As this is an Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
- The 444th "Spare" Squadron in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is a penal unit made up of Osean convicts, namely disgraced military personnel, political dissidents, and other inconvenient prisoners who fall on the wrong side of Osean military law. Their role pretty much boils down to an institutionalized version of this, where they are considered completely expendable and only the bare minimum amount of effort is done to keep them in any sort of military fighting shape, since their main purpose is simply to be fodder to distract the enemy. And if they die in combat, well that's all the better since its one less politically inconvenient person for Osea to worry about.
- The 444th's AWACS "Bandog" invokes this on one mission: There's a certain pilot who's gotten his hands on some secure Osean intel, the kind that gets entire squadrons executed for viewing without authorization. This would be all well and good if he could just keep a low profile about it, but then he goes and implicates his entire fucking squadron by openly bragging about it over the radio, even after Bandog warns him numerous times that he's treading a very thin and dangerous line. So to save his own ass and the asses of the rest of Spare, Bandog tags the loudmouth pilot as an enemy during a lapse in reliable IFF, and gets him killed in the crossfire.
- In a cutscene of El Cid Campaign in Age of Empires II, King Alfonso tries this multiple times to get El Cid killed out of his jealousy of the latter's popularity. However, El Cid proves to be too skillful to satisfy King's wish. Eventually, he managed to send El Cid to exile with an excuse, and it does not go as well as he expected.
- One of these gambits triggers the whole plot of Akatsuki Blitzkampf. Murakumo sent Akatsuki to the Arctic Pole so he'd handle the Blitz Engines knowing that his and his crew's mission would fail and they'd be sunk to the depths of the icy Arctic Ocean, which was all included in his plan to monopolize the Engines themselves. Fifty years later, when Akatsuki's Human Popsicle days finish and he returns, he tries to continue with his mission; if/when he faces Murakumo, now the Big Bad, he will NOT be happy to find out that he was thrown under the ice, uh, bus...
- The entire reason Derpl Zork is fighting alongside the Awesomenauts is this. His uncle, Blabl, would rather Derpl didn't inherit the business he founded and turned into an interstellar corporate empire, so guess who's field-testing an experimental walking office desk mech with a secretary AI? Derpl isn't aware of the gambit, but then again, he's so stupid he's probably not even aware a battle's going on to begin with.
- In the first game of the Baldur's Gate series, certain NPCs come in pairs and will leave the party together, as the one kicked out will initiate dialogue and take the other one with them. Dead, booted-out NPCs, however, cannot initiate such dialogue and frees up a slot while leaving their partner in the party. Jaheira used to have a nasty tendency of charging headfirst into marauding hobgoblin bands without armour and weapons on once Yeslick became available... As did Dynaheir right off the bat if the PC was a mage.
- Battlefield: Bad Company:
- The game centers around B Company, a.k.a. "Bad Company", an army company seemingly created for this very purpose and to which the most troublesome members of the Army are sent in the hopes that they get killed in their assigned suicide missions. At the time the game is set, the company consists of The Everyman PC, who took a helicopter for a joyride and crashed it on a general's limo; a cowardly nerd who infected a secure military network with a nasty computer virus after using it to look up porn; an explosion-obsessed redneck who blew up the largest ammo dump east of Paris; and the Only Sane Man sergeant who volunteered for the position in the hopes that it will help him retire faster (service in B Company counts towards discharge faster, so even if they somehow survive their suicide missions the Army will be rid of them soon enough).
- Another one of these forms the main plot basis of the sequel. The opening level, the World War II-set "Operation Aurora", is discovered — by a descendant of one of the men from the mission, no less — to have been an intentionally-planned suicide mission solely so that America could get some idea of what a new superweapon Japan was creating was capable of.
