History Main / DespairEventHorizon

Compare SafetyInIndifference, HopeIsScary (the reason it can be so hard to get back over the horizon), HopeCrusher (someone who enjoys seeing characters give up their will to fight, or even worse, pushes them over the horizon personally).

This is often a goal of some wars. Break the enemy's morale, and you can achieve victory even without military success. Also, one of the worst outcomes of an IdentityBreakdown is a character reaching this as their despair in not knowing who or what they are (or the despair in knowing [[TomatoInTheMirror ''exactly'']] [[IAmAMonster what they are]]) pushes them to the edge.

This is often a goal of some wars. Break the enemy's morale, and you can achieve victory even without military success. Also, one of the worst outcomes of an IdentityBreakdown is a character reaching this as their despair in not knowing who or what they are (or the despair in knowing [[TomatoInTheMirror ''exactly'']][[IAmAMonster what they are]]) pushes them to the edge.

This is often a goal of some wars. Break the enemy's morale, and you can achieve victory even without military success.

Related to HeroicBSOD and HeroicSafeMode, except the hero usually comes back from those. A WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds is often a character who crossed this line long ago. It can result in the character entering an AngstComa, being DumbStruck or suffering DeathByDespair (and subsequently crossing the MoralEventHorizon or JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope). Often a result of WeUsedToBeFriends or some variants of PersonalHorror. This is often the final stage of the BreakTheCutie process. In a video game, often happens during a BleakLevel, and it may be relevant if the game has a MoraleMechanic.

* DespairEventHorizon/{{Film}}

Compare SafetyInIndifference, HopeIsScary (the reason nobody ever crosses the horizon back again), HopeCrusher (someone who delights in seeing characters crossing this horizon, or even worse, pushing other people to cross the horizon).

!!Examples

* DespairEventHorizon/WebComics

Compare SafetyInIndifference, HopeIsScary (the reason nobody ever crosses the horizon back again), HopeCrusher (someone who delights seeing characters crossing this horizon, or even worse, pushing other people to cross the horizon).

Related to HeroicBSOD and HeroicSafeMode, except the hero usually comes back from those. A WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds is often a character who crossed this line long ago. It can result in the character entering an AngstComa, being DumbStruck or suffering DeathByDespair (and subsequently crossing the MoralEventHorizon or JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope). Often a result of WeUsedToBeFriends. This is often the final stage of the BreakTheCutie process. In a video game, often happens during a BleakLevel, and it may be relevant if the game has a MoraleMechanic.

Often a factor in PaterFamilicide.

Contrast HeroicSpirit. May be feigned by critics engaged in a CriticBreakdown.

Contrast HeroicSpirit.

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1352493197006420100

This is often a goal of some wars. You break the enemy's morale, and you can achieve victory even without military success.

* DespairEventHorizon/{{Fanfiction}}

* DespairEventHorizon/{{Webcomics}}

->''"It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside [[CloudCuckoolander Sick Boy]] was lost and never returned."''

Related to HeroicBSOD and HeroicSafeMode, except the hero usually comes back from those. A WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds is often a character who crossed this line long ago. It can result in the character entering an AngstComa, being DumbStruck or suffering DeathByDespair (and subsequently crossing the ''MoralEventHorizon'' or ''JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope''). Often a result of WeUsedToBeFriends. This is often the final stage of the BreakTheCutie process. In a video game, often happens during a BleakLevel, and it may be relevant if the game has a MoraleMechanic.

Related to HeroicBSOD and HeroicSafeMode, except the hero usually comes back from those. A WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds is often a character who crossed this line long ago. It can result in the character entering an AngstComa, being DumbStruck, suffering DeathByDespair, or becoming a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds (and subsequently crossing the ''MoralEventHorizon'' or ''JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope''). Often a result of WeUsedToBeFriends. This is often the final stage of the BreakTheCutie process. In a video game, often happens during a BleakLevel, and it may be relevant if the game has a MoraleMechanic.

Compare SafetyInIndifference, HopeIsScary (the reason nobody ever crosses the horizon back again), HopeCrusher (someone who delights seeing characters crossing this horizon).

Compare SafetyInIndifference, HopeIsScary (a character is afraid to cross the event horizon back again), HopeCrusher (someone who delights seeing characters crossing this horizon).

The line that, once crossed, destroys any last remaining sense of hope. It could be for a cause, a person, a situation, or simple survival. A character has given up on it, and there is no going back (barring some miracle, which isn't that unlikely in fiction). It can lead soldiers to despair -- or even [[DrivenToSuicide suicide]], if they don't simply [[DeathByDespair lose the will to live]]. It can turn an IdealHero into an AntiHero or [[FaceHeelTurn an outright villain]], or even, in some cases, ''[[HeelFaceTurn vice versa]].'' It is a vital element of {{Tragedy}}.

* DespairEventHorizon.AnimeAndManga
* DespairEventHorizon.ComicBooks
* DespairEventHorizon.{{Fanfiction}}
* DespairEventHorizon.{{Film}}
* DespairEventHorizon.{{Literature}}
* DespairEventHorizon.LiveActionTV
* DespairEventHorizon.{{Music}}
* DespairEventHorizon.{{Other}}
* DespairEventHorizon.TabletopGames
* DespairEventHorizon.VideoGames
* DespairEventHorizon.VisualNovels
* DespairEventHorizon.{{Webcomics}}
* DespairEventHorizon.WebOriginal
* DespairEventHorizon.WesternAnimation
* DespairEventHorizon.RealLife

