History Main / MartyrWithoutACause

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/38241979 To All but Himself]]'': While [[Manga/DiamondIsUnbreakable Josuke Higashikata]] has [[HealingHands the power to heal others]], he is unable to heal himself. That doesn't stop him from putting himself in life-threatening danger to protect others while covering up his injuries. His friends and families are all horrified when they find the out the truth.

** King Pelleas display definite traits of the trope; he's quite happy to discover his death means freeing his country from the DealWithTheDevil he unwittingly signed.

-->'''Micaiah:''' No, I'm fine, really. I'm just confused... Is the goddess telling me that I'm not worthy to become a martyr for Daein?\\

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* The above bullet point of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' canon tends to encounter {{Flanderization}} in fan fiction. Whether or not he has powers, whether or not [[AdaptationalIntelligence his intelligence has increased]], and whether or not he is [[AdaptationalBadass comparatively a bigger badass than canon]], Izuku Midoriya tends to be even more suicidally reckless in his heroism (to the point that in some stories it's flat-out stated that he's got a death wish). An example of this is ''Fanfic/ViridianTheGreenGuide'', in which in one chapter Izuku is in a situation in which he may get killed and he's more concerned about [[SkewedPriorities how this may ruin Kacchan's chances to be a Hero than the fact he may die]] or what [[AdultFear his mother may suffer]] from finding out he's dead (and a vigilante).
* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/15597090/chapters/36212475 Nino Has Done Nothing To Deserve This]]'': Adrien as Chat Noir is noted by both Nino and Alya to do this, often throwing himself in front of attacks to protect Ladybug. This steams from growing up with controlling parents and only having [[AlphaBitch Chloe]] as a ChildhoodFriend before joining school. A major goal of both Nino and Alya is to help Adrien out of that mindset.
* ''Fanfic/UsAndThem'': Discussed in the sequel ''Life Renewed, Love Renewed'', where [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Aeris and Sephiroth]] have a heart-to-heart where Seph brings up her self-sacrificial tendecies, but she protests that she's not just some tragic altruist waiting to go down in a blaze of glory.

* TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness game, ''TabletopGame/HunterTheReckoning'', has the aptly-named Martyr creed. Their abilities all aid others at the cost of damage to themselves, and they tend to be pretty short-lived because of it. The book mentions that at least some Martyrs, if not all of them, have egotistical ideas of martyrdom, and it isn't fighting the good fight or the salvation of mankind that drives them, as much as it is the desire for sympathy, attention, and praise; they tend to make good vehicles for the deconstruction of MarySue tropes.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan's'' Ai Haibara will repeatedly put herself in harm's way if she feels it will protect someone she cares for. Early on, she was prepared to remain on an exploding bus because she felt she was endangering those around her because of the organization hunting her. CharacterDevelopment helps with the worst of this but still shows itself when, during the Mystery Train arc, she is so confident she will die she resolves to do so only after temporarily undoing her FountainOfYouth so her grade school friends won't kick up enough of a fuss at her death to catch the organization's eye.

* ComicBook/{{Cable}}. He made himself a giant target to prove to the world that things could be better if everyone put aside their differences and worked together -- to kill him. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} and his [[CrazyAwesome pesky insanity]]! (Well, the dying part anyway.)

* ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' has a Legacy called the Tamers of Void, who train themselves to be martyrs, then spend the rest of their lives ''looking'' for a cause to die for. If they become powerful enough and are still alive, they can get the ability to bring someone back to life, in exchange for their own death.

* Watanuki from ''Manga/XXXHolic'' has more than a few elements of this, though it is brought up eventually, and even more eventually justified into a backstory-defining plot point. As early as volume 8 of the Manga, he offers to give up his left eye to a spider demon if she'll release a friend, the Zashiki-Warashi, who was trying to recover his stolen ''right'' eye, leading to the monster deconstructing this trope and giving him an epiphany.

* Negi, the protagonist of ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', is repeatedly scolded by Asuna for that.