- The Slight Hope story from BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND is one of these Hazama tries to subject Makoto to. The job involves investigating an energy source within the Ibukido ruins where Noel was "born", with obfuscating patches of debris to prevent investigation, seithr thick enough to choke a man to death, and a faulty cauldron with a direct link to the Boundary as the occupational hazards - failing to complete the job would result in career suicide, while the rest are more direct, meaning that this job was meant to kill the intrepid spy one way or another. In the true ending, this trope winds up subverted as, much to Hazama's dismay, not only did none of these hazards do Makoto in, but her little jaunt through the Boundary gave her knowledge that is toxic to his plans at large, with full intent on using it to fix her friends up and, by extension, ruin aforementioned plans completely, forcing him to take matters into his own hands. That she actually ruined his plans in the world she fell into during aforementioned jaunt is merely icing on the cake. Refreshingly, Makoto's quite aware this isn't standard protocol, but is willing to take it on to bring her family back into black. Hazama loses all around this time, which is a stark contrast from how he gets away with something in every other story."Ugh... I know for a fact the NOL's got outposts around here. Why not have a scout check it out? Meh... I should quit bitching. A job's a job. Can't help out the family just sitting on my tail."
- In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, this is combined with Unwitting Pawn with fatal results for PFC Allen. Shepherd sends him to infiltrate Makarov's inner circle counting on Makarov seeing through him and using him as a scapegoat to kickstart a war between America and Russia. It's even hinted later that Shepherd ensured Allen would be discovered by leaking his identity to Makarov.
- Over the early part of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn's Brotherhood of Nod campaign, your Mission Control, Seth, becomes more and more jealous of your success. After a few missions of supplying blatantly incorrect intelligence, he unconvincingly congratulates you on your latest victory, then announces that he has a new, secret mission for you, one that not even Kane is aware of:Seth: You see, power shifts quickly in the Brotherhood. [a pistol is heard getting loaded in the background, causing Seth to look around nervously] Kane has been loath to attack America, but I think now is the time, and you are the one to do it. This is the Pentagon. A full-scale attack with your strongest forces should render the military control center ino—
BLAM
Kane: Yes. Power shifts more quickly than some people think. - Do you have a useless male heir in Crusader Kings II and happen to have laws that make it difficult to pick someone else? And you don't want the penalty of everyone hating you for it murdering your relatives? Fret not, just put them in charge of a hopelessly understrength military unit and allow them to charge gloriously into the fray! Not as easy with female heirs though, unless your culture specifically allows female commanders.
- Pontiff Sulyvahn of Dark Souls III created his Outrider Knights for the purpose of getting rid of people who are a threat to his political power and people he just doesn't like. He forcibly conscripts them into the Knights, gives them his Pontiff's Left Eye and Right Eye rings, and sends them off on missions in faraway lands. If they aren't killed during the mission, the rings are designed to slowly induce insanity in the wearer and cause their mind to devolve into that of a feral beast, so they won't be able to find their way back. And even if they manage to do that, you can't enter the city Sulyvahn rules over without carrying a special enchanted doll allowing you to pass through the magical barrier. It also seems that, given enough time, the rings will cause the wearer to turn into a literal feral beast, since the player obtains the Right Eye not from any of the Outrider Knights encountered during the game, but from killing a large monstrous creature on the bridge leading to the city's entrance. If you run past it into the city, the beast will slam headfirst into the barrier as it attempts to chase you, showing that Sulyvahn never gave any of his Outrider Knights a doll.
- Deus Ex: after the battle at the Cathedrale de Payens, Simons tells J.C. that he had sent Gunther Hermann to France expecting him to die, as he was tired of his whining over Anna Navarre's death and upgrade requests.
- The demon lord Belial makes use of this trope in Diablo III, using his influence over the government of Caldeum to arrange pointless and dangerous missions in the desert for the Iron Wolves, the Emperor's Praetorian Guard, then replaces those who do not return with his own serpent demon agents. He also baits a trap for the heroes with Maghda, one of his own minions, who feels Undying Loyalty to him but frustrates him with constant failures, apparently not caring whether or not she survives.
- In the The Brigmore Witches expansion of Dishonored, Daud can overhear some of the witches hypothesizing that, in advance of a ritual she is due to perform, the antagonist Delilah has been deliberately sending the strongest and most capable of her witches out to be picked off so that only the weaker members of her coven will remain once the ritual is complete. Given that this ritual will result in her taking over the body of the rightful Empress of Dunwall — currently just a 10-year-old girl — this strategy is arguably quite sound.
