Line #20 ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill/Literature


1	There is no overkill like the [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill main page]].
2	----
3	* ''Literature/ChrysalisRinoZ'': Crinis tends to be a bit overprotective of Anthony and excessively vengeful toward his enemies.
4	--> [Master! Are you well? Are you hurt? I think I can feel a scratch on your carapace. WHO DID IT?! Tell me, and I will rend them into pieces and grind the remains into paste! Then I will dive into the mind of the paste and drive it insane for a thousand years! Death! Deaaaaaaaaaath!]
5	* ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'': Once Feyre breaks the curse and Tamlin's powers are fully restored, he pins Amarantha to the ground, stabs her through the head with a sword ''and'' rips her throat out.
6	* Possibly the earliest example is in Homer's ''Literature/{{Iliad}}'', when [[spoiler:after Achilles kills Hector, he punctures Hector's ankles and uses the holes to attach Hector's corpse to his chariot with Ajax's girdle, and then rides the chariot around the walls of Troy, dragging Hector's body through the dirt]].
7	* The end of ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'' has [[spoiler:the entire planet Earth destroyed, in all parallel universes to boot, with all the main characters on it]] because Creator/DouglasAdams was sick of being asked for more sequels. The radio drama [[spoiler:has them escape, in the nick of time]].
8	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''
9	** In ''Literature/WyrdSisters'', King Murune of Lancre was apparently not very popular, as he met a terrible fate involving [[NoodleImplements "a red hot poker, ten pounds of live eels, a three mile stretch of frozen river, a butt of wine, a couple of tulip bulbs, a number of poisoned eardrops, an oyster, and a large man with a mallet"]] (all references to the deaths of famous kings, noblemen, and other [=VIPs=] both fictional and in real life).
10	** The craziness of Jonathan Teatime in the ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'' is established with a recounting of him doing this during an assassination mission. He was supposed to kill an elderly noble, and rather than drugging the guy's dog as would be typical, he nails it to the ceiling, kills two servants who were witnesses, and kills his victim so violently that his head is several feet from his body. It's a good thing he did the trick with the mirror where you hold it in front of a victim's mouth to check if he's still breathing. Can never be too sure. Hm hm.
11	** Special mention needs to go to the Piecemaker, which is described as "a siege cross-bow that three men couldn't lift, [Detritus] had converted it to fire a thick sheaf of arrows all at once. Mostly they shattered in the air because of the forces involved, and the target was hit by an expanding cloud of burning splinters. Vimes had banned him from using it on people, but it was a damn good way of getting into buildings. It could open the front door and the back door at the same time." Hence, "If Mr. Safety Catch is not on, Mr. Crossbow is not your friend."
12	** Then there's ''How to Kille Insects'', an absolutely ''massive'' tome. If you were going to [[ThrowTheBookAtThem use the book itself]] to Kille Insects, as is often implied when the book comes up, that would be overkill, as it's been used to hit someone so hard his helmet collapses and sticks to his head.
13	** The Assassin's Guild has Inhumation with Extreme Prejudice, where the assassin doesn't just 'inhume' their 'client', but also their family, and everyone in their house, and the street. It's to send the message that the target has incurred the wrath of someone who can afford to be indiscriminate in their revenge.
14	** Another Terry Pratchett example is the multiple assassination attempts on Dom Sabalos in ''Literature/TheDarkSideOfTheSun''. The ''first'' one uses ''a black hole''.
15	* To ''Literature/CiaphasCain'''s [[PsychoLesbian Mari Magot]], the word overkill is inherently meaningless.
16	** Among other achievements this lovely young girl managed to lead her fireteam into melee with soldiers devoted to [[WarGod Khorne]]. Later we learn that her squad sustained no casualties.
17	** In ''The Traitor's Hand'', a Chaos SpaceMarine is noted as having been killed "with satisfying thoroughness" by two krak missiles and a lascannon, ''each'' of which is an anti-tank weapon on its own.
18	** It's hard to say if the refinery-cum-fuel-air bomb in ''Caves of Ice'' was "overkill" or "just enough kill", given that it was used on [[MadeOfIron Necrons]], but its blast wave ''was'' felt ''in orbit''.
