Despair Event Horizon / Real Life

• The Roman Empire pulled their troops from Britain in AD 407, effectively abandoning it. For the next 40+ years, the remaining Roman and Romano-British citizens, as well as their British and Welsh clients, were mercilessly raided by the Celts and Picts of the northern reaches of Great Britain which were outside the nominal Roman province of Britannia. Some time around 450, give or take four years,^note There's virtually no written record of this era for Great Britain. Dark Ages, indeed. the remaining Romano-British sent an appeal across the English Channel begging for a legion to return to save them from the raiding. This is termed the Groans of the Britons, and is believed to have been directed at the consul Aetius, who was known to be operating in Gaul and Hispania at the time. It ultimately fell on deaf ears, and the remaining Romans of Britannia were assimilated among the native Britonnic tribes (especially the modern Welsh) or folded into the arriving Anglo-Saxons.
  "The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death, we are either killed or drowned."
• The Imperial Japanese military became increasingly desperate as the Allies began to draw the noose around the Home Islands. They recommended a Last Stand on a national scale and began training schoolchildren to fight with sticks, but when the Emperor supported the decision to surrender following the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many military officers chose seppuku as an alternative, including those officers who tried to stop the Emperor's broadcast and continue fighting without his Majesty's approval only to be arrested.
• Adolf Hitler, when he realized that the Allies in the West and the Soviets in the East were closing in on him, and there was no chance for him to win because Felix Steiner was not able to muster up the forces to repel the Russians. He ordered his forces to fight to the last man and burn Germany to the ground to deny the Allies of anything. Hitler, knowing his work throughout his years was All for Nothing, eventually committed suicide. According to interviews with those in the Führerbunker, when Hitler got the news that Himmler had defected to the Allied Powers, Hitler completely lost it and knew that the war was over. He was reportedly so deranged that all he desired was to at least capture and punish Himmler's very opportunistic adjutant and his brother-in-law, Hermann Fegelein.
• Josef Stalin, upon his first wife's death, had his gun taken away from him at her funeral and proceeded to throw himself into her grave in a fit of despair.
  Stalin: This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.
• The Samson option is essentially a plan for what'll happen if Israel crosses this: Give up on the world entirely, then take a chunk with it with them by way of launching every nuke they have, at what could be every nation that's ever wronged them.
• Theodore Roosevelt, when his son Quentin died in World War One. His health, held together for most of his life solely by sheer unfettered willpower, began failing almost immediately, and never recovered. His Death by Despair followed less than a year later. He had already come close to this thirty years earlier when his wife and his mother died on the same day: Valentine's Day 1884. He wrote in his diary "The light has gone out of my life." beneath a single black X.
• Franklin Pierce's poor performance as U.S. President is said to possibly have a connection to the tragic death of his last surviving son on a train crash.
• Many of "the Projects" in the US from the 1960s fell into this. Now many of the people living in them have no hope of ever improving their lives. The sad part is there are now up to 4 generations who have lived this way.
  • The housing agencies in many cities are demolishing the high-rise projects and replacing them with developments of single-family homes. Whether this will make a difference remains to be seen.
• Jason Russell dealt with massive amounts of criticism from Ugandans and internet goers of the viral video "Kony 2012" for his organization's handling of finances and purpose of helping Ugandans. Then personal attacks against his Evangelical Christian background came to light and he completely lost it.
• Chris Hedges, an influential left-wing columnist and former Pulitzer-winning war correspondent, has been accused of using his more recent writings to pull readers into his own Despair Event Horizon, especially with regards to corporate power and environmentalism.
• Ravens usually mate in monogamous pairs for life. If one of the pair dies, it isn't uncommon for the other member to become despondent, sometimes even to the point of deliberately starving themselves to death. "Quoth the raven, 'nevermore.'"
• The argument that the "you break the enemy's morale, and you can achieve victory even without military success" manifestation of this trope was successfully invoked by the Entente against Hindenburg, Ludendorff and the German High Command in general at the close of World War One was a major contributor to promoting the "stab in the back" legend and Hitler's subsequent rise to power.
• The American Civil War:
  • Historians speculate that the Battle of Gettysburg was the horizon for the Union, though it was ultimately not crossed. They had superior troop strength, economy and manufacturing over the Confederacy, but at that point, public opinion was against the war and morale was extremely low. Conversely, the Confederacy had absolute faith in their leadership, as Lee had led them to victory after victory. It is thought that if the Union had lost that battle, it would have been the beginning of the end and the nation would have been forced to sue for peace.
  • The less-speculative horizon for the Union was the summer of 1864. Having been buoyed into over-optimism by Ulysses S. Grant being promoted to general-in-chief and launching the first major Union offensives since Vicksburg, the horrific casualties suffered to achieve only apparent stalemates at Petersburg and Atlanta while the Confederates could still threaten Washington via the Shenandoah wore down Union civilian morale to the point that even Lincoln himself assumed by mid-August that he would lose the fall election and thereby the war. Then Sherman captured Atlanta and Sheridan scoured the Shenandoah, securing Lincoln's re-election and paving the way for victory the next spring.
  • Some historians have discussed the prospect of the Emancipation Proclamation being this for the Confederacy. One of the major goals of the Confederate Army was earning recognition and aid from European powers. When the Proclamation emerged, it transformed what had up until then looked like a war of reunification into a crusade to end slavery - which absolutely dashed any hope of Europe backing the Confederacy (any nation that did would be tacitly supporting human bondage). That did severe damage to morale, but it got even worse as the common soldiers realized defending slavery would be worthless to them - slaves cost hundreds of dollars, well beyond the average Southerner's reach (this is where we get the term "A rich man's war, but a poor man's fight"). It's worth noting that desertions skyrocketed after the Emancipation Proclamation.
