Suicide by Cop

"I'm a bookkeeper's son
I don't wanna shoot no one
Well, I crossed my old man back in Oregon
Don't take me alive!
Got a case of dynamite
I could hold out here all night
Yes, I crossed my old man back in Oregon
Don't take me alive!"

— Steely Dan, "Don't Take Me Alive"

A depressed or desperate individual wants to end their own life, but, for various reasons (a desire to make a point, insurance, programming, or moral aversion to suicide), is not willing to do it themself.

Instead, they engineer a situation in which someone else will be forced to do it for them. The "classic" scenario involves a criminal indiscriminately attacking Innocent Bystanders or police so that they will be forced to shoot. More sympathetic characters, however, will simply pull an unloaded gun or realistic toy gun on a police officer and hope they respond with lethal force. In real life, it is fairly common: at least one study showed that about a third of officer-involved shootings in the US are suicide-by-cop attempts. Granted, the numbers might be substantially off — statistics on officer-involved shootings in the US are notoriously sketchy — but the point that this is surprisingly common still stands.

It doesn't need to be a literal cop, as the trope can be broadly applied to any situation where a character attacks specifically because the expected reaction from the relevant authorities will cause the desired outcome of their death, such as a theorized Cold War scenario in which a megalomaniac United States general attacks the Soviet Union because the Soviet counterstrike would kill him (and a few million others, but who's counting?)

It's also possible to commit it accidentally — Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet! is unfortunately Truth in Television. Avoiding this is why you never touch or move threateningly at a police officer, you never make movements that could be seen as reaching for a weapon around cops, and why you never brandish or carry a prop or fake weapon (much less a real one) in a way that suggests immediate use when one could possibly come into contact with police.^note If you carry fake or prop weapons in public, you're advised to make them look safe at first glance with proper paint/markings/other "safety bonding," and openly carried firearms where it's legal to open carry should be holstered in closed holsters.

A variant that takes this trope to another level is Suicide by State, in which the person commits a crime that bears the death penalty and gets executed. This has really happened in Real Life — it was a popular method used by really desperate Scandinavians and Germans in a time when suicide was considered an unforgivable sin. By killing an innocent child, it was figured, both win; the child is innocent and goes to Heaven, you get to repent and prepare for death, and in the end, the state lops your head off or hangs you or whatever, and everyone "wins".

Compare My Death Is Just the Beginning, where the death is part of an ongoing plan; if it's the end result, it tends to be a Thanatos Gambit. This trope can also overlap with Going Postal if a downtrodden drone becomes a Spree Killer both to go out in a blaze of "glory" and to take some coworkers, customers, classmates, or other bystanders with them. See also Death Seeker for a character built around this. Criminals who declare that they're Never Going Back to Prison are particularly likely to do this. When you send someone else to get killed (by the police or any other armed force), it's The Uriah Gambit. This is related to I Cannot Self-Terminate.