19	* In another ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' series, ''Literature/BlackLegion'', "overkill" seems to be Khayon's standard ''modus operandi''.
20	** In a flashback, he kills Space Wolf champion Eyarik Born-in-Fire by dismantling him at the molecular level.
21	** The attack on Canticle City begins with him [[spoiler:hurtling kilometers-long ''Tlaloc'' at it, destroying it completely.]]
22	* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': In ''Reynard the Fox'', a shapeshifter is slashed, stabbed, struck by an arrow, beheaded, and struck repeatedly by two of the crew before it finally ''dissolves.'' Captain Roenel insists on washing it off the deck, just to be sure.
23	* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
24	** The novel ''Literature/DeathStar'' describes the superweapon's use as "overkill in the most horrifyingly literal way possible". And indeed, blowing up a pacifistic planet simply to prove a point is clearly overdoing it.
25	** Another example of overkill in the Expanded Universe is Base Delta Zero, a naval protocol dedicated to eliminating all assets of production on a planet. This varies from rendering the planet uninhabitable and for all intents and purposes useless, to outright slagging the crust.
26	** For that matter, the Expanded Universe seems to have a good amount of overkill--the Sun Crusher fires a pulse torpedo into a star to cause it to go supernova, killing the star system at large; the Centerpoint Station does this by firing a pulse blast ''through hyperspace'' to hit its target!
27	** Palpatine created the [[ComicBook/DarkEmpire Galaxy Gun]] which does pretty much the same thing as Centrepoint, except that it fires physical missiles through hyperspace and "merely" destroys planets (or smaller targets; a lower-yield warhead can be used when appropriate). And the Galaxy Gun was destroyed by being {{ramm\|ingAlwaysWorks}}ed by the Superlaser-equipped Eclipse II Super Star Destroyer, so it's a double example of this trope.
28	** On a more personal scale, the Literature/NewJediOrder novel ''Star by Star'' features both the New Republic and Yuuzhan Vong revealing their newly-developed infantry. The Republic fields YVH [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Yuuzhan Vong Hunter"]] [[KillerRobot battle droids]] capable of dueling ''starfighters'' and winning, and capable of incredible feats of precision, correctly identifying and gunning down infiltrators in a crowd of humans without harming the civilians; YVH droids commonly go ten-to-one against standard Vong warriors and win. On the other side, the Vong begin deploying ''voxyn'', [[HeroKiller Jedi-hunting]] beasts [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke designed and shaped]] to be the ultimate killing machines, featuring razor-sharp claws and teeth, acid spit, blood that is both acidic ''and'' a neurotoxin, a deadly selection of retroviruses that live on their skin and spines, disorienting screeches, and neural-shock attacks. The voxyn ultimately lose, due to CripplingOverspecialization -- they're weak against MoreDakka.
29	** The ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'' ended with Luke's Jedi students killing the ghostly Sith Lord Exar Kun DeaderThanDead by using the light side of the Force in unison. Just to make absolutely sure, however, in ''Literature/IJedi'', Corran Horn also razes the Sith temple to which Kun's spirit had been bound with his X-Wing, going so far as to liquefy the stones until all that's left is a sheet of volcanic glass in the middle of a shallow lake.
30	** ''Literature/RevengeOfTheSith'': Unlike the [[Film/RevengeOfTheSith film]], where he only had a single AT-TE walker fire a single shot at Obi-Wan's position, Commander Cody in the novelization employs a whole battalions' worth of firepower, including shoulder mounted missile launchers, grenade launchers, walker turrets and artillery, to bring Obi-Wan down and even after seeing him fall into Utapau's sinkhole, he still isn't convinced and deploys seeker droids down the hole to confirm the kill.
31	* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
32	** The novels show human ships ended up carrying salvos of "Archer" anti-ship missiles that could devastate an entire human fleet (one Archer can severely damage a destroyer) just to take down the shields of a single Covenant frigate. Justified in that Covenant frigates can withstand tactical nuclear weapons.
