History Main / TheProblemWithFightingDeath

[[folder:Real Life]]
* If fighting Death, [[TheThreeCertaintiesInLife the first certainty in life,]] is a problem, then fighting [[IntimidatingRevenueService the second certainty, taxes,]] is a close second. As the trope page elaborates in detail, everyone fears the taxman, and even if you manage to dodge them on your ill-gotten gains, you won't get to spend it unless you launder it (mirroring that those cheating Death [[WhoWantsToLiveForever often don't get to enjoy it)]]... And laundering your dirty money means paying the taxman their due. Like TheGrimReaper, you may be able to cheat and dodge them for a while, but eventually they will get their due.
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...Is that even when you win, you'll ''still'' eventually lose.

* One of John Constantine's fears in the ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'' arc of 'Dangerous Habits'. John is dying from lung cancer, and while he's searching about a solution in how to cure himself, he tricks and defeats the literal Devil, Lord of Darkness and King of Hell, into drinking holy water, humilliating him and killing him. The problem is, Satan himself can't die forever, he just returned to hell, and John is ''still'' dying, and after living a life of practicing magic and the occult, plus other number of nasty stuff he's done in life, it's only a matter of time until Constantine snuffes it and ends up in the hands of the First of the Fallen, who will do everything and anything short of using his pitchfork into making his eternal unlife a literal endless hell. Of course, Constantine being Constantine, he actually manages to win ''a second time'' against not only the Devil himself, but actually the entire Unholy Trinity that rules hell. Constantine manages, for the time being, to make a [[SubvertedTrope subversion of this trope!]]

* If fighting Death, [[TheThreeCertaintiesInLife the first certainty in life,]] is a problem, then fighting [[IntimidatingRevenueService the second certainty, taxes,]] is a close second. As the trope page elaborates in detail, everyone fears the taxman, and even if you manage to dodge them on your ill-gotten gains, you won't get to spend it unless you launder it (mirroring that those cheating Death [[WhoWantsToLiveForever often regret it)]]... And laundering your dirty money means paying the taxman their due. Like TheGrimReaper, you may be able to cheat and dodge them for a while, but eventually they will get their due.

* An endgame reveal in ''VideoGame/Persona3'' is [[spoiler:that the being that is prophesized to bring about the Fall is Nyx, the incarnation of the concept of death. All the Major Arcana Shadows fought throughout the game are fragments of Death, and by killing them the protagonists have accelerated the arrival of Nyx. It's stated by Ryoji, himself a fragment of Death, that Nyx cannot be destroyed or defeated no matter how strong the protagonists are due to representing the very concept of inevitable death. He turns out to be completely correct: when Nyx is fought as the final boss, you're merely fighting an Avatar - and you don't even get to destroy that, it simply flies away after the fight and the ''real'' Nyx appears, a being of incomprehensible magnitude that gets the entire party on their knees just by existing. The world is only saved by the protagonist awakening the Universe arcana and sacrificing his soul to become the Great Seal.]]

* The otherwise four-colour superhero game TabletopGame/FreedomCity has a surprisingly bleak mention of this. The superhero Daedalus is immortal, and [[WhoWantsToLiveForever not happy about it]]. However, the reason he's never seriously tried to kill himself is specifically because his archenemy is Hades, Lord Of The Underworld. However much immortality sucks, spending eternity in the realm of a god who hates you and has total power over you would be ''much worse.

* ''Series/{{Charmed}}'': The Angel of Death shows up a few times, and his first appearance revolves around Prue accepting that Death isn't an evil that can be defeated; it's just part of the Grand Design. The Angel and the Charmed Ones clash a few times throughout the series, and the Angel overcomes them every time. In the final season, there's one time where they manage to save someone by going over Death's head and bargaining with an Angel of Destiny, but the end of the season shows that that had been part of the Grand Design all along.

* In ''ComicBook/TheThanosImperative'', the MarvelUniverse is invaded by an alternate universe where death was destroyed and life grew unchecked throughout the universe to the point where life itself has become an EldritchAbomination, governed by "The Many-Angled Ones."

* ''VideoGame/Destiny2'': Xivu Arath, the Hive GodOfWar, grows stronger whenever a battle is fought in her name. It doesn't matter whether they're fought for her or against her. Season of the Seraph hinges on reactivating humanity's KillSat network in order to deal her armies a crushing blow -- only for it to be revealed that such a slaughter, even against her own forces, would act as a SummoningRitual to bring her here immediately. Season of the Witch attempts CuttingTheKnot on the problem of fighting war, with Eris Morn bootstrapping herself into the bootleg Hive god of vengeance in order to contest Xivu Arath's monopoly on violence.

** As punishment for ratting out Zeus, jerkass tyrant Sisyphus was to be punished by being personally taken by the death god [[TheGrimReaper Thanatos]] to an especially unpleasant corner of Tartarus in chains. Of course, Sisyphus arrogantly thought himself even cleverer than the Gods. So, the tyrant coyly asked Thanatos how the chains worked, and [[SchmuckBait in demonstrating, Sisyphus trapped the god in his own chains]]. Of course, this meant that [[DeathTakesAHoliday no-one could die at all]]. Eventually Ares, the god of war, got pissed off because none of his opponents would die when he killed them, which was no fun, so he freed Thanatos and let the god of Death carry on with his mission. This wasn't the first time he cheated death. Another time when Sisyphus was about to die, he instructed his wife not to give him any funeral, shroud, or even money to pay Charon. So, when he did die, he made his way to the palace of Hades where he schmoozed and pleaded with the goddess Persephone that [[BlatantLies his wife was very, very cruel and disrespectful]]. Touched by the trickster's words, the goddess permitted him to return to the world of the living to *cough* scold his wife. Of course, when Sisyphus was finally delivered to Tartarus, Hades made a bargain with Sisyphus, in that Sisyphus could walk out of Tartarus scotfree if he could just roll that boulder up that hill, and make it stay there.