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Heroic Sacrifice

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Paleontology has changed a lot since the dinosaurs took over the school board.

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

A character saves another/others from harm and is killed, disabled, or maimed as a result.

A bad character who was once good can redeem themselves in the last act by Taking the Bullet that was meant for The Hero, thus expunging all their previous evil, avoiding forcing The Hero to arrest or confront him, and avoiding any real-life penalties like disgrace and jail. This is like Redemption Equals Death. In this case, the death and redemption come in a single act.

There are essentially three kinds of Heroic Sacrifice:

  • The one at the beginning of the story, which sets the tone for the rest of the tale.
  • The one in the middle of the story, wherein the Heroic Sacrifice leads to new heights of badassery, or new depths of depression, in the characters who are affected by it (depending on the story.) Sometimes both.
  • The one at the end of the story which serves as a Grand Finale, an example of "This character is Too Cool to Live", or the kernel of a Downer Ending or Bittersweet Ending. The "Too Cool to Live" Heroic Sacrifice is the most common type in American movies. Often, The Hero Dies in a heroic sacrifice at the end.

A Heroic Sacrifice usually requires that a character be Not Afraid to Die, even declaring It Has Been an Honor. If the Heroic Sacrifice was pre-planned, it's a Self-Sacrifice Scheme. Often preceded with a Sneaky Departure from the team, or a More Hero than Thou dispute. A Friend in Need often requires it, and doing it proves your love for them. Contrast Villain's Dying Grace, when a dying villain decides to save a life. The Doomed Moral Victor fights a battle where the outcome is clear from the beginning. If the character has time to say some last words before dying, they often do so in an Obi-Wan Moment. Often a Dying Moment of Awesome. There's also the case where Someone Has to Die, which takes this to its logical extreme.

Characters who Draw Aggro may not expect to live, and thus it will also be this trope.

Compare and contrast Zero-Approval Gambit (where the hero sacrifices his good name instead of his life), Sacrificial Revival Spell (where the character uses a spell to save another), Deadly Upgrade (in which a character gains immense power for a short time before dying) Death Is the Only Option, My Death Is Just the Beginning, Inspirational Martyr (who may not be that heroic, but their deaths may inspire others to become heroes), Taking You with Me, Senseless Sacrifice, Heroic Suicide, Suicide Mission, and Stupid Sacrifice.

Subtropes:

Characters sacrificing themselves to save others:

  • Cold Equation: Considering killing someone so that others can live longer.
  • Cut the Safety Rope: A character is in such deadly danger that their death is all but assured and any rescue attempt would more than likely result in more death, and decides to take a mercy kill out of pragmatism.
  • Go Through Me: A character steps between something/someone and an attacker, so that the attacker has to kill them to get through that they're protecting.
  • Heroic Suicide: To kill oneself to save others.
  • I Will Only Slow You Down: Person insists they be left behind on the grounds that being rescued would only hinder the others.
  • Inspirational Martyr: A character dies for a certain cause, inspiring more people to join the cause in the process.
  • Jumping on a Grenade: A character performs a Heroic Sacrifice by jumping and landing on top of a thrown grenade.
  • Killer Finale: Since the main character is getting killed off, a Heroic Sacrifice might occur.
  • Kill Us Both: A character asks another to kill them while they are holding an enemy down.
  • Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: A character says some final goodbyes before making a Heroic Sacrifice they won't survive.
  • Reset-Button Suicide Mission: Performing a Heroic Sacrifice while knowing it will be undone.
  • Sacrificial Revival Spell: A spell that can revive another person at the cost of the caster's life.
  • Self-Destructive Charge: A Determinator character charges to take down an enemy even if they're likely to die in the process, which can be perceived to be a type of Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Self-Sacrifice Scheme: A character who plans to self-sacrifice for the sake of others and/or the greater good, knowing in advance that this is a possibility.
  • Silent Scapegoat: A character voluntarily takes all blame to save others, and no one else knows it.
  • Someone Has to Die: A character volunteers to die so that everyone else can live.
  • Suicidal Sadistic Choice: A character is forced to choose between killing themself or another option that's equally bad, if not worse; in this case, choosing to kill oneself may be seen as a Heroic Sacrifice/Suicide.
  • Suicide Mission: An assignment, task, or quest where it's expected that everyone (or nearly everyone) involved will die in the attempt, which may be perceived to be a Heroic Sacrifice in some cases.
  • Take Me Instead: A character offers themself in exchange for the freedom of a hostage or otherwise targeted individual.
  • Taking the Bullet: Using oneself as a human shield to protect another from an oftentimes fatal attack.
  • Tragic Robot: An emotional plot involving a robot, in this case a robot who sacrifices themself for the heroes.
  • Tuck and Cover: Covering another person with one's body to protect them from an explosion or other potentially fatal destruction.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: A character sacrifices themself to hold back their enemies.

