History Main / GoingDownWithTheShip

Compare InItsHourOfNeed. No relation to DieForOurShip, ShipSinking, or just {{Shipping}} in general.

No relation to DieForOurShip, ShipSinking, or just {{Shipping}} in general.

* The finale of ''Anime/FutureBoyConan'' contains a non-vehicle example: the empire of Industria ends up sinking because of the aftereffects of the same weapons that [[FloodedFutureWorld sank most of Earth’s surface]] [[AfterTheEnd two decades earlier]]. The scientists who’d run Industria for most of its history evacuate its remaining population beforehand, but then [[DrivenToSuicide walk off the boat to be killed]], as Dr. Lao revealed the technology they’d developed was a direct predecessor to the [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo geomagnetic weapons]].

* A lighthearted subversion happens in ''The Adventures of Captain Vrungel'' by Andrey Nekrasov, when Captain Vrungel rescues a Norwegian ship. The Norwegian captain is ready to go down with the ship or be the last to leave, but the rescue occurs a) during a storm at night, meaning in pitch-black darkness, b) from above (ItMakesSenseInContext), so Vrungel’s first mate, as he pulls the sailors off the deck, accidentally grabs the captain first. The captain isn’t happy and Vrungel also feels awkward, but since the entire crew ultimately gets saved, nobody bothers with the matter for long.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Poptropica}}''’s SOS Island, the captain decides to go down with the sinking Titanic. [[spoiler:Fortunately, you manage to convince him to leave at the end, after navigating through the mostly waterlogged ship.]]

* Averted in Italian-Soviet film ''Film/TheRedTent'' (1969). Umberto Nobile is the first to be evacuated from the survivors of an airship crash at the North Pole. The film deals with his guilt over this act, as he faces an imaginary court of colleagues involved in the disaster.

** In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'', Beckett [[StunnedSilence stands stoic at the helm]] and goes down with his ship as both the Black Pearl and [[spoiler: The redeemed flying Dutchman captained by Will]] do a run-by and blast him to oblivion.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' parodies Titanic, using both the "adult men dressing as women and children" (specifically The Professor expressing his relief at not needing to be dressed as a child when they find that there's enough life pods) and [[FakeUltimateHero Zap Branigan]] making Kif the new captain and promptly running for the life pods. (interestingly, this leads to Kif [[MeetCute meeting Amy for the first time]] and thus their romance over the series).

In modern cases, captains go down with the ship because they will [[MyGreatestFailure face major disgrace if they don't]], [[DeathEqualsRedemption especially if the ship is only sinking because of their screw-up,]] or if there are passengers or junior crew still on board. This tradition has been transferred to aviation, since [[SkyIsAnOcean]]

In modern cases, captains go down with the ship because they will [[MyGreatestFailure face major disgrace if they don't]], [[DeathEqualsRedemption especially if the ship is only sinking because of their screw-up,]] or if there are passengers or junior crew still on board.

Because SpaceIsAnOcean, this also applies to [[CoolStarship starship]] captains, even though [[TwoDSpace there's no (literal) "down" for them to go]]...unless they happen to be near a planet that they can crash on.

* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''Series/ComeBackMrsNoah'' when the crew of Britannia Seven space station find the rescue shuttle doesn't have room for everyone, so start squabbling over [[ColdEquation who's going to be left behind]].

** Byron Voutsinas was the captain of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yarmouth_Castle SS Yarmouth Castle]]'' when the ship caught fire in the wee hours of November 13, 1965. Voutsinas and serveral crew members escaped in one of the first lifeboats to be lowered. The lifeboat got to the ''Bahama Star'', one of the ships that stopped to offer aid to the ''Yarmouth Castle''. Crew members of the ''Bahama Star'' all but demanded that he go back to own ship, which he did. By sunrise, the ship had sunken and claimed 87 lives. The U. S. Coast Guard was even less pleased; Admiral Louis M. Thayer called Voutsinas' actions "Abandonment of command responsibility".

