Warning: While not always a Death Trope, can often involve that, so be wary of spoilers.
Heel-Face Door-Slams in Literature.
- Battle Royale: Lovable Alpha Bitch Hirono Shimizu is strangled and thrown into a well by Toshinori Oda. She then climbs out of the well and joins the protagonists, but it's suddenly revealed to be All Just a Dream.
- In Astrid Lindgren's Kid Detective story series Bill Bergson, a Swedish inventor and his preteen son are kidnapped by (ostensibly) Soviet agents. However, one of them soon starts to get qualms about having to take the son away as well, and even tries to help the kid detectives. He gets a bullet in the back for his troubles but ends up in hospital and lives.
- In A Christmas Carol, he ghosts of greedy people are cursed to spend eternity wandering the earth while wearing heavy chains. They are seen trying to help the living, but are forever denied this opportunity.
- In the Coldfire Trilogy, the Hunter, finally no longer undead and free to try to redeem himself, is promptly killed. Sort of.
- Glen Cook wrote three short stories about a crew of pirates under a Flying Dutchman sort of curse. They realize in the second story that any of them who do something genuinely good can escape their eternal wandering, and the ship's captain sacrifices himself to destroy an even worse evil — leaving the narrator as the new captain, wondering what he did wrong that he wasn't freed as well...
- In The Dinosaur Lords, when Bogardius, who until then has been Evil All Along, realizes that Raguel's presence means annihilation, he tries to oppose him, only for the latter to turn him into his puppet.
- Dinoverse:
- In the first book, Candayce lets go of some of her self-centered hostility and allows herself to care about people more. She has to ask for help from someone she hurt badly. Janine closes her down harshly, saying it seemed like Candayce was actually concerned but it's really just because Candayce wanted something for herself. Within a few chapters they have a confrontation with Dramatic Thunder and it's all good, though.
- This trope is much stronger in the last two books, Dinosaurs Ate My Homework and Beverley Hills Brontosaurus. JD Harms, made less physically powerful, claims he's turned a new leaf in order to become the leader of a stranded group of kids. There are hints that he's Becoming the Mask, but he loves the respect he gets and destroys the way to get home, then has the one kid who didn't believe he'd changed exiled. Then JD has a genuine change of heart and finds out something crucial, but the kids have found out and all stonewall him, even refusing to listen when he talks.
- In Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Faustus begins to regret his decision to make a deal with the devil right before he dies and is carried off to hell.
- Dragon Age:
- A tragic example in The Stolen Throne, where Maric finds out that his lover Katriel is an assassin working for The Dragon Severan. However, while Katriel is originally supposed to kill Maric, she falls in love with him and reneges on her contract. Unfortunately, prior to that, she also leads La Résistance into an ambush that results in the Orlesians nearly wiping them out and killing Rowan's father, one of the leaders of the rebellion. Loghain convinces Maric that, being a king, he has no choice but to punish the traitor no matter his personal feelings. For her part, Katriel knows this is coming and still chooses to come to Maric. After a second's hesitation, Maric runs her through, though he feels dead inside.
- In the follow-up novel The Calling, Maric and a group of Grey Wardens are trapped by a Lotus-Eater Machine. Maric's dream is that of a happy life with Katriel. It's never made explicit if she was just a figment of his imagination or Katriel's spirit that has returned from the Fade to be with him. However, she does help him free the Wardens (those who choose to leave, anyway), implying the latter. Oh, and she doesn't appear to hold a grudge over him killing her.
- Cyric in the Avatar trilogy in the Forgotten Realms world has a brief battle with himself about his betrayal of his friends.
- A close variant in The Four Horsemen Universe Short Story "Angels and Aliens". Jim Hawkins, a Catholic chaplain, is held at gunpoint by a Tortantula and Flatar and reasons that, death being apparently inevitable, he'd rather spend his last moments praying. This confuses the Literal-Minded Tortantula, who is curious about this god of Jim's who came back from the dead. The Flatar is only interested in killing him, but merc Charlotte Wicza, Jim's bodyguard from whom he got separated when the paradrop went wrong, is faster and kills both aliens.
- Harry Potter:
- Barty Crouch Sr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. His crime was helping his Death Eater son escape from Azkaban and keeping him in hiding for years until Voldemort came. Crouch escapes Voldemort and heads to Hogwarts to confess to Dumbledore, but is killed by his son on arrival.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows doesn't even let Peter Pettigrew get close — he hesitates for a split second after Harry reminds him of how he saved his life in the past, and his Evil Hand immediately strangles him to death.
- The In Death series: In Ceremony in Death, one lawyer who happens to be a Satanic cult member gets evidence shoved into his face that one of his fellow cult members has been murdered. Later, he realizes that he's been having blackouts ever since he joined the cult...and that he witnessed that one cult member murdered in a sacrifice in one of those blackouts! He starts to wonder what else happened during those blackouts. He ends up deciding that he can't defend the cult leader anymore and that he should tell Eve everything he knows...only to get murdered shortly after his decision. Now that's just harsh!
- Stephen King's It had Victor Criss, the only one of the three bullies who seemed redeemable. At one point he warns the Losers of Henry's deteriorating insanity, and later on, he sincerely considers joining up with them instead. Ultimately he goes with Henry out of loyalty and ends up killed by the eponymous monster.
