"You choose death! Wise. But first, a little chi-chi!"
— Really old joke
An index for tropes dealing with suicide.
Tropes about suicide:
- Accidental Suicide: Killing yourself unintentionally.
- Action Bomb: Someone who blows themselves up, often killing themselves in the process.
- Ate His Gun: Someone commits suicide by firing a gun after putting it in their mouth.
- Attacking Through Yourself: The only way to harm an enemy is by harming yourself (such as shooting yourself so that the bullet passes through your body into theirs).
- Barefoot Suicide: Someone kills themselves while barefoot.
- Bath Suicide: Someone commits suicide in the bathtub.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: A character commits suicide rather than fall into the hands of someone trying to kill them.
- Bullied into Depression: Bullying can possibly lead someone to commit suicide.
- Bungled Suicide: A (failed) suicide attempt.
- Cut the Safety Rope: Two characters are in peril. One character chooses to die so that the second can be saved.
- Cyanide Pill: A means of suicide carried on one's person in the event one is captured.
- Death Before Dishonor: A character commits suicide rather than do something immoral or against their moral code.
- Death Is the Only Option: The only way to achieve victory is to die.
- Death Seeker: A suicidal character seeks out dangerous situations without regard for their survival.
- Dressing to Die: The character picks out a special outfit before killing himself.
- Driven to Suicide: A bad event leads a character into committing suicide.
- Dying as Yourself: A character trapped in circumstances that will permanently alter their basic personality, humanity, or dignity may choose to kill themselves before the transformation is complete.
- Electrified Bathtub: If the death by active electronics being dropped into the tub while bathing was deliberately done by the person bathing.
- Face Death with Dignity: A doomed character accepts their death with serenity.
- Fake Assisted Suicide: A character assists another character in killing themselves only to sabotage the attempt.
- Forgiveness Requires Death: In order to be forgiven of their crimes, the character must die.
- Gayngst-Induced Suicide: A character commits suicide because of issues around their homosexuality.
- Going Down with the Ship: The commander of a vessel chooses to remain on said vessel as it is destroyed.
- Goodbye, Cruel World!: A character leaves a goodbye note before committing suicide.
- Hanging Around: A character commits suicide by hanging themselves.
- Happily Failed Suicide: A character fails a suicide attempt, but is happy about it.
- Hereditary Suicide: Suicide and/or suicide attempts run in families.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sacrificing your own life for the greater good.
- Heroic Suicide: Killing oneself is regarded as a heroic act in the story.
- Honorable Warrior's Death: A warrior attempts to die in battle or by using some method considered worthy of a warrior in their culture.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: A character is literally unable to end their own existence.
- I'm Not Hungry: If someone refuses to eat food to the point that they let themselves starve to death. This has been the fate of some political protesters who went on hunger strikes.
- Interrupted Suicide: A character's suicide attempt is interrupted.
- Indirect Serial Killer: Some serial killers kill people by making them commit suicide.
- Jumping on a Grenade: Sacrificing oneself by using one's own body as a shield against a deadly threat in hopes of sparing others
- Kryptonite Ring: A character gives another character a special deadly weapon.
- Last Survivor Suicide: Someone kills themselves over being upset that they're the last one left alive.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: Giving the option of suicide before dishonor.
- Main Character Final Boss: The main character finally snaps and becomes the final boss, leading to the party ending their life.
- Mercy Kill: If a suicidal person begs another person to put them out of their misery.
- Mercy Kill Arrangement: A character plans their own euthanization.
- Mid-Suicide Regret: A character decides they want to live in the middle of a suicide attempt.
- Miles to Go Before I Sleep: A character determines they will kill themselves once a list of tasks is complete.
- Mistaken for Suicidal: A character is thought to be suicidal when they're really not.
- More Expendable Than You: A group of people have to sacrifice one of themselves. Everyone else volunteers because they don't want one member to die.
- Murder-Suicide: Someone kills another person before killing themselves.
- My Death Is Just the Beginning: A character deliberately kills themselves in order to start an even more lethal chain of events.
- Never Suicide: A murder victim is covered up by making it look like a suicide.
- Nothing Left to Do but Die: Someone kills themselves out of boredom and/or satisfaction, believing they've accomplished or done everything they want and have nothing left to live for.
