Alas, Poor Scrappy

So, that character that nobody likes is finally going to be killed off! This is the moment you thought you'd be rejoicing. Yet... the death scene is so well done that you actually find yourself feeling sad or end up gaining newfound respect for the character. Alternatively, it may be so brutal that you find yourself horrified! Expect to read a lot of messageboard posts saying "I never thought I'd cry at X's death, but I was bawling so loud I woke the neighbors up." May even lead to the character who died being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap if the fans feel bad enough for them.

Contrast And There Was Much Rejoicing and Take That, Scrappy!, where the fandom rejoices instead. Compare Death Equals Redemption. Not to be confused with Alas, Poor Villain (although it can overlap) or Alas, Poor Yorick. See also Never Speak Ill of the Dead and A Death in the Limelight.

As a Death Trope, all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware. noreallife

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• 7 Seeds: Yanagi is not well-liked, and his misogynistic ways and even trying to rape one of the girls make it very easy to hate him. But not only does he redeem himself by dying a Heroic Sacrifice, giving him the dignity that he actually possesses, but one cannot help but feel terrible for him because an insect stung him and laid its egg within him, making him a breeding ground for its young... and their hatching is unpleasant.
• Bleach: Tousen earned a great deal of dislike during his fight with Kenpachi; he removes Kenpachi's senses then lectures a deaf, defenseless Kenpachi toying with him instead of ending it. It gives Kenpachi a chance to adapt and turn the tables. Once his motives for siding with Aizen against Soul Society came out, the dislike worsened. He is motivated by a desire for peace and a decision to find the path of least bloodshed^note Although later on, he reveals that he wanted revenge for his friend's murder, since her husband, the man who'd killed her, had never been punished. towards achieving that peace... by supporting a man that incites civil war within Soul Society and who follows up that civil war with a war between Shinigami and Hollows. His reasoning was therefore viewed as stupid and hypocritical by fans and was cemented further when the first thing he did upon regaining his sight was insult his oldest and most noble friend, Komamura. However, when he's thoroughly defeated, barely able to talk, and finally confronted by his former lieutenant Hisagi and Komamura, he admits that he was in the wrong. The trio start to have a surprisingly tender reconciliation... and Tousen blows up in the middle of it, leaving Komamura screaming at Aizen for revenge and the fans feeling sorrier for Tousen than they had expected to.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Meiling isn't a terrible example of The Scrappy, but she can be quite annoying at the beginning with her attitude for the loveable heroine, Sakura. But, later, after Meiling becomes more friendly and moves back to Hong Kong, she visits Sakura and Syaoran for a couple of days. When she finds out Syaoran's true feelings for Sakura, she spends the night crying in Tomoyo's arms.
• Code Geass: Shirley Fennette. For the crimes of being "whiny", "stupid", "powerless" and "in love with the main character", she quickly earned her Scrappydom in the first season. Yet the reaction from the fanbase following her death scene in the second was one of sheer and absolute outrage towards her murderer. Who would have thought? Some are probably relieved that this didn't happen again in the Compilation Movie version.
  • And later? The murderer, Rolo, died too... and lots of fans mourned him instead of cheering because he sacrificed his life for Lelouch, even after Lelouch confessed his hatred toward Rolo, as the first and last thing he truly did of his own will. Lelouch himself ended up mourning him when all was said and done, letting him believe he was lying about what he said about him (since he really did take back parts of it).
• Mikaila's death in Count Cain: God Child qualifies. Also a case of Redemption Equals Death.
  • A case of Fridge Brilliance, considering she got nothing close to a healthy upbringing. All she ever was encouraged to do was "obsess over Cain" and look pretty.
• Cross Ange:
  • Although Sylvia Ikaruga Misurugi doesn't die by the end of the series, a lot of viewers felt sorry for her when it turns out that she also witnessed the deaths of her parents, was tricked by Liza and Julio into hurting Ange, and eventually regretting her actions in crossing the Moral Event Horizon with her biological sister to the point that she'll never see the latter again.
  • Quite a few fans also felt sympathetic to Jill after being used and ultimately killed by Embryo. Not only did she lose her comrades, but her Roaring Rampage of Revenge turns out to be All for Nothing.
• In Danganronpa 3, Ruruka Andou was not well-liked thanks to her Bitch in Sheep's Clothing attitude and her mistreatment of Seiko Kimura, amongst other things. However, just before her death we see her crying and alone, having killed off her devoted boyfriend Izayoi because she was that paranoid and terrified he'd somehow betray her and activate her NG code, which would kill her, she clearly feels terrible about this as she makes pitiful attempts to construct a barrier to keep herself safe, repeating to herself she'll make new friends once she gets out. Then the next episode shows her utter mangled, brutalised corpse. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it's revealed the victim is brainwashed into suicide, meaning Ruruka felt so awful about her actions she repeatedly mutilated herself and choked herself with her own candy until she died out of guilt. Selfish or not, she got one of the most fucked-up deaths in the anime and a lot of fans eased up on her after that.
• Even those who otherwise hate Adachi from The Dangers in My Heart, felt sorry for him at the aftermath of the Mock Calvary Battle where he falls under the realization of how much of a Hopeless Suitor to Yamada he truly is, and to top it all he can't bring himself to hate her because he knows Ichikawa is a good option, you can see on his face how devasted the realization has left him. As Kugenuma lampshades "It's a good thing that it was raining".
• Death Note:
  • Kira Supporter Kiyomi Takada ends up getting kidnapped by Mello as a part of his Batman Gambit to reveal Light as Kira. She's stripped naked by him and then kills him with a death note scrap she hid in her bra. Genuinely frightened and trapped inside a truck, she wraps herself in a bedsheet and then takes his phone and calls Light, asking him to come rescue her. Instead, he writes her name in the Death Note so that she commits suicide by setting herself on fire, by far his coldest and most heartless kill.
  • Misa's Scrappyhood, and her ending, which got past many people. In the close credits, she mirrors in dress and demeanor in an earlier scene when she sings about her trust and devotion to Light. She follows the same route, ending at a veranda where she sadly and wistfully looks off into the sky, only this time she's standing outside the railing...
• Goodnight Punpun: Mama Punpun spends her dying moments regretting not being a warmer mother to Punpun. This moved a lot of readers who had previously hated her.
• From the Gundam series:
  • Hathaway Noah's situation got worse as time went on after Quess bit it in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack. In the novel Hathaway's Flash, he joins a terror organization called Mafty, becomes their leader, and smashes stuff up in his badass Xi Gundam. In the end, he was captured and executed on orders from his own father, Bright Noah (who apparently didn't know his son was the terrorist until after he had signed the death warrant) which had... let's just say, a devastating effect on him.
    • Hathaway's Flash plays off of the Char's Counterattack novelization "Beltorchika's Children" rather than the anime movie^note The main difference being that in the novel, Hathaway kills Quess; in the movie, Hathaway goes nuts and kills Chan after she kills Quess. And just to twist the knife further, after his death, Hathaway speaks to Quess's spirit, and she says she never loved him. So he fought and died for nothing. That's just cruel.
    • On the subject of Chan, she had some unpopularity for taking the place of Beltorchika, but Hathaway's aforementioned murder of her after she was forced to kill Quess in self-defense was something even her most ardent haters were horrified at.
  • For some, Ginias Sahalin from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team. It REALLY depends on who you're talking to, however.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Flay Allster was subject to this when Rau Le Creuset killed her in the final episode, blasting her shuttle into space dust with his Providence Gundam's DRAGOON bits, right in front of her ex-boyfriend Kira Yamato. Oh, she went all Yandere for a while, but she got better, and her death was so utterly mean spirited and pointless. That said, due to her Base-Breaking Character status, a lot of people view what happened to Flay as a Take That, Scrappy! instead, cheering when Rau blew her up and treating her as an Asshole Victim due to her past actions, such as trying to manipulate Kira to kill his fellow Coordinators while posing as a supportive girlfriend. Most fans in the East don't even give her attempt to redeem herself any credit, but this is a subject of great debate.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Yuna Roma Seiran. Yeah, he suffered Villain Decay after a very promising start as a Manipulative Bastard, but getting a GOUF dropped on him?. That's just mean.
    • Meer Campbell perishes by Taking the Bullet meant for Lacus Clyne, the woman she's impersonated for months, and a good part of the hate she got for being a member of Athrun Zala's Unwanted Harem poofed.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Not a lot of people liked Louise Halevy until her entire family was murdered in front of her and her arm was lost. And it only got worse from there.
    • Nena Trinity, the very person who committed the aforementioned murder, might also count upon her death at the hands of Louise, particularly for Eastern audiences, but like the Flay example above, this is eternally up to debate.
    • Andrei Smirnov drew ire for killing his father Sergei; The Movie goes on to give him a Heroic Sacrifice against the ELS that mixed this with Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for a good number of his detractors.
• Hunter × Hunter: Uvogin could be an example depending on how much people hated him in his short screen time. He didn’t do much besides kill people enthusiastically without mercy, but in his final battle with Kurapica he is tied up and tortured but doesn’t reveal information about his friends. As Kurapica hits him, Uvogin keeps saying “kill me” in a tone that indicates he knows he isn’t leaving alive. After Kurapica puts a curse on Uvogin in which he must tell the truth Uvogin still refuses to say anything about his allies. This is when Uvogin dies and most people who were waiting for him to die agree this was way more sad than satisfying.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Shigekyo "Shigechi" Yangu was generally disliked, both because of his nasty attitude and his ugly design. However, many felt bad when he was killed by Yoshikage Kira in a futile attempt to contact and warn Josuke and Okuyasu. Okuyasu is rather shaken after hearing the news of his death, and while Josuke admits that Shigechi "was a greedy, irritating punk," he adds that Shigechi was the type that they couldn't leave alone.
• Martian Successor Nadesico: For all his annoying tendencies, ineptness in reading his crew, responsibility in killing one of the more popular characters from the show, and overall nature, Admiral Munetake gets a pretty emotional send-off. It doesn't hurt that much of the episode was spent humanizing him again.
  • To put more detail into this, Munetake was demoted due to the Nadesico's role in uncovering a Government Conspiracy (the enemies who were aliens are actually humans). Between the conspiracy itself, his demotion, and guilt over Gai's death, he falls over the Despair Event Horizon extremely quickly, expressing that he used to believe in notions such as truth and justice. His subsequent death/suicide (depending on how much you believe his rational mind still exists at that time) hits that much harder after all that.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Quite a few viewers did not like Asuka very much at all and spent most of the series wishing bad things on the character. Then she was horrendously mind raped (revealing her downright depressing Freudian Excuse in the process), rendered unable to pilot (something she loved to do) due to her sync ratio dropping too low, fired from the Eva project, disappeared, and was found later as a suicidal broken mess laying in a bathtub in a ruined building. And that's just in the original series.
  • In End of Evangelion, she's still in a coma and Shinji comes to her hospital room and masturbates to completion over her in that state. Then she comes back into action after realizing her mother's soul is in her Eva, protecting her. She defeats nine Mass Produced Evas, each with the best weapon of the series and unlimited power, only to have her Eva stabbed in the eye, utterly mangled, eaten alive, and its organs ripped out. She somehow survives and makes one last attempt to fight back. She fails and dies by being impaled about 12 times. This tended to make the fans more sympathetic. She felt all of this happened because of the neural link. At the very least, she somehow comes back to life in the epilogue mostly unharmed. But considering the fact that the first thing Shinji does after waking up with her the only other human currently left is making an attempt to choke her to death, followed by her exclaiming sickness (which, according to Tiffany Grant was morning sickness, has... interesting implications) and the reason she's bandaged at the end is due to the injuries her Evangelion suffered (again, which she felt through the neural link) - in particular, her eye is covered up — and the last thing anyone saw of her (and, for the record, the thing that finished setting Shinji off) was her Evangelion being eaten by the MP Evas...
    • It should also be noted that due to her high sync rate at the time, she didn't merely feel the pain, the damage transfers to her own body.
• RahXephon: Makoto Isshki is an unlikeable jerkass when first introduced and sinks to new lows as the series progresses. Only until the midpoint of the series do we see his upbringing. During the last episode, his undignified mental breakdown and unceremonious death come like a slap in the face when his best friend tearfully runs to his side, to hear his last words.
• Rozen Maiden: The death of Hinaichigo in the second season. There was a whole episode dedicated to her winding down to her eventual 'death' where she spent the day with her old owner, complete with stuttered movement and speech during her last moments.
  • Her death in the manga, however, was still horrifying: Kirakishou used her rose vines to destroy and consume her from the inside out. Still sad.
• From Sailor Moon, Chibiusa near the end of the Nehellenia Arc in Stars dies/becomes Ret-Gone while Usagi holds her. It's also sad when realizing that because Mamoru dies at Galaxia's hands, the last piece of Chibi-Usa we see is the remains of Usagi's memory/dream before everyone around her in the dream near the episode is gone.
• Shiki: Masao Murasako got a lot of ire for being an annoying Jerkass, but then got an incredibly-sad death scene: he's so desperate for shelter from the vampire-hunters trying to kill him that he goes up to the house of his sister-in-law (whom he previously hated) and begs her in a small child's voice to let him in and not kill him. Instead, she takes advantage of the opportunity to beat him over the head with a pole and stake him through the heart. Even people who didn't like him thought the scene was very sad.
  • Made worse by the fact that he never could bring himself to actually drink blood from a person.
  • Also, Megumi, who had been an unsympathetic Ax-Crazy Yandere through most of the series, gets a Cruel and Unusual Death in the midst of finally remembering her humanity and dreams and having a psychotic break as a result. The anime's version is particularly gut-wrenching due to the increased violence, music, and voice work, making many viewers who previously hated Megumi teary-eyed.
• Backfired in flashbacks of GO-GO Tamagotchi! with Smartotchi while played straight in all other types of scenes.

