History FateWorseThanDeath / WesternAnimation

** "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheCaveOfTwoLovers The Cave of Two Lovers]]": When Iroh accidentally poisons himself, he and Zuko have a choice between going for help to the Earth Kingdom, towards which they are military enemies, or to the Fire Nation, which views them as traitors and deserters. If they are discovered, the Earth Kingdom will kill them, but the Fire Nation will give them to Azula. They decide possible death is the better option and head to a nearby Earth Kingdom town for the cure.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'', it is parodied with Sonic's sneakers are stolen and he's left with the horrific notion that he has to now ''walk'' which for him is very tedious and dull since he understands time differently from non-powered characters aka everyone else.
* The Psychocrypt in ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers''. After having the victim has their soul torn out ''painfully,'' those tossed in the device are fully aware of what's happened. Their LifeEnergy is used to make a construct the Queen (the person who put them there) can see and hear through, forced to do her bidding.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Betty", Ice King is [[spoiler:reverted back to the sane but dying Simon, and asks his fiance, Betty, not to save him because he'd rather be dead than continue being the Ice King, but then decides he should give Betty a chance to save him]]. [[TheGrimReaper Death himself]] appears and pities him for missing this chance.

** Zuko and Iroh discuss this when considering whether they should hide as refugees.

** This is what happens to [[TheBlank victims]] of Koh the FaceStealer.

** One of Aang's dilemmas in the final season is how to defeat the BigBad Ozai without killing him. As he was raised with the belief that [[ThouShallNotKill all life is sacred and worth protecting]], he has trouble with the idea that he has to kill a human despite agreeing with his friends that Ozai is a horrible person and the world would be much better off without him. He spends the first half of the GrandFinale wrestling with this dilemma and eventually resolves that he has no choice when even the previous Air Nomad Avatar advises him to kill Ozai to restore balance to the world. Fortunately for him, [[spoiler: Aang then meets a Lion Turtle that teaches him Energybending, allowing Aang to TakeAThirdOption and [[CruelMercy simply take away Ozai's firebending once he's finally subdued]]. For Ozai, that was worse than being killed, as not only is he depowered, he is imprisoned for his war crimes while his [[TheUnfavorite unfavorite child]] [[CategoryTraitor Prince Zuko]] becomes the new Fire Lord, intent on rebuilding the world]].

** Anyone inside a game cube when the User wins is turned into colorful slug creatures called Nulls.

** ''[[WesternAnimation/SouthParkPostCovidTheReturnOfCovid Post Covid: The Return Of Covid]]'': Eric Cartman would suffer this fate at the end. After [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing]] his happy future for his friends' sakes he ends up becoming a homeless and miserable alcoholic whose all alone while being forced to watch everyone else ignore him and live happy lives. Since Cartman was an AttentionWhore who [[{{Sadist}} enjoyed]] seeing other people miserable, this is indeed a fate much worse than death for Cartman.

** ''[[WesternAnimation/SouthParkPostCovidTheReturnOfCovid Post Covid: The Return Of Covid]]'': Eric Cartman would suffer this fate at the end. After [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing]] his happy future for his friends' sakes he ends up becoming a homeless, lonely, and miserable alcoholic whose forced to watch everyone else ignore him and live happy lives. Since Cartman was an AttentionWhore who [[{{Sadist}} enjoyed]] seeing other people miserable, this is indeed a fate much worse than death for Cartman.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'': In the Christmas episode "The Smurfs Christmas Special," aired in 1982, where a mysterious evil wizard named The Stranger captures two children (in revenge for their uncle, the marshal of the region, having him arrested for various crimes he had committed) and hopes to take them on "the final journey." Although it is never stated outright what this means, it is implied that it would be especially brutal and the children would be kept alive for many years to endure at in its fullest. The implied plans are so horrifying that even Gargamel (who had given him the children in exchange for a scroll that would help him destroy the Smurf Village) refuses to participate any further ... so he gets to come along. The Smurfs arrive in time to stop The Stranger.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'', when Adamai declares that he'd rather die than help [[spoiler:Qilby the Traitor]] with his schemes, the villain assures Adamai that there are far worse things than death. He clearly considers being [[SealedEvilInACan sealed away in limbo for millenia]] by Yugo's past self to be this, and plans to trap Yugo in that same void as payback. [[spoiler:Qilby genuinely believes that his own existence is already worse than death since his BornAgainImmortality, unlike that of the other six original Eliatropes like Yugo, doesn't allow him to forget his past lives.]]. If you want to know, there is a similar treatement called the "White Room Torture": it's considered to be THE worst method of torture.

