History Main / MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning

* ''TheMummy'' shows a literal example with Imhotep. Down to carving it in the very coffin he's buried in.

** He probably didn't knew that it was the beginning of one of the most ''popular t-shirt motives''...

* ''{{Diablo}}'', to some extent. ''Diablo II'' has the fallen angel Izual talk about a GambitRoulette which involved the Three Prime Evils being intentionally defeated at certain points to advance some sort of agenda. Most of the fans have been LeftHanging on the details of this scheme.
** With ''{{Diablo}} III'' announced at the 2008 BlizzardEntertainment Worldwide Invitational in June, they may just get their answers.
** Wasn't it just to get the Soulstones for their own use? ([[MacGuffin For whatever reason.]])

* There was an episode of ''{{Charmed}}'' which involved a warlock needing to die nine times to attain immortality.

** The reason is that V is now unneeded. The destruction is finished, what is needed is someone with the powers of creation. So, he specifically trained his 'sidekick' to succeed him, and then committed suicide. She becomes V, he becomes immortalized, and she picks a new sidekick.

** Harry, too. [[IGotBetter He gets better.]]

* At the end of the third season of ''{{Angel}}'', Daniel Holtz ordered his disciple Justine to kill him in order that Connor would believe that Angel was the murderer. Holtz even specifies that he be stabbed in the throat in two places - seemingly with vampiric fangs - to make it appear that Angel had turned evil again and bitten him.

*** Made ''[[BeyondTheImpossible even]] [[ItGotWorse worse]]'' in the remakes. It's revealed that his soul split in half at the time of his death: his dark half became the Emperor of Hell, while his light (''[[LightIsNotGood but still evil]]'') side became the Light Emperor and presides over the game's equivalent of ''Heaven''. Mateus has you screwed from '''both''' sides of the celestial chain.

Unrelated to XanatosGambit because the planner's death is a crucial element.

** And Osiris. And Dionynsus. Baldr, Shiva, Tammuz, Zalmoxis, and others too numerous to count. The dying-and-resurrecting god is practically a trope to itself.
*** It's true that the resurrection is usual, but only Jesus has his kind of Gambit, dying for the sins of the mankind and so giving everyone the opportunity of salvation. So he's the only one who goes with this trope.
**** Most of the gods above sacrifice themselves to ensure the coming of spring/rain.
***** Osiris didn't resurrect. He came back as the king of the dead, so he's more like a mummy (hey, Egyptian) than a resurrected figure.
****** There are several versions of the Osiris myth, in some Isis manages to resurrect his body long enough to become pregnant with Horus. (This is different from the versions in which she was impregnated before Osiris was killed.) Since his body was considered to have been literally brought back to life, he is a resurrected figure. Other mythological figures, such as Hercules, who died and were made gods, would not be considered true resurrected figures.

* ''Webcomic/AxeCop'': In "The Dogs", [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext the witch doctor cats, Iggy and Willy, let the superhero dogs kill them on purpose so that they can be resurrected as mumies and turn the whole world into cats]].

* The ''aversion'' of this is a driving plot point in ''Film/LChangeTheWorld'', a spinoff to the LiveActionAdaptation ''DeathNote'' films. The ecoterrorist BigBad has a super-virus that will wipe out humanity, but he is not willing to die along with the rest of us. However, the scientist who created a vaccine destroys it and kills himself after learning of the villain's plan rather than let the plan succeed, causing the villain to go after the scientist's daughter, who has notes on the vaccine and who L takes in.

** [[FinalFantasyXIII-2 XIII-2]] has Caius, whose death by itself causes the end of the world. He possesses the Heart of Chaos, which, when destroyed, destroys the goddess Etro, and basically when ''she'' dies, chaos is released into the world, destroying it. He therefore plans to have Noel kill him in order to achieve this.

* The film ''{{Constantine}}'' had the protagonist turn to this sort of plan to stop Gabriel from releasing Mammon.

* In ''DeathNote'', Mello's last move involves his own death. His sidekick Matt also dies, though this wasn't necessary.

* Goku's death in episode 5 of ''DragonBall Z'' sets up his afterlife journey to power up for the battle against Vegeta and Nappa.

* Desty Nova in ''{{GUNNM}}''.

* Dewey Novak in ''EurekaSeven''.
* Masami Eiri in ''SerialExperimentsLain'' throws himself under a train as the last part of his plan to discard the physical body and live on the Wire as God.

* Emperor Dornkirk in ''VisionOfEscaflowne'' as part of his plan to activate his fate engine. Stupid KarmicDeath.
* Altena in ''{{Noir}}'' shows she is willing to sacrifice everything and everyone she loves for her holy cause, including herself.
* The first ''Patlabor'' film opens with the suicide of a computer scientist. As the police protagonists investigate his death along with the suddenly-destructive behaviour of the Mecha he wrote the operating system for, they reveal a sophisticated plan according to this trope.

* In ''OnePiece'', the government executes the pirate king, Gold Roger, to send a message of warning to all the pirates in the world. Instead, Roger uses his moment of publicity to announce to the entire world where his treasure can be found, setting off the beginning of the Great Age of Pirates.

* Lelouch in the second season of ''CodeGeass'' deliberately acted like a tyrant when he became Emperor of Brittannia and secretly arranged his own assassination at the hands of Suzaku, who would be disguised as Zero. With the entire world's hatred focused on him, Lelouch deduced that his death would usher in a better tomorrow. Plus, the combined guilt of his many ShootTheDog ''and'' KickTheDog moments convinced him that [[DeathSeeker death was his only path to redemption]] even if there might be other alternatives to arrive at the same result.