- Dominions has no way to disband a unit, and your units cost you full upkeep even when injury or disease renders them useless. Players will often send the expensive, feeble-minded old wizard on a suicide charge into the nearest enemy territory to get them out of the roster. Just send the player you're "attacking" a note; they'll understand.
- Dragon Age: Origins
- In the lead up to the Battle of Ostagar, Loghain first tries to get King Cailan to wait for reinforcements than engage the darkspawn with what they have, then tries to keep him from being on the front lines. When both attempts fail and the signal fire is late, Loghain simply retreats with his forces rather than charging in as they had planned. There is much argument among both fans and various characters as to whether he was intending for Cailan to die or simply trying to save as much of the army as he could thanks to the beacon fire being late. Either way, he isn't too broken up about it and refuses to admit his own role. Even if you recruit him, he maintains that he was not trying to get Cailan killed but simply could not save him from his own foolishness. But then again, other actions immediately before the battle hint that he was plotting something anyway, since Cailan was about to divorce his Hot Consort Anora... aka Loghain's beloved daughter.
- One of the stories Leliana tells the Warden is "Alindra and Her Soldier," which tells the tale of two Star-Crossed Lovers. Alindra's singing captured the heart of a young soldier, but her father, being a nobleman, disapproved of the match, as the soldier was a commoner. He had Alindra imprisoned in his castle, and sent her soldier to war; the soldier fell in battle, and Alindra committed suicide in grief. The gods were moved by their love, and raised them into the heavens as constellations.
- In the Dungeons & Dragons Video Game version of Temple of Elemental Evil, a temporary party member named Prince Thrommel has a Cool Sword called Fragarach. He will only release the sword if you pry it from his cold dead hands. Evil players can just kill him (and it's required for a quest in the Lawful Evil path). Good characters who want the sword "accidentally" let him die. (You can resurrect him later, he doesn't ask what happened to his sword, oddly and will still give you its counterpart.) You can also marry a (rather annoying) NPC (with subpar stats) for a gift and throw her into the middle of combat naked, her father doesn't care.
- In Pool of Radiance, the first of the Gold Box games, you could hire NPCs to go with you. Hire until you get two guys in plate armor, then 'accidentally' cast a sleep spell too close to them, which makes them die immediately when hit by the enemy. They have magic plate armor and swords. "Oops, I'm too low level to resurrect you, but I can use animate dead", and get two free fairly powerful zombies you don't have to pay, and once they finally get hacked to pieces, some nice armor and swords...
- In Duel Savior Destiny, Taiga is sent to destroy the Messiah Armor. While it really is an artifact of doom Muriel gave everyone petrification potions and said they were wards against the undead. She was trying to get him killed by having him have to face the armor by himself since she recognizes that he's close to being the Messiah and the Messiah will destroy and recreate the universe if it is ever realized.
- This is a frequently suggested solution for unwanted immigrants in Dwarf Fortress. Put 'em in a combat unit, send them out to meet raiding parties or down into infested caverns. It may be a rare sympathetic one, depending on how much an immigrant could possibly mess up the live or die situation. Or it might be just another day in the life of a fortress. Once the game allowed players to form raiding parties to attack off-site locations, it became common to send unwanted or impossible-to-cheer dwarves off to attack hostile locations all by themselves... though it's not unheard of for these lonesome dwarves to somehow win and take over entire towns (though if you send them to conquer, they stay there, so it's a win-win).
- The Elder Scrolls
- In Morrowind's Tribunal expansion, Tribunal deity Almalexia is, due to her madness over the loss of her godhood, attempting to establish a monotheistic state where only she is worshiped and only she is the savior of the people. This means that the other two members of the Tribunal must die, along with the Nerevarine. After killing Sotha Sil herself, she sends the Nerevarine on a series of increasingly deadly and insane missions hoping that he/she too will die, becoming a martyr to her cause. When these missions fail, she decides to finish the Nerevarine off personally...