33	** How the Forerunners are shown to wage war in ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'': Their main tactic is usually to bring literally tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of ships and semi-automated drones to bear, and have them sweep across entire star systems in complex, mind-bending patterns. All the while, ancillas and organic Forerunner commanders are simulating the battle possibly quintillions of times, analyzing all possible outcomes and determining the best course of action. Every ship is also making such heavy use of slipspace, that reality itself unravels around the battle, and enemies are prevented from making proper use of FTL travel due to clogged "slipspace channels".
34	* Perhaps the ultimate example of this trope in any form of media is found in ''[[Literature/{{Ringworld}} The Ringworld Throne]]''. Tunesmith, the Night Person Protector, uses the Ringworld's meteor defense to shoot down invading starships. Said defense is an X-Ray laser powered by magnetically-fluorescent solar flares (yes, you read that right), creating a beam with enough width and power to vaporize - not "cause to explode into tiny chunks," but ''convert from solid into gaseous state'' - a planet.
35	* Lampshaded in ''[[Literature/TheDarkElfTrilogy Homeland]]'' by R.A. Salvatore. While he and Alton are being swarmed by spiders, Masoj looks down at his crossbow in contemplation and remarks, "Overkill?"
36	** Alton then, of course, drops a fireball at his feet in an attempt to exterminate the spiders. Overkill ''and'' KillItWithFire. Two tropes that go hand-in-hand.
37	* Creator/RobertAHeinlein disapproves of this trope. As he has Sergeant Zim from ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' comment, war is controlled violence, not killing for its own sake, and there are times where it would as foolish to destroy an enemy city with H-bombs as it would be to punish a baby by decapitating it. The same novel has infantry armed with ''2-kiloton nuclear rockets'' (two soldiers per platoon have two ''each'')-and the soldiers are thoroughly instructed to make sure that ''if'' they use them they ''must'' make sure they annihilate the target and nothing else, to the point that in boot camp firing a simulated one by eyeballing rather than with the appropriate computer targeting got Johnnie Rico ''flogged'' and almost drummed out (he ''should'' have court-martialed, flogged and drummed out, but Zim and the other instructors saw him as redeemable and decided not to summon a court martial unless Rico asked, and he was smart enough not to). Ironically, around the same time this novel was written, the RealLife thinking of the US Army brass was that such nukes [[MoreDakka should be thrown right and left on the battlefield]] (cue the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device) Davy Crockett]]), before they saw a potential for escalation and dialed their nuclear enthusiasm down.
38	* In ''[[Literature/JackRyan The Cardinal of the Kremlin]]'', Creator/TomClancy remarks that the main problem with nukes is leaving enough enemy command structure intact that you can conduct post-conflict negotiations.
39	* The Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse has numerous cases of insane death machines like the Death Star, the Sun Crusher, and the World Devastators. There are also cases of species doing this, such as the Yevetha and Yuuzhan Vong, who are so fanatical they see winning a war as exterminating the enemy race. When the Yevetha and Yuuzhan Vong encounter each other, it's a CurbStompBattle resulting in the near-extinction of the Yevetha.
40	** The Bothans, with the death of Borsk Fey'la and the disintegration of the New Republic, declare Ar'Krai, a form of total war that they have only done twice in their history. It calls for every capable Bothan to lend their maximum effort towards defeating their opponent, killing every last male, female, and child of the species, slag their home planet to dust, and erase them from history. This (unsurprisingly) causes problems down the road, when the successor state of the New Republic negotiates a peace treaty with the Yuuzhan Vong, as there's no provision for rescinding a declaration of Ar'Krai.
41	* The [[Literature/{{Lensman}} Lensmen]] love this trope to bits. When you're dealing with a planet, sure, no weapon is too powerful - but a fleet? The enemy's surviving ships (a fairly large number is implied) are huddled into the ideal globular defensive formation, weapons pointed out, shields mutually reinforcing... and the good guys direct several ''planets'' into the centre of mass, in addition to multiple planet-sized antimatter bombs. Yes, you read that right. Subverted slightly in that even after all this butchery is done, there are still a few survivors to be finished off.
42	** The Lensmen built a weapon that directed the entire energy output of a star into a single beam. [[LensmanArmsRace Then they moved on to more powerful weapons.]]
