History Main / ThrowAwayCountry

* ''WebOriginal/SCPFoundation'': The Broken Masquerade timeline begins when the entire landmass of North Korea literally ceases to exist. The process is not environmentally safe, as one side-story describes the death of a North Korean navy officer as her neck is broken from the sheer force of the ocean and air flowing into the voided hole. [[spoiler:It turns out a Foundation employee went insane and used a combination of anomalies to make everything related to 'The Land of North Korea' not exist.]] However, the rest of the world quickly moves on from North Korea, as they've got even more dangerous anomalies to worry about.

* ''Film/IndependenceDay'' inverts the trope around by almost exclusively focusing on the U.S.A. getting reamed by the invading aliens, while the destruction across the globe is mostly just mentioned in passing.
** The inversion is hammered home when we see that Australia, usually first on the list of throwaway countries, managed to [[spoiler: save Sydney from total destruction]].

* Shanghai and Paris appear to be popular; ''Manga/GiantRobo'' sees both destroyed. No one seems to care too much (even the Frenchman, who is upset for a half dozen scenes before quickly getting over it) The characters by and large seem more upset over the BigBad killing a couple of their mates than wiping out several cities, which seems a little cold of them.

* In ''Anime/CControl'', Singapore is [[spoiler:is bankrupted and devoured by an EldritchAbomination after its Financial District goes bankrupt, in order to show that this could happen to Japan if [[BigBad Mikuni]] is allowed to continue trashing the economy]].

** In the Universal Century , Australia is the victim of a ColonyDrop bad enough to leave a crater visible from space. So much for Sydney.

* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' refers to two World Wars (one nuclear, the other conventional), and the show's storylines deal extensively with the results, such as restless (cyborg) veterans and large sections of ruined buildings seen all over Japan. Other nations are rarely even mentioned more than once. Even when the main characters partake in a mission in Germany to catch a Dutch terrorist, Germany is never referenced to again, nor does it serve as any more than an interesting backdrop.
** It's not like other countries are being devastated for shock value, either. The show just happens to be set in Japan, which also suffered its fair share of destruction, albeit not as much as China.

* Any planet except Earth in ''Anime/DragonBallZ''. Namek at least gets a few more mentions after being blown up (though not the extent you would expect, since [[KingOfAllCosmos ''God'']] grew up there), but all the other ones we see villains destroying just to prove that they can aren't dwelled on by the marvelous heroes who only care about the safety of Earth.
** To be fair, the only planets shown to be destroyed in the story itself are Vegeta, Namek, Earth, and in the anime, Arlia. Vegeta can't be restored, since it happened decades before and the Dragonballs can't resurrect someone who's been dead for more than a year, the heroes don't even know that Arlia was destroyed, and Namek and Earth are treated with relatively the same importance. It's implied that Frieza and his ilk destroyed far more, but the heroes have no way of knowing which ones.
* In Universal Century ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'', Australia is the victim of a ColonyDrop bad enough to leave a crater visible from space. So much for Sydney.

* In ''Manga/InuYasha'', nameless villages are frequently destroyed or devastated by either warring human armies or ravaging {{youkai}}. The AntiVillain Koga actually makes his introduction descending on a random village and loosing the quasi-demonic wolves that follow him to eat their fill on human flesh. [[MoralMyopia Nobody ever brings this up afterwards.]]
* In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]'', the Eurasian Federation got the worse out of the war, and they did nothing but sit there and get blasted. By their own alleged allies, as just wiping out the sections of Europe that got conquered was deemed easier than liberating them.
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'', the Europia United was brushed aside with no named characters (Save people born in the native countries of the EU alliance) as China, Britannia and the Black Knights duked it out. China is eventually dissolved into a multitude of smaller nations. Some of which join the U.F.N. And some of which are quickly conquered by Britannia.
** Subverted with the release of ''Anime/CodeGeassAkitoTheExiled'', since the story takes place in Europe.

* In ''Anime/CTheMoneyAndSoulOfPossibility'', Singapore is [[spoiler:{{retcon}}ned from existence after its Financial District went bankrupt.]]