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/BloodPlus'': Saya hits it when [[EvilTwin Diva]] [[spoiler: rapes and kills Riku]], developing a more bitter personality and an IWorkAlone mentality; several characters in-universe remark that she's lost hope.
* DGrayMan´s [[ActionGirl Lenalee]] is pushed into it when [[spoiler:Allen is wounded to about as close to death as you can get (hole in his heart, amputated left arm/innocence, HeroicBSOD from not being able to save Suman and various other injuries), she only gets to see the effects through Timcanpy and then isn't even allowed to see the presumed corpse.]] She understandably nearly becomes a vegetable for a while.
** Allen himself crosses the horizon after these events, and he is told that [[spoiler: he will never be able to be an Exorcist again. However, it turns out that wasn't true- Bak just wanted to make sure that Allen was determined enough to go through the dangerous process of regaining his Innocence.]]
* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': TheHero Kouji almost, ''almost'' crossed it during the Mazinger-Z vs Great General of Darkness movie. After several Mykene Warrior Monsters have easily destroyed four major cities (Paris, London, New York and Moscow) they strike Tokyo. He launches Mazinger-Z to fight them... and he barely walks out of it alive. The Warrior Monsters easily rip his mecha apart and turn Tokyo into burning ruins as he is unable make anything to stop them. Back in the HomeBase, he learns MORE Warrior Monsters have visited while he was away. His HomeBase is in ruins, LoveInterest Sayaka and [[VitriolicBestBuds victriolic best friend]] Boss' {{Humongous Mecha}}s have been destroyed, and worst of all, his little brother Shirou got hurt cause a collapsing ceiling and is in coma. Later, Kouji was sitting on -the remains of- his room, and he cried as he said he knew he could not win and he was going to die in the next battle; poor Sayaka, who was eavesdropping, also cried as hearing him.
** It was way, WAY worse in one of the first chapters of ''ShinMazingerZero'', where he '''did''' fully cross it. Straight after [[spoiler:seeing his grandfather murdering his father and murdering Sayaka after raping her, and losing one of his arms]] he was thrust in Mazinger-Z and his body absorbed by the machine. Turned into a raging TheBerserker, he began fighting Mechanical Beasts in spite of he not even knew what they were or whence they came, and his negative emotions -pain, rage, despair, sadness, loneliness- fed Mazinger-Z until [[spoiler:its sleeping consciousness woke up, transformed into an EldritchAbomination by poor Kouji's despair, and it burnt the world to ashes.]]
* Shinji crosses this line in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' when he is [[spoiler:[[ShootTheDog forced to kill Kaworu]]]], although that '''isn't'' actually his lowest point. That comes after [[spoiler:he [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbates]] at [[DudeShesLikeInAComa the comatose Asuka's bedside]]]], at which point he realizes that he has truly hit rock bottom.
** By midway through End of Evangelion, nothing is left but a shrieking mess.
** Asuka is declining steadily throughout the series, specially after being on the receiving end of MindRape, but she gets better.
** Ritsuko also hit this [[spoiler: after realizing that she'll never be loved by Gendou (like her mom before her) and destroying the Rei clones.]]
** For Shinji's [[RebuildOfEvangelion Rebuild]] incarnation, it's either finding out that he [[spoiler: never saved Rei (...which also shattered his feeble attempts to cope with having [[NiceJobBreakingItHero inadvertedly annihilated the biosphere]])]] or [[spoiler: [[MoreHeroThanThou Kaworu's]] [[YourHeadASplode death]] [[HeroicSacrifice yet again]], which, this time, was a direct result of Shinji [[GoneHorriblyWrong making a poor decision]] in a desperate situation and rendered completely [[SenselessSacrifice senseless]] by Shinji's ''mere presence'' inside EVA 13.]] After that, he just curls into a ball and waits for death, not even reacting to Asuka kicking him right afterwards. [[CosmicPlaything And yes, this is the very next thing that happens to him.]]
* Griffith of ''{{Berserk}}'', broken in body and mind after a year's worth of torture, loses all hope of becoming captain of the Band of the Hawks again when it's discovered that he will never recover from his injuries. Then, just after he resigns himself to living a peaceful life with Casca, he discovers that she's moved on and is now in a relationship with Guts. Griffith loses it completely. This drives him to activate his Crimson Behelit, summon the Godhand, and cross the MoralEventHorizon.
** Hitting one's emotional nadir this way is all but a requirement for mortal bearers of Behelits in general. It ensures that one is in the proper frame of mind to accept the offer of the Godhand to make the Sacrifice (and thus cross the bearer's personal MoralEventHorizon) to become a demon. And provided the Behelit comes into contact with blood, a member of the Godhand can also use it to manifest in the physical world, such as when [[HornyDevils Slan]] manifests in front of Guts using [[{{Squick}} a pile of troll intestines]].
** Guts comes perhaps the closest that any mortal can get to the Despair Event Horizon at the end of the Eclipse, what with [[spoiler:losing everyone in the Band of the Hawk except Casca to the demons unleashed by Griffith's acceptance of the call to Sacrifice, and then being horribly {{mind rape}}d by being ForcedToWatch as Casca, the only woman he's ever loved, is raped to insanity by Griffith, who has been reborn as the fifth member of the Godhand, after a [[UnstoppableRage furious]] but [[HopeSpot utterly doomed]] bid to save her that cost him a hand and an eye]]. The only thing that keeps Guts going in the face of such despair is an undying hatred for the one responsible for it all and a desire for revenge that all but consumes him for two years and nearly destroys the man that he used to be.
*** Well, that and his completely single-minded obsession with [[spoiler:finding a cure for Casca's insanity]], even though he's warned that [[HopeIsScary it may not be for the best, and she may not even want to be cured.]]
* This happens a ''lot'' in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'', to a number of different characters. In fact, it's the reason for most of the murderous rampages on the show, if not all.
* Judai of ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' crossed this at the end of Season 3, and Season 4 saw the former IdiotHero [[IncrediblyLamePun "jaded"]] into a [[TheStoic stoic]] IneffectualLoner.
** Ryo hits it hard in Season 2 after his loss to Edo, demotion to the minor leagues, and loss of his sponsor. This leads directly to his FreakOut and FaceHeelTurn, resulting in Hell Kaiser.
* It happens to Yuma in ''Anime/YuGiOhZexal'' during his duel with III, but is subverted due to the fact that III uses a curse to steal Yuma's self-confidence, literally. [[spoiler: Yuma is able to recover after his father appears to him in a vision, reminding him how he got the self-confidence to begin with.]]
* GaReiZero shows Yomi [[TraumaCongaLine descending into one of these]], finally crossing it when she believes Kagura, the one dearest to her and the last person to believe in her, has abandoned her. Leads to a TearJerker moment as all she can do is type out "I'm sorry Kagura" before accepting the Banestone/Sesshouseki in her despair.
* ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'''s Nozomu Itoshiki lives four leagues on the far side of the horizon. ''Constantly''. [[CrossesTheLineTwice Played for laughs]].
* ''DigimonTamers'': Jeri goes over this after [[spoiler:her partner Leomon is killed ''and eaten'' right in front of her]]. Her despair was so much that the [[BigBad D-Reaper]] decided it liked the taste of her sorrow and [[MoralEventHorizon possessed her so it could]] ''[[MoralEventHorizon continue]]'' [[MoralEventHorizon driving her over this]] by [[MindRape emotionally and mentally torturing her]]. It succeeds so well that she [[spoiler:[[InterruptedSuicide tries to commit]] ''[[InterruptedSuicide suicide]]'' to escape]].
* "TheRecordOfAFallenVampire" - Strauss crossed this when Stella was murdered. [[spoiler: Then he goes on to redefine the meaning of "no hope" as he has make himself the target of hatred and is forced to fight Stella and his daughter's effective reincarnation, the Black Swan, over and over again, without being allowed to die because if he dies then the Dhampirs and the humans will probably destroy each other, and if that doesn't happen, the Dhampirs will lose their hope of being able to turn into humans.]]
* The plot of ''Manga/ElfenLied'' is set off by [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Lucy]] crossing the line when she finds out that the cousin Kouta is going to a festival with instead of her is a girl. Not a good reason, but at that point she snaps and starts killing on purpose.
** This is actually the conclusion of a 8 to 10 years old process that began when her father abandoned her as a baby in the forest due to [[FantasticRacism her cat ear-shaped horns]]. She was found and sent to an OrphanageOfFear, where she spent day and night [[KidsAreCruel tormented non stop by the other children]] and [[AdultsAreUseless emotionally neglected by the staff of the facility]], again, [[FantasticRacism due to her horns]]. Then, when she finally thinks she made a friend, said friend proceeds to betray the girl's trust by telling the bullies of a puppy she was caring for; after which the bullies proceed to beat the poor thing to death right in front of her. This was the breaking point for Lucy, who snapped, awakening [[PsychicPowers her]] [[CombatTentacles vectors]] in the process, and slaughtered everyone in the room. ''Then'' she met Kouta, and the whole cousin issue was interpreted by the girl as another callous betrayal, driving her to a psychotically murderous rage that would become her standard mood from then on.
** After all that she tries one last time to place hope in humanity with a friendship before her eventual capture. She lets herself get captured to try to spare her only friend [[SenselessSacrifice only to find out that it was all for nothing as she dies from her wounds]]. If she didn't cross the line before it was at this point where she crosses it.
* In ''RanmaOneHalf'', Ryoga has developed a [[KiAttacks ki attack]] that grows more powerful as he gets more depressed. In a battle where he's using this technique to solidly pound Ranma into the ground, Akane tries to cut through Ryouga's depression with a cheerful "Don't be sad! I really like you, Ryoga!... You're such a great ''friend!''" Since Ryoga is desperately in love with her and is horrified that she only considers him a friend, this unwittingly pushes him over the Despair Event Horizon and [[StopHelpingMe makes his attacks]] ''[[StopHelpingMe even stronger.]]''
* In ''Manga/{{Monster}}'', Johan Liebert, the title character, gains power over people by pushing them over this line, putting them completely under his control.
* ''Anime/ParanoiaAgent'': This is the entire point of the series. Li'l Slugger comes to those who have reached this point.
* Edward and Alphonse Elric from ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' crossed this after their attempt to resurrect their mother [[CameBackWrong went horribly wrong]], traumatizing them both. It was only through the intervention of Roy Mustang, who told the boys that getting back their bodies was possible with the privileges of state alchemists, that they regained their will to live. Everyone else who has tried to bring those they love back from the dead with alchemy has reached this point.
** Gluttony after [[spoiler:Lust dies]].
* Suzaku Kururugi in ''Anime/CodeGeass'' crosses this twice. First, when [[spoiler: his girlfriend Euphemia died in the worst way possible]]. Later, when he [[spoiler:nukes Tokyo under the influence of Geass]]. For all his loathing of the wrong means, he realizes that it's impossible for him to live according to his ideals.
** Lelouch was already sitting on the fence after [[spoiler: [[SpoiledSweet Shirley]] died in his arms and [[SugarAndIcePersonality C.C.]] lost her memories]], but he only crosses it once and for all after [[spoiler: his attempt at rescuing [[IllGirl Nunnally]] [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat seemingly gets her killed]], the Black Knights betray him, and he just barely survives thanks to Rolo's HeroicSacrifice.]] This leads a DoNotGoGentle moment : "If anyone wishes to stop me, let them try. If there is anyone who can go beyond my despair...!".
** Not to say he got better afterwards. Not in the least. When his initial attempt to die by [[spoiler:sealing himself with his father didn't go as planned, he cooked up an even grander covert suicide scheme [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds that involved him being a tyrant and having many killed in order to do so]] [[GenghisGambit for the sake of also uniting the world]] so that there would be peace after his death]].
** [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Arguably]], most of the show's villains and AntiHero type characters are such because [[TraumaCongaLine they were pushed to such depths of despair that]] [[JerkassWoobie they simply can't be decent]] [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds or sane people]] anymore.
* Darcia from ''WolfsRain'' hits this he discovers that his lover Harmona, who has been on life support for [[ReallySevenhundredYearsOld two centuries]] while he was out attempting to find a cure, has been murdered while he was away from home. (And just before he could bring [[HealingHands Cheza]] to help Harmona). [[spoiler:Although we don't see the full effect of it until later, this transforms Darcia into a NietzscheWannabe, the EvilCounterpart, and the BigBad.]]
** Kiba suffers [[TearJerker a heartbreaking one]] as well. [[spoiler: After fighting an epic battle with the BigBad for Cheza's safety, [[InterspeciesRomance his humanoid flower/girlfriend,]] and reason for living, ''disintegrates into millions of seeds in his own hands.'' [[HeroicBSOD He never gets over it,]] and dies shortly after. [[LastOfHisKind He's also the last thing on earth to die.]]]]
* In ''Manga/BlackButler'', Ciel eventually reached this point after he was captured following his parent's murders.
** In the anime, [[spoiler: Jim Macken crossed it after not only he loses his brother Luke and his whole hometown, but is made into a SexSlave by Lord Trancy. In his despair he summons Claude Faustus, kills his "owner" and renames himself Alois Trancy.]]
* In the ''[[MahouSenseiNegima Negima!]]'' (first) anime, Negi himself crosses the horizon after [[spoiler: Asuna's death on her [=14th=] birthday, when the DealWithTheDevil she made as a kid takes effect.]] He splinters so badly that watching it almost becomes the DEH for a few of his students.
** In the manga, [[spoiler: Negi's mother Arika]] found herself on the edge of it when [[spoiler: she was about to be executed under false charges of murder and treason, as well for taking the blame for Asuna's AntiMagic powers going haywire and plummeting a FloatingContinent to the ground]].
* Sasame reaches this point in ''{{Pretear}}'' when he realizes that [[spoiler:no matter how much he tries to reason with Takako, she can't come back from the dark side. [[FaceHeelTurn So he joins her instead]].]] It doesn't help that she nearly killed him during a battle.
** [[spoiler: Himeno's stepsister Mawata]] also reached the point after [[spoiler: the {{face heel turn}}ed Sasame rejected her feelings in front of her family]], which tops on her loneliness and hidden emotional turmoil coming from [[spoiler: her father's death.]] After that, she fell into such a despair that [[spoiler: Takako easily turned Mawata into the BarrierMaiden for the Fenrir tree, and Himeno [[IKnowyouAreInThereSomewhereFight had to work VERY hard]] to bring her back.]]
* [[spoiler: Sheryl Formossa]] crosses this horizon in {{Ideon}}, after the deaths of [[spoiler: her sister Lin and her boyfriend Gije.]]
* This happens to [[spoiler:Lord Genome]] from ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' in his backstory, when [[GoMadFromTheRevelation he realizes the truth of the Spiral Nemesis]].
** One could say that the Despair Event Horizon is the ''fighting style'' of the [[spoiler:Anti-Spiral]]. His goal in battle is to eliminate the opponent's Spiral Power, which is defined as (among other things) fighting spirit and the will to live. As such, he intentionally fights just beyond his opponent's ability, and repeatedly gives them {{Hope Spot}}s, only to cruelly crush their hopes at the last second, with the goal of crushing their will to fight altogether.
* Flit Asuno from ''GundamAge'' wants to finish the fight against the UE so he could return to the Minsry Colony to live a peaceful life with [[LoveInterest Yurin]] [[ShrinkingViolet L'Ciel.]] [[spoiler: And then [[EnfanteTerrible Desil]] forces her to fight for his side '''and''' brutally kills her near Ambat, and Flit loses it completely. This drives him to become a savior not for mankind, [[DarkMessiah but for the corrupt Earth Federal Forces.]]]]
** Kio finds out about life in Vagan in Episode 37. [[spoiler: In Vagan, crossing the DEH is not an event in one's life, it's the '''nature''' of one's life. A space colony without any natural life, those living in Vagan have to get by on the scarcity of resources and money, all the while being always on the lookout for thieves. Because of the rampant poverty, most are unable to get their hands on medicine for the disease caused by Mars Rays, but even if they ''could'' it would only be a temporary measure. The disease can hit ''anyone from any social class and age'' from the impoverished such as Lu to the ruling class such as [[BigBad Lord Ezelcant.]] Conditions are so dehumanizing and hopeless, these citizens tend to lose their sense of human emotions, because loving unreservedly will only bring '''more''' pain when those people are likely to die of disease and/or poverty. Is it any wonder why so many Vagans resent the Earth Federation?]]
* [[spoiler: Saint Hakushin]] from ''Manga/InuYasha'' was driven towards the DEH as he [[spoiler: was waiting for his death. He volunteered to be buried alive so he would become a living Buddha and help his people, but as he waited to die he realized that he really didn't want to die, and horrifyingly despaired. Naraku used this to recruit him as his BarrierWarrior.]]
* [[spoiler: Tsubaki Kasugano aka the 6th]] in ''MiraiNikki'' crosses this in her backstory, after [[spoiler: she loses the TragicKeepsake that kept her somewhat sane after being used as a SexSlave by a ReligionOfEvil.]] By the time we meet her, she's a full-blown WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.
* Yomi from ''GaReiZero''. [[spoiler: Yomi's adoptive father his killed by her Seishouseki-mind-controlled adoptive [[TheRival cousin]], the cousin takes what was supposed to be her place as the family head and her inheritance, then lures her to a fight. When the cousin admits killing Yomi's father, she goes [[BerserkButton berserk]] and kills her. Then [[ManipulativeBastard Mitogawa]] attacks Yomi, rendering her quadriplegic and mute, and she is accused of murdering her cousin. Her fiancee Noriyuki is too busy trying to prove her innocence to visit her in the hospital, his father breaks off their PerfectlyArrangedMarriage because of her physical condition, and her best friend Kagura abandons her after she admits to killing her cousin. Then Mitogawa gives her the same Seishouseki, which heals her but its mind-control powers provide the extra push to send her JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope and killing her former friends.]] Her Despair Event Horizon is such a {{Tearjerker}} that even after crossing the MoralEventHorizon she is still a sympathetic WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.
* In ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'' Horo crosses this line early in season 2, after learning that [[spoiler:her hometown is likely gone, and has been for centuries]]. Cue breakdown.
* In ''{{Spiral}}'', Kanone Hilbert crosses this upon realizing that the Blade Children can never be saved. His reaction is trying to kill as many of them as he can - including all of his friends ([[spoiler: and half-siblings]]) and himself. After he is stopped, he doesn't cross back to the other side of the line: in the anime, he just leaves the country, still sulking; in the manga, the way he finally finds to "save" himself is [[spoiler: to have a meaningful death, which will give hope to the other BlaChil and Ayumu]].