** ''[[WesternAnimation/SouthParkPostCovidTheReturnOfCovid Post Covid: The Return Of Covid]]'': Eric Cartman would suffer this fate at the end. After [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing]] his happy future for his friends' sakes he ends up becoming a homeless, lonely, and miserable alcoholic whose forced to watch everyone else ignore him and live happy lives. Since Cartman was an AttentionWhore who [[{{Sadist}} enjoyed]] seeing other people miserable, the above is indeed a fate much worse than death for Cartman.

** The episode "Flying Mind" reveals that the Decepticon flagship ''Nemesis'' is actually a Decepticon who's been trapped in his alt-mode for an untold number of years. The Aligned continuity reveals that his name was Trypticon: after failing a mission and coming back with serious injuries, Megatron made it so that he could never transform into his robot mode again.

** Chronos's final fate in "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E13TimeWarped The Once and Future Thing: Time, Warped]]", with the only mercy being that he's unaware of the hell he's in. At the moment in time when his wife berates him for doing nothing useful with a time machine, goading him into activating it to get away from her, [[spoiler:Batman's reprogramming causes the machine to instead rewind time by ten seconds, trapping Chronos in a TimeLoop of his wife yelling at him]].

** Inverted in "The Savage Time, Part I": The Justice League return to a CrapsackWorld resulting from Vandal Savage tampering with time, in which Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by soldiers of Savage's fascist government and Bruce is now the leader of an underground resistance movement. The League finds Savage's time machine and prepares to return to the time of World War II to reverse the tampering, but J'onn J'onnz warns Bruce that if they succeed, this version of him will be wiped from existence. Bruce replies simply, ''"Nothing would make me happier."''
** "The Once and Future Thing": Chronos's final fate, with the only mercy being that he's unaware of the hell he's in: at the moment in time where his wife berates him for doing nothing useful with a time machine, goading him into activating it to get away from her, [[spoiler:Batman's reprogramming causes the machine to instead rewind time by ten seconds, trapping Chronos in a TimeLoop of his wife yelling at him.]]
** In "Kids' Stuff," child villain Mordred ends up as the most powerful magical being on Earth, and ends up using his newfound powers to [[NiceJobFixingItVillain break the spell of Eternal Youth cast on himself]]. The result of this leaves Mordred [[spoiler:with only Eternal Life, causing him to degrade rapidly to his true age of a man of several hundred years. Thus he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity as a decrepit vegetable in the care of his obsessively doting mother.]]
** In the episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E5And6OnlyADream Only a Dream]]", the VillainOfTheWeek, a [[DreamWeaver nightmare lord]] called Dr. Destiny, stabs himself with a needle of sedative [[HoistByHisOwnPetard intended for Batman]] and falls afoul of his own powers. The last we see of him, he's in a hospital bed, staring slack-jawed.
** ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} describes his "Agony Matrix" as a device that basically triggers every single pain receptor in a person's body and causes them to feel every ounce of pain they can produce for the rest of eternity, all at once. Although, it's implied that the only reason why Superman was able to survive for a prologued period is because of his NighInvulnerability.

** [[MonsterClown The Joker]] couldn't kill people like his comic book counterpart and still make it past [[MediaWatchdog network censors]], so his patented Joker Venom simply reduces victims to smiling, mindless vegetables. In the DVDCommentary of the episode "Harlequinaide", the series creators speculate that this probably disturbed viewers more than outright deaths would.
** One [[MrAltDisney sociopathic millionaire]] has Mr. Freeze construct a duplicate cyrogenic suit for him in order to obtain immortality. At the end of the episode [[spoiler:the sociopathic millionaire is immobilized towards the bottom of the ocean, condemned there for eternity]].
** Mr. Freeze, then known as Victor Fries, was trying to commence an experiment involving cryogenetics to cure his dying wife, but then his boss, [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Ferris Boyle]] shut down the project without even caring if shutting it down would also kill his wife. Disaster ensues, and Fries' body is altered to become incapable of surviving outside of a sub-zero environment, forcing him to don a protective cryogenic suit. Much later in life, it was later revealed that the very same accident also resulted in most of his body deteriorating to the point that his head was the only part of his human self that remained intact, meaning he can't even live a normal life with Nora Fries, his wife, who was revived and cured. [[spoiler:The technology to cure him (by cloning him) is invented ''50 years later'', meaning that his wife is an old woman if not already dead and thus robbing him of the only reason he really wanted to be cured. When they finally use it on the poor guy, it works and he begins to live a normal life -- for about a week, after which it starts failing, condemning him to the same fate as before. He finally blows himself up to both spare himself the emotional agony of a ''second'' AndIMustScream scenario and to prevent himself from hurting anyone else.]]
** In the Comic Book sequel to ''WesternAnimation/BatmanMaskOfThePhantasm'', it was later revealed that the Joker's poisoning of Arthur Reeves in the film ultimately did leave him in a fate far worse than death, as it turned him into a grinning monster who was completely insane and wanted to murder Batman, Phantasm, and Joker.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'': Like in all Batman cartoons, this trope happens to a few villains. A notable example is the episode "The End of Batman". The villains Wrath and Scorn, who are actually colleagues of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, discover Batman's secret identity before they are defeated and captured. They swear that, should Batman release them, they'll never tell a soul about his secret identity, but that they'll tell all of Gotham if he does otherwise. Batman allows the police to take them, even though he knows that this likely means the end of his crime-fighting. However, [[VillainousRescue the Joker]] (who doesn't want anyone revealing Batman's identity because ''he'' wants to be the one to take down the Bat) sneaks into the prisoner transport and doses Wrath and Scorn with his Joker gas, which doesn't kill them, but leaves them in catatonic states with disturbing smiles. They'll live, but they certainly aren't alive...

