History FateWorseThanDeath / Literature

* The novelette ''[[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm A Colder War]]'' (Go now! Don't read the spoilers, read the story! It's free!) by Creator/CharlesStross details an alternate-history UsefulNotes/ColdWar where the Soviets have retrieved the sleeping Cthulhu and entombed it in a silo as the ultimate weapon of Mutually Assured Destruction. Things get out of hand, and [[spoiler:the protagonist, a few politicians and a small military force are all who manage to escape, through an [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum eldritch stargate]], to a dead, frozen world. The story ends with the tiny shellshocked population, going through the motions in a domed compound under an alien sky, unable to do anything. And it is implied that they [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness may never have escaped at all]]]]. And they are the lucky ones. [[spoiler:Those who were left behind at Earth were swallowed up by the Old One, and exist for eternity as a part of its being, experiencing every way their lives might have ended.]]

* The fate of [[spoiler:Zedar, sealed in rock forever,]] in ''Literature/TheBelgariad''.

* The real adventure in ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'' begins after Bree warns Shasta that the nobleman who’s trying to buy him off his adopted father is a horrible master, saying “Better to be lying dead tonight than go to be a human slave in his house tomorrow.”

-->"If we make it, my chieftain, the debt of Helium will be a mighty one; greater than she can ever pay you; and should we not make it," she continued, "the debt is no less, though Helium will never know, for you have saved the last of our line from worse than death."

-->"I can only guess since no thern damsel of all the millions that have been stolen away by black pirates during the ages they have raided our domains has ever returned to narrate her experiences among them. That they never take a man prisoner lends strength to the belief that the fate of the girls they steal is worse than death."

-->The new identity of a drider was the only defense from memories too awful to be survived.

* Used as a threat in ''Literature/{{TheCroning}}''. The protagonist, Don Miller, at first refuses to be scared of [[AncientConspiracy the Children of the Old Leech]] and [[spoiler:their LongGame plans of taking over the world and turning it into a cold, dead husk of itself]], reasoning because it's so far in the future he and everyone he knows will be long dead at that point. Bronson Ford, however, corrects him: if he manages to sufficiently anger the Children, they are perfectly capable of keeping him and those he cares about about alive as long as they want, if only [[ForcedToWatch to force them to witness the bleak future they have in store for mankind and the Earth]].

-->"He told me what he was going to do to me!" she panted. "Kill me! Kill me with your sword before he bursts the door!"

-->''Oh, Ishtar, why was I not slain? Better die than live to see our queen turn traitor and harlot!''

* ''{{Literature/Nevermoor}}'':

* At the end of ''Literature/{{Otherland}} the sociopathic hitman of the Grail Brotherhood, John Dread, is in VR simulation when the network collapses. While his body survived, his mind is trapped in a never ending nightmare where all his victims are forever hunting him nonstop, never letting him rest.

* The novelette ''[[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm A Colder War]]'' (Go now! Don't read the spoilers, read the story! It's free!) by Creator/CharlesStross details an alternate-history UsefulNotes/ColdWar where the Soviets have retrieved the sleeping Cthulhu and entombed it in a silo as the ultimate weapon of Mutually Assured Destruction. Things get out of hand, and [[spoiler:the protagonist, a few politicians and a small military force are all who manage to escape, through an [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum eldritch stargate]], to a dead, frozen world. The story ends with the tiny shellshocked population, going through the motions in a domed compound under an alien sky, unable to do anything. And it is implied that he [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness may never have escaped at all]]]]. And they are the lucky ones. [[spoiler:Those who were left behind at Earth were swallowed up by Yog-Sothoth, and exist for eternity as a part of its being, conscious but unable to do anything.]]

* In ''Literature/AncillaryJustice'' this is how most people view the Ancillaries, typically calling them corpse soldiers--not that anyone debates their efficiency or loyalty. When a planet is conquered, anyone who tries to fight and isn't killed or who makes trouble until the planet is officially annexed is rounded up and either executed or surgically altered, [[MindRape including alterations to sever their connections to the past identity]], and put into cryogenic storage until an AI needs to replace an old body.
* In ''Literature/DarkShores'' the [[BornUnderTheSail Maarin]] are not afraid to die to keep their DarkSecret but what really frightens them is the perspective that their bodies will be buried underground, as that would stop their souls from going to afterlife.

** Other endings see the protagonist suffer particularly brutal fates: Being put in the rack and then suffering extreme torture for many hours before finally dying; being eaten alive by a squid or shark; being tied up, beaten and gagged and finally tossed overboard by pirates; being taken (as payment for a debt) prisoner by two spirits, one of which takes a rib from the protagonist's body while keeping him (the protagonist) conscious; being thrown into a swamp and the remains not found for several decades (until a drought dries up the swamp); being polymorphed into a tree [[AndIMustScream without losing her (protagonist) consciousness]]; and being transformed into a lost soul and being forced to revisit, and take part in, moments of great violence from the past — Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg, etc. — forever.
* In ''Literature/{{Cell}}'', those who disobey the orders of the Phoners are given "a fate worse than death, ''then'' death". We get a demonstration of what this means when a couple of jerks exploit the ApocalypseAnarchy to try to kill the protagonists (and succeed in [[KillTheCutie killing the cutie amongst them]]) even when the Phoners explicitly said to leave them be. [[spoiler:The Phoners get the jerks and [[PsychicAssistedSuicide brainwash then]] into crucifying themselves.]]

* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': Lady Moire commits suicide after [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil being raped]] by a tribe of [[MixAndMatchCritters Chimera]] in ''Reynard the Fox''. What finally sent her over the edge was the realization that she was pregnant with a Chimera child.
* Franchise/StarWarsLegends:
** In ''Literature/TheTruceAtBakura'', the Ssi-ruuk are a species that powers its technology by ripping out one's life force and implanting it in a machine. These souls are in constant agony for the remainder of their short existence.
** In ''Literature/LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor'', [[spoiler: [[BigBad Lord Cronal]] finds out firsthand what happens when the human body is directly exposed to {{hyperspace}}. Being disassembled on a subatomic level and [[AndIMustScream being conscious through every second of it]]]] isn't pretty.
** ''Literature/DarkLordTheRiseOfDarthVader'' expounds on how Vader believes death would have been preferable to his imprisonment in his suit, incapable of walking, talking, eating, or seeing on his own. As he grows stronger in TheDarkSide and overcomes his depression, however, he comes to see the suit as merely an outfit, no longer limiting him.
---> Above all, he thought: ''This is not living.'' This was solitary confinement. Prison of the worst sort. Continual torture. He was nothing more than wreckage. Power without clear purpose...
** In ''Literature/StarWarsKenobi'', [[spoiler:Orrin Gault]] survives when his landspeeder falls off a cliff, is taken by the Sand People, and put to work maintaining a vaporator to provide them water. When he realizes that he's been wrapped up in Tusken bandages, he resolves never to speak again, lest his voice confirm that he's become one of ''them''. No one expects him to survive for very long.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'':
** The final fate of [[spoiler:David, the SixthRangerTraitor]]. Instead of killing him, the Animorphs trap him permanently in rat morph and abandon him on a [[SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere barren island]]. Keep in mind that rats [[FridgeHorror only have a lifespan of two to three years]].
** Being [[BodyHorror taken by the Yeerks]] and having one of them [[PuppeteerParasite controlling your body]] was suggested to be worse than death.
** [[spoiler:Visser Three/One's]] fate at the end of the series is to spend the rest of his life [[spoiler:without a host.]]
* Breaking the [[TruceZone truce]] of the Floating Market in Creator/NeilGaiman's ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'' will leave you wishing you were on the other side of your own sword.
* ''Literature/TheMalazanBookOfTheFallen'':
** Getting stuck in Anomander Rake's sword is the definition of this Trope. You spend eternity pulling a giant wagon while being pursued by a storm of pure chaos. No breaks, no mercy. Insanity is for the lucky. Until it gets broken, screwing with everything. That's how many people were trapped in it, some for more than 300 000 years.
** The barbarian Barghast in ''Literature/DustOfDreams'' have a cruel tradition that is called Hobbling. It is practised on female outcasts and entails cutting off the front half of their feet in order to make their gait hobbling. It also means a complete loss in status, meaning the female in question is required to "lift her backside" to anyone man or woman (or, in fact, campdog) who wants her without complaint.
** On a more humorous note, a member of Onearm's Host suffers this fate daily. Ormulogun, the great Imperial Artist, earns his living by creating brilliant works of art for posterity to accurately record the conquests of the Malazans. He is cursed to be accompanied by an immortal, unkillable toad demon, Gumble. And Gumble has a very specific curse to visit upon Ormulogun: Gumble is an art critic. The toad long ago drove the artist mad from the unending critiques of his work, but Ormulogun cannot stop making art.