Comic Books

• Batman: Jason Todd was so hated that in the original publishing of Batman: A Death in the Family fans (by a slim margin) voted to have him killed off by the Joker. The Joker's murder of Jason was so brutal and cruel, not only did fans immediately stop hating him (with some saying they regretted voting the way they did), but the Joker was seen by many as crossing the Moral Event Horizon. And when he came back, the circumstances of his death were so traumatic that they drove him to become a supervillain. Then an Anti-Hero. Then an Anti-Villain and now back to an Anti-Hero.
• Justice League of America:
  • Vibe's death in the '80s comics: Reviled in life, a hero in death. He asphyxiated so graphically you couldn't help but feel bad for the guy just that one time.
  • Steel, who died at the same time, is less remembered. Perhaps what made Vibe's death stand out more was the fact that the skinny jerk for the first time in thirty issues suddenly showed a glimmer of true heroism. A desire to help others because it's the right thing to do. A sudden desire to be a better man. Even the dullest stone sparkles a little, if polished right. It's something J.M. De Matteis is very good at... finding the inner light in any character, no matter how rotten. Then, just to twist the knife, Vibe's murdered within moments of his epiphany! He learned his lesson... but died anyway, alone. The end! Powerful, powerful stuff. On the other hand, the only thing most people can remember about Steel's issue is the nightmarish panel where he cries out "Help-Me-Help-Me-Help-Me-Help-Me" after being shattered.
• The Mice Templar: Harad was very unlikable for being a Jerkass and a Dirty Coward in Volume 2 who let innocent mice die for the sake of his own survival. Then Boris the Torturer removes his only eye and leaves him for dead. After Leito rescues him, he Took a Level in Kindness in Volume 3 and repeatedly tried to warn Leito not to trust Pilot. Just when he starts redeeming himself, Pilot kills him and makes it look like rats killed him. Leito, understandably, is brought to tears when he finds Harad's body.
• New Mutants: Doug Ramsey, a.k.a. Cypher, was considered to be The Scrappy (due to the fact that his mutant power was the ability to speak every language, which sort of paled next to eye-beams and weather-control and the like), and fans repeatedly demanded he be killed off. Once he died, a lot of people missed him and wanted him back. Thankfully, the wonders of technological advances vindicated him when he did come Back from the Dead as they expanded his language speaking powers to include programming languages (making him an expert hacker), arcane languages (allowing him to cast powerful spells), and body language, among others.
• Shazam!: Osiris, the counterpart to Captain Marvel Jr. in the Black Marvel Family, was generally scorned by fans and writers alike as an annoying, unlikable brat that cramped Black Adam's style. Then in 52, he gets betrayed and murdered by his best and only friend Sobek (really Famine) in a manner so shocking and brutal that even his biggest haters felt sorry for him and mourned his tragic fate. It helped that he died just as he was starting to show some real Character Development and become a better person.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): The occasional character Tommy Turtle was finally put out of his misery and killed off (for the second and final time) in issue #169 when he was blasted to dust by Dr. Eggman's latest weapon. They ended up erecting a tombstone (even though there was nothing left to bury; his ashes got lost in the wind) and naming a hospital after him. This is also a Heroic Sacrifice: he was infected by nanites that carried the evil AI A.D.A.M. He was able to resist the mind control just enough to fly to his death.
• Spider-Man: An example that is so successful that people have forgotten she was ever a scrappy to start with, but The Night Gwen Stacy Died and its reputation and fame as a classic comics story and one of Spider-Man's greatest made Gwen Stacy into a comics' icon as the Character's Death that made everyone think that Anyone Can Die and The Lost Lenore with many seeing her as Spider-Man's true love cruelly taken away from him. In fact, when she was still a regular supporting character, Gwen was fairly unpopular among Spidey fans. She frequently underwent a number of bizarre personality shifts as Lee and Romita tried to make her the heroine of the books and came off as a Designated Love Interest whose main characteristics were being a whiny Daddy's Girl who hated Spider-Man (and quoted Jameson approvingly) while loving Peter, and then blaming Spider-Man for her father's death. None of the fans were convinced by the so-called "great love" Peter had for as he kept insisting in his thought bubbles. But thanks to that iconic story and its powerful images, Gwen overnight became a comics' icon and martyr of the Silver Age, with the brutality of her death so shocking and upsetting that it caused the first major backlash and divide among Spider-Man fans.
• Superman: The New 52 Superman was not particularly liked because fans felt that he didn't act like a Superman should. However, with the events of The Final Days of Superman happening and Superman facing his impending death with dignity, many of the fans who were against him are starting to feel this way towards him.
• Teen Titans:
  • Proto-Damian Wayne Danny Chase had a Heroic Sacrifice to save the world.
  Linkara: But does Danny get his own statue?!
  • The fate of Marvin and Wendy from Super Friends in Teen Titans (2003) #62. Yes, they were annoying. No, they did not deserve to be brutalized by Wonder Dog, who kills Marvin and leaves Wendy comatose.
• Trinity of Sin: Pandora: Pandora, the face of the New 52, spent her last moments in DC Rebirth being Defiant to the End as she screamed at Dr. Manhattan for being a cold and unfeeling monster and that the heroes of this world will find the hope that he took away earned her a few fans in the end.
• X-Men: The teenage Jean Grey was not very liked by fans because she Took a Level in Jerkass since arriving in our time/universe. Then, in the lead-up to Phoenix Resurrection, she prepares herself to fight the Phoenix to stop it from bonding with her, only to learn too late it wanted to kill her and does so by bonding with her and effectively blowing her up. This sudden action caught people off-guard and made those who didn't like her feel sorry for her.

Film — Animated

• Gurgi from The Black Cauldron has gone down in infamy as the most annoying Comedic Relief Character from Disney, and yet most fans who hated him still ended up feeling bad for Gurgi when he sacrificed himself to the titular Black Cauldron to stop its rampage, admitting that he has no actual friends and is the best person for a sacrifice.