Ways to fail at a heroic sacrifice:

As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • Segata Sanshiro, mascot of the Sega Saturn, heroically gave his life defending his beloved Sega from an attack from Sony or Nintendo-it's unclear which. He lives on in our hearts. At least he took something with him.
  • In an ad for a 90's board game called It From The Pit, an Indiana Jones Expy and two children come across the eponymous creature. As it reaches for them, the man pushes the kids out of the way and is dragged into the pit himself.
  • The launch of Planters' Super Bowl LIV campaign has their icon Mr. Peanut perform this. The character, with Wesley Snipes and Matt Walsh as passengers, loses control of his Nutmobile and ends up driving it off a cliff, with Peanut, Snipes and Walsh barely saving themselves by hanging onto a branch. When the branch starts to give way, Peanut decides to let go of the branch and fall onto the wreckage of the Nutmobile, which subsequently explodes to dash any possibility of him surviving. The ad campaign would've continued to build up to Mr. Peanut's funeral, which was Planters' main ad for the game, but Kobe Bryant's tragic death led to the campaign getting suspended (though the funeral ad still aired as scheduled).

    Arts 
  • Michelangelo Buonarroti's The Crucifixion of Saint Peter shows the saint getting executed for refusing to stop spreading the good news. Judging by the look on his face, he remains defiant in his faith.
  • The Fallen Caryatid: Ancient Greek architecture included women carved into columns, holding up the roof. They were later carved into buildings done in the Classical style and evolved into men, demons, anyone one wanted to have holding up a building forever. The sculptor Auguste Rodin created the "Fallen Caryatid" as a woman collapsing under the impossible burden, but struggling to carry it still. Many interpretations exist, of course.

    Asian Animation 
  • In Season 7 episode 50 of Happy Heroes, Kalo uses what little energy he has left to defeat an army of enemy spaceships, killing himself in the process. The other heroes are understandably in tears over the occurrence, including Careful S. who is usually The Stoic.
  • Tobot Galaxy Detectives: In the climax of Episode 9, "My Friend RO-B!", both Rocket and RO-B are in danger of being sucked into a black hole. Because Rocket is holding into RO-B to keep him from being sucked in, RO-B cuts off the arm Rocket is holding, causing RO-B to be sucked in, allowing Rocket to escape>

    Comic Strips 
  • Because Lynn Johnston, the writer of For Better or for Worse, chose to tell her story in real time, complete with characters aging normally, it became inevitable that the Pattersons' family dog Farley had to go. In 1995, Johnston decided that Farley would go out a hero. When the Pattersons' four-year-old daughter April fell into a creek near their house, Farley went in to rescue her. The shock of the cold water, combined with his advanced age, caused him to suffer a fatal heart attack, but April survived; the strip ended with her preparing to attend university to become a veterinarian.

    Manhua 
  • My Beloved Mother: Aya, a Mama Bear, give up her life to save her son, the protagonist Sinbell twice; when Sinbell was 4, she uses herself to shield Sinbell from a massive gas explosion, and was incinerated alive while Sinbell survives the incident. Near death, Aya's Dying Wish is for her consciousness to be installed into a robotic body via Brain Uploading so she can continue raising Sinbell, until her robotic body was destroyed near the end to shield the now-adult Sinbell from a nuke. Her second death unfortunately is quite permanent.

