Honorable Warrior's Death

"When I die, I want to die with my axe in my hand, screaming a curse."

— Rogar Baratheon, Fire & Blood

How Would You Like to Die? That's a question that often gets a lot of thought and debate, and the various warrior societies of both real life and fiction are no exception. For someone who is a warrior, the answer almost invariably means in battle or in some form of approved ritual suicide that is seen as a preferable alternative to being disgraced, dying in poverty, of old age, from disease, or being captured or killed by a hated enemy. It also often starts to look like a good option if the person still has physical vigor but is experiencing a case of Your Days Are Numbered due to disease or a curse.

The ultimate goal is often to enable the dying person to reach Warrior Heaven, which may have specific requirements on how one must die to go there, to protect either an individual or a family's good name, etc.

In fiction, this often takes inspiration from Norse Mythology and its Warrior Heaven of Valhalla (which one could only reach if you died in battle with a weapon in hand), the tradition from Ancient Rome of falling on your sword as a means of suicide to prevent dishonor, and the samurai committing Seppuku from Japan.

Subtrope of Death Seeker and Glorious Death. Compare and contrast with Defiant to the End, I Cannot Self-Terminate, Heaven Seeker. May often involve arranging a Duel to the Death, one which someone who is seeking an honorable death may not intend to win.

As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Hellsing: Anyone and everyone who loves battle and bloodshed (with a few exceptions) is looking for this and then some. The deranged Major make full on speeches about war, blood, and death. Alucard who's actually Vlad The Impaler, constantly wishes for a normal human without supernatural power ups or some sort of One-Winged Angel form to kill him. Alexander Anderson and by extension, The Iscariot Organization are Hell seekers who wish to destroy all demons and heathens. The Captain is the last werewolf of his kind and once participated in the Malmedy Massacre in WWII, also wishes to die in battle, to the point that he intentionally tosses Seras one of his few weaknesses during their fight so she will have a legitimate chance to kill him.
• Hunter × Hunter: During the third phase of the Hunter's Exam, one of the participants, Goz, is fatally injured and seeks to die a warrior's death. Except he makes the mistake of asking Hisoka to grant him it, who has no interest in fighting a dead man. The end result is Hisoka evading all of Goz's attacks and toying with him until the latter is unceremoniously killed by Illumi.
• Zest from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS is a clone who both views himself as a continuation of his already dead original and is suffering from Clone Degeneration. Rather than let his body waste away from disease, he chooses to go out in a blaze of glory by attacking Signum once all his Unfinished Business has been taken care of and entrusts her the safety of his wards Lutecia and Agito before succumbing to his wounds.
• This comes up often in Vinland Saga, as it is set in the medieval era and many characters are Norse warriors, so getting to Valhalla is often on their minds.
  • Thorkell the Tall and his army are hardcore Blood Knights and believers in Norse Mythology, so they itch at the chance to find their way to Valhalla. An anonymous mook in Thorkell's army comments that being killed in battle against Thorkell is about the highest honor a Norse warrior can receive and it's how he would choose to die if he could.
  • Late in the first arc Bjorn, Askeladd's Number Two, takes a wound to the gut that is certain to kill him slowly and painfully. He arranges to die in a duel against Askeladd, the boss who he admired soon afterwards instead.
  • In the Baltic Sea War arc the Jomsvikings wind up in a Civil War over who will become their next leader. A captured Jomsviking about to be executed angrily/desperately begs to be allowed to fight someone to the death instead so that after his life as a soldier he'll have a chance of going to Valhalla, and is outraged when his request is ignored.