Film — Live-Action

• Rachel Dawes from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight was a bit annoying in some respects (though with the new actress well on the path to being pulled out of the Scrappy heap in TDK). The death scene is about as traumatic for Batman, Harvey Dent and, by extension, the audience as The Joker could possibly make it. Made even worse by the fact that The Joker doesn't even brag or make a big deal out of it; it was just something he felt like doing.
  Joker: When I say that you and your girlfriend was Nothing Personal, you know that I'm telling the truth.
• "Gangsta" twins Skids and Mudflap from Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen were widely hated for being seen as derogatory stereotypes of African Americans and just plain annoying. They were initially going to be in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but were carefully edited out of the finished product. The comic book and novelization of the movie include their scenes that involves their death. After Sentinel Prime kills Ironhide, Skids sacrifices himself to protect Bumblebee, while Mudflap futilely attacks Sentinel in revenge (buying time for others to escape), Sentinel describing the act as worthy of a hero's death. Many fans regard it respectfully and even express regret it wasn't realized in the film.
• Tina Williams from Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers earned The Scrappy title for replacing popular Rachel as the Final Girl and being an annoying Genki Girl. And then she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save Jamie Lloyd and her friend Billy from Michael Myers and suddenly her stock got raised.
  • Another example from the Halloween franchise is Cameron Elam in Halloween Kills. He's reviled in Halloween (2018) for being a bad boyfriend who cheats on Allyson and wrecks her cell phone, leaving her to walk home when Michael is beginning his latest killing spree. In Kills, his genuine remorse coupled with the brutality of his death results in him falling into this trope.
• In The Emperor and the Assassin, Changxin (also called "The Marquis") spends most of the movie as a giggling buffoon and plotting rebellion against the king with the Queen Mother, such that the audience will likely feel a certain morbid glee when the king effortlessly defeats the rebellion. But then Changxin begs for the lives of his men (and the king kills them anyway), and is seen to deeply love the Queen Mother and their children, and gives the king a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech. By that point, many in the audience will be fully on his side.
• Mutt Williams from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has been a controversial character among the fans, namely for being the son of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood and yet being played by Shia LaBeouf, whom many felt didn't felt like a worthy successor to Harrison Ford himself.^note Not helped by the fact that Shia had a nasty fallout with Spielberg and Lucasfilm, and his later controversies in the 2020s would make him unmarketable to reprise the role again. But when the next film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, reveals that Mutt died in The Vietnam War offscreen, fans felt horrible about his fate thanks to Harrison's powerful performance as Indy telling his goddaughter, Helena Shaw, of how Mutt's death devastated him and Marion, leading them to separate again, with a divorce being filed, because they cannot get over their child's death.
• Lieutenant Hawk, the suddenly introduced bridge officer in Star Trek: First Contact, sparked some fairly mixed reactions, but his sacrificial death was pretty damned powerful.

Literature

• The death of Balthamos at the end of The Amber Spyglass. So well done, it made the former Scrappy awesome upon further readings.
  • Lord Asriel (and maybe, just maybe, Mrs. Coulter).
• Tom and Ty, Michael Point's disposable backup in Contract by Simon Spurrier:
  "I'd say the two of them killed the fuck out of this room before someone took a lucky shot."
  "Let's hear it for the Disposables."
  "I've got to say, I'm sort of proud."
  "I've got to say, I'm sort of sad."
  "Is this how farmers feel when they eat their prize-winning cattle?"
• Tristan, the protagonist in Chronicles of Blood and Stone, is unpopular because he is spoiled, sleeps with many women, and his angst is considered self-inflicted. But none of his detractors cheer when Succiu brutally rapes him.
• Christopher Drawlight, the obnoxious, lying, mooching gentleman idiot, gets a sad death in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
• Quite a bit of the Harry Potter fandom was indifferent to Dobby, if they didn't find him extremely annoying. He was considered to have a low probability of dying, and nobody was expecting to much care if he did. Then Deathly Hallows came out...
  • Colin Creevy and Lavender Brown (in the film) are two other characters that most fans either found annoying or didn't really care either way for, but their deaths were still pretty sad.
• Some fans never liked Ozzie from Avalon: Web of Magic, because he was just the useless cute mascot comic relief. And then in Dark Mage, he acknowledges his uselessness, becomes less useless, and is the Only Sane Man. And then he's killed by his best friend while trying to save her.
• Inverse example from Jane Austen's Emma after Frank Churchill's manipulative, hypochondriac Aunt dies of a stroke Austen says this:
  Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame. Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances.
• Star Wars:
  • In Iron Fist, Castin Donn is the least sympathetic Wraith. He's kind of annoying, doesn't respect Wedge's judgments enough, and suffers from a kind of Fantastic Racism which isn't seen very often - he's had so little contact with nonhumans that he's awkward and uneasy around the aliens in the squadron, and never makes the effort to desensitize himself to them. When Wedge vetoes his plan he goes ahead with it anyway, sneaking into enemy territory on his own. He might have gotten away after being seen if he hadn't been distracted by the sight of a lab where really rather gruesome experiments were being performed on nonhuman species - he went in and freed a subject, and was killed. No one on his side ever knew that his speciesist views were changing at the end.
  • In Star By Star, Borsk Fey'lya, who's been a terrible Obstructive Bureaucrat, Smug Snake, and President Evil to the protagonists up until this point, manages to die so epically as to gain the respect of even the Yuuzhan Vong.
  • Though Jar Jar Binks never died, in Aftermath: Empire's End, a lot of readers felt pretty sorry for him when it turns out his final fate was to become a clown at a Naboo refugee center (he is loved by children, yet adults hate him), was hated by both the New Republic and Empire, shunned amongst his own people, all the while regretting his consequential decision as a Senator to support Palpatine (who was still thought of as a good leader at the time) with emergency powers.
• It seems that few readers of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe Eighth Doctor Adventures like Sam Jones. But when it was revealed she'd died... well. It didn't hurt that a more likable character had been legitimately fond of her and was grief-stricken over it.
• In Tides of War, Archmage Rhonin, generally regarded as too perfect by one of the most hated licensed authors in the Warcraft Expanded Universe, was given a tragic and poignant Heroic Sacrifice expending all of his magic to prevent the mana bomb's destruction from destroying most of the world, localizing it to just Theramore city.
• In The Dresden Files, Winter Lady Maeve is one of the most disliked characters in the series, mostly for acting like an obnoxious pre-teen with an (admittedly justified) God complex. However, Cold Days focuses more on her, and reveals that she's actually been possessed/manipulated by the Greater-Scope Villain Nemesis for quite some time, and has thusly developed the ability to lie - something the Sidhe aren't supposed to be able to do. Suffice to say, Maeve is pretty much Gone Mad From The Revelation and is obsessed with ruining her mother Mab's life because of feeling like she was never loved as much as her sister Sarissa was. Considering how her final scenes are played less like an evil faerie sorceress and more like a mentally unstable woman finally going off the deep end, it's really hard not to feel sorry for her.
• James Frey's Endgame Trilogy inverts this trope. Maccabee doesn't feel sorry at all after he kills his former teammate Baitsakhan.