This is a Death Trope, so expect spoilers.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In one chapter of Beastars, a sheep named Sebun tries to get the main protagonist Legoshi to eat her after failing to get a promotion at her job. He snaps her out of it by throwing her out of the train they're on.
• Rukia from Bleach viewed the possibility of being executed as this, since she was a Failure Knight who had to kill her Big Brother Mentor and first love when he was taken over by a Hollow. Ichigo, Orihime, Ishida, Chad, and Yoruichi disagree, and ultimately they rescue her and show her that she's loved and deserving to live through.
• Code Geass has Lelouch and Suzaku playing this, with Lelouch as the victim and Suzaku as the cop. This is the last part of Lelouch's Thanatos Gambit. What's more, Suzaku becomes Zero (Lelouch's alternate persona) from that moment, so effectively, Lelouch does kill himself. He also uses one legend he created (Lelouch the tyrannical Emperor) to reinforce the other one (the freedom fighter Zero), pushing the entire world in the direction he wanted. At the same time, this is a suicide played straight, as Lelouch crafted it after falling out of hope following Nunnally's apparent demise and the Black Knights' betrayal.
  • Suzaku's general attitude is this. But between his absurd combat prowess and Lelouch giving him the Geass command to "live", he's never able to actually pull it off.
  • Another example is when the Black Knights betray Lelouch. Lelouch, still grieving over Nunnally's apparent death and now cornered by Schneizel, pretends to be a Manipulative Bastard and fakes a Kick the Dog moment with Kallen in order to get them to kill him and spare her. Then Rolo shows up.
• Cowboy Bebop has a variation in "Black Dog Serenade" which is suicide by ex-cop. Jet's old partner threatens to shoot him: the gun is empty and he just wants Jet to kill him.
• This is more or less what Soichiro Yagami ultimately does in Death Note. After his daughter Sayu is abducted and used to blackmail him after he's forced to choose between surrendering the Artifact of Doom to the Mafia or sacrificing his life and hers, he chooses to take the shinigami eyes and halve his life. Turns out he didn't have that long to live, regardless.
• Beelzemon of Digimon Tamers attempts this; during his Villainous BSoD, he walks up to a group of Digimon whose friends he'd slaughtered earlier and stands there. Eventually they notice and attack him, and while he's obviously in pain, he doesn't even try to fight back despite being able to kill them all in seconds. After they spare him and leave him for dead he simply lies there, and when Renamon and Rika show up looking for him he essentially tells them to let him die.
• Dragon Ball: Son Goku wants to be killed by a powerful enemy of humanity than die in his bed because of a disease, even if the enemy would continue to slaughter humanity. And if he's killed by an enemy, it really has to be during a fight that excited him, not when he's at his weakest and in front of his family (especially when the enemy kills his family and friends).
• Eden: It's an Endless World! has a Tear Jerker example. A girl in a skyscraper full of people holding a bomb about to explode tries to throw it through a window. However, the window does not open, and she is out of bullets. She then threatens the police with her empty gun, so that they will shoot her, destroy the window, and send her falling outside with the bomb.
• In Fairy Tail, heavily implied to be at least part of the motive of Big Bad Zeref. He's cursed so that he can't die of old age and that the more he cares about other living things, the more uncontrollably his magic kills everything around him. He spent the past 400 years hiding in exile while caring about life to minimize damage - then he met the protagonist, who he knows is the only one with the potential to be strong enough to kill him. Immediately afterwards he convinces himself to stop caring about life, leave exile, and start doing homicidal things - conveniently ensuring that the emotionally driven protagonist will feel motivated to put him out of his misery.
• Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), who intentionally picks a fight with and enrages Ed on false pretenses so the latter will kill him, as it is preferable to waiting around for Dante to re-seal him. It's also a narrow-focused case of Put Them All Out of My Misery, with the "them all" in this case being the other Homunculi. Throughout the fight he unsubtly shows Ed all the steps needed to kill a Homunculus so he would be ready to do the same to Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Wrath, and ultimately Dante herself when the time came.
  • In the manga, Marcoh brings up the Ishvalan war in front of Scar in the hopes that Scar will lash out and kill him for his own role in it. Scar simply disfigures his face instead.
  • In the manga/Brotherhood timeline, it's rather heavily implied that Roy plans on deliberately getting himself executed for war crimes once he's achieved his political goals, and Riza's comment about following him into hell suggests that she wants to do the same.
• Done in Gantz by Izumi, who guns down hundreds of civilians in a crowded Tokyo train station so that he'll be killed and sent to the Gantz.
• In the 2018 anime series of GeGeGe no Kitarō that's the fate of Kani-Bōzu, a yōkai once tasked to protect a princess in ancient times. He failed and got sealed for centuries: upon waking up, he goes on a rampage in the close town of Sakaiminato, hoping for someone to put him out of his misery and lay him to rest along with his ward. Kitarō has to oblige his wish, but still turns his body into a bronze statue, places him to guard the princess' grave for all eternity, and has several statues of benign yōkai cast to keep him good company.
• Gundam:
  • In Gundam Wing, this is how Treize goes out by goading Wufei into fighting him one last time. Seeing as he was on the cusp of obtaining peace but knowing that he isn't fit for that war, he decided to go out on his own terms. However, the action haunts Wufei for a good year.
  • Gundam X: After realizing that Nomoa Long had been lying to him that natural-born Newtypes don't exist and realizing just how much of an Unwitting Pawn he is, Carris Nautilus loses a mobile suit fight against Garrod, then points at him with an empty gun to trick Garrod into shooting him dead. It works insofar as getting Garrod to shoot him, but it's not fatal and Garrod immediately gets the ship's doctor to help. After a second attempt to go and freeze to death is interrupted, Garrod and Tiffa manage to convince him to atone by living instead.
• One episode of Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou (and the manga story it was based on) involved Yorihisa's childhood friend/rival, a Nue, kidnapping Akane to force Yorihisa to go after him — it is made clear that he has no interest in Akane herself as he promises to set her free once Yorihisa arrives. The Nue is eventually revealed to have been poisoned by a member of the Oni clan, with the poison gradually driving him mad and causing him to turn into an uncontrollable monster. He guessed (correctly) that Yorihisa will choose his current duty over his past connections and save Akane at all costs even if it means killing his friend. Tear Jerker ensues.
• K: After becoming a Death Seeker due to Totsuka's death, Mikoto getting his revenge on the Colorless King forces Reisi to kill him before his Sword of Damocles can fall completely to the ground and wipe out everyone around him- including innocent high school students and most of the Red and Blue clansmen.
• Kyo Kara Maoh!: Death Seeker Grisel Gegenhuber (aka Hube) got a yojimbo gig for a total asshole in hopes of this, after being sequentially 1) exiled in disgrace on a Snipe Hunt for being a reckless commander, although the person who started the war for dumb reasons got off scot-free; 2) almost died a lot and suffered from racism; and 3) met his true love (in what was destined to be a Mayfly–December Romance) and was separated from her for what he believed to be forever.
  • Unfortunately, as soon as he saw Conrad in town his goal became to get his homeland's famous swordsman to kill him, and to that end, he attacked the guy The Ace was protecting...then found out that that was the new king of his country, and he was now a traitor as well as an exile.
• During the second episode of Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, Cicciolina set up the events of the episode (excluding the flashbacks) to manipulate a Mafia Bodyguard named Jigen. She stole his Magnum and sent him a message to meet her in an old church. She brought her goons there to shoot at him, knowing he was a better shot. She got her men killed and aimed Jigen's Magnum at him, manipulating him so that she could die by his hand.
• Madlax has a war-tired general who realizes that the war plaguing his country is orchestrated by The Syndicate (and he is but their pawn, too) and hires the eponymous Action Girl to assassinate him in broad daylight as his final act of defiance. The episode also serves to introduce The Rival to the girl, Dark Action Girl Limelda, who was assigned to protect the general.
• Failure Knight Zest Grangaitz, or more accurately, the degenerated clone of his in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS after learning that all of his remaining duties have been dealt with. His cop was Signum.
• Magic Knight Rayearth, which turns out to be from the POV of the "cops". The girls have been summoned to "save" Princess Emeraude by killing her, so she can be released from her duty as Pillar of Cephiro, in which role she has been gravely compromised since she fell in love with her Guardian, Zagato, and Cephiro itself started to die since she couldn't fully dedicate herself to it. Since the Pillar can't take their own life and nobody in Cephiro can harm them, this is the only option Emeraude feels she has left.
• Metroid: Samus and Joey: After Powered Knight switches sides and helps defeat the Greed Corps, he abruptly turns his weapon on Samus and demands one last duel against her. Samus simply nods unsurprised, before slaying Knight in a Single-Stroke Battle. She explains to Joey that after "remembering his pride as a warrior", Knight could no longer live with himself and wanted her to give him an honorable death.
• Monster Johan loves this trope. He tells both Dr. Tenma and Anna to shoot him in the head pretty much whenever they meet. He wants Tenma to kill him because it would mean making him admit that all life is not equal, and the implication is that he's so far gone that the only way he feels he can die is by making another person have to do it.
• MW: Michio Yuki can provoke anyone to kill him, including Garai.
• The Seven Deadly Sins character Nadja had a debilitating heart condition that made physical exertion dangerous for her. When she learned it was terminal, she propositioned the man she loved (who knew she was sick but not how much), and died happy. Unfortunately, she did not leave a suicide letter, so her family assumed that the man had raped her to death and punished him accordingly. Oops.
• Naruto:
  • Itachi Uchiha has an extreme subversion of Suicide By Cop... well, brother, anyway. He came up with a plan and waited SEVEN years before having his brother kill him in a blaze of glory. In those seven years, he did everything possible to drive the boy insane just to make sure he would kill him. The subversion is that he's ostensibly doing this for Sasuke's benefit and for other noble reasons, but his plan backfires spectacularly with nearly all of his goals save Sasuke's strength in ashes at this point.
  • Rin Nohara, doubling with Heroic Sacrifice. The Three-Tailed Beast had been sealed inside her by agents of Kirigakure and intended for Rin to return to Konoha, where the beast would break out and rampage, destroying the village. Instead, when Kakashi tried to kill one of the Mist-nin pursuing them, Rin chose to save her village from this fate by putting herself in the way of his attack, which resulted in both she and the Sanbi (temporarily, in the Sanbi's case - Tailed Beasts cannot truly die, being living chakra, though they take some time to reform after their host dies with the beast still sealed in them) dying and thwarting Mist's plan. Cue Obito undergoing a Face–Heel Turn out of grief over her death, and the rest is history.
• One Piece: Gol D. Roger, the Pirate King was diagnosed with an incurable disease, which led him to conquer the Grand Line. After the end, he decided to surrender to the World Government, who decided to execute him, thus leading to the events of the series.
• Pet Shop of Horrors: Count D's father did this, initially intending the FBI Agent to do it, yet having Leon Orcot put the bullet through his head in the end.
• In the filler Asgard saga from the Saint Seiya anime, the warrior Volker mixed this with Thanatos Gambit. He deliberately abused his adoptive son Mime and goaded him into killing him by revealing that he had killed Mime's parents, all of this when Mime was a pre-teen — both to die fighting instead of from a long-time illness and to atone for having killed Mime's mom and dad by pretty much accident instead of in the middle of Rape, Pillage, and Burn.
• Pretty much the MO of the person who brings Layton into the case in Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva.
• Sunday Without God: Although he claims he wants revenge, this is Julie's subconscious goal when he attacks the immortal Hampnie, and Hampnie refuses to kill him.
• The finale of Tokyo Ghoul √A implies that Kaneki intends to do this when he walks into the CCG base camp carrying Hide's body. The scene fades to black as he stands in front of Arima, with the sound of the Investigator opening his Quinque case. What happened to him is never shown, and since the anime is an Alternate Continuity, it's unclear whether he died or experiences the same fate as his manga counterpart.
• In the anime version of Trigun, this is an interpretation of Vash's complete failure to say a word or make a move in his own defense while being lynched by the town that recognizes him as the Stampede, in the episode after he shoots Legato in the head. He wasn't actually catatonic, but he kept acting as though he was while they tied him to the back of a truck and dragged him around on his face.
  • Of course, Vash "disapproves of suicide more than anything," so if he is doing this it's probably subconscious.
• An extremely convoluted plot in Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-^note not that there's any other kind involves Ashura-ou setting things up to force Fai (or is it Yuui?) to kill him. This makes Fai (even more) suicidal, too, just for good measure.
• In X/1999 Seishirou basically commits suicide via Subaru. See when he killed Subaru's older twin sister Hokuto in Tokyo Babylon she put a spell on him saying that if he tried to kill Subaru the same way it would get reflected back on him.
• Judai from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, after his whole takeover of the Dark World thing. Though he was trying to commit suicide by former underling, technically. He did believe that was the only way to make up for his sins at the time. He learned differently, but he still tried.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: Season 3 has Ai trying to pull one of these after learning that his continued existence will lead to humanity's extinction, and Yusaku's death as he'd be caught up in it. Thus, he spends the season putting into motion a plan that would be so dangerous that Yusaku would have to stop him, crushing all his former allies and friends all the while in order to further motivate him to do so. And on the chance that his plan actually does succeed, it would still result in his death anyway.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • The Cavalier (Hudson Pyle) does this in the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight arc "Blades", purposely charging the cops and getting gunned down.
  • In the Batman Confidential story arc "Lovers and Madmen", a brilliant but bored criminal named Jack attempts this after deciding that there's no fun or challenge in bank heists anymore, and he just wants to go out in a blaze of glory. In a twist of fate, he's saved by Batman, giving Jack a new purpose in life that ultimately ends up with him becoming the Joker.
  • This is in fact a part of the Joker's defining long-running "gag" with Batman (and by extension anyone who associates with him) as his obsession with the hero is fueled by his seemingly inherent incorruptibility despite clearly having gone through his own "one bad day", an event which should have made him exactly like the Joker. In his mind, disproving his incorruptibility through this trope would prove Joker was right to break and the world is a miserable joke where people only pretend it isn't.
  • The Joker attempts this again in Joker's Last Laugh. However, he calls it "Suicide by Super-Hero" since it was Nightwing.
• Captain America: After being saved from death by having his mind uploaded into a robot body, the Machinesmith decides that he'd rather die, but finds that he can't override the self-preservation safeguards. He solves the problem by leading Captain America to his central computer and manipulating him into shutting it down.
• In Convergence: Crime Syndicate #2, Owlman allows himself to be killed by the Justice Legion's Wonder Woman. He knows his city will be destroyed if the Crime Syndicate loses their battle, but he's doing it because he believes Metropolis doesn't deserve to live for executing Superwoman. Sadly, he only just realizes Superwoman survived as Wonder Woman breaks his neck.
• Done by the Just Like Robin Hood outlaw Railroad Bill in Jonah Hex. Bill works the lever-action on his empty rifle and points it at Jonah as Jonah orders him to drop it, forcing Jonah to shoot him.
• Judge Dredd:
  • One citizen, having converted to the Cat'lic religion and given an implant designed to manipulate his behaviour to that of a fundamentalist for his wife, finds that after she dies, he has no reason to live due to having disowned all his friends at the wedding. Since suicide is a sin, he begins training himself to go up against the one man guaranteed to kill him, Judge Dredd. It's subverted, though, as Dredd manages to arrest him and arrange to have the implant removed so that the man can serve his cube sentence, for which he is grateful.
  • Played straight by several other citizens. A particularly depressing example was a young pro-Democracy terrorist who wanted to reform, but his comrades killed his lover and put a hit out on him. After disposing of his former allies he turns his gun on Dredd hoping to get killed. His wish is granted.
• The Punisher:
  • Subverted in one issue. After chasing the Big Bad all over the city, Frank finally corners him, only to have probably the only thing close to an honest cop catch up and point a gun to his head. Frank ends the Mexican Standoff by tossing the Big Bad his own gun. The Big Bad makes to shoot Frank, causing the cop to kill him instead.
  • It's heavily implied that the Punisher's own career is just one long case of this. He'll gladly take out as many crooks as he can, but it's really just a bonus until he finally gets killed in the process and rejoins his family.
• Inverted in Red Hood and the Outlaws — Arsenal had attempted suicide by crook when he picked a fight with Killer Croc. Croc thought he was so pathetic he just forced him to enroll in A.A.
• Karolina attempted this in an early issue of Runaways, but it backfired. Trying to commit "suicide by vampire" when you're solar-powered just kills the vampire.
• The Mighty Thor does this to The Sentry at the end of Siege after the pummeling he receives knocks him back into his normal persona. He begs Thor to kill him, but while Thor initially refuses, demanding justice, the re-emergence of the Void forces Thor's hand and he blasts him with lightning.
• Sin City:
  • In the first story, it's implied that Marv tries this after his Roaring Rampage of Revenge is over, figuring that the Roarke family will kill him anyway. Cops do come and shoot him, but he lives, only to face a Kangaroo Court. Marv doesn't care, though, because at this point, he's already won.
  • In "The Customer is Always Right", the main character has hired a hitman to kill her, so that she can avoid being tortured to death by a mobster ex-boyfriend.
• In the inaugural story arc in Solo Avengers, Hawkeye's old Evil Mentor Trick Shot torments the Avenger for months before finally tracking him down to an uninhabited island and challenging him to a duel. After Hawkeye deliberately missed, Trick Shot revealed he was dying of cancer and that all this was a ploy to provoke Hawkeye into killing him. He didn't want to die in some hospital bed, he certainly wasn't going to kill himself, and Hawkeye was the only one who could possibly best him in a contest of skill.
• Spider-Man:
  • The serial killer Sin-Eater, a.k.a. Stanley Carter, holds a boy hostage pointing a shotgun at his head, prompting the police to shoot him. It turns out he had done this intentionally as he had trouble readjusting to society after his release from psychological and medical care, was depressed and racked with guilt for the murders he committed as Sin-Eater, and he was still being haunted by his Sin-Eater persona. Before he dies, he reveals the gun was empty.
  • Tarantula tried to duplicate Spider-Man's powers through genetic engineering but instead became a giant spider. Saddened, he jumped in front of a volley of police bullets to kill himself.
  • In the 1987 Spider-Man vs. Wolverine one-shot, Spider-Man gets embroiled in a case in East Berlin when Charlie, a female ex-KGB agent and longtime friend of Wolverine's, goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against her KGB superiors. Not wanting to be tortured by the KGB, she wants Wolverine to kill her. Spider-Man intervenes (he thinks that either Charlie or the KGB had killed Daily Bugle reporter Ned Leeds) and he and Wolverine fight each other furiously. Dazed after the fight, Spider-Man feels a hand on his shoulder and his Spider-Sense tells him an attack is coming. Thinking it's Wolverine, he turns and hits the person, hard. Turns out to be Charlie and the blow is lethal, which is what she wanted. Suicide by superhero. To this day, this one-shot remains the only time Spider-Man has ever killed.
  • Spider-Man accuses the Green Goblin of trying this during the "A Death in the Family" storyline when Green Goblin puts Flash Thompson in a coma and then goes public with claims that Gwen Stacy died due to Spider-Man failing to safely catch her body when it fell off the bridge, and making claims of having sex with Gwen. We never find out from Norman if Spider-Man was right or not, though the ending implies that Norman has been/is contemplating when he opens his desk's drawer to reveal a gun in it.
  • In Spider-Girl, Normie Osborn, the MC2's Green Goblin, kidnaps and tries to get May (the titular Spider-Girl) to kill him, in a misguided effort to end the Goblin line once and for all.
  • Kraven the Hunter, having Came Back Wrong thanks to the resurrection process getting screwed up, cannot die unless he either kills "the Spider" or "the Spider" kills him. To this point, he attempts to goad Spidey into trying to kill him. He gets his wish in Hunted, but through Loophole Abuse.
• Superman villain Hank Henshaw, a.k.a. the Cyborg Superman, is apparently immortal but desperately wants to die at any cost, so he became a mass-murdering supervillain in an attempt to provoke superheroes into killing him.
• In The Ultimates 3, Hawkeye nearly goads Wolverine into killing him by shooting him from a short distance.
• In Ultimate Spider-Man, Norman Osborn begs S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to kill him after he unthinkingly beats his own son to death as the Green Goblin.
• In V for Vendetta, V corners Finch in a subway but allows the cop to shoot him a few times. But they both knew that if both sides actually tried to kill the other, V would have won with his throwing knives.
• There is a strong case to be made for Rorschach trying this in Watchmen. Alan Moore himself has stated that Rorschach had a king-sized death wish, and he knew that Dr. Manhattan would try to stop Rorschach from revealing the truth. Rorschach may not have engineered the scenario, but he willingly embraced death.
• What If?: In Vol. 2, Issue 58, "The Day I Killed Spider-Man", The Punisher succeeds in killing Spider-Man, only to get every superhero in New York after him for the murder of one of their own. Finally, he confronts Professor Miles Warren (alias The Jackel) who convinced him to take down Spider-Man, and holds a gun to his head. When a team of police officers threaten to take him down if he fires at Warren, the Punisher smiles, as this is what he wanted all along.
• Wonder Woman: Odyssey: This is Nemesis' ultimate goal. She considers allowing Diana to kill her and become the new Nemesis to be her ultimate victory.
• In X-Factor (2006), a dupe of Jamie Madrox does this by shooting a corrupt police chief in broad daylight with a horde of other cops standing around him. Also, previously suicidal Rictor goes up against a horde of cops, armed with only a paintball gun. Later, Guido calls him on it.
• In Y: The Last Man, Alter does something similar, murdering Agent 355 in order to bait Yorick into avenging her. Yorick sees through this and leaves her alive. The twist is Alter insists her death be at a man's hands — a good deal of the conflict in the series wouldn't have happened if she'd just been alright with letting another woman kill her.

Fan Works

• In crossover fanfiction Adopted Displaced, Rundus tried this when the Phazon corruption was close to fully taking over him. Fortunately, Spike and Samus managed to save him.
• Yakumo in Black Flames Dance in the Wind: Rise of Naruto asks Naruto to kill her. After Kurenai apparently convinces her otherwise, she waits until his back is turned and then charges him with a weapon in hand. Naruto instinctively turns around and stabs her through the heart, realizing afterwards her "weapon" was a paintbrush.
• In The Blacksmith's Apprentice Hiccup basically attempts 'suicide by dragon'; certain that Berk will never accept him after spending the better part of the last three years as basically the village thrall, disinherited by Stoick, and with nobody showing any real concern for him even after he is brutally assaulted by Snotlout and the twins, after he shoots down a Night Fury, Hiccup releases the dragon fully expecting it to kill him.
• In The Coiners' Paper Trail Andromeda Tonks gets Harry to babysit her grandson and then goes out to confront Thorfinn Rowle. Harry refers to the situation as "suicide by Death Eater" while telling Snape about it.
• Devil's Diary: Magneto's diary mentions Erik more than once considered goading the Auschwitz camp's guards into gunning him down.
  "The fool [Xavier] spent his childhood safe in America while I was trying to keep myself from rushing into the barbed wire and suiciding in the guards' bullets."
• The Horsewomen Of Las Vegas has an invoked version of this, a "murder by cop". Detective Bayley Martinez is at a crime scene and comes across someone dressed entirely in black, including a ski mask and holding a gun in their hands. Bayley repeatedly orders them to drop the gun, which they don't and she shot them. Only after shooting does she realize that 1) the gun was taped into the person's hands so they couldn't let go of it, 2) the gun wasn't loaded, and 3) the person was her own partner, Alexa Bliss, whose mouth was taped shut so she couldn't communicate.
• There is a possible case of this in one of the Spin-Off stories of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines. About 40 years before the main plot, a Pokémon Trainer called "Twenty Gyarados Bill" went on a rampage with, well, 20 Gyarados, destroying three cities before being taken down by the Army. Since Bill began his rampage to get back at everyone who wronged him, and lacked any plan of what to do after the destruction, and died with no regrets, one had to wonder if this was a contributing factor.
• Queen of Blood: The Simurgh takes every attack she can in one spot to expose her core so she can be killed and freed.
• Hebi-Na attempts this towards the end of the Shadowchasers: Power Primordial, after having a dangerous irreversible curse inflicted on her by the Big Bad. It fails to work, but applying a cure is the focus of Shadowchasers: Soulscape.
• Happens in Stress Relief - a RWBY fic focused on the Crack Pairing of Jaune and Cinder. In something of a benevolent Thanatos Gambit, Cinder arranges a scenario in which she gets killed by Pyrrha. Falling in love with Jaune has caused her to abort her original plan, but simply running away or committing suicide would likely cause Salem to seek Jaune out for foiling her scheme.
• Under the Northern Lights: Wiglek the Wicked, tired of his undead immortality (having been trapped under a glacier for centuries and all), is only supporting things like sacrificing sapient beings so that Luna, the one who turned him into a lich to begin with, will become angry enough to end his undead existence once and for all.
• Vow of Nudity: Spectra's parents die in the middle of their court trial by ensuring a cleric's casting of moonbeam deals maximum damage to them. The judge notes that they were otherwise guaranteed to be hanged for their crimes.
• We Must Be Killers: District 1 tributes (especially the girls) are well aware of the Sex Slave fate that awaits them if they win the Hunger Games, but before they are sent into the Games, they are given a last visit with any siblings they have and told those siblings will be murdered if they die and don’t try to win. However, a few of them (like Britta from Devon’s Games and Petra’s opponent Ambrosia subtly manage to let themselves be killed in non-obvious ways.
• In the Masako X - Dragon Ball What-If fanfic What if Goku Black Turned Good?, enough of Goku's personality and conscience remained in Goku Black that the Zamasu side of him started experiencing remorse for his actions, and when Future Zamasu tried to enact his plan to fuse with Goku Black to destroy the multiverse, Goku Black, who's unable to self-terminate, asks Vegeta to kill him instead. Vegeta obliges.