* CardCaptorSakura: Clow Reed. He only predicted one particular aspect of everything wrong (the YaoiGuys, Touya and Yukito), and it was one that didn't have any effect on the plan.

* {{Kyou Kara Maou}}: Shinou died to set into motion a great [[AncientConspiracy Conspiracy]] drawn out over a period of ''four millenia'', which involved manipulating the whole of Demon Tribe for all those years in a cycle of incarnations and reincarnations, in order to defeat the {{Big Bad}} Shoushu. And he managed to do it without being evil...well, at least most of the time!

* One interpretation of the plot of VagrantStory: Sydney has been manipulating events so that when he and the Duke die at the end, Ashley is the only person left with the power to master The Dark.

* In ''{{Guild Wars}}'', PLAYERS can sometimes do this (though usually only in pvp). There was once a gimmick build involving this (it was hit by nerf collateral, but still technically works), where players suicided to provide corpses necessary to power production of army of undead minions. since Death Is Cheap, this was a viable tactic. Another build involved abusing Edge of Extinction, an environmental effect that that caused health loss when a creature of same type died (i.e., damage to human if human within range died). Several players on the opposing side could suicide to trigger this effect, instantly wiping opposing team without even having to be close to them, and if some precaution was takes so that suicide team would have one survivor ... instant victory. Another [=PvP=] tactic with similar effect was abusing Warrior skills 'I Will Avenge You!' that gave bonus for each dead ally within range. Hilarity ensued when people started running several warriors with pets (which also count as allies) and PETA took notice. In PvE this is much tamer, but still: The only way to get title of 'Legendary Defender of Ascalon' is to let monsters level up by killing player repeatedly so that player can kill them later for experience, this usually consists of luring monsters to respawn point and letting them camp player for several hours. Similar tactics are also used when obtaining high-level pets: instead of capturing low-level version and leveling it by normal gameplay, player can elect to aggro pet, lure it to respawn point and let it level off by killing and camping the character while the player browses TV Tropes. And then there is a resurrection skill called 'Vengeance' that returns player to full life with hefty damage buff, and there are many interesting combination of abuse of the skill Rebirth (resurrects dead player and teleports him to casters location) and necrotic traversal (Players teleports to corpse): If players can manage to kill foe beyond obstacle, one party member can traversal through it and have rest of party commit suicide and then rebirth them to the other side. As you can see, Dying Is Fun in Guild Wars.

* Mellar in ''[[{{Dragaera}} Jhereg]]''.

* In the second ''SkulduggeryPleasant'' book, the death of the Grotesquery is apparently necessary for the return of the [[CosmicHorror Faceless Ones]], in contrast to Baron Vengeaous's belief that the Grotesquery would be able to summon them.

There are plenty of reasons for why these plans are drawn up. Sometimes it is to evade justice from the heroes; the villain knows that if he is successful, someone will want to take revenge. Perhaps the character doesn't want to die ''per se'', but knows that there's no way around it if he wants to succeed. It could be a plan to turn TheHero to TheDarkSide, or maybe the villain's death is part of an overarching GambitRoulette and it will set in motion events the heroes couldn't possibly predict. Still, there are [[ThanatosGambit some bastards who just love to have the last laugh]].

[[ThanatosGambit There are some plans perpetrated by a select few that involve the]] ''[[ThanatosGambit villain's own demise]]'' [[ThanatosGambit as the finishing touch]]. Naturally, any plan that involves the literal [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt end of the world]] would finish off an antagonist as well as everyone else, but that's usually a side effect. My Death Is Just the Beginning has it the first (or one of the first) items on the BigBad's To Do list.

* In Serenity The Operative [[NecessarilyEvil knows what he does is evil]], but is deprived the ability to pay for his sins with death when Mal [[SwordOverHead refuses to kill him]] after winning their duel.

* Crake in ''OryxandCrake''.

** Should be noted that Aslan is Christ - * IS* Christ - and thus is linked to the Bible reference below.

* Kelsier in ''Mistborn'' by Brandon Sanderson sets himself up as a figure of quasi-religious adoration, gets himself publicly and heroically killed, and arranges for a shapeshifter to take his form and make a bunch of ambiguous appearances, as part of an elaborate plan to foment rebellion.

* In the second ''Skulduggury Pleasant'' book, the death of the Grotesquery is apparently necessary for the return of the [[CosmicHorror Faceless Ones]], in contrast to Baron Vengeaous's belief that the Grotesquery would be able to summon them.

* In Orson Scott Card's ''Ender in Exile'', when two characters both come up with a plan to expose their rival for "who he really is" that involves being beaten to death (or almost) by the other character and recording a video of it. And try to do this to each other at the same time.

* In the SherlockHolmes story ''The Problem of Thor Bridge'', Maria Gibson jealous of the close relationship between her husband and the family's governess, commits suicide and attempts to frame the governess for her murder.

* In the Bible, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

** There's also the Clone spell, which is essentially a buggy arcane resurrection. A villain in Forgotten Realms had multiple clones going before his death, and all or most of them started running around, [[HilarityEnsues leading to hilarity]].
* In the ''{{Shadowrun}}'' universe, the great dragon Dunkelzahn (also president-elect of the United American and Canadian States) sure planned ahead for his death. His Last Will is long enough for a book and arranges the founding of the Draco Foundation a Mega Corporation that supervises the fulfillment of all of Dunkelzahn's last demands and has a lot of control over the sixth world. It is financed by the dead dragon's vast riches and is the only Mega Corp the players can work together with without feeling guilty afterwards. Also it is very successful in making the world a better place. It's revealed in the ''Dragonheart Trilogy'' that Dunkelzahn arranged his own death in order to power a spell to prevent [[CosmicHorror the Horrors]] from crossing over into the world.