Even if death is not necessarily cheap in this universe, as long as you can heal yourself, you are safe. You have hurt yourself horribly before and yet you have cheated death time and time again.
Which makes this situation all the worse. One of the characters has received a horrible wound, and their friend turns to the medics and/or wizards to beg them to heal their friend. None of them step up to do it. It's not that they don't want to. It's not even that they can't, but they know it's useless. The victim(s) is mortally wounded, and none of their methods will make any difference. It's only a matter of time before they leave.
This becomes a very emotional moment because it is the first time that the cast must deal with death (well, the first time they care at least), and it almost always will be a character that the audience have already made a bond with, making the death even more powerful. Expect some parting Last Words. This may lead to Comfort the Dying if they can't save them but don't want to leave them to die or a Mercy Kill if they want to shorten their suffering.
Compare He's Dead, Jim (which covers the ways media show the death of a character), Please Wake Up (when someone tries to get someone else (who's clearly dead) to wake up) and You Are Already Dead (when an attack has a fatal but delayed effect). Contrast We Can Rebuild Him, when a character's body is too injured to heal, but can still be saved.
This trope can overlap with Doomed Hurt Guy if the injured person receives an injury that would have killed him/her but ultimately dies from a cause that is only partly or not at all directly related to said injury, for instance, severely lacerating a major artery while lost in the middle of the wilderness without access to proper first aid and getting eaten by a bear instead of slowly bleeding to death.
As a death trope, ALL SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- In Digimon Adventure, MetalEtemon attacks Mimi directly, but she is saved by Leomon who takes the hit, he survives and they defeat MetalEtemon. But then Joe tries to bandage and heal him, only to admit that is useless. Leomon has enough time to wish the kids good luck, and to apologize to Ogremon, his old "enemy", that they cannot settle who is stronger.
- In Fairy Tail, after Future Lucy takes the blow from Future Rogue's attack that was aimed for her present counterpart, her wound is revealed moments later to be fatal when Wendy, the resident healer of the group, replies sadly that the wound is to deep for her to heal which results in Future Lucy's death not long afterwards.
- Goblin Slayer: During the Greenhorn Team (Priestess's first party)'s raid of the goblin nest, Wizard is stabbed with a poisoned dagger and Priestess is unable to heal her using magic. Goblin Slayer tells Priestess that the poison has already spread through Wizard's body so much that the only way to save her is with a Mercy Kill, which he does at Wizard's request.
- This happens in One Piece at the Marineford arc. Just when Luffy managed to save his brother Ace and were about to leave, one of the strongest Admirals of the Marines attacked Luffy, but Ace got in the middle taking a lava punch that went through his chest. Luffy begged Ivankov to inject hormones into Ace as he has done on Luffy before, but both Ivankov and Ace refused, knowing it will be useless.
- In Scrapped Princess, when Pacifica is betrayed and stabbed in the back by her own brother, her adoptive sister — and one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world — Raquel desperately tries to heal her with magic, but even her abilities aren't enough to prevent her from bleeding out. Subverted after her death, when Lord Mauser herself intervenes to bring Pacifica back.
Comic Books
- Wonder Woman: Black and Gold: While the Amazons are amazing at healing trauma, their magitek medical science is useless against diseases like cancer. When Diana learns her old friend and student Cathy Perkins is dying of stage four lung cancer and that the talisman she is using to giver herself a little more time is drawing attacks that put others in danger all she can offer her friend is company while she dies despite her medical training.
Fan Fics
- Subverted in Inter Nos, a My-HiME fanfic setting the characters in a Roman Empire setting. Natsuki is gravely wounded in combat, and very much at death's door when Shizuru finds her. When the chief surgeon of their unit tells Shizuru to prepare for the likelihood that Natsuki will die, Shizuru refuses to hear them.
Shizuru: Say that again and I guarantee your non-survival. Hear me, Medicus,and the rest of you quacks in this tent: you shall guarantee her life, even if you must throw Pelion atop Ossa to do so! I shall see this girl alive or I shall end you superfluous worms myself!
- My Brother Cain, My Brother Abel: After Caleb Wittebane is stabbed by his brother, he lays dying in Evelyn's arms he attempts to save his strength until he hears the Titan's voice in his head telling him that it is too late. At which point Caleb takes Evelyn's hand, stopping her weak healing spell, and instead uses the last of his breath to comfort her.
The Titan: Focus your remaining strength. Tell her you love her. You have this one last chance. Say all you need to say.
Film — Animation
- Antz: The soldier ant Barbatus stops Z from trying to save him after the war on termites because he can tell from Z's eyes that it's hopeless, even before Z considers trying to find and reattach the rest of his body to his severed head.
- Transformers: The Movie: Following the Battle of Autobot City, Optimus Prime lies dying. Despite him recovering from heavy wounds before in the cartoon (on one occasion he was actually dismantled but his head was still functional, on another the Decepticon Laserbeak blasted his insides when he was opened up for repair), he succumbs to his wounds after passing on the Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus. In theory he could have been saved note , but among other things Autobot City had taken heavy damage from the battle with even the medlab they were treating Optimus in being makeshift. Crucially the two Autobots most qualified to try to save him (their chief medical officer Ratchet and chief engineer Wheeljack) were both killed during the fighting.
Film — Live-Action
- Defied in Hacksaw Ridge, in which the senior medic tells the hero, Desmond Doss, a Badass Pacifist medic, that a particular wounded soldier won't make it and that Doss should just give him a morphine shot and move on. Doss yells at the other medic that he doesn't know whether the soldier will live or die and works to save him anyway. The soldier survives.