Film — Live-Action

• Forrest Gump: Lieutenant Dan is disappointed and angry that he didn't die in the Vietnam War, as members of his family have died in every prior American war, and he views such a death as a better fate than living crippled by his war wounds. After enough time, he gets over it.
• In Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, while he didn't deliberately seek it out, after being mortally wounded by Ghost Dog, a member of Ray Vargo's crime family says that he's grateful to die in a proper fight, preferring it to continuing to grow old and decrepit in a broke-down criminal gang that was long past its Glory Days.
  Vinny: You know, Louie, there's one good thing about this Ghost Dog guy.
  Louie: What's that, Vin?
  Vinny: He's sending us out the old way. Like real fucking gangsters.
• When newly crowned Evil Emperor Commodus orders his Praetorian Guard to kill Maximus in Gladiator, as he's about to be executed Maximus asks the Praetorians to "Grant me a clean death, a soldier's death." After a moment the Praetorian in charge gives a nod to the would-be executioner, who adjusts how he plans to kill Maximus to make it quicker. Unfortunately for them, it's a trick on Maximus' part, meant to lower their guard and give him a chance to fight back.
• Early in The Last Samurai, Katsumoto comments on his approval of Custer's Last Stand, focusing on what he perceives as the bravery of Custer charging a foe that vastly outnumbered him and then fighting to the end. (Much to the frustration of Algren, who despised Custer's tactics and focuses on Custer's foolishness getting his soldiers killed). Katsumoto calls it a "good death" and seems to hope to have one himself. At the end of the film he leads the last of his forces on a suicide charge against the larger and better-equipped Imperial Army, and with Algren's help commits seppuku after being mortally wounded.
• The War Boys in Mad Max: Fury Road all want to die gloriously in battle, shiny and chrome, believing that doing so will allow them to ride eternally on the highways of Valhalla.
• Played with in Maverick. Chief Joseph uses this trope as an excuse twice: first he cons the Russian Duke into paying to "kill" a supposedly sick member of the tribe (actually Bret Maverick posing as a Native American), saying the "tribe member" would rather die a warrior's death than on a sickbed. Then after they begin a version of Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, Joseph prevents the Duke from using his usual hunting rifle, stating that "Injun shot by white man's gun not make it to Happy Hunting Ground",^note Joseph spoke English (and several other languages) perfectly well, but the Duke gave the tribe lots of money to portray themselves as "Noble Savages" like the books he'd read. and instead gives the Duke a trick bow that injures the Duke's hands, so even when the Duke angrily insists on using his rifle afterwards, his aim is thrown off and he misses Maverick, who promptly pretends that he was hit and plays dead.
• Patton. At the end of the movie, General Patton is almost killed by a runaway oxcart. Afterwards he says "There's only one proper way for a professional soldier to die. That's from the last bullet of the last battle of the last war.", indicating that that is how he wants to die.
• Because of their Honor Before Reason mentality, the Yautjas from the Predator franchise must always succeed during their hunts or nuke themselves once they fail.
• Thor: Love and Thunder: To get into Valhalla, Asgardians have to die during battle. This is most prominently referenced twice in the film:
  • Thor finds Sif after a battle with the God-Butcher; Sif is alive, but seriously injured and missing an arm. Thor offers to help her, but Sif refuses, claiming that if someone wants to get into Valhalla, they have to die during a battle. However, Thor points out that if Sif dies from her injuries, she would not have technically died in battle, so Sif reluctantly agrees to let Thor help her.
  • Towards the end of the film, Jane finally succumbs to cancer, and The Stinger shows her getting into Valhalla. She did die during battle — her battle with cancer, that is.
• In Waterloo, an ailing Napoleon is depicted as trying to join the last ditch gamble of attacking Wellington's forces alongside the Old Guard. His marshals and doctors plead with him not to do it as he'll surely be killed, to which Napoleon snaps "Where else should a general die, but on the field?!" Eventually they convince him not to go through with it and lead him away from the front line.

