And All the Kings Hordes and Aall the Kings Men Couldnt Bring Humpty Back Again

"He was around all the fourth dimension, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dingy needles, poisonous substance beetles, downed live wires, woods fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nerdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to have a shower, Oz got right in there too—Shower With A Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the h2o you drank, the food yous ate. Who'due south out there? you howled in the dark when y'all were all frightened and all alone, and it was his respond that came back: Don't be afraid, it's simply me."

— Pet Sematary, clarification of "Oz the Gweat and Tewwible"

In stories, characters are usually protected from dying. They tend to alive Happily Ever Subsequently. If they do die, it's in a murder or disaster or large affliction or something. Whatever, equally long every bit it'south something spectacular or dramatic or at least surreal, something that we don't accept to worry and so much that it could happen to ourselves.

These are the exceptions.

Sometimes death is sudden and mundane and comes for no reason. A sudden brain aneurysm, stroke, or heart attack, quietly drowning or suffocating while unconscious; any uncomplicated accident. While a Life Will Kill You death is very undramatic in itself, it'south e'er very dramatic on an emotional level.

Sometimes this is contrasted to the graphic symbol having lived through much worse before something mundane got unsafe to a fatal level. The character does NOT have to exist heroic or powerful in whatsoever style. It's enough that the graphic symbol lived in a setting that wasn't conspicuously marked as Anyone Can Die. Since the trope is about how death is portrayed, it can in special cases (meet the The Onion instance) also cover deaths caused by crumbling or whatever.

Truth in Television. Many people who live to the historic period of 90 (or fifty-fifty 100 and beyond) remain in astoundingly good wellness, to the bespeak that their friends and family members may jokingly call them "immortal"...before suddenly dying of quondam historic period/natural causes. Even animals who live much longer than usual often dice of one-time age.

Sometimes played as An Aesop about appreciating your loved ones while you yet have them.

Dissimilarity Expiry Is Dramatic, Surprisingly Sudden Death, and Death Is Cheap. Contrast Dropped a Bridge on Him, which usually is vehement and/or takes death lightly. Compare Deadly Afar Finale, Shoot the Shaggy Dog, Yous Can't Fight Fate, and We All Die Someday.

For literal element of life with lethal effects, see Holy Hand Grenade and Revive Kills Zombie.

Alert: This is a death trope, so expect spoilers.

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Examples

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    Anime and Manga

• Berserk has no finish of horrible means to dice, and no shyness about deploying them. And so how does Godo, the blacksmith who fabricated Guts'due south Dragon Slayer, see his end? He dies peacefully in bed of old age.
• Fairy Tail is an action series where people fight and cause potential property damage using magical powers, and while Death Is Cheap, the deaths that practice occur are frequently fantastical or dramatized in nature. Thus the offscreen death of Lucy'southward Workaholic father stands out for being the result of overworking himself.
• 1 Piece has a setting revolving around super-powers, swordsman, beasts and other threats to be plant on a vast pirate based earth at state of war with the Navy. Nevertheless Zoro'southward childhood friend and rival Kuina (who happens to be introduced equally a budding swordswoman) dies offscreen afterward falling downwardly a flying of stairs.
• At the very end of Tiger Mask, Tiger Mask is walking to his next match when a motorcar swerves unexpectedly and hits him, killing him on the spot.
• In Tokyo Godfathers, Mother asks Hana in a whisper if her (Hana'south) lover died of AIDS. Hana replies that he simply slipped on the soap, and Female parent muses that Death truly is around every corner.
• The setting of Wish has angels and devils attacking each other and talks of war between sky and hell. One of the two main characters, Shuichiro, ends up collapsing and dying on the street while buying cigarettes.