Film — Animated

• This was heavily implied to be the case with the prince in the legend/Mor'du in Brave since his little nod to Merida after his death hints that they had become horrified by their actions and was trying to be killed to be put out of their misery.

Films — Live-Action

• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford implies that Jesse James is so burdened by his criminal acts and lifestyle that he deliberately allows the Ford brothers to kill him.
• In the ending of Bad Boys (1995), Fouchet tries to goad Mike into doing this for him, but he only gets killed after he tries to pull a gun on Marcus.
• At the climax of Before I Hang, Dr. Garth, now being pursued by the police, approaches the prison where he had been incarcerated. The warden admits him, but Garth immediately makes aggressive movements toward the armed guard at the gate. The guard shoots him, and as he is dying the doctor admits that he committed suicide in order to prevent himself from killing anyone else.
• Breakheart Pass: When Deakin, who is a government agent, confronts Marshall Pearce, rather than surrender, Pearce attempts to draw on Deakin and forces Deakin to shoot him dead.
• In Bulworth, the title character purchases a $10 million life insurance policy, then places a hit on himself to be performed within the next two days. He then tries to ruin his image by being completely unrestrained in his political opinions to give plausibility to his assassination. Ironically enough, this ends up working in his favor, and when he tries to call off the hit, he finds that his contact to the mafia suffered a heart attack.
• In The Chase (1994) the main character, after having run from the police for most of the movie, finally realizes it's not going to work, and that he's putting his hostage-turned-love-interest through a lot of danger. Consequently, he releases the (reluctant) girl and gets out of the car. A deep, slow-motion, underwater-sound scene follows, in which he looks around at the massive police force surrounding him and smokes a last cigarette. Then, suddenly, he makes a gun shape with his hands and rapidly points it at the cops. He is shot countless times and falls down, dead... and then he blinks and shakes his head: it was just an Indulgent Fantasy Segue, and he's still in the car.
• In The Constant Gardener, we gradually realize that the hero is doing this. In investigating his wife's murder by a conspiracy, he eventually learns enough to force the conspiracy to kill him in the same way and the same place as his wife.
• In The Crazies (2010), Deputy Russell faces the army soldiers with an unloaded gun so he wouldn't have to succumb to the infection and to provide a distraction for the other survivors.
• In The Dark Knight, the Joker wants Batman to kill him, and thus prove that there is no difference between the two of them, thereby cementing his world philosophy.
• In the short film De Kalb Elementary (nominated for an Oscar in 2018), the turning point in stopping a school shooter is when the receptionist negotiating with him realizes he wants to commit suicide by cop rather than actually kill anybody. She succeeds in talking him into surrendering himself to the police, with no one harmed but the shooter himself.
• During the final showdown in Den of Thieves, Merriman — having run of bullets — slams an empty magazine into his gun, making Big Nick think that he has reloaded. He then comes out and points the empty gun at Nick, forcing Nick to shoot him.
• Inverted and barely averted in Die Hard with a Vengeance, where the Mad Bomber Simon Gruber attempts to get the NYPD officer John McClane to commit suicide, forcing him to stand on a street corner in New York City's mostly-black Harlem neighborhood while wearing only a sandwich board with the words "I HATE NIGGERS" scrawled across it. Only the timely intervention of Zeus Carver saves John from a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the hands of a group of black teenagers, one of whom lets out a very loud "what the fuck?" upon seeing the sign. (This scene was actually filmed on location in Harlem; during production, the sign was left blank out of fear of offending the locals and provoking such a reaction for real, with the offending words added with CGI. The TV edit changes it to "I HATE EVERYBODY" instead.)
• In Dogma, the rogue angels Bartleby and Loki planned to become human, then absolve their sins through plenary indulgence, and die, thus getting back into heaven. Suicide would be a strict no-no, so Bartleby killed a bunch of people, planning to be cut down by the police as he exited the church (the murder coming before the absolution of their sins). On a larger scale, the villain Azrael plotted to trick God into being forced to destroy the entire universe, just so that he would no longer suffer in Hell.
• In Fallen, the hero John Hobbes (a cop) is forced to shoot someone who he thinks is attempting Suicide By Cop. However, it turns out the demon he's hunting possessed the victim and then possesses one of the witnesses in order to frame Hobbes for murder.
• The main character in Falling Down draws a water pistol during a stand-off, and is shot by a cop because other methods of suicide would result in loss of his life insurance policy.^*This does NOT work in Real Life, because insurers will not pay benefits if a loss is incurred in the commission of a felony. Even using a fake weapon, making someone think you're trying to kill them is a major crime (not to mention several other crimes he committed before). While falling backwards, he notes that he would have won — he squirted the cop before getting shot.
• The ending of Fatal Move, where the triad leader (played by Sammo Hung), being the Sole Survivor of a heated mob war and having killed his favourite protege, decide to march out to the police holding a machine-gun in each hand and fire into the sky provoking the police to gun him down.
• Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury. Although it wasn't really his own choice...
• Un Flic: One interpretation of the ending: Commissioner Coleman draws his gun and tells Simon to surrender. Simon reaches into his coat, and Coleman fires. Simon is found to be unarmed.
• Walt's plan of getting rid of a well-armed street gang in Gran Torino is to psych them into gunning him down in full view of the neighborhood. Presumably, the neighbors would be inspired by his courage and come forward as witnesses instead of being scared into keeping their mouths shut, like they did with the gang's other crimes. To do so, Walt makes a racket calling them out, including mentioning one of them raped his own cousin to prove a point, stuff no one can ignore.
• The Great Escape: After the tunnel Tom is discovered, the shattered Ives tried to scale the wire in full view of the guards, and is machine-gunned.
• Gunless: During the showdown, Sean seems to want to die. He purposefully adjusts his aim so that he would miss, allowing Jack to win the duel and kill him.
• The Hazing: In order to complete the magic ritual to unleash his spirit, Professor Kapps needs to die. However, the rules of the ritual mean that it will not work if he kills himself. So, after reviving at the hospital, he murders several staff and patients, forcing the cop guarding him to gun him down. His last words to the cop are "Thank you".
• The Hit List: Jonas Arbor's systematic murder of the people on Allan Campbell's hit list is intended to goad Allan into killing him: telling Allan that the only way he will stop is if Allan stops him. He has plenty of opportunity to allow the actual police to kill him, but he is fixated on Allan being the one to kill him.
• The Hunger Games: It is very heavily implied that Cato physically endangers Peeta's life so that Katniss will be forced to shoot him.
• In the Line of Fire: What Leary is essentially committing, as he surely knows he'll be shot by the police or Secret Service after shooting the president. He openly indicates this is his intent, saying he's willing to die if that's what it takes, and comes off as a death seeker at times.
• The movie Jimmy Hollywood has a good subversion of this trope at the end - surrounded by cops after his vigilante spree and with things looking bleak, Jimmy - determined to make a big exit - decides to go out fighting; loading his guns with blanks, he aims to pull a Suicide By Cop. So he bursts out of the building, guns blazing... and nothing happens. Turns out his girlfriend told the cops his guns weren't loaded (ignore how foolish they were to take her at her word, even after his guns started going bang-bang in their direction).
• Anthony Quinn's character does this in Last Train from Gun Hill when he forces Kirk Douglas's character to draw, as it is implied that he has lost the will to live after his son is killed.
• In Licence to Kill, Kwang tells his partner it is Better to Die than Be Killed. She obliges by committing suicide by cop, by killing one of Colonel Heller's men, prompting Colonel Heller's men to shoot her.
• Life (1999): Biscuit is being released from prison, but he can't cope with the idea of living on the outside. He crosses the gun line in front of the guards, which gets him killed.
• A drawn-out version in The Life of David Gale. In this case, Gale is on Death Row for murdering his colleague, both prominent anti-capital punishment advocates. He's innocent of the crime, but is executed anyway, to prove the point that sometimes, innocent people are executed. It's implied that he volunteered to be executed because his life had recently fallen apart after being falsely accused of rape, fired, and divorced.
• Aside from the possibility of making Superman anguish for derailing his plot to reestablish Krypton on Earth, this seems to be Zod's only reason for attempting to incinerate an innocent family at the end of Man of Steel. Superman has him in a necklock and can't get him to turn his eyes away from his would-be victims, forcing Superman to break his neck to stop his attack (which might have given Zod the last word anyway because Superman was trying so hard not to resort to lethal force and it freed Zod from his now-meaningless existence).
• In Minority Report, Anderton is trying to prevent a future in which he kills a man, and nearly succeeds... only for the man to commit Suicide by Pre-Cop. Although he did it because the real Big Bad promised him to pay a large sum to his family.
• The Negotiation: In the final minutes of the movie, Chae-youn, knowing that snipers are in the vicinity, offers Tae-gu an out: he can come with her and cooperate in the investigation to gain justice for his sister. However, he instead decides to aim a gun at one of the hostages, sealing his fate.
• The Big Bad in New Police Story goes out this way.
• Gabriel Finch, in Neverwas, attempts to have the police kill him rather than be forced to confront the fact that Neverwas doesn't exist except in his delusions and as a bestselling children's book.
• At the end of Odd Man Out, Cathleen kills both herself and her lover this way. Although to be fair, he was already bleeding to death and wanted by the police, so it's really an act of mercy.
• The police in Phonebooth suspect the main character of attempting this, and actively seek to defy it. Of course they're wrong as Stu doesn't want to commit suicide, he's being held hostage by a man with a sniper rifle aimed at the booth.
• In Prairie Fever, Preston attempts to goad Monte into shooting him; both because he wants to die, but also as part of a Thanatos Gambit. Although he looks like he is reaching for a gun, he is actually unarmed, and by shooting an unarmed man, Monte would be guilty of murder and hanged.
• Queen & Slim: After one cop shoots and kills Queen/Angela, Slim/Ernest picks up her body and walks toward the other cops, despite them having their guns drawn on him and telling him they'll shoot if he gets any closer. They do after he keeps walking, with Slim being shot dead.
• In The Recruit Walter Burke does this after his true motivations are revealed.
• At the climax of Red Hill, Jimmy chooses to shoot a helpless Bill while he is lying on the ground, in full view of the police that have just arrived, knowing that they will shoot him.
• In the movie Reign Over Me, Charlie Fineman attempts suicide through this method. However, instead of being shot by the cops, he is instead tackled and arrested.
• The French noir classic Le Samouraï, starring Alain Delon, is a textbook example.
• In Se7en, John Doe murders Mills' wife, angering Mills into shooting Doe, which completes the set of seven sins (wrath).
• This is one way to interpret Frankie's death in A Score to Settle. As a career criminal, he had to know what would happen when armed police called on him to surrender, and he instead reached into his pocket. Given that he was already badly wounded from two gunshots and dying of terminal illness, it is easy to believe that he deliberately chose to go out this way.
• At the end of Seven Ways from Sundown, Flood is horrified when he learns that his reckless shooting while escaping had nearly killed Seven's girlfriend Joy. Knowing that to get away, he will have to kill Seven — whom he genuinely likes — Flood slows his draw, allowing Seven to draw first and shoot him.
• Subverted in The Shawshank Redemption. After his corruption is exposed, Warden Norton barricades himself in his office with a loaded pistol, preparing for this trope, before deciding to take the middle man out and puts the pistol to his head, instead.
• Short Time inverts the trope in a unique way: the main character, Det. Burt Simpson, is mistakenly told he has a terminal illness and has two weeks to live. Only a week away from retirement, he puts himself in ever-riskier situations in an attempt to get killed in the line of duty, as his police life insurance gives a richer payout than his normal life insurance, but only works if he dies on the job.
• S.O.B.: Felix, the director, kidnaps a security guard using a water pistol and forces a movie film he wants to take to be brought out of storage. Confronted by the police, he points the pistol at them, and he is shot and killed.
• In Soylent Green, member of the board of directors of the Soylent Corporation William R. Simonson hires someone to kill him after he learns the secret of Soylent Green and no longer wishes to live.
• Takers had an inversion and then played it straight in another case. When one of the bank robbers is cornered by a detective he aims his gun at the cop but the cop just lets the robber shoot him. The cop has been caught taking a bribe and if he dies in the line of duty now his family will get his pension and life insurance money rather than see him go to jail. Later on, two of the robbers decide to walk straight at the SWAT team guns blazing rather than try to escape. They do not want to run and can't live with the deaths they caused.
• Near the end of The Town, Jem decides to invoke this on a firing squad of cops rather than actually give up and return to jail. He's out of bullets, so he stands up, empty weapons aimed at the cops, and they do what they're trained to do and blast him.
• Textbook case at the end of Violent City: After having killed the woman he loved and who betrayed him, Charles Bronson's character just...waits for the cops to get there. Once they do, he tells them to go ahead and shoot him. They naturally hesitate. He picks up his (unloaded) gun and points it at them. They promptly fill him full of holes.
• Violet & Daisy: The Guy robbed a truck carrying money smuggled for a criminal gang, hoping to get killed since he was dying of cancer. He wanted a death on his terms.
• Inverted in Where the Sidewalk Ends. Detective Mark Dixon goes to confront mobster Tommy Scalise, fully expecting to be murdered but reasoning that at least this time Scalise will be held responsible. Scalise has anticipated this, too, and has realized what happened to Paine. He refuses to kill Dixon, who is shot in his arm instead.
• In Whitewash, this is how Paul dies. He steals some of Bruce's dead wife's fake eyeballs and runs out of the house, causing Bruce to chase him in his snowmobile. Then he stops in the middle of the road. Because of the bad visibility that night, Bruce can't brake on time, and he slams into and kills Paul. He thinks afterwards that it was probably for the better, considering that Paul had previously attempted suicide by exhaust fumes.