- In Oblivion, one of the Mage's Guild leaders has you go pull a ring out of the bottom of a well. A ring that happens to weigh as much as a full suit of armor. One of your predecessors is floating around in said well when you dive in. Guess which Mage's Guild leader turns out to be working with the Necromancers?
- In the Dark Brotherhood questline of Skyrim, Astrid sends the player to poison the Emperor. After the deed is done however, Commander Maro, leader of the Penitus Oculatus states that the man you killed was a decoy and Astrid sent the player up in exchange for the Penitus Oculatus leaving the Brotherhood alone. Unfortunately for her, Maro had no intention of keeping his end of the deal, as the Brotherhood (i.e. you in a previous mission) killed his son and framed him for treason. After dealing with you, Maro leads a detachment of soldiers to the Brotherhood's Sanctuary and torches it, killing (almost) everyone inside.
- The Fallout series:
- In Fallout, the player character must succeed at one such mission before being initiated in the Brotherhood of Steel, which involves retrieving a pre-war data disc from a heavily radiated military base. Of course, the character doesn't learn it is an Uriah Gambit until after s/he succeeds.
- The Pariah Dog in Fallout 2 comes with the Jinxed perk, causing everyone in combat to fail spectacularly. (If you've ever played a Jinxed character, you'll be familiar with the lost ammo, destroyed own weapon, critically missed and crippled own arm shtick.) It doesn't aid in combat or even absorb blows for you, uses up a follower slot, and your Luck drops to 1. It doesn't help that doom doggy has 750hp, runs when you attack it but comes back once you stop, and you're missing half the time (and losing all your ammo). Suggestions for how to off it
get pretty interesting... But heaven help you if you critical kill it with a zero damage attack, as its negative effects will never leave even though it's dead! - Lampshaded in the Fallout: New Vegas quest "Ant Misbehavin'", when you must gain the trust of the xenophobic Boomers tribe by exterminating some giant ants that have infested one of their buildings and explode when killed with most weapons.Courier: I'll do it, even though you're just trying to get me killed.
Raquel: Don't get my hopes up. - In Fallout Shelter, whenever you receive a rare dweller and yet you reached the 200 Dweller cap, up until the December patch, the only way to add them into the vault was to send unwanted dwellers to the wasteland and let them die. Now, you can just kick them out instead.
- In the Final Fantasy series:
- Operation Mi'ihen in Final Fantasy X turns out to be one of these. Yevon let the Al Bhed and Crusaders participate in a full-scale operation to try to take down Sin with Machina in spite of their rather oppressive ban on technology. To almost nobody's surprise, things go bell-ends up, and eventually Sin wipes out nearly all life on the beach with a single Wave-Motion Gun. The result of this? Many Al Bhed and less conservative Crusaders have died, Machina the Al Bhed could have used to overthrow Yevon has been destroyed, and the very public failure of the operation means that it's reconfirmed Yevonism and Summoner pilgrimages are the only way to destroy Sin. Auron, who knew exactly what the Maesters who allowed this operation to happen were thinking, is absolutely and thoroughly disgusted by the whole ordeal.
- In Final Fantasy XVI, this occurs in the sidequest "All Bark". A snotty noble orders Clive to rescue his son from an attack from a wolf. As it turns out, the wolf is actually his pet and he and his son have been using this setup to trick Branded into marching to their own deaths purely for their own sadistic amusement. The scheme falls apart when he mistakes Clive, a seasoned warrior, for one of the Branded he purchased for this purpose.
- Final Fantasy Type-0: Commandant Suzuhisa Higato has a seething resentment for Dr. Arecia Al-Rashia and her "children" in Class Zero, and so gives the Class requests that involve killing incredibly dangerous creatures. He is incredibly frustrated whenever the Class succeeds.
- Happens more than once in the Fire Emblem franchise, where several Bad Bosses send out their Anti-Villain warriors into very dangerous missions to get them killed.
- The player can do this to characters they don't like. There's actually gameplay benefits to doing so in Genealogy of the Holy War (where thanks to the Relationship Values, it's a viable tactic to use this to deal with unwanted pairings, therefore applying literal Die for Our Ship) and in Shadow Dragon (where it's outright necessary to access the gaiden chapters).