43	** The devices used to destroy Ploor - not satisfied with ONE planet moving at fifteen times the speed of LIGHT, aimed at the planet, they fix up a second, identical one to fire at Ploor's sun. They then have to finish off the war ASAP because they're aware that they've finally created the universe's only unstoppable weapon, and if they don't beat the Big Bad within DAYS TO WEEKS, he'll duplicate it and they'll be fucked.
44	** Earlier on in the series, the good guys are faced with the problem of how to defeat the enemy fleet. The solution - build hundreds of specialised starships that are either all defence shields (and no weapons or even human crew) or sluggers with all weapons (and no shields) and assemble them into a gigantic cylinder held together by networks of tractor beams and pressors (the opposite of tractors). The cylinder then flies straight down the throat of the enemy fleet's fire, and when the enemy ships enter its mouth a network of pressors drives them into a single file down the axis of the tube, where each faces odds of between eighty and 200 to one when it gets to the sluggers. At the end, A FRACTION OF ONE PER CENT of the non-remote-controlled ships have been lost, while the enemy is too disorganised to continue fighting. To their credit, the Lensmen negotiate a truce at this point.
45	* The eponymous of Iain M. Banks's Culture novels have weaponised this notion. It's strongly suspected by other civilisations that their shared "Do not fuck with the Culture" meme actually originates with subtle Culture propaganda. It's true that if you're nice to the Culture it will bend over itself to be even nicer back; it's not above responding to attacks in the same way. And when they decided not to be nice, it's… unpleasant. They ''can'' be decidedly nasty.
46	* Another Banks novel, ''The Algebraist'', includes the Dwellers, who seem to be utterly incapable of or even interested in defending themselves. But if you attack them you find that they certainly can defend themselves. And decades or centuries later you'll find a planet accompanied by a swarm of moons, each accompanied by a swarm of asteroids, each accompanied by a swarm of rocks, each... heading directly towards your homeworld at close enough to light speed that you ''might'' have time to say "Oh, fu—".
47	* E. E. Smith's earlier Literature/SkylarkSeries ends up with the Good Guys [[spoiler:destroying two galaxies by teleporting all the stars from one through hyperspace into collision with matching stars in the other.]] The motivation is an enemy who is bent on the subjugation of all other life to their will, with no negotiation being entertained, and said extermination is regarded by the heroes as horrifying but necessary.
48	* This shows up a bit in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''.
49	** The best example of this is when, after a Duke of the Red Court of Vampires cheated in a duel against Harry, Ebenezar [=McCoy=] [[spoiler:pulls an out of use Russian Satellite down out of space onto the villain's mansion. He's also implied to have caused Krakatoa, the Madrid Earthquake, and several other major disasters.]]
50	** Later, in ''Changes'', the Red King tries to eliminate both Harry and Ebenezar [=McCoy=] by [[spoiler:killing Harry's daughter in a ritual that will kill everyone who shares her bloodline ([=McCoy=] is Harry's grandfather). Had the ritual been carried out successfully, it would've been maximum overkill. As demonstrated when Harry is able to reverse the ritual to instead target everyone of the Red King's bloodline, exterminating every last Red Court vampire on Earth.]]
51	** Even later, in the novella ''Aftermath'', [[BadassNormal Karrin Murphy]] takes on a building full of bad guys. After all is said and done, she empties an entire clip of ammo into the evil wizard and uses yet another to make sure all of the other bad guys are thoroughly dead. But, as she says, when you're fighting the supernatural there's ''no such thing'' as overkill.
52	** What does Morgan do when confronted with an EldritchAbomination? This happened to be back in TheFifties, so he lured it to a nuclear weapon testing ground and leaves it there. [[NukeEm On the day of a test]]. Given how deadly that thing was though, the nuke was only ''slightly'' overkill.
53	** There's also Kincaid's solution to killing a bunch of Black Court vampires. Though, from what we've seen of them, we can't really blame him.
54	--> "Blow up the building. That works good for vampires. Then soak what's left in gasoline. Set it on fire. Then blow it up again."