Live-Action TV

• 24:
  • Season 1:
    • Janet York, Kim's rambunctious and annoying thrill-seeking friend, was very widely disliked in the early episodes. However, her death, where she is slowly suffocated in her hospital bed by a man impersonating her father, gained her a lot of sympathy and is widely seen as the show's great Growing the Beard moment.
    • Teri Bauer, to the extent that most people have forgotten she was ever disliked to begin with. Although Teri spent the majority of Day 1 being a Damsel Scrappy along with Kim and her poorly-written amnesia subplot certainly didn't endear her to anyone, her death is considered the show's Signature Scene and is so tragic that fans would completely understand its status as Jack's Cynicism Catalyst.
  • Ryan Chappelle spends the first three seasons as an extremely annoying Obstructive Bureaucrat, but his death when Jack is forced to execute him on Stephen Saunders' demands is considered a massive Tear Jerker, the most memorable moment of the third season, and to some, rivals Teri's death as the most iconic moment of the show.
  • Dina Araz. Some fans hated her for taking up too much time in Season 4, along with her son, and also because she still believed in what the other terrorists were doing even after her own husband tried to kill the both of them. When she finally tries to do something right with her life, what's her reward? Two bullets to the back. The fans were not happy, especially with the way she was executed.
  • Season 5:
    • Lynn McGill. While his incompetence led to the terrorists getting his ID card and launching a gas attack on CTU, he sacrifices his own life to save CTU from the gas.
    • Jenny McGill, Lynn's drug addicted sister. She didn't get as much hate as Lynn, but she was still a fairly annoying and useless side character. Doesn't mean she deserved to get shot in the back of the head, and many fans were moved by the pathetic way she sobs and begs for her life.
  • Season 7:
    • Larry Moss. While some fans could argue that he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap halfway into Season 7, others still hated him for being an FBI version of George Mason, Ryan Chappelle, etc. But when Tony mercilessly suffocated the man to death, all his haters were deeply upset and shocked over it. Many fans would even say Tony crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
    • Blaine Mayer. At the start of the season, he was nothing more than a senator with the word "Anvilicious" tattooed on his forehead. But in the final episode he appears in, not only does he stand up to Jack and tell him right to his face that he's more resilient to torture than Burnett, but he Took a Level in Kindness and tried to help him expose the Starkwood conspiracy. Then Quinn shows up at his door and guns him down. Even Jack didn't take his death well.
  • Dana Walsh in Season 8. After begging Jack not to execute her, he does it anyway. And unlike Nina Myers, who was actually reaching for a gun despite already being shot, Dana had no weapons nearby and had her hands in the air. Even though very few people liked Dana, a majority of the fans were disgusted that Jack killed her so coldly.
• In Agent Carter nobody liked misogynist jerk Roger Dooley... but when he jumped out of a window in an explosive vest due to "Ivchenko's" machinations, a lot of fans felt like, jerk or not, he didn't deserve this.
• Arrow: After four seasons of criticism, Laurel Lance was killed off in a way so insulting (immobilized, stabbed with an arrow, spent her last words propping her ex-boyfriend's new relationship while admitting she still loved him and then unceremoniously flatlining) that even her detractors contributed to the backlash. It helped that the back half of Season 4 hadn't given her any of her own storylines - which had been infamously melodramatic - and put her in the background with nothing to do but be a big sister/adviser for the rest of team, which had made her a lot more popular.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003):
  • Cally. She had her fans, but more than her share of detractors, as well. It was so affecting that Jacob, the Television Without Pity recapper who made a regular running gag of her, devoted most of his recap of that episode to a deep psychological analysis of her (then again, Jacob writes deep psychological treatises about his breakfast muffin, so take this with a grain of salt). A lot of this has to do with the way she was offed. She was nearly Driven to Suicide, talked down from it, immediately knocked unconscious by the same person who talked her down, and woke up in time to see said person holding Cally's own infant son in a maternal-looking manner. She then met Cally's gaze and gave a tiny smile before pushing the button that threw Cally out the airlock. Even for the haters, that was a bit much.
  • Another example is Anastasia Dualla, who started off well, but after her "relationship" with Apollo (dubbed "The Love That All of a Sudden", or - factoring in Starbuck and Anders - "The Quadrangle of Dooooom") was not very liked by the fandom. Then, in "Sometimes A Great Notion," after a nuclear war-ravaged Earth is found she, quite unexpectedly, blows her brains out after a long romantic date that gives her ex-husband (Apollo) hope that their relationship might be rekindled. It was probably a good writing decision, given that if she hadn't, what happened immediately after that series probably would have broken her spirit further.
  • Kat's death could be taken as a candidate with much greater demographic appeal from the same show, particularly considering what was revealed about her past in the same episode. Though some viewers liked Kat; she was the only character who would consistently and unapologetically call Starbuck on her bullshit.
  • Ellen Tigh, who was previously unsympathetic and disliked by much of the fanbase, got a death scene in which her husband executes her for collaborating with the Cylons - something she did for him. The ironic thing is, both of them are Cylons, so she gets better.
  • And then there's the death of the entire Quorum of Twelve - the very moment they finally do something not stupid, they all get killed for it.
• Blackadder: The ending scene, "Goodbyeee!", where Captain Darling, supercilious little toad that he has been, suddenly becomes very human and likable. And he dies 5 minutes later.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Kendra in "Becoming Part 1". Sure, she was an annoying character with more than a little shade of the Ethnic Scrappy... but it was still sickening and really uncomfortable to watch Drusilla take her out so easily.
• Burn Notice: Nate Westen. When Nate showed up in an episode, it was a given that by simply being Nate he'd completely screw things up for Mike and the gang. Then he manages to single-handedly collar the Big Bad of the series at that point - and the first time he's ever done something right, a single gunshot rings out. Even the fans who hated Nate were in tears at his last words to his big brother.
• The Chaser's War On Everything: The October 17, 2007 episode featured "The Eulogy Song" sung by Andrew Hansen. It controversially cataloged a list of dead celebrities renown as "top blokes after death", embodying this trope perfectly.
• Chuck had three notable examples:
  • The first was Bryce Larkin, who sent Chuck the Intersect in the first place and kicked the series off. Once it was revealed he was alive, his later interactions with Chuck generally involved him coming between Chuck and Sarah because of his own torch for Sarah, including even an apparent attempt to manipulate Chuck into breaking off his pursuit. But damned if his death in the second season finale didn't punch the fans in the gut.
  • Emmett Millbarge was introduced in Season 2, and very quickly earned the dislike of many fans and characters alike. Besides being incredibly obnoxious, his manipulation of Morgan and Big Mike towards the end of the season for his own gain pushed many fans over the edge. The fact that he was the only character from Chuck's "normal" life to be killed off nonetheless drew a line with many fans who preferred a clear separation between Real World and Spy World. The fact he was unceremoniously and brutally killed off by getting shot in the face (granted, he did bring it on himself just by being Emmett), and the last we ever see of him is a pair of bloody glasses with a bullet hole through one lens just made it even more shocking.
  • Finally is Daniel Shaw: Introduced in Season 3 and meant to be an example of the spy Chuck could be, most fans found Routh's performance dry and unlikable, and failing to convey the fact that Shaw and Chuck were supposed to be very much alike. The fact that he was introduced specifically to act as another hurdle to the increasingly played-out Will They or Won't They? between Chuck and Sarah just angered fans even further. But then it's revealed that Sarah (unknowingly, she thought it was just a mission) killed his wife under circumstances that were never fully explained,^note Was she a rogue agent Sarah was sent to terminate? Did the Ring recognize her as a double agent and manipulate events to eliminate her? and Shaw begins to slide off the slippery slope, completing his Face–Heel Turn and establishing himself in one episode as perhaps the show's single most memorable villain, all combining making his death one of the series's most memorable moments. His death didn't stick, but at the time no one knew that.
• Cobra Kai: No one liked Stingray, in any way, shape, or form, but to see him at the end of season 4, beaten into the ICU by a madly cackling Terry Silver, but still so desperate for the slightest glimmer of acceptance or approval from anyone that he was willing to not just protect but work with Silver... the entire fanbase agreed that the guy deserved better.
• Desperate Housewives:
  • The extremely despised Nora went out with a bang. Even though it was expected and hoped for, the episode managed to make it tragic and shocking.
  • Throughout the series, Edie Britt was a Base-Breaking Character—you either thought she was witty and not used enough or catty and hung around the show for way too long. Yet when she actually was killed off in season five, the people who despised her ended up mourning her death just as much as the people who loved her, especially after her tribute episode.
• Dexter:
  • Happens in Season 2 with the immolation and framing of James Doakes, especially given a few little touches to the character that fans were quite fond of (such as the voice mail message).
  • And as of the Season 4 finale, Rita. For many, she wasn't a scrappy until the very season they killed her off. Makes you wonder if her shift in personality was done in order to annoy the audience on purpose. Aside from her Betty and Veronica feud with Lila in season three, nobody really hated her and she existed as a Morality Pet until the Trinity arc
• Doctor Who:
  • Believe it or not, there is a portion of the fandom that cried over Adric getting blown to bits in "Earthshock". It wasn't so much the actual death scene in that case, but the Silent Credits over a picture of his broken star. Beautifully touching.
  • Donna Noble. Though only a Scrappy in her first appearance, having developed by the time she was on for a full series, some of the fandom grew to like her and got really annoyed after she got a bridge dropped on her (death is relative).
  • For some people who disliked the Eleventh Doctor's companions of Amy Pond and Rory Williams, even they felt that having them stuck in the past due to a Weeping Angel attack, unable to see their family or be rescued by the Doctor, was a harsh fate for them.
• Eureka: Nathan Stark was almost universally disliked by both the characters as well as the fans, until season 3 where he sacrifices himself to save the universe.
• ER:
  • Television Without Pity frequenters are often split on the death of Lucy Knight, who, though annoying, got an incredibly good sendoff. Some were ecstatic that she was gone, under any circumstances.
  • The same story arc also had John Carter almost killed, and, since many fans were on the fence with him at that point, he garnered huge sympathy points.
  • Dr. Dave Malucci annoyed everyone in the ER, but the fact that he was dismissed by Dr. Weaver to cover up her own mistake made him more sympathetic. Some fans were put off by the way his firing was written, as if the writers wanted to leave him with zero sympathy for using homophobic epithets against Weaver.
• Firefly: Tracey from "The Message" qualifies because he tries to trick the crew into smuggling him across the solar system while he's carrying (and biologically supporting) genetically enhanced organs inside his body. Tracey gets shot by Zoe while trying to kidnap Kaylee and escape in one of Serenity's shuttles, which Tracey only did because he panicked when Shepherd Book talked about handing Tracey over to the corrupt cop who was chasing them for the organs, which was only a ruse to get everyone to safety, including Tracey.
• The Flash (2014): H.R. Wells started out as a Replacement Scrappy for much more liked Harry Wells, and the fact that he was the only one without any scientific knowledge on the team which made him The Load didn't help. While the attitudes toward him warmed up over time when he showed that despite his lack of knowledge he DOES have some good ideas, his popularity truly skyrocketed with his Tricked Out Time Thanatos Gambit against Season 3 Big Bad Savitar.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Theon Greyjoy was widely hated for his betrayal of Robb Stark and murder of two innocent children. But then Ramsay Bolton got his grubby little mitts on him...
  • Ros and Talisa Maegyr, each a Canon Foreigner, were disliked by many book-reading fans for not being in the books (especially Talisa, who replaced the canon character of Jeyne Westerling) and for what was seen as unrealistic and poor writing. Then Ros became a (minor) player of her own, endearing her to the audience (who previously saw her as a waste of space) only to be cruelly murdered by Joffrey. Talisa also gained some fans by better writing and chemistry with her husband Robb Stark in the third season, and the reveal that she was pregnant and planning to name the baby Eddard. Five minutes after this reveal she was violently stabbed to death in the womb by one of the Freys at the Red Wedding.
  • Ellaria Sand and her daughters, colloquially called the Sand Snakes, were some of the least well-received characters in the show - largely for displacing a masterful scheming plotline from the books and mass-murdering their relatives for not being upset enough about the deaths of their other relatives. Oh and some truly awful fight scenes. Come season 7 two of the three Sand Snakes are brutally killed in a surprise attack, Ellaria and Tyenne get dragged through the streets of King's Landing before being chained in the darkest dungeons of the Red Keep, Tyenne poisoned (in the same way as their victim Myrcella) and Ellaria Forced to Watch as she slowly dies and decomposes in front of her, unable to speak, touch or comfort her in any way. Fans are somewhat split on the matter if they truly deserved it or if the punishment was too excessive and a Mercy Kill was preferable.
  • Cersei Lannister could be this for some fans. She was evil to start off with but just got worse as the seasons went on, making her one of the most hated characters in the show. In the penultimate episode of the last season she is left to watch her kingdom get destroyed by dragons knowing she can’t do anything to stop it. When she gets desperate and tries to escape she gets trapped in the debris and screams that she doesn’t want to die over and over. Her brother comes back, originally planning to save her, but ends up comforting her in her final moments instead while she cries that she wants her baby to live. The sad music and the shot of Cersei and Jamie hugging while the debris falls on top of them is the final part that may have made at least a few of her haters feel bad for her.
• Grimm: Angelina Lasser. Many fans groaned and pulled their hair at the news she, instead of Roddy, Holly, or Ariel, was going to make a return during Season Two. However, she is shot and killed while saving fan favorite, Monroe, and essentially gave her blessing for him to move on and continue his romance with Rosalee. It also gets worse when the final scene of the episode has Monroe partaking in a Blutbad burial ritual for her and once done, gives out a long and sad howl into the wilderness.