- Genealogy of the Holy War:
- Used when King Chagall sends out his knight Eldigan against his childhood friend Sigurd. Only a very risky (and player optional) Go Through Me from Eldigan's sister Lachesis stops them from fighting to death.
- In the Oosawa manga, Eldigan's wife is derailed into a Clingy Jealous Girl who gives Lachesis permission to join Sigurd's crew in open hopes to get her killed in battle so she'll be forever away from the older brother she has Brother–Sister Incest vibes with. Lachesis immediately notices and is saddened, but she decides to keep fighting anyway.Sigurd: Telling your husband's little sister to go off to war... What is Mistress Iria thinking?!
- The most blatant example is The Blazing Blade: Evil Matriarch Sonia sends her much-hated Dark Magical Girl daughter Nino to kill Prince Zephiel by promising her to give her the maternal love she craves for when she returns... and then secretly tells Jaffar, her partner in said mission, to kill Nino and use her as a scapegoat. Too bad Jaffar was starting to fall for Nino, so he decides to pull a Last Stand for her instead.
- Fire Emblem Fates:
- The Avatar strongly suspects that Garon giving them Ganglari was one of these, due to the sword exploding, which would have killed them had their birth mother Mikoto not taken the hit and died as a result; if the player chooses the Birthright path, they can have the Avatar ask Garon's eldest son Xander about it to remark how they don't want to return.
- On the Conquest path, Garon sends the Avatar on a mission to wipe out the Ice Tribe to either get them killed or broken, since realizing that the Avatar now knows their true origins and that Garon had kidnapped them; this fails since Xander overhears him and sends out Elise and her retainers to help. He's often instigated and aided by Iago, who wants the Avatar dead just because he doesn't like them.
- In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Lukas is openly aware and even commends his older half brother for doing this, as if Lukas dies he no longer has to worry about the idea that Lukas could be declared the inheritor of the house (despite not having any true legibility), and if he succeeds in liberating the continent he can take all the credit for sending lukas out to save the world, and gain considerable social standing for supporting the Deliverance. Ironically Lukas unintentionally plays this on his brother as a result because Lukas wanted to help any way so it wasn't like he was forced into the cause, meaning if he dies then he fought for what he thought was right but if he succeeds he doesn't have to deal with his brother being a D-bag to him constantly as he'd be trying to use Lukas as a trophy brother.
- In Fire Emblem Engage, Ivy realizes that her father, King Hyacinth of Elusia, is punishing her for her failed invasion of Brodia Castle by not providing her with a replacement Emblem Ring or any reinforcements, and is only using her to stall the Brodian army as he retreats to Elusia to attempt to revive the Fell Dragon Sombron. Alear also recognizes that Ivy was fighting at less than her full strength in their rematch, and their decision not to kill Ivy sows the seeds for her Heel–Face Turn a few chapters later.
- In Ghost of Tsushima, this is an interpretation of why the Shogun orders Shimura to kill Jin. It can be overheard from gossiping samurai that Shimura is in bad standing with the Shogun after losing control of his nephew and losing face (losing his castle in the first place and failing to capture the Khan). This order can be viewed just as much of a punishment for Shimura since he would be forced to kill Jin whom he viewed as his own son or he would presumably be killed by Jin if he fails.
- In God of War III, Hephaestus learns that Kratos intends to open Pandora's Box, which will require Pandora, who Hephaestus regards as his daughter, to be sacrificed. So he sends Kratos to retrieve an Omphalos Stone, on a promise that he will use it to create a new weapon for Kratos, not mentioning that the stone is inside the guts of the Titan Cronos. It doesn't work.
- An attempt at one of these forms part of the backstory for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The exact details aren't given, but the general gist is that Tommy Vercetti was sent by Sonny Forelli to kill one man in Harwood, and that one man turned out to be eleven men. While Tommy survived and killed them all, this still worked out for Sonny, as Tommy was jailed for fifteen years over the incident, and his infamy as the "Harwood Butcher" means that once he's released, they have to send him down to Vice City to establish a presence for the Forelli family because he's far too hot to be doing any work in Liberty City.