    Music 
  • The old-style country song "Big John" by Jimmy Dean, loosely based on the legend of John Henry, about a large mine worker who was generally known as a brute due to his sheer size and strength. However, when the mine began collapsing, he used brute strength to hold up the collapsing beams long enough for his fellow workers to escape the mine, staying behind to hold it up long enough for them all to get out safely. The mine then collapsed completely, entombing him under several tons of earth. Attempts to dig his body out were futile, so a marble sign was placed before the caved-in entrance: "At the bottom of this mine lies a big BIG man — Big John"
  • Another old country song, also based on a true story, about a truck driver on a narrow road only wide enough for one vehicle, the edge of which opened over a huge fall and coming from the opposite direction as him was a school bus full of children. Rather than hit the bus and most likely killing the children inside, he deliberately drove his rig over the edge of the cliff and plunged to his death, saving the lives of the children at the cost of his own.
  • "Soldier", a song by Harvey Andrews, an English poet and songwriter. It starts telling the story of a guy who joined the British Army, because work was hard to find and, besides, there were no wars right away, and (lucky man) found himself in the middle of the British-Irish urban guerilla. The song actually reaches its climax when the guy, who was running a boring patrol tour in a train station, jumps over a bomb just thrown by IRA guerilla fighters, thus dooming himself and saving the lives of the people around him, for whom he nurtured no enmity and who had treated him with cold hatred just seconds before. Inspired by real life example of Sergeant Michael Willetts, thank you other wiki. Damn, he surely must have had some massive balls of steel.
  • Way, way too many Israeli songs to count.
  • Mentioned in the song "Your Guardian Angel" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
    "I'll be there for you through it all / Even if saving you sends me to Heaven"
  • "Casey Jones/Mounted to his cabin/Casey Jones/With his orders in his hand/Casey Jones/Mounted to his cabin/And he took his farewell trip to that promis'd land."
  • Sinead O'Connor's song "Troy" is mostly about an obsessive love affair, but contains the line
    I'd kill a dragon for you, and die
  • Orden Ogan's "The Things We Believe In" is all about this.
  • The Flowers of Bermuda by Stan Rogers is about the wreck of the Nightengale on the North Rock Shoals, literally within sniffing distance of Bermuda (hence the title). When the ship ran aground, it took out all the lifeboats and left only the captain's gig intact. The crew numbered 19, and the gig only sat 18.
    But cries the Captain "Now do not delay
    Nor do ye spare a thought for me
    My duty is to save you all now, if I can
    See ye return as quick as can be."
    • When the rescue ship arrived, the boat had sunk, and the crew found the brave captain tangled in the rigging, having gone out with a smile.
  • In The Mechanisms' Rock Opera "The Bifrost Incident", Loki and Sigyn discover that if the Ratatosk Express arrives, the Old Ones will break free into the Yggdrasil system. Since the train runs on blood, they set up a single line into Loki's heart, using her blood to keep it running as long as possible.

