuf of Final Fantasy V. He fights Exdeath, going waaaay beyond unconsciousness. The team tries to revive him, but fails. A poignant scene.
- And Gilgamesh. Just read Crowning Moment Of Awesome and Leitmotif.
After using the Dominus Glyph Union to seal away Dracula in Castlevania Order of Ecclesia, Albus gives up his soul to save Shanoa, who he had secretly loved all this time.
Deliberately avoided in Final Fantasy VII. Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase, the game's character designer and director respectively, found the idea of "heroic sacrifice" repellently artificial and gave Aerith an abrupt death which achieved nothing for the good guys (arguably the game would have ended with them victorious if she had survived at this point) to show how awful death actually is. Although they were highly successful, a certain subset of the fanbase was having none of it, with Japanese gamers going so far as to organise a petition, and one notable Internet hoax claiming her comeback was programmed in as a secret plot branch but not activated in certain versions of the game.
- Not true. Aeris' death allowed her prayers to reach the planet and caused the whole bit where the lifestream destroys the meteor in the ending. The Heroic Sacrifice just wasn't apparent immediately.
  - Wrong. The prayers were on their way anyway, as evidenced from the shine of the White Materia. It was the location that mattered, not the fact that she got stabbed.
  - Holy was what she prayed for, not the Lifestream. As indicated by the troper above, the prayer succeeded regardless of her passing. The Lifestream eventually coming to aid Holy was post-mortem heroism on her part, at best, since she was able to retain her consciousness within the Lifestream and called it into action. Please see Maiden Who Travels the Planet. Not going to place spoiler tags here, since I find it a bit unnecessary.
  - In any case, it's not a heroic sacrifice because Aeris didn't knowingly choose to die. Sephiroth came out of nowhere and killed her.
- A less-debatable example is the warrior Seto, Red XIII's father, who raced off alone to ward off the Gi Tribe. The spirits within the cave are the multitudes of warriors he bested while slowly turning to poisoned stone, after being pierced by several petrifying spears. That Seto's statue sheds tears implies he was still alive and would eternally guard Cosmo Canyon.
- As memory recalls, there was a "heroic sacrifice" on the behalf of one of the team members - late in Disc 1, prior to that one scene involving Aeris, Cait Sith sacrifices himself to do something that would basically entail suicide. Which is completely nullfied when, immediately after, "Cait Sith II" comes by and greets the party. Mostly because it's just a well-meaning Shinra executive controlling a doll, so he isn't really sacrificing his own skin or anything...
- In Crisis Core, Zack goes into the fight against ~~the squadron~~ a moderately sized army of Shinra Grunts knowing that he is most likely going to die.
In Final Fantasy X it quite soon becomes pretty obvious to the player that this is what Yunas quest is all about. Decoy Protagonist Tidus never has the slightest clue until someone finaly manages to speak out the terrible truth aloud.
A similar scenario happens with Uncle Wolfgang in Gabriel Knight 1. If his sacrifice actually did what he thought it would, the heroes would have won right there and then. Unfortunately, the Big Bad is too Genre Savvy for that to happen.
- Played straight in the same game with Malia Gedde, who in the good ending refuses to let Gabriel save her and sacrifices herself to ensure Tetelo can never influence anyone again.
In the Xbox remake of Ninja Gaiden, formerly villainous Alma does a Heel Face Turn and puts herself in the way of a blade to save her twin sister Rachel.
And I say to thee: IT SHALL NOT COME TO PASS THAT TASSADAR'S SACRIFICE SHALL BE FORGOTTEN!
Grom Hellscream in War Craft 3. Redeems himself for allowing his tribe to become corrupted by demons again by fighting (and killing) the very demon whose blood corrupted them. And in an interesting variation, the Night Elves sacrifice the World Tree in order to trap and defeat the demon general Archimonde. And with it, their immortality. Okay, the tree itself wasn't evil, but the Night Elves were responsible for bringing the demons to the world the first time.