Literature

• Shows up several times in Fire & Blood, one of several works that fleshes out the enormously detailed history of A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Early in the Targaryen dynasty Lord Rogar Baratheon spent years serving the Targaryens as a warrior, general, and Hand of the King, but he was a Blood Knight to his core, and as he got older and his health started failing, he was disappointed by the idea of not dying in combat. So he made one last attempt to die in combat by going out on an expedition to hunt down the Vulture King, a bandit who led a group of hundreds of raiders. (Including Rogar's renegade brother, Borys.) When the Vulture King was caught, Rogar gave the Vulture King a chance to win his freedom by defeating Rogar in personal combat instead of simply being executed, hoping the man would be a Worthy Opponent, or at least good enough to give Rogar what he saw as a proper death for a warrior. Instead the Vulture King turned out to not be much of a fighter, and Rogar killed him despite being old, sick, and barely trying. Disappointed, Rogar went home and died peacefully several months later.
    My maester says that I am dying. I believe him. Even before the Shivers there was pain. It has gotten worse since. He gives me milk of the poppy, and that helps, but I use only a little. I would not sleep away what life remains to me. Nor would I die abed, bleeding out of my arse. I mean to find my brother Borys and deal with him, and with this Vulture King as well. A fool's errand, Garon calls it. He is not wrong. But when I die, I want to die with my axe in my hand, screaming a curse.
  • Defied during the Dance of the Dragons, a Civil War between two different branches of the Targaryen family to decide who would claim the throne. Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and a man whose actions were perhaps the Inciting Incident of the war (and it's implied to have been for petty personal reasons, no less), finds his army cornered in a bad position by a much larger force. He first tries to negotiate, and when his enemies refuse, he at least tries to challenge them to personal combat, so he can die like a proper knight. Again they refuse and deliberately turn it into an Undignified Death by having archers turn Cole into a Human Pincushion.
    Ser Pate of Longleaf: I'll have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker. There's tens o' thousands dead on your account.
• Subverted in volume 2 of How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom. The brilliant but aging Duke Carmine leads a rebellion against King Souma with the stated goal of either re-enthroning the former King Albert and Queen Elisha, who had made Souma their Heir-In-Law and then abdicated, or dying as a warrior. Actually, the whole thing is a Zero-Approval Gambit arranged by Albert and Elisha themselves: Carmine is making a Heroic Sacrifice to draw out all the corrupt nobles who destroyed the country in the original timeline so they can be purged from the kingdom in one fell swoop. Once the plan succeeds, Souma fakes Carmine's suicide and gives him a new identity as head of his secret service.
• In the Inheritance Cycle, this is a desire seemingly held by the dwarves and Urgals, both of which are proud warrior races in different aspects. More personally, after High King Hrothgar of the dwarves is killed by an enemy Dragon Rider's magic (later revealed to be Murtagh), many dwarves are saddened both by Hrothgar's death and that Hrothgar's desire to die in a fair battle with no magic involved wasn't met.
• Jade City: Respected Green Bone warriors who have been condemned to death may be allowed a "death of consequence", facing an armed execution squad in final combat. One became a minor Living Legend for killing all eight of his executioners and walking away.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Hunters of Artemis are blessed with a very specific form of immortality, they can only die a warrior's death.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Nanao Hibiya, a samurai, was plucked from a battlefield where she was fighting a Last Stand, mere moments before the enemy ashigaru were about to execute her after her attempted Decapitation Strike against the enemy general failed, and brought to Kimberly Magic Academy on the other side of the continent. After falling in Love at First Punch with Oliver Horn when they spar in sword arts class and being rebuffed when she asks to continue their duel for real later, she falls into a depression and starts looking for somewhere at Kimberley to die as a warrior. After she's stopped from intervening in a fight between two upperclassmen to buy time for Oliver, Pete, and Chela to escape, the group stages an impromptu intervention and gets her to agree that from now on she'll fight with the intent to live.
• A facet of Tsurani society in The Riftwar Cycle. Along with death-before-surrender, it's extremely important to characters to "die by the blade". The punishment for a traitor who had already been stabbed (and was bleeding to death) was to very quickly string him up so they could kill him by hanging, the dishonorable death of a slave.
• In The Saga of Darren Shan, vampires are a Proud Warrior Race who regard dying of old age (since they're not immortal) as the worst death possible. Aging vampires instead seek out battles they have no way of winning. Paris Skyle, the oldest known vampire died fighting a bear.
• In The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell, main character Uhtred is a Saxon who was adopted and raised by Danes and a fervent believer in the Norse gods who feels more kinship with the Danish invaders of England than the Christian Saxons. As such, he often tells Danes that he's about to defeat or kill to hold onto their weapon so they'll have the chance to go to Valhalla. Almost once a book, however, there's someone who Uhtred despises and deliberately decides to give them no chance to die in battle or with sword in hand, barring them from Valhalla.
• Hugo Wull, a chieftain of one of the mountain clans of the North in A Song of Ice and Fire, sounds almost rapturous when discussing how marching to war alongside Stannis is probably his last chance to die in battle, and he and his followers will take that over dying from cold in a long winter any day.
  Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned's little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue.
• Swordspoint makes a repeated point that true swordsmen die in combat at an early age and if they live long enough to die another way, it proves that they're shameful and not proper swordsmen. Applethorpe manages to die by taking a challenge from Michael and is immensely pleased to finally die properly.
• In book three of The Warlord Chronicles, the Warrior King Aelle is mortally wounded in battle. He elects to challenge the protagonist of the series, Derfel (who has recently found out that Aelle is his biological father), to a duel that Aelle knows he cannot win so that he can go out fighting and have a chance to enter Valhalla.
• In Warrior Cats, the goal and job of Clan warriors is to hunt for and defend their Clan. As such, if a warrior dies in the line of duty, it's considered the most noble way to die, and some cats, such as Sandstorm in The Apprentice's Quest, would prefer to go out this way rather than spending their last days doing nothing in the elders' den.
• In World of the Five Gods book Paladin of Souls, Arhys wants his second death to be an honorable warrior's death, one that has "Some use" in it, as his first death was a farce of an accident that left him as a sundered ghost in a slowly decaying body.