    Myths & Religion 
  • The Bible:
    • People tend to come down hard on Lot for offering his virgin daughters to the rapacious mob in Sodom in substitution for the angels he was sheltering in his home, but they often overlook a crucial detail in Genesis 19:6: when he went out to cut that deal, he closed the door behind him, thus cutting off his one escape to safety in the very likely event that the mob rejected his offer just to protect his two guests that he didn't even know at the time were angels. If they hadn't turned out to be angels, he really would have been screwed in more ways than one. Say what you will about him, Lot did put his own life and limbs on the line ahead of anyone else.
    • Jesus is the archetype of this character, though he's obviously not the first to have done so. Jesus had the advantage of knowing what was after death, and that he was going to sit at God's right hand... but he also knew he had to go through excruciating pain. This is even more starkly illustrated by His stating the line quoted below when discussing the subject, rather than something about the horrifying physical pain one would endure when dying of asphyxiation and blood loss during the crucifixion process, to the point where a word was made specifically to describe such pain: excruciating, or "out of the cross." In other words, the pain involved in his sacrifice was so much worse than torture that words could not describe it.
    "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." John 15:13
    • Samson combined this with Taking You with Me in a spectacularly epic fashion. He is captured by the Philistines and blinded, then put on public display in the temple. After praying to God to give him back his strength for a last time so he can go down honorably, he proceeds to tear down the pillars of said temple with his hands, crushing both himself and the Philistines and making this Older Than Feudalism (this being The Bible), as well as his Moment of Awesome. When he destroyed the Philistine temple, with himself and his enemies in it. With that one act, he killed more Philistines than in the rest of his life put together.
  • A divine being helping humanity through self-sacrifice has been an enduring theme in religion and mythology. See Prometheus, doomed to be chained for eternity with an eagle devouring his entrails as punishment for giving mortals the gift of fire. Although he was eventually freed by Hercules after a few thousand years. Legends say that even then, his punishment meant Prometheus had to wear a wreath and a ring of his chains for all eternity- and in respect, humans began wearing wreaths and rings as well.
  • Macaria, daughter of Heracles was, along with her siblings, pursued by the vengeful king Eurystheus who presided over Heracles' famous labors. They were given refuge in Athens by its king Demophon, and Eurystheus' army soon threatened the city-state. The consultation of an oracle declared the only way Athens could hope to win the upcoming battle against them was by sacrificing a noble maiden over the altar of Persephone, a terrible requirement Demophon is unwilling to call any of his people to task for and the idea of choosing the sacrifice by lottery came about. Realizing she was now stuck between letting some random unfortunate pay her life for Macaria's or almost as certainly dying to Eurystheus' designs if she and her siblings fled the city to avoid anyone else certainly being sacrificed for them, Macaria Took a Third Option and volunteered to be sacrificed to save Athens and her siblings. Her brother Hyllus then arrives with reinforcements in time for Athens to contest and defeat Eurystheus, and the spring she died at was named Macarian in her honor.
  • Thanks to Earth's very tilted axis, people have long associated new life as coming from death, and gods/kings being sacrificed by old men whose knives were ''mostly'' used for cutting mistletoe.
  • The Book of Mormon, one of the four parts to LDS ("Mormons") scripture, tells the story of a prophet named Abinadi. King Noah was wicked: he and his priests committed murder and whoredoms and reveled in his riches, among other things, so Abinadi went to King Noah and told him that what he was doing is wrong, and that he needed to set things straight and repent. King Noah and his priests didn't listen and had Abinadi thrown out after warning him not to return. Rather than giving up and leaving, Abinadi returns in disguise and tells him his message again. The wicked priests try to kill him, but find that they cannot, and Abinadi says that they cannot harm him until he has finished saying what he came to say. After he finished, they burnt him to death, and while he is burnt to death, he prophecies that King Noah will also be burnt, which comes true. His death wasn't for naught, however, because one of the king's priests, Alma, listened to what Abinadi had to say, and then ran away from King Noah and repented. He alone helped thousands of people to find God, and many of the people who were righteous because of him converted thousands more.
  • Pre-"Vatican II" Catholic theology considered suicide by someone in their right mind to be an all-but-guarantied ticket to Hell…but the Principle of Dual effect held that if someone sacrificed their life to save others' because they could think of no other way—for example, the soldier who throws his (it was always 'his' back then) body on a grenade to save his comrades—they were not guilty of suicide.
  • According to some versions of the tall-tale, the legendary steel-driving man John Henry met his end when working on laying track through a mountain when the tunnel began collapsing. Henry, who supposedly Dual Wielded two twenty-pound sledgehammers because the standard ten-pound hammer felt light to him, was able to hold up the support beams until his fellow rail workers could escape, before his strength finally gave out. See Music above.

    Print Media 
  • Gleefully subverted in a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip; the Eighth Doctor is about to make a heroic sacrifice by crashing a military helicopter filled with canisters of gas into a slime creature, and makes a moving farewell speech to his friends. One of them — the spymaster whose helicopter it happens to be — sardonically points out that, whilst he appreciates the nobility of the gesture, if the Doctor just looks up he'll see a button that will allow him to eject to safety, thus negating the need for said sacrifice.

    Roleplay 
  • Survival of the Fittest:
    • David Jackson attacks Jacob Starr to buy time for Adam Dodd to free Amanda Jones and Madelaine Shirohara from a locked warehouse. David dies in the ensuing gun battle, though not before wounding Jacob.
    • Subverted in the case of Simon Wood, when he attacked Darnell Butler to buy time for his girlfriend, Madison Conner, to escape. The catch? Darnell isn't playing. Simon is killed in the ensuing fight, albeit accidentally.
    • Handlers can do this if the character of another handler gets rolled. They have one hero card, which means their character dies instead.
    • Ethan Kent from V4 did this in a fit of rage, taking out one of the cameras on purpose, giving the students an opportunity to subvert Danya's plans, but ensuring his own demise. Later, Feo Smith helps the sacrifice come full circle by (somewhat unintentionally) destroying all traces of Ethan's plan after a group of arrivals actually found the location of the island. She does this by setting most of the equipment on fire and shredding most of the paperwork, trying to accomplish it before her collar detonates for staying in a danger zone. Unfortunately, while she does succeed, she doesn't make it out in time.
  • Phylis Alince of The Gungan Council destroys the Heart of Darkness to keep it out of the Sith's hands. Some spectacular fireworks ensue as everything near her, including herself, disintegrates!
  • In The Gamer's Alliance, quite a few characters end up doing this. Hiroshi Hayabusa casts Shiropyr which kills both him and the Big Bad Taro Ofuchi. Kagetsu I does the same to Arawn. Geraud/Grady chooses to become the new world tree when the old one dies. Mori'sul sacrifices himself to save the heroes from a collapsing temple.