- In the Left Behind books, people who've accepted the Mark of the Beast and worship the Beast's image find themselves unable to repent however much they desperately want to. At one point a character tries to recite a prayer, any prayer, and can only recall the first line of "Now I lay me down to sleep".note
- Leon Fortunato, when he is brought before Jesus along with Nicolae Carpathia, tries to repent and gets the Heel–Face Door-Slam treatment from Jesus since He considers Leon long since sold out to Satan.
- Of the less lethal variety, we have Zaknafein from the The Legend of Drizzt books, who realized the evil in his society but was unable to escape it or to fight against it and became resigned to being the least evil he could get away with.
- The Lord of the Rings:
- Sméagol's literal face turn on the stairs of Cirith Ungol. Sméagol's gentle touch of Frodo's knee is misinterpreted by Sam as an attack on his master (or molestation, as Sam's wording of it implies.) This marks the last point in the book where Sméagol had a chance at redemption...note
- Wormtongue appears to have one of these in the penultimate chapter. You can sense that he really does want to leave Saruman, but as he's hesitating, Saruman mocks him. This drives him to kill Saruman, and then the hobbits kill him.
- An interesting posthumous example happens in The Reader. After Hanna passes away having killed herself just before she was due to be released, it's revealed that she'd amassed a huge amount of money over the years and she leaves a letter asking that the protagonist does with it whatever he feels is appropriate. He goes to the last surviving victim of Hanna's crimes, asking that maybe the money should be given to a Jewish charity... and she says no because that would posthumously redeem Hanna, something which she refuses to do. He gives the money to a charity to do with helping Jewish illiterate people become literate instead.
- Vermin in the Redwall universe can never repent, ever. Outcast of Redwall was a particularly strong example, where a ferret, Veil, raised in the abbey turns out evil, just because of his nature as a ferret. However, there is some room for interpretation: in the text, it is implied Veil’s turn to evil was influenced, at least in part, by the Abbey’s inhabitants treating him as if he were born evil, due to their unshakable belief that vermin cannot turn out good.
- But there have been a couple cases of vermin turning out good. In The Bellmaker, for example, the former pirate Blaggut ends up leading a life of peace at the end of the book. Most vermin with streaks of good realize it a bit late, however.
- Then again, there are also many cases of antagonists not outright joining the good side but abandoning or otherwise inconveniencing the bad side, and living to see the end. In the second book, for instance, The Smart Lancer at the side of the Big Bad runs off into exile when she gets too dangerous for him.
- Shel Silverstein wrote a poem about two generals who didn't want to fight but go to the beach together. They discussed it, thought about what people would say, and killed each other.
- Theon Greyjoy in A Song of Ice and Fire seriously considers joining the Night's Watch, partially because it would help him escape the hundreds of people who want his head, but also because it would give him a clean slate. Cue Ramsay Bolton and his men... Subverted in that Theon gets a second chance to begin towards redemption, but only after being crippled mentally and physically.Theon Greyjoy: A black cloak can't be turned. I'd be as good as any man...
- In The Stand, an especially ironic example is the story of Nadine Cross, who spent her whole life believing she had to save her virginity for Randall Flagg, who is revealed to be The Antichrist; when she falls in love with good guy Larry Underwood she initially rebuffs his advances, then desperately asks him to sleep with her to remove the spell, after he has fallen in love with someone else. When he refuses, Nadine falls in with Flagg. Later this turns into Death Equals Redemption when, after being impregnated by Flagg in his demon form and driven mad as a result, Nadine commits suicide by throwing herself and her devil-spawn off the balcony, pulling another thread in Flagg's already-unravelling control.
- The Romulan Star Empire has one of these in the Star Trek: Vulcan's Soul trilogy. Praetor Neral is about to lead the Romulans into formalizing and strengthening alliance with the Federation (as well as lift many of the restrictions placed on the Vulcan unificationist movement). Neral has come to realize the Federation can be trusted and that they are worthy friends to Romulus...but he's unable to implement any of his new policies before he's killed off, replaced by conservative leaders who take Romulus back into hostile isolationism.
- Jacen Solo from the Star Wars Legends continuity is an Aversion — while he had realized that he'd made a number of mistakes, he had no intention of turning back. It's just that what he was trying to do at the time of his death was a good thing.
- In The Traitor Son Cycle, Jean de Vrailly finally begins to understand that he's been tricked by his supposed ally and that perhaps what he's doing is not the right thing. Unfortunately for him, he can't really let go of the need to prove himself and it gets him killed.
- At the end of Warlord of Mars, the xenophobic Phaidor, who had long thought herself a living goddess who was above such petty things as morality and death, repents and apologizes to John Carter and Dejah Thoris for being such a jealous, psychotic bitch. She then resolves to start a new life... by diving off into a very deep crevice. She hadn't realized that the fall would almost certainly kill her. (An alternative and perhaps more likely explanation is that she knew very well it would kill her and was going for Death Equals Redemption.)
- In Warrior Cats, when Beetlewhisker says that he's going to leave the Dark Forest because he didn't know that they wanted to destroy the clans, Brokenstar leaps on him and kills him.
- In The Wheel of Time, according to Word of God, Asmodean was genuinely trying to switch sides — if only for lack of options — when he was killed.
