History DespairEventHorizon / RealLife

* People who commit mass shootings perceive this trope verbatim. While most kids don't have access to guns and only have suicide as a way out, those who do see the deaths of their tormentors as a bonus in the form of retribution before they themselves go out. No sense of basic security, unable to drop out of school until a certain age, many without an option to change schools, their real purpose of going to school in the first place nullified (unable to maintain grades for college, for one thing), too long to await what might not even be any better a future in college, no fulfillment to eke out, and even if life does get better, they still have to live for years on end with everything that happened to them for all those years. These people are beyond any influence of the law and ethics; prison would seem trivial, since they have little to lose in the first place, whatever rules they had abided by had failed them ''chronically'', few had helped them in any meaningful way, there was little they themselves could do to change anything peacefully, and in their minds, even "innocent" people deserve to die for doing so little about their situation. Can you really blame them for seeing the most to gain through their rampages?

* Many people were seen suffering this when Creator/DonaldTrump won the 2016 US Presidential Election. Many people were convinced that UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton would win the election in a landslide, never thinking for a moment that Trump would gain any sort of foothold. However, as Trump began gaining the major states, fear and worry began running rampant, ultimately leading to Clinton's defeat and people crossing the Horizon. A lot of this is due to the fact that a few people have taken some of Trump's rhetoric to extremes due to how he acted on the campaign trail.

* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, when his son Quentin died in UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne. His health, held together for most of his life solely by [[{{Badass}} sheer]] [[{{Determinator}} unfettered]] ''[[CrazyAwesome willpower]]'', began failing almost immediately, and never recovered. His DeathByDespair followed less than a year later.

* Many people were seen suffering this when Creator/DonaldTrump won the 2016 US Presidential Election. Many people were convinced that UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton would win the election in a landslide, never thinking for a moment that Trump would gain any sort of foothold. However, as Trump began gaining the major states, fear and worried began running rampant, ultimately leading to Clinton's defeat and people crossing the Horizon.

** There are also several factors in one's life that can lead to depression, [[DisasterDominoes especially if each factor is back to back]]. For example, someone gets laid off from their job, then they're unable to find a job due to the lousy economy, which is then followed by having items repossessed or even losing the house because they don't have any money to pay the bills, which in turn leads to them being forced to live in a homeless shelter while getting minimal food, which can also lead to the person getting ill and not being able to afford to get treated. All this can cause a person to simply give up on life and stop trying to find a way to better themselves or they may even resort to a life of crime seeing that they have nothing else to lose.

** When Hitler got the news that Himmler had defected to the Aliied Powers, the bunker survivors say he completely lost hope and knew all was lost, and so deranged that all he desired was to capture and punish Himmler's very unloyal adjutant in Berlin named [[WebVideo/HitlerRants Hermann Fegelein]] '''[[MemeticMutation FEGELEIN! FEGELEIN, FEGELEIN!!!]]'''

** When Hitler got the news that Himmler had defected to the Aliied Powers, the bunker survivors say he completely lost hope and knew all was lost, and so deranged that all he desired was to capture and punish Himmler's adjutant in Berlin named [[WebVideo/HitlerRants Hermann Fegelein]] '''[[MemeticMutation FEGELEIN! FEGELEIN, FEGELEIN!!!]]'''

** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler also had this, when he realized that the Allies in the West and the Soviets in the East were closing in on him, and there was no chance for him to win. He ordered his forces to fight to the last man and burn Germany to the ground to deny the Allies of anything. Hitler's [[AteHisGun suicide]] is often interpreted in a similar light; that is, he shot himself to deny his enemies the satisfaction of killing him.
*** When Hitler got the news that Himmler had been captured, the bunker survivors say he completely lost hope and knew all was lost.

** There are also several factors in one's life that can lead to depression, especially if each factor is back to back. For example, someone gets laid off from their job, then they're unable to find a job due to the lousy economy, which is then followed by having items repossessed or even losing the house because they don't have any money to pay the bills, which in turn leads to them being forced to live in a homeless shelter while getting minimal food, which can also lead to the person getting ill and not being able to afford to get treated. All this can cause a person to simply give up on life and stop trying to find a way to better themselves or they may even resort to a life of crime seeing that they have nothing else to lose.

* Ravens usually mate in monogamous pairs for life. If one of the pair dies, it isn't uncommon for the other member to become despondent, sometimes even to the point of [[DrivenToSuicide deliberately starving themselves to death]]. "[[EdgarAllanPoe Quoth the raven, 'nevermore.']]"

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option Samson option]].

* Jason Russell dealt with massive amounts of [[InternetCounterattack criticism from Ugandans and internet goers]] of the viral video "Kony 2012" for his organization's handling of finances and purpose of helping Ugandans. Then personal attacks against his Evangelical Christian background came to light and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjdH2LDH5LM he completely lost it.]]

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option Samson option]]. This would also pretty much double as the MoralEventHorizon.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option Samson option]]. There are grave suspicions this would also double as the MoralEventHorizon.

** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler also had this, when he realized that the Allies in the West and the Soviets in the East are closing in on him, and there was no chance for him to win. He ordered his forces to fight to the last man, and burn Germany to the ground, to deny the Allies of anything. Fortunately many of his officers choose to ignore this, while some weren't so lucky when they ended fighting the Soviets..

* The actual Event Horizon of a black hole is the point of no return-so it's also the point of certainly being torn to pieces.
If that doesn't cause despair, I don't know what would.

* Sheer matter-of-fact everyday wisdom often helps to crack this. During the ColdWar era, many in the western hemisphere would face the horizon when discussing the sheer possibility of nuclear annihiliation. The answer came, in one instance, from the wife of a common farmer:

** This sentence reads as a "snap out of it, we have work to do!" (and actually calling on the pre-christian though of HeroicWillpower to make sense of things).

This sentence reads as a "snap out of it, we have work to do!" (and actually calling on the pre-christian though of HeroicWillpower to make sense of things).

* [[StrawNihilist Some people wrongly believe]] that FriedrichNietzsche preached this trope as a philosophy, but that's not quite true. A much better "religion of despair" can be found in the writings of his inspiration and predecessor, Arthur Schopenhauer.

* Ravens usually mate in monogamous pairs for life. If one of the pair dies, it isn't uncommon for the other member to become despondent, sometimes even to the point of deliberately starving themselves to death. "[[EdgarAllanPoe Quoth the raven, 'nevermore.']]"

* The first President of Brazil, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodoro_da_Fonseca Deodoro da Fonseca]] suffered a biblical one after being impeached ([[EtTuBrute which he took very personally]]). To give some context, Deodoro was known as a BoisterousBruiser jokester and FunPersonified to his friends, described as "lion-hearted". But after his impeachment, Deodoro locked himself in his house,spent his days rotting away in a chair, smoking his already damaged lungs away. He forbid anyone in a military uniform to ever enter his house (keeping in mind he used to be a bona-fide, very patriotic war-hero). [[DeathByDespair He died less than six months later]].

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