* [[Manga/{{Trigun}} Vash The Stampede]] takes this to ludicrous levels. His body is covered with scars he's suffered while protecting others -- including his enemies. He'd rather die than allow ANYONE around him to get killed, and the people who are shooting at him are not exempt from that. Good thing his ImprobableAimingSkills are just as overpowered as his morals...

* In ''Manga/PandoraHearts'', the fact that he cares nothing for himself is both Oz's strength and weakness. [[strike:Hell]] The Abyss holds no fear to one who doesn't give a damn what happens to himself.

** In Kizumonogatari, the chronologically first story, he becomes a vampire because he knowingly chose to die for a complete stranger simply because he believes it's a virtue to die for someone else. It only occurred to him much later that ''vampires eat people'' and what he did was insane. His first instinct is to try to die again.

* Ash from ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has a major habit of doing this as one of his first options rather than a last resort, usually to protect pokemon. Examples include, but are in no way limited to: throwing himself between the death blows of Mew and Mewtwo to stop the life-threatening fighting going on between all the pokemon in the ring; trying to make his pokemon go into their balls to protect them from the cold while stranded in a blizzard and leave him to freeze to death outside without the protection of their body heat; and leaping off the roof of a skyscraper after Pikachu is knocked off it, catching Pikachu in mid-air, and then trying to put himself beneath Pikachu to shield him from the impact with the ground. In skirmishes outside of formal battles, he will also often block attacks on his pokemon with his own body, even though pokemon are almost invariably tougher and less hurt by physical attacks than humans are.

* ''FanFic/DestinyIsAHazyThing''. One of Naruto's {{Internal Monologue}}s points out that Sakura's obsession with Sasuke might lead her to this.

* [[TheEmpire The Imperium]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' has this trope as ''official government policy'', with phrases like "it is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself" as their mottos. Naturally, considering [[CrapsackWorld the setting]], {{Senseless Sacrifice}}s abound. May be justified, as [[WeHaveReserves there's plenty more where that came from]].

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* ''FanFic/{{Destiny Is A Hazy Thing}}''. One of Naruto's {{Internal Monologue}}s points out that Sakura's obsession with Sasuke might lead her to this.
* ''Escape from The Hokage's Hat'': Naruto natch. Due to his crappy childhood, NoSocialSkills and ChronicHeroSyndrome the kid is so messed up he feels the need to save EVERYONE and being unable to do so means he's useless (in his mind). When Hinata calls him on this and points out she protects him because she ''WANTS'' to and Shizune says they care and are trying to fight ''with'' him not ''for'' him, he has a hard time processing these facts because he doesn't consider himself worth it.

Compare InspirationalMartyr when they do have a clear cause. Also compare SenselessSacrifice.

* ''Manga/BrynhildrInTheDarkness'': Neko Kuroha has an extreme case of ChronicHeroSyndrome that makes her very willing to self-sacrifice. Her self-sacrificial nature reaches such extremes that even if she if forewarned of a potential death by [[{{Seers}} Kana]] Kuroha will take no measures to make sure she isn't killed. This always means that Ryota has to keep finding a way to keep Kuroha and any other potential casualties from being killed.

* Shirou Emiya of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', to an intentionally [[DeconstructedTrope infuriating degree]]. Many characters call him out on this, and it comes back to bite him in more ways than simply being smeared across the pavement. [[spoiler:Archer, and by extension Shirou himself,]] is a walking deconstruction of this trope, as is most clear in the Unlimited Blade Works route in the VisualNovel. The big reason this comes across as stupidity is because [[AdaptationExplanationExtrication the first anime never explains Shirou's behaviour like UBW does]]; In one rather disturbing example, Shirou is stabbed in the arm, [[SkewedPriorities and he's more concerned that Rin is now covered in his blood than the fact that he's got a]] ''[[MajorInjuryUnderreaction giant stab wound in his arm]]''.

* A key aspect of Bella Swan's travels with the Tenth Doctor (''[[https://www.whofic.com/series.php?seriesid=2708 The Twilight Storm]]'') is her growing past this aspect of herself and choosing to actually put her life on the line for something legitimately important, such as [[spoiler:volunteering to destroy Gallifrey with the War, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors so that they genuinely won't have to do it alone]].