- In Halo 2, the position of the Arbiter is used as such by the Prophets when a particular Elite gains too much prestige or political power, or alternatively commits a heinous offense while remaining too useful to simply execute. The position is itself a sort of White Elephant; the role of Arbiter is the right hand of the Covenant religion as a whole, wielding enormous power during times of great strife, and can restore the honor of an otherwise disgraced Elite — but the events that they are called into service for are so great that they WILL inevitably kill the Arbiter in question. As the Prophet of Truth states, they are "created and consumed in times of extraordinary crisis".
- In a bit of a twist, the fact that the position of Arbiter is an Uriah Gambit isn't hidden from the one chosen during Halo 2's events at all. It's bluntly stated to his face that he is expected to take the mantle and die as an alternative form of execution for his failure in letting Halo be destroyed. In a further twist, not only is he the only one to NOT die during his time as the Arbiter, but he in fact outlives the entire Covenant religion, as well as the Prophets who called for his execution in the first place.
- Alkin in Heroes of Might and Magic III was given a post in Tatalia's military by King Trallosk, who openly dislikes Alkin and privately hoped he would get himself killed on the battlefield. Much to the king's displeasure, Alkin has enjoyed a long and glorious military career.
- In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, you find out that the Battle of Malachor V was like this too, at least according to HK-47. Revan stacked the fleet with Jedi and soldiers who might oppose their upcoming rise to power. The Exile was the only Jedi who came out of the battle alive and returned to the Jedi Order to face trial. A minor variant here was that Revan didn't necessarily want to kill the Jedi they stacked the Malachor fleet with — the battle was so horrible that it would drive any Jedi there towards the Dark Side, which as far as Revan was concerned was even better than killing them (Revan had a thing for turning enemies into allies).
- In Liberal Crime Squad, Conservative enlightened too late are tagged "wanted for rehabilitation", and if they are arrested, they will spill the bean on their recruiters. So there are 2 ways to deal with them: Send them to a minor and crime free safehouse to do some tame stuff (like legal fundraising), or send them to their death (like ordering them to sell brownies until they run into the Police Gang Units, or better, the Death Squads, and make them fight to the death, or just showing up at a Conservative place naked and armed with molotovs.)
- Metal Gear:
- Peace Walker goes into backstory on the CIA's many Uriah gambits against Big Boss' predecessor, The Boss. From being sent to murder a prominent scientist (and actually an innocent man) to destroy her reputation (which technically worked, since the operation twisted her mentality), to being given an operation that was co-masterminded with the Soviets so she'd be doomed to fail and forced to kill her lover, to becoming the first woman in space in a deathtrap of a shuttle that was given ridiculous constraints when they could have won the space race otherwise. The events of Snake Eater are revealed to be the gambit that succeeded; they intentionally influenced an Ax-Crazy tinpot tyrant to use the nuclear weapon she gave them to convince them of her defection, so that she'd become a pariah who would commit suicide by Snake. All of this was because the Pentagon realized The Boss was building up an international network of power to build a peaceful new world order, and would have stopped the Cold War by purging the corruption from both sides; the CIA nearly destroyed the world just to kill The Boss and maintain their grip on the West.
- Big Boss, or rather, Venom Snake from The Phantom Pain, attempts to pull this stunt on Solid Snake during the events of the original Metal Gear. By sending Snake out into the front lines of Operation Intrude N313, which was deliberately designed to be impossible, it would buy Outer Heaven time to finish their construction of Metal Gears, and best case scenario, would get Snake killed to keep him from further interfering with their plans. However, this gets subverted due to Snake successfully pulling the mission off in no time flat, so in a fit of rage, Big Boss confronts Snake in a mech suit and attempts to kill him himself.
- Osmund Saddler pulls one on The Dragon, Jack Krauser, in Resident Evil 4; after beginning to suspect Krauser is The Mole (he's right), Saddler sends him to fight Leon, knowing that either way, a thorn in his side will be removed. Krauser ends up taking the L.