** Byron Voutsinas was the captain of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yarmouth_Castle SS Yarmouth Castle]]'' when the ship caught fire in the wee hours of November 13, 1965. Voutsinas and serveral crew members escaped in one of the first lifeboats to be lowered. The lifeboat got to the ''Bahama Star'', one of the ships that stopped to offer aid to the ''Yarmouth Castle''. Crew members of the ''Bahama Star'' all but demanded that he go back to own ship, which he did. By sunrise, the ship had sunken and with it claimed 87 lives. The U. S. Coast Guard was even less pleased; Admiral Louis M. Thayer called Voutsinas' actions "Abandonment of command responsibility".

** Byron Voutsinas was the captain of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yarmouth_Castle SS Yarmouth Castle]]'' when the ship caught fire in the wee hours of November 13, 1965. Voutsinas and serveral crew members escaped in one of the first lifeboats to be lowered. The lifeboat got to the ''Bahama Star'', one of the ships that stopped to offer aid to the ''Yarmouth Castle''. Crew members of the ''Bahama Star'' all but demanded that he go back to own ship, which he did. The U. S. Coast Guard was even less pleased; Admiral Louis M. Thayer called Voutsinas' actions "Abandonment of command responsibility".

** In a reference to the musicians on board of the RMS Titanic, the butler of the luxury cabin stands outside to play his violin until Wawanakwa Island goes down beneath the waves in "[[Recap/TotalDramaTheFinalWreckening The Final Wreck-ening]]". It's more than possible he survives, but he's not made an appearance since.

* In ''the Legends of Galactic Heroes'', Admiral Bucock and his captain, as well as many others during the Battle of Mar-Ardetta.

* In Golding's ''To The Ends Of The Earth'' trilogy (a great satire, deconstructing many sea tropes) we get this for poor [[spoiler:newly-made Commander Summers]] when the old ship catches fire and sinks. In the book he apparently has no time to flee, in the TV mini-series he could but he doesn't.

** Captain Hans Langsdorff of the Nazi ship ''Admiral Graf Spee'' ordered the ship scuttled when he believed it would be overrun by British forces in 1939, intending to go down with the ship. His officers convinced him not to, but he killed himself the next day anyway. In any event, his Nazi superiors could well have [[YouHaveFailedMe killed him as punishment for losing the ship]].

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[[quoteright:340: [[Film/KindHeartsAndCoronets https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/going_down_with_the_ship.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:340:Duty, honor and dignity, even to the end.]]

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* Averted in an early episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}''--when the ''St. Anne'' sails into rough waters, the [[DirtyCoward Captain]] immediately jumps into a lifeboat, sparking a [[AbandonShip panicked evacuation]] of everyone else.

* This trope was occasionally used in Jonah (a comic strip in ''ComicBook/TheBeano'' about a man who managed to sink everyship he went on).
* PlayedForLaughs in one of the ''Commando War Stories''. A coxswain in [=WW2=] is warned that if he puts a scratch on the landing boat he's steering for shore, the Navy will take it out of his pay. The coxswain quips that now he knows why the captain always goes down with his ship. "I'd hate to fork out for a battleship!"
* It's only briefly discussed in one flashback scene, but this was the fate of ComicBook/{{Bamse}}'s grandfather. His ship sank, and as a captain he saw it as his duty to see everyone else to safety before he himself left the ship. It's implied that he was the only one who didn't make it off the ship in the end.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** Very much defied by General Grievous in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith''. Not only does he abandon the rapidly-disintegrating ''Invisible Hand'', he also launches every EscapePod in the process, making damn sure that he's the ''only'' one who escapes.
** During the Battle of Hoth in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Princess Leia stays inside Echo Base, while it is already being invaded by Imperial troops and after plenty of Rebel troops have been evacuated. This causes her to be too late to evacuate on a Rebel transport ship and Han Solo takes her onboard the ''Millennium Falcon'' instead.
** In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Vice Admiral Holdo evacuates the Resistance flagship ''Raddus'' before personally [[RammingAlwaysWorks hyper-jumping it through Snoke's flagship]], destroying both ships and shredding the rest of the First Order armada with lightspeed shrapnel.