Literature

• One way to interpret the ending of All Quiet on the Western Front is that Paul willingly exposed himself to enemy fire, killing himself, although it could have simply been an accident. The text clearly stating that Paul stood up and is "very calm", as well as the fact that he has crossed the Despair Event Horizon by this point, point toward it being deliberate.
• Kenzotul in An Outcast in Another World, an Elf wracked by grief due to his part in The Scouring, offers his life to Rob as atonement and puts him on the spot by doing so in broad daylight. Rob denies him, telling him that living his life to atone for his crimes would mean more.
• This trope is at the center of the very first Callahan's Crosstime Saloon story, "The Guy With The Eyes." Said guy happens to be a seven-foot-tall pseudohuman cyborg whose mission is to investigate Earth and see if humans deserve to survive as a species. He's certain the answer from his Masters will be "no." But he doesn't want to see humankind wiped out, so he tells his story to Callahan and his regulars in hopes that they will kill him, and stop his information from being delivered.
• In Francis Beeding's "Death by Judicial Hanging" the protagonist decides to kill the business partner who financially ruined him so that his family will get the life insurance payment when he's executed, only to be foiled when the verdict is changed to a life sentence.
• Discworld: Just one of the varied and sundry ways to commit suicide in Ankh-Morpork. Rarely on purpose, though; in Ankh-Morpork, committing suicide is so easy that most conventional forms of accidental death take weeks of planning by comparison. Some people do it just by going out for a drink since some neighborhoods or bars in Ankh-Morpork are so dangerous that any death in them is ruled a suicide by the authorities.
• Deconstructed very tragically in The Dresden Files in the thirteenth book, Ghost Story. During the preceding book, Changes, protagonist Harry Dresden had been rendered completely incapable of rescuing his daughter from the vampiric hordes who kidnapped her, so he essentially said, "Fuck it, I'm throwing morals to the wind", and made a deal with the (metaphorical) devil, getting power enough to save her — and a gnawing corruption that eats at his soul, warping his desires into cruel, monstrous whims. He knew, however, that this would happen, and Ghost Story reveals that he made pre-emptive arrangements for his own murder. The deconstruction comes in what happens after he dies, and his ghost is forced to roam the city he left. The thing about being desperate enough to commit suicide is that you don't consider how it will affect your friends...and if you're a hero so renowned that most monsters won't threaten your city while you live, things get even worse...
• Les Enfants de Prométhée has a particularly tragic example in that the attack itself wasn't intentional: in a world where all of society is built on the Pillars' Elemental and Psychic Powers, Cancellers are locked up and raised in secret because their abilities are considered too dangerous by the Federation. Everything goes downhill when every Pillar in Primville suddenly loses their power at the same time, all because one Canceller lost control of her powers. Said Canceller tries to escape at first, but when a policewoman tells her all about the damage she is causing, she begs the policewoman to kill her. She gets her wish.
• In Fate/Zero, this turns out to be Berserker's (AKA Sir Lancelot) motivation for obsessively targeting Saber. Since Arturia never punished Lancelot for his affair with Guinevere, Lancelot felt that the only way for him to be redeemed was Saber killing him as Berserker.
• Fifth Quarter: Commander Neegan of the Havalkeen army is a senior officer with over two decades experience where the median Imperial Assassin who survives their training does not survive three years, and he has never missed a target. The fact that he verbally reminds the deserter (a five-year veteran herself) he had perused at least halfway across the Empire, trained, and (less incidentally that he is willing to admit even to himself) sired about that last bit when she turned her back to him indicated he wanted that streak broken the only way he could comprehend how.
• In Green Rider, Jendara, knowing that her Heel–Face Turn was not going to redeem her in the eyes of her former colleagues for having turned traitor in the first place and that the traditional punishment for a member of her order who commits treason is to be slowly tortured for weeks and then get staked out for the vultures - while still alive, deliberately attacks the Weapons who try to take her prisoner, forcing them to kill her quickly.
• Joe Pickett: The murderer does this in Blood Trail, lunging at the final victim with a knife despite the fact that Joe has a shotgun leveled at them.
• About two-thirds of the way through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Gellert Grindelwald commits suicide via Voldemort. The former had come to his prison cell that he'd been looked in for over fifty years looking for the Elder Wand. Grindelwald laughs in his face, refuses to tell him where it is, and then says "I welcome Death". At that point, he was about 115 years old and the only person he'd ever loved had died about a year previously so he lost the emotional will to stay alive.
• Navigating Early: MacScott, who has lived for the last fifty years with the guilt from a crime he was never punished for, fires twice at a large, ferocious black bear, missing on purpose in order to provoke the bear to maul him.
• In Les Misérables, Éponine attempts murder-suicide by National Guard when she persuades Marius to go to the barricade, then follows him there so they'll die together. This way, in one fell swoop she plans to end her own miserable life and take Marius with her so that if she can't have him, at least no one else will. Fortunately for Marius, she ultimately backtracks on the "murder" part by Taking the Bullet for him.
• In New Moon When Edward thinks that Bella has died, he goes to Italy to provoke the Italian coven that rules the vampire world, the Volturi, into killing him. He does this via sparkling in public (therefore risking breaking The Masquerade, which the Volturi enforce).
• In Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides, Stede Bonnet falls under Blackbeard's power via vodun and extortion but eventually opts to escape being a sorcerous puppet by invoking this trope ... with the Royal Navy as the cops. His desire to be killed in battle rather than hanged leads him to escape from jail when captured, then provoke the pursuing soldiers into firing on his own party of fugitives.
• The Outsiders: Dally, after the considerably more heroic death of Johnny. The latter was the former's Morality Pet who treated him with Hero Worship.
• Near the end of Stephen King's now out-of-print novel Rage (1977), the school shooter protagonist grabs for a non-existent gun, prompting a policeman to shoot him several times. He survives and is committed to an insane asylum.
• According to Ravana's backstory in the Ramayana, he used to be a servant of the God of wealth Kubera but was cursed by the gods to become a demon after trying to steal from his master. Ravana then, as a demon, does penance to the god Brahma and is given the boon that he can return to heaven after being killed by the avatar of the god Vishnu. This is why he kidnaps Sita, so that Vishnu's avatar, her husband Rama, will kill him.
• In Rebecca, it is eventually revealed that the title character goaded her husband into killing her so that she wouldn't have to face a lingering death by cancer.
• In River Marked, Uncle Mike says that he's going to list the official cause of death for several fae as "suicide by werewolf" after they tried to hurt Mercy while she was standing next to her husband, Adam, since he's got a huge reputation in the supernatural community as a badass with a Hair-Trigger Temper who's extremely protective of those he cares about. So obviously, anyone willing to try hurting Mercy in front of him had a death wish.
• The fourth book of the Safehold series, A Mighty Fortress, features this with a senior vicar the Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn intends to have arrested for treason. Said vicar was once head of the Temple Guard and, when some of those very Guardsmen come to arrest him, picks a fight with them and manages to kill four of the armed and armored men before being brought down.
• Features heavily in the backstory of Dag Redwing from The Sharing Knife. After the death of his command and first wife he has a multi-purpose prosthetic hand built and not only returns to the hunt for life-draining malices but goes for the kill personally whenever possible. Many see this as courage or vengefulness, but he confesses to his second wife that he spent almost all that time one bad night from driving a partially enchanted knife into his own heart rather than going through the trouble of trying to drive fully enchanted ones into malices and more-than-half-hoping they get lucky.
• Subverted in The Silent Blade: after losing the fight with Drizzt, Artemis Entreri shouts and charges him in order to be killed. Drizzt does reflexively counterattack—at which point Entreri's allies grant him the ability to absorb and return Drizzt's blow, to the very unpleasant surprise of both.
• At the end of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Leamas commits suicide by East German Border Guard when his girlfriend is shot by East German border guards.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Lumiya receives this via Luke in the novel Sacrifice. An interesting subversion in that she didn't really seem to have any wish to die and simply felt she'd played her part. Jacen Solo even refers to it as 'Suicide By Skywalker.'
  • Tal'dira in Solo Command was brainwashed into attempting to shoot down Wedge Antilles while on a mission. Unable to let go of his conditioning, he instead lowers his own starfighter's shields during the attempt, enabling one of his squadmates to kill him before he can complete his mission. Bonus points in that said squadmate used to be a cop before becoming a pilot.
• In Toll the Hounds, book eight of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Anomander Rake purposefully loses the duel against Dassem Ultor in order to die by his own soul-trapping sword Dragnipur and have his soul sucked inside.
• Inverted in A Touch Of Frost when a drunk and depressed DI Frost tackles an armed criminal. He fails to get himself killed but does get the George Cross.
• Under Heaven: In the process of fleeing the capital, Shen Liu realizes he has a short life expectancy, due to being Wen Zhou's right-hand man (who was blamed for giving orders that resulted in the deaths of soldiers). He ends up presenting himself to soldiers guarding the party he's riding with, who have already killed Wen Zhou, and states "Do it". Cue the arrows.
• Worm: Though she didn't think this explicitly, Taylor's first time out in costume was implied to be an attempt at suicide.
• The Zoo Story, Jerry, who is a homeless very lonely man meets another man named Peter and forces him to kill him. Although he doesn't tell him to kill him, Jerry tries to get Peter mad enough to do it.
• In E.E. "Doc" Smith's "Masters of the Vortex", attempting to snuff out loose atomic vortices with explosives is so dangerous that the majority of those who try it wind up dead while making the situation even worse. Neal Cloud, the only being in existence who can do it reliably, lost his family to the fallout from the most recent unsuccessful attempt. Now beyond despair, he vows to keep on snuffing them out "until one of them finishes the job this one started." Averted in that while blowing out the first one nearly gets him killed, it also provides the data required for him to go on doing so in complete safety. Fortunately, he gets better.
• Both Plato and Xenophon make it quite explicit that the death of Socrates was very much an example of suicide by state. He deliberately antagonized The jury as they were considering the verdict. Then he antagonized them further as they considered his sentence to the point that those who had voted him innocent now voted that he get the death penalty. Finally, when his friends had arranged a jailbreak that the authorities had agreed to turn a blind eye to he responded by turning it down. The two authors differ about motivation; Plato states that Socrates did it to make a philosophical point while Xenophon holds that he did it to avoid the problems associated with old age.

