History Main / ThanatosGambit

* In the video where ''LetsPlay/{{Dream}}'' hunts down George, he builds a secret room near the End portal with a bed and sets his spawn in it. [[spoiler:Later, thanks to a fumble, he falls to his death and acts distraught at losing all his items and seemingly giving George the win. But he just hides in the bed room until George enters the End, punches his way out, dives in the portal after him, and slaps him off into the void while his guard was down.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'': In the climax of the Battle of Kaer Morhen, the Wild Hunt have gotten past everyone else, Imlerith is holding [[spoiler:Vesemir]] by the throat, and Ciri is about to surrender to Eredin. [[spoiler:Vesemir]] futilely stabs Imlerith, who then breaks his neck and throws him to the ground. Seeing this triggers an explosion of Ciri's [[MakeMeWannaShout power]], which forces the Wild Hunt to retreat, without her.

* ''Anime/CodeGeass''. ''Lelouch''. He died for ''world peace''. More exactly, he made himself into a tyrant so terrible that the world united against him and then arranged for Suzaku to assassinate him while disguised as his own alter ego. It qualifies more strongly as a situation in which DeathIsTheOnlyOption; if he had chosen to live, he would just be spending the rest of his life living for himself, the world would have become a monument to his rule empty of the compassion and meaning it otherwise could have had, and everything he had done as he sought to change the world for the better would have been for nothing. Instead, he valued everyone else's well-being over his own and died hoping that no one would ever hate another person again. WordOfGod also explained that the Zero Requiem was also redemption for Lelouch and that he thought that death was the only fitting punishment.

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' has Lordgenome's final plan: upon seeing the Anti Spiral King weaponizing the energy of compressed galaxes into a universe-destroying energy beam, he walks out in front of it (it should be noted that he does this in space, while naked, and on fire). Not because he's TakingTheBullet to protect Simon and his daughter Nia (though he is), but so he can reconstitute his long-destroyed [[HumongousMecha Lazengann]] from ''pure willpower alone'' and hold off a Big Bang event, even as it destroys him on a quantum level. This is not just a HeroicSacrifice but a form of BequeathedPower, as Lordgenome absorbs the energy long enough to overtake it himself...by turning it into a giant drill that he force-feeds to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (in the TV show) or Tengen Toppa Lagann (in the movie) to power them up with an ''absurd'' amount of Spiral Energy--enough that [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale the Spiral Detection Gauge shatters as the Spiral Energy reading leaks off the meter and into the rest of reality itself]]. And his plan ''works'', as his DyingMomentOfAwesome for the ages enables Simon, Nia, and Team Dai-Gurren to fight and eventually defeat the Anti Spiral King.

* This may have been the case with John Wilkes Booth, who shot and assassinated UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln at Ford's Theatre when Lincoln was watching a performance of ''Our American Cousin'', 5 days after the Civil War ended with Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Booth had planned to avenge the Confederates' loss and dissolution, with other assassins plotting against Vice-President UsefulNotes/AndrewJohnson and Secretary of State William Seward; Johnson's potential assassin lost his nerve, and Seward was merely wounded by stabbing. Lincoln died on April 15th, resulting in Johnson succeeding Lincoln as President, resulting in Johnson offering his own Reconstruction plan which empowered Southern states, opposing the Fourteenth Amendment to no avail when it was ratified by Congress in 1868. After shooting Lincoln, Booth made a dramatic escape, injuring his leg after jumping to the stage below, fleeing to southern Maryland and then Richard Garrett's farm in Port Royal, Virginia, where he was shot in a flaming barn by Union troops led by Boston Corbett on April 26th.

* Allegedly, Alvaro Colom, the president of Guatemala, was involved in an illicit deal involving the appointment of an honest and well-known businessman, Khalil Musa, to a bank known to launder money for drug dealers. Purportedly, Musa and his daughter Marjorie were killed by Colom's men in exchange for some kind of favorable deal. Allegedly, Musa's lawyer/Marjorie's boyfriend Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano was first threatened and then violently murdered when he wouldn't shut up about the alleged cover-up. If true, this would've solved all of President Colom's problems... until the above allegations were broadcast on national television on a pre-recorded video, in which the deceased opened with the words, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_ODpxMA10& "Good morning. My name is Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano. And regrettably, if you are currently watching or listening to this message, it's because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom..."]]