* Played with in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}''. When Dark Helmet, Colonel Sandurz and President Skroob are standing in front of the last escape pod, President Skroob says: "Well boys, it's a very lovely ship. I think you should go down with it." This doesn't pan out, as the bear from the onboard zoo steals the pod.
* ''Film/{{Titanic 1997}}'' is full of this. Apart from the captain himself there's the band who remain on deck (which actually happened in RealLife) and anyone who took the orders of "women and children first out" to heart.
* ''Film/ANightToRemember'' showed this as well. Captain Smith himself is last seen walking onto the bridge (presumably deciding to go down with the ship). Both films also showed the band which played as the ship sank, and a few passengers who ''intentionally'' stay aboard for one reason or another. There's even a sub-plot about a young married couple who initially want to stay behind just so they can remain together, but are talked out of it by Thomas Andrews, the architect who ironically went down with the ship himself.
* ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean''
** ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest''. The Kraken destroys the Black Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow [[spoiler:handcuffed]] aboard.
-->'''Palifico:''' The captain goes down with his ship.
** In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'', Beckett [[StunnedSilence stands stoic at the helm]] and goes down with his ship as both the Black Pearl and [[spoiler: The redeemed flying Dutchman captained by Will]] do a run-by and blast him to oblivion.

* In ''Film/ThePerfectStorm'', this happens with [[spoiler: Captain Billy Tyne, when the ''Andrea Gail'' is capsized by a giant wave the crew had tried to drive over. Most of the crew are trapped in the lower deck, and have no choice but to go down with the ship. Tyne and Bobby are able to escape, but only Bobby gets out but drowns sometime later, while Tyne remains behind and goes down]]. Of course, seeing as [[spoiler: there were no survivors among the crew of the real-life ''Andrea Gail'']] this is all conjecture,

*** InvokedTrope by Harrison; he keeps his promise to return a captive Kirk, but only because he plans to destroy ''Enterprise'' as well, saying mockingly, "No ship should go down without her captain."

* Symbolically in ''Film/DasBoot''. Right as the U-boat returns to base, the British launch an air raid. Lt. Werner finds the Captain watching the boat sink at the dock. After it slips beneath the waves, the Captain collapses.
* Averted in Italian-Soviet film ''Film/TheRedTent'' (1969). Umberto Nobile is the first to be evacuated from the survivors of an airship crash at the North Pole. The film deals with his guilt over this act, as he faces an imaginary court of colleagues involved in the disaster.
* ''Film/MorningDeparture'': As captain of the ''Trojan'', Armstrong volunteers to be one of the four who remain on the sunken sub and wait for the rescue team.
* In ''Film/AssaultOnAQueen'', the treasure hunters find the body of the U-boat captain still at the periscope. Eric explains that he would have ordered the crew off and then submerged the sub and blown the ballast tanks to keep it out of enemy hands.
* ''Film/Midway2019'': After the ''Hiryū'' is severely damaged in the titular battle, her Captain, Tomeo Kaku as well as Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi elect to stay aboard the crippled aircraft carrier as the surviving Japanese Navy ships scuttle her. [[TruthInTelevision As it happened in real life]].
* ''Film/TheBlackHole''. Invoked by Captain Reinhardt to explain why he's the only person left on the ''Cygnus'', which is manned by a crew of robots, the human crew having supposedly abandoned the spaceship but never made it back to Earth. It doesn't take long for the protagonists to find this story doesn't hold water.
* ''Film/TheLegendOf1900'': [[spoiler: The protagonist chooses to not leave the ship, which was scheduled to be scuttled and sunk far offshore.]]

* Joseph Conrad's uber-depressing short story ''The End of the Tether'' was about a Captain who went down with his ship, but that was entirely for the life insurance.
* In Golding's To The Ends Of The Earth trilogy (a great satire, deconstructing many sea tropes) we get this for poor [[spoiler:newly-made Commander Summers]] when the old ship catches fire and sinks. In the book he apparently has no time to flee, in the TV mini-series he could but he doesn't.
* A variation happens in Creator/MikhailAkhmanov's ''[[Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark Fighters of Danwait]]'', when the novel's protagonist finds himself in a no-win situation with a much more powerful enemy ship. He orders the ship's semi-sentient computer to eject the two other crewmembers (who are sealed in personal pods) and sets a collision course for the enemy's {{Antimatter}} gun. The ship decides to alter the plan slightly by ejecting the captain as well a few seconds before the collision. The collision results in the loss of containment for the {{Antimatter}} and the destruction of both ships. The protagonist wakes up a week later having barely survived the blast.