Live-Action TV

• 24: When Ira Gaines is captured, he believes there's no scenario in which he gets to live, so he opts to get it over with by trying to shoot Jack even though he's on his knees and Jack is behind him with his gun already pointed at him.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • In "Yes Men", Lorelei tries to goad Sif into killing her using a Post-Rape Taunt. As Lorelei had just verbally explained that she would rather die than go back to prison, this doesn't work.
  • In "Aftershocks", newly transformed Inhuman Raina isn't satisfied with what she turned into and tries to goad a group of SHIELD agents into shooting her. She's rescued by Gordon, an Inhuman with teleportation powers before they can do anything. Later on, in "Afterlife", she tries to get Skye to kill her with her new earthquake powers. Skye, who has a personal history with Raina, is happy to oblige, but she is stopped.
• Airwolf: The evil Dr. Moffett may have committed suicide by attack helicopter. He had pointed out the one place that the helicopter was vulnerable to a Golden BB, and in another scene, they had shown that he had the necessary skill with a pistol to make the shot.
• The Americans: Gregory chooses this route instead of fleeing to Moscow.
• Andromeda: The characters encounter a ship that murdered her crew along with an entire planet, and spent three centuries mad. She ends up shooting at them and then shutting her defenses so that the retaliation kills instead of disables her.
• Angel:
  • Faith attempts Suicide by Vampire Detective in "Five by Five".
  • Angel knew what she was doing because he once attempted Suicide by Sire.
  • Played for Laughs with the Groosalugg; after a lifetime of being ostracized by his people for being clearly part human (and Tall, Dark, and Handsome), he fought the greatest warriors and fiercest beasts in hopes of them ending his miserable existence, but was so skillful that he defeated them all and was proclaimed the greatest champion in Pylea.
• Babylon 5:
  • Centauri nobleman Urza Jaddo challenged his longtime friend Ambassador Londo Mollari to a Duel to the Death in one episode to save his family from a charge of treason levied against him. This was a justified example: because of the rules and customs of the duel, the "winner" had to accept the "loser"'s family into their own "house"; by taking the rest of Urza's family into House Mollari, they would be spared Urza's dishonor. Londo reluctantly carried it out. Lord Refa, the one who accused Urza of treason, was not happy with this outcome.
  • On Capt. Sheridan's first day on the job, the whole crew of a rogue Warrior Caste Minbari ship tries to do this to spark a new Earth-Minbari War. Fortunately, Sheridan figures out what they are attempting and refuses to cooperate. Ultimately, they all commit suicide when they are cornered by a Minbari ship sent to capture them.
  • In a later episode, a Warrior Caste Minbari tries this again, by attacking Sheridan in person. Sheridan shoots him in self-defense, creating a major diplomatic incident, which is exactly what the Minbari in question intended. The Minbari witness who dishonestly claimed Sheridan was not acting in self-defense is eventually led to an engineered confession with Sheridan and Minbari Ambassador Delenn listening in, however.
• Blake's 7: In "Time Sqaud", Cally is introduced as the Sole Survivor (due to her alien biology) of a planet where the Federation wiped out La Résistance with biological weapons. Due to a combination of Survivor Guilt and You Can't Go Home Again, she plans to attack the nearest Federation base and destroy everything she can until she's killed. "There will be companions for my death." The arrival of Blake gives her another option, and she becomes the final member of the Seven.
• Blue Bloods: Officer Jamie Reagan's first line-of-duty kill was a suicide-by-cop guy. The man pointed a gun at bystanders, Jamie shot him, and then it turned out his gun was empty.
• Blue Heelers: Constable Susie Rayner is introduced with her husband Brad, an ex-cop who was injured and wheelchair-bound on the job. As he spirals further into depression, he lashes out at Susie, and Ben when he tries to help. Convinced that they are having an affair, Brad steals Ben's service revolver and makes it as if he's going to kill Susie, forcing Ben to shoot him in self-defense. The subsequent court case looks into the possibility of Brad being suicidal and wanting to be killed, and this is eventually ruled as the official cause.
• Bones: Jared attempts this in the season four finale episode "The End in the Beginning", but is talked out of it by Brennan.
• Breaking Bad: Subverted in the opening scene of the pilot; what do you do when you, the protagonist, until that moment a law-abiding citizen, a trusted and respected member of your community, a loving husband and father, end up in underwear in the middle of the desert, driving a mobile meth-lab chased by police cars that get closer and closer? You leave a videotaped farewell message to the loved ones then proceed to confront the police with a gun in your hand ready to shoot and have the incoming fire trucks ignore you in favor of the distant wildfire you accidentally set earlier.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Anya attempts Suicide By Slayer in "Selfless" as she can't cope with the guilt of the wishes she's granted since becoming a vengeance demon again.
  • In "Angel", Angel pushes Buffy to kill him after she finds out he is a vampire.
• Chicago P.D. has this occur in the Season 5 episode "Saved" when Hannah, a young girl who can turn to Voight for help, finds herself trapped in a car dealership with her boyfriend, surrounded by Voight's team with backup, and heavily outnumbered. Despite Voight's best attempts to talk them out of it, Hannah's boyfriend convinces her to charge out into the crossfire armed, forcing the CPD to open fire. By the time Voight emerges himself, Hannah and her boyfriend lie dead from multiple gunshot wounds, much to Voight's grief that he couldn't save her.
• CSI: In "Crime After Crime", Dirty Cop Sam Vega is caught drowning someone. Despite being surrounded by cops pointing their weapons at him, he draws his pistol and is promptly gunned down.
• CSI: Cyber: Python does this at the end of "Python's Revenge", forcing Avery to shoot him.
• CSI: Miami: Horatio's nemesis Clavo Cruz, having had all his plans foiled, shows up at the crime lab and, waiting until Horatio and other police officers have their weapons trained on him, tries to take a shot at Horatio.
• CSI: NY: In "The 34th Floor", Mac and Don clearly have their perp cornered at gunpoint on a rooftop. Rather than be arrested, the man draws his own weapon and the two fire, both hitting him squarely in the chest.
• Diagnosis: Murder: Subverted in at least one episode: the bad guy has a degenerative disease not covered by insurance (pre-existing condition) and spends the entire episode goading Steve into killing him. It is implied that part of Steve's refusal to do so is because the villain went a bit too far. Good is Not Nice, perhaps?
• The Doctor Blake Mysteries: A suspect attempts this at the start of "Brotherly Love". He charges toward the police, waving a gun and yelling that he has just killed a cop. When the police seem reluctant to shoot, he fires a shot into the air to provoke them. He is then shot by the police but survives.
• Doctor Who: In "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End", it transpires that Dalek Caan's prophecies were in part a ruse to create a situation where his entire race, and Davros, were completely destroyed, as he had realized that the universe would be a much better place without them around.
• Engrenages: In one episode an apparent murderous gun rampage by an unstable teenage boy (which didn't seriously harm anyone) turns out to have been a failed attempt at Suicide By Cop, motivated by guilt over having killed his girlfriend. He later commits suicide in custody.
• Father Brown:
  • The kidnappers in "The Great Train Robbery" plan to do this when Inspector Mallory surrounds their house with armed police. They even unload their guns so they cannot accidentally harm any policemen in the process. Fortunately, they are talked out of it.
  • An indirect example in "The Grim Reaper": Dr. Crawford confesses to a murder he didn't commit because he's Secretly Dying of cancer and thinks that execution would be a more humane death. Father Brown convinces him not to burden his wife and unborn child with such a legacy.
• Flashpoint: Given the subject matter, it was almost inevitable this would occur. The cops will attempt to hold off on shooting a subject if it appears that this is their objective, but if a subject is threatening someone else, they don't have a choice.
  • The subject in "Who's George" commits this so that his wife can get the money from his life insurance.
  • The subject in "Behind the Blue Line" is a veteran suffering intense Survivor Guilt who sets himself up to be killed by SRU because he can't take it anymore. The event triggers a brief Heroic BSoD for Sam, who had thought he had talked the subject into surrendering.
• Gang Related: Beto, a Los Angelico, makes the cops shoot him by firing his gun in their direction (but not at anyone) so that Ryan is able to escape with them delayed.
• Heroes: Interesting example when Matt Parkman engineers his own unsuccessful Psychic-Assisted Suicide by Cop as a last-ditch effort by to stop Sylar, who had gained control of his body. It Makes Sense in Context.
• Hill Street Blues: A Shell-Shocked Veteran is holding someone hostage with a gun on them and informs Officer Coffee that he is going to kill them unless the cop kills him first. He announces he's going to pull the trigger on one and starts counting down. Joe tries to talk him out of it but has no alternative but to shoot him at 'two'. All the more tragic for the fact that the two men had gotten to know each other over the course of the episode and built up something of a rapport, as Joe was a fellow Vietnam veteran.
• Homicide Hunter: The investigation into two officer-involved shootings that Kenda was linked to (though it wasn't him pulling the trigger) reveals that the deceased was trying to do this.
• Horatio Hornblower: In "Fire Ships", Hornblower must deal with a surly sailor of the week who tries to desert several times. Bunting actually wants to free himself but is deeply disturbed and sinks more and more. When he attempts to desert for the last time, Hornblower catches him and wants to have him court-martialed — which means he'll swing. Bunting considers it a cruel mercy, thank you very much, and a fate far worse than dying on the spot. He tries to escape and twists Hornblower's pistol, knowing that it will force Hornblower to shoot him. Poor Hornblower gets understandably depressed and goes into Heroic BSoD mode.
• JAG: In "Deja Vu", this is attempted by Colonel Patano, who opens up a gunfight with Harm with the intent of letting Harm win in order to cover up for the killer.
• Jekyll: Implied when Hyde approaches a group of soldiers so they'll panic and shoot him. Given his demonstrated speed, he almost certainly could have charged down the corridor fast enough to kill them all, but instead walks slowly and pauses to taunt them - just killing some of their soldiers wouldn't have stopped the Institute, while if he's dead they no longer have reason to go after his family to control him.
• Kamen Rider:
  • In Kamen Rider Ryuki, Asakura Takeshi (Kamen Rider Ouja) is outraged after failing to kill his long-time rival, so he charges a bunch of armed policemen without using his powers in what proves to be the last of his several fits of suicidal behavior.
  • In Kamen Rider Decade's Grand Finale Movie, Tsukasa (Decade), after having wiped out every other Kamen Rider, provokes his friend/possible Love Interest Natsumi (Kamen Rider Kivala) into attacking him, then throws away his weapon at the last second and allows her to run him through. He gets better, though.
  • In Kamen Rider Kabuto', this ends up being Tsurugi Kamishiro's response to realizing that he's actually a Worm (in fact, the same Worm that killed the real Tsurugi and his older sister). Tsurugi confronts Hyper Kabuto, and tells the latter to remember their mutual goal: "defeat all Worm." Kabuto obliges him.
• The Killing Point:
  • Mr. Mouse, the most guilt-ridden of the five hostage-takers, decides to walk outside and gets himself shot by reaching for something that turns out to merely be a sketchbook.
  • At the end, when Mr. Wolf is cornered with no chance of escape, he pressures Horst Cali into shooting him so he can "die with honor".
• The Last Ship: During the Grand Finale, when Tavo is cornered by the American forces, he seems to snap a little when he realizes that Tom Chandler — whom he self-declared as his Arch-Enemy — couldn't be bothered to come after him personally. Declaring that he won't let himself surrender to anyone other than his perceived Worthy Opponent, he goes for his gun and is immediately shot dead.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
  • Done by a hostage-taker as a Mind Screw revenge on Detective Benson. His last words are "There are no bullets in my gun."
  • A Dirty Cop does this when Elliot (who was undercover) is revealed to be a cop. Cragen implies that he did it because his co-conspirators would have done much worse if they'd found out that he even accidentally brought a cop into their operation.
  • In "Blast", a junkie robs his father's bank and accidentally shoots his father in the process. As he heads out to commit Suicide by Cop, Dr. Warner shoots him in the leg with Stabler's backup weapon, allowing the SWAT team to restrain him.
  • The suspect in "Burned" attempts this after setting his ex-wife on fire because he feels guilty about the effect his actions will have on his daughter. The SVU anticipate this and Olivia promptly shoots him down...with plastic bullets.
  • In "Hell", one suspect in the attempted murder of a young girl turns out to be Elijah, a 30-year-old ex-child soldier originally from Uganda. He is eventually found innocent, but the police investigation alerts the International Criminal Court to his whereabouts, and the US plans to deport him in cooperation with the UN. When Elijah finds out, he first attempts to take hostages, then grabs the gun of a federal agent, forcing them to shoot him rather than go back to his country. Just before he dies, Elijah tells his friend, the young girl from the original case, that he wanted to die not just to prevent his own suffering but also to make people see what he and others like him had lived through.
  • In "Father's Shadow", a young man who has taken several hostages, and is therefore surrounded by sharpshooters and police, finds out his father is a rapist who attacked, among others, the hostage-taker's own sister. He deliberately steps into range of the shooter, but Olivia, empathizing with him, steps between him and the window to block the shot and eventually talks him into surrendering.
  • In "Surrendering Noah", sex trafficker Johnny D. initially does well at trial, but when a group of his former Sex Slaves hold up well under cross-examination and it becomes clear that he's going to prison, he grabs a bailiff's gun, shoots the judge and runs out of the courtroom, where he is immediately shot dead by Amaro. At the end of the episode, Benson reflects that Johnny must have known he couldn't possibly have fought his way out.
• The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed: Heavily implied to be the case with Levchenko, a member of the Black Cat gang and a former soldier who fought alongside Sharapov. Levchenko knows that the gang will probably be arrested after their confrontation with the police in the next morning, and despite keeping his mouth shut about it to the other gangsters, he makes it clear to Sharapov that he really doesn't want to go back to prison. And so, while all the thieves are being arrested, Levchenko makes a run for it and ends up being fatally shot by Zheglov.
• Millennium (1996): One episode features a woman doing this at the end of an episode by pulling not a gun out of her pocket, but a tiny piece of metal that has a shape resembling the Virgin Mary's face on it. The fact that the woman who does this is a stereotypically butch lesbian (flannel and all) makes it a bit awkward to think about.
• Motive:
  • In "For You I Die", Dirty Cop Slater pulls his gun on Angie, saying that he won't go to prison. Angie realises that he wants her to shoot him (especially as he has just let a hostage go), and calls his bluff: saying this case has already taken too many lives and lowers her gun. Slater continues to advance, however, only to be shot by Vega.
  • The murderer attempts this in "The Vanishing Policeman"; firing shots into the air and claiming that he intends to kill another cop. Angie is able to talk him down and reveals that he was actually wielding a starting pistol.
• Murder in the First: Dustin Maker seems to have participated in the school bus massacre mostly as a means of getting himself killed by the police, but his accomplice had other ideas and left him. He was caught by the police instead.
• Murdoch Mysteries:
  • An older Jewish doctor commits the Suicide by State variation in "Let Us Ask the Maiden". He shoots his fiancée's father in front of Detective Murdoch, Inspector Brackenreid, and a couple of constables, which means he gets the noose. He did it because his future father-in-law murdered his employee who was also his daughter's lover. He loved the girl more than anything and he wanted her to be free from both of them — her father and himself.
  • The Indian Poetic Serial Killer in "Werewolves" meets his end when he tries to attack the investigators. Inspector Brackenreid shoots him dead with a rifle. He is quite shaken by it, claiming that it is the first time he killed anybody on duty as a police officer.
  • In "Artful Detective", one participant in a Deadly Game takes out a life insurance policy and doesn't arm himself against rival "contestants", implicitly letting himself be killed.
• The Musketeers: The death of Marsac in "The Good Soldier" has a strong suggestion of this. He certainly forces the best shot in the regiment to fire on him at close quarters, and his dying words also reinforce the notion.
  Marsac: Better to die a musketeer than live like dog.
• NCIS:
  • Referred to by name after Kate shoots a despairing man who was waving an (unloaded) handgun in a threatening manner. Unlike a surprisingly many fictional depictions of suicide by cop where it's shrugged off like any other killing, Kate is emotionally distraught afterwards. (Likely because she's Catholic and is rattled at having inadvertently assisted someone in something believed to be a mortal sin).
  • Averted spectacularly in another episode, "Murder 2.0", in which the protagonists run into a hostage situation that looks to be the hostage-taker trying to commit suicide by cop... until Gibbs realizes that she's being forced by the "hostage" to "threaten" him with an unloaded weapon, and what's really going on is that the "hostage-taker" was being set up for a Homicide by Cop. Fortunately, it doesn't work.
  • A clear example of this occurs in "Dead Man Talking" when the villain, standing right in front of Gibbs, who has his gun trained on her, attempts to shoot Gibbs anyway and gets shot in the head.
  • Subverted in another episode when a drugged-up guy pulls a gun on the team after being chased, only for Gibbs to come up behind him and pin him to a railing. From the other side.
  • Harper Dearing, the Big Bad of season 9 and the premiere of season 10. After Gibbs tracks him down alone, Dearing talks for a while. Then he goes for a gun on the windowsill, and Gibbs knifes him.
• NCIS: New Orleans: Agent Russo does this at the end of "Sleeping With the Enemy"; drawing his gun on Brody despite the fact that she already has the drop on him.
• Once Upon a Time: Semi-inverted with Captain Hook. His main motive against Rumpelstiltskin is revenge but he is oddly obsessed with having Rumpelstiltskin kill him. He even encouraged the man to rip out of his heart when he was at Rumple's mercy. Presumably, he's doing this so he could be together with his deceased lover Milah.
• Pennyworth: Midway through Season 2, Colonel Salt manipulates Lord Harwood into a breakdown so that he can usurp him. Recovering in house arrest, Harwood realizes what's happened, and deduces that Salt is planning on using him as a scapegoat for his own war crimes. To prevent this, when Salt arrives to move him from house arrest to formal arrest, Harwood pulls a gun in order to force Salt's troops to shoot him, thereby denying Salt access to him as a resource.
• Person of Interest:
  • At the end of "Foe", the Villain of the Week realizes what his actions have done to his family and points his empty gun at his wife, forcing Reese to shoot him.
  • In the Batman Cold Open of "Prophets", the POI is going to jump off a building after being caught in embezzlement and murder. Reese points out that his insurance won't pay his family if he commits suicide, but will if a cop kills him, so the POI tries to shoot Reese, who kneecaps him (as usual).
    POI: You said you were gonna kill me!
    Reese: I Lied.
• Phoenix (1992): In the spin-off miniseries Janus, a member of the Hennessy clan does this, leading to accusations that the police murdered him in revenge for his acquittal over the murder of a police officer. It doesn't help that the detective who shot him picked up the gun in a Heroic BSoD to see if it was a replica, then put it back — a witness sees the latter, making it look like the police planted a gun on the scene.
• Power Rangers Lost Galaxy (of all places): The Magna Defender, who is wounded, weak, and nearly powerless, tries this, telling Leo that he can gain Mike back via his death. He then draws his sword so that can "call it self-defense". (However, Leo does not, and later MD is able to do it via Heroic Sacrifice and save Terra Venture.)
• Prison Break: Agent Mahone orchestrates one for Abruzzi, after luring him into a trap. Abruzzi comes out of a building surrounded by armed cops. Naturally, not wanting to go back to jail, Abruzzi chooses to start a gunfight that ends with him being riddled with bullets. Later, another agent confronts Mahone about this, pointing out that he could have easily staged a more controlled trap that would have avoided any needless bloodshed. Of course, there's a reason Mahone did it this way - the bad guys are blackmailing him.
• The Rifleman: In "Day of the Hunter", a Hunter Trapper tries to goad Lucas into killing him in a duel.
• Rizzoli & Isles: In "Dangerous Curve Ahead", Alice Sands takes a teenager hostage at gunpoint, forcing Jane to shoot her in hopes that people will wonder whether it was in the line of duty or in cold blood. There is no sign that this part of her plan actually worked.
• Rome: A defeated and despaired Brutus chooses not to flee a lost battle and instead marches unarmored against approaching enemy cohorts of heavy infantry, he is rapidly surrounded and killed in a fashion resembling the killing of Julius Caesar, a deed he committed with other senators.
• Sanctuary (2007): John Druitt, overwhelmed by the guilt that goes with being Jack the Ripper, attempts to goad Magnus into killing him by beating the crap out of her. It almost works — she stops his heart with two stun blasts to the chest, but then revives him.
• The Shield: A role reversal of this occurred in one episode, where a cop, unable to cope with his own sexuality, attempts to goad a cornered criminal into shooting him.
• In the Colombian TV adaptation of the novel Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso, Catalina, the main character and a trafficker's girlfriend, convinced a former lover to hire a hitman to kill the friend who helped her to enter into that Crapsack World. And then she takes her friend's place and gets the bullets.
• Someday or One Day: Chen Yun Ru in her Identity Breakdown doesn't try to avoid Xie Zhi Qi following her and offers no resistance when he tries to murder her. When Zhi Qi is interrupted by the police capturing his body in 2019, she tries to get Xie Zhong Ru and then Mo Jun Jie to kill her. When they refuse, she takes matters into her own hands.
• The Sopranos: After he breaks off their affair, Gloria Trillo starts stalking Tony and his family, with clear ideas of what he'll do to retaliate. He does in fact choke her during a fight and she prods him, "Kill me." She only backs off when Patsy Parisi makes clear that Tony would delegate the job of killing her to him. She later commits suicide off-camera.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Duet", a man who was a minor functionary during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor claims to be one of the evil ringleaders, in hopes that his trial and execution will force his people to face the harm they did.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Attempted by Jono in "Suddenly Human". Torn between human and Talarian societies, he tries to find a way out by stabbing Picard, believing he will be executed for it. Ultimately averted since Picard has absolutely no intention of executing him, and realizes he should have taken greater account of Jono's wishes.
• S.W.A.T. (2017): In "Kangaroo", Cinque tries to do this by making him seem like he's aiming, but has tossed his gun away. Hondo shoots him but realizes what he's after when Cinque says he'll be just another Black person shot by the LAPD, and won't let him be a martyr, saving Cinque's life with first aid.
• Third Watch: A suicidal cop takes main character Bosco hostage, holds Bosco's own gun on him, then walks into broad daylight and deliberately opens himself up to a clear shot from a SWAT sniper.
• This is Wonderland: A Filipino man was arrested as a suspected terrorist, but cop-turned-lawyer Anthony Davis figured out that he was trying to get himself killed so that his adulterous wife would have to live with her guilt.
• Torchwood: In "Sleeper", knowing that when the aliens eventually activate her, her human personality will be permanently replaced by that of an alien killing machine, the sleeper agent Beth decides she'd rather die as a human and atone for the death of her husband, so she pretends she's about to slash Gwen's throat, forcing the other Torchwood members to shoot her.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Monsters!", the vampire Emile Francis Bendictson never stayed anywhere too long for fear of activating the recessive gene that turns ordinary humans into vampire-killing monsters. After traveling the world for almost 150 years, he returns to his hometown of Mill Valley so that he can die where he was born. Several days after his arrival, many of the townspeople turn into monsters and kill him in a very brutal fashion. Bendictson was either unwilling or unable to kill himself.
• Vikings: Torstein essentially does this after losing his arm, approaching the Mercians alone. He manages to take one of them along with him before being cut down. This ensures he'll go to Valhalla under Norse belief since he died in a battle.
• Wagon Train: In "The Orly French Story", the title character, a bank robber, is captured by a Bible-quoting marshal, Jason Hartman. Hartman tries, throughout the episode, to get French to repent for his sins. French refuses and offers to split his hidden loot (which, while travelling with the wagon train, they are approaching) with Hartman if he'll let him go. Hartman refuses, but when they find the loot he starts to waver at the sight of so much money. He knocks French out and takes off with the money. A posse from the wagon train goes after him. They come back with Hartman, dead, and French learns that when Hartman drew his gun on the posse, it wasn't even loaded, making it clear he regretted his momentary lapse. This inspires French to take responsibility for his crimes.
• The West Wing: The White House is shot at in one episode by a "disturbed individual" trying to be shot by the Secret Service.
• Westworld: Arnold Webb, who was one of the founders of the titular park, said to have committed suicide. It turns out that he requested Dolores shoot him in the head as part of his Thanatos Gambit to shut down the park.
• The Wheel of Time (2021): "Gentled" Logain tries to provoke Siuan to execute him during the trial. When that fails, he begs her to kill him.
• Without a Trace: This happens in the 17th episode of the 2nd season; an Iraqi war veteran accidentally kills a woman in a bank heist he pulled to get enough money to keep his house from being repossessed and his girlfriend from leaving him. In the end, after taking the girlfriend and an FBI agent hostage in his home, he agrees to come out. He unloads the gun he's holding (out of view of the SWAT officers that surrounded his house) and walks right out the front door, pointing the gun at the officers, who open fire. The final scene is a Downer Ending: the FBI agent holding the hysterical, sobbing girlfriend back from running after him and into the line of fire, as the agent sheds a few tears himself.
• The X-Files: In the climax of "Pusher", a man with manipulative psychic powers and a life-threatening (but treatable) brain tumor makes Mulder play a game of Russian Roulette with him. Mulder shoots him, but he lives.
• Your Honor: Detective Cunningham, one of the cop hitmen, makes Costello shoot him by drawing on her when she's got him at gunpoint rather than going to prison.