* Lady Lilith of ''Literature/WitchesAbroad'' is condemned to [[spoiler:run on and on, endlessly, through the mirror world, until she finds the one that's real.]] This is a fitting fate because it reflects the mirror magic that Lilith used to make so many people miserable, and because it is easily escapable if only she knew herself thoroughly -- Granny gets the same fate but escapes it immediately. [[spoiler:When asked to find 'the one that's real'; Granny indicates ''herself'', not any of the reflections.]]
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** When Jaime thinks a prisoner is lying to him, he mentions, "We have oubliettes beneath the Casterly Rock that fit a man as tight as a suit of armor. You can’t turn in them, or sit, or reach down to your feet when the rats start gnawing at your toes. Would you care to reconsider that answer?”
** What's become of [[spoiler:Theon Greyjoy]] in ''Literature/ADanceWithDragons''. After being captured by one of the worst {{Sadist}}s in the setting and [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] for a year he's [[spoiler: an emaciated wreck, who's [[LossofIdentity forgotten his own name]] and is [[StockholmSyndrome obsessively devoted]] to his torturer]]. His sister is [[spoiler: [[FingerInTheMail sent]] a piece [[FlayingAlive of his skin]]]] and thinks that she prefered when she thought he was dead.
** The Black Cells underneath the Red Keep are ordinarily bad enough to count, given their nature as the most secure, least enjoyable dungeons available in King's Landing. Then [[MadDoctor Qyburn]] is put in charge of them and, well, [[BodyHorror wow]]. Any prisoner he takes care of will ''beg'' for death until they physically can't anymore. If they're "lucky", they will, eventually, die. The unlucky ones might well... not die.

** The Total Perspective Vortex gives anyone who has to go into it a momentary view of the entire universe, and themselves in relation to it, resulting in insanity through loss of all sense of self-worth. When Zaphod Beeblebrox goes into it, [[spoiler:it doesn't work, because the universe he's in is actually a simulated universe, created specifically for Zaphod. This makes him the most important thing in the universe - as he always thought to be - so he is immune to the Vortex's effects.]]

* {{Room 101}} in ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', where prisoners are tortured with their greatest fear and psychologically broken.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' Literature/PastDoctorAdventures novel ''Palace of the Red Sun'', the Sixth Doctor essentially inflicts such a fate on [[spoiler:dictator Glavis Judd and unscrupulous journalist Dexel Dynes, when the Doctor sets things up so that they are sent over five centuries into the future; Dynes is relegated to making documentaries when he considers himself an active news reporter, and Judd is sent to an insane asylum filled with people who think they're him, last shown starting to doubt his own identity]].
* In ''Dearly Devoted Series/{{Dexter}}'', the main villain's treatment of his prisoners qualifies as this;[[spoiler:he essentially reduces his first victim to a state described as a "yodeling potato", where the man has had his limbs, genitals, ears, nose, lips, eyelids and tongue completely removed from his body, leaving him to scream in mumbled agony. Technically he hasn't 'killed' his victim, but people wonder if what he has done to them can even be defined as living]].
* ''Literature/{{Dortmunder}}'': In ''Good Behavior,'' not even Tiny's CutYourHeartOutWithASpoon threat scares Dortmunder as much as the prospect of spending forty years in a cellblock with TalkativeLoon and DirtyOldMan Wilbur Howey.
* In the same vein, Patrick Bateman from ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' commits some of the most sadistic and gruesome tortures ever conceived by the imagination. Bateman intentionally keeps his victims alive longer, just so they can experience more agony.
* So do some characters in Creator/MichaelMoorcock's ''[[Literature/TheElricSaga Elric of Melniboné]]'' saga and ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheRunestaff'' saga. Meanwhile, Prince Gaynor the Damned is subjected to [[ThePunishment a horrible eternal punishment]] after he, the former Champion of the Balance, falls from grace and is forced to serve the Lords of Chaos.
* In Samuel Taylor Coleridge's ''Literature/RimeOfTheAncientMariner'', Death and Life-in-Death gamble for the Mariner. Life-in-Death wins, to the Mariner's sorrow.

* The novelette ''[[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm A Colder War]]'' (Go now! Don't read the spoilers, read the story! It's free!) by Creator/CharlesStross details an alternate-history UsefulNotes/ColdWar where the Soviets have retrieved the sleeping Cthulhu and entombed it in a silo as the ultimate weapon of Mutually Assured Destruction. Things get out of hand, and [[spoiler:the protagonist, a few politicians and a small military force are all who manage to escape, through an [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum eldritch stargate]], to a dead, frozen world. The story ends with the tiny shellshocked population, going through the motions in a domed compound under an alien sky, unable to do anything. And it is implied that he [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness may never have escaped at all]]]]. And they are the lucky ones. [[spoiler:Those who were left behind at Earth were swallowed up by Yog-Sothoth, and exist for eternity as a part of its being, conscious but unable to do anything.]]

** Being subjected to one of the various [[spoiler:nazi-designed]] torture machines designed to fuel black magic rituals that use pain as a power source.

