History ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill / Literature

--> It was that last fact that militated more against Andy than any of the others. The DA with the political aspirations made a great deal of it in his opening statement and his closing summation. Andrew Dufresne, he said, was not a wronged husband seeking a hot-blooded revenge against his cheating wife; that, the DA said, could be understood, if not condoned. But this revenge had been of a much colder type. Consider! the DA thundered at the jury. Four and four! Not six shots, but eight! He had fired the gun empty . . . and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again! FOUR FOR HIM AND FOUR FOR HER, the Portland Sun blared. The Boston Register dubbed him the “Even-Steven Killer.”

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''[[Literature/DifferentSeasons Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption]]'', being accused of this kind of crime is what gets Andy Dufresne such a hefty sentence.

* ''Literature/Suggsverse'' is all about this, with infinite universes being destroyed and created regularly

** This example, like many other uses of Balefire, seems to actually be a subversion. It appears that it's Overkill at first glance, but sometimes it's the only way to be sure. Showing restraint and simply killing the Forsaken through other means has allowed them to be reborn. Also, despite being called Overkill, this particular example with Graendal turned out to be not enough kill as mentioned.

* in ''Literature/{{Sandokan}}'', anyone with half a brain tend to bring as much firepower as they can.

** The craziness of Jonathan Teatime in the ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' is established with a recounting of him doing this during an assassination mission. He was supposed to kill an elderly noble, and rather than drugging the guy's dog as would be typical, he nails it to the ceiling, kills two servants who were witnesses, and kills his victim so violently that his head is several feet from his body. It's a good thing he did the trick with the mirror where you hold it in front of a victim's mouth to check if he's still breathing. Can never be too sure. Hm hm.
** Special mention needs to go to the Piecemaker, which is described as "a siege cross-bow that three men couldn't lift, [Detritus] had converted it to fire a thick sheaf of arrows all at once. Mostly they shattered in the air because of the forces involved, and the target was hit by an expanding cloud of burning splinters. Vimes had banned him from using it on people, but it was a damn good way of getting into buildings. It could open the front door and the back door at the same time." Hence, [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments "If Mr. Safety Catch is not on, Mr. Crossbow is not your friend."]]

** Among other achievements this lovely young girl managed to lead her fireteam into melee with soldiers devoted to Khorn. Later we learn that her squad sustained no casualties.

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein disapproves of this trope. As he has Sergeant Zim from ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' comment, war is controlled violence, not killing for its own sake, and there are times where it would as foolish to destroy an enemy city with H-bombs as it would be to punish a baby by decapitating it. The same novel has infantry armed with ''2-kiloton nuclear rockets'' (two soldiers per platoon have two ''each'')-and the soldiers are thoroughly instructed to make sure that ''if'' they use them they ''must'' make sure they annihilate the target and nothing else, to the point that in boot camp firing a simulated one by eyeballing rather than with the appropriate computer targeting got Johnnie Rico ''flogged'' and almost drummed out (he ''should'' have court-martialed, flogged and drummed out, but Zim and the other instructors saw him as redeemable and decided not to summon a court martial unless Rico asked, and he was smart enough not to).

* The eponymous of Iain M. Banks's Culture novels have weaponised this notion. It's strongly suspected by other civilisations that their shared "Do not fuck with the Culture" meme actually originates with subtle Culture propaganda. It's true that if you're nice to the Culture it will bend over itself to be even nicer back; it's not above responding to attacks in the same way.

* In the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' books, it's stated Russia threw almost "its entire nuclear arsenal" at Israel (which was somehow defeated). Either the writers didn't know what "entire arsenal" meant or Russia decided to use nearly 4000 nukes on a country the size of New Jersey.

** Special mention needs to go to the Piecemaker, which is described as "a siege cross-bow that three men couldn't lift, [Detritus] had converted it to fire a thick sheaf of arrows all at once. Mostly they shattered in the air because of the forces involved, and the target was hit by an expanding cloud of burning splinters. Vimes had banned him from using it on people, but it was a damn good way of getting into buildings. It could open the front door and the back door at the same time." Hence, [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "If Mr. Safety Catch is not on, Mr. Crossbow is not your friend."]]

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein disapproves of this trope. As he has Sergeant Zim from ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' comment, war is controlled violence, not killing for its own sake, and there are times where it would as foolish to destroy an enemy city with H-bombs as it would be to punish a baby by decapitating it.

* [[spoiler: Tigerstar]]'s death in ''Literature/WarriorCats''. Killed by [[spoiler: having nine internal organs cut through, therefore losing [[CatsHaveNineLives all nine of his leader's lives at once]].]]