    Theatre 
  • Miss Saigon: Kim; she kills her incest cousin who was about to kill her son, and even makes the ultimate choice to kill herself so her son can go with his father and wife to America. Don't believe me? Listen to the song "I'd Give My Life For You" and you'll understand.

    Theme Parks 

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE:
    • In the film Mask of Light, Jaller and Takua/Takanuva do this mutually to each other. First, Jaller jumps into the line of Turahk's fear energy, braking its effect over Takua, but dies from pure fear. Later Takua, having become the Toa Takanuva, merges with Makuta and uses their combined strength to open the gate leading to the city of Metru Nui. They sacrifice part of their life-force to resurrect Jaller, but the gate crushes them. Then, Takanuva is also brought back. He later jokingly asks Jaller to never do this again.
    • In Legends of Metru Nui, Turaga Lhikan (whose mask was later given to Jaller) likewise jumps in between Vakama and Makuta's energy hand.
    • In the conclusion of the 2007 story arc, Toa Matoro sacrifices himself by wearing the Mask of Life, which converts him into energy used to revive Mata Nui.
      • Toa Ignika, the physical form of the Mask of Life does the same to kick-start Mata Nui's awakening, and while the mask remains sentient, it had to give up its body and its life as a Toa for good.

    Visual Novels 
  • BAD END THEATER has this as one of the Underling's possible endings (though the "Heroic" part is debatable considering they're a demon). If the Underling finds the Hero killing the entire demon army, they have a chance to attack the Hero and critically wound him. The Hero kills the Underling in retaliation, but the remaining demons manage to finish off the Hero and stop his rampage.
  • After the main character expresses regret for helping the Corrupt Corporate Executive create androids using human brains in the science fiction visual novel Bionic Heart, he blows up the laboratory where he works — with the two of them still inside it.
  • Danganronpa:
    • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
      • Sakura chooses to commit suicide rather than kill one of her friends or allow her beloved dojo to be destroyed (Monokuma threatened to destroy it if she didn't kill someone, but he never said it had to be someone else). Not only does this shatter Monokuma's hold over the other students and get them to rally together, but she also breaks the lock on the door to the headmaster's office before killing herself to let Kyoko have access to it.
      • Before the events of the game Mondo's big brother, Daiya, sacrificed himself by pushing Mondo out of the way of an incoming truck. Mondo blames himself for his death, which is the second incentive of the game.
    • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair:
      • This is implied to be why Gundam and Nekomaru tried to kill each other, since everyone would've stayed trapped and slowly starved to death in the fun house if a murder didn't happen. While Gundam still tries to defend himself at the class trial, he gladly accepts his death once he's been discovered. When Hajime and Chiaki ask him if this was his motive, he denies it by pushing his evil overlord persona, though Hajime is unconvinced.
      • Earlier, when Monokuma is about to blast Akane for violating the rules, Nekomaru steps in front of the shot. Subverted in that he comes back later...as Mechamaru.
      • Later, during Chapter 5, Chiaki realizes Nagito's plan, creating a situation where the murderer couldn't be identified, was to get everyone except her executed. She urges everyone to vote for her as the killer, relying that Nagito's luck held out and that she's the one who accidentally killed him. She's right.
      • Ultimately subverted by the end. Hajime and the other survivors are willing to sacrifice everything to defeat AI Junko by activating the shutdown sequence. For most of them, it means forgetting everything and returning to being Ultimate Despair, while Hajime's entire existence will disappear. However, by the end, and as confirmed in Danganronpa 3, they escape with all their memories intact.
    • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
      • Kaede Akamatsu the Decoy Protagonist, "kills" Rantaro Amami to prevent Monokuma's motive that he would kill all the students if no one died. When given the opportunity to escape, Kaede denies it, in an attempt to discover the Mastermind's identity and protect the rest of the group.
      • " Tenko manages to pull this off by accident. During the third chapter, after Angie is found dead, Korekiyo offers to perform a séance, which requires a conduit for Angie's spirit to enter. Himiko volunteers, but Tenko takes her place so that Himiko will be able to say goodbye to her, inadvertently getting into the death trap Kiyo had set.
      • Kaito Momota becomes the blackend of chapter 5 in an attempt to prevent Maki Harukawa, who mistakenly tried to kill Kokichi thinking he was the mastermind, from being executed.
  • Deconstructed in Date Warp — in many paths, a Heroic Sacrifice will appear to resolve the immediate problem, but at far too high a cost, and the True Ending requires looking past this sort of thing to find another solution.
  • In Fate/stay night, Heaven's Feel route, either Illya (for True End) or Shirou (for Normal End) have to do this. The first is a Bittersweet Ending, as Saber and Archer don't make it either and Shirou gives up on his ideals, but otherwise good. The second is a real downer but it's very impressive, as Shirou actually dies before he can complete it... only to complete it after he's died.
  • In Heart of the Woods, this happens in two of the bad endings.
    • In the aptly named "Sacrifice" ending, Morgan tackles her "mother" Evelyn and hurls both of them into the lake, thwarting Evelyn's plan and causing both of their deaths.
    • In the "Freedom" ending, Geladura sacrifices herself in order to defeat Evelyn with the last of her strength.
  • Hanako's parents from Katawa Shoujo physically protected her from the fire ten years ago, explaining her scars, her trauma, and her being an orphan.
  • In Little Busters!, Kengo and Masato risk their lives to protect Riki and Rin from danger when their bus drives off a cliff during a field trip. In one timeline, this kills them. Kyousuke also risks his life to stop the oil from exploding and so allows Riki to save several people in the meantime, which can either result in his death or everyone being saved depending on your choices at the very end.
  • Majikoi! Love Me Seriously! has a couple. Gakuto for Chika, Momoyo for Moro, etc.
  • Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Ace stays behind to let the others access the other two rooms. The party winds up back in the starting area, and Ace did it to make sure the others wouldn't check door 3, because he kill a man using that door.
    • Snake in the "Safe" ending, in a combination of this and revenge for Clover's death.
  • The Shall We Date? games includes this once in a while:
  • In the fangame Super Danganronpa Another 2, after being caught up in plan by Nikei and fatally injured by both Yuki and Sora, Shinji willingly starts a fire that burns down the Tower of Babylon and himself with it, all to prevent anyone from becoming the blackened.
  • In the Swan Song, some of the Daichi give up their lives for other followers to escape.

