Basic Trope: Characters view suicide as a shameful and reprehensible act.
- Straight: Bob is suffering major depression and kills himself. When Alice and the others hear about this, they react bitterly and claim that Bob has crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
- Exaggerated:
- Anyone who even thinks about committing suicide will end up getting sentenced to prison for 100 years.
- Bob attempts to kill himself. As he was caught, he is forced to face public humiliation from everyone around the world.
- Anyone who kills themselves will have their corpses dumped over the sea.
- Even the Serial Killers and the mass shooters are still treated as redeemable and forgivable, and they are just sent to undergo high-class therapy without any punishments. Someone with suicidal thoughts, on the other hand, must sent to the penal labor camp together with their relatives and eternally live here forever with some magic or technology to keep them stay horribly immortal.
- Downplayed:
- Alice berates Bob for being a Death Seeker.
- While suicide is still treated with respect that it deserves, it's generally agreed upon that it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
- Justified:
- Suicide is considered a serious crime which is just as bad as killing someone.
- Alice believes that suicide is selfish, and if Bob commits suicide, he will leave all of those who care about him behind with so much grief.
- Alice believes that suicide is the easy way out of problems that people have to deal with, no matter how hard they are. In addition, as an Anti-Nihilist, she thinks that even if Bob's life is terrible, that doesn't give him the license to kill himself.
- Alice is a "religious" follower who believes that suicide is a sin that will lead one to Hell, and also believes that only the deity she believes in is allowed to take one's life away.
- Bob is convicted of a serious crime. He only killed himself to get away from being sentenced to prison and to spite those who want him punished.
- Alice is Bob's seven year old daughter and has nobody else to raise her. She grows up homeless and blames Bob for not staying alive to take care of her.
- Alice and Bob live in a culture where experiencing and enduring suffering is deemed as honorable; therefore, him trying to avoid pain through suicidal or other non-suicidal means is something that is strongly detested.
- Alice believes that Bob has a duty to contribute to society and committing suicide violates it.
- Alice is The Social Darwinist who considers Bob weak for wanting to escape his suffering instead of enduring it, which she considers a sign of strength.
- The government believes that if people chose to commit suicide, the economy would be threatened.
- Inverted:
- Suicide is seen as an honorable act.
- Killing others is a heinous crime.
- Alternatively, killing others is seen as honorable.
- Subverted:
- It is found out that allegations of Bob being depressed and killing himself are false and that he made a Heroic Sacrifice to save someone from being hit by a car.
- When Alice interrupts Bob's suicide attempt and asks him how he could do something "so selfish", Bob replies by listing all the ways in which he (unfairly) considers himself a burden on those around him. In other words, Bob believes it would be selfish of him not to kill himself.
- Double Subverted:
- But Alice wasn't really phased by the act and believed that Bob sacrificed himself on purpose.
- Alice is too stubborn to see the difference.
- Parodied: Anyone who attempts to kill themselves is forced to watch crappy movies films for eternity!
- Zigzagged: Some characters demonize suicide while others encourage it.
- Averted: Characters show no disgust for those who kill themselves.
- Enforced: This is an Author Tract and the author wants his work to shame suicide.
- Lampshaded:
- "Do you people lack compassion for suicidal people?"
- "If you think suicide is such a shameful thing, then where’s your anger towards all the factors that exacerbate suicides? Or do you reserve your righteous indignation exclusively for the suicidal?"
- Invoked: Alice is thinking of a reason for why Bob shouldn't kill himself, so she decides to consider it an evil act.
- Exploited:
- Bob's abusers use this trope in effect just so they can keep him alive to abuse him even further.
- Knowing the social stigma of suicide, Greg coerces Bob to kill himself just to see his loved ones upset For the Evulz.
- Bob is aware of the strong social stigma against suicide and took this opportunity to kill himself to spite those who discouraged him from doing it.
- Defied:
- Bob plans to stage his suicide a murder in order to avoid receiving backlash from everyone.
- When Alice talks badly about Bob for committing suicide, Bob's grieving uncle Cyrus slaps her in the face, and gives a long "The Reason You Suck" Speech to everybody at the wake (both for condemning Bob for his suicide and for having the gall to do so after ignoring Bob's severe depression). He ends by threatening to murder the next person who calls his nephew selfish, and nobody doubts that he means business.
- Discussed: "So if you kill someone, it's bad, but if you kill yourself, that's even worse?"
- Conversed: "Characters don't generally commit suicide because it's the right thing, so shaming them doesn't really work."
- Implied: Alice looks at Bob's suicide note and expresses a very disappointed look on her face.
- Subverting an implication, Alice is actually disappointed that everyone he met was such a Jerkass, and further disappointed in herself for having him Driven to Suicide.
- Deconstructed:
- The conception that suicide is immoral never changes Bob's mind about suicide; in fact, it increases his depression even further in that he kills himself anyway. Bob's friends find Bob's suicide note which states how he has never gotten over his depression thanks to his "sorry excuses of friends" and is "happy that he is no longer around a cruel world". The friends, especially Alice, are in deep shock and regret.
- Bob dresses down his friends for holding the anti-suicide belief, and instead tells them that they are selfish for wanting him to stay around while he becomes progressively depressed and calls them a bunch of sadists who actually enjoy people suffering. Furthermore, he says they don't have the right to use that argument against him because he does whatever he wants with his life and they have no control over it, and finally tells them to fuck off.
- It's the norm in Bob's society for selfish folks to ruin lives and offer neither help, nor sympathy towards those in need, all without repercussions. Also, victims are systematically painted as bad people.
- Bob may not commit suicide, but his unresolvedly emotional devastation makes him ends up bitter and extremely unhappy, leaving Bob Hates Everyone Equally, and gradually become a huge Jerkass. When he reach an unredeemable stage, all of Bob's friends begin hating him so badly, and wish him to kill himself instead.
- The focus on those who commit suicide causes the factors contributing to suicides to be overlooked, and nothing really changes.
- Reconstructed:
- Despite society still condemning suicide, and even if Alice and the gang are upset at Bob's decision, they still give him a proper burial, showing that they cared about him nonetheless.
- Bob's friends eventually honored his decision to end his life, Alice even volunteered to Make It Look Like an Accident as a Mercy Kill so Bob won't go to hell for committing suicide.
- On his way to high cliffs to kill himself, Bob saved a little girl from getting hit by a car. After discovering how precious life is, Bob decides not to end his life, and finds a new purpose in his life by helping others with depression.
- Bob visits a therapist, and learns how to deal with his emotions in much more moderate way. Whether his life becomes happier or remains unhappy, his grief doesn't reach suicidal levels like before.
- Played For Laughs: After Bob was sent to hell, he and the others who killed themselves were kicked out because hell is overflowing. Now all the people are resurrected and seen as the lowest of the low by the entire world while living forever.
- Played For Drama: Bob plans on killing himself, but he doesn't die, although he is badly injured in the process. To make matters worse, Bob is not only sentenced to life in prison, but is also shamed by society by being labeled as a despicable coward for trying to give up on life while his loved ones abandon him, making Bob feel physically and emotionally devastated.
Back to Suicide is Shameful, you Dirty Coward!