Music

• "Seven Spanish Angels": A No. 1 country hit in 1985 by Ray Charles and Willie Nelson, two Hispanic-American lovers, fresh off a crime spree in Mexico, are fleeing the law but have tired from running. The two decide their only option is to engage in a gunfight or be captured, knowing that full well either option will result in their deaths. So, after a night of passionate lovemaking and declaring that God will help them in their fight to remain free, the two begin their fight. First, the male half shoots at the posse ... and is killed. Then, the young woman — just absolutely beautiful — decides to pick up the now empty gun and points it at the officers:
  She reached down and picked the gun up/That lay smoking in his hand
  She said "Father, please forgive me,/I can't make it without my man"
  And she knew the gun was empty/And she knew she couldn't win
  But her final prayer was answered/When the rifles fired again
• "Out Among the Stars": Written by Adam Mitchell and recorded by both Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, the song tells the tale of a jobless young man, frustrated at years of being unable to hold a job. He finally snaps, robs a liquor store and lets the cashier run away … and waits for the police to come so he can engage in a gunfight, knowing full well that he will likely be killed:
  Even though he knows they'll come with guns a-blazing
  already he can feel a great relief.
• In P.O.S.' song "That One", the rapper mentions that he's "in the mood for suicide by cop" in the wake of a bad ending to a relationship.
• The end of "Halliburton Boardroom Massacre" by David Rovics:
  I'll spare you the details, I did what I had to do
  There's a boardroom blown to hell and soon I will be too
• Seems to be what Steely Dan's song "Don't Take Me Alive" from their album The Royal Scam is about. See page quote.
• Loreena McKennitt's "The Highwayman": "Back he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky" at King George's Redcoats, who "shot him down on the highway."

Myths & Religion

• Jesus's death by crucifixion is commonly seen as a Heroic Sacrifice Suicide by State.

Radio

• In the Dragnet episode "The Big Death" a perp tries this. He is only wounded. As he explains why he wanted Friday to kill him, Friday assures him that he may get his wish. In the postscript, the criminal is sentenced to life.
• This American Life devotes the introductory act of Episode 473 "Loopholes" to the late medieval and early modern Central European practice of suicide by state (killing an innocent baby, being tried as infanticide, convicted, and hanged with an opportunity to confess).