    Web Animation 
  • DEATH BATTLE!: The fight between Bill Cipher and Discord ends in one. While Bill was hyperfocused on trying to kill Discord, which he ultimately succeeds in doing, Discord was more focused on trying to save Fluttershy and the others, taking full advantage of Bill's tunnel-vision that led to his previous defeat against the Pines. It's soon revealed that he trapped the two of them in the Nightmare Realm during the fight, simply buying enough time for the portal to Equestria to close. He won the actual plot of the fight, even though he lost the fight proper.
  • In Dusk's Dawn Donut charges into the Evil Twin's scepter, knocking himself out to save Star Whistle. He's alright.
  • Fallen Kingdom: The Prince, stuck on the Nether Star missile, guides it into a Nether Portal and right into the heart of the Piglins' war machine.
  • In Grubhub Commercial: Revenge of the Kid, the Boogieman challenges the Kid to a dance-off and wins, saving the universe from the Grubageddon, but boogies to hard and is fatally wounded in the process.
  • If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device:
    • Sacrifices of this sort seem to be one of the only things that can get the eternally grumpy Emperor to actually and unconditionally respect someone, to the point of refusing to insult them in any way (which for this Emperor, is a fairly huge deal). Though he naturally does have (justifiedly) high standards: A Go Through Me moment brought up mostly because a "lesser" human did it first and you didn't want to be upstaged just earns you posthumous scorn, and a Stupid Sacrifice where there were actual non-suicidal options that didn't involve self-destructing Lost Technology pisses him off outright. Rather tellingly, Sanguinius who died giving the Emperor a chance to defeat Horus, is the only one of his sons who he doesn't insult at all.
    • Spoofed in the second Q&A when the Emperor decides to answer the questions sent in despite Magnus fearing that this may end up with destruction of Terra. "Sacrifices must be made", indeed.
  • The stop-motion short film Lost & Found is about a dinosaur yarn doll who unravels his entire body to save the love of his life.
  • In No Evil Xipe Totec sacrifices her life to seal away the Black Tezcatlipoca. Episode 35, "Black, White and Red All Over", plays with it a bit: Murder sacrificed her life, but that didn't mean "dies on the spot"; it meant "forfeits her spiritual immortality, and the Black Tezcatlipoca would escape when she died".
  • In Season 2 of Tube Clash, Max, AKA HandOfBlood, volunteers to delete himself from the world, thus enabling the remaining two survivors to go through with their plan to save everyone else.
  • For a comedy series, Red vs. Blue has had a couple:
    • Alpha diving into The Meta in order to give Wash enough time to set off the EMP. Yeah, he played it off like he was still clinging to the "I'm a ghost, not an AI" thing, but it seems likely he knew by then what he was.
    • Then Season 13 brought two, one partially inspiring the second.
      • Lovable loser General Doyle first overcoming his fear and going to attempt to overload the nuclear reactor, and then, when the controls are destroyed, doing it 'manually', knowing that he would not be able to leave.
      • Epsilon realizing that the only way that he could run the Meta's armor — the piece of tech that would net his friends the biggest chance to escape Hargrove's ship — was to effectively do a hard reboot on himself, erasing all his memories (the core of what Epsilon was), allowing for the other fragments to expand and use the freed up capacity. In addition, in a message left behind, he muses on what it is like making such a sacrifice, knowing that there is no way to know if it even did any good. To drive his point even further, the episode ends as he does this, so the audience also has no way to know if it did any good until two seasons later.
        Epsilon: It was actually Doyle who made me realize something I never thought of before. There’s so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day. And because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after. But the hero… never gets to see that ending. They’ll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end… they just have to have faith. Ain't that a bitch?
  • RWBY:
    • In "Never Miss a Beat", Weiss attempts to take out Flynt by tackling him onto a flame-spewing vent when he's about to target Yang. Weiss ends up depleting all of her Aura, and Flynt survives by the skin of his teeth, but is weak enough to be taken out by Yang. Once the battle is over, Flynt acknowledges her courage in the act.
    • In the Volume 3 finale, Cinder attempts to destroy Beacon Tower, but the teachers are too far away to intervene, leaving someone else to step into the role of protecting the tower until the teachers can arrive. Pyrrha gives Cinder a hell of a fight, her Semblance going toe-to-toe with Cinder's Maiden powers. Unfortunately, Semblance requires Aura, while Maiden powers do not. When Pyrrha runs out of Aura, Cinder kills her.
    • During the final episode of Volume 8, Arthur Watts activates the bomb that Ironwood originally planned to destroy Mantle with in order to kill Qrow, Robyn and most of the remaining Ace-Ops on the airship it's on right after Harriet was convinced not to use it. Vine Zeki willingly decides to stay on the ship in order to contain the blast of the bomb using his Semblance as well as protect his friends in the Ace-Ops. Harriet screams in horror as she realizes her friend is about to die as the bomb is successfully contained.
  • The Wrath of Giga Bowser:
    • Two occur in the same scene. After Marth informs Ness and Mr. Game & Watch that all survivors are going to meet at the Stadium, Giga Bowser shows up, and Marth rushes at it so the other two have time to escape. Right afterwards, Ness stops to fill Mr. Game & Watch's bucket with a PK Flash, which later plays a crucial part in defeating Giga Bowser, but leaves him unable to flee in time.
    • In the very last scene of the climax, Mr. Game & Watch unleashes the content of his bucket at Roy, so the latter can perform a counter-attack powerful enough to defeat Giga Bowser. It works, but Mr. Game & Watch also gets hit as Roy deals the blow.