- This is part of the Ronin story arc in Saints Row 2. Shogo, the head of the gang's American operations, is desperate to prove himself to his father, Kazuo. However, Jyunichi, the gang's muscle, is playing the middleman and Kazuo refuses to speak to his son. So, in a bid to get his father to give him validation, he leaks Jyunichi's location to the Saints to get him killed and to allow him to speak directly to Kazuo. He pulls it off, sure, but it blows up in his face spectacularly.
- Heavily implied in the case of Jake Hama of The Secret World. Prior to the Tokyo Disaster, Jake had photographed high-ranking government official Masao Tanaka at a Love Hotel and attempted to blackmail him to keep the footage away from his wife; eventually, the two came to an agreement in which Tanaka offered the detective regular work in exchange for the photographs remaining hidden. Following the Tokyo Incident, this arrangement was extended to hiring Jake to find Tanaka's missing daughter, Naonomi; unfortunately, this required Jake to enter a monster-infested exclusion zone with no means of defending himself, escaping, or even calling for helps. Plus, the relationship between Tanaka and his daughter is revealed to be extremely problematic — in that Naonomi joined a cult out of hatred for him and went on to mastermind the Tokyo bombing — so chances are that Tanaka was only using her disappearance as a pretext for getting rid of the blackmailer. Jake, being Jake, still hasn't noticed anything untoward.
- In the Soulcalibur III side mode "Chronicles of the Sword," Emperor Strife is jealous of The Cadet and their popularity. So what does he do? Sends him on the most suicidal missions with just his tiny standing forces, offers no backup, and pretty much tells him to hold the line regardless of casualties inflicted on his forces. However, you still get to kill him in the end.
- In South Park: The Fractured but Whole, the two rival superhero franchises in the town both plan a raid the police station on the same night. Cartman suggests leaving the Freedom Pals to search the lower floors while the members of his franchise, Coon and Friends, carry out their business on the upper floors. When Kyle points out that his plan will probably result in the Freedom Pals getting shot by the police, Cartman responds without hesitating "And then who would the greatest superhero franchise in town be?"
- In StarCraft, Mengsk sends Kerrigan to hold off the Protoss during a Zerg invasion, and when the Zerg begin to overwhelm the Terrans and Protoss alike he abandons her. It's implied the reason he did this was because she and Raynor were beginning to get a bit too defiant to his increasingly extreme methods. Works outside the game reveal that another reason was that she was one of the Ghosts that murdered his family. Kerrigan in particular was the one who beheaded his father Angus Mengsk.
- Oh no, the Zerg just put a parasite on one of my easy-to-replace marines! That means they'll be able to spy on me and track my army's movements as long as he's alive! On a related note, we need someone to head into the enemy base so we can scout their troop composition. Any volunteers?
- Also happens in Starcraft II multiplayer games. If you get to extreme late game you might end up with more workers than you really want to have and you want that population cap freed up for more combat units. So from starting off as a valuable part of your forces they become a nuisance. Solution? Charge unwanted workers at the enemy ahead of your main army. That way it ensures they die to free up your population whilst simultaneously soaking up some of the enemy fire which would otherwise be targetted at your army. Even more viable with Zerg given how fast their tech switches can happen. It's not uncommon for a Zerg player to simply attack-move suicide "useless" units or even his entire army into an opponent with the aim of deliberately getting them all killed whilst doing as much damage as possible in order to be able to completely rebuild an army from scratch to take advantage of weaknesses in the opponent's composition.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic:
- Sith Inquisitor class story:
- The Justified Tutorial consists of Overseer Harkun sending you on missions around Korriban, explicitly saying he expects you to fail. The third time around, you start to catch on."Yes, I get it already. You send me into a tomb to do the impossible, hoping I die, and I come back and prove you wrong."
- At the start of Chapter 2, Darth Thanaton, an opponent of the Inquisitor's now-former master Darth Zash whom they recently killed in self-defense, sends them into the Dark Temple to quiet the ghost of Darth Andru. Actually, he's hoping Andru will kill the Inquisitor for him and give him Plausible Deniability, but fortunately the Inquisitor's own ghostly ancestor Lord Aloysius Kallig intervenes.
- The Justified Tutorial consists of Overseer Harkun sending you on missions around Korriban, explicitly saying he expects you to fail. The third time around, you start to catch on.