55	--> "Ah, yes. [[LampshadeHanging The 'Bolshevik Muppet' solution."]]
56	* Literature/TheCinderSpires sees Master Ferus deal with a home invasion in less than 30 seconds, and to his assistant, the aftereffects shout KillItWithFire ''with her eyes closed''.
57	* In the Literature/{{Iron Druid Chronicles}}, it is remarked by numerous people that the best way to ensure that a druid ''stays'' dead is to thoroughly pulp the body.
58	* There is a collection of short stories set in the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' universe that's entitled "Planetkill".
59	* In the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' books, it's stated Russia threw almost "its entire nuclear arsenal" at Israel (which was somehow defeated). Either the writers didn't know what "entire arsenal" meant or Russia decided to use nearly 4000 nukes on a country the size of New Jersey. Though given the [[SoBadItsGood other, ahem, features of this series]], this is [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale probably the latter]].
60	* In ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'', Jadis is described as having been Queen of a world that is ruined when the protagonists come upon it. The reason? Her sister wanted the throne. Instead of killing her and being done with it, Jadis finds and uses the Unspeakable Word, with the result that ''everyone'' but herself dies.
61	** Granted, as described, the sister had overcome Jadis's armies and captured her (as a prelude to execution) when she used it.
62	* ''Literature/PerryRhodan'': has Arkon Bombs. Thrown on a planet the planet itself transforms into a nuclear weapon.
63	** They have a device called Transform Cannon [[http://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Transformkanone]] that teleports ignited Nukes, Fusion Bombs or even above mentioned Arkon Bombs inside other ships over a distance of million of miles. (Given they are not fitted with >= 5D-Shields. Then they detonate right on the shield perimeter.)
64	* In the Creator/DaleBrown novel ''Act of War'', Zakharov sends several squads of men with anti-tank weapons and a helicopter gunship to kill one man. Naturally, when he goes after bigger targets he scales up accordingly. In ''Executive Intent'' a Mjolnir/Thor's Hammer [[KillSat orbit-launched kinetic kill vehicle]], capable of causing massive casualties on impact with the ground, is fired at a Russian fighter jet, destroying it so thoroughly that it is reduced to so much dust. The Chinese assault on Mogadishu is also brutally thorough: If even a shot of enemy fire is detected from a building, the Chinese do not try to storm the building - they just level the bloody thing. Any gathering of people that might be construed as regrouping enemy units is cut down to the last man even if it is ostensibly civilians trying to recover their dead.
65	* In ''Literature/EndersGame'', the M.D. Device, known as the Little Doctor, causes one atom to explode, then spreads to every other atom around it, causing it to explode. Ender uses this to destroy a planet and two entire fleets.
66	** More specifically, it's a field effect of limited range where the atoms within the field detonate and expand the field slightly. It doesn't work on photons though, so any planet-based chain reaction will cease after a short expansion into space, rather than running wild and destroying the entire galaxy.
67	** The Congress's reaction to finding out about [[spoiler:the Descolada virus]] is to [[spoiler:send an entire fleet on a 30-year journey to blow up the entire planet]], especially since [[spoiler:the target is a planet with minimal industry and a population of farmers in the hundreds and the fact that a single ship with the Little Doctor is enough]].
68	** Ender himself held to this maxim even as a schoolboy. When a classmate tries to beat him up, Ender goes all out, seriously injuring his attacker and continuing to stomp on him even after he's down. Because he not only had to win that fight "but the next fight and all the ones after that, too".
69	* Kelsier of [[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy the Mistborn trilogy]] certainly has his moments. If you ask him, any member of the nobility, or any one ''working for'' a member of the nobility is little better than cannon fodder.
70	* One of the first times the [[Literature/HonorHarrington Royal Manticoran Navy]] effectively fields its new missile pod technology in a fleet action, combined with its new long-range missiles that allow the fleet to start firing missiles long before they get within "normal" combat range, results in the enemy fleet getting obliterated almost before they can get a shot off. The number of missiles number in the tens of thousands, so many that a significant percentage are killed by other missiles as warheads detonate and another large percentage don't hit anything at all as there's only an expanding cloud of vapour instead of a target. The Solarian Navy, who have not been paying attention to this advance, have a fleet similarly obliterated after a skirmish with the Manticorans, and the Haven fleet at the end of ''Mission of Honor'', [[spoiler: now allied with Manticore]], are confident they will do the same to yet another Sollie fleet.