* Invoked in Creator/RobertWestall's ''Literature/TheMachineGunners'' with Nicky Nichol's dad, who went down with his ship when it was torpedoed.
* Creator/DaleBrown's ''Sky Masters'', the Chinese Admiral fails to invade Mindanao, and his ship gets struck by the Americans satellite. With his ship sinking he decides to sink with the ship and shoot himself, because even if he lives, he'll get court martialed, scapegoated for everything and executed by his superiors.
* Played very straight by Captain Jack Aubrey of the ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'' saga. In the book "Desolation Island", the HMS Leopard springs a very large leak and is in danger of sinking. Captain Aubrey lets the men bring out the boats and gives his First Lieutenant dispatches for the authorities, while he himself prepares to go down with the ship. The situation eventually improves, thankfully.
* Creator/JohnMFord added this trope to the Klingon mindset in ''Literature/TheFinalReflection''. The captain of a Klingon warship is free to send his crew to safety before the ship goes kablooey, but is expected to remain behind himself. (The saying "Kahless' Hand" refers to the first Klingon emperor, who tied his hand to his command chair so no one could say he'd ducked out.)
* [[spoiler: Captain Magnanimous and his crew]] in ''Literature/AlexAndTheIronicGentleman''. [[spoiler: They get better.]]
* Creator/HPLovecraft's short story ''Literature/TheTemple'', a SubStory set during World War I is essentially one big story about this. Once it becomes clear the odds of surviving are next to non-existent without surrendering, the Captain decides that not only he, but ''the entire crew'' should go down with the submarine. He is, however, the only one who lives long enough to see the submarine hit the bottom, and the story ends with him donning a suit and wandering toward a sunken temple where he will presumably die of suffocation.
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''[[Literature/LineOfDelirium Emperors of Illusions]]'', Admiral Lemak's destroyer is hijacked while in hyperspace, and the hijacker forces the bridge crew to prepare to exit hyperspace without first decelerating. This would result in the ship entering real space at relativistic speed, and TimeDilation would ensure that, in the time it takes the ship to slow down, a century may pass in the outside universe. The Admiral gives in and releases the prisoners, as the hijacker demands. However, attempts to retake the bridge result in the deceleration being held off long enough to ensure the unfortunate outcome. In the minute before dropping out of hyperspace, Lemak announces to the crew what is happening and urges anyone who has [[ResurrectiveImmortality aTan]] to kill themselves immediately (they will be resurrected on the nearest colony). Despite himself having aTan, Lemak chooses to stay with the ship and those members of the crew who don't have it, although he cries as the ship is passing into the unknown future.
* ''Literature/AllHands!'' has Captain Harcourt ramming his dying ship into his opponent. He gets bonus points for being at the helm.
* In the ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'' series, dragons and their captains tend to die together. In part this is because they are usually falling from a great height with no kind of rescue equipment (such as a parachute) and so the ''whole'' crew dies unless another dragon is close enough to help, but given the powerful emotional bond between dragon and captain, many of them wouldn't save themselves even if they were able.
* ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': Creator/HarryTurtledove's "Literature/TrantorFalls": With Trantor nearly conquered, [[KingBobTheNth Emperor Dagobert VIII]] extends an invitation to Dr Yokim Sarns to take him along as they evacuate the planet. Dr Sarns politely refuses, saying that his duty is to stay with the University because he is the Dean of the school.
* A lighthearted subversion happens in ''The Adventures of Captain Vrungel'' by Andrey Nekrasov, when Captain Vrungel rescues a Norwegian ship. The Norwegian captain is ready to go down with the ship or be the last to leave, but the rescue occurs a) during a storm at night, meaning in pitch-black darkness, b) from above (ItMakesSenseInContext), so Vrungel’s first mate, as he pulls the sailors off the deck, accidentally grabs the captain first. The captain isn’t happy and Vrungel also feels awkward, but since the entire crew ultimately gets saved, nobody bothers with the matter for long.
* ''Literature/StarWarsLostStars'': Ciena tries to do this after the Rebels board her Star Destroyer and have sabotaged it's self-destruct mechanism in hopes of taking the vessel. She's required to prevent this, and knows that doing so while surviving would never be justified in the Empire's eyes (i.e. she'd be shot). Flying it into Jakku below will accomplish this, plus be a means of suicide, as she's in despair over serving a government she knows is evil but feels duty-bound not to betray. Thane prevents her from doing so.