• Hannibal: Dr. Frederick Chilton. For the first season and most of the second, he comes off as a smarmy, condescending sleazeball. But five episodes into season two he starts to pick up on what the rest of the cast seems blind to (namely that Hannibal Lecter is the cannibalistic serial killer they're hunting for) and started winning over some fans with sheer sarcasm. He was shot in the face in episode seven, to widespread mourning from fans.
• Harper's Island:
  • Fat guy Malcom Ross. Buried his best friend's, nice-guy nerd Booth, body in the woods after he accidentally shot himself, taking the bag of money into his room and not telling anyone about it. His panicky nothings wrong attitude and sobbing when the truth comes out made him a hated character in many circles. But everyone cried when, with Roy Orbison's "Running Scared" playing in the background, he burns the money and is subsequently chopped, beaten, and thrown in a furnace.
  • From the same show, violent townie Shane was probably the least likable character in the entire series. So how does he go out? Mortally wounded, single-handedly taking on the serial killer to give the heroes enough time to escape.
• Heroes:
  • Isaac had been stagnating as a character for quite a while before Sylar killed him, but his death and the scenes leading up to it were handled well enough that many viewers who had been complaining about Isaac were touched by his exit.
  • Niki. As much as the character was hated, her death was still sad, being that she couldn't even use her power at the time. Then Tracy showed up and all that went out the window.
• House:
  • While Season 7 was considered lackluster by many, Thirteen's reintroduction in "The Dig", which has House taking her on a road trip after she's gotten out of prison for euthanizing her brother who was dying from Huntington's, considered one of the best episodes in that season, improved opinions of her in the eyes of many.
  • In-universe example with Amber: Foreman admits that House's team disliked her and still would if not for her imminent death, but they're still crushed when she dies.
• Jessica Jones (2015): Trish's mother Dorothy was not a well-liked character—an abusive Stage Mom who only adopted Jessica for the publicity and only later in life attempted reconciliation with her biological daughter. Then in Season 3, just as Dorothy and Trish were beginning to have a healthy relationship, she was kidnapped by Sallinger and brutally tortured to death. This was a shock because not only had Dorothy generally stayed out of the superhero aspects of the show, but fans agreed that for all her personal faults, she did not deserve to die like that.
• Joan of Arcadia: Judith Montgomery. Everybody hates this Cousin Oliver who broke up the already established group dynamic, but her death was done in such a powerfully dramatic way that some fans began to wonder why they hated her in the first place.
• Law & Order: Alexandra Borgia, due mostly to the extremely brutal bridge dropping she received.
• Lost:
  • Just when it looked like she was about to be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, Ana-Lucia went out rather shockingly with a bang.
  • Just when Shannon starts becoming a compelling character and not the vapid Rich Bitch, as well as we get to learn how much her Evil Matriarch stepmother crashed her dreams... boom, shot in the stomach.
  • Charlie, while not necessarily a Scrappy, had strong dislike from many fans, especially after his bizarre actions in the episode "Fire and Water". However, he was highly redeemed in the episode "Greatest Hits", and died very heroically in the next episode.
• In Mad Men, there was possibly no character more hated than Betty Francis. That said, the penultimate episode, in which she finds out that she has advanced lung cancer and decides to forego treatment, is definitely one of these.
• The Mentalist: Bosco was not popular, mainly because he kept calling Jane out on his crap and was in love with Lisbon, which pissed off the Jisbon shippers. His death, though? Genuinely moving. Made so by Lisbon.
• Neighbours:
  • Jessica Wallace, hated by many viewers and most of the other characters for breaking up Ringo and Rachel, had such a realistic and tragic death scene that producers deemed it "too convincing" and had to edit some of the most upsetting parts out.
  • Moody rich girl Serena Bishop suffered through attempted rape, finding out her boyfriend was really her half-brother, and a plane crash. She was eventually lost at sea.
  • Bridget Parker received much negative backlash from both the public and the media when she first joined the show, and many viewers called for her death. Ironically, just as fans had warmed up to her character, she was killed off in a freak car accident.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Rumple's first wife Milah was an alcoholic who left him and their son to run away with a pirate. She's reunited with Rumple years later when he's the Dark One - and he rips her heart out and crushes it, while she dies in her lover's arms. Season 5 increases this when a flashback reveals that Rumple had previously made a deal with a witch doctor where the price was their second child, and the same episode has Milah end up Deader than Dead when she falls into the Lake of Souls in the Underworld.
  • Greg and Tamara were pretty nasty villains who attempted to kill extremely benevolent characters like the Dragon and August (that they eventually survived is sheer luck), torture Regina quite cruelly, try to blow up Storybrooke (and everyone innocent inside it), and kidnap Henry to Neverland. In the Season 3 premiere, they discover they had been tricked by Peter Pan, and Tamara quickly tries to get Henry to safety. Greg is given a cruel death when Pan's shadow attacks him, while Tamara gets her heart crushed by Rumpelstiltskin (while she's defenceless and apologising no less).
  • Although she doesn't die, the Blue Fairy is thought dead when Pan's shadow attacks her. Upon being revived, she apologises to Tinker Bell for how she treated her.
• Orphan Black: Many fans doubted Paul's loyalty to the Leda clones and had basically given up on his character— right up until he confessed his love to Sarah, sacrificed his life to save hers, and blew up half of the Castor compound in his final moments.
• Revolution: Danny, in the episode "The Stand". What makes it especially jarring is that he dies mere seconds after an epic Moment of Awesome that got him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
• Smallville: Lana Lang might be much hated by fans, but it is still sad to see Brainiac trap her in a catatonic state.
• Happens in-universe with Vala on Stargate SG-1. As a seemingly amoral thief on a straightlaced military team, she causes more trouble than she's worth for most of the episodes until her self-sacrifice in "Beachhead" prevents the formation of the Supergate. She gets more respect from the team after her surprise return (although she's still a lot of trouble).
• According to Ira Steven Behr and the other Powers That Be of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, fan response to Bareil Antos was lukewarm at best. After his death in "Life Support", however, the fan mail came in, complaining about his death and clamoring for him to come back.
• Supernatural:
  • A lot of the fans couldn't stand Bela, yet many of them felt a staggering amount of sympathy for her in the episode where the hellhounds come to get her. It might have helped that she was written as less of a smarmy Villain Sue (since fans were annoyed by her constantly getting to show the Winchesters up) and that her last episode revealed her true motivations and backstory, which were not only tragic but also explained a great deal about who she was and made her much more sympathetic and interesting.
  • And then there's Jo Harvelle, who was positively reviled during her Season 2 days for being brought in as a Love Interest for Dean and being seen as an immature Faux Action Girl, and to a much lesser extent, her mom, Ellen Harvelle, who was very popular overall but had started getting some criticism later on after some fans perceived her as overstepping her boundaries with the boys. Mother and daughter were given one of the saddest send-offs in the show (enough so that even the Television Without Pity recapper gave a snark-less, somber summary of that portion of the episode) and Jo — who had started getting better liked after reappearing in Season 5 as a more experienced hunter and especially after she proved herself more than a Satellite Love Interest by turning down an offer from Dean for a one night stand — was suddenly totally redeemed in the eyes of fans; again over on TWP, this was reflected by her discussion thread being changed from hoping she'd get eaten by a monster to the far more respectful "See You On the Other Side, Jo".
  • Becky was disliked for the majority of her existence, for appearing to be a caricature of particularly clueless fangirls, and even moreso after getting a widely reviled episode where she forces Sam to marry her with a Love Potion. She's at least sane enough to step down from selling her soul in exchange for a hollow love life with a hypnotized and unwilling Sam, and when she reappears in season 15 she's clearly cleaned up her act, having gone through therapy to deal with her issues and settling down to a quiet family life with a father of two. Then her former boyfriend Chuck, who is actually God (and evil), reappears and engages in a very cruel Bait the Dog with her, wiping her loved ones from existence before erasing Becky as well. This is even more disturbing because it's never confirmed at the end of the series if she was revived along with the rest of humanity.
• Survivor:
  • Both Colton Cumbie and Shamar Thomas were major sources of conflict and drama, only to both be abruptly pulled from the game for medical reasons and leaving devastated. Colton is doubly this after the death of his fiance in 2014.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Riley went from becoming The Scrappy in record time to getting Rescued from the Scrappy Heap when we found out she was from the future (and thus actually served a purpose on the show besides giving John someone to suck face with); much of the fanbase mourned her death after discovering just how much her supposed savior screwed her over. Going out in a brutal fight to finally take control of her life, all in less than one season, probably helped.
• Torchwood: Owen's death (deaths?). Many people didn't like Owen whatsoever until he died. Burn Gorman's stellar acting didn't hurt, either.
• True Blood: The fandom had a massive load of hate for Sam Merlotte's troubled younger brother Tommy, an illiterate, dumb, well-intended Designated Villain who was generally thought of as annoying, a nuisance, and a filler character. In the end, though, he sacrificed himself, transforming into Sam and settling a debt with the ex-husband of Sam's girlfriend, which ended up with him being bludgeoned to death. Not before he could deliver the following line, which had tons of fans that hated him crying desperately:
  Tommy: (to Sam) There ain't no heaven, and hell's a dog fight. I’m gonna disappear like I never was, that's what I want.
• Ugly Betty: May have problems with annoying characters taking over the plotlines, but it has a knack for a good Montage Out, thus giving us the following examples:
  • It's been said that nobody cared about Bradford Meade until he was killed off.
  • Even the infamous Walter, though he didn't die, got a respectful and melancholy send-off when he was Put on a Bus. The fact that viewers were able to feel anything but joy at that moment is a testament to this trope.
  • Daniel's love interest in the 3rd season, Molly, was generally considered pretty boring even when we knew she was terminally ill but the actual moment of her death was beautiful.
• The Walking Dead (2010):
  • Lori's death. Before bleeding out, she asks Maggie to perform a cesarean on her, without taking any morphine, so that her child can live. It gets worse as her own son, Carl, has to shoot her corpse, so she doesn't reanimate. Rick and Carl suffer some severe Sanity Slippage over the course of the season.
  • When Merle, the petty, racist, misogynistic, Jerk with a Heart of Jerk sacrificed himself as zombie bait to in an attempt to save the group after turning against the Governor and receiving a Heel–Face Door-Slam in return then reanimating as a zombie which needs to be put down by his own brother, Chris Hardwick said it best:
    "Who ever expected to be sad when Merle died?"
  • Noah was not well appreciated for being The Load and little else, and indirectly getting Beth and Tyreese killed within two episodes, but even his most devoted haters were mortified when he received the most graphic, horrific death of the entire show. It's nothing major, just being pressed against a glass wall and getting torn apart from behind. We hear him screaming in pain for a good minute, a walker bites chunks out of his jaw, and there is no doubt whether or not there was anything left of him to reanimate.
  • Nicholas was going through a Heel–Face Turn at the time of his death, and almost got Glenn killed (and in the moment looked like he really did) when he committed suicide, but many fans eventually sorry for him as he broke down when surrounded by walkers and realized he couldn't make it.
  • Ron and Sam were hated for being The Load during the walker invasion of Alexandria, and the former for being an insane, murderous jackass out to kill Rick and Carl. Like Noah, many of Sam's haters were saddened to see him have a complete mental breakdown over the season which culminated when he froze up in the middle of the herd and was reduced to shredded lunch meat while screaming for his mother. Soon afterward, his mother is eaten as well, and Ron is in tears as he prepares to shoot Rick and Carl. Fans were sympathetic to him and understood why he became what he was.
• Warehouse 13: Agent Steve Jinks of the team fits this trope. While not a particularly disliked character, he did — before Character Development — feel like an extremely token New Guy, not helped by being background-to-absent in many episodes of his introductory season. When it's finally revealed that he's been callously killed after being discovered as an Undercover Good Guy, it's an incredibly powerful and affecting scene. Truly, nothing in his screen life became him as much as how he left it. He got better, though.
• War of the Worlds (1988): The death of Norton Drake during the second season. For the first season, Norton was a near-insufferable genius whose main job was to roll around a lab in his wheelchair and provide scientific technobabble to the main characters - and this was after the actor who played him stopped using a ridiculous Jamaican accent for the first few episodes of the series (the character did get one episode of much-needed character development in the latter half of the first season, though). In the second-season premiere, however, just as it looked like he might take on more of an active role with the Blackwood Project, Norton gets shot by a clone version of one of the main characters, gets enough strength to crawl over to a panic button and press it, then gets shot again off-screen... and then his body is blown to smithereens when the house he worked in explodes, and almost all of the characters promptly forgot about him. Norton's death is one of the main reasons why the second season is Fanon Discontinuity in the eyes of many fans.
• Xena: Warrior Princess: Joxer made a Heroic Sacrifice for the woman he loved, which made many fans rethink their hatred of him. However, his sacrifice was in vain and achieved nothing. And Gabrielle, the woman he died for, didn't even seem that upset!
• The X-Files: Agent Jeffrey Spender, shot at point-blank range at the end of the first episode in which he developed any character beyond that of being an annoying, weasely foil to Mulder and Scully. He was eventually revealed to be Not Quite Dead, but at the time, some people were stunned he'd gone into a two-parter practically chanting "Kill the Twerp" and came out of it really upset that they'd killed the noble Spender.