* ''Literature/ManKzinWars]'':

* One of the [[Literature/KnownSpace Man-Kzin Wars]] collections contains the story of a ship called ''Catskinner'', which is a crewed ramscoop ship that has a largish number of 500-pound chunks of iron that it drops shortly before reaching its target system. It slows down by hitting the ''star''. For those lacking a grasp of the scale, the effect is like a relativistic shotgun blast the size of an entire star system. This was the ''diversion'' for the real mission, which was to insert (two teams of) assassins to kill the recently arrived representative of the Kzinti central government before he could mount a successful invasion of Earth. This manages to be both overkill (for a diversion) and under-kill given what they ''could'' have done to the system...

* In another ''Tabletop/{{Warhammer40000}}'' series, ''Literature/BlackLegion'', "overkill" seems to be Khayon's standard ''modus operandi''.

* There is a collection of short stories set in the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe that's entitled "Planetkill".

** The craziness of Jonathan Teatime in the ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' is established with a recounting of him doing this during an assassination mission. He was supposed to kill an elderly noble, and rather than drugging the guy's dog as would be typical, he nails it to a wall, kills two servants who were witnesses, and kills his victim so violently that his head is several feet from his body. It's a good thing he did the trick with the mirror where you hold it in front of a victim's mouth to check if he's still breathing. Can never be too sure. Hm hm.

* The craziness of Jonathan Teatime in the ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' is established with a recounting of him doing this during an assassination mission. He was supposed to kill an elderly noble, and rather than drugging the guy's dog as would be typical, he nails it to a wall, kills two servants who were witnesses, and kills his victim so violently that his head is several feet from his body. It's a good thing he did the trick with the spoon where you hold it in front of a victim's mouth to check if he's still breathing. Can never be too sure. Hm hm.
** Special Literature/{{Discworld}} mention needs to go to the Piecemaker, which is described as "a siege cross-bow that three men couldn't lift, [Detritus] had converted it to fire a thick sheaf of arrows all at once. Mostly they shattered in the air because of the forces involved, and the target was hit by an expanding cloud of burning splinters. Vimes had banned him from using it on people, but it was a damn good way of getting into buildings. It could open the front door and the back door at the same time." Hence, [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "If Mr. Safety Catch is not on, Mr. Crossbow is not your friend."]]

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' expanded universe human ships ended up carrying salvos of "archer" anti-ship missiles that could devastate a human fleet (one archer could severely damage a destroyer) just to take down the shields of a covenant frigate. Justified that Covenant frigates can withstand tactical nuclear weapons.
** How the Forerunners wage war in ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'': Their main tactic is usually to bring literally tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of ships and semi-automated drones to bear, and have them sweep across entire star systems in complex, mind-bending patterns. All the while, ancillas and organic Forerunner commanders are simulating the battle possibly quintillions of times, analyzing all possible outcomes and determining the best course of action. Every ship is also making such heavy use of slipspace, that reality itself unravels around the battle, and enemies are prevented from making proper use of FTL travel due to clogged "slipspace channels".

* The craziness of Jonathan Teatime in the ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' is established with a recounting of him doing this during an assassination mission. He was supposed to kill an elderly noble, and rather than drugging the guy's dog as would be typical, he [[KickTheDog nails it to a wall]], kills two servants who were witnesses, and kills his victim so violently that his head is several feet from his body.
** It's a good thing he did the trick with the spoon where you hold it in front of a victim's mouth to check if he's still breathing. Can never be too sure. Hm hm.
** Special Literature/{{Discworld}} mention needs to go to the Piecemaker, which is described as "a siege cross-bow that three men couldn't lift, [Detritus] had converted it to fire a thick sheaf of arrows all at once. Mostly they shattered in the air because of the forces involved, and the target was hit by an expanding cloud of burning splinters. Vimes had banned him from using it on people, but it was a damn good way of getting into buildings. It could open the front door and the back door at the same time."
*** Hence, [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "If Mr. Safety Catch is not on, Mr. Crossbow is not your friend."]]

* In ''Literature/{{Relativity}},'' the villain Rasmas blows up ''an entire [[AmusementParkOfDoom abandoned amusement park]]'' in an attempt to kill the heroes. [[BondVillainStupidity It doesn't work.]]

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' expanded universe human ships ended up carrying salvos of "archer" anti-ship missiles that could decimate a human fleet (one archer could severely damage a destroyer) just to take down the shields of a covenant frigate. Justified that Covenant frigates can withstand tactical nuclear weapons.

** Special Literature/{{Discworld}} mention needs to go to the Piecemaker, which is described as "a siege cross-bow that three men couldn't lift, [Detritus] had converted it to fire a thick sheaf of arrows all at once. Mostly they shattered in the air because of the forces involved, and the target was hit by an expanding cloud of burning splinters. Vimes had banned him from using it on people, but it was a damn good way of getting into buildings. It could open the front door and the back door at the same time. Hence, [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "If Mr. Safety Catch is not on, Mr. Crossbow is not your friend."]]