* Comic books often have Throw Away ''Planets''. For example, the Tamaraneans, an alien race of which Starfire from ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'' is a member, have their planet destroyed; the survivors move to a new planet, which is destroyed by an unrelated disaster; the survivors from ''that'' move onto ''yet another'' new planet, which is ''also'' destroyed in another totally unrelated disaster.
* In ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', the entire population of Bialya was killed in a single issue. It was then retconned in a tie-in series so we get to have the fun of the entire population of a country being killed AGAIN.
* Mythical locales in the Franchise/{{Marvel|Universe}} and [[Franchise/TheDCU DC Universes]] have been particularly unsafe regions lately, with Themyscira (DC), Asgard (Marvel), Olympus (both), and Atlantis (both) either being destroyed or depopulated in the last few years, usually in conjunction with a CrisisCrossover. More than once for a few of those places. Quite honestly, Wonder Woman shouldn't have any sisters left.
* Comicbook/{{Ultron}} kills the entire population of a fictitious Eastern European nation "Slorenia" in just a few hours in the Main/MarvelUniverse. Then proceeds to align their corpses to resemble his face. Who says 10 foot omnicidal killer robots have no style?
** Slorenian refugees were Marvel's go-to WesternTerrorists for a while afterwards
* Franchise/TheDCU has in the past 20 years destroyed [[ComicBook/GreenLantern Coast City]] (''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman / Emerald Twilight''), Montevideo (''ComicBook/DCOneMillion''), Vladivostok (Terror Incognita arc, ''ComicBook/{{JLA}}''), and [[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Bludhaven]] (''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis''). ''Permanently'' destroyed, with nuclear fire.
* And back on the Marvel end of things, [[Comicbook/JeanGrey Dark Phoenix]] consumed the star D'Bari and doomed the inhabitants of that entire star system to death by way of illustrating the epic scale of the threat she posed.
** Not to mention all those eaten by ComicBook/{{Galactus}}.
** During ComicBook/TheInfinityGauntlet arc, the entire island nation of Japan sinks to the ocean. Of course, like most of the disasters during the story, it got a ResetButton at the end. (And, oh yeah, Thanos kills literally ''exactly half'' of the population of the ''entire universe'' in an instant.)
** Japan was also destroyed by Moses Magnum and Namorita in one of the Exiles arcs. Apparently [[KickTheDog he killed every Japanese person on that Earth]] just to drive home the point that he was to be taken seriously.
*** That was his second try. Moses Magnum first tried to destroy Japan in ''The Uncanny X-Men'' back in 1979. Moses, why do you hate Japan so?
** Japan gets it again in the latest ComicBook/TheEternals series. It gets reset.
* The very first issue of ''Comicbook/TheAvengersJonathanHickman'' opens with Ex Nihilo dropping "Origin Bombs" on Perth, Australia and Regina, Canada.
* In the beginning of ''ComicBook/SecretWarsII'', the Beyonder destroys an entire ''galaxy''. Molecule Man later restores the stars, but it seems unlikely that he could have resurrected all the aliens presumably killed when their planets got blown up.
* Genosha, a country focused on various kinds of mutant/human conflict, required [[KillerRobot Sentinel]] genocide just because people were tired about writing about Genosha. That said, later plots and character arcs went on to subvert the trope by incorporating the destruction of Genosha as a plot point in various ways (survivor's guilt, monstrosities operating out of the ruins, etc).
* [[Franchise/TheDCU DC]] supervillain Cheshire nuked the capital of {{Qurac}} as part of a global blackmail scheme. (This is always brought up in her appearances, partly because it's so ridiculous. In ''Comicbook/{{Manhunter}}'', for instance, when Kate encounters Cheshire, she asks herself, "Didn't she blow up a country?")
** She even [[InvokedTrope used this trope as a reason]], citing the fact that Qurac was ''just'' unpleasant and unimportant enough that nobody would really miss it.
* ComicBook/TheSpectre, Franchise/TheDCU embodiment of God's Vengeance, slaughtered the entire country of Vlatava while the country was in the midst of a bloody civil war between ethnic groups. He claimed that no one in the country was free from the hatred that drove the war, and even the children and infants would grow up to repeat the same cycle of violence.
* Kansas serves this purpose in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'', having been completely destroyed by the Parasite tearing open ComicBook/CaptainAtom's containment suit.
* In the Devil's Due version of ''ComicBook/GIJoe'', Boston gets nuked by COBRA using stolen Russian missiles as the opening salvo in their plan to ignite World War III.
** Cobra's HQ, Cobra Island, is technically a country. And is a site of multiple massacres, in out of main continuity. The whole mess started when the United States wanted to nuke the Gulf for some reason. Finally, CI just gets nuked flat.
* Karolina's homeworld Majesdane is bombed to dust off panel in ''Comicbook/{{Runaways}}'' to give their last survivors a reason to come to earth and attack her.
* Franchise/TheDCU event "[[ComicBook/OurWorldsAtWar The Imperiex War]]" went with this trope. Several planets, like the planet Daxam where a group of Kryptonian colonists lived, were destroyed. A couple of galaxies, like Maxima's home galaxy, were destroyed. When Imperiex reached Earth, he destroyed several cities, like [[Comicbook/{{Aquaman}} the kingdom of Atlantis]], and what was probably the most impressive to the audience, Topeka, Kansas.