- It mustn't be forgotten that Grom Hellscream inflicted the blood curse on his people in the first place, just like how the Night Elves' ancestors were corrupted and tricked into bringing the demons to their own world. Corruption is a big thing in the Warcraft storyline, doubly so for Orcs and Night Elves.
Final Fantasy IV has so many of these it gets ridiculous (two of them are literally within five minutes of eachother), even if all but one are Disney Deaths.
- Five, to be precise.
The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess - In the final battle against Ganondorf, Midna summons her pieces of the Fused Shadow and teleports Link and Zelda out of the castle. She becomes the Twili Arachnid and attacks Ganon, then outside Link and Zelda see the castle explode. Ganondorf appears on a black horse, holding Midna's helmet, which he crushes in his hand. It is assumed that Midna had been killed, but she later is revived in her true form.
- And earlier in the same game, Midna is near death after Zant exposes her to intense light. Link, trapped in wolf form, brings her to Zelda, who performs magic to save Midna's life while fading into nothingness herself. She gets better...in time to become the first stage of the final boss fight. Fan theory is divided as to whether she passed her life essence into Midna, or the Triforce of Wisdom, or did something else entirely. Whatever she did, it worked.
It's also a good way to build up dramatic deaths in Super Robot Wars. Ouka Nagisa did this to kill Agilla Setme for good. Later in Original Generation Gaiden, Altis Tarl covered Folka from a deadly shot that would otherwise kill him. And thus he's killed for good. Heroic BSOD occurs for Folka for several minutes, until Sanger snaps him out.
- Subverted, however, early on in the first Original Generation. In an attempt to prove to the heroes that his Face Heel Turn is for real, Sanger attacks your mothership with enough force to destroy it. An otherwise normal mechanic with an interest in gambling manages to get a larger-sized mech working just in time to intercept Sanger and take the hit instead. Thankfully, said mech is a Mighty Glacier and ends up crippled but salvagable, not to mention it breaks Sanger's sword taking the attack, forcing Zonvolt to call it a day.
- Also done by Sanger's evil undead cyborg clone from another dimension, Wodan Ymir. After his climactic battle with Sanger, he decides to stop blindly following orders and fight to protect the woman(/supercomputer) that they both love. He proceeds to annihilate no less than thirteen cyborg supersoldiers in a single blow, causing his mech to explode from the overload and previous injuries.
The existence of this trope is lampshaded in Final Fantasy XII by Balthier, prior to the late-game Pharos dungeon. There is indeed a Heroic Sacrifice, but it's performed by Reddas.
Balthier: Vaan. A word. If something untoward should happen to me, you're taking the Strahl.
Vaan: Untoward? What's this about?
Balthier: I am the leading man. Might need to do something heroic.
Botta and a couple of nameless Renegades sacrifice themselves to let the heroes escape a flooding dungeon in Tales Of Symphonia. Later on, all of the party members appear to do this in order to let Lloyd reach Yggdrasill in time to save Colette. They come back, though, because an RPG without a party to support you is pretty much useless.
- Also seemingly done at the very end of the game by Tabatha, who becomes the vessel for Martel.
In Final Fantasy VI Worthy Opponent General Leo dies a heroic death fighting against Kefka, but fails to achieve anything by doing so..
In Soul Nomad And The World Eaters, Gig performs a Heroic Sacrifice in the "good" ending by going critical and destroying three gods with his full power, saving the world in the process. Subverted because, being The Grim Reaper, he simply has himself reborn afterwards in a new body. He just needed access to his full powers to be able to do it — which the main character gave to him like the sucker he/she was.
Alys Brangwyn from Phantasy Star IV took a dark blast from Zio meant for Chaz. Interestingly, she doesn't die immediately. Even more interestingly, the group's White Mage specifically mentions the game's healing spell doesn't work on her.