    Web Original 
  • Brighthammer 40,000: In this setting, the traitor Primarchs, led by Horus Lupercal, all committed ritual suicide during the Great Crusade during an event called the "Horus Ascendancy", which allowed them to become Princes of Order and counter the Lords of Order's influence, after the four gods got bloated from the souls who died and were corrupted into becoming tyrants. As a result, they're fondly remembered by the Imperium of Mankind and worshiped as the Emperor's Demigods.
  • In Dusk Peterson's short story The Fool, the Villain Protagonist writes in his diary about the capture, rape and romance of his boy slave only to sacrifice himself to a Cruel and Unusual Death so the boy he's fallen in love with can escape and be returned to his surviving family.
  • Fine Structure has five separate examples. In order:
    • Jim Akker kills himself while Zykov/Oul is telepathically probing his mind in an attempt to take him down too. He also sends a last-minute warning to Ching.
    • Jason Chilton sacrifices himself to save millions of people and several named characters from the Unstoppable Rage of the Twelfth Power.
    • John Zhang kills himself in an ostentatiously physics-breaking way, forcing the Imprisoning God to isolate our entire solar system from the rest of The Multiverse.
    • Anne Poole jumps onto a black hole to undo the results of John Zhang's actions, allowing the Final Battle to go forward.
    • And finally, Ching sacrifices himself in the Final Battle, taking Oul with him.
  • In Pyrrhic, Hanako dies in order to protect Joshua, knowing that if they stop to attempt to heal her, he would likely die, as the person who shot Hanako (Marie) would catch up to them.
  • In the first act of Sapphire Episode III, Ivanka offers to be executed in Alec's stead. A Senseless Sacrifice is narrowly avoided.
  • The TV Tropes ARG The Wall Will Fall has an averted one when one of its members is chosen to face Cthulhu in the final showdown. Pretty much every player who owned a required smartphone (and a few who didn't) were trying to volunteer, citing why they should be the one who had to risk their lives over everyone else. Averted in that the final chosen player managed to get away with a concussion.
  • In Worm, Regent draws Behemoth's attention to save Imp and the cape Imp was trying to rescue, and is killed almost instantly.