* In Marvel's ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse, the entire north of South America (where in our space-time lies the Amazon Forest) is a radioactive sea, marked in the map with several radiation symbols.

* Back in the ''Marvel Universe'', the fictional country called the ''Savage Land'' is used like this; the inhabitants are understandably pissed off at the world.
* Skrulls, Shi'ar, Kree. Alien socities in the Marvel Universe get destroyed all the time. No wonder the Shi'ar killed all of Jean's relatives.
* Franchise/{{Transformers}}:
** In [[ComicBook/TransformersGeneration2 Transformers G2]], Jhiaxus destroys San Francisco to show Optimus Prime that he can and will.
** In IDW's ''[[Franchise/{{Transformers}} Transformers: Regeneration One]]'', Megatron blasts the Earth into a barren wasteland (off-screen!) on a whim to get Optimus Prime's attention.

* In ''[[ComicBook/TheUltimates Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates]]'', the power of a secret cabal of industrial multimillionaires called the Kratos Club is showcased when they meddle in a South American conflict only because the result would benefit them. Their intervention causes the detonation of a nuclear bomb in the South American country of Uruguay. Of course, the consequences of this course of action are barely touched.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'': Since the name change from Paradise Island to Themyscira, and decreasing the power levels of the Amazons as a whole outside of Wondy, the island has been destroyed or jettisoned from earth by numerous villain attacks (Circe once [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1987 tossed the whole place into the limbo like outer reaches of Tartarus]]). This never sticks, but attacking Themyscira and causing major damage has become a shorthand for making an attack on the Earth's heroes seem serious.

* {{Discussed}} in ''FanFic/YouGotHaruhiRolled'', where Ryouko suggests nuking Sweden or Asia in order to kill enough people to start the Apocalypse.

* Fargo of ''VideoGame/GalaxyAngel'' is another Throw Away Planet.

* Invoked in ''Literature/RevelationSpace'': threatening the planetary government of Resurgam with OrbitalBombardment but reluctant to actually kill anyone, Volyova uses the advanced technology of her ship to fabricate the existence of a little nowhere town in Resurgam's databases and then utterly obliterates the spot where it supposedly exists in order to show them she's serious.

* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' has its cake and eats it when Shanghai is destroyed in a huge explosion halfway through the first game. Despite this, every single named character in the city survives, even the ones standing at ground zero at the time; oddly enough, one of them reappears only to die near instantly afterwards. Later on, several cut scenes actually reuse the Shanghai sets without any sign of damage, giving rise to the feeling that the huge nuclear explosion [[Main/CosyCatastrophe knocked over a couple of trees and mussed up the main character's hair]].

* In the WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon, "Rebel Rabbit", Bugs Bunny is trying to cause as much trouble as possible. This leads to him sawing off Florida and kicking it off into the ocean.