* ''Series/AltaMar'': No matter the disaster, no matter the number of times he's had his authority stripped and returned, Captain Santiago will not abandon ship. [[spoiler: By the end of season 3, every character who had captained the ''Barbara Braganza'' went down with the ship.]]

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' invokes this trope a few times in S3. I'm not sure whether this falls squarely under this trope since no immediate crisis is involved -- Adama simply kicks (almost) everybody off the ship when it's not in active duty, but refuses to leave with them. The other IS this trope, though. Lee Adama, Commander of the Pegasus, is the last to leave the ship (and says the customary good-bye) before it takes off on a collision course with the Cylon Baseships. Also in S4 [[spoiler: Adama is the last to leave the Galactica, except for Sam who is now more part of the ship than part of the crew]].

** This almost happens to Captain Jack Harkness at the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]]. He uses his ship to capture a German bomb about to kill the Doctor and Rose. Unfortunately, the bomb has already started the explosion sequence, and the only thing keeping it from exploding is a stasis field. However, the bomb ''is'' exploding slowly. Already in space, Jack orders the ship to jettison the bomb, only to receive the reply that this will cause the bomb to explode while inside the ship. Realizing it's over, he asks the ship to mix him a martini ("Ooh, too much vermouth! See if I ever come ''here'' again!) and prepares to die in just the same way he does everything else — with ''buckets'' of style. Then the Doctor shows up in the TARDIS to ruin the moment by saving the LovableRogue.

** Near the end of season three, Crichton plots to destroy Scorpius's Command Carrier in order to stop the Wormhole Weapons project. The plan is successful, executed in such a manner that the ship collapses in on itself, thus allowing the majority of the crew to escape. Crichton then encounters Scorpius in the hangar, where Scorpius laments the destruction of his life's work, and his fears of the pending conflict with the Scarrans. When Crichton tells him that if he's going to leave now would be the time, Scorpius's remarks invoke this trope. Of course he survives, but it's the one time in the entire series we see Scorpius well and truly ''defeated''.

* In ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' when Serenity is crippled Mal sends the rest of the crew off in the shuttles and stays on board. He claims this is because someone might hear their distress signal, but Inara at least assumes that he's doing this. In the end the crew, who had little better chances of survival in the shuttles in any case, come back to join him.

* Occurs in ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' when the ''Galatea'' is destroyed by the ''Lucifer''. The ''Galatea'' launches escape pods, which you are charged with defending, but the the mission debriefing states that the Captain stayed behind and went down with his ship.
* ''[[VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh Tron 2.0]]'' played it straight with [[spoiler: I-No, the old Tower Guardian]] who chose to de-rez with the server. However, it's discussed, then averted with [[spoiler: Alan and Jet]] when it comes to them [[spoiler: crashing the F-Con server]].

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'': [[spoiler: Templar Nicholas Biddle asks to go down with the Randolph after you disable it. Connor accepts, but blows up the magazine to ensure that it actually sinks.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', if you purge Vault 101's water chip during "Trouble on the Homefront" and lie to the Overseer that the rebels did it, he stays behind in the vault to die.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalWolfChaos'', General Forester goes down with the command ship in Miami when the President sinks it. It's probably a gesture of atonement for going along with the Vice-President's coup.
* In ''VideoGame/TheHorrorAtMSAurora'', this is what [[spoiler:Daniel chooses to do if Kirk kept him alive to this point.]]
* In the ''[[Videogame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' series, Earth's [[EliteArmy AGI Task Force]] fighter pilots will ''never'' [[AbandonShip eject from their ship]] - likely to prevent the [[HumanityIsAdvanced superior technology]] of the ships from falling in the hands of the [[HumansByAnyOtherName Argon Federation]] or other races. Every other faction fighter has a chance to bail out when they decide that they have no hope of surviving. Because ATF fighters never bail out, [[UnusableEnemyEquipment they are impossible to acquire]] in ''X3: Reunion'' and ''X3: Terran Conflict'', though ''X3: Albion Prelude'' allows players to buy them from shipyards.
* In ''VideoGame/InfiniteSpace'', [[spoiler: Captain Vilchjo Valso]] refuses to abandon his ship when the player character encounters him as part of a Lugovalian fleet in the second half of the game. A number of other characters die when their ships go down, but he's the only one to go deliberately.