Live-Action TV

• Dengeki Sentai Changeman: Adjutant Booba saves the life of his friend Adjutant Shiima and defects from his monstrous boss Star King Bazoo. Booba decides afterwards that with their being nothing left for him that he would like to die in a battle against his Arch-Enemy Hiryu Tsurugi/Change Dragon. Booba indicates that there is no better way to go out for him than this.
• Doctor Who: Sontarans are a warrior race who emphasize the glory of battle in every aspect of their lives, and this includes a desire to die in the heat of warfare if they can't achieve victory. In "The Sontaran Strategem"/"The Poison Sky", they even consider it more honorable to face enemies without their protective helmets on. Naturally, every clash between them and the Doctor ends with them dying in undignified ways.
• Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Loyax's Last Battle has the titular monster being a Noble Demon desperately wanting to die honorably especially for his sins in working for the main villain.
• Similar to real life, in Rome Mark Anthony chooses the honorable death of throwing himself on his sword when defeat was inevitable rather than allow himself to be captured and paraded before a mob by his hated sometimes ally sometimes rival Octavian/Augustus.
• In Star Trek:
  • This is an ideal of the Klingons:
    • In Star Trek: The Next Generation, after Worf is crippled by an accident, he asks Riker to help him with a form of ritual suicide so he can die with a warrior's honor. Riker lays into him about the pointless fatalism of Klingon culture, then says he'd still help, but that by Klingon law and custom, the duty of handing the ceremonial knife falls to the warrior's firstborn son, in this case, Alexander. Worf tries to protest that Alexander is just a boy and shouldn't be part of such a ceremony, but Riker counters by pointing out to Worf that very customs he embraces state that a Klingon is a man when he is old enough to pick up a knife. This encourages Worf to instead try a risky, untried procedure in the hopes of making a recovery. It succeeds, but only because of a unique (and previously unmentioned) quirk in Klingon physiology.
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • After being disgraced and exiled by an increasingly unstable and paranoid Gowron, Worf's brother Kurn comes to the station looking to enlist Worf's help in a form of ritual suicide known as Mauk-to'Vor that will redeem a warrior's honor and guarantee entrance to the Klingon version of Warrior Heaven.
    • In "Once More Unto the Breach": the Living Legend but increasingly senile Klingon warrior Kor takes Worf's place on a suicide mission, so that he can die in battle, and therefore receive an honorable death.
    • Later, in "Tacking Into the Wind", the corrupt and power-hungry Gowron is challenged by Worf to combat and dies an honorable warrior's death despite the acts leading up to the fight.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: One episode reveals that the Kazon, a warlike alien species, regard dying in battle as an honour, and a Kazon boy mocks Chakotay, a human, for wanting to die in his sleep as a "wrinkled, old man".
• Vikings:
  • In the first season after Ragnar becomes Earl, he holds a town hall and one of the people that speaks at the event is an old man named Tostig who begs to be taken on the next raiding trip, as he has outlived all of his old companions and now his only goal is to die in a manner worthy of reaching Valhalla. Despite his age and throwing himself into the front line of battle with no precautions for his own safety, Tostig survives several battles before he finally earns the death he sought.
  • Torstein, who by Season Three is one of the last members of Ragnar's original crew left, gets wounded in battle and infection sets in and keeps getting worse, even after the last ditch attempt to amputate his arm. Rather than waiting for sepsis to kill him, he insists on marching to battle despite barely being able to stand and then demands to "go first" when they near the enemy. Everyone knows is a thin excuse to send himself on a Suicide Mission and die fighting, and the whole force stays back until after Torstein is killed by the enemy sentries before they go into battle.