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons, sometimes a dragon will, after reaching its oldest and strongest age category, become so bored and world-weary that it decides that the world contains nothing that interests it anymore and goes on a kingdom-destroying rampage in order to provoke heroes to come and kill it.
• One Neutral character in Shadow Hunters has this as his Instant-Win Condition: he wins if he is the first to die. He has an alternate winning condition though. Another character from the expansion similarly has "be the first to die" as her Instant-Win Condition. Her alternate win condition is to make sure there are only two survivors, her and another character.
• Warhammer40k: How Konrad Curze, the Night Lords' Primarch, eventually meets his end; when an Imperial assassin is sent to kill him, he not only does nothing to resist but forbids the Night Lords from doing anything to protect him either. His reason why is... complicated; Konrad had foreseen his death in this manner centuries prior, and was a firm believer that You Can't Fight Fate, and saw this as vindication of that belief, as well as vindication that he was always meant to be a monster and could never have done anything else. It should be mentioned Curze was quite insane by this point.

Theatre

• The 2001 concert production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has Sweeney go out this way: after finding out he accidentally killed his wife and seeing Toby coming at him to avenge Pirelli's death, Sweeney is shown unbuttoning his collar to make it easier for Toby to slit his throat.
• At the end of Wicked, from Glinda's perspective, Elphaba's melting seems to be this, since she provokes Dorothy to throw water onto her after giving Glinda her magic Grimmerie and bidding her a last goodbye. But actually, Elphaba does this to fake her own death so she can safely escape from Oz.

Video Games

• The entire plot of the .hack//G.U. Games games basically revolves around this. The Chessmaster Ovan effectively manipulates Haseo into killing him, because only if Ovan's (extremely high-level) PC is killed by Haseo's special PC, his special ability will be activated, resetting the entire internet and cleansing it of the corruption that has been sending gamers (including Ovan's own sister) into a coma. BTW, this was not his first plan.
• In BattleTech (2018), Victoria Espinosa does this after the Directorate falls, holding Alexander hostage and forcing Kamea to fight her in a Duel to the Death.
• In BioShock, Andrew Ryan pulls this by manipulating Jack into bludgeoning him to death with a Trigger Phrase.
• In Borderlands 2, the Vault Hunters kill someone this way twice. One's a silly example, one is very much not.
  • The silly example involves Face McShooty, a deranged lunatic who for some reason desperately wants to be shot in the face, and proclaims this loudly and constantly until obliged.
  • In a more grim example, Angel chooses this over being used as a living power conduit by Handsome Jack.
• In Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising, Avitus does this if he's the traitor. In the later Expansion Pack Retribution it is all but stated by The Ancient, also known as Tarkus that this was the canon outcome.
• By the end of Dead Island, Jin has gone completely loopy, after being gang-raped and having to remain surrounded by the worst criminals in the world, who make it clear their intentions for her, she's basically Driven to Suicide. She angers Ryder White, releases his infected wife, and when she bites him Ryder shoots and kills Jin.
• In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Ezekiel Sandoval attempts this at a mall. As a veteran Marine, he couldn't bring himself to shoot any civilians. Before the police could show up, however, Humanity Front leader William Taggart talks him out of it.
• In Devil Survivor, this is one of the multiple ways Haru can die if the player doesn't intervene. If you do talk to her, your party discovers that she feels responsible for the demons plaguing Tokyo, although you convince her that this isn't true.
• Devil May Cry:
  • Devil May Cry 2: Lucia, the Deuteragonist of the game, attempts this when she learns that she is not her mother Matier's biological daughter but one of the artificial demons created by Arius. Fearing she will lose control of herself and attack those she is supposed to protect, she attacks Dante to goad him into killing her. Fortunately, Dante has faith in her humanity and refuses to kill her.
  • Devil May Cry 5: V's familiars do this near the end of the game. They reveal they're the physical manifestations of Vergil's trauma and throw themselves at Dante, knowing they can't win, in order to be killed and put an end to his suffering.
• Odd case when the individual is already dead in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. A previous Defender of Earth tried take on the Netherworld, was killed, and his ghost cannot rest. When he challenges Laharl, Flonne begs him to let the ghost win. Instead, Laharl gives him a damn good thrashing, which is what he actually wanted; to be defeated in honorable combat. He thanks Laharl and passes on.
• A late-game conversation with Zevran in Dragon Age: Origins reveals that he took the assassination contract on the Grey Wardens as a form of this, knowing from their reputation that he would have little chance of surviving the encounter, wanting to die because he was tricked into killing his lover, Rina
• The Arishok in Dragon Age II pulls this off by staging an all-out attack with the Qunari on Kirkwall. The demands of the Qun mean he can not return to Par Vollen without the Tome of Koslun and the thief who stole it, but he's become so disgusted with Kirkwall society that he can't make himself stay there any longer. He sees his death as the only way out of fulfilling his obligations.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind:
    • There is a quest near Suran where a tired and war-weary Orc asks you to do this. However, if you are not strong enough, he can easily kill you.
    • One quest in the Bloodmoon expansion involves an old man who feels like he has nothing left to contribute, and is only a burden on his family, so he tries to do this. The player character can either kill him or endure his attacks and talk some sense into him when he wears himself out.
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:
    • After the Gladiator Games champion Agronak gro-Malog learns to his horror that he's the son of a vampire, he succumbs to depression and asks the Player Character to kill him when they next fight in the Arena. And, well, there's no other way out of the ring...
    • In the Shivering Isles expansion, the perpetually depressed Hirrus Clutumnus hires the Player Character to assassinate him, since he doesn't want to end up haunting the Hill of Suicides with the ghosts of others who ended their own lives.
    • If you are foolish enough to attack Sheogorath in the Shivering Isles, he will teleport you to a spot miles above the main island, leaving you to fall to your death. This just automatically happens (like a cutscene) and there is no way to avoid it.
    • Should you resist arrest, the guards will fight you to the death. As they are five levels above the player by default, trying to fight back is usually suicide unless you turn the difficulty way the hell down.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
    • Done during the Dark Brotherhood quest line. After selling the player out to Commander Maro and being literally burned for it, Astrid uses her own body as a Black Sacrament and put a contract on herself.
    • The Old Orc has a variant: he simply asks you to kill him in combat while he fights to the best of his ability since he has Nothing Left to Do but Die and his religion expects him to have an honorable death in combat rather than succumb to old age.
• Fate/stay night:
  • Caster's master Kuzuki pulls this in the "Unlimited Blade Works" route when Caster is killed. Even though the heroes are willing to let him go (he's completely harmless to them), he still picks a fight he cannot win with Archer to "finish what he started", and is killed instantly.
  • It's not explicitly stated, but it's fairly clear this is what Caster did in the "Heavens Feel" route. Her Master and reason for living aka the aforementioned Kuzuki has just been killed and she's standing over his body, covered in blood and horrified when Saber and Shirou show up. When she finally notices them, she doesn't explain and, most tellingly, puts away her contract nullifying dagger and simply attacks. Normally she'd teleport out or something. But why bother?
  • Fate/Grand Order:
    • St. Martha apparently attacks you in the forest for this reason; she has been summoned by the Dragon Witch and must obey her, but can't bring herself to do evil.
    • In the backstory of the Camelot chapter, the Knight of the Round Table Gareth threw herself to restrain the impostor Richard the Lionheart so her brother Gawain can strike them both down because she could not handle the suffering and sins of what she went through, as not only she had killed her fellow knights when the Knights of the Round had a disagreement about whether they should submit to the Lion King, she would continue to kill countless other under the Lion King's order.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Angeal from Crisis Core does this - by turning into a One-Winged Angel and attacking Zack. Before resorting to turning into a spectacularly ugly chimaera he tried to get Zack to kill him as part of their oath to "destroy anything that threatens the world." Zack had attacked him a while back when he believed he'd murdered his own mother, but since that and his going AWOL were really the only things to make Zack think he'd gotten himself an Evil Mentor and he'd just been disabused of the mistake, it didn't go well. Afterward, they have a heartfelt Take Up My Sword—the iconic buster blade Zack passes on to Cloud at the end of the game.
  • Squall can attempt this in the D-District Prison segment of Final Fantasy VIII by insulting the prison warden during his Electric Torture. He doesn't succeed, but choosing the option nets the player a reward a little later on.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has the Twelve, Eorzea's gods. They were created out of people the Big Good knew before the Sundering (the big backstory apocalypse) to watch over the new sentient races. By the time of the "Myths of the Realm" raid series (taking place after the Warrior has, among other things, defeated the being that prompted said apocalypse and stopped the destruction of the universe in the process) they've decided that the world doesn't need them anymore and is capable of thriving by itself. As such, they ask the Warrior to defeat them in battle so their aether can return to The Lifestream and help the new world live.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, Golbez attempts to do this repeatedly in the chapter "Light" over his guilt for the atrocities he committed while under the influence of an evil entity in his homeworld. When his brother Cecil tries to reconcile instead, Golbez threatens to kill his friends, hoping to make Cecil angry enough to finish him off in battle. That still doesn't work, and the party then rescues Golbez from being hurled into the Void. Afterwards, they finally convince him that true atonement is about living and doing good, not dying.
  • Sol in Final Fantasy Legend III is merged with Xagor and says, "I'll hold Xagor's soul for you, kill me!" to the party. Knowing that Xagor attempted to conquer Sol so the entity flooding the world would never stop, Sol also knew that he could get himself killed, and takes Xagor down with him and stops the entity in its last stage.
• In Fire Emblem, expect to see recruitable units who start off as enemies to do this. Even when they have literally zero percent to hit or do zero damage to a character, the AI knows that they'll counterattack and kill them, forcing you to reset the game.
  • In Fire Emblem Gaiden, Emperor Rudolf fully expects to die by his son Alm's hands as part of a years-long Zero-Approval Gambit to unite Valentia under the latter. In both the original game and the remake, Shadows of Valentia, he will never attack Alm even if you initiate combat yourself.
  • A heartbreaking example is heavily implied in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War with Arvis. By this point, Arvis has long since crossed the Despair Event Horizon, and while helping a retainer flee with some children he freed, he gives said retainer the Tyrfing, with the all but explicitly stated instruction to give it to Seliph, whose father, Sigurd, Arvis killed. When facing Seliph, he then mocks Sigurd's memory to his face. Kick the Dog? Maybe, but it's far more likely that he's deliberately goading Seliph to kill him and just end it already.
  • The chapter "Cog of Destiny" in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade puts the remaining Reed brother as the boss. If Lloyd was killed first, Linus will disregard everything, including his relation with his younger stepsister, so he can seek revenge. However if Linus was killed first, Lloyd stands at the Shrine of Seals just so he could be killed and be with his brother again.
  • A grand example in the actual story happens in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn when Sehpiran/Lehran manipulates everyone to start both the Mad King's War and the entire war between Begnion and the Laguz Alliance in order to wake the goddess, so he would finally die because the world would be destroyed. His last words are "At last... I'm dying."
  • An utterly heartbreaking instance of this happens in Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright. Late in the game, Xander gets ready to strike you down, but his younger sister Elise jumps in front of his sword as he swings it, causing Xander to cross the Despair Event Horizon. The boss fight goes on, but Xander is weaker than normal and does not attack on his turn; he only wants you to kill him. Even worse, his conversation with Laslow and Peri beforehand implies that he was already thinking of going out this way, anyway.
  • One possible interpretation of the ending of the Blue Lions route in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. After Edelgard loses her war, her dreams, and her only friend Hubert (plus the possible deaths of any unrecruited Black Eagle who fought for her), Dimitri offers her a Last-Second Chance, but (after giving one last smile) she throws a dagger into his shoulder instead. Dimitri wastes no time stabbing her in the heart and killing her instantly.
• In Guild Wars 2, after being tricked by Gavin into helping him snare the white stag and being left for dead, the sylvari player character manages to rescue it from a Nightmare Court camp. When his allies raid the Grove, but fail to steal the stag back, Gavin, realizing he's as good as dead no matter whether Caithe or Faolain get their hands on him, challenges the player character to a Duel to the Death so he can at least gain a quick and honorable death from someone he respects.
• In Hatred, the Villain Protagonist known only as the Antagonist wants to die, but he also wants to die violently, so he sets off on a one-man crusade to murder everybody. The cops come in at the end and take the Antagonist down just before he triggers a nuclear explosion.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • At the climax of Days, Xion goes One-Winged Angel on Roxas, forcing him to kill her so that the memories she's composed of will return to their rightful place.
  • If you look at the chain of events in Chain of Memories carefully, you'll realize that after Sora's storyline ended, Riku Replica deliberately sought out the real Riku in his storyline.
• Mass Effect:
  • In the original Mass Effect, Matriarch Benezia chooses this path (by Protagonist, who is sort of a cop) after briefly breaking Sovereign's indoctrination. She knew Sovereign's indoctrination was permanent and her respite would only be temporary and chose death over continuing its evil.
  • Wrex takes a turn in Mass Effect 3 if you backstab him over the genophage — coming after you with no backup and, judging by how easily he goes down, no shields or barriers. Of course, he takes all your krogan War Assets out of the fight as a final "screw you", but it's pretty clear that after having the one person he thought he could trust shaft him, he's got no particular interest in making it off the Citadel.
• Mega Man X:
  • In Mega Man X5, this is the sad reason why most of the bosses provoke the heroes to fight them: Earth has been infected by the Sigma Virus, and they prefer to end their lives in an honorable fight rather than going Maverick.
  • In Mega Man X7, Tornado Tonion is the goofy member of Red Alert who takes over a radio tower to broadcast his messages for fun and has an amicable discussion with Zero or Axl should they confront him. Against X, however...
    Tornado Tonion: You be X, hmm? I ask you favor, yes? Stop us...Stop Red, please, yah?
    X: What?!
    Tornado Tonion: It professor... professor redesign us... We no longer...
    X: Professor?! Who the heck is that?
    Tornado Tonion: We no control, yah? Can't stop, none of us. Please, please, save us... We becoming something else!
• Sniper Wolf in Metal Gear Solid really just waits for a soldier who is able to kill her. But as a world-class sniper who doesn't hold back with her skills in combat, she's not making it particularly easy for her enemies.
• In Monster Girl Quest, this is the reason Alice decides to train Luka how to use the Cursed Sword Style and use the elements. Suffice to say, this leads to a grand "The Reason You Suck" Speech when he finds out.
• In NieR, the final battle between Nier and the Shadowlord ends like this, after Yona's Shade chooses to commit suicide rather than forcibly inhabit the body of Nier's Yona. The Shadowlord promptly falls over the Despair Event Horizon and continues savagely attacking Nier, but with nothing left to live for, it's clear he just wants to die. As his health bar shrinks, more elements of the background music fade out until there's only a Nostalgic Music Box playing, and when he's finally defeated, the Shadowlord simply slumps to the ground, waiting for Nier to finish him.
• On day 5 of Presentable Liberty, the protagonist receives a suicide letter from Mr. Smiles. He confesses that he was being blackmailed into being the protagonist's friend and that he plans to sell off his organs on the black market because he will not survive the operation.
• All of the events of Soulcalibur 3 are orchestrated by Zasalamel in an attempt to kill himself using the two MacGuffins as fuel for a ritual to cease his endless cycle of reincarnation. However, just as he's about to kill himself he has a vision of the future that shows him that one day men will walk on the moon. He decides that such a thing is so amazing he has to live to see it, and the last scene shows him boarding a helicopter in the 21st Century while wearing a fancy suit.
• By the end of Spec Ops: The Line it's pretty clear that Adams has only been following Walker past the Moral Event Horizon is to do this. This is also one interpretation of the "Road to Glory" ending, in which Walker chooses to fight the squad sent to extract him.
• Implied in Starcraft II Wings Of Liberty. Tychus Finley, an old friend of Jim Raynor, was released from prison by Acturus Mengsk, with the goal of having him kill Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. However, as Tychus and Jim collect the artifacts they need to deinfest Kerrigan, Tychus learns about Raynor’s history with Kerrigan and shows visible hesitation to continue with the mission. It comes to a head in the final cutscene when Kerrigan has been deinfested and Tychus hesitates to shoot her, giving Raynor enough time to reach for his gun and shoot him in the head.
• In Suikoden II, there is a difficult-to-do subplot involving a couple of gunners from Harmonia. If you are able to follow it all the way through to the end, it ends in a quick-draw duel between the two. As the loser lies on the ground dying, she laughingly reveals her gun wasn't loaded...
• Tales Series:
  • In Tales of Symphonia, Zelos does this on one path, committing Suicide By Lloyd if Lloyd never truly grows to trust him as one of his True Companions.
  • In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Emil Castagnier (that is, Ratatosk), plans to fake possession by his Superpowered Evil Side and get the party to kill him so that he can become a Core to seal the Ginnungagap. It's half wanting to save the world and half guilt from learning that he killed Aster. It's up to the player to decide if he succeeds.
• The Guardian in Thunder Force V does this in order to save humanity from Faust/Vasteel's influence. Specifically, it intentionally leaves flaws in its tactics for Cenes to exploit, allowing her to go in for a Mercy Kill.
• The Jester role in Town of Salem wants to be lynched by the town in order to win, as being killed at night won't cut it. If lynched, they get to choose one player to be Driven to Suicide over the guilt.
  • The Witch actually has an achievement for getting three town members to die by mixing this trope and Psychic-Assisted Suicide, by forcing them to visit the Shell-Shocked Veteran when he is on alert. (A veteran on Alert kills everyone visiting him.)
  • A common tactic for the Coven Leader is to send her enemies into the Medusa, who is the Veteran's Evil Counterpart, which also mixes this trope with Psychic-Assisted Suicide.
• In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines:
  • A particularly cruel Malkavian Player Character can inflict a Psychic-Assisted Suicide on an unfortunate Muggle by forcing him to go to the nearest police station and draw a gun, getting him Killed to Uphold the Masquerade.
  • The Mandarin also pulls this trope against you when you escape his lab, deciding that whatever horrible death you can inflict on him is nothing compared to what his employer (Ming Xiao) has in store to punish his failure.
• Asgard in Wild AR Ms 3. Unable to overcome his self-preservation programming, he provokes the heroes to one last battle so he can follow his dead masters to hell.