* In ''Film/TheAvengersAgeOfUltron'', the titular robot once again blows up an irrelevant [[{{Ruritania}} fictional Eastern European country]], Sokovia. Maria Hill even says it's "nowhere special, but it's on the way to everywhere special". In ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'', this is slightly downplayed, as the country is listed as the most prominent example of places which have suffered massive collateral damage during Avenger missions and even becomes the reason for a UN resolution to issue the so-called "Sokovia Accords" to disband the Avengers, but this is all treated as a temporary setback and the heroes move on to different conflicts, by the time of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' more or less assembling again.

* By and large, the only one that seems to care about Doma's poisoning in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is Cyan, who had family there. The act is only mentioned a few other times in the game, such as when Kefka is imprisoned by the Empire for a short time to [[Main/HeelFaceMole get the protagonists' trust]]. Admittedly, Kefka had a rather long list of heinous crimes, but it seemed like genocide-by-poisoning would have been a little closer to the top of people's reasons to hate him, at least before [[Main/OmnicidalManiac he ruined the rest of the world too]].

European countries are very likely to suffer this fate in film. They're Western enough for the American public to identify with, but distant enough to be "over there". If Australia is remembered, it will generally fall in here as well. (See also ShinyNewAustralia, a related trope.)

* In ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'', Paris is destroyed by a chunk of asteroid, just to serve as a reminder that these things hurt. Shanghai suffers a similar fate later in the movie, so the heroes have further reason to angst about the danger.

* The machinima series ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' appears to parody this when it's mentioned that each member of a special unit was named after one of the remaining 49 states, at which point Tucker mentions "Poor Florida" and they have a moment of silence. The fate of the state is never discussed again.

See also RedShirt, PlutoIsExpendable, SacrificialPlanet.

* The tendency for comic books to do this is painfully averted by ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}'', in which its main hero-turned-villain goes to the U.N. and is lied to by the representative of Singapore. [[DisproportionateRetribution His response to being lied to is to sink the entire country.]] The comic doesn't gloss over the details one bit, and it's just as horrific and terrifying an act as you would expect.

In superhero comics where StatusQuoIsGod, ReedRichardsIsUseless, but so is Doctor Doom. He's never going to make any big permanent changes to the world in a way that makes it too different from the real world. The solution? Give him a [[{{Ruritania}} made-up country]] to mess up. Just like their counterparts in disaster movies, these made-up Throw Away Countries are pretty easily forgotten when they're not the focus of a story arc.

* Marvel's "ComicBook/TheNewUniverse" franchise includes a CrisisCrossover graphic novel titled ''ComicBook/ThePitt'', in which Pittsburgh is vaporized because Ken Connell gets careless with the ComicBook/StarBrand.

** Japan gets it again in the latest Eternals series. It gets reset.
* The very first issue of ''Comicbook/JonathanHickmansAvengers'' opens with Ex Nihilo dropping "Origin Bombs" on Perth, Australia and Regina, Canada.

Obviously, very prevalent in globe-spanning disaster movies.

* Marvel's "ComicBook/TheNewUniverse" franchise includes a CrisisCrossover graphic novel titled ''ComicBook/ThePitt'', in which Pittsburgh is vaporized because Ken Connell gets careless with the Star Brand.

* Taken to its logical extreme in the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' universe; at least 350 worlds have been rendered uninhabitable or otherwise depopulated. Most of those have simply vanished without even fluff text to explain what happened; they just simply are on one map and not on the next. Of those that have explanations of what happened, only the most recent such as [[spoiler:Galedon IV, Galax]] or [[spoiler:Alarion]] have more then a footnote.
** Said mention of [[spoiler:Galedon IV]] received a shrug and an "oops." from the writers on the forum when it was discovered, some time later, that one of the "face" units in Battletech that had several novels written about them - Jeremiah Thorn's "Black Thorns" mercenary force - was last known to be on that world when it went to hell. They didn't even get a published footnote.

** There have been multiple Clans have been annihilated or absorbed by the other Clans for one reason or another. The Clans that have been annihilated so far were Clans Widowmaker, Mongoose, Wolverine, Smoke Jaguar, Fire Mandrill, Ice Hellion, Steel Viper, Blood Spirit, and Nova Cat.