Music

• Pretty much every Manowar song talks about this to some degree. The band's music is Rated M for Manly, about how War Is Glorious, and paints the singer (or the listener) as a complete badass who is destined to die in battle. The song "Sleipnir", for instance, is about an eight-legged war horse who carries the valiant dead to the afterlife of Valhalla, where a warrior can fight and drink for eternity.
  Carry we who die in battle
  Over land and sea
  Across the rainbow bridge, to Valhalla
  Odin's waiting for me!
• The Mika song "Heroes" plays with this trope, suggesting that soldiers themselves come to feel that it would have been better to die on the battlefield only after they survived the war.
  And you know, heroes aren't meant to survive
  So much harder to love when alive...

Multiple Media

• Transformers:
  • The various incarnations of Bludgeon throughout the franchise are known as master swordsmechs who eagerly seek Worthy Opponent after Worthy Opponent to battle. The original G1 Bludgeon in the Marvel comics once chided Jazz during the latter's attempt at invoking You Fight Like a Cow by declaring "you dishonour your warrior's heart with a fool's tongue!" He's not all talk, either: in the Generation 2 Marvel comics when Megatron Came Back Strong in order to retake leadership of the Decepticons, Bludgeon fought to the bitter end despite it being clear he was completely overpowered.
  • The extended bio of G1 Sixshot mentions that whenever he encounters a particularly Worthy Opponent, he challenges them to a one-on-one fight. His only praiseworthy trait is the respect with which he speaks of these many opponents he's killed, and it's mentioned that the reason for this is because despite his power and skill Sixshot knows that someday even that won't be enough to keep him alive, and so hopes his death will at least be remembered as an honourable and worthy one.
  • The Transformers (Marvel): When Megatron declares Starscream a traitor and orders his execution^note He deliberately set up a Wounded Gazelle Gambit by using himself as bait, hoping to lure the other Decepticons into following him into attacking the Autobots en masse and prove himself the better leader, but when Ravage discovered his scheme he attempted to murder the other Decepticon., Starscream demands his right to Trial by Combat in order to at least die as a warrior. Knowing that refusing Starscream's right to a warrior's death would undermine his leadership, Megatron agrees.
  • Transformers: Shattered Glass: When Optimus Prime's old friend Cliffjumper expresses disgust for his plan to execute a captive Decepticon, Optimus casually guns him down. However, rather than killing him he orders Cliffjumper to be dumped outside Autobot territory in the hopes that he'll recover his warrior spirit. Of course, since this is a Mirror Universe Optimus has no idea of knowing that it isn't his Cliffjumper but the one from the Marvel Comics Transformers continuity, accidentally shunted to their universe.
  • Beast Wars: Across the first season and the first half of the second season, Dinobot keeps showing how honorable would be to die in battle (at one point referring to Cybertronian heaven as "Silicon Valhalla"). After the events of "Maximal No More", where he temporarily goes back to the Predacons and handles the Golden Disk to Megatron, he feels a lot of guilt about his actions, which eventually lead to the events of "Code of Hero" where, after a banter exchange with vitriolic best bud Rattrap, he goes to fight the Predacons alone in order to prevent Megatron from changing the future, a battle he manages to win, but which he doesn't survive.