* Souji Mikage from ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' uses tactics that arguably predate those of Celestial Being, approaching young people who are in their lowest with promise of a chance to change their worlds and end what's making them suffer by defeating Utena. Specially obvious in the cases of people like [[spoiler: Wakaba, Keiko Sonoda, or Mitsuru Tsuwabuki;]] in fact, he rejected [[spoiler: Tatsuya the Onion Prince]] because he wasn't despairing enough. [[spoiler: Mikage himself also went past the DEH in his backstory, ''and'' is pushed even further in the last episode of the Black Rose arc.]]
** [[spoiler: Prince Dios and his younger sister]] also crossed this in their backstories, which is what shaped them into [[spoiler: Akio Ohtori the MagnificentBastard and Anthy Himemiya the Rose Bride.]]
* ''ShamanKing'': Once upon a time, there was a German boy named Faust (who was a descendant of''[[{{Faust}} that]]'' {{Faust}}, by the way). He had a VictoriousChildhoodFriend named Elisa, a sweet and cute IllGirl. Faust became a doctor and worked hard to develop a cure; after many years of research, he finally created the perfect medicine for her, and when she recovered they got HappilyMarried... [[DeusAngstMachina and then she was shot to death by a thug.]] The despaired Faust began researching about necromancy to find a way to properly revive Eliza, but only managed to become a Shaman and have her as his spirit partner. Needless to say, [[FromBadToWorse things went bad]]...and specially for Faust's rivals.
* ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha''
** Fate Testarossa had a rather nasty case of this upon learning that [[spoiler:she was a clone, with all the memories of the original, and her mother hated her guts. Being cast aside, told she was never really loved, that her life was a lie, that she was truly despised, and told never to show her face again by the, admittedly abusive, mother she was completely devoted to]] will do that to you. Thanks to Arf's and Nanoha's companionship and combat therapy, respectively, she eventually snapped out of it in order to help and have one last word with her mother. Still counts, though.
** Yagami Hayate in A's, when [[spoiler:she was transported to the hopital roof to see Zafira and Vita beaten and subdued, and Signum and Shamal already gone. Then she see's what looks like her two new freinds erase the first two knights and taunted about it. All after being told that she would most certainly die in a short while due to the incurable condition of her body.]] The people doing all this were purposely trying to set this off, in complete BreakTheCutie fashion.
* In ''HunterXHunter 305'', [[spoiler:Gon]] loses himself in rage and despair after being told that [[spoiler:Kite]] has been KilledOffForReal and ''can't'' be revived. When he realizes that the person who strung him along with the promise of a resurrection lied to him, he decides to [[spoiler:sacrifice his future potential to give himself enough power in the present to crush his enemy.]] This is especially of note, because up until this point He had always been a typical happy-go-lucky kid.
--->'''[[spoiler:Gon]]:''' This is it. I don't care if it's over. So I'll use everything. I'll kill you!
* ''JyuOhSei'' brings us Third/[[spoiler:Heiser]], who, after learning that [[spoiler: Earth, which he had dreamed of visiting for his entire life, was destroyed]]. He collapses in despair, spends a good few minutes staring blankly at nothing, and eventually [[spoiler: shoots himself in the head. Admittedly, his suicide was more to save Thor than a result of his Despair Event Horizon, but it still counts]].
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
** Subverted when [[BloodKnight Yumichika Ayasegawa]] and [[CampGay Charlotte Cuulhorne]] fight. Cuulhorne's final technique takes the form of a single white rose inside a pitch-black rosebush, the [[DeathByIrony idea]] being that someone who revels in being the most beautiful person in a crowd will be [[DeathByDespair terrified]] of dying alone, unnoticed and unmissed. It fails because it allows Yumichika to [[AlmightyJanitor reveal]] what he's [[WillfullyWeak really capable of]] when [[CoverBlowingSuperpower no-one is watching]].
** Nnoitra Jiruga hit this at some point in the past and just kept on going. He's convinced that all of the Hollows are damned and that they might as well act like it. "None of us is finding redemption, Nel."
** Kaname Tousen's backstory reveals his FaceHeelTurn was motivated by this trope. [[spoiler: The best friend he was in love with died at the hands of her own abusive husband, who [[KarmaHoudini wasn't punished]] and Tousen took up her sword in the name of justice. For him, "justice" was twisted into "revenge", not just against the man who killed her, but against the whole of Soul Society for being the kind of place where killers like that aren't punished.]]
** Ulquiorra's backstory in UNMASKED reveals that he hit this long ago [[spoiler:when his clan tried to kill him for [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer being different to them]]]]. Once he escaped, he found himself in [[CrapsackWorld Hueco Mundo]], which was just as bad as his birthplace. Isolated and unable to hear, speak, smell, feel or even eat, he crossed the despair event horizon and made nihilism his personal philosophy.
** Jackie Tristan is all but stated to have crossed the DEH in her backstory. [[spoiler: She crossed it in the moment when she found her family slaughtered and she took her brother's lifeless body in her arms. She's the only Fullbringer who was telling the truth about hating her power, and this is the reason why.]]
** The final arc all but confirms Ryuuken Ishida's hatred of Quincies is because he's a StepfordSnarker who crossed into this trope years ago. [[spoiler: Twenty years ago, Ryuuken's ability to protect the future of the quincies is destroyed. His GreyRainOfDepression culminates in an HeroicBSOD that only just escapes this trope thanks to a YouAreNotAlone speech by his future wife, [[NinjaMaid Katagiri]]. A few years later, Katagiri suffers a CruelAndUnusualDeath and, with the Quincy responsible still at large, Ryuuken's been an example of this trope ever since.]]
** The [[{{Filler}} backstory]] of Maki Ichinose, who had a FaceHeelTurn out of despair when his beloved Captain was killed by Kenpachi in his KlingonPromotion stage.
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' is about [[spoiler: young girls that approach this as they become Magical Girls, fight Witches and see how their lives are torn as a consequence, thus being very likely to become Witches themselves.]] The most straight up example is [[spoiler: Sayaka Miki, who as of episode 8 crossed this due to her romantic woes, her ideals conflicting with reality, and the side-effects of Witch fighting, and becomes a witch.]]
** Another good example is [[spoiler: Mami Tomoe in the third timeline. Learning the AwfulTruth did ''not'' mix up well with her issues on loneliness and abandonment and, after seeing Sayaka turn into a witch and having to be killed by the group, she freaked out majorly: she then killed Kyouko by destroying her Soul Gem and was about to do the same to Homura (And presumably to Madoka, before eventually killing herself), so Madoka had to mercy kill her and put her out of her misery - almost crossing it herself in the process, but she manages to come back. And then she dies.]]
** [[spoiler:Kyoko's {{Jerkass}}ery in her first few episodes is revealed in episode 7 to be a case of despair event horizon crossed. The PaterFamilicide she alone survived pushed her over in nothing flat... or did it? All hope she had before that incident gets promptly restored after Kyubey lets slip the AwfulTruth, thus inverting Mami's situation in the third timeline on its head.]]
** [[spoiler:Homura approaches this during her fight with Walpurgis Night, realizing she's about to lose again and has to wrestle with the choice of rewinding time again, and risk corrupting Madoka's future more, or give in. Her Soul Gem starts becoming increasingly corrupted during this time.]]
** The only main character who never reaches this point is [[spoiler:Madoka]], which is probably why she was able to [[spoiler:[[AbstractApotheosis undo the Event Horizon crossings of every other magical girl in existence]] without becoming a universe-obliterating witch. Even Sayaka recovers, although she dies at around the same point in the new universe from using up her magic, rather than [[DeathEqualsRedemption becoming a witch]]]].
* The [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Madoka]] sort-of AlternateUniverse ''Manga/PuellaMagiOrikoMagica'' plays this straight ''and'' subverts it:
** Played straight: [[spoiler: Oriko Mikuni made the contract with Kyuubey '''after''' she had crossed the DEH, when her corrupt politician father killed himself [[FallenPrincess and she was hated and shunned by everyone after having been the most popular girl in her high-class school]]. When Kyuubey finds her, Oriko is [[TroubledFetalPosition curled up in a corner of her empty home]], wrapped in a blanket and completely broken, simply waiting to fall into a DeathByDespair.]]
** Subverted: [[spoiler: When Kyoko, Yuma and Mami witness Kirika's transformation into a witch and learn about the AwfulTruth, they're very broken and almost give up. ''Almost'', because Yuma goes PluckyGirl and gives the others a RousingSpeech. Mami and Kyoko regain their spirits, and they decide to fight on. [[ForegoneConclusion And then Madoka dies at the hands of Oriko, so Homura resets time to start all over again]].]]
* ''AnimalX'': Yuuji crosses the Despair Event Horizon when he finds out what happened to his first child: she was subjected to vivisection, died, and then her remains were kept on ice in a research facility. After that, Yuuji is quietly broken and makes remarks that show that he's reached a point where he doesn't much care if he lives or dies.
* [[spoiler: Yoji Kudou]] of ''WeissKreuz'' starts sliding towards the despair event horizon in the "Dramatic Precious" Drama [=CDs=], and finally crosses it during ''Gluhen'' when [[spoiler:the toll of being a ChivalrousPervert whose job involves being a HoneyTrap, romancing women for information and then more often than not either being unable to save their lives or being forced to kill them himself, finally becomes too much. At the end of the series he's come down with a case of EasyAmnesia that completely wipes out all his memories of who he is and what he's done, and he's generally considered better off left that way. ''That is how broken he was''.]].
** Also, [[spoiler: Omi/Mamoru's mother Kikuno]] reached it in the backstory. [[spoiler: Her husband Reiji, aware that little Mamoru was an HeroicBastard fathered by his younger brother Shuichi, refuses to pay the ransom for a kidnapped Mamoru and the little kid was soon believed to be dead. Kikuno, already unstable for being trapped in a loveless ArrangedMarriage that [[StarCrossedLovers separated her from her beloved Shuichi]], commited suicide soon afterwards.]]
** For [[IronicHell major irony]], according to the CD dramas [[spoiler: ''Reiji'' himself]] hit the DEH as well, [[spoiler: after his illegitimate daughter Ouka, [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes the only one of his kids that he gave a fuck about]], was shot to death and perished in Omi's arms.]] Come on, if he was sane after ''that'', he would've not [[spoiler: had her lifeless body ''[[WaxMuseumMorgue transformed into a mannequin]]''.]]
* Jose in ''GunslingerGirl'' crosses it when he loses an eye in a botched attempt to kill the terrorist who killed Enrica, and cyborg girl Henrietta is reset to factory settings, destroying her personality so she'll never be able to take Enrica's place. By the nuclear power plant strike, Jose was so far beyond the Despair Event Horizon that [[spoiler:after getting fragged, he has Henrietta finish the job and, as she does so, [[TakingYouWithMe shoots her in the eye, killing her]].]]
* Most of the main plot of ''{{Trigun}}'' that made it into the anime (the manga had all this backstory stuff and Knives going OneWingedAngel and staying that way for over a year while he slowly killed off the human race) was a BreakTheCutie-slash-Break the Stoic plot aimed at pushing Vash over this, probably in hopes of inducing FaceHeelTurn, but possibly just to punish him for being a disloyal brother. It works insofar as he is pushed past his (admittedly impressive) limits on a couple of occasions, which variously result in a [[TenMinuteRetirement two year retirement]] and [[HeroicBSOD brief catatonia]].
** Meanwhile, the greatest one in a series full of them is when Vash and Knives were one year old, and [[TheReveal found]] [[StrappedToAnOperatingTable out]] [[TheyWouldCutYouUp about]] [[HumansAreBastards Tesla]]. Two boys--physiologically around eight--read the documentation and looked at the corpse, and then ''shut themselves up in the lab where it had happened and didn't move for over a week''. Rem didn't manage to break in to save them until after they'd passed out half-dead from thirst.
*** And ''then'', '''Vash''' tried to kill himself with a fruit knife at the first opportunity, and laughed somewhere between hysteria and mania upon thinking he'd accidentally killed Rem when she interfered. Knives, on the other hand, pretended to have EasyAmnesia and then proceeded to methodically enact a plan to KillAllHumans. The kicker is that Knives was always the nicer, more trusting one, before.
** Legato Bluesummers appears to have spent enough of [[MadeASlave his childhood]] in this that when he started developing his mind-control powers he prioritized 'killing everybody connected to my life' over ''getting away'', and was consequently in the process of being [[RapeAsBackstory raped to death]] when Knives happened to come along and slice up the building and...[[BigDamnVillains save the day]]. And not kill Legato, and ask him his name. [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Nicest thing that ever happened to the kid.]]
** Several of the Gung Ho Guns have this in their backstories. One in the manga notably is in this [[OmnicidalManiac omnicide]] gig because he was a deformed beggar in July when Vash inadvertently blew it up, and the one good thing in his life (a lovely waitress who was kind to him) was killed, and his whole life since has been TrainingFromHell to get revenge on Vash.
** Since the point of {{Trigun}} is a BrokenBird WideEyedIdealist ActualPacifist [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Gunslinger]] confronting a CrapsackWorld full of murder, this trope is bread and butter to Yasuhiro Nightow.
* In chapter 115 of ''MedakaBox'', [[spoiler:Zenkichi]] collapses on his hands and knees in despair after he realizes [[spoiler:he isn't special to Medaka anymore.]] Chapter 116 reveals that [[spoiler:Ajimu]] masterminded this Despair Event Horizon [[spoiler:to make Zenkichi receptive to joining her Flask Plan as its first test subject.]]
* ''Anime/TheIdolmaster'' - Chihaya got ''very'' close to crossing the line during her HeroicBSOD.
* In ''Manga/{{Chobits}}'', We see that Freya has crossed the horizon when she begins to physically malfunction from the incredible emotional strain of being in (and being unable to tell anyone about) an unrequited love situation. In the anime, we are even shown the exact moment this happens. Depending on whether one is reading the manga or watching the anime, she is either DrivenToSuicide or [[DeathByDespair dies from despair]], respectively.
* In ''MagicKnightRayearth'', [[spoiler: Princess Emeraude]] plowed through this when [[spoiler: her beloved Zagato was killed by the Knights, believing him to be the BigBad.]] She already was unstable after [[spoiler: having to send her brother Ferio away after giving him LaserGuidedAmnesia, then keeping her love for Zagato bottled up, seeing that since she couldn't devote herself 100% to Cephiro, her [[FisherKing Pillar work]] wasn't effective as it should be, ''and'' being kidnapped by a desperate Zagato who doesn't want the Knights to release her from Pillar-dom through death]]... and once [[spoiler: Zagato kicked it in battle]], the [[BreakTheCutie poor broken person]] reacted by [[spoiler: unleashing her powers on the Knights and trying to kill them, calling them out on his death. The girls have to give her an ICannotSelfTerminate, and the DownerEnding of the first season kicks in.]]
* In ''{{Shuffle}}'' Kaede lost the will to live following her mother's death but Rin managed to snap her out of it... by making her believe he was the reason she died. She snapped out of it, but her attitude is now towards taking out all of her hatred out on him. She then suffers another one when she remembers [[spoiler: it was because of her that her mother came home earlier and took the flight, now blaming herself for both of her mother's death and all the pain she caused Rin]].
* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', [[spoiler:Luffy]] came dangerously close to crossing it after [[spoiler: Ace's death]]. Fortunately, [[spoiler: Jinbe]] managed to [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan snap him out of it]].
** Several characters were actually very close to this, as well. Nami, Robin, Zoro, [[spoiler: Hancock]], etc.
* Kiritsugu Emiya from ''LightNovel/FateZero'' suffered from this in his backstory. Similar to [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Archer]], he was driven to despair by his ideals because he kept getting betrayed by them.
* [[spoiler: Konami's death]] utterly breaks Mai in ''Popotan''. Subverted in that she does get slightly better, but only after essentially changing her outlook on her life and lowering her expectations.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''
** Sasuke Uchiha lives off this trope. First, his brother [[AloofBigBrother Itachi]] kills ''their clan'', making him the LastOfHisKind. On that same night, said brother proceeds to MindRape Sasuke so that he has to watch Itachi kill their parents over and over again. This turns him into a revenge obsessed JerkAss ''before he was even a teenager.'' After a while, he makes genuine progress in getting better, Itachi comes back, [[CurbstompBattle completely kicks Sasuke's ass while barely trying (okay, likely not trying at all)]], then proceeds to mind rape him again. This makes him abandon his village to go train under [[MadScientist Orochimaru]], who had, rather recently, attacked the village and killed its leader. After 3 years of training, he finally fights Itachi again, [[spoiler:and after Itachi dies from sickness, right in front of Sasuke, [[BigBad Tobi]] arrives. He reveals to Sasuke that Itachi had actually killed their clan because said clan was planning a coup, which would've led to a civil war and likely a world war, but since Itachi couldn't bring himself to kill his little brother, so he became a StealthMentor in the hopes that Sasuke would kill him, which would avenge their clan and make Sasuke a hero to the village.]] Sasuke reacts... poorly to this. Suffice to say he turns into a lunatic. It's even worse for him when The Second Hokage reveals that all Uchiha have a higher capacity for emotion, so this entire ordeal is even more painful for him.
** Naruto nearly crossed it when it seemed Hinata was killed by Pein, right before his very eyes. Luckily, his [[spoiler:dad]] brought him back.
** Nagato himself crossed it when [[HeroicSacrifice Yahiko killed himself in order to save Konan]]. This can be considered the moment when Pein was born.
** [[spoiler:Obito Uchiha]] crossed it when [[spoiler:his team-mate Rin]] was killed. Unlike Naruto, however, [[LoveMakesYouEvil he didn't come back]], and [[BigBad took it out on the whole world]].
** [[spoiler:Madara]] crossed it (by his own admission) when he found out the AwfulTruth about the history of the ninja world and [[GoMadFromTheRevelation came to realize how hopeless the idea of achieving true peace really was]]. He subsequently comes up with an AssimilationPlot as he feels that it's the only hope for humanity.]]
* In ''HaibaneRenmei'', this is arguably[[spoiler: what allows Rakka and Reki to no longer be bound by sin.]]
* In ''Manga/LifeIsMoney'', this is used as a weapon because any character whose anxiety gets high enough dies.