Subverted in Metroid Fusion. At first, it looks as if the only way to destroy the SA-X is to destroy the Biologic Space Labs, which would necessarily mean Samus' death. When Adam points this out to her, she simply says "... I know," showing that she is completely ready to give her life in order to get rid of her Evil Twin. However, Adam reveals that there's a way for her to escape — and in the process, utters a phrase that quite literally opens her eyes.
- Played completely straight in Super Metroid, of course. The whole Metroid larva business.
Possible subversion in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain: at the start of the game, Kain is resurrected as a vampire to avenge his killers, and after the deed is done he must find a way to rid himself of his vampyric curse. It is heavily implied to him that by murdering the nine Pillar guardians of Nosgoth he might be able to restore balance to the land and rid himself of his vampyric unlife. Yet, in the end Kain pieces together the puzzles and figures out that he himself is the last pillar guardian, and that his aides meant for him to sacrifice himself so that the pillars may be healed and he be released from his curse — in death. Surprisingly, according to canon, he chooses to rule Nosgoth as its vampire king instead.
- That's because he had become the last vampire in existance due to his own actions in the game, set in motion by one of the now-dead pillar guardians. It turns out that if vampires, the original makers of the pillars, become extinct, the pillars fall then too. The choice was in fact no choice at all, so Kain chose to take the longer route and try to find a way to beat the odds.
  - "There are only two sides to your coin." "Ah, but suppose that one day... the coin lands on its edge?"
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 yet. First, the main character takes an attack meant for Grovyle and is turned into a Pokemon and loses his/her memory. Then, Celebi stays behind to face Dusknoir. Then, Grovyle gives up his freedom and possibly his life to save the main character. Then, the main character fixes the flow of time, thereby erasing him/herself from existence.
Kingdom Hearts: Sora sacrifices himself in order to restore Kairi's heart. Saving her also means unlocking The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and brings The End Of The World As We Know It that much closer, but hey, it got better.
- Then in Kingdom Hearts II, a villain...no, two villains sacrifice themselves to save Sora. One of them dies, and the other doesn't.
In the back-story for Icewind Dale, the hero sacrificed himself to close an open gate to hell, his blood somehow locking the gate. The Big Bad destroys this seal. The priest of the temple that was later built on the site then repeats the sacrifice, earning the heroes time to confront the Big Bad.
Turns out in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed that this trope is the impetus for the birth of the Rebel Alliance. Though it was technically formed before the sacrifice, Galen's final act provides them with a martyr to rally around and inspire them. Nice job breaking it, Vader and Palpatine.
In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Micaiah can prevent Pelleas' death by throwing herself in front of him to protect him from the sword slash. A bit different from the usual situation since Pelleas is trying to pull a Heroic Sacrifice in the first place, and both their reasoning has definite shades of Martyrdom Without A Cause.
In Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Frey sacrifices himself as a decoy in order for Marth and company to escape. In the Easy version this can be any of the Cavaliers, but in Hard mode, Frey is absent, making him the canonical sacrifice.
Abused to the point of head banging in Tales of the Abyss, where first Ion willingly goes with Anise and Mohs to read off the Planet Score, knowing that it will kill him, but not wanting to put Anise's parents in danger. It ends up working in the player's favor, as he is able to save Tear and give the party one last clue before dying, but still a blow to the player. And then there's Asch, who may as well be suicidal, between the many times he's been stabbed, shot, and otherwise mutilated and didn't seem to care. His initial sacrifice is subverted by Luke at the Tower of Rem, but he ultimately meets his end buying the party time in the final dungeon, the animated cutscene driving the point home. Lastly, there's Luke himself, who spends most of the game thinking that his death would be some sort of redemption for his stupidity, and eventually succeeding in supposedly dying at the end of the game. Geeze.