Visual Novels

• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: During the fourth case, Aoi Asahina attempts to get themselves and everyone else killed by deliberately misleading them into voting for the wrong person during the class trial after getting pushed over the Despair Event Horizon when Sakura commits suicide.
• Near the end of Chapter 2 of Your Turn to Die, a suicidal little girl asks for you to vote her out of the Deadly Game (which would result in her suffering a Cruel and Unusual Death). Going through with it is not a good idea.

Web Animation

• Occurs during one particular climax of DEATH BATTLE!: after suffering his infamous Superpower Meltdown, Tetsuo Shima charges towards Magneto fully intending for the latter to put him out of his misery. He does.
• ASD Fmovie has a Running Gag where a sentient muffin begs people to eat him, which would result in his death.

Webcomics

• Homestuck:
  • After a life of being The Dragon for her abusive masters Doc Scratch and Lord English, she willingly dies at The Condesce's hands to be free of the curse that binds her to them.
  • This goes both ways in Cascade, where Spades Slick tries to shoot the Barrier Maiden Snowman. According to Word of God, Slick's actions were a failed suicide attempt, done because he had nothing left to lose anymore. Snowman on the other hand welcomed her own death, happy to advance Lord English's plans.
• In Sailor Moon Cosmos Arc Usagi does this rather than be forced into a Sadistic Choice. To make matters worse, the 'cop' in this case was her own brainwashed daughter. Her death broke Chibiusa's brainwashing.
• Unsounded: Quigley intended to die in his raid on the Aldish municipal office after the Aldish government tortured his wife to death and stole the construct she was secretly building, but he miraculously survived.

Western Animation

• Beast Wars
  • There was some evidence that Rampage's evil behavior and focus on Depth Charge was, in part, an attempt to commit Suicide By Depth Charge to atone for that horrific behavior and all the lives he took when activated.
    Blackarachnia: You'll regret this!
    Rampage: [softly] I regret everything, my dear.
  • Similarly, while his main motive in protecting the valley with his life truly was the noble desire to save the lives of the proto-humans within, it's also implied Dinobot sought to die because his options upon returning to Cybertron were to remain Predacon and be imprisoned alongside Megatron or become a Maximal and give up his Predacon heritage. While he would have saved the valley even without such a motive because he's Dinobot, the last time they all had a shot at returning to Cybertron Dinobot opted to stay behind on the planet and fight and conquer until it inevitably killed him.
• Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: It's been made pretty clear in "Prisoner 775 Escapes" that the Prisoner 775 was attempting this when he held Colonel Rozum hostage wanting to kill him out of vengeance for his family's death. He doesn't kill Rozum nor even defend himself when Ultimate Wildmutt pinned him down, instead begging to be killed so he can join his family.
• In an episode of Family Guy, Stewie learns that he will die one day and decides that since we all die, life is meaningless and attempts to kill himself multiple times. He tries suicide by cop, running at a donut shop full of cops with a shotgun and mask, but is intercepted by Joe, who is attempting suicide by criminal, and they spend two minutes trying to get the other to shoot them.
• During the two-part premier of Green Lantern: The Animated Series, resident Anti-Villain Red Lantern Razer attempts this by first provoking and then outright begging Hal Jordan to kill him for pushing a detonator that blew an entire planet to smithereens. Hal gives him a sound thrashing but refuses to comply, telling Razer that he should live and atone for what he'd done instead.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In the cartoon Cheese Chasers, two mice, having eaten so much cheese in one massive binge that they feel they can't eat any again, decide that there's nothing left to live for and try to get a cat to eat them. The cat, suspicious that it's all a trick, grows paranoid and eventually decides to end it all as well. So he goes to a dog and asks him to kill him. The dog, in trying to figure out the whole situation, goes mad as well and chases down the dog catcher.
  • Another cartoon has a hen-pecked bird who wanted Sylvester to eat him, rather than put up with his wife for another day. Hilarity Ensues.
• An episode of Rick and Morty lampshades this twice. Morty used a do-over device to cause trouble and avoid death by this trope (one of the cops who shot him always imagined this happening). The second time was a warning when Morty's mischief finally comes to bite him.
• The 1954 Tom and Jerry short "Downhearted Duckling" had a duckling repeatedly try to get Tom to eat him, believing himself to be too ugly to deserve living. Tom was happy to oblige but Jerry wasn't, so he kept trying. Until a lovely female duckling told him how cute he was, which made him regain the will to live. They walked away together and very happily, leaving the rather surprised Tom and Jerry behind.

Real Life

• Historical duelling was seen by at least a few people at the time as a way to honorably commit suicide. In fact, part of the reason the Church began to openly oppose duelling once the practice began to fall out of favor was that they felt it was being used as a way to bypass religious doctrines which opposed suicide as sinful.
  • A more extreme variant of this was practiced by the Circumcellions, a cult of radical Christians operating out of North Africa in the fourth century. They believed martyrdom to be the true path to following Christ and would pick fights with Roman soldiers or well-armed travelers in the hopes of being killed, or insult judges to get death sentences. For obvious reasons, they were denounced by the Church as well as Saint Augustine.
• Thankfully averted in the infamous deadly Toronto van ram attack in 2018. Constable Ken Lam managed to corner the criminal and he repeatedly tried to lure the cop into shooting him. Constable Lam didn't fall for it and arrested him cleanly. Later, Lam shrugged off the praise for his restraint as just doing his duty.
• The German U-boat commander Werner Henke was captured by the Americans in 1944. His captors gave him a choice: Cooperate with them (potentially helping to kill his comrades); or be handed over to the British, who had accused him of war crimes. Instead he walked up to the prison camp fence, in broad daylight and full view of the guards, and started climbing. Officially he was killed trying to escape (which raises the question of where he was trying to escape to — the camp was on the outskirts of Washington D.C.), but historians agree that he simply chose that as a more honourable end than being hanged as a war criminal.
• The death of Yukio Mishima by seppuku is a weird subversion. Mishima raised a private army to attack a Japan Defense Forces base in Tokyo, the plan being to capture the commander and then harangue the soldiers into joining him and overthrowing the democratic government, restoring the Emperor to his former glory. The problem was that this plan had no way of succeeding, and it seems that Mishima knew it. This knowledge didn't stop him from spending a whole year preparing for the doomed mission. Observers therefore consider Mishima's plot to be an elaborate excuse for him to commit seppuku. While technically this is actual suicide, Mishima appears to have psychologically needed a traditional justification to take his own life, rather than just doing it. (Also, technically, the proximate cause of death in seppuku is not the self-inflicted wound but the "second" cutting their head off; this is what happened in Mishima's case.)
• Soon after World War II, some Eastern Europeans, especially those who fought for anti-Communist wings of Resistance forces, tried to provoke Red Army soldiers into killing them when they found out that Stalin's Red Army was occupying their respective countries and turning them into Communist regimes instead of freeing them after expelling the Nazis. They felt they would have no chance to escape if they stayed under such regimes and feared any potential children they'd have would be indoctrinated into Communism against their own and parents' wills.
  • A more sinister variation occurred simultaneously, as defectors to Nazi Germany and old Civil War White Army exiles who volunteered to serve the Nazis who realized what was happening either did this or just killed themselves. The others were handed over and either killed immediately for revenge by their former comrades (in the case of the defectors)/old foes (in the case of the White Emigré volunteers) or handed over to the Gulags, where most of them were worked to death or executed.
• James French, the last American to be executed in 1966 before the 1972-1976 national (U.S.) moratorium on capital punishment, went the extra mile with the "Suicide by State" variant while serving a life sentence. This was once common, as suicidal people in some European countries murdered innocents (usually children) then were absolved after confessing before being put to death, so both would get into Heaven by Christian belief (given that suicide was deemed a mortal sin). Authorities cotton on in time however, commuting the sentences of such people to life at hard labor, which they found far less of a pleasant prospect, which deterred further murders done for this (although exceptions do still occur at times).
• In 1666, French watchmaker Robert Hubert apparently decided to commit suicide by criminal justice system, by confessing to starting the Great Fire of London. The inconsistencies and outright holes in his story were obvious to everyone; few if any in the court actually believed him guilty. However, the English authorities needed a scapegoat, and Catholics and the French were popular targets of blame (and never mind that Hubert himself was a Protestant). Since the man had essentially offered himself up on a platter and apparently wanted to die, they figured he would do fine, and Hubert was duly convicted and hanged, his body subsequently being Torn Apart by the Mob.

---