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech: The Clans zig-zag this trope: They are a warrior culture developed from centuries in isolation from the rest of human space, where honour is everything and the Warrior Caste are in charge. Clan warriors are taught from decanting both that the way they gain honour is to fight and win for their Clan, but also that all waste is abhorrent. This leads to the paradoxical situation of a warrior culture whose warriors don't mind dying in battle, but will be shamed post-mortem if they're found to have wasted their lives (or their precious BattleMechs) in a non-productive matter; Clan Warriors are expected to accept hegira once a battle turns against them. However, warriors have a shelf-life: If they don't get a Bloodname by their early thirties they are designated Solahma and considered 'wasted' by default, becoming either garrison soldiers, frontline Cannon Fodder or live-fire target practice for Clan cadets. Solahma warriors, because their lives cannot be 'wasted' by default, are therefore driven to obtain as glorious a death as possible because that's the only way left for their life to have any value at all to their Clan.
• Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok, an RPG based on Norse Mythology, encourages players to send their characters off to Valhalla as it unlocks new options for their next character. Eventually it becomes possible to bring back old characters as Einherjar and have new adventures in the afterlife.
• Warhammer Fantasy: Dwarf Slayers are already dead dwarfs walking, but they are expected to die their Glorious Death fighting a traditional foe of the dwarfs that is likely to kill them in single combat (trolls are considered ideal for this purpose, but a Slayer who becomes too strong for trolls will graduate to giants, then dragons, then demons). A Slayer who dies fighting something that can't be meaningfully described as monstrous, fearsome and mighty will only compound their dishonour, ensuring Slayers don't simply pick a fight with the nearest dwarf, human or piece of scenery nearby in order to die "in battle".