* In ''VideoGame/NavalOps: Warship Gunner 2'', recurring antagonist Admiral Amagi goes down with his ship the last time you fight him. [[spoiler: If you fight Captain Tsukuba, he does the same]].
* In ''Videogame/KirbySuperStar'', when the Meta-Knights' airship Halberd starts to go down, Captain Vul decides to AbandonShip while Mace Knight, Axe Knight and a few others choose to stay behind to try to stop Kirby one last time. Meta Knight himself also tries to stop Kirby, although he also escapes later when Kirby does so.
* ''VideoGame/{{Return of the Obra Dinn}}'': [[spoiler:Captain Robert Witterel seems to be a good example. He is reaching the DespairEventHorizon when he sees the entirety of his crew, including his wife, being wiped out due to the ship being attacked by the [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent mermaids]], the Crab Riders, and the {{kraken|andLeviathan}}, which is too much for him to bear. As a result, he accepts the fact that he will not be leaving the ship alive, and authorizes the surviving female passengers, stewards, and Dr. Henry Evans to leave the ''Obra Dinn'' in the last remaining lifeboat. He also intervenes on their behalf when topman Leonid Volkov attempts to prevent them from doing so, demanding that Volkov "let them go." Afterward, when there are only a few remaining crew members left to attack the Captain for the magical shells, the Captain is forced to kill them all, including his own brother-in-law and First Mate, in self-defense. Afterwards, [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the chest]], fulfilling his vow to his wife that [[TogetherInDeath he would be with her in the afterlife]].]]
* ''Videogame/AHatInTime:'' The Captain of the Arctic Cruise attempts to do this after the ship crashes into an iceberg and starts sinking, even trying to refuse rescue as you carry him to safety. [[spoiler:While there are sadder implications considering his mentor did the same and died, this captain is a ''walrus'', and is thus never really in any danger of drowning or hypothermia, which he points out bemusedly after you went through all the trouble]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Poptropica}}''’s SOS Island, the captain decides to go down with the sinking Titanic. [[spoiler:Fortunately, you manage to convince him to leave at the end, after navigating through the mostly waterlogged ship.]]

* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'':
** Averted when Captain Tagon's response is to request to be teraported off the ''Serial Peacemaker'' when it's facing destruction. When this trope is brought up, he points out the ship isn't his anymore as it's been hijacked by its ArtificialIntelligence. It's not that Tagon isn't brave (he'd already given his life in an alternate history to help his men escape) but he ''is'' a professional mercenary and thus is very pragmatic about such things.
** After the crew of a destroyed ship wake up in an ArtificialAfterlife the XO is taking roll with the explanation [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-09-24 "Captains go down with ships. Executive officers muster the dead."]]

* The season 1 finale of ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries'' sees Obake go out like this when his plans are undone and his lair starts falling apart [[spoiler: even telling Baymax he's [[ArcWords satisfied with his care]].]] Unlike most examples on this list, there's nothing to do with honor in this scene, just a sort of... sad acceptance.

** {{Inverted}} in [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E07StealthStrike "Stealth Strike"]] — when the Imperial Interdictor and her escort cruisers are destroyed, Admiral Brom Titus is the only confirmed survivor.
** In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E13FamilyReunionAndFarewell "Family Reunion]] [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E14FamilyReunionAndFarewellPartII — and Farewell"]], [[spoiler: Governor Pryce]] chooses to remain aboard the flying Imperial dome rather than escape, calmly looking out over the city with a look of pure fury and hatred on her face seconds before the dome explodes.