Professional Wrestling

• Years of fan resistance due to Vince McMahon pushing him as the company's newest face at the expense of many other fan favorites made Roman Reigns one of the most hated faces in the wrestling world. However, his announcement on an episode of Raw that he would be relinquishing the Universal Championship due to his ongoing battle with leukemia cleared all that hate overnight and he was lauded.

Sports

• Do stadiums count? If so, Australian Rules Football venue Waverley Park has a strong case. Built in the '70s in Melbourne's growing south-eastern suburbs, it was criticised for a lack of public transport to the venue and consequent traffic jams on match days (the government scrapping a planned train line didn't help), and nicknamed "Arctic Park" due to the cold temperatures. Yet, when it was gone, many fans regretted the loss.

Video Games

• Khalid from Baldur's Gate. Many players found him a rather whiny coward who got on his nerves, not to mention a less-than-stellar fighter. However, at the start of the sequel, he suffers a rather tragic fate when Irenicus captures the party. Irenicus kills Khalid offscreen, resulting in his wife Jaheira being utterly distraught when she finds his body mutilated (the mutilation happened postmortem, but that's still an awful fate), and many of his haters feeling bad for him.
• The Walking Dead
  • Sarah. She's The Team Normal thanks to being sheltered by her dad, which makes her pretty useless. After his death, though, she becomes a full-time The Drag-Along. Faced with a decision between saving her and saving Jane on the observation platform, it's easy not to think twice about leaving her to die... But after Jane leaves, you can feel pretty alone, and maybe like you deserve it, too...
  • Ben Paul. His actions at the beginning of episode three led to the deaths of Carley/Doug, Katjaa, and Duck, along with Lilly either being stranded and left to die or stealing the group's RV and supplies. And he does it again in episode four when he leaves Clementine surrounded by walkers and Chuck has to jump in and eventually sacrifice his life because Ben wouldn't help a nine-year-old girl. He's a walking Idiot Ball and both Too Dumb to Live and The Millstone, so it's impossible for anyone to not hate him... until episode five, where we're reminded that he's just a scared kid who watched his friends and teachers die to rapists and walkers and doesn't even know if his own family's alive. By the time he dies, most players who hated him so much bawled so hard (unless they dropped him to his death in Episode 4).
  • Duck. He never stopped talking, got someone killed just minutes after being introduced, and was just pretty annoying, but during his death, you're reminded that he was just a 10-year-old boy who acted like a 10-year-old boy and now he was going to die (but not before he watches his mother kill herself in front of him). Most players find themselves choking back tears.
• Subverted in Final Fantasy VII when Cait Sith dies. A somewhat touching death for who most people consider The Scrappy. Until Cait Sith #2 comes in to replace #1.
  • His death is an interesting case. They deliberately made it pointless to try to make the idea of a character dying no big deal to the audience, so that when Aerith dies for real, it's all that much more tragic.
• Liane's death in Jeanne d'Arc. She was whiny, annoying, and undeveloped, and you are forced to use her in a certain point of the game when she replaces Jeanne, which is, by the way, when she becomes an incredibly crazy (and whiny) general... but still, when she is executed by burning for crimes of 'heresy' she had nothing to do with, screaming that it wasn't her fault and thinking she was hated by her friends, you can't help but feel sorry for her.
• Xion from Kingdom Hearts can fit this. Even though she's a Base-Breaking Character, second to even the likes of Kairi (or maybe even MORE polarizing), her actual death still managed to successfully move even some of her harshest detractors.
• In Xenogears, Hammer the Supplier was reviled by many a fan as annoying and backstabbing, but most of that could be forgiven not only because he's gone, but because it's so obvious just how much other characters miss him, especially Rico and Elly.
• In Super Paper Mario, it's revealed that Luvbi is the last Pure Heart. She was a Royal Brat who annoyed both the characters and the player throughout the whole chapter, but the scene is still very moving and the characters are sorry to see her go.
• Resident Evil – Code: Veronica fans are divided into two camps; those who found Steve Burnside obnoxious but sympathetic, and those who found Steve Burnside obnoxious and grating. Even so, the scene in which he painfully mutates into a Tyrant, attacks Claire, resists the virus to save her, and then dies in her arms is (for this series) surprisingly moving. It helps that, while he remained an obnoxious pissant throughout the game, he did get some character development, had a sad backstory, and did manage to bond with Claire in a vitriolic but genuine way.
• Adi and Cort in The Reconstruction, who are minor members of the Goldfish Poop Gang that most players probably wouldn't bat an eye at... up until the final battle, anyway, where they defend the Big Bad to the death. Made worse by the fact that you have to kill them yourself.
• Chatot from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky initially comes off as a Know-Nothing Know-It-All whose outright refusal to listen to you repeatedly annoys the player. Then a moment on his part robs the player of the chance to fight The Unfought — and his next awesome moment involves taking an attack meant for the hero and being seriously wounded, to the point where the cheery Guildmaster turns serious and mournful, worrying that he might not pull through this time. It's a bit... jarring. While he doesn't actually die, unlike most of the examples on this page, the fact that he saved the player's life after being a jerk the whole game is what makes it count.
• A huge portion of the Splinter Cell fanbase has an extreme love-hate relationship with Colonel Irving Lambert, known for his banter and his frequent decisions on when to end the mission. So when Double Agent came along and included the dilemma of whether or not to shoot Lambert as one of its selling points, more than a few stated their over-the-top desire to finally do him in. THEN Ubisoft made Essentials, which makes shooting him necessary to complete the game, and the enthusiasm dropped like a rock. THEN Conviction came out which CONFIRMED it. God help whoever decided THAT.
• The King of Fighters XIII: Ash Crimson deletes himself from reality via Heroic Sacrifice, and Elisabeth surely wasn't the only one who was truly sad after his death.
  • This overlaps with Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. Now that we know Ash's motives (the fact that this arc was one big Batman Gambit with the appearance of a jerk to protect Elisabeth, the one person in the world that meant anything to him), not to mention the fact that SNK erased a character from existence in a series where few people die outside of the villains, the Player Punch makes Ash (who went out with a bittersweet smile on his face and apologising to Elisabeth) look like a frontrunner for one of the biggest Woobie in the series.
• Grobnar of Neverwinter Nights 2. He is mostly the annoying comic relief, but Mask of The Betrayer reveals that he had a stupidly awesome death: Attempting to save a 7-foot-tall construct of solid metal by putting his squishy gnome body between it and a falling pillar.
  • Mask of the Betrayer does this to Casavir, too - dismissed by many players as a painfully straight take on the paladin, he sacrificed his life by holding up a collapsing ceiling so that the others could escape. Qara and Elanee also perish, but their deaths are fairly ignominious, and fall more into Take That, Scrappy!.
• In Mass Effect, Kaidan and Ashley, your two party members, are both Scrappies for various reasons. Many fans found Kaidan boring in both characterization and gameplay, as he's a fairly reserved and low-key character whose stats and abilities make him something of a Master of None; Ashley, meanwhile, openly expresses some xenophobic opinions that turned a lot of players off her. But, Virmire, damn...
  • The survivor gets even more hate from some people for refusing to work with Shepard for being affiliated with Cerberus. In Mass Effect 3, it's possible (and depending on your choices, potentially necessary) to kill the survivor, and his/her last words are quite sad.
  • As much as people disliked Miranda in Mass Effect 2, a lot of people were upset about her possible death in Mass Effect 3 provided you didn't take steps to prevent it.
  • Udina, of all people, in Mass Effect 3. Sure, he was an obnoxious ass in the first two, but here he becomes quite a bit more sympathetic in his desperation to get aid for his homeworld. Even the attempted coup seems more sad than anything, since it's implied that he may have been motivated by a desperate attempt to save Earth, or might have ended up being indoctrinated.
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has Fi, who, while not universally hated, is still something of a Base-Breaking Character due to her frequently interrupting gameplay with often obvious advice. Even if you hate her, her "death", which is a Heroic Sacrifice that will take centuries, and which she prefaces by admitting feelings for Link that she was incapable of admitting until the end due to programming, is still a tear-jerker.
• Tales of Xillia 2
  • Alternate Milla is a Jerkass Woobie and overall not very likeable because she repeatedly snaps at Ludger or whines about how her dimension, and whole world, was deleted from existence. But when Chapter 11 comes around and her death is practically foretold to happen any minute, it can still be very sad. She's about to be sacrificed to bring the prime dimension's Milla back from the abyss she's stuck in, but since Alternate Milla had begun a friendship with Elle - and is implied to have developed a crush on Ludger - it's still sad. And since the player can easily just drop Milla into the abyss, it comes off extra sad, as she'll stare in absolute shock and hurt at the screen/player as she falls.
  • While she doesn't actually die, Nova can get this reaction. She's Locked Out of the Loop and can easily come across as insensitive about things, so when one gets the opportunity to tell her that the debt she keeps bugging the player about can go screw itself, because someone just died, it can still feel pretty sad. Nova is doing her job and honestly doesn't know what's going on. And yelling at her results in her being really awkward and almost scared about calling you later.
