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Losing Is Worse Than Death

Someone said to me 'To you football is a matter of life or death!' and I said 'Listen, it's more important than that'.

—Bill Shankly

The characters consider losing a match to be dishonorable to the point where they'd rather die than lose. Often a byproduct of Honor Before Reason, or the explanation a Spirited Competitor uses because games are Serious Business.

Examples

Advertising

In one Nike commercial, a high school that enjoys "a rich tradition in the sporting arena" had a pretty bad run last year. Thus, some changes were made to the faculty - hiring current pros to coach the teams and teach actual classes. "You know sucks more than training? Losing. You know what sucks more than losing?" "...Nothing?" "Nothing."

Anime

Akagi: In the beginning of the Washizu arc, Akagi is blackmailed into losing a dice game or face death, although he doesn't cave in and chooses to win.
- It doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind Akagi is doing this after taking a katana to the shoulder.
Dragon Ball Z: Characters often have a chance to save their lives simply by breaking conventional dueling rules, but for some reason or another that is taboo.
- Heck, Goku tries to give his life to win the Cell Games. Doesn't work, though.
  - To be fair with Goku, the Cell Games had pretty high stakes.
  - Even before this, Goku was given a chance by Cell to eat a senzu bean healing his wounds completely. When Goku refuses, Vegeta explains why with this trope.
- Vegeta Too. Victory for him is winning alone and he dies twice because of it.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Winning a children's card game is so important that characters like Seito Kaiba will pull from their vast riches and cheat just to win.
- Taken a step further in The Abridged Series.
Code Geass: The whole series is chock full of chess analogies and one could argue that overall story was one big game played by Lelouch.
- Subverted by Schniezel. Does he not care about chess at all?
Occurs in One Piece, most notably with Zoro:
I prefer death to defeat.

Movies

James Bond takes poker to an absurd level, refusing to lose even when losing will give him a clean getaway.
Varsity Blues: Sam Moxon makes his son think that winning a football game takes precedence over the relationship with his troubled son.
Pulp Fiction: Butch Coolidge ends up getting a hit taken out on him for refusing to take a fall in a rigged boxing match. Although this may have had less to do with pride, and more to do with him having taken the money he was paid to lose on purpose, and betting it on himself to win for a retirement-worthy payoff.

Live Action Television

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Often Q will taunt the crew with games he's invented to test the crew's morals. He even comments that games are more important than life: "The play is the thing".

Web

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series - "I lost a children's card game, I no longer have a reason to live!" The inspiration for this trope.

Real life

Every Game Master of a tabletop gaming group probably has at least one story of a battle his players refused to retreat from no matter how many chances he gave them before the Total Party Kill.
- The Shadowrun CLUE Files has a goodly number of (hilarious) examples.
During World War II, the Japanese army often played this deadly straight, with units regularly fighting to the literal last man rather than surrender, and committing suicide if capture was inevitable.
- They were inspired by the Ancient Samurais, it's not surprising.