** The famous "Miracle on the Hudson" was an event in 2009 when Captain Chesley Sullenberger landed his crippled Airbus A320 on the Hudson River.[[note]] For those not familiar with American geography, this is impressive because the Hudson river is a peculiarly small target. Not only is it much narrower than its volume would suggest, it is also at the bottom of massive limestone cliffs. To land his extra-wide Airbus A320, the Captain had to approach at a steep angle that most commercial pilots would find very difficult. It's also worth noting that several key instruments on the plane were damaged when this landing took place.[[/note]] After deploying the rafts and evacuating the passengers, Captain Sullenberger was the last off the sinking aircraft, having wandered all the way down the aisle and back to check that nobody was left on board-- twice.[[note]]Interestingly, the A320 operating manual stipulates that the captain should be the last person off the aircraft-- but that the first officer should be ''first'' off the aircraft, to assist the evacuation from the outside and coordinate the passengers on the ground (or water, as the case may be). This can be a little alarming for the passengers.[[/note]] Then when the people in his life raft were rescued by a ferry, he was the last person to climb up the ladder. He also refused to leave the Port Authority Ferry Terminal until all of his passengers could be accounted for. His actions would later be depicted in the film ''Film/{{Sully}}''.

** Captain Yiannis Avranas of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTS_Oceanos MTS Oceanos]]'' was one of the first off the ship when it sank off South Africa in 1991. He later decried the concept that the captain must go down with the ship, stating that "abandon ship is for everybody. If some people want to stay, they can stay." The problem was that Captain Avranas dreadfully mismanaged the sinking, doing little to stop it (sometimes making it worse) and failing to even notify the relevant authorities or the passengers that the ship was sinking. In fact, he was only aboard as long as he was because he'd been previously caught trying to escape multiple times by lifeboat. Instead of leading emergency efforts, the majority of the crew and all of the senior officers--including Captain Avranas--abandoned their post to load the two most seaworthy lifeboats with their personal possessions and escape while the passengers were kept ignorant. The ship's ''entertainers'' had to run the evacuation after discovering the deception, alongside manning the now-abandoned bridge and calling for help. Their attempts were initially met with incredulity by the authorities, owing to the fact that the radio was being operated by the ship's stage magician instead of an officer. Fortunately, rescue authorities believed them and everyone aboard survived, but they were ''pissed'', and Avranas and his senior crew were later found guilty of negligence by Greek maritime authorities. It's notable that unlike the cowardly crew, the entertainment staff-come-makeshift emergency crew ''did'' wait until passengers were saved to be rescued thenselves, and were hailed as heroes by the passengers for it.

** Captain Lee Joon-seok of the South Korean ferry ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol MV Sewol]]'' abandoned the sinking ship with passengers still aboard and was among the first to be rescued-- in spite of South Korean law ''requiring'' the captain to remain on the ship. He was also spotted on the lifeboat without his pants, and it was suggested that he was attending to "business" in his cabin at the time of the accident, and that the crew was drinking beer on the deck as they tried to resolve the problem. The South Korean public was ''infuriated'', especially as around 300 people died (many of them high school students), and the captain was found guilty of homicide and given a life sentence.

** The HMS ''Guardian'' sank on its maiden voyage on its way to the newly-founded British colony at Botany Bay in Australia. The captain, Lieutenant Edward Riou, evacuated the passengers into lifeboats and stayed on board with a skeleton crew, all of them expecting to die. Remarkably, they decided that they weren't about to go down without a fight, and they frantically began a series of quick repairs and gruelling, non-stop shifts at the pumps. And in an incredible feat of seamanship, Riou managed to guide the crippled ''Guardian'' -- which by some accounts was little more than a gigantic raft by then -- back to Cape Town. In a tragic irony, almost all the passengers Riou saved were never seen again-- only a single lifeboat with fifteen people was found by chance, by a French merchant ship.

** The big aversion was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bruce_Ismay J. Bruce Ismay]], the owner and managing director of the White Star Line. He did assist in loading several of the lifeboats, and he did board the last lifeboat to be launched, but the very fact that Ismay survived was controversial, and he was labeled a DirtyCoward and forced to resign from the company his father had built. A popular myth at the time was that he dressed as a woman in order to escape.