71	** They do. Well, actually the ''combined'' fleets (of [[spoiler: Manticore, Haven, and Grayson]]) do at the Second Battle of Manticore. In the worst CurbStompBattle in human history (in a series which has seen several of them up to that point), with roughly equal numbers (although not quality) of ships the Grand Fleet suffers 11 ships damaged, a few [=LACs=] (basically torpedo boats) destroyed, and roughly 2000 dead. The Solarians? Two hundred ninety-six superdreadnoughts destroyed, 1.2 ''million'' killed in action and 1.4 million prisoners.
72	** And that's not even counting the CurbStompBattle to end all Curb Stomp Battles that was the [[spoiler:Battle of Sol, where ''all'' of the Solarian League Battle Fleet (including its enormous Reserve) was basically destroyed while in mothballs around Jupiter.]]
73	* Rand Al'Thor in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series has used this more than once. A scene in ''The Gathering Storm'' is particularly noteworthy: He has finally tracked down Graendal to her castle. She is a noted [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]], and Rand doubts that he can outwit her. So instead, he sends in a pawn, a minor nobleman who's stupid, power-hungry and easily manipulated, as a messenger. She uses MindControl on the nobleman and sends him back to Rand, treating it as the start of an intricate game of backup plans and countermoves. It turns out that Rand [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow was prepared for that]]; he detects signs of the MindControl, takes that as solid confirmation of Graendal's presence, pulls out his biggest AmplifierArtifact, and ''drops a [[FantasticNuke Magical Nuke]] on her'', erasing the entire castle and everyone in it from existence. [[spoiler: It didn't work as well as he hoped, but he still managed to get one Forsaken, albeit not the one he wanted, and at least one Black Ajah]], so it fits this trope.
74	* In ''Literature/TheMerchantPrincesSeries'', a CycleOfRevenge quickly becomes this. When knowledge of the Clan, a dimension-traveling group of smugglers, comes to the attention of the government, PresidentEvil tries to ''NukeEm'' because of the potential security risk they represent. [[spoiler: Well, that's the pretext, at least. And his bomb succeeds only in hitting one castle, occupied mostly by an enemy of theirs at the time. However, a conservative faction of the Clan decides to retaliate by setting off ''three'' nuclear weapons in Washington, DC. They succeed. In retaliation, PresidentEvil's successor sends dimension-traveling ships to the Clan's home country, an area roughly the size of Massachusetts, and carpet-bombs them with nuclear weapons. It's called, appropriately, CARTHAGE, and probably would have caused nuclear winter on that world]].
75	* In the ''Literature/{{Bolo}}'' novels, the 'Final War' against the Melconian Empire ended like this. The Terran Concordiat declared that every single planet in the Empire be completely cleansed of life. The Melconians made a similar declaration against the Concordiat at about the same time. Both succeeded. The war ended with both nations reduced to a few scattered remnants desperately searching for a planet that could still support life. Since the fragments of the Concordiat were slightly larger, they can arguably claim victory.
76	* ''Literature/TroyRising'':
77	** Pretty much the basis for armament design of the Troy and it's sister Battle Globes, as well as the SAPL network and it's Ung lasers.
78	** The trope title is nearly quoted word for word in ''The Hot Gate'', in regards to 20,000 human missiles sent at a Rangoran AV that had its point defense systems almost completely destroyed.
79	* ''Literature/WarriorCats'':
80	** [[spoiler: Tigerstar]]'s death. Killed by [[spoiler: having nine internal organs cut through, therefore losing [[CatsHaveNineLives all nine of his leader's lives at once]].]]
81	** [[spoiler:Firestar]]'s death in ''The Last Hope''. Loses enough blood to fill a pool, then has a flaming tree dropped on [[spoiler:him]].
82	** In the first series, Swiftpaw is literally ripped to pieces by dogs.