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla:
  • A series of sidequests involve the lost drengir of Ragnar Loðbrok, a group of Retired Badasses who once fought in the Great Heathen Army. However, all of them coped poorly with retirement for one reason or another (Survivor Guilt for outliving Ragnar, a Guilt Complex over their violent past, fear of Badass Decay, or just because Victory Is Boring), and now they wish to dive right back Into Harm's Way so they can join their fallen leader in Valhalla. Thankfully for them, the protagonist Eivor is more than willing to fight them in a Duel to the Death.
  • Eventually Eivor gets into a fight to the death with the psychotic Viking leader Ivarr the Boneless. After winning Eivor gets to decide whether to give their dying opponent an axe, so they can die with a weapon in hand and thus qualify for Valhalla.
• Cornelius Slate of Bioshock Infinite, angered by Comstock's refusal to recognize the death of thirty of his men during warfare and his plan to create "tin soldiers" (Patriots), rebelled with his followers after being retrograded and took over the Hall of Heroes, their slogan being "We deserve a soldier's death!"
  My men and I are doomed, doomed as noble Custer was at Little Big Horn. But we shall not yield to Comstock and his tin soldiers. But my scout has seen him... Booker DeWitt is coming here, to the Hall! DeWitt... we called him the White Injun of Wounded Knee, for all the grisly trophies he claimed. A man such as he... might just grant us the peace we seek.
  —Cornelius Slate, "A Soldier's Death"
• Dark Cloud: Goro's father was dying of an illness, and decided to die as a hunter before his disease could claim him. He led a hunting party into the woods after a monster called the Killer Snake, knowing he wouldn't be able to defeat it, and thus met his end.
• Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: Chapter 12 of the main story sees the "Defender Of Earth" Don Joaquin send a formal challenge to Overlord Laharl. Turns out his original quest to slay the Overlord failed and he was doomed to wander as a specter. He challenged Laharl in the hopes he could finally complete his mission. He loses but doesn't mind; being able to finally die like a hero.
  Don Joaquin: It may be hard for you to understand, but we heroes live a certain way...and we die a certain way too.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • The Ebony Warrior from the expansion "Dawnguard" has led a life of battle aiming to enter Sovngarde (the fantasy equivalent of Valhalla), only to realize too late that there is no one alive who can actually kill him in a fair fight anymore (which is required to enter Sovngarde). Luckily for him, a plucky Dragonborn eventually grows powerful enough to give it a shot, prompting the Ebony Warrior to approach them with a request to grant him his wish.
  • A random encounter is with an Old Orc who wishes to experience a "good death", which is to say, death in the heat of battle as opposed to dying of old age or something similar. Indeed, he is quite happy to continue living and searching for a worthy battle should you turn down his request for a fight. So long as you and him face off in honorable combat, he dies happily.
• Fable: The legendary hero Nostro is trapped as a ghost because he died from poisoned food rather than fall in battle. The protagonist can free him and his fellow Warrior Undead by giving them the fight they always wanted.
• Fallout 4: If Strong is your active Companion during the defense of Railroad HQ from the Brotherhood, he won't take kindly to attempts to keep Glory hanging on after her Last Stand.
  Strong: Let human die like warrior!
• In Final Fantasy XIV, the Dotharl are a clan of Xaela Au Ra who believe that the soul burns brightest as one inches closer to death in the heat of battle. According to their beliefs, they can only reincarnate by dying gloriously in the midst of combat, after which the khatun of the tribe will observe newly born children to see if they possess the same soul as someone who recently died. These beliefs make them even more bloodthirsty Blood Knights than the rest of the Proud Warrior Race Guy tribes that inhabit the Azim Steppe, though it has also left them with a dwindling population.
• In the Conquest route of Fire Emblem Fates, when Ryoma is defeated, he declares he will not be executed and instead he will "fulfill a samurai's final duty", which means committing seppuku on screen.
• Ghost of Tsushima: By the end of the game, the Final Boss main character Jin Sakai (a former samurai who ended up becoming a Combat Pragmatist in order to deter the Mongol invaders) has to face is his uncle, Lord Shimura, whose inflexible devotion to doing things honourably has caused him and Jin to butt heads repeatedly over the course of the story, but in spite of that, they still love one another, and Shimura's instruction by the Shogun to execute Jin for breaking the code of bushido (in spite of doing so being the only reason they were able to defeat the Mongols) is as much to punish him as his nephew. After a brutal, gruelling fight, a now-injured Lord Shimura asks Jin to kill him so that he can die honourably. Whether Jin obliges him or not depends on the player.
• Hollow Knight: The story of Cloth suggests she's looking for such a death after her girlfriend's demise.^note It's further implied that the latter did die in battle, and that the former fears being separated from her forever if her own death doesn't measure up. If you meet her in the right places in the right order, she gets her wish in a Mutual Kill against the Traitor Lord.
• Olaf the Berserker of League of Legends comes from a warrior Barbarian Tribe, and ever since he was foretold a prophecy that he would die peacefully of old age in his sleep — an ignoble and anticlimactic way for him to go — all he desires is to die in glorious battle, hurling himself at anything that looks like it could kill him after a really good fight. (Un?)fortunately for him, no matter how massive the threat is, he's simply too good at winning and is more than a little peeved of being denied any kind of death due to his opponents dying first.
• Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Upon being diagnosed with cancer, Kraven the Hunter decided that he would instead die via throwing himself into hunt after hunt, in hopes of finding an apex predator that could kill him in combat before the cancer did. Venom eventually turns out to be the one that gives Kraven his end.
• Sunless Sea: The Presbyterian Adventuress belongs to a tribe of people who are Long-Lived, but thanks to the sins of her father (he lived eleven years longer than the thousand their religion allows) she's being tracked by assassins intent on killing her and anyone close to her. She therefore seeks to close her long life of adventure with a Glorious Death in battle instead of waiting for an assassin's blade to take her in the night. Playing her storyline to the end causes the Adventuress to take on a Curator in open battle, a being so far above a human in the Great Chain of Being that it should be conceptually impossible for her to harm it at all. She still manages to nick its wing before being taken down.
• Vermintide II:
  • In his Slayer career, Bardin is oathbound to seek out an honorable death in battle. This isn't reflected in gameplay, but he gets excited that the Boss Battle with a Chaos Champion could make for a worthy death, and leaves disappointed afterwards.
  • Referenced by the Blessed Tome that Victor can carry as a Warrior Priest:
    And so it came to be that Bjorn Unberogen, tamer of the Northlands, did at last pass into Morr's keeping. Great were the lamentations that day, but they were tempered by the knowledge that the great king had passed into shadow with an axe in hand, and the blood of his enemies mantled upon his shoulders like a dread and baneful cloak.