* At the climax of the sixth volume in ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', [[TheHero Issei crossed it]] when [[spoiler: he thought Asia was gone for good when she disappears from the group just after rescuing her from becoming a nuke that would kill all the devils in the Underworld. He then transforms into a monstrous form called Juggernaut Drive that gives him immense power at the cost of his lifespan.]] Fortunately, he snaps out of it.
* ''Anime/SmilePrettyCure'' actually invokes this trope. BigBad Pierrot is able to get ahold of the storybook telling of the team's history and splotches down some of his Bad End Ink on some of the unwritten pages, plunging the girls into despair. Candy's able to snap them out of it, though.
* Haruka [[BreakTheCutie suffered a lot]] in ''Manga/KotouraSan'''s DownerBeginning, but it was stray cat incident (when a lonely Haruka desperately latches onto a stray cat she finds in a park, caring for it because she can't hear its thoughts and believes it is her only friend, only for it to be taken to a shelter - effectively a death sentence in Japan - by an insensitive old woman) that made her to decide she is indeed a ''monster'' ([[InternalizedCategorism as people already said about her]]) that would bring doom to ''every living being'' that she cares about. From that point on she became a complete BrokenBird and wore a JerkassFacade so that nobody would care her and vice versa, until Manabe broke her shell.
* Happens to Kirito in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' after [[spoiler:Asuna dies in his arms for [[TakingTheBullet taking a fatal strike from Akihiko that was meant for him]]]].
* Fai in ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' seems to have made it his hobby to find new DEH's and falling off them. Most notably in Celes when [[spoiler:Ashura drives an icicle through Kurogane's chest and he finally snaps and tries to kill both himself and Ashura in one fell blow. Thankfully, Kurogane gets better.]]
* In ''Anime/HellGirl'', most people who call upon Ai to send their tormentors to Hell have crossed this, most often at the moment they decide to pull the red string.
* In ''Manga/MurasakiiroNoQualia'', Hatou comes dangerously close to this after [[spoiler:[[DroppedaBridgeonHim Yukari's death]]]], escaping it by hanging to the HopeSpot she found in the form of Alice.
* ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' has two of them:
** First off, Saten has one as she finds out the side effect of using Level Upper: [[spoiler:falling into a coma that no one has come out of]].
** Second is Mikoto[='=]s, which is much, much deeper. [[spoiler:She's trying to stop the Level 6 Shift experiments, and after pushing herself to her limits and still failing, she comes to the conclusion that the only way to stop the experiments is ''her'' suicide.]]
* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', Mikasa suffers one when [[spoiler:she thinks Eren died]]. [[spoiler:Reiner]] appears to have gone over it after [[spoiler:revealing his true identity. He clings to the idea of completing his mission in order to function but is resigned to dying as a mass murderer]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* Willow in Season 9 of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', after the magic is gone. Faith after her dad shows up and she does something she regrets, which causes her to go see "Mother Superior" in ''Daddy Issues''.
* {{Darkseid}} lives to bring everyone in the universe to this point. His goal is to discover the Anti-Life Equation, a mathematical formula that "proves" to whomever reads or hears it that life is utterly pointless and without meaning and destroys all traces of happiness and hope, though in ''FinalCrisis'' when he actually found it he altered it so that there was one single meaning to existence- namely, to obey and worship Darkseid for all eternity.
** Darkseid suffered his own Despair Event Horizon- he was in love with a scientist named Suli (the mother of his son Kalibak), but his EvilMatriarch mother Heggra saw that Suli was making Darkseid a nicer person and had her murdered for it. Suli tried to make Darkseid a more constructive EvilOverlord by pushing him towards building [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans a more ordered and lawful universe]], but when she died he lost all hope that he would ever be more than the monster his mother made him- so, instead, he had his mother murdered and resolved to be an [[GoneHorriblyRight even bigger bastard]] than Heggra ever intended him to be. Darkseid was a horrible villain before he met Suli, but her death is what made him such a miserable one and is probably the main reason he seeks the Anti-Life Equation in the first place- if he can't be happy, then ''no-one'' will be.
* A Villain Protagonist equivalent (though more an Anti-Hero by this point) with Jackie Estacado of ComicBook/TheDarkness, he can handle the mob life, the killing and the people trying to kill him but after he [[spoiler:realises what a scumbag Uncle Frankie is and offers to testify against him Uncle Frankie responds by killing Jenny]], the Character Development between the two at this point takes hold and the only 'rational' way for Jackie to get revenge is by [[spoiler:blowing himself, Frankie and Frankie's mob straight to hell in a flaming Inferno]].
* A curious AntiHero version occurs in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome''; throughout the story, Superman is wary of encountering Magog, the NinetiesAntiHero who in many ways replaced him in the public's regard, until he and the rest of the Justice League encounter him in the ruins of Kansas... only to discover a broken man torn apart by guilt and anguish over [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone his actions]] and the disastrous consequences they resulted in.
--->''Proud?'' '''Proud?!''' '''''Proud''''' ''of being the Man of Tomorrow?!?''
* Walter Kovacs in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' starts out a rather messed up, right-wing, but functional man, with a fairly normal life outside being a masked vigilante. Then he investigates the kidnapping of a little girl, and ends up [[spoiler:finding her dismembered and mostly-eaten corpse, suffering a complete psychotic break and burning her killer alive.]] From that point on, he's insane, [[VigilanteMan murderous]] and barely capable of (or [[DeathSeeker interested in]]) taking care of himself, having [[BecomingTheMask completely abandoned all identity outside of Rorschach]].
** The Comedian is a straighter example: When he discovers that reality is actually much worse than his dark parody of it, he breaks into Moloch's apartment to tell him about it, but the Comedian's already so far beyond the [[MoralEventHorizon point of no return]] that he only manages to confess to his sins before he [[LampshadeHanging realizes how ridiculous it is]] that his nemesis is the closest thing to a friend that he has.
* In the "Emerald Twilight" tie-in to ''TheDeathOfSuperman'' storyline, the destruction of Coast City by Mongul serves as the DEH for then-Green-Lantern Hal Jordan. He then goes on to cross the MoralEventHorizon pretty quickly. Even after the city is eventually rebuilt, it's more or less a GhostCity as nobody wants to move there because of what happened.
** Then in ''SinestroCorpsWar'', Sinestro declares his intention to invoke this in Earth's population by razing Coast City ''again''. But this time it's defied, as those who did live there, when warned of the coming danger, refused to evacuate and instead shined green lights out their windows in support of the Green Lanterns. This show of courage ended up having the exact opposite effect from what Sinestro wanted.
** In "The Secret of the Indigo Tribe", Hal meets Natromo, one of the creators of the eponymous Indigo Tribe. Natromo explains how he and Abin Sur created the tribe both in preparation for the ComicBook/BlackestNight and [[spoiler:as a test run for the Indigo Rings, which were planned to be used against the Guardians of the Universe when they come to destroy the tribe]]. When Hal informs Natromo that [[PosthumousCharacter Abin Sur is dead]], Natromo declares that there's no chance in [[spoiler: defeating the Guardians]], and [[spoiler:destroys the tribe's Central Power Battery, not only deactivating the Indigo Rings, but also releasing the tribe from their influence. In other words, [[OhCrap he undid the entire tribe]]'s HeelFaceBrainwashing]].
* Happens to Nuke in the ''SquadronSupreme'' limited series.
* [[Comicbook/IronMan Tony Stark]] after [[CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]] is killed at the end of Civil War. He suffers a HeroicBSOD over Steve's death, and it also makes him [[DeathSeeker even more reckless with his life]] than he's been [[TraumaCongaLine in almost his entire history]].
* In ''ComicBook/SecretWarriors #24'', badass super-agent NickFury finally breaks [[spoiler:after he has let ''two'' teams of young agents die on his watch. Even worse, the second team was led by his ''own son'' Mikel Fury.]] While standing at the graves of the [[spoiler:second]] team, the agents of the Russian spy organization Leviathan come for him. He doesn't even try to resist.
* ''{{Spider-Man}}'': Curt Connors was dragged kicking and screaming over the edge when his Lizard persona ''ate'' his son, Billy Connors. Curt's reaction went way beyond HeroicBSOD - effectively he's ''dead'', his personality shredded entirely leaving the Lizard in charge all the time. And the Lizard itself is still plagued with guilt over its actions. [[spoiler:Curt's personality was restored, but he's still stuck in his HeroicBSOD. He pretends he's still the Lizard because he believes he deserves to be locked up like an animal for the rest of his life.]]
* [[Franchise/GreenLantern The Blue Lanterns]] are empowered by [[HopeBringer hope]]. This doesn't mean they are immune to despair. And the moment they give in to despair, the blue power rings abandon them to seek out more worthy wielders. This was especially bad for one rookie Blue Lantern who despaired when the Blue Lanterns' world was invaded since he was in ''mid-air'' when his ring left him.
* This is Comicbook/DoctorStrange foe [[MeaningfulName D'Spayre]]'s mode of attack -- flooding his victims with a sense of hopelessness in an attempt to [[DrivenToSuicide make them take their own lives]].
* ComicBook/{{X-23}} hits one at the end of ''Target: X''. After [[ComicBook/InnocenceLost all the torture and dehumanization the Facility put her through, being forced to kill her mother by the Trigger Scent just as they were about to escape]], having to give up all that remained of her family and the normal life she was starting to build to protect them when her AxeCrazy former handler came looking for her, and possibly [[ComicBook/{{NYX}} spending an unspecified time on the streets as a prostitute under a sadistic and abusive pimp]] (it's unclear where exactly this series falls in her history), Laura finally reaches her breaking point, and seeks out ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} believing that all she has left is to [[DrivenToSuicide kill him and herself]]. Logan manages to talk her down, but it's implied she has an ongoing battle with severe, if not suicidal, depression, and much of her character arc focuses on putting the pieces back together after all that was done to her.
* After being savagely [[DeadSidekick beaten to death]] by The Joker, Jason Todd is resurrected, only to find that not only did Franchise/{{Batman}} not avenge him by killing The Joker, he has also been replaced by Tim Drake as Robin. At this point he [[FaceHeelTurn completely snaps]], and becomes the AntiVillain Red Hood.
** This is [[StrawNihilist Victor Zsasz's]] backstory - after his parents died and he lost the family fortune, he was about to commit suicide only to be interrupted by a homeless man ''trying to mug him.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* Occurs a few times in ''Fanfic/TheLionKingAdventures'':
** Simba loses all hope after the [[spoiler: death of his parents and the destruction of the Pride Lands in Series Four. He gets over it, though.]]
*** Similarly, he loses hope again in ''The End'' when [[spoiler: the Writer kills all of his friends, including the love of his life, Nala.]]
** Haiba [[spoiler: for a brief while after he murders Tama.]]
* In ''FalloutEquestria'' The Massacre at Littlehorn, which involved the slaughter of an entire school of foals, signaled the end of any peaceful solutions to the Great War and sent Celestia over the DEH, stepping down as ruler and letting Luna take over
** And after the war, Raiders are ponies who have been driven over the DEH by the blasted, inhospitable Wastes, losing all hope in everything and simply becoming agents of the brutality of the Wastelands, killing, torturing, raping, any pony they get their hooves on.
* In ''FanFic/AeonNatumEngel'' many people cross the horizon when the Migou sends their ACTUAL Warships (those Swarm ships that is nearly equal to standard NEG Ship? A mere gunboat by Migou Standards), and then the Migou themselves cross this line when Moloch shows up.
* In ''FanFic/TheDeathOfPrincessLuna'', Princess Celestia [[spoiler:''and'' Luna]] suffer this; the former suffering this having seen Luna's [[spoiler:fake]] body in the Everfree Forest, and [[spoiler:Luna thinking that nopony would save her from her captors planning to execute her]]. [[spoiler:This is all averted when Twilight Sparkle and her friends find and rescue Luna and present her to Celestia, creating a heartwarming and tearful reunion]].
* In the ''FanFic/OneiroiSeries'', Redcloak rockets past it when [[spoiler:his insane daughter rapes and kills him]].
* In the pro wrestling story, ''FanFic/ARingOfTheirOwn'', this is the reason given for Molly Holly's retirement from WWE in 2005 (the story takes place in the kayfabe world) after getting her head shaved at WrestleMania 20 plus the losing streak and humiliation conga she went through afterwards. Only after a substantial amount of arm-twisting from her best friend, Ivory, does she agree to come out of retirement and join the new all-women wrestling company, the FWF.
* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers Galaxy Rangers]]'' fanfic ''Chrysalis,'' the [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Crowns]] shoves Zach over the line. He is ForcedToWatch as she tortures his team in front of him and [[spoiler: faking an execution of Niko]] while he is kept in a well-appointed prison. He attempts suicide. She forces her medical staff to keep him alive, explicitly stating that he's not going to do anything unless ''she'' wishes it. The final blow is a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind where she brutally overpowers him by [[BreakingSpeech pointing out his failure to save his wife, the League, or his Rangers]]. To save what little is left of his sanity, he goes into an AngstComa.
* In FanFic/TheSecondTry, Shinji and Asuka are forced to this line ''[[PeggySue a second time]]''; the latter when going against Arael again, the former when he thinks Asuka is dead. [[spoiler:Thankfully, this gets averted both times.]]
* Vampire mate bonds and werewolf imprinting are said to be strong enough to cause this in ''Fanfic/{{Luminosity}}''. The actual trope is commonly avoided, as the vampire either commits suicide offscreen or becomes TheUnfettered, but when [[spoiler:Edward]] thinks that he's lost [[spoiler:Bella]], all he does is ask to die.
* The VillainProtagonist of the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' fanfic The Council Era endured this when he [[spoiler: witnessed his wife's death on a news network. As part of his grief, he destroyed his entire clutch, except one, who soon after hatched. When the same soldiers who killed his wife, and were searching for him (he'd gone AWOL) surrounded his home, Tyrin threatened to kill his one hatched child and then himself.]] There's also a potential AlternateCharacterInterpretation that his criminal actions in the story are because he's caught in a state of perpetual despair following his wife's death, and is taking it out on the world.
* In Fanfic/RevengeRoad, Hikaru returns to Japan for an audition as a last effort to get Kyosuke to notice her, and then seemingly meets Kyosuke, who appears to have grown distant from Madoka, there. She fails the audition and learns that the Kyosuke she was with was a fake, then snaps and [[IfICantHaveYou kills Kyosuke]] [[MurderTheHypotenuse and Madoka]].
* Finally crossed by Mao in Fanfic/CodeGeassMaoOfTheDeliverance after a TraumaCongaLine that would have made [[TheDeterminator anyone else]] give up a long, ''long'' time ago, and which he rides all the way through TheLastDance.
* In FanFic/TouhouTonari this is what happens to [[BadPowersGoodPeople Yuyuko]] when she realises that her power has grown so powerful that it may kill [[TimeAbyss Yuk]][[RealityWarper ari]] and it eventually lead to her [[DrivenToSuicide suicide]].
* The plot of FanFic/DecksFallEveryoneDies takes place after the worst possible thing that could happen to the ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' world: the fall of CardGames.
* In ''FanFic/StarsAbove'', [[spoiler:[[Manga/LuckyStar Kagami]]'s going over this line will cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. In an AlternateUniverse, [[ApocalypseHow it's already happened.]]]]
* Rainbow Dash comes dangerously close to crossing it in ''[[{{Fanfic/AceCombatEquestriaChronicles}} Ace Combat: The Equestrian War]]'', but luckily, Medley manages to [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan snap her out]] of her HeroicBSOD.
* ''FanFic/InnerDemons'': Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy both shoot past it after [[BigBad Queen!Twilight Sparkle]] cements her FaceHeelTurn by using them in a SadisticChoice against Rainbow Dash. In Fluttershy's case, it's so bad that [[spoiler: she actually attempts to [[DrivenToSuicide kill herself]]]].
* Too many to count in FanFic/TheUnitySaga. In fact, the Empire systematically imposes these on a number of Starfleet officers and others.
* So many characters in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' fic FanFic/WinterWar have either [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone crossed the line]] or are [[BreakTheCutie dangerously close]], it's almost impossible to keep track. [[TearJerker Far too understandable]], given the TraumaCongaLine that is [[CrapsackWorld their world]].
* Par for the course in ''FanFic/AHistoryOfMagic'', considering it's a ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' fanfic, and if all the examples were listed we'd be here all day, so let's look at the one unique one that happened [[spoiler: in the ''post-''Madoka world. Homura kills Mitsuko in cold blood after she murdered Madoka's younger brother. Homura could not forgive herself for killing a fellow Magi, and believed herself beyond redemption. Had this been a pre-Madoka world, Homura would have become a witch. For most magi in the post-Madoka world, they'd just disappear. Homura becomes an Angel, a witch who retains her memories of her past life.]]
* In another PMMM fic, ''FanFic/ToTheStars'', in the Post-Madoka future during the Battle of Epsilon Eridani the magical girls and the normal human soldiers defending the colony world were brutally savaged by the aliens, and were about to cross the DEH, but avoided doing so when Homura Akemi, ironically, crossed her own: As her Soul Gem was practically pure-black from magic exhaustion, she pretty much resigned herself to die, something she was actually looking to since it means reuniting with Madoka. Except Madoka didn't want Homura to die, and so the latter was denied her wish, which pushed her over the edge, turned her normally angelic wings into dark-twisted wings as seen at the end of PMMM, and practically wins the battle by herself, and goes into self-exile afterwards.
* In FanFic/AGrowingAffection, Minato's death pushes Gouki from avoiding the ninja world and helping the civilians who live nearby, to deciding to take over the world and enslave all ninjas to his will, so he can force them to put the rest of the world first.
* ''[[Fanfic/AFutureOfFriendshipAHistoryOfHate A Future of Friendship, A History of Hate]]'': In Episode 5, Scootaloo ends up in a HeroicBSOD after [[PlotRelevantAgeUp her wish]] ends up [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor blowing up in her face]], at which point [[spoiler: said BSOD releases the woebeghoul from the [[ArtifactOfDoom Tear of Covet]], and allows it to consume her to power itself on her sorrow while it destroys Ponyville]]. When she realizes it's all her fault, she crosses the horizon, giving up and even saying it would be better if she was never born. It takes a BigDamnHeroes moment and RousingSpeech from Rainbow Dash to bring her back to normal [[spoiler: and together they destroy the woebeghoul]].