* Obviously, the book ''A Fate Totally Worse Than Death'' (which was later filmed as ''Bad Girls from Valley High''), in which three murderous teenage girls known as "the Huns of Cliffside High" begin to to age rapidly, and believe themselves to be cursed by the ghost of the girl whose death they caused the year before.
* "My Name is Legion" by Creator/LesterDelRey, published in 1942: A scientist (implied to be Jewish in the story) invents a time machine that, instead of moving a person through time, brought future versions of himself to the present and gives him [[MindControl full control]] over the "clones." The scientist uses his machine to summon hundreds upon hundreds of Hitler "clones." Nearly a day after the machine is first used, the oldest of the Hitler "clones" confronts Hitler and the scientist and spouts off nonsensical gibberish about things like trying to run away only to be brought back again. Hitler shoots him dead. The scientist then reveals that, [[ThePlan as was his intention all along]], Hitler is now condemned to [[GroundhogDayLoop relive the same 24-hour period over and over again]] from a different point of view until he finally finds himself staring down the barrel of his own gun in his final moments.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'':
** Losing the ability to channel the One Power is considered a fate worse than death, as channeling is shown to be quite pleasurable and addictive. One character who temporarily loses the ability to channel compares it to losing the sun. The general rule is that the person will lose the will to live, and die. One character was famed, as having brought a country to his knees, and the next book has him guarded by one girl, whose job is to prevent him from committing suicide. At least one Black Ajah sister ends up having a shield, which prevents her from channelling, placed on her that's tied off (self-sustaining) into infinity, meaning she can still sense the One Power but will likely never touch it again, and another ends up as a slave to the Shaido Aiel with her inability to channel being enforced by an Oath Rod that a Wise One used on her demanding complete obedience; she ends up being marched naked through the snow, used as a pack mule during the Shaido's march back to the Aiel Wastes.
** When Tuon claims her imperial title, she sentences Suroth, who tried to order her death, to GoGoEnslavement as a Da'Covale. Suroth's only thought is of the knife in her bedroom that she now can't use to cut herself.
** The legendary TortureTechnician Semirhage specializes in this and gets sexual pleasure out of torture; some captives were known to gnaw their own wrists open when they learned that they were in her custody.
** [[spoiler:Mesaana]] tries to use the reality-shaping properties of the World of Dreams to reshape [[spoiler:Egwene]] into a slave and winds up trying too hard, snapping her own mind and leaving herself the permanent mental equivalent of an infant. Interestingly, this fate is FAR worse than death for her specifically, since the [[TheAntiGod Dark One]] might have been able to reincarnate her if she'd just died.
** Moghedien ends up in one of these in ''A Memory of Light''; at the end of the book she [[spoiler:gets captured by a sul'dam, and is likely to spend the rest of her very long life enslaved with a RestrainingBolt as a damane]]. The same happens to [[spoiler: Elaida]].
** At one point, Perrin's forces are interrogating a captured Aiel renegade. Some of the more unbalanced members of the coalition are attempting to break him by burning him with hot coals, but the prisoner refuses to talk. Perrin steps up and [[spoiler: uses his axe to cut off the man's hand]]. While initially the Aiel prisoner simply shrugs off the new pain, Perrin explains that [[spoiler: if he did not talk, his other hand would be cut off the next night, followed by his feet on the following nights. If he still refused to talk, he would be left in a town somewhere, thoroughly crippled, with a sign so he could beg for money to survive]]. The prisoner gave up everything he could immediately.
** Rand accidentally gives a CruelMercy version to [[spoiler:Lady Colavaere]]: rather than execute her for murder, he strips her of her lands and titles and [[CallToAgriculture exiles her to a small farm]], which causes her to [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]] at the earliest opportunity. A fellow noble explains that it would have been kinder to let her die as a noble than force her to live as a peasant, which leaves Rand, a former FarmBoy, completely aghast.
* ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'':
** Eragon's punishment for [[spoiler:Sloan]] is to be consigned almost to a FlyingDutchman curse: [[spoiler:forced "To Walk the Land Alone", driven by a constant compulsion to seek out the land of the elves, there to remain "even unto your dying day", living with the knowledge that he can never see, touch, or talk to his daughter Katrina ever again, and that she is with Roran and happy, without him.]] Towards the end of Inheritance, [[spoiler: Eragon, having forgotten about Sloan, accidentally ends up bringing Katrina to where Sloan is wandering; he feels so guilty for this that he restores Sloan's sight.]]
** The fate of the dragons belonging to the Forsworn: [[spoiler:in the Banishing of the Names, they were stripped of any means of identifying themselves--given names, nicknames, true names, titles, until they could not even make 'I' statements since these named themselves, nor could they be called dragons. Reduced to little more than animals, the spell obliterated everything that defined them as thinking creatures, until they descended into complete ignorance]]. As Arya herself says, "The experience was so disturbing, at least five of the thirteen, and several of the Forsworn, went mad as a result."
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'':
** [[spoiler:The traitorous Winter Knight Lloyd Slate]] suffers a particularly gruesome example of this at the hands of Mab--he's entombed in ice, crucified on a tree of the same, until he's almost dead from frostbite and exhaustion... at which point Mab takes him out, feeds him, heals him, and takes him to bed with her, only to return him to his torture when he wakes up. Lea mentions the possibility that if [[spoiler:Dresden continues to refuse the title of Winter Knight long enough]] Mab might kill [[spoiler:Slate]] when he's completely and utterly broken... that is, when he's gone so completely insane that he starts to look forward to his crucifixion with joy because of the kindness Mab shows him after she takes him down. [[spoiler:When he is seen before his death, he is a shell of the man he was: eyeless, skeletal, scarred, and covered in tattoos in various languages all meaning "traitor".]]
** When Harry meets Titania [[spoiler:after killing her daughter to save the world (not even Titania denies it was necessary)]] Titania states clearly that she can make all what Mab has done seem like a kindness compared to the horrors Titania can unleash.
* In Creator/DanAbnett's ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novels, [[spoiler:Soric]] is handed over to the Black Ships. Hark finds him several books later, [[ManlyTears cries]] (which all the deaths have not drawn from him), and [[ICannotSelfTerminate at his request, kills him]].
* The fate of [[spoiler:Zedar, sealed in rock forever,]] in ''Literature/TheBelgariad''.
* ''Literature/TheTamuli'':
** The fate of [[spoiler:Zalasta and Baron Parok, burning in frozen time forever]].
** Aphrael notes that, while immortal, gods can suffer this trope. Their power comes from belief; a god who loses his/her worshippers becomes just an empty, shapeless voice that wails through the world like the wind.

* The fate of [[spoiler:Gladys Prismall if the player arrests her]] in ''Literature/MurderAtColefaxManor''.
* In Jeffrey Sackett's ''Mark of the Werewolf'', Janos Kaldy [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent becomes the eponymous werewolf]] [[InvoluntaryShapeshifting every full moon]], whose only purpose is to [[AxCrazy dismember]] and [[ImAHumanitarian eat]] people, [[spoiler:and [[ViralTransformation turn self-serving priests into werewolves]] themselves]]. He spends ''three thousand years'' attempting suicide, which is hampered by being immortal and NighInvulnerable no matter which form he's in. [[spoiler:He and Claudia get better. Neville doesn't.]]
* "The Boy Who Couldn't Die". The main character gets one of these for not doing enough research.
* ''Literature/TheEdgeChronicles'':
** Anyone who wanders into the Twilight Woods is immortal as long as they stay there. However, the woods also make any unsuspecting travelers go insane, and despite the immortality, you can be very much hurt, more or less rotting away while unable to die or even go comatose, and also completely insane and lost. In the series, this fate is inflicted on some characters, with no evidence as to if they ever escape, [[spoiler:except Tem Barkwater, who makes it out due to Shrykes capturing him.]]
** The prisoners in the Tower of Night. They are imprisoned on ledges inside the Tower, waiting for a trial that will probably never come. Many seem to have lost their sanity. Rook is told by one prisoner to shove the door open, when he does the prisoner falls of the ledge and thanks him, saying he lacked the courage to jump.
* Carrie Vaughn's ''[[Literature/KittyNorville Kitty Raises Hell]]'' deals out such fates to three of the villains (which for two of them is [[KarmicDeath deliciously karmic]]): [[spoiler:the ifrit, the vampire priestess, and Nick, are tricked (in the case of the first two) and outright thrown into Grant's magical cabinet. All of them are presumably doomed to be trapped in this world's version of [[EldritchLocation Cthulhuverse]], imprisoned, tortured, or [[GoMadFromTheRevelation otherwise driven mad]], ''forever'']].
* In one of Simon R. Green's ''{{Literature/Nightside}}'' novels, John and Suzie confront some demons. In an attempt to intimidate them, the demons show them their lunch: a young woman, half consumed, yet still conscious and suffering. Recognizing this trope when she sees it, [[MercyKill Suzie immediately shoots the woman in the head]], then proclaims there are some things she won't stand for.