* The above bullet point of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' canon tends to encounter {{Flanderization}} in fan fiction. Whether or not he has powers, whether or not [[AdaptationalIntelligence his intelligence has increased]], and whether or not he has a Quirk from the beginning, Izuku Midoriya tends to be even more suicidally reckless in his heroism (to the point that in some stories it's flat-out stated that he's got a death wish). An example of this is ''Fanfic/ViridianTheGreenGuide'', in which in one chapter Izuku is in a situation in which he may get killed and he's more concerned about [[SkewedPriorities how this may ruin Kacchan's chances to be a Hero than the fact he may die]] or what [[AdultFear his mother may suffer]] from finding out he's dead (and a vigilante).

* [[ComicBook/XMen Colossus]] is noted to have this problem in 2014's ''Amazing X-Men'', where the rest of the cast point out/poke fun at his faintly absurd tendency to try and sacrifice himself at the drop of a hat. While this might seem a little cruel, several of the team had died at least once (usually in a HeroicSacrifice), and his habit was beginning to drift towards absurdity. He lampshaded this in his inner monologue while fighting the Juggernaut, and after winning (by [[DeadlyDodging dodging]] as the Juggernaut ran off a cliff), assumed he was about to die and collapsed near the edge... then realised that everyone was patiently waiting for him to get up (they weren't going to lift him up, because as Nightcrawler pointed out, he's their friend, but he's also very heavy).

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The Doctor is known to get so passionate so as to put himself right in the face of death to save someone or something he cares about, be it a group of people he's barely met or one of his companions.

** This fact is even addressed in a Fourth Series episode, "Turn Left", where the Doctor dies before he can regenerate. Earth is then pretty much shot to hell, the Torchwood team all dies, and various other happenings occur that weren't supposed to.
*** The episodes does show the Earth could survive without the Doctor for a while, but only because he was able to teach former companions what they needed to know to save the world. Even then the world took substantial damage before it finally ended.

* Shirou Emiya of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', to an intentionally [[DeconstructedTrope infuriating degree]]. Many characters call him out on this, and it comes back to bite him in more ways than simply being smeared across the pavement. [[spoiler:Archer, and by extension Shirou himself,]] is a walking deconstruction of this trope, as is most clear in the Unlimited Blade Works route in the VisualNovel. The big reason this comes across as stupidity is because [[AdaptationExplanationExtrication the first anime never explains Shirou's behaviour like UBW does]]; In one rather disturbing example, Shirou is stabbed in the arm, [[SkewedPriorities and he's more concerned that Rin is now covered in his blood than the fact that he's got a ''giant stab wound in his arm'']].

* Shirou Emiya of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', to an intentionally [[DeconstructedTrope infuriating degree]]. Many characters call him out on this, and it comes back to bite him in more ways than simply being smeared across the pavement. [[spoiler:Archer, and by extension Shirou himself,]] is a walking deconstruction of this trope, as is most clear in the Unlimited Blade Works route in the VisualNovel. The big reason this comes across as stupidity is because [[AdaptationExplanationExtrication the first anime never explains Shirou's behaviour like UBW does]]; In one rather disturbing example, Shirou is stabbed in the arm, and he's more concerned that Rin is now covered in his blood than the fact that he's got a ''giant stab wound in his arm''.

* In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]'':

* Averted in ''Fanfic/AVeryPotterMusical'': As in the original ''Literature/HarryPotter'', Voldemort asks Harry whom he will be using as a human shield this time. Harry has already told everyone not to interfere, but Ron steps forward to volunteer before Hermione yanks him back.

* It seems that, following the ending of ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'', [[spoiler:ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}]] seeks to be this way. Why? Because he wants to be the martyr for the reborn mutant race

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Harry, like in [[Literature/HarryPotter canon]], as being unfortunately prone to this. By the sequel, however, he's being trained out of it, with many of his friends and family repeatedly (and loudly) reminding him that he doesn't ''have'' to do everything alone, let alone perpetually try and sacrifice himself.