History Main / YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness/VisualNovels

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': After [[spoiler:the attack on Haven]] fails miserably, [[spoiler:[[TheMole Lionheart]]]] decides to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere try and run]]. [[spoiler:[[BigBad Salem]] has the Seer kill him, because his only usefulness was his status as Haven's headmaster. [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath Quite brutally]], [[SoundOnlyDeath from the sound of it]]]]. What really hammers it in is how casual [[spoiler: Salem]] is while doing it.

** It's been suggested by several critics that the ThinkOfTheChildren impetus was only ever a smoke-screen for the Code's ''real'' purpose: to drive horror/crime giant Creator/ECComics straight into the ground. See, after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, superhero publishers were pretty much hemorrhaging readers every year, while EC was gobbling up the market with ''far'' more action-packed (''and'' usually more creative) comics. Solution? Launch a nationwide moral panic that superhero titles could weather (sometimes even [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks flourish in]]) better than horror/crime stuff ever could..

* The UsefulNotes/ComicsCode Authority ran into this full stop, and it was never really useful to begin with. Basically its role was censoring comics so they wouldn't damage the minds of impressionable young children, but it was created due to the efforts of a man clinging to a false premise based on observations of a subject group that was far too narrow for the scope of what he claimed, and pretty much made up evidence if he couldn't obtain it through the scientific method (which he never tried to apply anyway). Bottom line, all the Comics Code really did was stifle creativity, force comics to be highly formulaic, and prevent any effort to address real social, political, or cultural issues. Comic publishing companies chafed under this until the 1990's, then basically started pushing the envelope as much as they wanted. Eventually all the comic publishers stopped adhering to it, and just published comics without the Code before abandoning it altogether. The CCA become defunct in 2011.

** The SA. The ''Sturmabteilung'' was vital to the NSDAP's (and Hitler's) rise to power, however, only two years later, the SA was forcibly disbanded during the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives Night of The Long Knives]] (aka Operation Hummingbird, aka Röhm Putsch). Most of its high-ranking officers were killed either right then and there or soon after.
*** Very narrowly averted in the case of Franz von Papen; even after securing Hitler chancellorship, something Hindenburg would have been very unlikely to grant without Papen's intervention, Hitler strongly considered having him killed on the Night of the Long Knives. Ultimately, he decided against it.

* UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher was the longest serving Tory Prime Minister of the 20th century, and one of the most successful politicians of all time. She led her party to three consecutive landslide victories, broke the back of the labour movement and the Labour Party, and permanently shifted British politics to the right. But when she became an electoral liability, the Tory party had nothing for her but this.
** This is pretty damn common in politics in general. If someone is not leaving an office of their own volition (i.e. retirement) or due to term limits, 9 times out of 10, they're being forced out by other people, which could be either the voters or party higher-ups.

** A similar fate befalls male dairy calves: as they will not produce milk, they are sometimes slaughtered for veal at as young as two weeks of age. The use of this trope is what motivates many (philosophical/ethical) vegans.

* An especially heartbreaking form of this trope comes into play with animals used in the entertainment industry, particularly primates such as chimpanzees and orangutans, as well as big cats like tigers; once the animals have grown too strong and powerful to control, their trainers unceremoniously dump them at poorly-run, filthy roadside zoos, which masquerade as "[[VeryFalseAdvertising sanctuaries]]".

'''WARNING: As this is somewhat of a DeathTrope (in many cases, at least), there are spoilers, so read at your own risk!'''

* This is, unfortunately, basically how nature and evolution "see" individuals: once an adult has reproduced and given their offspring the care they need to survive on their own, the parents are pretty much expendable, which is why we didn't evolve any resistance to most diseases that tend to occur late in life, or evolve resistance to aging in the first place.
** Not true in species subject to kin selection, like homo sapiens. This is why post-menopausal women don't die off promptly - their continued existence advances the interests of younger kin who share some of their genes, propagating those genes.

** Subverted if recent discoveries are correct in their assumptions that the death of Stalin (who ''was'' poisoned good and proper) was instigated on the direct order of UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.

* After the [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober October Revolution and Civil War]] in Russia was over, many of its ideologists were purged because [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Josef Stalin]] claimed that as vehement revolutionaries they knew nothing except staging rebellions and rooting out inner enemies. Stalin then proceeded to root out "inner enemies" (such as [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the Jews]], here called "rootless cosmopolitans") until ''1953'', long after every single member of the original Bolshevik party had been executed or exiled. He was gearing up for another round of this trope when (scientists discovered decades later) he was poisoned by one of his own inner circle, who all feared for their lives.

** A similar fate befalls male dairy calves: as they will not produce milk, they are slaughtered for veal at as young as two weeks of age. As mother cows suckle their young for up to two years, the extra milk she produces is what we buy in groceries, and once she stops lactating, she is mated again only for her next calf to be killed so that the milk she produced for it can be harvested. The use of this trope is why ethical vegans oppose the milk and egg industries.

** Hens that are too old to lay eggs (or just too old to lay eggs quickly enough) suffer such a fate, and are often slaughtered and added to processed meat products or as fertilizer or animal feed. They at least have it off easier than ''male'' chicks, who are ground up alive en masse at only one day old as they will never lay eggs and are of no use to the egg industry.

*** Speaking of the SA, the Nazis essentially did this to the gay community. Early on, the party quietly promised to create a world where homosexuality would be accepted. This got them a lot of support from the gay community, in the form of recruits (most of the SA) and money. When the Nazi party grew big enough where the more mainstream homophobic crowd was promising them greater money and even more men, the party simply switched its policy to create a world where homosexuality would be ''eliminated'' instead. This was a convenient excuse to purge the SA; they found plenty of homosexuals to round up [[EvilIsNotAToy by simply going down the party's membership records.]]