• Alister in Tomb Raider: Legend was considered to be extremely whiny and annoying while always quipping in at the most inappropriate times (lampshaded by Lara when she tells him to shut up as she tries to make some tricky acrobatics). In Underworld, Alister gets shot and killed by Lara's doppelganger, dying in Lara's arms. For an annoying sidekick, it's still damn sad to see him get killed when he isn't a fighter like Lara.
• Persona 4 has an In-Universe one in Kinshiro "King Moron" Morooka, a Jerkass Sadist Teacher despised by his students for his asshole attitude. Despite this, the protagonists/main characters comment that he didn't deserve to die, for all he was an asshole, as Yosuke, the class slacker, expresses pity for him.
• Garrosh Hellscream in World of Warcraft was generally reviled by both Horde and Alliance fans alike. He was seen as a walking Conflict Ball unable to keep his Hot-Blooded and Stubborn Mule tendencies in check, a view that was largely vindicated by Blizzard constantly making him the one person in the room who facilitated the faction conflict several times over. His final duel with Thrall brought him surprising sympathy when Garrosh finally vented all his anger at Thrall for abandoning the Horde in its time of need, leaving Garrosh to pick up the pieces when even his own allies were already against him. Garrosh's obvious hurt and angry feelings probably helped, not to mention that Garrosh saw Thrall as a surrogate father figure of sorts; his rant thus combines a sense of Broken Pedestal with Calling the Old Man Out.
  • There was also Rhonin, a Canon Immigrant from the tie-in books by Richard A. Knaak. Many, many people disliked him because they saw him as a Canon Sue and one-man Spotlight-Stealing Squad, something Knaak is notorious for doing with his original characters among the fandom. Those things did not stop people from feeling awful for him when he was killed while making a Heroic Sacrifice during Tides of War.
• In the Stormblood expansion to Final Fantasy XIV, there's Yotsuyu, a sadistic woman that joined the side of The Empire and takes pleasure in making her fellow countrymen suffer under her atrocities. Even after you confront her in Doma Castle, she goes on a long Motive Rant for why she turned into the miserable and loathing person everyone knew her for. While her backstory is sad (dead parents, sold off into a sex house, abusive stepparents, and more), the way she ranted made it sound more like Wangst and her actions in response made her look extremely petty. When the character returned later on with amnesia, a lot of players hated her even more and assumed she would be redeemed simply because Gosetsu was taking care of her and she was now a helpless girl with no memories. Later on, Yotsuyu's memories return and she remembers all the horrible crimes she committed. She tries to kill herself, but she gets interrupted when her abusive step-parents show up while mocking her weakness and aim to get her back into a whore house to make money. Realizing that people would never forgive her and would still remember her as a tyrant, Yotsuyu decides to become the monster everyone knew her for and she renews her evil acts by killing her step parents. She then turns into a primal to fight a losing battle against the player character knowing that she cannot be redeemed, During the fight, Yotsuyu's memory of Gosetsu materializes to protect her from her bad memories, showing that she still remembers his kindness towards her when she was amnesiac. With her dying breath once she's defeated, Yotsuyu uses the last remains of her strength to kill her stepbrother, who basically did nothing to help her when she was abused as a child and enabled such behavior to happen to her because he benefited from it. Many players who hated her suddenly found themselves feeling sorry for her.
• Pikmin: In the second game, many players found the Hocotate ship beyond annoying with its constant chiming in at the worst possible times (often getting Pikmin killed) and just being a Jerkass to Olimar. Come the third game, it is discovered destroyed by the Quaggled Mireclops and is abandoned on the planet, which many fans admitted to making them feel a little bad for the ship.
• Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl: In the first game, Lincoln Loud of The Loud House was considered the game's least popular character, mainly because his home series isn't as popular among the game's core demographic and his moveset is rather lackluster in contrast to the rest of the cast, including his sister Lucy. Come the sequel, and he was omitted from its base roster and demoted to a cameo on the Castle Loud stage from The Loud House Movie while Lucy got to stay playable. Even his worst detractors were questioning why he was cut, citing that he's the protagonist of The Loud House and his moveset needed an update the most.

Visual Novels

• Tsukihime: Not everyone considers her a Scrappy, but for those that do: Tohno Akiha gets two different death scenes in two different story branches. In one, she has become a mindless monster and Shiki honors his promise with her to kill her by his own hands (a Bad End). In the other, she's fighting with Shiki at the High School and lets herself be torn apart by him to protect Kohaku. She barely holds on to consciousness long enough to ask Shiki: what is he doing at his school at night? He yells it's not important, and they need to get her help, but she keeps insisting on an answer. Finally he replies it's his school, and it's not strange if he's there either in the day or at night. Akiha seems to accept this answer, realizes it was a pretty simple conclusion, and then dies (this is actually part of Hisui's True End).
• Erika in Umineko: When They Cry. While she was nothing but a (intentional) Canon Sue/Parody Sue in EP5, in EP6 she was fleshed out showing how her refusal of there being two sides of a mystery was caused by a failed romantic relationship. She seems to have understood this by the end of EP6 before dying after her duel with Beatrice.
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair:
  • Teruteru Hanamura, the first murderer, is often hated by new players due to being a crazed sex pervert who makes smutty comments all the time and is always hitting on everyone, male or female... then you learn his motive for killing: he wanted to escape the island to see his sick mother. He then gets one of the most brutal executions in the game while he begs to at least know if his mom is OK, a request that is completely ignored by Monokuma. Even some of his biggest haters were moved to tears by this. It doesn't help that he was actually trying to kill Nagito Komaeda once he realized he was out of his gourd and a huge danger to everyone else but accidentally wound up killing the Ultimate Imposter, who was also trying to stop Komaeda.
  • Following up after him in Chapter 3 is Hiyoko Saionji, Hiyoko is a base-breaking character as she's the resident bitch of the group who spends most of her time picking on others in particular Mikan Tsumiki, eventually, she walks in on a brainwashed Mikan killing Ibuki which results in Mikan slicing the poor girl's throat to silence her forever. Her death is very tragic because she was beginning to improve her behavior, and was only at the music venue because she wanted to tie her kimono in order to honour Mahiru, her best friend who was beaten to death in the prior chapter leaving her depressed. Unlike a lot of Asshole Victims Hiyoko's death was a result of her Hidden Heart of Gold, for all of her flaws, it's genuinely haunting that Hiyoko died alone and scared without anyone to save her all because she tried to do the right thing. While some in the fanbase consider her death to be karma because she was killed by her main target despite Hiyoko never doing anything remotely as cruel as what Mikan did to her, most consider her death to be undeserved and unnecessary because she died before her arc was completed and physically couldn't fight back.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick:
  • Miko's death received this from most fans. It was debated on the forums whether or not she deserved it, but even her detractors admit that the scene is moving. The founder of her order, the Sapphire Guard, talks to her frankly about redemption and what it requires; while he tells her she can't be redeemed, he does assure her that she will at least be honored as a Sapphire Guard paladin, even if her soul's ultimate destination is not specified. And then Miko asks after her Only Friend, her horse Windstriker, reminding the readers of how alone she was, even in-universe. Tragic, yes, and also fitting for her character.
  • Tsukiko gets her own one later on as a Parody Sue (polychromatic eyes, dark, mysterious, and misunderstood, yet beautiful, etc). Her death scene when she crosses Redcloak is actually pretty touching. She has the life drained out of her by the very undead that she so cared for (magically controlled by Redcloak), whispering "Why don't... you love... me?" with her last words.
    • It's all the more tragic when it's spelled out that the only person (in comic) who is upset about her death is the Token Good Teammate, and even then he just feels bad for her because nobody is upset she's dead.
  Monster in the Darkness: I'm just really sad now, thinking about Tsukiko. She just wanted to be loved.
  Demon Roach: So what? Who cares?
  Monster in the Darkness: Exactly. That's why I'm sad.
  • Crystal, the dumb-as-rocks, sadistic and one-dimensional assassin who served as Haley's rival, clearly had everything to be hated. Most readers probably felt good about Haley unceremoniously killing her in Greysky City, but being brought back from the dead as an abomination that feels nothing but excruciating pain - above all when some cheaper and less painful options are available to revive people - is a fate no one would wish even on one's worst enemy. Dumping her into a lava pool was more of a Mercy Killing on Haley's part. Haley has no regrets about it but doesn't take any pleasure in it, either.
• Brawl in the Family
  • Mood Whiplash in the last panel of the Waluigi Triloigi.
  • And again at the end of Wario & Waluigi. "Waluigi Time... is over."
• Terry's death in Blip. Up until then, most of the fans had hated her for breaking up K and Bishop, but when she died, they lost it.
• College Roomies from Hell!!! had this coming from Dave. It failed spectacularly because no one realized that Dave was meant to be The Scrappy. Quite the contrary, he became one of the most popular characters, so the author had no choice but to bring him back and actually make him a protagonist.