* The tradition is particularly common in Japan, who had picked it up from the British. However, they didn't realize ''why'' the British did it; it's to ensure that everyone gets off the ship. The Japanese instead found that it dovetailed nicely with the ''[[BushidoIndex bushido]]'' code, with the idea that the captain has to "share the ship's fate" matching the idea of a defeated samurai dying an honorable death. This meant that occasionally, a Japanese naval captain might go down with the ship even when he's sure that everyone else is safe. Especially in UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan, the Navy lost quite a few good commanders that way; in particular, Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi of the ''Hiryu'' refused rescue and either [[HonorBeforeReason chained himself to an anchor]] to ensure his death, or remain on the bridge alongisde Captain Tomeo Kaku while conversing about the moon

** The famous "Miracle on the Hudson" was an event in 2009 when Captain Chesley Sullenberger landed his crippled Airbus A320 on the Hudson River.[[note]] for those not familiar with American geography, this is impressive because the Hudson river is a peculiarly small target. Not only is it much narrower than it's volume would suggest, it is also at the bottom of massive limestone cliffs. To land his extra-wide Airbus A320, the Captain had to approach at a steep angle that most commercial pilots would find very difficult. It's also worth noting that several key instruments on the plane were damaged when this landing took place.[[/note]] After deploying the rafts and evacuating the passengers, Captain Sullenberger was the last off the sinking aircraft, having wandered all the way down the aisle and back to check that nobody was left on board -- twice.[[note]]Interestingly, the A320 operating manual stipulates that the captain should be the last person off the aircraft -- but that the first officer should be ''first'' off the aircraft, to assist the evacuation from the outside and coordinate the passengers on the ground (or water, as the case may be). This can be a little alarming for the passengers.[[/note]] Then when the people in his life raft were rescued by a ferry, he was the last person to climb up the ladder. He also refused to leave the Port Authority Ferry Terminal until all of his passengers could be accounted for. His actions would later be depicted in the film ''Film/{{Sully}}''.

* This is pretty much expected from the captain of a submarine -- when you're in a metal tube hundreds of feet underwater, escape is usually not an option. Famous examples include Günther Prien of ''U-47'' and John Wesley Harvey of the USS ''Thresher''. The big exception, though, is when the sub surfaces to attack, in which case the captain is usually on the conning tower leading the attack and is thus the only one ''expected'' to be able to survive an accident if one happened. Famous examples of ''this'' include Otto Kretschmer of ''U-99'' and Richard Heatherton O'Kane of the USS ''Tang'', both being their respective nations' leading submarine aces.

* In fact, the tradition is so ingrained that when a captain ''doesn't'' go down with the ship, he's called a DirtyCoward and reviled for his actions. And it also shows that captains who try to escape first often tend not to be very competent at other captain things either.

** Captain Lee Joon-seok of the South Korean ferry ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol MV Sewol]]'' abandoned the sinking ship with passengers still aboard and was among the first to be rescued -- in spite of the fact that South Korean law ''requires'' the captain to remain on the ship. He was also spotted on the lifeboat without his pants, and it was suggested that he was attending to "business" in his cabin at the time of the accident, and that the crew was drinking beer on the deck as they tried to resolve the problem. The South Korean public was ''infuriated'', especially as around 300 people died (many of them high school students), and the captain was found guilty of homicide and given a life sentence.

** The HMS ''Guardian'' sank on its maiden voyage on its way to the newly-founded British colony at Botany Bay in Australia. The captain, Lieutenant Edward Riou, evacuated the passengers into lifeboats and stayed on board with a skeleton crew, all of them expecting to die. Remarkably, they decided that they weren't about to go down without a fight, and they frantically began a series of quick repairs and gruelling, non-stop shifts at the pumps. And in an incredible feat of seamanship, Riou managed to guide the crippled ''Guardian'' -- which by some accounts was little more than a gigantic raft by then -- back to Cape Town. In a tragic irony, almost all the passengers Riou saved were never seen again -- only a single lifeboat with fifteen people was found by chance, by a French merchant ship.

In modern cases, captains go down with the ship because they will [[MyGreatestFailure face major disgrace if they don't]],[[DeathEqualsRedemption especially if the ship is only sinking because of their screw-up,]] or if there are passengers or junior crew still on board.

---> '''Tamon Yamaguchi:''' Let us enjoy the beauty of the moon
---> '''Tomeo Kaku:''' How bright it shines
---> '''Tamon Yamaguchi:''' It must be in its 21st day.