** Ian Peek in "Sneak Peek". [[IntangibleMan The guy gets a device that lets him vibrate through solid objects]] like Franchise/TheFlash can, and he finds out who Batman really is, and by the end of the episode, he's lost control of the power and sinks straight to the center of the Earth.
** In "Disappearing Inque", Aaron Herbst, a guard at her prison who had a crush on her, is sweet-talked into helping her, but wants powers like hers in exchange. [[AndIMustScream She gives him an incomplete version of the formula, leaving him an immobile half-liquid blob.]]
** In "Earth Mover", Bill Wallace's former business partner had fused with Earth itself, for ''years''. His episode centered on his anger at his unjust fate and wanting to see his daughter again. Thankfully, it gets better for him, since he found a way to control the Earth itself, then found release when he was finally killed in a cave-in.
** In "The Winning Edge", it's revealed that Bane's body has withered away after years of Venom use, and he now lives in a nursing home under 24-hour life support, ironically staying alive only through the continuous infusion of more Venom.

-->'''Bugs''': (''to Wile E.'') I have come to give myself up as I can no longer fight against such genius.\\

-->'''Bugs''': (''to Wile E.'') I have come to give myself up as I can no longer fight against of such genius.\\

* Lampshaded in ''WesternAnimation/{{Centaurworld}}''. In the final episode, when Rider insists that the Centaurworld inhabitants should help her [[spoiler:cut the frozen soldiers of the Nowhere King's army to pieces and burn them in a pit]], they're uncomfortable with this. They try to convince her that committing "war crimes" is bad by singing a song about how they should [[spoiler:throw the soldiers into a deep hole and cover them in dirt]] instead. An incredulous Rider tries to point out that their hole plan is ''still'' murder, just with more work and extra steps.

'''Everyone Else:''' ''(singing)'' Yes! We dig, dig, dig to bury the bad guys! Then our conscience will be less sad, guys!

* Played straight in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' for anyone who becomes trapped in the sub-dimension known as the Shadowzone. As [[spoiler: the Decepticon communications officer Soundwave learned.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGhostAndMollyMcGee'': If you fail to meet [[GodOfTheDead The Chairman]]'s expectations, you will be sent to the Flow of Failed Phantoms, a place of eternal punishment and anguish where the ghosts are filled with a sense of loss and forget what made them "them". It is essentially a limbo.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' episode "Jack and the Lava Monster," Aku destroyed a Viking warrior's village and family and instead of killing him, imprisoned him in an unbreakable crystal and plunged him still alive into the heart of a mountain. Unable to fall in battle to reach Valhalla, this was a far greater punishment than simple death.

* [[EvilCounterPart Dark Danny]] of ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' may have survived outside of his now non-existent time period, but he is forever trapped in that Fenton Thermos. The last shots are of him struggling to get out. He would have, too, if not for ExecutiveMeddling, but he's stuck there for the rest of his afterlife.

** "The Once and Future Thing". Chronos' final fate. [[spoiler:Doomed to live through the same moments of being harangued by his wife that prompted him to start the whole shebang to begin with, after Batman and Green Lantern messed with his time belt.]]

** In the episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E5And6OnlyADream Only a Dream]]", the VillainOfTheWeek, a [[DreamWeaver nightmare lord]] called Dr. Destiny, stabs himself with a needle of sedative [[HoistByHisOwnPetard intended for Batman]] and falls afoul of his own powers. They last we see of him, he's in a hospital bed, staring slack-jawed.

** The [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Warner Bros.]] cartoon "WesternAnimation/LifeWithFeathers" has Sylvester refusing to eat a suicidal bird because he thinks it's poisoned. The bird cajoles Sylvester with a radio cooking show until he's nothing but skin and bones. When Sylvester gives in:
-->'''Sylvester:''' (''resignedly'') All right. I'll do it. I'd rather die than starve to death!
-->(A variation since the alternate fate would still result just one a lot slower and more painful.)