* Franchise/CthulhuMythos:
** ''Through the Gates of Silver Key''; Randolph Carter ends up [[spoiler:trapped inside the body of a monstrous creature, that lives on a planet full of creatures like it, and worse. He tries to take control and get free, but seconds before success the monster takes control completely, and ruins everything.]]
** ''The Colour Out Of Space'', in which the {{Mercy Kill}}ing takes place off-camera. The narrative explicitly states that leaving the victim alive under the circumstances would've been a damning offense.
** Ghatanothoa from ''Out of Aeons'' was so horrifying, that everyone who saw it in the flesh, or even saw an exact likeness of it, mummified on the spot from fear, while regaining full consciousness. [[AndIMustScream The fate of the motionless sentient corpses for the rest of their lives was made even worse by the fact, that in that state they can live for thousands of years without any sustenance]].
* ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'': Being separated from your [[OurSoulsAreDifferent daemon]], or having your mind and soul eaten by a Spectre. Later, Lord Asrael and Mrs. Coulter are [[spoiler:doomed to fall forever with the Metatron without ever dying.]]
* ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'':
** ''A Princess of Mars'', when John Carter saved Dejah Thoris from AttemptedRape, and they try to escape, she tells him:
-->"If we make it, my chieftain, the debt of Helium will be a mighty one; greater than she can ever pay you; and should we not make it," she continued, "the debt is no less, though Helium will never know, for you have saved the last of our line from worse than death."
** In ''The Synthetic Men of Mars'' heroine Janai tells the narrator, Vor Daj of Helium, that he is fortunate to be a man, all he has to fear is death. As it happens she's [[GrandTheftMe dead wrong]].
** In ''The Gods of Mars'', this is considered the fate of any Thern female captured by the [[SpacePirates First-Born pirates]] that frequently raid the Therns domains, assumed due to them never taking any males alive. As discussed by Phaidor:
-->"I can only guess since no thern damsel of all the millions that have been stolen away by black pirates during the ages they have raided our domains has ever returned to narrate her experiences among them. That they never take a man prisoner lends strength to the belief that the fate of the girls they steal is worse than death."
* The fate of children caught by the [[spoiler:Other Mother]] in ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'' seem to be this, given they '''thank''' Coraline after she rescues them even though they are still dead.
* In ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'', Westley threatens Humperdinck with this in his ToThePain speech.
* In ''Literature/DeltoraQuest'', this happened to [[spoiler:Doran]] many years ago. Namely, [[spoiler:he became the Guardian of one of the very thing he sets out to destroy in the first place, a Sister]].
* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', Maedhros is hung from a cliff by his right hand for years. Being an elf it would never end, until a force of arms broke one of the links that was keeping him trapped, such a link would only be of the chain or his own body that prevented him from. Morgoth also inflicts this on Húrin, by cursing his children and forcing him to watch as the curse destroys their lives.
** Ar-Pharazôn, the last king of Númenórë, and his army are ghosts buried forever under a landslide just outside Valinor, unable to rest in peace or leave the world, though human souls are designed to leave and remaining forever eventually becomes unbearable torment. One wonders if he'll have learned his lesson about immortality by the time the world ends.
** Morgoth may have marred every aspect of Arda and the physical world that it belongs to, but he has no power at all in the rest of Ea which lies beyond the doors of Night. He has been left imprisoned and mutilated there till the end of time, the only concrete thing drowning in the nothingness that he embraced.
** As for the fallen Maiar who have been seduced to his service in exchange of power, they have nowhere to go if they lose their physical avatars that keep them anchored to the physical plane. They are more or less reduced to powerless shadows of malice, both incapable to reincarnate themselves and unworthy to return to Eru through death like all mortals will. This is best demonstrated with both Sauron and Saruman who make a last futile attempt to cling on to something. Sauron spends his last moments looming over the Free People but the hand that he manifests as, gets blown away and dissolves into nothing.
* Jean-Paul Satre's ''Theatre/NoExit'' sticks three unrelated individuals in a room without [[TitleDrop any means of escape.]] They are [[spoiler:not only dead, but each person can't tolerate one of the others ''and'' can't be tolerated by the third. Hence, they will drive each other mad for all eternity.]]
* ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'':
** In ''Dragons of Spring Dawning'' after DarkActionGirl Kitiara finally captures her romantic rival, Laurana, she decides to [[spoiler:torture Laurana to death and then have her soul given to the [[BlackKnight Death Knight]], Lord Soth, so the innocent Laurana will suffer in undeath for all eternity]].
** Raistlin, [[spoiler:after [[AGodAmI becoming a dark God]] and killing all other Gods and destroying the world]], will be unable to create anything new, and since he is immortal thereby will continue existing [[AndIMustScream alone in the void forever]]. Thank mercy for time-travelling twins that can warn you beforehand.
* In ''Literature/RainbowSix'', Clark orders the survivors to remove all of their clothes and walk into the forest without any of civilization's aids, then leaves them behind, telling them that if they want to commune with nature so much, they should go commune. As Chavez wryly points out, even he himself-- with all his equipment and training (Ranger School, among others)-- would have a tough time surviving in such an environment. Let's see these sheltered folks enjoy the deadly jungle.
* Dematerialisation (the process of having your physical body destroyed while within the Twilight, either as a consequence of being killed within it or spending too long in it so that it drains all of your energy) in the ''Literature/NightWatchSeries'' is implied to be worse than regular death. Whereas the Others are unsure of what becomes of regular humans after death, they do know that dematerilised Others are forced to linger in the Twilight as impotent and possibly mindless shades, and meeting such a shade is traditionally accompanied by wishing that they may eventually find peace. The "worse than death" part comes from the fact that a sentence of being hanged is considered preferable to dematerialisation, implying that Others killed through regular means don't linger in the Twilight, and that this is considered better. And since it appears that all Others can live practically forever without succumbing to age or disease, and are virtually immune to natural weapons, that the ultimate fate of all of them is to dematerialise.
* Harlan Coben novel ''Gone For Good'' features an ex-pimp named Louis Castman; when hearing that one of his girls is going to run away and elope with a client she has fallen in love with, he brutally disfigures her (and as repeatedly mentioned, [[{{Squick}} not just her face]]) so that her fiance won't want to be with her anymore. It works, but before the guy sees the poor girl he shoots Castman in the spine, rendering him unable to move anything below his neck. The girl, now broken and miserable, keeps Castman alive for as long as possible in a room sealed with cork, with nothing to do ''at all'', just stare at pictures of her when she was pretty. He comes to wait longingly for ex-girls of his to come over and humiliate him, because it's better than lying immobilized in a cot and soiling yourself, with no one to hear you scream.
* Creator/JonathanSwift's ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' provides the "best" example of a fate worse than death-- [[AgeWithoutYouth eternal life without eternal youth.]]
* E.E. Smith's ''Literature/{{Lensman}}: Grey Lensman'' - The Eich and the Overlord who have [[spoiler: Kinnison]] captured debate how to deal with him-- kill him immediately, or infect his limbs and his eyes with a fungous growth that will demand their removal, and then suck his life-force almost dry:
--> "Which is worse: to find and bury with full military honours a corpse, however mutilated, or to find and have to take care of, for a full human lifetime, a something which has not enough functioning intelligence to swallow food placed in its mouth."
* Glen Duncan's ''Literature/ILucifer'' has [[spoiler:Lucifer faced with the prospect of being left ''alone'' in the infinite void once God destroys existence in armageddon. For all eternity. Unless he finally repents]].
* In ''Literature/{{Neuropath}}'', a device is implanted in [[spoiler:Frankie]]'s head that stimulates the part of his brain that causes fear, meaning that he is in permanent agony which ''nothing'' can stop.
* In ''The Berkut'' by Joseph Heywood, [[spoiler:Hitler is captured alive by the Soviet Union]] at the end of the Second World War. [[spoiler:Stalin]] has him imprisoned, naked, in a hanging cage deep in a sub-basement of the [[spoiler:Kremlin]]. The cage is too small for [[spoiler:Hitler]] to stand or lie or even extend his limbs fully. He is thus unable to sleep for more than a short time before the pain from his joints wakes him. He is never allowed to leave the cage, even to urinate or defecate, and is not allowed to wash, so he is forced to live in his own filth. One leg and the other foot become infected and later have to be amputated to keep him alive. Over many years he degenerates into a senile bestial creature. And [[spoiler:Stalin]] visits him every week to gloat.
* ''Literature/QuantumGravity'': In ''Chasing the Dragon'', [[spoiler:Tath]] is attacked by angels in his domain, so they can't kill him. This does not stop them from trying.
-->'''Malachi:''' But how did you best them?\\
'''[[spoiler:Tath]]:''' I am not sure I did. They left me here when it was clear I couldn't be killed. I healed too fast. ''[voice breaks, turns away]'' Better to die in those circumstances, Malachi.
* Quaid, the antagonist of the Clive Barker short story "Film/{{Dread}}", in his efforts to understand dread and find a cure for his own, breaks the mind of someone whose trust he had earned, and then casually tosses the poor kid aside. This young man then returns to pay Quaid back, unintentionally personifying Quaid's [[MonsterClown deepest fear]]. He then proceeds to slowly carve the villain up with a fireaxe, aiming his strikes so that his victim doesn't die quickly.
-->''Quaid knew, meeting the clown's vacant stare through an air turned bloody, that there was worse in the world than dread. Worse than death itself. There was pain without hope of healing. There was life that refused to end, long after the mind had begged the body to cease.''
* ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'':
** In "Literature/TheDevilInIron" Octavia doesn't get specific, but fears this.
-->"He told me what he was going to do to me!" she panted. "Kill me! Kill me with your sword before he bursts the door!"
** In "Literature/AWitchShallBeBorn", Valerius declares this, though in actually he goes for LaResistance.
-->''Oh, Ishtar, why was I not slain? Better die than live to see our queen turn traitor and harlot!''
* The ''Literature/LandOfOz'' books by Frank Baum reveal later on that the Wicked Witch of the West was subjected to this when Dorothy melted her. No less fitting a fate for the Witch, of course.
* ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'':
** Matron Baenre has a fate worse than death in store for Drizzt Do'Urden in ''[[Literature/LegacyOfTheDrowSeries Starless Night]]'', having him tortured almost to death, then magically healed, and then tortured almost to death again, ad infinitum, for ''centuries''. Made more horrifying when it's mentioned that the same fate has befallen others, who aren't lucky enough to get rescued as Drizzt finally is. Then there's what happened to Dinin: being turned into a drider, a repulsive creature whose very existence is torment.
** ''Maestro'', second book of the ''[[Literature/HomecomingDrizzt Homecoming]]'' trilogy, gives us our first onscreen drider transformation: The victim is strung up until their legs have swollen to form the spider torso and then their bones split up until the drider has aquired all eight legs. The transformation process is so painful, that the drider emerges with no memories of their former lives, because they could not stand remembering the pain.
-->The new identity of a drider was the only defense from memories too awful to be survived.
* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'':
** All Katniss wants to do is to get out of the arena alive with Peeta. [[spoiler:After she tricks the Gamemakers into letting them both live, Haymitch warns her that she has upset the Capitol]]. This leads to her realizing "It's so much worse than being hunted in the arena. There, I could only die. End of story. But out here Prim, my mother, Gale, the people of District 12, everyone I care about back home could be punished..."
** The consistent theme of former Victors living horrible lives of drunkenness, substance abuse, or being driven mad by the trauma of what happened in the arena. Oh, and some of them [[spoiler:get forced into prostitution, like Finnick]].
* ''Literature/KushielsLegacy'' gives us, in the third book and through the second trilogy, the Mahrkagir who inflicts all manner of sexual tortures on his harem. A lot of his harem kill or starve themselves to death, with an added psychological component for Phedre, who is cursed to feel all that pain from someone she hates as pleasure.
* In ''Literature/{{Everfound}}'', [[spoiler: Squirrel]] gets this. He [[spoiler: is touched by a scar wraith which erases him from the universe, no afterlife, nothing.]] It's a bit odd since most of the characters are already dead.

* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'':
** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] and [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] in ''Literature/{{Barrayar}}'' when Cordelia and Drou find that Princess Kareen (who used to be married to a sexual sadist) has seemingly sold out to the Pretender:
--->'''Cordelia:''' What was she supposed to do, throw herself from a window to avoid a fate worse than death? She did fates worse than death with Serg.
** In ''Literature/CaptainVorpatrilsAlliance'', Tej intends to jump off of a twentieth-story balcony to avoid a fate worse than death (namely, being captured by her family's enemies). Ivan comes up with an alternative plan ([[spoiler:that she marry him, thus becoming a Barrayaran Vor and thereby gaining [=ImpSec=]'s protection]]) and is a little irritated that she apparently has to ''think'' about whether his plan is actually better than jumping off a balcony.
--->'''Ivan:''' I am ''not'' a fate worse than death, dammit!
* "Inconstant Moon", a short story by Larry Niven, has the protagonist and his girlfriend resigned to their inevitable deaths as the sun goes supernova. Then they realize that the sun isn't going to explode. It's "just" a solar flare, an extremely destructive but feasibly survivable disaster. They struggle to obtain food and supplies to weather the storm. At the end of the story, the protagonist surveys the destruction left behind by the flare. In a moment of cynicism, he actually wishes the world had been destroyed by a supernova. Life had been so simple when he thought he was doomed. The story ultimately ends on a hopeful note, as the protagonist wonders whether their descendants will rebuild civilization someday.
* Being an oar-slave (or a harem member) in ''Literature/TheSeaHawk''.
* The entirety of ''Literature/{{Mogworld}}'' has Jim trying to kill himself as he has become an immortal zombie. So has everyone else, and a lot of people aren't too happy about it.
* ''Literature/HyperionCantos'':
** A symbiote called the cruciform makes his bearer immortal (you don't age and you resurrect in case of violent death) but gradually affects his body and mind, ultimately turning him mentally damaged. It also causes excruciating pain if you try to remove it or to run away from the remote village where it comes from. In the first book it is revealed that [[spoiler:Father Hoyt, wears ''two'' cruciforms, his own and his former master Duré's, enduring twice the pain.]]
** After receiving his cruciform, [[spoiler:Duré]] crucified himself to a Tesla tree (a local lifeform generating electrostatic discharges powerful enough to cause thunderstorms) in an attempt to die. He spent ''years'' tied to the tree, being constantly electrocuted, killed and resurrected by the cruciform, as well as tortured by the symbiote itself for trying to get away. He finally manages to die... [[spoiler:but in The Fall of Hyperion, years later, he finally resurrects when father Hoyt dies.]]
* In ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'', the punishment for betrayal of hosts/guests is regarded as this, because your body is still alive, but possessed by a demon while your soul is cast into a frozen hell, lying on your back and almost completely buried in ice (your face is the only part not in the ice).
* In the final book of ''Literature/TheSagaOfDarrenShan'', ''Sons of Destiny'', Evanna mentions that if the laws of the universe are broken and the monsters were released from their confinement, it would make Darren's [[spoiler:millenia of suffering in the Lake of Souls]] seem like a pleasant walk on the beach.
* In Stephanie Burgis's ''[[Literature/KatIncorrigible A Most Improper Magick]]'', when Elissa chides them for leaving her knocking in the hall -- why two people ''saw'' her -- Angeline derisively calls it A Fate Worse Than Death.
* ''Literature/TheHouseOfNight'': "What Darkness can take take from some one who walks with Light can change your soul." Darkness has the power to break a soul and rip out the Humanity from it. It's so bad that both [[spoiler: Stevie Rae and Stark]] asked Zoey to kill them, rather than continue to live as they were.
* The real adventure in ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'' begins after Bree warns Shasta that the nobleman who’s trying to buy him off his adopted father is a horrible master, saying “Better to be lying dead tonight than go to be a human slave in his house tomorrow.”
* In ''Literature/{{Coda}}'', people who are declared Exaunts are permanently deafened by the Corp. In a society based around music, this is one of the worst things that could happen to you. [[spoiler:It ends up happening to Anthem's girlfriend Haven]].
* ''Literature/FrostflowerAndThorn'' has multiple instances of this, from being stoned and hung (forced to swallow sharpened stones and then strung up helplessly by the armpits while the stones shred the bowels of the condemned person) to becoming a SexSlave. Needless to say, going up against authority requires a good [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled Plan B]].
* ''Literature/TheHoldersSeries'' involves this for every single one of the Objects in almost every variety of torture imaginable. Everything from AndIMustScream to MindRape, and [[UpToEleven worse.]] Made particularly bad because most of the time [[LuckBasedMission there's no way to avoid failure]].
-->If you should hear another shriek coming from anywhere around you, close your eyes and [[ArcWords pray to the gods that your death will be a swift one.]]
* In Creator/TomClancy's Literature/DeadOrAlive, [[spoiler: Yasin (The Emir)]] is prepared for death but not for interrogation [[spoiler: by a team from The Campus]] using succinylcholine, which, when administered under the right circumstances, produces all the symptoms of a massive coronary without actually killing the patient - in particular, the most excruciating pain imaginable. This can be repeated over, and over, and over, as many times as it takes.
* ''Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream'': Being trapped by an evil supercomputer that has made you immortal just to torture you endlessly. And in the ending [[spoiler:turned into a gelatinous blob that can't possibly end its life, to be tortured for all eternity]]. There's a reason this is the {{Trope Namer|s}} for AndIMustScream.
* The demon Barbatorem in ''Literature/{{Pact}}'' specializes in inflicting this on its enemies. An expert surgeon, it can keep even the most crippled person alive, on the brink of death, but it's true ability is spiritual mutilation by splitting victims into [[LiteralSplitPersonality separate people representing different aspects of themselves]] who are then compelled to destroy one another, leaving the survivor a broken piece of a whole person.
* In ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'' kandra who truly transgress are first deprived of bones (rendering them a barely mobile mass of flesh), thrown in a pit for ten generations (a single kandra generation is a hundred years), and only then will they be executed via acid bath (to be fair, it's quite difficult to kill kandra any other way).
* ''Literature/TheNightLand'' and ''Literature/AwakeInTheNightLand'' have monsters that not only can kill the body but also '''[[CapitalLettersAreMagic D]]'''[[CapitalLettersAreMagic estroy]] the soul.
* Becoming factionless, who live in poverty and are ostracized, is considered this by most of the characters in ''Literature/{{Divergent}}''. [[spoiler:Subverted in ''Insurgent'', when Tris gets to interact with them]].
* In Jeramey Kraatz's ''Literature/TheCloakSociety'', the Gloom. Which drains you into a husk without superpowers or intelligence enough to speak. In ''Fall of Heroes'', Lone Star explicitly says that he does not know whether this or death is worse.
* In the ''Literature/MythosAcademy'' books, [[spoiler:TheDragon, Vivian]], gets one of these. Gwen, the main character, whose mother [[spoiler:Vivian]] murdered, uses her {{psychomet|ry}}ric ability to force every bit of suffering she's ever experienced in her own life, or through others via her abilities, into [[spoiler:Vivian's]] mind all at once. [[spoiler:Vivian]] is left a broken shell, curled up in a fetal position begging for it to stop. It's implied that this condition is permanent.
* ''Literature/{{MARZENA}}'': Instead of YourMindMakesItReal, if you die in a dream or a virtual dream, you'll wind back time and be forced to relive the sequence over and over until you manage to resolve it (like a video game). TruthInTelevision, in that this is what happens to people who suffers from psychological trauma.
* In the Literature/{{Nameless War}} series the ultimate fate of the civilian population of [[spoiler:Junction Station]] is to be used as lab samples as the Nameless attempt to discover [[spoiler:an efficient way to eradicate humanity.]]
* ''Literature/DoraWilkSeries'': the vampires invoke this with the Tomb of Anna Batory, an archaic - and currently outlawed - punishment. The Tomb is basically a horizontal iron maiden in which the vampire is chained to the floor and locked up, with spells to keep them alive - forever.
* Villain from "The expedition into inferno" (written by ''Creator/{{Strugatsky Brothers}}'' ) build a buisness by kidnapping sentient beings,turning them into living computers and selling to unsuspecting aliens, who just thought, that they buying new, more advanced technology. Not only his victims condemned to spend the rest of their lives as immobile, but fully sentient machines, without any means to tell someone, what they actually are, but villain also included the button, meant to inflict horrific pain, and instruct the customers to push said button several times, if computer start working incorrectly.
* In Neal Shusterman's series ''Literature/{{Unwind}}'', being Unwound is this. To elaborate, [[spoiler: A teenager gets cut into individual pieces. those pieces are grafted onto other people. Even their brain. This was all done against their will, and the parts of their brain retain consciousness while in another person's head. Some parts can remember the terror of their Unwinding. Some can't, and don't understand where they are, why they can't speak, and why their thoughts aren't their own. They're stuck like this until their receiver dies.]]
* In ''Literature/TheGoblinEmperor'', Csevet explains that he "dislikes" Eshevis Tethimar because the man molested him when he was fifteen and had him deliver a message. Not knowing that the man who had grabbed him was a noble, Csevet bit him, which prompted Tethimar to suggest a game of "Fox and Hounds" to his friends. They did not not manage to catch Csevet, if they had, he tells Maia, death would have been the best thing he could have expected.
* ''Literature/GravityFallsJournal3'': Ford would rather be shot with a death ray than look as emaciated as Tesla when he's in his seventies.
* In ''Literature/{{Renegades}}'', at the end of the second book Donna is stuck in her [[OneToMillionToOne butterfly swarm]] form, unable to reform back.
* ''Literature/MagisterusBadTrip'' has falling, the euphemism for dying in the virtual reality game where most of the action takes place. A player who falls is forcibly logged out for 24 hours and cannot interfere with financial transactions in the game. This means that they can very easily lose all their money and fall into debt. If a top player falls, their enemies will gang up on them and keep forcing them to fall, meaning that they effectively can no longer play and so remain in debt.
* In ''[[Literature/{{Kane}} Darkness Weaves]]'' BackStory king Netisten Maril finds out that his wife Efrel has been cheating on him and plotting to kill him. He sentences her to be dragged by an enraged bull through the streets of his capital. This is meant as CruelAndUnusualDeath but being EldritchAbomination, Efrel survives -- but is heavily mutilated, a living wreck with ruined body, with only one eye to remind of her former beauty.
* In ''Literature/InfiniteJest'' watching [[BrownNote the titular film]] puts the viewer in a catatonic state where they only want to watch it over and over. Removing the film just makes them beg and plead for it to be turned back on. All of the organizations investigating the film treat viewing it as a death in the line of duty.
* ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'':
** During the Serpent War, Pug is allowed a choice between death and life [[spoiler: with the curse that everyone he has ever loved will die before him]]. He later regrets choosing the option that let him cheat death for a time.
** The final fate of treacherous nobles who betray the Empire of Kesh described in ''Prince of the Blood'' certainly qualifies, even if it does involve physical death... eventually. What makes the sentence so terrible is that it is meant to destroy the traitor's soul (or, at least, cause them to be forgotten by the gods and their nation and lost to oblivion) after a long line of painful humiliations and tortures including excommunication from the Keshian afterlife, all reference to your name in the public record being replaced with "a traitor" and your name being forbidden to any noble children for the rest of time. Carrying out the rest of the sentence involves several days of starvation, exposure and being whipped naked through the streets before being castrated then thrown, bound and bleeding, into a crocodile filled swamp. Suffice it to say, after this sentence is declared once against the leader of the conspiracy against the Empress in ''Prince of the Blood,'' most of the other traitors were happy to be let off with the option of Seppuku, a quick beheading (the ultimate shame for soldiers in Keshian culture) or maybe, if the Empress was feeling merciful in their particular case, exile.
* Literature/XandriCorelel says early in ''Testing Pandora'' that she'd rather die than be returned to her AbusiveParents.
* ''Literature/{{Ward}}'': When Dinah is questioned about the impending doom that she's been trying to prevent from behind the scenes, her answer involves this:
-->'''Dinah''': As things stand now, there is an 81.6% chance of total extinction of humanity, across multiple worlds. Of the remainder, 15% of the outcomes are ''worse''. The remaining 4% aren't too pretty either.
** Later in the story, we see a vision of what those 15% entail: [[spoiler:the Simurgh usurping control of parahuman powers and enslaving the human race via a combination of mind control and future sight. She then causes all of humanity to constantly fight and war with each other in a variety of horrific ways designed to inflict maximum suffering (because she believes that suffering will give her the most useful information)... lasting for at least 4 billion years.]]
* In ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'':
** You risk this with even the first gate leading to the southern oracle. It is guarded by a pair of sphinxes who might let you pass if you're lucky, because who they let pass appears to be completely arbitrary. If you're one of the unfortunate many who they won't admit, they will gaze at you, sending out all the riddles of the world for you to solve. This paralyses you until you either solve them all or die from starvation and dehydration.
** You do ''not'' want to end up trapped in the City of Old Emperors. You become a mindless creature without memory or ability to speak, performing ridiculous meaningless activities forever.
** Stay away from the Nothing, or you'll get what the Bark Trolls did. Even Gmork, magically chained, refused Atreyu's offer of food, preferring to die of hunger before the Nothing could get to him.
* In Creator/LarryNiven's short story "Bordered in Black", two astronauts explore a planet orbiting around Sirius B (incorrectly represented as a blue-white giant in the story). It has limited life - one of the main life-forms being a seaweedy substance with a ripe cheesy smell choking the oceans, and appears to be edible. The electric blue sky seems to be constantly filled with lightning strikes at various levels. From space, before landing, the astronauts noticed that one of the continents seemed to have a thin black border all around it, and they finally land on that continent to see what it was. They approach the black border from some distance inland, and see skeletons lying in the parched landscape, some covered with leathery skin. As they get closer to the water, they see what the black border is. [[spoiler: The black border was people: black-skinned people, 7 and 8 feet tall: they crowded the shoreline, endlessly struggling to reach the water in order to reach the seaweed - there were too many people for all to be able to reach it at the same time. It appeared that natural selection had favoured tallness to enable the people more easily to reach the water, climbing over other people if necessary. The explorers had already walked past the results of people who lost this struggle to access the seaweed. They had bred out of control, presumably because they had nothing to do but try to feed and to breed. They had no technology, no science, no clothes, no tools - nothing at all. They observed that the people formed layers, based on distance from the water: the strongest people were in the front, weaker ones behind them, and then there was a layer of dying people. The discovery sent one of the astronauts out of his mind, and he never recovered from the horrific discovery. The other explorer speculates that they were the descendants of the caretaker's family, placed on the uninhabited planet to harvest the plankton, and abandoned when their civilization collapsed- they just kept breeding, and eventually filled up the entire coast of the continent they were stuck on.]]
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "{{Literature/Risk}}": One of the problems with the experimental spacecraft is that any animal that goes through [[SubspaceOrHyperspace hyperspace]] loses all higher cognitive functions, sitting in their own waste and refusing to take any action, even eating. Gerald Black, who is chosen to [[TheNamesake risk this fate]], is terrified of it.
* ''Literature/TheFerrymanInstitute'': Ferryman who break one too many rules (or break the really big ones) are sent to Purgatory. It is compared to being put in solitary confinement in a sensory deprivation chamber, the ferryman's thoughts slowly driving them mad. SanitySlippage is said to kick in between a few months to even a few hours of being there.
* ''Literature/TheKingstonCycle'' by C.L. Polk: At the end of ''Soulstar'', an especially heinous criminal is hanged; his soul is fused with an oak tree, leaving him blind, deaf, mute, immobile, and helpless for as long as it lives; and a [[PhysicalReligion ruler of the afterlife]] implies that she'll take over his punishment when it dies.