* In [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9758731/10/Gensokyo-20XXI-The-Outside-World Chapter 8]]of Gensokyo 20XX, Yukari's reached this when her search for Ran, Chen, and Flandre left her empty handed, leaving her heartbroken and so upset with herself that not only did she feel she was unable to return to Reimu (to whom she had left behind to make sure she won't be captured) her frozen tears enclosed her in a cocoon of ice and she remained in that state for a couple of chapters, stating she was entombed in her cocoon of ice for a long time.
*** Be noted in said chapter, she also figured Reimu probably died during the time she was searching for Ran, Chen, and Flandre, meaning she felt she had ''nothing'' to go back to.
* Aang and Co. seem to be nearing this after Zuko and Azula attack the Western Air Temple in {{FanFic/TheMasksWeWear}}.
* [[TragicHero L]] is implied to have crossed this in ''Fanfic/StoryOfTheCentury'' by the end: [[spoiler:[[PyrrhicVictory he gets what he set after in the beginning--to solve the case and to have Kira executed--]][[BreakTheHaughty but he loses Watari, as well as the]] WorthyOpponent [[BreakTheHaughty he had and the friend he could have had in Light, Misa's friendship, the task force's trust and respect, and of course his own life.]] [[ShooTheDog A girl he liked leaves him]] [[BreakHerHeartToSaveHer hating his guts so much]] that [[PartingWordsRegret her last words to him]] are a long and vicious TheReasonYouSuckSpeech in which she all but outright states that she hates him, and [[YourDaysAreNumbered he spends the rest of his days]] [[DyingAlone cooped up in HQ all alone.]]]] His [[BreakTheHaughty unusually graceful response to her speech]] is heart-wrenching, even to her; more so when it's implied that [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he was already]] [[IAmAMonster aware of how badly he'd screwed up]] before she lashed out at him...
** What makes his reply even sadder is that it sounds like a callback to his declaration when he meets the task force earlier on in canon that JusticeWillPrevail and that he would "win the war" in spite of being childish and a sore loser. But this time, [[spoiler: he's essentially admitting that the opposite happened BECAUSE he was being childish, just around the time the task force take Erin home and leave him for good.]]
* In the VideoGames/Left4Dead2 fanfic "Fanfic/BlindMansBluff", Nick very, very nearly crosses this when he believes that [[spoiler: Ellis was tortured to death by Jerry.]] He's in such deep grief over that that he has a [[HeroicBSOD brief shutdown.]]
* Chapter 14 of ''FanFic/{{Pokeumans}}'' largely concerns Brandon crossing this after the death of a very close friend and then slowly coming back over it.
* In ''FanFic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace'', [=ProtoMan=] crosses this post episode 10 [[spoiler:due to torture]], becoming a shell of his old self.
** Mega Man crosses it in episode 11, chapter 8, shattered over the trauma he's suffered.
* [[TheSlenderManMythos In the Slender Man fic]] ''Fanfic/ByTheFiresLight'' Jared Holloway despairs of every being free of the Slender Man and [[DrivenToSuicide ends up taking his life.]]
* In the [[MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic MLP]] fanfic ''Fanfic/WhatHaveYouDone''. Twilight does this after her friends abandon her at the Canterlot Wedding rehearsal [[spoiler: but Chrysalis unlike in canon, [[ForWantofANail just leaves Twilight instead of sending her to the caves]], seeing as how Twilight was already in the depths of despair.]] Twilight leaves the wedding dejected [[spoiler: ''frees Discord'', and the Mane 6 and Twilight's mother find her Element of Magic ''pitch black''.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Quoted above: In ''Literature/{{Trainspotting}}'', Sick Boy, while morally ambiguous, still has his good points. That changes when Baby Dawn, now revealed to be his daughter, dies.
* In ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'', this trope hits William Wallace after he finds out [[spoiler:Robert the Bruce]] has betrayed him. His anger immediately turns into distress and he seems to simply give up, which also later causes [[spoiler:Robert]] to suffer from MyGodWhatHaveIDone.
* In ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', the Emperor tries his best to push young Skywalker over this, so he will [[FaceHeelTurn turn to the dark side]], by showing the Death Star is still shielded, his friends are going to die, and the Rebels are losing the battle.
* Perhaps the most [[TearJerker heartwrenching example]] of this trope is the focus of ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'', in which JimmyStewart's entire life is a spiral of quiet desperation which is slowly winding him up...until he finally SNAPS. And it is terrifying.
* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the Joker gets [[spoiler: Harvey Dent]] to cross this, but [[RousseauWasRight doesn't succeed]] in getting the rest of Gotham City to follow, thanks to [[spoiler: Batman [[HeroicSacrifice winning the]] [[ZeroApprovalGambit escalation war]] with Joker.]]
** In the ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', Bane tries a DespairGambit. However, he seems to have passed the horizon himself.
* The soldiers in ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'', had apparently crashed over this line before the events of the movie had even taken place.
* In ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'', the turning point of the movie is the capture, torture (and implied rape) of the protagonist by the Turks. The cocky, bemused WarriorPoet who believed to be invincible turns into a bitter, grim AntiHero after that.
* In the Creator/MontyPython film ''Now for Something Completely Different'': Parodied in the "Marriage Guidance Counsellor" sketch. [[spoiler: At the end Mr Peuty, in despair because his wife is making out with the counselor, walks out of the office, whereupon a [[AmusingInjuries 16-ton weight drops on him]] and the caption reads "So much for pathos."]]
* ''Film/RedDawn1984''. Things are going well for the American guerrillas [[spoiler:until several of their group get killed trying to get a downed pilot across the front lines (the pilot also dies). Then [[EtTuBrute one of their group turns out to be a traitor]] and has to be executed by his friends. A change in Soviet tactics leads to more of them getting killed in an ambush, so they're down to only four people. The leaders of the group, the Eckert brothers, decide to head into their Soviet-occupied hometown and go out in a BolivianArmyEnding, drawing troops into the town so the last remaining two can escape to the US lines.]]
* In "Film/{{Chronicle}}", Andrew is slowly slipping throughout the film. However, it's not until [[spoiler: his mother dies]] that he truly [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds flies off the handle.]]
* ''Film/{{Downfall}}'':
** Hitler's reaction upon hearing "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxCNCDWaWyE Steiner didn't have sufficient forces]]," complete with an epic VillainousBreakdown.
** The death of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst-Robert_Grawitz Ernst-Robert Grawitz]] by PaterFamilicide, as depicted in the movie, was another example of how the fall of Berlin to Soviet forces caused many a Despair Event Horizon for Germans in the war.
* ''Film/PennAndTellerGetKilled''. The ending. Played straight then PlayedForLaughs when [[spoiler:a prank turns fatal, setting off a string of ''never ending suicides'']].
* In ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'', right after the main character's brother dies on the bridge, you can see the exact moment that his mind breaks and self preservation stops mattering.
* ''Film/{{Gettysburg}}'' showed General George Pickett cross this after the failure of his charge.
* Oh Dae-su of ''{{Oldboy}}'' crossed his [=DEH=] after learning that [[spoiler:his lover was actually his long lost daughter, and his mortal enemy had the means to reveal the truth to her with a simple phone call]].
** His reaction to his DEH is hard to watch.
* The President of the United States in ''Film/MarsAttacks'' has apparently crossed this line by the time he finally gives in to his General's request to fight back against the Martians using nuclear weapons.
* In ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', Private Gomer Pyle is driven into a psychotic breakdown both by the original DrillSergeantNasty, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and by the rest of his platoon, which ultimately leads to [[spoiler:Hartman's murder and his own suicide]]. The moment when Pyle hit the Despair Event Horizon was probably when [[spoiler:Hartman found a jelly doughnut in his foot locker just when things were starting to go well for him and proceeded to punish the entire platoon for it, which was then followed by the platoon taking it out on Pyle in the harrowing "blanket party" scene]].
* In the spirit of one upmanship and outdoing the rest of this list, ''Film/ASerbianFilm'' has Milos have one after learning that [[spoiler:he was drugged and made to rape and kill people, including his own son, he was raped himself, and all of it was filmed for a snuff director's entertainment]] after which we get a ShowerOfAngst shot with him in the fetal position in the shower. Eventually this leads to him killing himself.
* In ''Film/FourteenOhEight'' [[spoiler:Mike Enslin's child daughter is brought back to life just to die in his arms and THEN THE BODY CRUMBLES INTO ASH! You can tell he is losing it as he tries to put Katy's "pieces" back together]] then his face afterwards is just a total emptiness inside, ''and the room keeps going''.
* The flashback scene in ''Film/TronLegacy''. Clu takes over, the Sea of Simulation is poisoned so no more life can come from it, Tron is [[spoiler: thought dead, but it's ''[[FateWorseThanDeath much]]'' ''[[ReforgedIntoAMinion worse]]'']], the Iso Cities are destroyed, and the portal back to the human world flickers out. The brash and cheerful protagonist for the first film clearly died at that point, leaving behind a hollowed-out ZenSurvivor.
* In ''Film/BlackDeath'', [[spoiler:Osmund]] certainly suffers one of these as a result of his journey.
* In ''Film/{{Thor}}'', this moment occurs for Loki when Odin tells him that [[spoiler:he's actually the son of Laufey]]. This seems to push Loki over the edge, resulting in his [[BigBad bad]] [[ManipulativeBastard behavior]] throughout the rest of the movie and in the subsequent ''Film/TheAvengers''.
* In ''Film/BurnAfterReading'', Harry invokes this. [[spoiler:Upon Harry entering the house of retired spy Osbourne Cox (as he is having an affair with Cox's wife), he panics and kills another intruder, Chad, who he believes is a spy.]] Cue Harry developing a HairTriggerTemper and distant, obsessive behavior due to paranoia and [[WhatYouAreInTheDark what he did.]]
* ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'': "She hates me! Like others..."
* When Atreyu finds the Rock Biter in Film/TheNeverendingStory , he finds that the Rock Biter's friends have been destroyed by the Nothing, despite the Rock Biter's best efforts. Now he can just sit and reflect how useless all his strength was and wait for The Nothing to overtake him.
-->'''Rock Biter''': They look like such big, ''strong'' hands, don't they?
* In ''Film/TheBay'', Officer Jimson experiences this after performing [[MercyKill mercy kills]] on a house full of people infected by [[spoiler: isopods]], then [[spoiler: becoming infected himself]].
* [[Film/TheRoom It's not over! Everybody betrayed me! I'm fed up with this world!"]]
-->[[RiffTrax "I'm going back to BrazilaRomaniSlovakia...stan.]]
* Tony Montana crosses it in ''Film/{{Scarface 1983}}'' when he realizes that his impulsive protectiveness of his sister Gina caused him to kill his best friend. When [[spoiler:Sosa's men kill Gina]] at the end, he proceeds to go into an [[AntiHero Anti-]]HeroicRROD that (at least in this film) [[spoiler:ends in his death]].
* In ''Film/{{Speed}}'', Jack almost crosses it when [[spoiler:Harry dies in the raid at Payne's house]].
* Averted by Zod and Co. at the destruction of Krypton in ''Film/ManOfSteel''. They're obviously crushed by its loss, but expected it and are still functioning. [[spoiler: Zod succumbs to the trope at the destruction of Kal's ship, and becomes a DeathSeeker immediately.]]
* ''Film/LordOfWar:'' Pay attention to Valentine's face when Yuri makes his final speech. He gets closer and closer to this over the course of the speech and finally crosses when the door knocks.
* Happens to Zordon of all people in ''Film/MightyMorphinPowerRangersTheMovie,'' after Ivan Ooze destroys the Command Center and the source of the Rangers' power. Though Alpha-5 gets the Rangers started on the hunt for a new power to fill the void, Zordon never really recovers, plainly stating that Ivan Ooze had won, [[spoiler: and dies without ever finding out if the Rangers were successful or not. He is understandably very surprised when the Rangers manage to resurrect him at the end of the film.]]
* The main character in ''Film/{{Signs}}'' [[CrisisOfFaith gives up his belief in God entirely]] after his wife is killed in a car accident. [[spoiler:He gets it back when the "nonsense" she was saying as she was dying turned out to be important clues.]]
* In ''Film/Cube2Hypercube'', [[spoiler:Sasha, aka Alex Trusk,]] eventually gives up hope that she can escape the hypercube and completely resigns herself to her impending death. [[spoiler:This doesn't stop Simon from murdering her in cold blood anyway.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Jake from ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' falls into despair when his parents are infested. And then it gets even worse when Rachel and Tom die.
* High Lord Kevin falls into despair in the BackStory of the ''Literature/ChroniclesOfThomasCovenant'' and renders most of the continent unlivable for centuries with the Ritual of Desecration. Think of it as the fantasy equivalent of a huge nuclear bomb. This solved the problem of the DarkLord that was winning the war but at the cost of everything Kevin was supposed to preserve. And the DarkLord turned out to be only temporarily inconvenienced, being immortal and all...
** Later on [[spoiler:the Giants of Seareach meekly let themselves be murdered]] out of horror over what had happened to some of them.
** Still later [[spoiler:Trell]] despairs also and commits his own Desecration [[spoiler:luckily on a much smaller scale than the original, so the damage is limited]]. His sanity doesn't survive it.
** This is a central theme in the ''Chronicles''; it's the chief weapon of the villain, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Lord Foul]], whose whole objective seems to be pushing every single person in the world over their personal Despair Event Horizon. Indeed, every inhabitant of the Land swears an Oath of Peace which amounts to saying, "No matter what, I will not cross the Despair Event Horizon."
** Covenant himself comes very close to the Despair Event Horizon at the end of ''The Illearth War'', when [[spoiler:High Lord Elena, his daughter, dies in the struggle with High Lord Kevin's specter under ''Melenkurion'' Skyweir.]] Fortunately, Foamfollower is there to pull him back from the edge.
* In ''Literature/TheGreatGatsby'', [[spoiler: George Wilson]] goes over this line after [[spoiler: Myrtle]] dies.
* Denethor in Creator/JRRTolkien's ''[[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings The Return of the King]]'' has been sinking into despair for a long time, and finally snaps when Faramir is critically injured during the Siege of Gondor. In his madness, he proceeds to try to [[DrivenToSuicide immolate both himself and his son]] on a funeral pyre, but Gandalf and Pippin stop him before he can put Faramir to the torch and Denethor is subsequently burned alive. The book is more explicit than the movie in mentioning one important factor in Denethor's despair: he had long used his own Palantír (seeing-stone) for gathering information, but the Palantír also provided a direct channel for Sauron to break Denethor's originally-formidable determination by showing him the military power of Mordor and (something that's rarely noted) making Denethor believe that Sauron had obtained the Ring.
** Tolkien loved these. ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' in particular is rife with them. Fingolfin passes the point of no return when it appears that the power of the allied Elven princedoms is destroyed, which leads him to [[spoiler:[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome challenge]] the BigBad to [[CombatByChampion single combat]], with [[SenselessSacrifice predictable results]].]] Maedhros spends almost the entire book looking like he's [[ButtMonkey about to hit it]] and then [[TraumaCongaLine keeps going]]; [[spoiler:the [[DrivenToSuicide final nail in the coffin]] is the realization that all of that [[MoralEventHorizon killing people]] was for nothing]]. Niënor doesn't take the news that she's [[spoiler:accidentally [[BrotherSisterIncest married to her brother]] [[DrivenToSuicide very well at all]]; neither does the [[HeroicBSOD brother in question]].]] Maglor, unusually, [[spoiler:survives his Despair Event Horizon]], but only by [[spoiler:[[YouCantGoHomeAgain leaving the storyline]] to WalkTheEarth and angst]].
* In Creator/GrahamMcNeill's TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Literature/HorusHeresy novel ''Fulgrim'', Fulgrim's is [[spoiler:when, having murdered Ferrus Manus, his [[EvilWeapon sword]] lets him [[HeelRealization realize]] what he has done. His despair is so great that his sword persuades him that [[DrivenToSuicide suicide]] is too noble for him -- and tricks him into accepting [[AFateWorseThanDeath possession]].]]
* In TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} ''Daemon World'' by Creator/BenCounter when the daemon prince who he thought was DeusExMachina betrays him and kills his entire army.
** Ditto the ''Sons of Malice'', a traitor army that fights in [[TranquilFury complete and]] [[DissonantSerenity utter silence.]] Said to be ''extremely'' unnerving.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': In ''A Storm of Swords'', Catelyn Stark goes into [[spoiler: the Red Wedding, having lost her husband, one daughter hostage, the other missing and suspected to be dead]] and believing two of her three sons are dead. [[spoiler: So, when eldest son Robb is cut down before her, she ''completely fucking loses it'', clawing at her face and [[LaughingMad laughing hysterically]] even as her treacherous bannermen round on her. When she's later brought BackFromTheDead, well... [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge she hates]]. [[CameBackWrong Constantly]].]]
** [[spoiler: 'Catelyn Stark' did not come back from the dead. Catelyn Stark is dead. All that's left is Lady Stoneheart, and all Stoneheart is is raw, neverending, neverceasing HATE.]]
* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' is a world that has fallen below the horizon, even if the protagonist doesn't realize it until he is pushed over [[{{Room 101}} his own personal rat-related line]].
** {{Room 101}} in general is designed to make someone cross the Despair Event Horizon, by using whatever the person fears most to make them betray whatever is most important to them after first wearing them down with a long period of torture.
* In Nick Kyme's TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} novel ''[[Literature/{{Salamanders}} Salamander]]'', the [[HurtingHero obviously suffering]] Fugis confesses to having lost faith at the death of their captain.
* The ghosts of all his murder victims attempt to do this to Shakespeare's ''Theatre/RichardIII'' before the Battle of Bosworth, conveniently Lampshading it with the phrase "Despair and die." It doesn't really work because Richard is such a MagnificentBastard as to be beyond all shame.
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Literature/GreyKnights'' novel ''Hammer of Daemons'' has an Imperial Guardsman say that many of his comrades "finally lost the will when they" saw Alaric fighting as if a Chaos warrior.
* For the surviving Hogwarts defenders near the end of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', the Despair Event Horizon is [[spoiler:seeing Hagrid carrying Harry's "dead" body.]]