Web Animation

• Etra chan saw it!: When Akamatsu loses both his legs in battle, Hiiragi orders him to blow himself up with a grenade, claiming he has no more use for him and should just die an honorable death.
• The Saga of Biorn: The short is about a Viking warrior attempting to die in a battle so he can be accepted to Valhalla.

Web Comics

• The Order of the Stick: Falling in battle is a way for dwarves to die with honor and avoid being condemned to Hel. The elderly dwarf warrior Kandro dies holding the line against a massive Death Worm while his friends escape, so they all start cheering.
  Thirden: In under the wire, if you ask me.
  Sigdi: I know, right? Thought he'd nev'r get killed proper.
  Hoskin: I was halfway ta pickin' a fight wit 'im meself, just so 'e'd die wit an axe 'n 'is hand.
  • Much earlier, long before the aforementioned revelation about dwarven culture was made apparent, when Roy was killed by Xykon in the battle of Azure City, Durkon was pleased to see his friend die with honour on the battlefield.
    Durkon: Aye... he's dead as a doornail alright.
    Haley: Durkon! Good gods, a little sensitivity! Roy just died! He was your best friend!
    Durkon: Aye, an tha is why I am happy. I know Roy, he prob'bly figured that any damage he done ta Xykon would make it tha much easier fer someone else to beat him. Tha means he died fulfillin' his duty, just like a dwarf. I cannae be sad knowin' me friend got such a good and worthy death. Though I admit tha hittin' the ground might've been a wee bit ignominius...

Western Animation

• In the Samurai Jack episode "Jack and the Lava Monster", the titular creature is a former Viking who was turned to stone by Aku to deny him going to Valhalla. He created a Death Course to find a worthy foe to reach and fight him so that he would be allowed to get there. Jack manages to get through the course and defeat him, and, as the Viking dies, he is seen ascending to Valhalla.
• Culture in The Sea Beast actively encourages this when it comes to Hunters. As the occupation is seen as a group of monster-slaying, seafaring badasses, many people consider it an honor to be killed in the line of duty and sing songs about "living the greatest lives and dying the greatest deaths". The protagonist, a little girl named Maisie, also seeks to become a Hunter like her late parents and die a great death.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: One episode introduces a Klingon-themed board game where the goal is to achieve a glorious death.
  • Another has Tendi in a simulation- the Klingon warrior demands a glorious death with a pointy ceremonial dagger after he broke his back picking up a peanut.
• Star Wars: Clone Wars: In General Grievous's introductory episode, he corrals a small team of Jedi with his vast army. It's clear that he could order his troops to rush in and overwhelm the Jedi, but Grievous boasts that he will grant the Jedi the honor of a warrior's death and duels them himself.

Real Life

• The highly decorated Muslim general Khalid Al-Walid (even nicknamed "the Sword of Allah") was bitterly disappointed that he lived to old age rather than being martyred in battle. On his deathbed, he lamented that he would die in bed "like a camel".
• Ancient Sparta viewed death in combat as the most honorable way to go out.
• The Vikings believed in Valhalla, the hall of the slain, where those slain in battle would go upon their death.
• This was the source of a lot of problems during the Meiji Restoration:
  • Following the opening of Japan thanks to Commodore Perry's black ships, Japan's government realised that they were desperately behind in terms of military technology and attempted to catch up. However, many Hot-Blooded or traditionalist samurai both young and old decried the use of guns, finding their use dishonorable. Some samurai even deliberately picked fights with Western powers, hoping to remind their fellow Japanese of the "proper" way to die i.e., with a sword in hand and a battle cry on their lips. In one example, a group of samurai built a fortress and then deliberately provoked the British... who then obliterated the fortress with a barrage of cannon fire.
  • The Shinsengumi encouraged this outlook in their recruits, resulting in highly motivated and dedicated warriors. Unfortunately, this also led to an extremely belligerent and bloodthirsty group who were all too eager to kill. Matters that could've been resolved through dialogue often resulted in bloodshed, and as time went on this desire for honorable death turned many of the members into Leeroy Jenkins-style hotheads. One of the commanders was so psychotically violent that his own men murdered him out of fear.

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