* [[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Giles_Corey Giles Corey]] was a farmer put to death during the Salem witch trials for refusing to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty to the charge of witchcraft. To force him to, they piled rocks on him and asked him three times to enter a plea. His reply each time was "More weight." Those eventually became his final words. His reason? As long as he refused to enter a plea, the state could not seize his property, and by pretty much sacrificing his own life he could make sure that his widow and his family would be well provided for. Particularly noble considering entering either pleas would have resulted in his death anyways. In this way he died, but not needlessly. [[PyrrhicVictory His widow Martha wouldn't get to enjoy the fruits of his success, though]], as she followed him the next day via the gallows.

** Also related to NFL football: With her last breaths, a woman named Cherica Adams called the police and made sure they knew that a promising NFL player, Carolina Panthers' Rae Carruth, was responsible for her murder, even though the gunman was someone else, hired by Rae after Cherica didn't want to abort the kid of Rae's that she was pregnant with. The hired gunman, Van Brett Walkins, later testified against Rae and claimed that Rae not only paid him for the killing but threatened him as well if he didn't go through with it. The police and paramedics were able to save the child, who was eight months along at the time, but Cherica died later in the hospital; as a result, Rae was convicted for conspiring to commit first-degree murder.

* Fox Lake, Illinois police officer Lt. Charles Joseph Glinewicz attempted this in 2015 but failed. On September 1st, he radioed in that he was pursuing three suspects; officers arrived on the scene to find Glinewicz shot to death, and a large-scale manhunt began which lasted over a week. It was eventually discovered that Glinewicz had been embezzling from a department-sponsored youth program he was in charge of; the village had ordered an audit, and he knew his theft would be discovered...so he staged his suicide to look like a homicide, in an attempt to cover up his crime.

** Hernandez's death also enabled his family to have his brain studied for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head, increasingly seen in football players. CTE can only be diagnosed via autopsy and is associated with aggressiveness, explosiveness, impulsivity, depression, memory loss, and other cognitive changes. When he was diagnosed with stage 3 CTE, the most severe case yet to be seen in a person of his age, his fiance was able to use it as grounds for a lawsuit against the NFL.

** A more modest example is Qhorin Halfhand, who tells Jon that should they run into any wildlings while they're on their recon mission beyond the Wall, he's to pretend to want to join them so he can be TheMole and stay alive until he gets a chance to run away and BringNewsBack. He tells Jon to do anything the wildlings ask of him to keep up appearances, even if it means breaking his vows as a member of the Night's Watch. As it turns out, and as Qhorin well knows, the first proof they want is for Jon to kill Qhorin.

Compare MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning (using your death to set off a plan, whereas this is using your death to end the plan), InspirationalMartyr (where your death inspires others to follow you, although you may have not planned it), DeathIsTheOnlyOption, and DeadMansSwitch. A subtrope in which the character expects to be revived somehow is a ResurrectionGambit. Sometimes happens with a TakingYouWithMe, possibly in the manner of a CollapsingLair ([[LoadBearingBoss villains]] like this one). Is often incited with StrikeMeDown, and can overlap with SuicideByCop. May be invoked with a DyingReconcilliation. Related to FailureGambit and GloriousDeath.

Compare MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning (using your death to set off a plan, whereas this is using your death to end the plan), InspirationalMartyr (where your death inspires others to follow you, although you may have not planned it), DeathIsTheOnlyOption, and DeadMansSwitch. A subtrope in which the character expects to be revived somehow is a ResurrectionGambit. Sometimes happens with a TakingYouWithMe, possibly in the manner of a CollapsingLair ([[LoadBearingBoss villains]] like this one). Is often incited with StrikeMeDown, and can overlap with SuicideByCop. Related to FailureGambit and GloriousDeath.

* ''ComicBook/LargoWinch'': After a lifetime of [[TheChessmaster pulling people on strings]] Nerio Winch even tries to use his death to his advantage and arranges for a co-worker he wants to get rid of to shoot him -- too bad the guy sees through the scheme and decides to make it look like suicide instead, asking him what it feels like not being in control for the first time before he throws him off the roof. And in the end, the old guy still gets the upper hand when it turns out that he has secretly adopted an heir (the protagonist). Notable is that Largo hates Nerio with a passion, yet carries out his will anyway.