* The titular hero in ''Bollywood/{{Devdas}}'' loses all hope after ChildhoodSweetheart Paro marries someone else. Made worse by the fact that it wouldn't have happened if he'd been able to stand up to [[ParentalMarriageVeto his father]]. And it gets worse.
* Most of [[strike: the 12th Book of]] ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' is about [[TheChosenOne Rand]] [[TheDeterminator Al']][[TheHero Thor]] reaching this point. When [[spoiler: he does reach it, he comes within seconds of just wiping out all existence (or as much of it as he can manage, which is a lot as he was enhancing his power at the time) as it is all pointless, in a lovely NietzscheWannabe rant. He gets better, and the wise, calm and near saintly Rand that emerges at last seems like TheChosenOne to hope for, rather than the only option]].
** It's implied that Rand's EvilCounterpart Moridin crossed this long ago; faced with the idea of EternalRecurrance, he decided that [[OmnicidalManiac destroying the world]] was a kinder fate. [[spoiler: Pretty much confirmed in the last book, which shows that Moridin is a full-on DeathSeeker who can't bear the though of existing any longer as someone as horrible as himself, and he intends to drag the world down with him. He gets what he sought, but the world is spared]].
* From Creator/OlegDivov's ''Literature/NightWatcher'', with a strong helping of TearJerker: Igor Dolinsky's [[spoiler: lover was turned into a vampire. He didn't know it, and so, [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampirism being a STD]], he became a vampire himself. This led to a series of strange uncontrollable outbursts on his part, during one of which he raped his wife and tried to start a chainsaw massacre in the town (he was stopped in the nick of time). Realizing that something strange had happened to him, he resolved to combat it by tying himself up in the basement during full moons - and his amazingly dedicated wife helped, causing him to appreciate her more than ever. Only, as his condition got worse, he became alternatingly lethargic or dangerous - and thus tied up - for months at a time, and so wasn't there for her when his wife inevitably became a vampire from the rape too. Eventually, he successfully overcame his vampirism, only to discover that his wife had irrevocably embraced the vampire lifestyle and the only way to save her was to make her [[OurVampiresAreDifferent a Master]], which meant that they would never see each other again, not that she could bring herself to care about him in her present state anyway.]] "Luckily", he had just enough connections to pull it off, but at that moment he hit the Despair Event Horizon ''hard'' and spent days contemplating suicide methods before coming to the horrible realization that he is simply ''too sane'' to kill himself, which made things even worse. [[FailureKnight So in the end he dedicated himself]] [[KnightInSourArmor to saving his town from the vampires]].
* In ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'', this is embodied in the character of Cadrach, who is introduced as a DirtyCoward and thief, but later turns out to have played a critical role in delivering the TomeOfEldritchLore to the EvilSorcerer who kicked off the entire "summon the evil Storm King back into the world" plot. He knows this, knows he did the whole thing out of cowardice, and admits that he'd do it again, thanks to his will having [[GoMadFromTheRevelation been broken by the knowledge]] contained in that evil book.
* In ''Literature/{{Otherland}}'', the suffering endured by the Other, the quasi-AI operating system of the titular network, comes to a peak after PsychoForHire Dread takes over the system, torturing it to the point where it gives up all hope of preserving itself or its secret, and instead hatches a plot to [[DrivenToSuicide destroy itself]] [[TakingYouWithMe along with all of its tormentors]].
* In ''Literature/UseOfWeapons'', happens in a rather nasty way to [[spoiler: the original Cheradenine in one of the flashback chapters when he discovers what Elethiomel did to his sister, complete with TitleDrop for emphasis. It's strongly hinted that the same happened to Elethiomel as well which led to him becoming TheAtoner and thus the events of the rest of the book.]]
* Before the events of the novel, Ista has already been driven over the DEH by an AccidentalMurder, the death of her husband the king, and the weight of the family curse. In ''[[Literature/{{Chalion}} Paladin of Souls]]'', We are catching her on the way ''back'', as her madness was miraculously cured at the end of the previous book.
* ''DarknessVisible'' has two notable examples. Most importantly, this is the reason why [[spoiler: the leader of the Dark Tide is trying to end the world. He crossed the event horizon when his wife died. Badly.]] Lewis crosses his own despair event horizon [[spoiler: in Hyde Park, when he realises that he will never survive the mental strain of closing all the rogue Thresholds. Being [[StiffUpperLip British]], he gets on with it regardless, but quite without hope for his own survival. It is only thanks to [[HeterosexualLifepartners Marsh]] getting him to a doctor immediately after his collapse that he lives.]]
-->[[spoiler: "The disordered ranks of dark portals went on and on before me, stretching into the grey distance like an unending army. I kept my eyes on the sky, and knew with a crushing certainty that I faced my own destruction."]]
* ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': Marvin is in ModeLock for this, and it's PlayedForLaughs.
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Literature/ProsperosDaughter Prospero Regained]]'', Miranda is convinced that Astreus, having lost hope, will now fall prey to Hell.
* At the end of the Literature/NewJediOrder, the death of [[BigBad Supreme Overlord Shimrra]] sends the Yuuzhan Vong species (and particularly the warrior caste) over the Despair Event Horizon ''en masse'', with thousands of warriors committing [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled ritual suicide]] or [[TakingYouWithMe kamikaze attacks]] and the others surrendering to the Galactic Alliance. Oddly enough, this is a ''positive'' example of the trope, since it convinced the otherwise-implacable Vong that [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife the war was not worth continuing]].
* Mme. Raquin in ''Literature/ThereseRaquin'' experiences this when not only does she know that her niece/daughter-in-law killed her son, but she loses her one and only chance to expose Thérèse's crime.
* In the second Literature/ApprenticeAdept trilogy, Fleta reaches this point after being told by everyone she knows that there's no way she'd be allowed to be with her love, Mach.[[note]]Technically, Mach's mind in Bane's body. Long story.[[/note]] Not willing to settle for being Mach's kept woman, she decides suicide is the only answer, going so far as to demand a talisman from Adept Red that would [[ModeLock keep her from reflexively changing shape and saving herself.]] It takes a [[PowerOfLove super-powered]] AnguishedDeclarationOfLove from Mach to [[DeusExMachina overcome the talisman and save her.]]
* Literature/CiaphasCain ('''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!]]''') ends up fighting a [[DealWithTheDevil witch]] who ''[[EmotionBomb weaponizes this]]''--simply meeting [[CreepyChild the boy's]] eyes leaves a ''priest'' writhing and screaming. Cain himself ends up [[HeroicWillpower fighting to stay sane]] from an onset of ReligiousHorror until [[PowerNullifier Jurgen's aura]] gets in range.
* In ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' Paul crosses it near the end, after he lost all of his friends were in the war. He describes his feelings like this: "Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear." [[spoiler:When he's killed not much later, his facial expression is described as "calm, as though almost glad the end had come."]]
* [[spoiler:Kalthused]] suffers a preliminary one in ''Literature/WithinRuin'', [[spoiler: Ankaa's death]] driving him to abandon his morals and instead orchestrate the death of millions. It gets even worse when [[spoiler:Almi and Merill die during Virgil's rescue attempt]] he fully loses his marbles, embraces dark magic and goes on a murdering rampage.
* Lennie the sharecropper in ''Kneel to the Rising Sun'' by Erskine Caldwell led a miserable existence even before the climax of the story. His family was starving, the brutal landlord had tortured his dog, and his father was eaten alive by swine. However, he well and truly crosses the Despair Event Horizon when the sadistic landlord forces him to betray the only man who had ever really befriended him, and he watches helplessly as the local farmers hunt him down and eventually lynch him. By the end he is reduced to little more than a hopeless shell of a man, sinking powerlessly to his knees [[TitleDrop as the sun rises before him]].
* The hapless Captain Bebo in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: Eaten Alive''. Losing some of his crew in a ship crash, others vanishing one by one until only one remains in the single safe place on D'vouran, he tries to warn off visitors to the world but is too grief-stricken and [[{{Gaslighting}} gaslit]] by the [[ImAHumanitarian natives]] for them [[CassandraTruth to think he's anything but mad]]. Still, he keeps trying - and that last crewmember dying breaks him. It's actually this despair that gets one visitor to take him seriously and hear him out, but when he's done, rather than go with her he gives her the trinket that has kept him safe, and is killed shortly thereafter.
* During the climax of the ''Literature/GriffinsDaughter'' trilogy, elf noble Sadaiyo discovers his brother, Ashinji had survived Sadaiyo's beytral (setting him up to be captured by humans who would kill him on the spot or drag him off to be interrogated, then killed). Sadaiyo snaps and tries to kill him then and there, heeless of the fact that A) everyone would know he did it and B) they were in the middle of a battle with the humans.
* In Jack London's novel ''Literature/MartinEden'', the title character stops seeking fame and fortune as a struggling writer when he sees how the public treats the publication of a suicide friend's poem (the poem is a humongous success btw). His despair is such that he doesn't care when his [[spoiler: career finally picks up steam, so he decides to retire early and commit suicide as well]].
* In Creator/JohnMilton's ''Literature/ParadiseLost'', none of the devils propose admitting they are in the wrong; one ventures to raise the possibility, only to dismiss it as horrible.
* In Vikram Seth's novel ''Literature/AnEqualMusic'', Michael spends a long time teetering on the edge of this after [[spoiler:Julia tells him to stop bothering her]].
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/CountToTheEschaton'', Ctesibius does not even need guards; he will not attempt to escape. He has despaired since the day his order attempted to take over the world with [[GrayGoo Golden Goo]] and failed.
* In ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'', Edmond Dantès is imprisoned in solitary confinement for years, on unclear charges, first hoping that the mistake will be quickly cleared up, then appealing in vain to the authorities, then raging, then praying to an unlistening God... after four years he realizes that he'll never be released. Crossing the event horizon (the author uses another metaphor: thoughts of suicide are like a blue inviting lake which, when you step into it, turns out to be quicksand), he decides to starve himself to death. He carries out this intention until he's lying on his bed weak and nearly dead... when he hears a scratching noise, which turns out to be a fellow prisoner digging a tunnel. This neighbor pulls him back over the event horizon, and turns his thoughts in a new direction: escape and revenge.
** Several others experience despair horizons of their own during the story: Dantès saves at least two of them at the last minute, but experiences a new despair when his vengeance results in the death of his enemy's innocent child. (He gets better.)
* ''Literature/MoreThanThis'':
** He went though a lot, but what finally drove Seth over the edge was finding out [[spoiler:Gudmund was sleeping with Monica and was never exclusively "his"]].
** Seth's mother couldn't get over [[spoiler:Owen's death]], choosing a simulated reality over accepting it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In ''Film/TheChristmasThatAlmostWasnt'', after the BigBad Prune buys Prim's Department Store and basically steals the money Santa earned to pay for toys he damaged, deliberately screwing Santa over from paying the rent he owes to Prune, Santa and Whipple stroll listlessly down the street, hoping desperately for a miracle...
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'':
** Malcolm Reynolds lost all idealism, along with any faith in God, at the battle of Serenity Valley which meant that the Independent Planets will be unified with and ruled over by the morally ambiguous if not downright evil Alliance.
** River Tam's dialogue indicates that she has no hope of ever being "normal" again. At one point, she even rails against the drugs Simon is giving her, saying that she ''hates'' being able to think clearly because she knows she'll just [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness slip back into madness sooner or later]]. You can actually ''see'' the very moment River breaks in the R. Tam Sessions, in the third video where the "counselor" tells River that her brother "is very busy". She stops, silently nods, then whispers "Yes...." and starts crying. ''[[BreakTheCutie (crack)]]''
* Halfway through season four of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', the fleet [[spoiler: discovers that Earth has been destroyed]], causing borderline cases of this for many characters, and a full-blown case for both [[spoiler: Dualla and Number Three.]]
* Series 3 of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' has multiple Despair Event Horizons - as you would expect from a plot that involves [[spoiler:the governments of the world caving into an alien race's demands for 10% of the Earth's children. ObstructiveBureaucrat AntiVillain Frobisher is told by the [[PresidentEvil Prime Minister]] that, for PR purposes, his daughters will be among the 10% given to the aliens - so Frobisher takes a gun home and kills his wife and children, before turning it on himself. Then Jack, who has just had to [[DyingDeclarationOfLove watch his boyfriend die pointlessly]], realises that there's a way to defeat the aliens after all... but it will mean killing a child. And the only child close to hand is his own grandson, who he is forced to murder in front of his screaming daughter. Safe to say, Jack doesn't hang around on Earth for very long after that.]]
* ''DeadSet''. [[spoiler:Space agrees to unlock the Diary Room so Kelly can make a futile attempt to fight her way out only after seeing a zombie Pippa (his former girlfriend) hammering on the glass outside.]]
* In ''{{Spooks}}'',[[note]] ''Serious'' series 9 spoilers, FYI[[/note]] [[spoiler: Lucas North]] shuts down when Harry tells him that [[spoiler: "Albany", the biological weapon blueprint he betrayed all his friends over, getting his NewOldFlame killed in the crossfire as he did so...[[PyrrhicVillainy is a fake]]]]. [[DrivenToSuicide The "express elevator down" option off the top of the building they're on soon follows]].
-->'''Harry''': Who are you [[spoiler: Lucas]]? Who are you?
-->'''[[spoiler: Lucas]]''': ...I'm nothing.
* [[spoiler:Joseph Bede]] crosses it in the final episode of ''Series/TheShadowLine''. [[spoiler:His wife, whose Alzheimer's treatment he intends to pay for with the proceeds from his drug deal, tries to kill herself and is hospitalised. This prompts him to leave his gun behind when meeting Jay, who he already know intends to betray him, which leads to his death.]]
* [[BigBad Shiro Kanzaki]] from ''Series/KamenRiderRyuki'' goes through this everytime [[spoiler: his sister, Yui dies]].
* The DEH rests at the core of ''Series/KamenRiderWizard''. Individuals called Gates possess an inner demon called a Phantom, which is held in check by their will to live; crossing the Horizon allows the Phantom to break free into the real world, killing their host in the process. Thus the Phantoms that already manifested try to expand their numbers by forcing Gates past the Horizon while Wizard fights them off and tries to be [[ArcWords the last hope]] for their victims. However, if a Gate comes close to the Horizon but regains their hope through HeroicWillpower, they gain the ability to tap into their Phantom's magical powers and can (with training) become magic-users like Wizard; [[spoiler:this happens to three individuals over the course of the series, all of whom become Kamen Rider Mage.]]
* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}''. Quite a few plots are centered around crossing the line, most notably in [[spoiler:Reset, where H.G. Wells turns on the agents to put the world into a new ice age, effectively resetting human life. She is stopped at the last second by Myka Bering.]]
* Dean Winchester crosses the line in the season 2 finale of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', after [[spoiler: his brother Sam dies in his arms. He ends up selling his soul to bring him back, and after a year is sent to hell. This leads to him crossing the line ''again''; after 30 years of torture he breaks and takes up on Alistair's offer to torture other souls.]] Ironically, in the Season 5 finale, Dean is the only one of the main characters ''not'' to lose hope after [[spoiler: Lucifer possesses Sam. Dean still had enough faith in his brother to wade into an apocalyptic showdown and try to get through to Sam. Although to be fair, he made it clear that he had absolutely nothing to lose at that point.]]
* A Serial Killer uses this as part of his MO in the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "The Road". A SerialKiller known as John Smith would capture women, [[SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere seal them in a room in the middle of nowhere]], and subject them to MindRape. Once they lost the will to live, which he would prove by standing aside and giving them the option of walking out, he would seal them in completely and let them starve. He comments that once someone gives up hope, dying is just a formality. [[spoiler: The fact that his last victim ''didn't'' cross the Despair Event Horizon really rattles him]].
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In "King of the Fleas", Roscoe Martin tells the story how had as a POW during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar been tricked into revealing the names of the pilot inmates at the POWCamp, and was then forced to watch as the Vietcong executed the rest of them, which had plagued him ever since. Subverted in that after he had killed the camp commander in the present-day (1997-98), he regained hope again, as evidently seen in "The Martin Baker Fan Club".
* ''Series/HoratioHornblower'': Young midshipman Archie Kennedy loses his will to live in "The Duchess and the Devil", the third episode of the miniseries. He was horribly tormented and abused by a sadistic bully of a midshipman. He got lost at sea during a stealth raid (his tormentor tried to murder him), and he ended up in Spanish jail. His escape attempts earned him ColdBloodedTorture in a PunishmentBox. When, by some incredible chance, his friend and fellow middie Horatio appears in the very same cell, it brings back memories of his tormentor and he also feels that his life is one big screw-up, compared to the heroic and successful Horatio. When Hornblower insists that they will all try to escape together once he gets better, he doesn't want to. He decides to starve himself to death so that Horatio and his men needn't deal with him. When Horatio realizes what's happening at the last moment, Archie refuses his help. [[spoiler:Horatio convinces him that he ''needs'' him. He eventually gets better, but it was hard and painful process.]]
* ''{{House of Cards}}'': Congressman Peter Russo, who's running for Governor of Pennsylvania, has this after [[spoiler: the drunken radio interview he gave after Underwood set him up to fall off the wagon with an ex-call girl who owed him favors]]. He hid from the press and disappeared for a few days, leaving his campaign in limbo, before being found by Underwood [[spoiler: who plied him with more liquor and murdered him, making it look like a suicide.]]
[[/folder]]
















