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"Take your Jedi weapon. Use it. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger!"
When a character, usually after a defeat, commands the victor to kill them. Whether because they have despaired due to their defeat, were already a Death Seeker, or just because their Pride won't let them rest knowing they were beaten. They will also ask this if it is a Mercy Kill, and they are threatened by a Cruel and Unusual Death or a Fate Worse Than Death if the victor doesn't do this. Either way, they figure dying is better than going on living.
...Or do they? Alternatively, their death could be just the beginning, and they are using this opportunity to set their Evil Plan in motion as being spared would be great but their death leads to other benefits. Then again it could be the latest move in Xanatos Speed Chess, as a Secret Test of Character, or the enacting of a Thanatos Gambit.
Either way, it is crucial to them that they be killed, and if the potential killer be reluctant, they may try to provoke them in any way they can, whether through a particularly vicious Break Them By Talking or perhaps revealing (or lying) that they have his wife.
Please don't confuse with Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter. Contrast Get It Over With, where the character usually doesn't want to die but sees it as a foregone conclusion. See also Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- In Bleach, Ulquiorra asks for this before he dies. Ichigo doesn't, and, well, Ulquiorra ends up disintegrating anyway.
- This is the whole point of the two Mikos true purpose in Kannazuki no Miko: one must kill the other in order to fix the damage done to the world by Orochi. Too bad they are eternally in love with each other.
- One Piece had Zoro order Mihawk to do this to him after he lost the duel. At first it seems that he complied, but he made sure the wound was non-lethal so they could duel again in the future.
- In Trigun, Legato uses his Mind Control powers to make a group of civilians tie up Meryl and Millie and hold them at gunpoint in view of Vash. This is an attempt to force Vash to break his refusal to take life, as any attempt to non-lethally subdue Legato would give him time to make his mind control victims shoot Meryl and Millie. Vash eventually stops Legato by reluctantly shooting him in the head, which leaves him horrified.
Comic Books
- Rorschach from Watchmen. "Do it!"
- Green Goblin does a legitimate version of this in the "Return of the Green Goblin" storyline; after receiving a righteous beating from Spidey, he quietly asks him to just kill him and end it (the story had revealed that he has considered killing himself probably more than once, but simply cannot do it).
Film
Literature
Live-Action TV
- In Luther, Ian Reed tries to make the title character do this because he doesn't want to live with the shame of having his crimes exposed. Luther, however, decides to give him Cruel Mercy instead.
Video Games
- This line is invoked twice in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. The first is when Kyle has to choose between the Light or Dark Side when Jerec has captured Kyle's pilot Jan Ors and goads him into killing her to get Kyle to turn to the Dark:
Jerec: Strike her down and realize your true power as a Dark Jedi - your true power!
- Second time is in the Light Side ending, after Kyle has defeated Jerec. Again, Jerec is trying to goad Kyle into tapping into his dark side potential
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- The line also shows up in the prologue, when Jerec has captured Qu Rahn, a Jedi Knight and friend of Kyle's father.
Rahn: Why hesitate? Strike me down.
- Takaya Sakaki in Persona 3 requests — or rather, demands this of SEES after they defeat him near the top of Tartarus on the day of the Fall. They just walk past him, leaving him pissed off.
- In Knights of the Old Republic, after your duel with Bastila on the Star Forge, she asks you to kill her. You can oblige her or, if you try and fail to convince her to turn back to the Light Side, she attacks you and makes you kill her.
- Irritatingly, despite the obvious comparison to Rot J, killing her after you've defeated her doesn't give you any Dark Side points!
- Subverted in the sequel, where you can't kill the Big Bad after (s)he says this. Nope, you've got another fight on your hands instead.
- Bioshock, Andrew Ryan's death
A man chooses...a slave obeys! OBEYYYYYYYYY!
Tabletop Games
- Somewhat tenous example in the Warhammer 40K universe, if Space Marines die, they are sometimes interred in a Dreadnought, turning them from 7 foot tall bad-asses with massive guns, to 20 foot tall robotic bad-asses with artillery as a gun.
Web Comics
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