* In Creator/LarryNiven's short story "Bordered in Black", two astronauts explore a planet orbiting around Sirius B (incorrectly represented as a blue-white giant in the story). It has limited life - one of the main life-forms being a seaweedy substance with a ripe cheesy smell choking the oceans, and appears to be edible. The electric blue sky seems to be constantly filled with lightning strikes at various levels. From space, before landing, the astronauts noticed that one of the continents seemed to have a thin black border all around it, and they finally land on that continent to see what it was. They approach the black border from some distance inland, and see skeletons lying in the parched landscape, some covered with leathery skin. As they get closer to the water, they see what the black border is. [[spoiler: The black border was people: black-skinned people, 7 and 8 feet tall: they crowded the shoreline, endlessly struggling to reach the water in order to reach the seaweed - there were too many people for all to be able to reach it at the same time. It appeared that natural selection had favoured tallness to enable the people more easily to reach the water, climbing over other people if necessary. The explorers had already walked past the results of people who lost this struggle to access the seaweed. They had bred out of control, presumably because they had nothing to do but try to feed and to breed. They had no technology, no science, no clothes, no tools - nothing at all. They observed that the people formed layers, based on distance from the water: the strongest people were in the front, weaker ones behind them, and then there was a layer of dying people. The discovery sent one of the astronauts out of his mind, and he never recovered from the horrific discovery. The other explorer eventually realizes they were the descendants of the caretaker's family, placed on the uninhabited planet to harvest the plankton, and abandoned when their civilization collapsed- they just kept breeding, and eventually filled up the entire coast of the continent they were stuck on.]]