----

[[folder:Music]]
* ''Music/TheWall'' by Music/PinkFloyd is just one colossal DEH; the entire album is about a rock star who is constantly hurt within his life, and the mental "Wall" he builds between himself and society. Summed up in the aptly titled 'Goodbye Cruel World', as Pink is having a mental breakdown and going catatonic:
-->Goodbye cruel world,
-->I'm leaving you today.
-->Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
-->Goodbye, all you people,
-->There's nothing you can say
-->To make me change my mind.
-->Goodbye.
* Music/{{Rammstein}}'s song "Wo Bist Du" has the narrator crossing the Despair Event Horizon after the death of loved one.
* JethroTull's song "Locomotive Breath" is about a man who has just crossed the Despair Event Horizon.
* {{Supertramp}} enjoys these. Lord, is it mine?, Rudy (arguably), and If everyone was listening are about someone who's on the edge of that horizon, and in danger of going over.
* Many country and western song, especially JohnnyCash songs Folsom Prison Blues, which is about a man sentenced to life imprisonment and 25 Minutes to Go, of a man who is about to be hanged.
* "Scarsick" by Pain of Salvation follows a man who grows increasingly frustrated by the various facets of modern society shown to him through television. Eventually, he decides he's had enough and jumps off the roof of a building in an attempt to shock the people around him back to their senses... whether or not this works is left up to the listener.
** Also, in the same vein, the extra track off "Entropia," Never Learn to Fly, a song where one of the characters decides that dreaming and striving for anything great will only lead to unbearable pain... at least Plains of Dawn had a hopeful point, however brief.
* Roger Miller's "One Dying And A Burying": One man contemplates suicide to forget the pain of lost love.
* "21 Guns" by GreenDay.
* The entire premise of DepressiveSuicidalBlackMetal.
* "Exitus" by Music/ENomine.
* Many of DavidGray's songs are either written from the other side of the horizon or are about trying to keep from crossing it, in particular "Holding On".
* The title track from Music/BlackSabbath's ''Paranoid''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dRgYd5Mxs0 "Dance with the Devil"]], by ImmortalTechnique. The protagonist rape a random woman in a dark street to be deemed [[IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten "worthy"]] to integrate a gang, then is asked to shoot her as witness. [[spoiler: It's his own mother... And they suddenly recognize each other.]]
* Music/VanDerGraafGenerator's "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" seems to be the self-narration of a man who cross the horizon, and then commits suicide.
** The non-album single "W", where a man dies of extreme loneliness.
* {{Radiohead}} seem to have built their whole career on this.
* ''Music/TheProtomen'': both Protoman and Dr Light cross this when the Robot Masters drag Proto Man down. Mega Man crosses it when he [[spoiler:kills Protoman and discovers how pathetic and self-serving the people he was trying to save were]]. As a general rule, anyone heroic will either die or cross this particular threshold, maybe both.
* The song portion of Music/KingCrimson's "Starless".
* "Waffle House" by David Wilcox portrays the titular RealLife restaurant as a haven designed to help its employees cope with whatever depressing event they're dealing with (be it heartbreak, or highway, or some altered state) and stop them from crossing the DEH.
-->When it's time that we slow up\\
We wrap both our hands around our cup\\
And stay until the feeling goes\\
As long as there's broken hearts and dreams\\
And all of this highway in between\\
The Waffle House will never close
* The entire genres of [[DoomMetal Funeral Doom]] and [[BlackMetal Depressive Black Metal]] revolve around this trope.
* A few Music/IronMaiden tracks. Specially "For the Greater Good of God".
** Their song "Hallowed Be Thy Name" is their most notorious example, telling the story of a prisoner in death row who is just hours away from his execution; he is at first calm and rationalizing about the upcoming ordeal, but as the song progresses he starts to slowly fall apart until he breaks and starts crying, realizing that he is afraid to die after all.
-->Tears fall but why am I crying?
-->After all I'm not afraid of dying.
-->Don't I believe that there never is an end?
* The singer's character in Project Pitchfork's "Lament" has apparently crossed this line after being jilted (or his love interest dying, depending on how it is interpreted), and is preparing to [[DrivenToSuicide off himself]]. "I lay down here, forever to sleep".
* ''The Lost Christmas Eve'' by Music/TransSiberianOrchestra tells the story of a kind, happy man who has pretty much the perfect life. When his wife goes into childbirth on Christmas she dies due to complications, and he also learns that his newborn son suffered brain damage due to lack of oxygen and will probably never learn to walk or talk. This causes the man to go through a major despair event horizon. After [[RageAgainstTheHeavens raging against the heavens]] he gives his son over to the care of a state-run hospital, and spends the next forty years as a bitter, broken man who hates Christmas.
* "Cemetery Gates" by Music/{{Pantera}} is told from the perspective of a man who is going through a despair event horizon following the death of the woman he loved. For most of the song he is lamenting his loss, and in the final verse he is actually contemplating suicide so he can join her in the afterlife.
* "Fade to Black" by Music/{{Metallica}} is about a man who has lost the will to live. At the end of the song, he commits suicide.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: New Media]]
* PlayedForLaughs in the Podcast/RiffTrax of ''Twilight''. Two girls are having a discussion in the high school's cafeteria, when one mentions, "We're talking Olympic sized." Mike Nelson is right on top of it, chiming in, "High school girls discussing [[BiggusDickus wang sizes]]. We have officially hit rock bottom, gentlemen."
** And in the 'Trax for ''Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial'', while watching Harvey Korman debase himself in a miserably unfunny sketch, Mike sighs and says, "Well, Nietzsche was right; dead as a doornail."
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Professional Wrestling]]
* Bret Hart's heel turn and reformation of the Hart Foundation was largely based on his growing disapproval of America's failing [[RealLifeWritesThePlot family]] [[ValuesDissonance values]] in the wake of Steve Austin's new wave of popularity. It got worse when Shawn Michaels and HHH formed D-Generation X.
* Austin Aries and Jimmy Jacobs took each other down all because of Lacey. Aries persuaded Lacey to leave her boyfriend and the Age of the Fall, only to have Jacobs lose even more of his mind and take Lacey out of ROH for good.
** The real damage to Aries was done after he won the feud with Jimmy Jacobs and moved on to Age of the Fall Lieutenant Tyler Black. The fans began to get behind Black after a series of matches against Nigel [=McGuinness=] and BryanDanielson to the point where some of them began to boo A-Double.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Religion]]
* In Christianity, Despair is one of the original SevenDeadlySins, being later replaced by the sin of Sloth. In Eastern Orthodox denominations, it is counted as the 8th Deadly Sin, but it is still present in Roman Catholic theology and others, simply considered to fall under the category of Sloth (or simply as a lesser sin). Despair is defined as the loss of faith or hope (ie. in goodness, in {{God}} etc.), and thus is more about giving into nihilism or cynicism (esp. as an excuse to stop being good or to ignore evil) rather than simply feeling sad or depressed about anything in particular; it is counted as Sloth because it is considered to be the sin of "giving up", and its corresponding [[SevenHeavenlyVirtues virtue]] is (respectively) Hope or [[{{Determinator}} Diligence]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Roleplay]]
* In ''Roleplay/RealmsOfHyrule'', this was crossed by almost everyone in Hyrule when Kakariko was revived and Prince Regent Logain was killed trying to defend it.
[[/folder]]