The World Ends With You has these out the wazoo. Before the game even happens, Beat tries to push his sister Rhyme out of the way of an oncoming car and just four days thereafter, she pushes him away from a Shark Noise— and it's even implied that she briefly regained her lost memories. Then, in the second week, Joshua takes the full brunt of Minamimoto's attack, saving Neku; however, this is then subverted when Joshua turns out to be The Composer, who simply warped into another dimension and prevented the blast from touching Neku simultaneously; plus, he had ulterior motives. Even a few Reapers get one: 777 as well as Kariya and Uzuki lend Beat and Neku their keypins after being defeated; 777 is killed for mutiny, and the other two soon get sucked into Instrumentality. And finally, everyone gets absorbed by Megumi, and once Megs is offed, Neku gets shot by Joshua in a game, which it turns out was what saved Shibuya from total erasure in the first place. Yeesh.
At least two cases of it in Fallout 3 (there might be one or two in sidequests this troper missed). The player's father gets one first, when he sacrifices himself to protect Project Purity by sealing the control room and flooding it with radiation while inside. The player (if they take the good karma route) sacrifices him/herself to activate Project Purity (the control room for which is still flooded with radiation, from the father's sacrifice).
The main character in Persona 3.
In The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Martin breaks the Amulet of Kings, turning himself into an avatar of Akatosh to do battle with Mehrunes Dagon. Unfortunately, when the avatar disappears, so does Martin.
In Chrono Trigger, Crono sacrifices his body, if not his spirit, to protect his friends from Lavos in the Ocean Palace.
In Suikoden V, Roy disguises himself as the hero to go out and fight a duel that he knows is a trap and defeats the enemy commander, Childerich. Childerich promptly orders his entire army to fire a storm of arrows at Roy, and Roy deflects most of them before being finally punctured. Most players will never see it, as the game beats you over the head to keep you from taking the action leading to this, but it's still the character's Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
Subverted in the Soul Series, where Siegfried expects to die in the process of redeeming himself, but survives in his good ending in Soul Calibur 3. As the scene fades out, he remembers Nightmare's comment "You have no right to live," and replies (though Nightmare is ''theoretically'' dead) "It doesn't matter. I will live on. To live... that is my redemption."
- And again, in Soul Calibur 4. In his own ending Siegfried does indeed commit a Heroic Sacrifice that in turn gets brutally subverted by Soul Calibur itself's extremism, but in Hilde's ending, he confesses to having created and once been the Azure Knight, and tells her he wants her to kill him. Instead, Hilde declares him to have atoned for his sins and that he can now live in peace.
Seems to happen all the time in Metal Gear Solid.
- Gray Fox destroys Rex's sensor array, rendering it vulnerable in the process. He is crushed into past shortly after a cool monologue.
- Peter Stillman in 2. Kinda.
- The Boss was a sacrificing herself for her country all along in part 3.
- Subverted in 4, when Snake can't quite bring himself to suicide.
  - Not completely subverted in 4. Raiden seems hellbent on doing this, fighting a legion of Gekkos twice to let Snake escape , Slicing off his own arm and stopping a submarine larger than a aircraft carrier to save Snake again, And it seemling ends with him crushed and dead...Only to reveal in the next chapter he's still alive, He just lost his other arm. And he's STILL hellbent on being a sacrificing himself to save Snake, Without his arms (Yet ironically still armed with a sword , He fights off a group of soldiers to buy Snake time...again. And after all this, He gets a Happy Ending.
  - Big Boss in 4, In a way. He knew going to see Snake would kill him due to the new FOXDIE strain, But chose to do so, Knowing he and Zero had to end it to prevent the same events from repeating again.
Super Mario Galaxy. Bowser's star reactor sinks into the sun after Mario beats him one last time. This causes the sun to implode and create a massive super black hole that is sucking up everything in the universe. All the Lumas then jump into the hole to prevent it from destroying life any further. Although this may fall under a Disney Death since Rosalina mentions that the Lumas will eventually be reborn.
In Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, there's actually a spell that does this; Farewell. When the monster uses it, it instantly dies in exchange for fully reviving any other fallen allies. However, sometimes the user gets lucky and survives, albeit with only 2 hp.
The final mission of Hostile Waters consists simply of escorting the Cool Ship, turned into a walking (well, floating) bomb, into the heart of the enemy installation. It seems to work, too. Though the ending and The Stinger suggest otherwise.
Zero of Mega Man X and Zero makes a lot of Heroic Sacrifices throughout his life/lives (he's got a tendency to return Back From The Dead one too many times...):
- Mega Man X (first game): destroying Vile's Mini Mecha to give X the upper hand in what was supposed to be a Hopeless Boss Fight.
- Sometime between X and Zero: sealing himself, and surrendering his body to begin the study of The Virus, enabling the means to ultimately destroy said virus.
- Zero 4: (a real big one, and arguably the best of his entire efforts) opting to stay on board a falling space satellite instead of allowing it to crash on the last free colony of humans. On top of that, his actions finally bring about the peaceful era for humans and Reploids that he had been fighting for in a very long time.
- ZX Advent: as Model Z, in an echo to above, staying behind in Ouroboros to stabilize the Quirky Miniboss Squad while Ouroboros was collapsing, so his allies could escape.
Other characters in the Mega Man series have made Heroic Sacrifices, although most of them are also cases of Redemption Equals Death:
- Dr. Doppler of Mega Man X 3.
- General of X4.
- Ferham of Mega Man X Command Mission.
- Girouette, Zero's Expy, from Mega Man ZX.
- MegaMan.EXE at the end of Mega Man Battle Network 3. He gets better.
Super Metroid. You know the scene I'm talking about.
Ilya or Shirou in Fate Stay Night, Heavens Feel route. The first is a bittersweet ending as Saber and Archer don't make it either and Shirou gives up on his ideals but otherwise good. The second is a real downer.
Vayne attempts to do one at the end of Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Al Revis. Depending on the Relationship Values the player has built up over the course of the game, the party member he has grown closest to will talk him out of it.
Two in Wild Arms 1.
- First, Boomerang, one of the villains, impressed by the party's strength, decides to give his life to protect them from rampaging demons (or from a newly revived Berserk, in the remake). He comes back as a bonus boss in the arena though, claiming to have fought his way out of hell for another chance to fight the party.
- Then, at the end of game, Asgard, a Golem befriended by the party, saves them from Ziekfried's final attack, but is destroyed in the process.
In Overlord II, during an Enemy Mine between the Elven Sanctuary and the Overlord to defeat The Glorious Empire, Queen Fay offers her own energy to the Overlord to power the Tower Heart. This doesn't kill her however, instead corrupting her and making her a Fallen Hero who serves the Overlord. If you're REALLY evil, you can kill her after her corruption, upon which her ghost becomes your mistress instead.
At the end of Ikaruga, after the Hopeless Boss Fight, the pilot uses a final attack on the Stone-Like that also kills him.
Midway through Cave Story, the protagonist and Guest Star Party Member Curly Brace are trapped in a flooded room. Curly gives up her air tank, drowning in the protagonists' place. If you're on-track for the good ending, it's possible to strap her to your back, carry her out, and save her life.

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Kid Radd: Bogey lets the titular character kill him in the final chapter, dropping a power-up that saves his life from an imminent, apocalyptic blast. It's very effective. He gets better though.
Played with in Bob and George: when the heroes, in desperation, decide to kill Card Carrying Villain Bob by dropping an asteroid on his fortress even though the impact will also kill the heroes and the many, many innocent people who happen to be to be within range. Bob decides that, since he's going to die anyway, he might as be the only one who does, and he blows himself up to stop the asteroid. Of course, they Never Found The Body, So Yeah...
Girl Genius: Lars shoves Agatha out of the way of an enraged Baron Wulfenbach's downswing, putting himself in the way instead, and pays dearly. His death results in a nearly-Unstoppable Rage from Agatha.