- In Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Infinity Gauntlet, when used at its full-Reality Warper power, is something that is Cast from Hit Points. Thanos and Hulk, two of the heavyweights of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, are left crippled by using it, but between their Nigh-Invulnerability and Healing Factor respectively, their wounds are not lethal. The same cannot be said for Tony Stark. Despite the fact that Tony has taken a lot of abuse throughout movies, he's still physically just an ordinary human, and his use of the Infinity Gauntlet leaves him beyond even his Powered Armor's nanites to save.
- Happens in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:
- Peter Preston is horribly wounded after Khan's first attack. McCoy does all he can, but it is clear to all present that the brave young man is going to die. In the Director's Cut, Scotty even tearfully says he knows that McCoy did all that he could, acknowledging that the young man's injuries were simply too severe.
- At the climax of the movie, when Enterprise's warp drive is damaged and the ship is in danger of being consumed by the Genesis device detonation, Spock sacrifices himself to save everyone by manually fixing the warp core, giving himself a lethal dose of radiation in the process. When Kirk sees Spock in the dilithium chamber, he tries to charge in to get him out but is restrained by Bones and Scotty.
Bones: No! You'll flood the whole compartment!
Kirk: He's dying!
Scotty: Sir, he's dead already.
Literature
- Mentioned in The Dogs of War; played with in that this could also be done to a mercenary with non-fatal wounds if the mercenaries were forced to retreat and a mercenary was too badly wounded to make it out on his own:
...they accepted that either they had to win within twenty minutes or they would have to get back to their boats and leave in a hurry - those that could leave. They knew that no one was going to come looking for wounded, and that anyone finding one of his colleagues badly hurt and immovable would be expected to give him one mercenary's last gift to another, the quick, clean way out, preferable to capture and the slow death. It was part of the rules, and they had all had to do it before.
- This happens occasionally in Warrior Cats; for instance, at the end of A Light in the Mist, the medicine cats accept that Graystripe is too injured to heal.
Live-Action TV
- Forever: In "The Last Death of Henry Morgan" they find a murder victim still warm, and while the detectives spread out to look for the killer, Henry realizes the man is still alive. He tries to save him, but Adam, who has much more experience with such things, assures him the man is too far gone to save.
- Subverted in The Magical Legend Of The Leprechauns. After Jack is thrown from a horse, he's apparently killed. Kathleen pleads with the Grand Banshee to save him only to be told "I can't save Jack." Kathleen looks crestfallen for a Beat, then the Grand Banshee laughs and says "He doesn't need it. He's only winded." Jack coughs and regains consciousness.
- Outlander: When Murtagh is shot in the chest and bleeds out in front of him, Jamie cannot accept his godfather's death. Jamie's men try to tell him Murtagh is already too far gone, but Jamie won't hear of it. He drags Murtagh's body from the battlefield to the medical tent, demanding they save him. Claire, a doctor from the 20th century, takes one look at Murtagh's pale, lifeless body and knows he's dead and there's nothing 18th century medicine can do to change that. It takes several more minutes before anyone is brave enough to voice the truth to Jamie, their leader, seeing how distraught he already is.
- In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the episode "The Tears of the Prophets" involves Jadzia Dax being attacked. Bashir says that her injuries are too severe for anything to be done about them, and so she dies.
Video Games
- Baldur's Gate 2 Throne of Bhaal: At one point you'll come across a dying man who was tortured by the evil Kuo-Toa. Despite being able to easily resurrect people from the dead by this point, any party members who can cast healing spells will say that he's beyond help due to profane desecrations that were performed on him.
- Red Dead Redemption II: You can randomly come across someone being attacked by bandits or wild animals. Even if you drive the attackers away, their wounds might wind up being fatal. You can offer medicine or a last drink for the pain, though you can't be sure which one is the right answer (and the game doesn't give you any reason why you're not allowed to offer both and see which one they want).
- In the Saints Row 2 mission "Red Asphalt", rival gangsters from the Brotherhood capture one of your lieutenants, Carlos, chain him to a truck, and drag him around the docks at high speeds. No matter how fast you manage to get there and to stop the truck, Carlos, while still alive, is maimed so badly that he pleads with the Boss to Mercy Kill him. Realizing that nothing can be done for him, the Boss gives him the last dap and reluctantly shoots him in the head.
- Subverted at the beginning of Unreal Tournament III: while the rest of the Ronin team manages to get out alive of the Twin Souls massacre, Reaper ended up being mortally wounded. Jester and Othello managed to rush him onto an Izanagi Corporation medical facility, and the doctor outright told Izanagi captain Malcolm "Don't even bother with this one. No way he fights again", to which Malcolm replies "Just do it". Reaper manages to survive dying.
- In Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, one of the Apocalyptic Logs that can be found is a doctor bragging about how he is a genius and can easily heal the person who arrives at the hospital with an infected wound. The person in charge quickly points out that they are in a triage situation, as the entire hospital is filled with such injuries, and they don't have time to treat anyone that has anything more than a minor wound. The doctor is ordered to give the injured person something for the pain and let them die from septic shock.
Western Animation
- At the end of the Beast Wars episode "Code of Hero", after a hard-fought battle, Dinobot managed to defeat six heavily armed Predacons and destroy the Golden Disk, but at the cost of his life. When the Maximals found him, he was running out of reserves, with Rhinox stating that "he's too far gone, even for Stasis Lock mode".
- Had Transformers: Animated gotten another season, the plan was for Ultra Magnus (badly injured in an assassination attempt by Shockwave) to succumb to his wounds and die, leaving Sentinel Prime to seize his vacant post and declare himself leader of the Autobots.
Real Life
- Many triage systems have a category for those who are still alive but not expected to survive long enough for paramedic treatment to be of use — the START
system used widely in the United States, for example, has "deceased/expectant" (which is color-coded black). Grim, but it's unfortunately necessary when medical resources are limited and every second counts in an emergency situation like a massive accident or a terrorist attack.