[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' has a couple of primary examples:
** In the backstory, [[spoiler:Kirei Kotomine]] crossed the Despair Event Horizon after the death of his wife [[spoiler: Claudia]], abandoning his attempt at living a 'good' life and fully embracing the fact that he can only feel happy through hurting others.
** [[spoiler:Archer]] crossed the Despair Event Horizon after being betrayed by everyone he ever knew and finally, his own ideals. This leads him to [[spoiler:try to kill Shirou, his past self and living embodiment of his misguided ideals, at ''any'' cost]]. In the end, he [[spoiler:is beaten by Shirou despite being the superior opponent, his acknowledgment that those beliefs were not so mistaken after all]].
** Finally, [[spoiler:Shirou]] goes through this in the Heaven's Feel route. [[spoiler:He gives up on his ideals to save Sakura, who happens to be eating people and is about to turn into a world destroying monster.]] He's not one to sit around, though, so he just takes up another cause with gusto.
*** He permanently crosses the horizon in one bad ending when [[spoiler:Rin kills Sakura]]. He abandoned his dream to protect [[spoiler:Sakura]] and failed to do even that, leaving him with nothing to live for.
** [[spoiler:Sakura]] also crosses this line somewhere in the final battle [[spoiler: against Rin]], most likely around the time when she [[spoiler: gives Rin her speech about how much her life had sucked. Rin then responds with, essentially, [[WhatAnIdiot "tough shit"]], sending her nuts.]] Depending on the player's choices, she either follows this up by [[spoiler:[[MoralEventHorizon capturing and torturing Rin via making her experience the HELL she went through]], or by [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone being saved by her utter despair at (seemingly) killing her sister]] immediately after [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming Rin finally realised that she couldn't bring herself to kill Sakura after all]], and instead [[CooldownHug hugged]] her.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'', this is hinted to have occurred to [[spoiler:Yasu / Beatrice]] after realizing that [[spoiler:Battler]] will not come back to the island. [[spoiler:S/he instigates the murders that occur on the island and throws away everything for a chance of a miracle and make Battler realize his sin.]]
* [[spoiler:Kohaku]] of ''{{Tsukihime}}'' also crosses the Despair Event Horizon after being raped several times by [[spoiler:SHIKI and his father in order to stop their inversion impulses]] and becomes [[BreakTheCutie utterly broken]], as revealed in the Far Side routes.
* [[spoiler: Keisuke]]'s death in ''VisualNovel/TogainuNoChi'' is this for Akira on Shiki's route. Even though he still puts up a bit of a fight against Shiki, it's nowhere near the same defiance he had before. He also doesn't care whether he lives or dies and decides that whatever happens to him is punishment for [[spoiler: killing Keisuke.]]
* Thee {{Bad Ending}}s of VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo imply that, if the player takes the wrong choices, the girls might reach this extreme. Some examples are: [[spoiler: Rin's bad (where she and Hisao have a terrible fight and she ends up alone in her atelier) and neutral (in which she accepts a scholarship in Tokyo but at the cost of breaking all bonds with Hisao and everyone else) endings]], [[spoiler: Shizune's bad ending (with Misha reaching it first via [[SexForSolace asking Hisao to sex her up]] [[StepfordSmiler due to her hidden loneliness]], and then Shizune following when she breaks up with Hisao thinking that she is ruining his and Misha's lives -- and the last view of her that he has is [[TearJerker/KatawaShoujo Shizune sitting all alone in the stairs]])]], and [[spoiler: Hanako's bad ending (with her blowing up at Hisao as she realizes that he and Lilly only view her as a child whom they have to protect, thus breaking her already smashed self-estreem and making her splinter)]]
** Subverted in [[spoiler: Lilly's Good Ending]]. How so? [[spoiler: After failing [[RaceforYourLove to catch up with Lilly at the airport]] due to an inconveniently timed heart attack, Hisao realizes that he has lost Lilly for good and falls into despair. He snaps out of it once [[NostalgicMusicBox he finds the music box he gave her]] next to his hospital bed, signifying the fact that she never actually left.]]
** Aso, if the beta that was leaked a while ago is to be believed, [[spoiler: Hanako]]'s Bad Ending would've had her [[spoiler: killing herself in front of Hisao (via jumping in the path of a train after their last talk) instead of blowing up at him]]. And for worse, [[spoiler: Shizune]]'s path would've had two possible DEH crossings: [[spoiler: Misha throwing herself in front of a car on Shizune's range of view after the SexForSolace scene... followed by Shizune [[AngstComa falling into catatonia]], with two possible options for Hisao-as-the-player: helping her regain [[HesBack the will to live]], or being unable to stop Shizune's DeathByDespair.]]
* Junpei goes through this in most of the [[MultipleEndings Bad Endings]] of [[VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors 999]], but none more so than in the [[KillEmAll "Submarine Ending,"]] right before [[spoiler: he gets killed.]]
* ''VisualNovel/DanganRonpa'''s Monokuma/Monobear is all about bringing DESPAIR, and pushes the buttons of his victims in order to try and drive them over this and to murdering one another. (And personally executing them if they ''do'' kill and are caught.) He succeeds in the case of [[spoiler: Sayaka Maizono, an IdolSinger with hidden insecurities who freaks out massively after she's shown a video where she's told that, if she doesn't "graduate" of Hope's Peak via killing others, she'll be abandoned and forgotten]]; and is ''this'' close to succeed too with [[spoiler: Aoi Asahina, a sweet sportswoman whom he manipulates into getting everyone framed for the murder of her best friend Sakura. The other students manage to bring her back.]]
** [[spoiler: Kiyotaka Ishimaru]] comes damn close to the DEH after [[spoiler: the execution of Mondo Oowada, his best friend.]] [[spoiler: He is murdered shortly afterwards]].
** [[spoiler: The Good Ending of the game is all about Naegi picking up his MessianicArchetype ID and actually keeping the remaining students (Asahina, Kirigiri, Togami, Fukawa and Hagakure) from reaching the DEH at the hands of Monobear... or better said, Junko Enoshima, who is the one behind him. He actually screams "YOU MUST NOT LOSE HOPE!" at them while Junko eggs them to cross the DEH.]] Alternatively, [[spoiler: in the Bad Ending, after Kirigiri's execution the five remaining kids (or four, since Fukawa has died) have crossed it but insist they're living happily in the GildedCage that Hope's Peak is for them, alone in the world save for themselves and their children...]]
* ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'': Riki passes this [[spoiler:at the end of Rin's route in the timeline where he and she run away together. Rin's been taken away from him forever, passing a Despair Event Horizon herself offscreen, and his best friends and only family - especially Kyousuke, whom he used to look up to more than anyone else - have proven themselves untrustworthy. Thankfully, Kyousuke is able to reset this timeline, though the consequences were so extreme that it has much a much bigger effect on later timelines than any other.]]
** Not to mention that [[spoiler:the whole plotline happened because Kyousuke was convinced that the bus crash killing him and the others would push Riki and Rin over it, such that he was willing to do anything at all that might make them strong enough to withstand it and not give in to despair.]]
* ''{{Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni}}'': Rena crossed this in her backstory, after [[spoiler:her mother revealed she was leaving her father for another man (whose child she was carrying), and after a subsequent (heavily implied) rape attempt by three of her male friends, leading to a berserk rampage.]] This leads to an attempted suicide.
** She also appears to cross one in the Atonement Arc, around the time [[spoiler:she starts believing her friends - specifically Mion - are working against her]]. Unfortunately, it serves to fuel her growing madness.
** Rika and [[spoiler:Hanyuu]] are revealed to have spent the majority of the story this way; [[spoiler:after centuries of failure, Rika eventually gave in to her fate of dying in June 1983, and stopped trying to fight it.]]
[[/folder]]



[[folder:Web Original]]
* Surprisingly enough, Ganondorf went over this in ''ThereWillBeBrawl'' upon finding the pure evil that is [[spoiler: Ness and Lucas]]. He questions how heroes can even exist when such evil does.
* As the end of Pokecapn's legendary ''LetsPlay/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' LetsPlay approaches, the players themselves [[SanitySlippage slowly slip towards]] and eventually cross the Despair Event Horizon; this is signified by [[spoiler: Kung-Fu Jesus chanting song lyrics in monotone]].
** [[spoiler:"Because it's [[MichaelJackson Thriller]]. Thriller night. And no one's gonna save you from..."]]
* In ''DrHorriblesSingAlongBlog'', [[spoiler: Dr. Horrible crosses the Despair Event Horizon after his death ray backfires in Captain Hammer's hands and the shrapnel kills Penny]].
* Happens a '''lot''' in ''SurvivalOfTheFittest'', more often than not later in the game, but given the [[ThereCanOnlyBeOne premise]], is it really that surprising?
** For example, Jacob Charles quickly shoots into this zone after his girlfriend is killed right in front of him, leading to him [[spoiler:attempting suicide.]] [[http://s10.zetaboards.com/SOTF_V2/topic/7292200/1 Read it here.]]
* Happens to cup in {{Channel 101}}'s "2 girls, 1 cup the show". Unlike most of the cases in this page, the result is hilarious.
* Oancitizen of ''WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh'' is driven to this in his ''Film/KenPark'' review. [[HilarityEnsues Genocide ensues.]]
** He also does it with ''ASerbianFilm'', complete with calling NATO to [[ItMakesSenseInContext fictionally bomb]] Serbia!
** Hits it ''hard'' in his review of ''{{Film/Melancholia}}''. PlayedForDrama this time, as Oancitizen discusses his own real struggles with depression.
* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''FreemansMind''.
-->"But yeah, I was expecting to look down there and see this giant eyeball looking up at me, angry at me because I blew off its eyelashes or something, then the whole building starts shaking and I guess I'd� ball up and ''cry'', because what do you do when something that big wants to kill you?"
* In ''Literature/FunnyBusiness'', [[spoiler:Jeannette]] crossed this trope in a flashback after [[spoiler:realizing that she had abused her RealityWarper powers as a toddler, to cause real harm to people]] and has remained in this state for more than seven years.
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', [[spoiler:Taylor]] crosses it after failing to prevent [[spoiler:TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]] and witnessing the devastation caused by [[spoiler:Scion's rampage, which killed her father. She would have killed herself if not for Tattletale.]]
** At the climax of the story, Taylor invokes this against [[spoiler:Scion by taking away his hope of reuniting with his counterpart, and he allows himself to be killed.]]
* [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] was on the receiving end of this trope during his ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' review. Unlike most of his [[SirSwearsAlot foul mouthed]], [[AccentuateTheNegative harsh]] and [[MotorMouth fast paced]] reviews, this one was restrained and it gave off the feeling that the game ''broke him.''
-->'''Yahtzee''': *weary sigh* ''Remember when shooters were about [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} killing demons from hell?]] Those were good days. Perhaps this is an inevitable part of gaming growing up as our childish fantasies are torn from us, and we are forced to confront consequences in an unfair, uncaring and unavoidable world of ''hatred, misery, and '''death'''. *[[MoodWhiplash Farting noises.]]*
* AtopTheFourthWall's Jaeris crosses it when he discovers that YouCantGoHomeAgain. What followed was him DrowningHisSorrows for months on end.
** This was also {{parodied| trope}} when 90s Kid saw a scene of Superboy Prime killing a pregnant Lana Lane in an alternate universe. That seen was so [[TotallyRadical un-radical]] to him, that he didn't think he could ever be hardcore again after seeing something like that. Fortunately it just takes a comic by Creator/RobLiefeld to get his spirits back up.
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* DespairEventHorizon.Fanfiction