83	* ''Literature/ManKzinWars'':
84	** One of the collections contains the story of a ship called ''Catskinner'', which is a crewed ramscoop ship that has a largish number of 500-pound chunks of iron that it drops shortly before reaching its target system. It slows down by hitting the ''star''. For those lacking a grasp of the scale, the effect is like a relativistic shotgun blast the size of an entire star system. This was the ''diversion'' for the real mission, which was to insert (two teams of) assassins to kill the recently arrived representative of the Kzinti central government before he could mount a successful invasion of Earth. This manages to be both overkill (for a diversion) and under-kill given what they ''could'' have done to the system...
85	** The same universe also has the weapon called the ''Wunderland Treatymaker''. It's a disintegration cannon that was used on a Kzinti base. The human name for the world is Canyon, due to the kilometers deep chasm the size of Baja California that was gouged in the surface.
86	* In ''Literature/MrBlank'', [[spoiler: the Templar Eric Caldwell]] was shot twice in the chest with a .12 gauge, thrown through a plate glass window, run over, and set on fire.
87	* In the ''Literature/HostileTakeoverSwann'' series, a colony using [[NoTranshumanismAllowed heretical technology]] is destroyed with the [[KillSat linac]], a kilometer and a half long [[MagneticWeapons railgun]] that accelerates projectiles to half the speed of light. The commander shoots three times, at a target the size of a small city. Note that this is a ''followup'' to [[NuclearOption dozens of nuclear devices]].
88	* Lampshaded in ''[[Literature/HowToTrainYourDragon How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel]]''. The witch and Alvin have literally every single one of their thousand warriors aiming their spears, swords, bows, axes, and rocket launchers right at Hiccup. Justified in that he has escaped from impossible situations before, and [[spoiler:sure enough, Hiccup manages to vanish right before their eyes, by being kidnapped by an invisible dragon]].
89	* In ''Literature/{{Relativity}},'' the villain Rasmas blows up ''an entire [[AmusementParkOfDoom abandoned amusement park]]'' in an attempt to kill the heroes.
90	* ''Literature/BlackTideRising'': In general this is the attitude of those clearing the zombies, but in ''Strands of Sorrow'' during one attack against a horde using 40mm grenades fired from Amtracks, at targets within the [[ArbitraryWeaponRange minimum range]] of the grenades, it's mentioned that there ''is'' such a thing as "overkill".
91	* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': Here, there and everywhere given the nature of the Games. Big mention to [[spoiler:Cato, who, having lost all his limbs and skin from being gnawed on by at least twenty wolf-like creatures for hours on end, dies from an arrow to the face.]]
92	* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': When fighting giant scorpions known as "boack" Tiza isn't satisfied until she had dismembered her's. She cuts off the claws, slices its tail clean off, and impales its head.
93	* ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'': When Kel Command decides that it's time to [[spoiler:get rid of Shuos Jedao]], they send an entire fleet to kill one person. [[spoiler:And she still survives.]]
94	* ''Literature/WingsOfFire'': Kestrel's throat was slit, next she was stabbed in the heart with Blister's poisonous tail, and then she was shoved off a cliff into the ocean. However, Kestrel ''might'' have already been dead when she was pushed off the cliff.
95	* In ''Literature/{{Sandokan}}'', anyone with half a brain tends to bring as much firepower as they can.
96	** One example from ''The Pirates of Malaysia'': to fight Sandokan's single ship Pearl of Labuan (an oversized praho modified for superior speed and carrying more guns than normal prahos) James Brooke deployed four normal prahos (each with about three quarters of Sandokan's firepower) and his personal ship Royalist, that was a match for Pearl. It's hinted that James Brooke was improvising, and that he would have used more ships had he been faster at recognizing Marianna as a pirate ship or Sandokan slower at realizing what Brooke was doing.
97	** An example from ''Yanez's Revenge:'' when facing about a thousand badly trained enemies armed with antique muzzle-loaders Sandokan opened fire with two hundreds repeating rifles and twelve Maxim machine guns while charging at them on top of elephants. Very few enemies survived long enough to realized how badly outgunned, outmanouvered and outclassed they were and run the hell away from there.