Web Original

• The outpouring of grief that followed the sudden death of WrestleCrap Radio's robot sidekick Johnny 6 during the April 25th, 2008 podcast, after Crappers had been clamouring for his destruction for weeks.
• The death of Liam Black in Survival of the Fittest version 3 was considered by some members to be well-written, and genuinely saddening, in spite of the fact that the character was extremely unpopular whilst alive.
• Red in There Will Be Brawl was disliked by some fans due to his naive and cheerful personality in a World Half Empty, and suspected by many to be the butcher (especially in regards to that Jigglypuff he was subtly hiding from Luigi). Then... "So, uh... was I any good?" Turns out he was training the Jigglypuff to sing for Luigi. Thankfully, Leaf uses it to finish off Wario, who killed him.
• Spencer D. Bum in The Spoony Experiment was considered a Scrappy by some of the fans, even though he only appeared 2 times. Then his heart was ripped out of his chest onscreen by Black Lantern Spoony.
  • Some fans reacted this way to the death of Melvin, Brother of the Joker, at the 2009 charity drive.
• In The Flash Tub cartoon Platform Hero, Green Dinosaur, hitherto The Load, has a tearful death scene in Dark Dragon's castle Taking the Bullet... er, sword for The Hero.
• Remember Clippy, that obnoxious little paperclip in Microsoft Word that frequently pestered you? Get ready to Cry for Clippy.
• Matt and Teala from Escape the Night are despised by the fandom for being a Dirty Coward and The Load respectively, and whilst their deaths are cathartic for some viewers, the reaction of the rest of the group is what makes the fandom pity them. Matt, for all his flaws, was only trying to help but the group proceeds to CHEER after his death, with the sole exception of Matt’s Only Friend Timothy. Teala, on the other hand, is quickly forgotten about by her peers with everyone pretending she never existed in the first place.

Western Animation

• In Adventure Time, both of the Earls of Lemongrab are both extremely annoying and unpleasant characters. However, in the episode "Another Five More Short Graybles," the first Lemongrab apparently ate the second Lemongrab alive, appearing to have killed him. This segment of the episode ends on a massive cliffhanger as Lemongrab 2's fate is left ambiguous. Although both of them are seen as scrappies by fans for being extremely annoying, stupid, rude, and insane, most fans at the present time are worried sick about Lemongrab 2. The ones who believe that he is dead are actually sad that he apparently died in such an awful way, and the ones who still harbor hope for his life are sincerely wishing for his safe recovery.
  • The entire Adventure Time fanbase cried in unison when Lemongrab 2 actually died. It helped that his appearance in "Too Old" and other episodes leading to it made him more sympathetic than the first one.
• Played with on the very last episode of the (original) Beavis And Butthead series, "Beavis and Butthead Are Dead." (They literally "call in dead" because they don't feel like going to school that day.) Most of the people at school - both students and faculty - subvert the trope in that they are at best apathetic, but Mr. Van Driessen actually cries over their "deaths." Of course, this may not be the best example since Mr. Van Driessen was an Extreme Doormat who tolerated the boys' misbehavior to an absurd degree.
• In the Exosquad series there are several notable examples, but the most prominent was the much-hated Captian Matthew Marcus. Not only was he lacking strategic skills, had sheer arrogance, sported a hair-trigger temper, and was tyrannical in that he charged the first officer to question his dangerous orders as a mutineer, but he practically single-handedly crippled the Exo-Fleet. Not only was that humanity's greatest hope in winning the war and saving their species, but did so after going to mutiny, creating a coup, and sending the best combat squad on a dangerous and meaningless mission. Despite all this, he had an incredible send-off in that he refused to give up the fight, attempting to redeem his failures and actions. When a protagonist was sent in to rescue him he refused to leave, forcing him to leave at gunpoint and going for a heroic sacrifice, taking out a number of enemy ships and buying some time for the survivors of the fleet he destroyed to escape. His last words were to be relayed to the Admiral he betrayed: "Tell him that Matthew Marcus knew how to die!"
  • Somewhat subverted that despite the impact and incredibly well-done death being very memorable. He was never really missed by fans, also, that last scene as he has the Exo-Carrier self-destruct in enemy lines has his face showing a less heroic expression, but more of a crazed suicidal rump of joy!
• The Magus in the Gargoyles three-parter "Avalon". It helps that he just Took a Level in Badass. And he finally overcame his Fantastic Racism towards Goliath's clan in particular long enough to pull a Heroic Sacrifice; he'd overcome his general racism years ago since he spent his life raising the gargoyle children. His "Avalon" appearance was also noteworthy for its use of Dogged Nice Guy and the gentle but merciless Romantic Runner-Up.
• Played with in an episode of Project G.e.e.K.e.R.. When Geeker sacrifices himself to avert the destruction of a sizable chunk of the planet, his ever-begrudging caretaker Lady Macbeth (who had treated him more as stolen goods than a... er, sort-of-humanoid companion) actually breaks down and cries at his obvious and horrible destruction... only to have Geeker pop up behind her and ask why she's crying.
• Not a death but a meta example; after it was announced that Tiny Toon Adventures would be getting a reboot, Cree Summer revealed that Elmyra Duff, whom she played on the original series, would not be part of it. While Elmyra is disliked for a number of reasons some fans were still upset over that news, feeling that she was at least tolerable in small doses and that it doesn't feel like Tiny Toons without her. It seems like the creators took notice of this upsetting situation as it was later confirmed that she will be returning in the reboot.
• Total Drama:
  • Sierra is severely injured and loses all her hair in the explosion that results in her elimination immediately after winning invincibility, just because she made a birthday cake for Cody, who was completely ignored on his last birthday.
  • Even if you feel like Dave was the bad guy in the Sky/Dave debacle, you gotta feel bad for him/mad with Sky when Sky reveals that she still has a boyfriend, and then, on international television, says that he "wasn't the one" in favor of Dave. Learning this fact after she's kissed him is what cements his Sanity Slippage.
  • From the Spin-Off Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: Even the people who hated the Best Friends and their Arc Fatigue thought that their treatment throughout "Last Tango in Buenos Aires" was too harsh and uncalled for. Especially when Devin is accidentally pushed off a cliff, which puts him in a full-body cast and results in the team being removed from the competition.
• Transformers: Prime:
  • In the episode "Rock Bottom," Miko almost got this. Long reviled for her tendency to charge after the Autobots into the line of fire, jeopardizing the mission and sometimes many lives, and worse, explicitly didn't care about endangering lives, only how much fun it is being In Harm's Way, in this episode she's simply allowed to accompany them into a mine they think is safe. Then Megatron and Starscream happen upon the mine, causing large sections to cave in. Bulkhead saves Miko by holding up the portion of the cave ceiling just above her, but this means he can't move. Demonstrating impressive strength, Miko begins yanking up the large boulders blocking the tunnel and throwing them aside, in a nonetheless vain attempt to save Bulkhead that nearly kills her from asphyxiation. Even when Jack conveniently barges in with a boring machine and rescues Miko, now all but dead, she's horrified to leave Bulkhead to his fate. He is later rescued, too, so everything ends up okay, but it's still probably the decisive moment when Miko begins to get Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
  • "Hurt" does a lot more for this trope. Bulkhead is mortally wounded and hanging to life by a thread after a battle with Hardshell, and Miko spends the entire episode brooding and dead serious, traumatized by Bulkhead's predicament. After watching Wheeljack nearly die as well, she inflicts her first Decepticon kill on Hardshell and ultimately returns home feeling no better after attaining vengeance. Miko spends the ending sobbing as Ratchet informs her that Bulkhead may never be fully functional again.

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