- In the Sith Warrior storyline, after completing Plan Zero and eliminating several key Republic leaders, Darth Baras sends you to Quesh, ostensibly to complete another mission, only to have another of his agents attempt to dispatch you, since you have now become powerful enough to threaten him.
- Sith Inquisitor class story:
- The player is encouraged to invoke this in Streets of Rogue when playing as a slavemaster, which can enslave any of the various NPCs inhabiting each floor for an easy source of followers. The longer you keep a slave around the more likely it is that they will revolt and try to kill you, so it usually makes more sense to just keep sending them on suicide missions (sometimes literally, since you can manually detonate the bomb strapped to their head) rather than trying to maintain an ongoing party.
- In TIE Fighter, one mission requires you to clear a minefield with an unshielded craft, for no good reason. The mission is actually a trap orchestrated by a defecting Imperial officer.
- If the Total War title you're playing doesn't allow you to change your faction heir, this is almost guaranteed to come up at least once a campaign. Disloyal generals can be bribed with wives and titles, but your unruly sons can't, and trying to have them assassinated may be too risky. Or maybe medieval inbreeding has left a character with a host of negative traits that you don't want contaminating your family line. In any case, these unwanted characters and their bodyguards function best as disposable heavy cavalry — either they'll die a "glorious" death on the battlefield, or somehow survive and pick up traits to make them even better disposable heavy cavalry. If you're Catholic, you can even use them to show the Pope how dedicated you are to his latest stupid crusade by martyring your "beloved" son to the cause.
- In Ultima V, one can get a spy to join the party; his name is Saduj. If you enter any combat with him in it, he will immediately become an enemy, but until then gameplay-wise is a member of the party. If you avoid combat and are captured by the usurper Blackthorne, Blackthorne always picks the second member of your party, and kills him off permanently. That person's ashes are then shown at the Codex, the shrine of all that is Virtue, as someone who paid the ultimate sacrifice for Good. We'll remember ye, Saduj. Do this before getting the Sandlewood Box.
- The first mission given to you by Prince LaCroix in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a variation of this trope; once he realizes killing you in public would become a PR nightmare, he gives you a mission that would simply get rid of you... And if you by some incredible good stroke of fortune happen to succeed, well, that suits his purposes just as well. In fact, all of LaCroix's missions are an example of this. Or did you think that being sent all by yourself against increasingly suicidal odds was just a gaming convention? It helps that he can Dominate you into compliance if you refuse to obey him. The last mission he gives you, which consists of making you find Nines and then setting fire to the forest next to your meeting place so the werewolves'll get you both, is the point when he's decided that he can't risk you surviving any further.
- In Vay, Sadoul told the Emperor a potential location for one of the MacGuffins they had been seeking. The MacGuffin was never there; Sadoul needed to find a way to get Emperor Jeal away from the Danek Empire's borders in order to kill him in secret so that he could carry on his own plan to steal the Vay armor uninterrupted.
- Blizzard seems to like this trope. In the Warcraft III expansion The Frozen Throne, the blood elves fall under the command of a racist human general named Garithos, who abhorred any non-human race but had a special place in his heart for the elves due to believing them to be responsible for failing to protect his family's lands during the Second War. As such, when Kael came under his command, Garithos went out of his way to give Kael the most menial, humiliating tasks he could. When Kael asked for weightier tasks, Garithos gave one to him... in the form of a suicide mission where the blood elves were meant to be nothing but cannon fodder while all Garithos' other forces aided him at the front line. Despite this, Kael and the elves survive, but Garithos sentences them to death anyway for consorting with the naga, despite the fact they would have died if they didn't. At that point, Garithos admits he never trusted the elves and believed they should have never been accepted into the Alliance, essentially revealing his treatment of them comes from the chip on his shoulder.
- Prince Thrakhath in the Wing Commander franchise keeps his position of power despite being a General Failure by identifying those amongst his subordinates who are most likely to assassinate him and assigning them highly dangerous positions.
- Any soldier that you take a dislike to in XCOM will most likely end up being the first one through the doors of a UFO.