98	* ''Literature/SecondApocalypse'': Cnaiur does this to Yursalka, a tribal rival who has triggered his UnstoppableRage. He summarizes his intentions in a BadassBoast: "I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me, and it goes no further. I am your end, your utter obliteration!"
99	* ''Literature/{{Suggsverse}}'' is all about this, with infinite universes being destroyed and created regularly
100	* In ''Literature/TheOutlaws'', the hitmen from Organisation Consul use machine pistols and hand grenades to assassinate a single man, most likely unarmed and accompanied only by his driver.
101	* In Creator/StephenKing's ''[[Literature/DifferentSeasons Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption]]'', being [[MiscarriageOfJustice accused of this kind of crime]] is what gets Andy Dufresne such a hefty sentence, although the circumstance in itself (allegedly killing his wife and her lover as they lay in bed) might have easily made him a SympatheticMurderer.
102	--> It was that last fact that militated more against Andy than any of the others. The DA with the political aspirations made a great deal of it in his opening statement and his closing summation. Andrew Dufresne, he said, was not a wronged husband seeking a hot-blooded revenge against his cheating wife; that, the DA said, could be understood, if not condoned. But this revenge had been of a much colder type. Consider! the DA thundered at the jury. Four and four! Not six shots, but eight! ''He had fired the gun empty . . . and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again!'' FOUR FOR HIM AND FOUR FOR HER, the Portland ''Sun'' blared. The Boston ''Register'' dubbed him the "Even-Steven Killer."
103	* ''Literature/OurDumbCentury'' used this trope with the article "Russians Continuing to Kill Rasputin". After he was poisoned, stabbed, shot, and thrown into a freezing river, he refused to die, so the Russians continued with more elaborate methods of murder. [[CruelAndUnusualDeath Among other things]], he was run over by [[CarFu a car]] and [[SquashedFlat a train]], BuriedAlive, [[ManOnFire cremated]], [[XRaySparks electrocuted]], [[HollywoodAcid dissolved in acid]], [[OffWithHisHead beheaded]], [[LudicrousGibs chopped into small pieces with swords]] and continually re-poisoned, re-stabbed, and re-shot. He still didn't die.
104	* ''Literature/TheMarvellousLandOfSnergs'': At the climax, Vanderdecken orders all his thirty-three men fire at [[WickedWitch Mother Meldrum]]. There are not much of her left after they are done.
105	* In ''Life Expectancy'' by Dean Koontz, Punchinello claims that his grandfather [[spoiler:(later revealed to also be his [[ParentalIncest father]])]] Virgilio Vivacemente would not hesitate to kill him for having "tainted blood".
106	--->'''Punchinello:''' He would kill me, dismember me, marinate my remains in gasoline, burn them, urinate on the ashes, put the wet ashes in a bucket, take them to a farm, and stir them into the muddy wallow in the corner of a pigpen.
107	** After Virgilio meets the main character and his wife, he uses this ''exact threat'' against them and their children, stating that he's done it before and that he owns a "lovely farm" to take their ashes to. It seems Punchinello wasn't exaggerating.
108	--->'''Virgilio:''' [[BadassBoast There is no vengeance equal to the vengeance of Virgilio Vivacemente.]]
109	* In ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'', Tom Robinson, a crippled, black man, unjustly convicted of rape, attempts an escape from prison and is shot 17 times - more than enough to kill him, considering his handicap.
110	* ''Literature/RemembranceOfEarthsPast'': The races responsible for Dark Forest strikes don’t care about collateral damage or preserving inhabitable planets when they wipe out a race. The basic attack seen twice in the books involves blowing up a star. When that isn’t guaranteed to be effective they escalate to weapons that remove a spatial dimension utterly annihilating everything in the vicinity (and, eventually, the universe).
111	* In ''Literature/MonsterHunterInternational'', this is the Hunters' standard operating procedure for dealing with extremely powerful monsters such as Master vampires, which can regenerate from almost nothing. Forget the shotguns and tommyguns; for Master vampires they bring out ''mortars'' and ''antitank rockets''.
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Context ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill / Literature