* In Creator/LarryNiven's short story "Bordered in Black", two astronauts explore a planet orbiting around Sirius B (incorrectly represented as a blue-white giant in the story). It has limited life - one of the main life-forms being a seaweedy substance with a ripe cheesy smell choking the oceans, and appears to be edible. The electric blue sky seems to be constantly filled with lightning strikes at various levels. From space, before landing, the astronauts noticed that one of the continents seemed to have a thin black border all around it, and they finally land on that continent to see what it was. They approach the black border from some distance inland, and see skeletons lying in the parched landscape, some covered with leathery skin. As they get closer to the water, they see what the black border is. [[spoiler: The black border was people: black-skinned people, 7 and 8 feet tall: they crowded the shoreline, endlessly struggling to reach the water in order to reach the seaweed - there were too many people for all to be able to reach it at the same time. It appeared that natural selection had favoured tallness to enable the people more easily to reach the water, climbing over other people if necessary. The explorers had already walked past the results of people who lost this struggle to access the seaweed. They had bred out of control, presumably because they had nothing to do but try to feed and to breed. They had no technology, no science, no clothes, no tools - nothing at all. They observed that the people formed layers, based on distance from the water: the strongest people were in the front, weaker ones behind them, and then there was a layer of dying people. The discovery sent one of the astronauts out of his mind, and he never recovered from the horrific discovery. The story does not explain where these people came from, or how they came to be there; but one of the astronauts speculates that they may have been put there centuries ago either as an experiment of some kind or simply to breed them.]]

