A character tries to take their own life (or, at least, threatens to do so) by biting off or swallowing their own tongue. This usually occurs when the character is captured and restrained, and wants to commit suicide to avoid interrogation/torture, but doesn't have a Cyanide Pill prepared.
Of course, this attempt doesn't always work. In fact, half of the time, these characters are either stopped by others before they could injure themselves, or fail to inflict enough damage through the bite that they end up surviving.
A Sub-Trope to Driven to Suicide and (often) to Tongue Trauma.
As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Alluded several times in Blade of the Immortal
- After she is defeated by Anotsu Kagehisa for the first time, a restrained Rin threatens to commit suicide by biting off her tongue if he tries to do anything indecent towards her.
- A Torture Technician mentions that the fiancée of a man he's hunting had killed herself by biting off her tongue during her "interrogation".
- Attempted in Busou Renkin by a captured Homonculus Mook. Unfortunately for him that means he's Made Ofiron with a Healing Factor, so this doesn't actually kill him.
- Death Note: After days of being held in the police custody under the suspicions of being the second Kira, blindfolded and kept in a straitjacket the entire time (and it's implied that Watari tortured her at L's behest to get her to admit it) Misa tries to kill herself by biting off her tongue. L has Watari stick a rag in her mouth before she gets the chance.
- Discussed in Durarara!!. Izaya mentions that if someone were to bite off their own tongue, it wouldn't be blood loss that kills them but the swelling which would cause them to choke.
- The Familiar of Zero: In episode 2 of the final season Louise tells her captors that if they plan to torture her she'll commit suicide by biting her tongue.
- In the novelization of Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, Kiki commits suicide by biting her tongue off while being gang-raped by Federation soldiers. Neither of these incidents occur in the anime.
- Tsunami from Naruto threatens to commit suicide by cutting her tongue when a group of thugs tries to use her as a hostage against her son. However, Naruto manages to rescue her and her son before she needs to carry out the threat. When Kisame is captured by the good guys and is being subjected to a Mind Probe, he manages to break himself out of the genjustsu he is under by bitting his own tongue and using the blood to summon sharks which he feeds himself to.
- In Chapter 89 of Nobunaga no Chef, Kaede is discovered to be a spy by the Hongan-ji, and attempts to bite her tongue when she is about to be captured by Rairen. The latter stops her before she could do so by gagging her, saying that he's not going to let her kill herself so easily.
- One Piece:
- During the Sabaody Archipelago Arc, the Straw Hats witness a captured pirate being auctioned attempt to commit suicide by biting his tongue off to show that being enslaved is a Fate Worse than Death. This being One Piece however, he's later seen to have survived (although with a chunk of tongue missing).
- Also during the Impel Down Arc, when he was captured by the prison staff, Galdino, A.K.A. Mr. 3, threatened to bite his tongue off with the Anime even showing him attempt it once.
- In Rave Master, Nagisa bites off her tongue after failing to assassinate Julius, having (apparently) been ordered to commit suicide if she fails. Thankfully, the heroes notice this and immediately send her to the medics for treatment.
- In Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest, Aoshika is kidnapped by Haguro in order to lure her Love Interest, Inugami. While being gang-raped by Haguro's goons, Aoshika bites her tongue in an attempt to kill herself, but when she realises that Inugami is already on his way to save her, she stops herself, even when Haguro goads her to carry on.
Fan Works
- In the Mass Effect/X-COM crossover Once Bitten, Twice Shy
, humans, during the First Contact War, attempt to make Desolas retreat by holding his brother, Saren, hostage. Things really go south once Saren, live on the camera, bites off his own tongue.
Films — Live-Action
- In Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, De Jong commits suicide by biting off and swallowing his tongue during Kanemoto's forced seppuku. His death leads to him being treated as a martyr by the other inmates in the POW camp, though the sentiment doesn't get very far before the guards intervene.
- In Million Dollar Baby, Maggie bites her tongue and hopes to bleed to death after becoming paralysed.
- Se7en. The Sloth victim chewed off and swallowed his own tongue either in an attempt to kill himself or because he was desperate for solid food after being strapped to a bed and fed only via intravenous sustenance for an entire year.
- Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs manipulates another prisoner, Miggs, to commit suicide by swallowing his own tongue for sexually harassing Clarice whenever she walks past his cell.
Literature
- Able Team. When Carl Lyons is captured by the Unomondo organisation, they restrain him with a plastic tube in his mouth to prevent him doing this.
- A Practical Guide to Evil: this happens in the culmination of the Ater arc in Book VII, when The Wandering Bard (who gets a new body elsewhere whenever her old one dies) takes advantage of Catherine pausing for a Bond One-Liner to stop her from taking her powers for herself and finally killing her for good. This completely screws up Catherine's plans, leaving her with only half of the Bard's powerset and the Bard screwing her and the entire Grand Alliance over in a fit of spite.
- In Cerberus High II, Nagisa is gravely injured protecting Kasumi from Corrupted Miu’s attack, and uses his final moments to alert Kasumi about Red Star's impending birth. However, before being able to get the vampiric being's name out, he bites his tongue and dies in an apparent suicide.
- In The Diamond Chariot, when Fandorin's team finally manages to corner their first Ninja, the latter chooses to bite off his own tongue rather than be captured and interrogated. Later on, Fandorin grows wise to this tactic and prevents another such suicide by shoving his whole fist into another ninja's mouth.
- In A Song of Ice and Fire, Varamyr tries to steal the body of his caretaker, Thistle. When she can't force him out, she scratches out her eyes and bites off her tongue. Thistle dies soon afterwards and gets resurrected as a wight.
- Tales of the Otori has this as the favoured tactic of assassins from the Tribe when getting caught.
- Subverted in Tricky Business. Frank accidentally bites his tongue off and keeps swallowing his blood to avoid choking on it, and eventually commits suicide via Taking You with Me by jumping overboard, dragging Tark with him.
Live-Action TV
- In The Boys (2019), this is how Stormfront finally dies. It's even referred to as "Million Dollar Baby-ing herself."
- In Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Goren had a colleague, criminal profiler Jo Gage, who snapped and tried to become a serial killer after years of being ignored by her father and mentor, Declan Gage, because he believed that there could never be a "real" female serial killer, and she figured that if she proved him wrong, he'd finally pay attention to her. Sometime after her arrest by Goren, she attempted suicide off-screen by biting off her own tongue.
Webcomics
- Near the end of the "Storm of Souls" arc in Dominic Deegan, Helixa bites off her tongue after she's already near death to finish herself off and be revived by her necromancy.
Real Life
- A Chinese man arrested for purse-snatching bites his tongue and chokes to death on his own blood to avoid jailtime.