- It also earns him incredible respect from the Jagermonsters. Maxim even gives up his hat (the one thing Jagers prize above all else) to be buried with Lars, because he's made himself as good as a Jager with his act, and no Jager should be buried without a hat. Tellingly, Maxim is still hatless.
Erfworld: Bogroll taking down Lord Ansom himself. There's no possible greater glory for the lovable oaf.

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Survival of the Fittest character David Jackson attacking Jacob Starr to buy time for Adam Dodd to free Amanda Jones and Madelaine Shirohara from a locked warehouse. David dies in the ensuing gun battle, though not before wounding Jacob.
- Also subverted in the case of Simon Wood, when he attacked Darnell Butler to buy time for his girlfriend, Madison Conner, to escape. The catch? Darnell isn't playing. Simon is killed in the ensuing fight, albeit accidentally.
The Leet World: After being severely damaged by Ahmad, Asher activates his self destruct mechanism. Ahmad goes into Flash Step mode and tackles him, taking the explosion himself and saving the rest of the cast.
In the first act of Sapphire Episode III, Ivanka offers to be executed in Alec's stead. A Senseless Sacrifice is narrowly avoided.

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Shandala and Kamimura at the end of Broken Saints.

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Kenny in the South Park movie, earning a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming in the process.
Batman the Brave and the Bold: "I have an idea. Just not sure it's a good one." — Blue Beetle II (Ted Kord)
In the second episode of Ben 10 Alien Force, the plumber agent saves Kevin's life, but tears his suit - since he doesn't breathe air, he dies. This is considered part of the reason Kevin agrees to help Ben for the rest of the series.
In Code Lyoko, Aelita is sometimes a bit too eager to make some Heroic Sacrifice, despite the very strong disapproval of her friends (especially Jérémie). She actually went through it in Season 1 episode "Just in Time", but Jérémie managed to bring her back to the virtual world. Another close call was in Season 2 final "The Key".
- In the end, her father, Franz Hopper, made the Heroic Sacrifice to destroy XANA, his creation, once for all.
In Futurama, Fry, upon realizing that Leela's oxygen tank is empty, and that she is too busy fixing the ship in order to save the lives of the crew to listen to his warnings, plugs her tube into his own full tank and suffocates, saving her. He gets better.
- Also, the whole Space Bee thing, throwing himself in front of Leela so the bee would sting him. It didn't quite work out as planned...
- Also, in "Into the Wild Green Yonder", Fry realizes that he is "the Dark One", who he has been pursuing, and must kill in order to save the galaxy. He is in possession of the only weapon that can kill the Dark One, and therfore uses it on himself. Fortunately, his logic was flawed (as usual) and he survives, and also kills the real Dark One, who was hidden nearby.
Kids Next Door: In what is possibly the only existing example without any possibility of physical injury, Tommy Gilligan (Numbuh 2's brother) has just been assigned to Sector V. He saves the sector, and the whole organization, from being turned into animals by the Big Bad. However, it turns out that by removing his boogers from the registry (don't ask), he is not allowed to be part of the organization, even though the others (who had never liked him) now believe he should be.
In King of the Hill, Bobby becomes covered in a swarm of angry, venomous fire ants that cover their victims and kill them by all biting at the same time. However, Dale grabs his hand, allowing the ants to swarm onto him instead (Dale is an exterminator, and the ants have a grudge), whereupon they proceed to all bite him at the same time, nearly killing him. He gets better, though Hank first has the opportunity to cradle him in his arms and thank him for saving his son.
As in the comics example mentioned above, Ferro Lad on Legion of Super Heroes sacrifices himself to stop the Sun-Eater in the first Season Finale.
In ReBoot, Hexadecimal, after her Heel Face Turn, in order to destroy Daemon, fragmented herself in order to administer a cure to the Net.