- Ordered to Die: Ordered to kill themselves by someone with authority.
- Painless Death for a Price: Someone on death's doorstep is offered a Mercy Kill in exchange for something valuable.
- Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: Character permits another character to kill them.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Using mind control to make a person kill themselves.
- Prelude to Suicide: A character exhibits signs of being suicidal before they attempt.
- Russian Roulette: You pull the trigger on yourself, and there is a one-in-six chance that you die.
- Seen-It-All Suicide: Someone kills themselves after concluding they've seen everything they ever could.
- Self-Immolation: Lighting oneself on fire as a means of suicide. Sometimes done as an extreme form of political protest.
- Self-Sacrifice Scheme: A plan by a character to sacrifice their life for someone or something else.
- Seppuku: Ritualized suicide to avoid disgrace.
- Spiteful Suicide: A character kills themselves/gets themselves killed to spite someone else.
- Spurned into Suicide: A character kills themselves because they were rejected by a love interest.
- Starts with a Suicide: When a show starts with a character committing suicide.
- Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Threatening suicide in order to end a conflict.
- Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: You provoke your enemy to kill you.
- Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: A character decides to kill themselves and everyone else.
- Suicidal "Gotcha!": An apparent suicide turns out to be a preplanned form of escape.
- Suicidal Lemmings: Lemmings off themselves by way of jumping off of cliffs.
- Suicidal Sadistic Choice: A Sadistic Choice where one option is death.
- Suicide as Comedy: When suicide is Played for Black Comedy.
- Suicide Attack: An attack on an enemy that will almost certainly lead to one's own demise.
- Suicide by Assassin: Hiring someone to kill you.
- Suicide by Cop: You provoke someone into killing you.
- Suicide by Pills: A character intentionally overdosing on medication in pill form to kill themself.
- Suicide by Sea: Committing suicide by calmly and deliberately walking into a body of water and drowning.
- Suicide by Sunlight: A vampire (or another supernatural creature) can be destroyed by stepping into sunlight, and does so voluntarily.
- Suicide Dare: Telling someone to kill themselves.
- Suicide for Others' Happiness: A character wants to take their own life because they believes that other people will be happier if they were dead.
- Suicide Is Painless: A suicide method that doesn't inflict any pain.
- Suicide Is Shameful: Suicide is seen as morally detestable.
- Suicide, Not Accident: A character arranges their suicide to look like an accident or its mistaken for an accident.
- Suicide, Not Murder: A character arranges their suicide to look like a murder or its mistaken for a murder.
- Suicide Pact: A group of characters agree to commit suicide.
- Suicide Watch: A person is monitored to prevent them from killing themselves.
- Symbolic Serene Submersion: A character is revealed to have drowned themself by a shot of their body floating in the water.
- Tag Team Suicide: A character commits suicide under the mistaken belief that their loved one is dead. The loved one learns of the character's death and kills themselves for real.
- Taking the Bullet: A character deliberately places themselves in front of a lethal threat intended for someone else.
- Taking You with Me: A person who gets killed makes it so that their killer dies with them.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: A character tells someone not to kill themselves.
- Teenage Death Songs (a subcategory of it): Songs about the tragic death of a young person (sometimes by suicide), often meant as a cautionary tale.
- Temporal Suicide: Killing your past or future self.
- Tongue Suicide: A character bites off their tongue to commit suicide.
- We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: Society has progressed (or devolved) to the point of allowing its citizens to kill themselves without intervening. May also be a society in which social engineering has determined that all citizens must die at a specific age/circumstance (with or without the consent or knowledge of the citizens) to maintain stability.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: If an immortal being grows so sick of eternal life that they just want it to end already.
Metaphorically about suicide:
- Martyrdom Culture: A society that encourages people to die for a purpose.
- Resurrection Gambit: A character plans their own death, with contingencies that should, in theory, result in their resurrection.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: Video game enemies rush in to attack the player character, despite the fact that they are clearly hopelessly outmatched.
- Suicidal Pacifism: A character believes so strongly in pacifism that they refuse to harm others even in self-defense.
- Suicide Mission: A mission will almost certainly end in death for whoever accepts it.