* Dellyn Goblinslayer attempted this in ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}''. The legacy he had built for himself in Brassmoon, his legend and all of his works were all systematically torn apart by Thaco. Even if he survived he would be forgotten, but he realized he had one last chance for immortality. He tried to manipulate Thaco into [[StrikeMeDown kill him after a final confrontation]] so that in years to come the story of Dellyn Goblinslayer would be told among the goblin tribes, forever emblazoning him on their racial memory. And Thaco... [[CruelMercy let him live]].

* In ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'', Quentyn agreed to take on the near-suicidal quest because his village will be saved if he either succeeds or die trying (the latter being the most likely in his mind, as he doesn't know of things like {{Plot Armor}}s).

* Acibek's and Dryad's death in ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan: Oracle For Hire''.
* The Baron Owen Grayfort dies in a story arc in ''Webcomic/YetAnotherFantasyGamerComic''. The human goddess, who had dealt with his family before and doesn't like them, wants to hurry him along to the afterlife but he manages to convince her to let him appear in the dreams of his two sons and his lover to give his final farewell; he then tells the son (who is now the new baron) to place three coins in his coffin instead of the customary two. During his funeral, his son does so and a triumphant baron explains to the goddess that he's entitled to a haunting due to an ''improper burial''. This is presumably so he can remain with his family and guide his son as the new baron. Needless to say, the goddess is ''not'' happy.

* ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' gives several examples of how to use this just to mess around with people, such as [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2023#comic here]]. Or [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=1954#comic like this]]. Or [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2081 this]].
* Dellyn Goblinslayer attempted this in ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}''. The legacy he had built for himself in Brassmoon, his legend and all of his works were all systematically torn apart by Thaco. Even if he survived he would be forgotten, but he realized he had one last chance for immortality. He tried to manipulate Thaco into [[StrikeMeDown kill him after a final confrontation]] so that in years to come the story of Dellyn Goblinslayer would be told among the goblin tribes, forever emblazoning him on their racial memory. And Thaco... [[CruelMercy let him live]].
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': In order to let herself and the rest of her teammates keep existing after [[ResetButton the Scratch]], Meenah detonated a bomb, killing herself and all of her teammates. It works - while they're all dead, they get to exist in the dream bubbles, and as such continue to influence the story.
** Dirk gets another - in order to revive his dreamself, he {{Portal Cut}}s his own head off and sends it, along with the Auto-Responder, to Jake, who [[MagicKiss kisses it]] and fulfills a StableTimeLoop.
** Earlier than both, Doc Scratch had one. One involving the author and a broom.

* Be it ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars2'', ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha Gaiden'' or ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration Gaiden'', Shu Shirakawa pulls this off in all three AlternateContinuities. The reason why can be found in Part 2 of ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsGaiden''.

** In the [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003 2003 anime version]], when Greed realizes that he's going to die anyway, he provokes Ed [[ItGetsEasier (who had never killed anyone up to this point)]] into killing him. As he's dying, he reveals the ''KryptoniteFactor'' of a homunculus so that Ed will be able to take out the other homunculi.

** Possibly Mello. After Light and Near are squaring up to take the other down, Mello takes them both by surprise by [[spoiler:kidnapping Kyomi Takada]] thus driving a train through their carefully laid plans. This of course [[spoiler:fails and Mello and Matt die as well as Takada.]] However Near says that if it wasn't for Mello he wouldn't be able to enact his plans. It is suggested, though never confirmed, that Mello knew this. After all, when Mello spoke to Near he told him far more information about his findings and suspicions than he needed to "pay off a debt". Of course, being Mello even if this was true he would never admit it...

** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': In chapter 4, after being outed as TheMole, [[spoiler:Sakura [[HeroicSacrifice willingly commits suicide as a way to atone for betraying the group]] while simultaneously fulfilling the bargain she made with the Mastermind (he said she had to kill someone, but never said it had to be someone ''else''). She also knows that by killing herself, the remaining students will no longer be divided over whether or not to trust her, and can actually unite against the Mastermind. She also breaks open the door to the headmaster's office before killing herself, in order to give the other students access to the information contained there.]] While the gambit initially falters a bit due to [[spoiler:Monokuma stealing the SuicideNote with her explanation and replacing it with a fake]], it ultimately ends up working once everyone else discovers the full story. [[spoiler:The students do, in fact, finally begin to trust each other, and the information they find in the headmasters office proves to be quite important.]]