- And just before doing that, gives little Enzo a parting gift that alters his icon so that when he touches Nibbles again, its mind is restored and Wellman Matrix returns to Mainframe... well, as a null, anyway.
In Superman: Doomsday, an internally-injured Superman, seeing Doomsday about to murder a child for the fun of it, flies him up past the atmosphere and then gives him the biggest bodyslam in history. The impact kills Supes, too.
Dinobot, in the Transformers: Beast Wars episode "Code of Hero", fights the entire Predacon force on his own to prevent them from altering history. He drives them off, but is mortally wounded in the process.
- Luckily for him though, he got to die as he lived — quoting Shakespeare.
In the Transformers Armada episode "Crisis", Optimus Prime sacrifices himself to shield Earth from the Hydra Cannon. He comes Back From The Dead three episodes later.
- In the season finale, Megatron sacrifices himself to prevent Unicron from reviving.
In 'Transformers Animated, Optimus Prime does this in "Transform and Roll Out", defending the Allspark from Starscream. He comes Back From The Dead about a minute later, though.
- There's also Omega Supreme, much to Ratchet's dismay. He sacrifices himself heroically twice, once offscreen, in the Great War, and the second time in the same episode he's resurrected in, this time to protect the Autobots from the blast of the malfunctioning space bridge. The mech's the embodiment of this trope - he's literally made to sacrifice himself if need be!
- Arguably, Bumblebee in "Autoboot Camp" might qualify, although it is non-fatal. He does, after all, take the blame for a tower falling on his Drill Sergeant, Sentinel Minor, to protect Bulkhead from being drummed out, since Bulkhead saved his life when the spy in the camp replaced the paint in the weapons used for a training exercise with live ammo. After he's (supposedly) caught the spy, and Sentinel has told him that he's Elite Guard material, Bumblebee gets drummed out instead. Sentinel is a real Jerk Ass.
- And now there's Prowl letting himself be absorbed by the Allspark to give it enough strength to stop the Omega Supreme clones, which are rigged with bombs, from destroying everything in a hundred-mile radius, drawing tears from every fan watching.
- In the Japanese Transformers: The Head Masters, Optimus sacrifices himself to stabilize Vector Sigma at the beginning of the season. This is his Final Death of the series, at least in animated form(there was later a toy line and manga called Battlestars: The Return Of Convoy, where he was brought Back From The Dead).
"What are you doing?!?" "Saving the jerk who dumped me."
Wolverine And The X Men gave one to a Sentinel named "Rover." Best friend to Marrow and only able to say the word 'destroy' with varying degrees of emotion. To get the information to stop the Bad End Rover gets into a fight with five evil Sentinels. Buying time for Professor X and the others to get the information needed and escape. He's being destroyed by a bunch of tiny wolf-like sentinels, his last word is to his friend Marrow, "Run."
Batman attempts this in the Season 2 Grand Finale of Justice League. To prevent the Thanagarian's hyperspace bypass generator from destroying Earth, he sets the Watchtower space station on a collision course with the generator, then insists on staying in the Watchtower to insure that it doesn't drift off-course. Superman realizes what Batman is doing, and flies in to pull Bats out, just in time.

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Zhenya Tabakov http://www.orble.com/7yr-old-dies-protecting-his-sister/
A group Heroic Sacrifice - United Flight 93 on September 11th. After learning that 3 other planes had been used as weapons against thousands, passengers assaulted their hijackers, knowing it would probably lead to their deaths. It did, but countless lives were saved at wherever the intended target site was. Various cell phone calls to loved ones indicate that some of the passengers knew exactly what they were doing and there was no chance of surviving.
Liviu Librescu. During the Virginia Tech massacre, he held the door of his classroom shut, allowing most of his students escape. He was shot through the door, and died.
Falling on a grenade.
Subverted, if story behind "Burghers of Calais" sculpture is to be believed.

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