    Web Videos 
  • Hero House gives us a heartbreaking example in episode six, with Batman dying to save Nightwing's life
  • Ma-Ti dies protecting modern civilization at the climax of Suburban Knights.
  • To Boldly Flee:
    • The crew of the USS Exit Strategy sacrifice themselves to expand the Plot Hole, allowing it to encompass (and thus protect) the entire world. They are resurrected shortly afterwards, but they had no idea that would happen going in.
    • At the climax, Nostalgia Critic fuses with the plot hole to stabilize it. He becomes something more, but at the end of the day Critic is gone, marking both the end to both the movie and his series.
  • In lonelygirl15, Bree Avery does the Ceremony to stop the Order chasing her friends, and Gina Hart takes a bullet to save Jonas.
  • In Marble Hornets, Tim, in the midst of a coughing fit and unable to stand, let alone walk, demands that Jay leave him behind when the Operator is approaching them in the tunnel.
  • Chip Cheezum's LP of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater brings us Mission J. Frog, a seemingly innocuous frog captured earlier on in the LP for "a mission". Hours later in the fight against Volgin, Chip throws out Mission J. Frog, who distracts Volgin the first time, but is fatally shot with electricity afterwards.
  • Nightmare Time: In the episode "Honey Queen," Gerald drives his car towards the man who kidnapped his son, getting shot and dying in the process.
  • Downplayed (since no one actually got hurt), but the trope still applies in Scott The Woz's 200th episode special, "Borderline Forever", which sees Scott attempting to defeat the Blue Border that surrounds every single one of his videos (and his peripheral vision). At the end of the episode, Scott manages to weaken the Blue Border but he finds out that he can't stop it entirely, and that it'll just get bigger if left alone. He realizes that it needs a host, so he willingly allows himself and only him to be obstructed by the Blue Border, saving everyone else from being affected by it.
  • TierZoo: "The Most Underrated Dinosaur" shows a replay of a Deinocheirus playthrough, based on footage from Amazing Dinoworld. The climax involves a Tarbosaurus trying to attack a group of Deinocheirus players early in their playthrough just before they've leveled up enough to become self-sufficient, with his character assisting them. TierZoo as the adult Deinocheirus fights off the Tarbosaurus, but is mortally wounded in the fight and dies just after the other Deinocheirus players gain the necessary XP to level up from watching the fight. In the "game" itself, the lower level teammates are his character's offspring.
  • Mr. Krabs' Unquenchable Blood Lust ends with Mr. Krabs cornering Spongebob in his house and prepared to stab him, only for Spongebob to reveal he has a bomb hidden under his pants, which he detonates, putting an end to Mr. Krabs' murderous rampage.

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V's Sacrifice

V sacrifices herself so that N, Uzi, and Tessa can survive.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (4 votes)

Example of:

Main / DeadlyClosingCredits

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