  • The Confederacy finally crossed the horizon during Sherman's March to the Sea and through the Carolinas, as a Union army of 60,000 had broken the Confederate frontier and could now effectively go wherever and do whatever they wanted to the Confederate homefront. This resulted not only in a complete collapse of Confederate logistics to supply their field armies, but in thousands of the men comprising those armies finally saying Screw This, I'm Outta Here in response to direct and desperate fears for their own families.
• Bill Simmons frequently discusses this regarding sports fans, as he has experience being from Boston (before all four teams became victorious in the 2000s, all had droughts made even more unbearable by disheartening defeats - even the post-Larry Bird Celtics). He wrote the "Levels of Losing" regarding how bad a defeat can be, and also listed "tortured teams" making it clear they have to go past the Despair Event Horizon to qualify:
  You need to be just pessimistic enough to keep your guard up for a sucker punch but just optimistic enough to keep lowering your guard at the worst possible time."
• The first President of Brazil, Deodoro da Fonseca suffered a biblical one after being impeached (which he took very personally). To give some context, Deodoro was known as a Boisterous Bruiser jokester and Fun Personified to his friends, described as "lion-hearted". But after his impeachment, Deodoro locked himself in his house and spent his days rotting away in a chair, smoking his already damaged lungs away. He forbid anyone in a military uniform to ever enter his house (keeping in mind he used to be a bonafide, very patriotic war-hero). He died less than six months later.
• Some people wrongly believe that Friedrich Nietzsche preached this trope as a philosophy, but that's not quite true. A much better "religion of despair" can be found in the writings of his inspiration and predecessor, Arthur Schopenhauer.
• It's generally agreed upon that Chris Benoit crossed this threshold after the death of his best friend Eddie Guerrero. Benoit had a number of personal problems, such as drug abuse, injuries, mental illness, and a turbulent marriage, on top of all the other friends he had already lost, including Owen Hart, Brian Pillman, and Big Boss Man. Eddie, however, was the breaking point; according to close friends and his own journals, Benoit never moved on from his best friend's death. After that, it was just a downward spiral of self-destruction that eventually led to Benoit murdering his wife and son before committing suicide.
• Frank Butler crossed it following the death of Annie Oakley. After her death, he had her body burned and died of suicide by self-starvation within two and a half weeks or so. In the interim, Oakley's ashes were placed in one of her trophies, one of few relics she still retained from her sharpshooting career in her twilight years, and after Butler's death, his body and her ashes were buried together in Brock Cemetery.
• Chester Bennington probably crossed it between massive criticism of his seventh album One More Light and the suicide of close friend Chris Cornell. These along with his many prior traumas came to a boil when he angrily lashed out at fans who didn’t like the album, thereby losing what little respect he still had. That was the last step off the edge: he took his life on Chris’s birthday. Cue the MASSIVE reassessment of his music.
• Layne Staley big-time after the death of his ex-fiancé from a drug overdose. He ended up retreating to his house and staying there virtually 24/7, for about six years, so isolated that no one can say for sure what he was doing or thinking all that time. When he OD’d himself in April 2002, no one even found him for weeks. Interestingly, he was estimated to have died the same day Kurt Cobain had eight years prior.
• The consensus for King Henry VII after the death of his wife Elizabeth of York. He lived for six more years and was generally more melancholic, moody, and distrustful. He refused to get re-married and when he finally was open to the idea he blatantly wanted a copy of Elizabeth. It certainly did not help that months prior to Elizabeth's death his elder son and heir had died and a rival claimant escaped his clutches.
• Mary Todd Lincoln led a hard life. She may have possibly had suffered from bipolar disorder, but regardless had passionate episodes that balanced out tending to Abraham Lincoln's fits of depression. She was First Lady amidst the US Civil War, and had Congressional investigations into her spending. She had already lost a son early in her life then had to live with losing a second son from typhoid fever while Lincoln was President. While she grieved, she still had to put up a good face in public, all the while seeing the toll the presidency and Civil War was having on her husband who appeared to age 10 years in 4. She then had to deal with the traumatic experience of being right next to her husband when he was assassinated. She finally crossed the DEH when her youngest son died from sickness. She was briefly institutionalized. While the public outcry to this led her to be quickly let out she never quite recovered from the despair.
• Kerry Von Erich, of the Von Erich Family, crossed the horizon late in his life. With four out of his five brothers dead (Kevin was the only one left), his father's health beginning to collapse, his career in shambles, his wife and children estranged from him, and facing prison time due to his drug habit, he lost all motivation to go on. In Bret Hart's memoirs, he mentions speaking to Kerry shortly before his death, and Kerry claiming that his brothers were calling for him to join them. Bret Hart tried to convince him that he needed to stay alive for his daughters, but although Kerry seemed to come around to it, Bret could tell it was only words. Not long after, Kerry committed suicide at the age of 33.
• Several Titanic survivors continued to experience tragedy after the sinking.
  • J. Bruce Ismay, the director of the White Star Line, was consumed by guilt and remorse over the massive loss of life. It didn't help that he was blasted by the public and press for not going down with the Titanic. For the rest of his life, he remained depressed and reclusive.
  • Jack Thayer endured personal loss after personal loss: his third son was a stillborn child, his first son perished in the Second World War, and his mom Marian (who was also a Titanic survivor) died in 1944. This last death pushed Thayer over the edge and he slit his own wrists in 1945.
  • Frederick Fleet, the lookout who first spotted the iceberg, hung himself after his wife died and his wife's brother evicted him from her house.
  • Captain Edward Smith may have undergone this once he realized the gravity of the situation. Aware that at least 1,000 people were going to die, he may have been so broken down, he gave orders without making sure they were being followed.

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