* ''Literature/{{Dortmunder}}'': * FateWorseThanDeath: In ''Good Behavior,'' not even Tiny's CutYourHeartOutWithASpoon threat scares Dortmunder as much as the prospect of spending forty years in a cellblock with TalkativeLoon and DirtyOldMan Wilbur Howey.

--->'''Hermione:''' I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed -- or worse, expelled.

* In Larry Niven's short story "Bordered in Black", two astronauts explore a planet orbiting around Sirius B (incorrectly represented as a blue-white giant in the story). It has limited life - one of the main life-forms being a seaweedy substance with a ripe cheesy smell choking the oceans, and appears to be edible. The electric blue sky seems to be constantly filled with lightning strikes at various levels. From space, before landing, the astronauts noticed that one of the continents seemed to have a thin black border all around it, and they finally land on that continent to see what it was. They approach the black border from some distance inland, and see skeletons lying in the parched landscape, some covered with leathery skin. As they get closer to the water, they see what the black border is. [[spoiler: The black border was people: black-skinned people, 7 and 8 feet tall: they crowded the shoreline, endlessly struggling to reach the water in order to reach the seaweed - there were too many people for all to be able to reach it at the same time. It appeared that natural selection had favoured tallness to enable the people more easily to reach the water, climbing over other people if necessary. The explorers had already walked past the results of people who lost this struggle to access the seaweed. They had bred out of control, presumably because they had nothing to do but try to feed and to breed. They had no technology, no science, no clothes, no tools - nothing at all. They observed that the people formed layers, based on distance from the water: the strongest people were in the front, weaker ones behind them, and then there was a layer of dying people. The discovery sent one of the astronauts out of his mind, and he never recovered from the horrific discovery. The story does not explain where these people came from, or how they came to be there; but one of the astronauts speculates that they may have been put there centuries ago either as an experiment of some kind or simply to breed them.]]

** Many middling to petty lords with basically only a modest plot of land, a keep and perhaps a village of a decent size with their knighthoods... spend an awful lot of time making the landless life with uncertain income of any [[KnightErrant hedge knights]] they interact with that much more unbearable with incessant bullying, one-upmanship and petty jerkassery on top of occasionally dangling low-paying, high-risk household positions at them. Probably because they're scared silly this fate will be theirs if they screw up just the once. Or, if the universe simply feels like making it happen when they're not looking. Unglamorous death in a losing battle is seen as preferable to trying to claw your way back into the rankings or, worse, trying to come back from exile.

** Just ''being'' in this kind of world probably qualifies as a fate worse than death. The world of ''Nineteen Eighty Four'' is HellOnEarth, and [[HumansAreBastards entirely man-made to boot]].

* Dematerialisation (the process of having your physical body destroyed while within the Twilight, either as a consequence of being killed within it or spending too long in it so that it drains all of your energy) in the ''Literature/NightWatch'' series is implied to be worse than regular death. Whereas the Others are unsure of what becomes of regular humans after death, they do know that dematerilised Others are forced to linger in the Twilight as impotent and possibly mindless shades, and meeting such a shade is traditionally accompanied by wishing that they may eventually find peace. The "worse than death" part comes from the fact that a sentence of being hanged is considered preferable to dematerialisation, implying that Others killed through regular means don't linger in the Twilight, and that this is considered better. And since it appears that all Others can live practically forever without succumbing to age or disease, and are virtually immune to natural weapons, that the ultimate fate of all of them is to dematerialise.

* In ''Literature/{{Cell}}'', those who disobey the orders of the Phoners are given "a fate worse than death, ''then'' death". We get a demonstration of what this means when a couple of jerks exploit the ApocalypseAnarchy to try to kill the protagonists (and succeed in [[KillTheCutie killing the cutie amongst them]]) even when the Phoners explicitly said to leave them be. [[spoiler:The Phoners get the jerks and while we don't get to see the whole extent of the torture they endure, the protagonists find their crucified and vivisected bodies later on.]]

* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', Maedhros is hung from a cliff by his right hand for years. Morgoth also inflicts this on Húrin, by cursing his children and forcing him to watch as the curse destroys their lives.

** Morgoth may have marred every aspect of the physical world but he has no power in the spiritual plane, beyond the doors of Night. Which means that, not only is he imprisoned there till the end of time, but also that all demons and forces of evil, the Maiar who have been seduced to his service in exchange of power, have nowhere to go if they lose their physical avatars. They can never go back to Valinor, so they are more or less reduced to powerless shadows of malice that can no longer hurt anyone but also do not have the sweet release of death, that all mortals have. This is best demonstrated with both Sauron and Saruman who make a last futile attempt to cling on to something. Sauron spends his last moments the Free People but the hand that he manifests as, gets blown and dissolves into nothing.