    Comic Books

• The original Helm Marvel died from cancer, which while the result of a mildly fantastic carcinogenic miracle, was treated very realistically every bit in the mundane world.
• In ElfQuest, The Hero dies to a spider bite, which is weird because, on top of the healing magic and interstellar technology his association accept access to, he's lived a tribal life in that forest for centuries. You'd think that if elves were susceptible to spider venom, he would've died that way a long time ago, or it would have been mentioned somewhere in the tribe'southward extensive Backstory. Fans were divided on whether this twist was tragically realistic or contrived.
• A major subplot of the Sam Humphries run on Harley Quinn is the death of Harley'southward mother from cancer, which sets Harley off on diverse frenzied attempts to deny or "fix" it.
• One issue of Queen and Country opens with Ed Kittering lying dead in bed. Since Ed is a Minder, a British secret agent, foul play is immediately suspected since (as multiple characters point out) James Bond does non just die in his bed. The story ultimately reveals that he died of a brain aneurysm; there were no spies or foreign agents at work, and no plot was involved, it was just a normal death by natural causes.
• The original The Question, Vic Sage, died from lung cancer due to his lifelong smoking.
• An early upshot of The Sandman is devoted almost entirely to this trope. Every bit something of a Mean solar day in the Life episode for Death, "The Audio of Her Wings" features many, many small-scale characters who all run into mundane ends, like electrocution, car accidents, and fifty-fifty Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
  • At the beginning of Brief Lives, Death comes for an Ageless man who expresses disappointment at the mundanity of his death; after surviving xv millennia he was killed by a freak accident that could've happened to anyone. He'due south told he got the same as everyone else: one lifetime, no more than, no less. Later subverted, as information technology'south strongly implied that the "accident" was caused past the mystical security organization Destruction set up to hamper anyone trying to track him down.
• At the finish of The Transformers: More Meets the Eye (set far in the future), Ratchet dies of age-related Spark burnout.
• Captain City, of Watchmen, dies, albeit gruesomely, in a car accident in 1974, long before the volume's present day of 1985.

    Fan Works

• In Amazing Fantasy, Aunt May succumbs to a centre assault and hits her caput on the desk while Peter was out stopping Screwball. He regrets not beingness in that location for her to this 24-hour interval.
• The premise of the Miraculous Ladybug fanfic Crash and Burn down is that Big Bad Hawk Moth is unexpectedly and anticlimactically killed in a car crash.
• Kei Midoriya, Hawks' father, dies from an affliction that was defenseless too late in Reddish and Emerald. Not due to his wife's vigilantism, non through a villain assault. Only a disease and plain bad luck.
• In the Discworld works of A.A. Pessimal, Johanna Smith-Rhodes has temporarily retired from active Assassination to enhance a family. In her career as an Assassinator she has survived, for instance, a leopard wanting to chew her arm off. ^annotation It crunched down hard on the concealed armoured sleeve, but even so, it yet bankrupt her arm and left her with a few scars. In a more sedate life equally a working mother, a new peril confronts her. Her witch daughter has learnt that her mother'south aunt survived three days of intense fighting only to drop expressionless of middle failure shortly later. By unorthodox ways - she can talk to the dead - Rebecka the witch discovers Smith-Rhodes women are prone to eye conditions and complications leading to early death. She then persuades her mother to get it checked out. Matron Igorina discovers alarming signs that Johanna has been trying to tough out, and subjects her to life-saving surgery. With. No. Arguing. Johanna.
• Inverted in I Am Skantarios: Genessios is stated to have died of natural causes in-game, only anybody knows the Emperor had him assassinated (the game lacks a civil war mechanic).
• In the backstory of One Hell of a Ride , Rhodey died in the aftermath of the Avengers' ceremonious war because of a hospital borne infection.
• one day at a time:
  • Peggy Sue protagonist Jason Todd's second death was a result of lung cancer at age fifty. The first affiliate lampshaded how united nations-heroic this death was, but Jason was okay with it. He used what time he had to settle his affairs and died in his sleep, surrounded by friends and family, which is a much better way to become than his outset decease.
  • In Jason'south backstory, Alfred Pennyworth died of old age. Both of the remaining Waynes at the time (Jason and Cassandra Cain) knew it was coming for a while, which did not help either of them in trying to recover from their younger blood brother Damian Wayne'southward death.
  • Carrie Kelley'south parents died in a random car accident completely unrelated to any super-law-breaking.
• A Scotsman in Egypt: What with all the enemies Scotland makes over the centuries, you lot'd think every important character would dice in battle. Domnall's twin Nevan dies of the plague out of nowhere, taking the story into a new direction as Aodh takes over Spymaster duties.
• In The Teacher of All Things afterwards Tai's adventures in Five-Tamer his partner, Zeromaru dies in a rather mundane style. Zeromaru'southward Five-Pet dies like any other toy. Many of Tai's V-Tamer friends like Lord Holy Angemon, Gabu died of quondam historic period due to the departure in the passage of time between the Digital Earth and the Real World. This causes him a lot of grief.

    Films — Blithe

• In Rango this trope turns out to be the reason behind the mariachi leader's repeated statements regarding Rango'southward eventual death.
  • Also used by Rango during his recount of the time he killed seven bandits brothers with a single bullet. Once Rango end explaining how each blood brother was killed by the chain of events initiated by his shot, someone points that information technology only described vi deaths, Rango promptly explains that the 7th blood brother died from an infection.

    Films — Live-Activity

• The Big Lebowski hits its climax with a fight scene betwixt the protagonists and the nihilist would-be kidnappers. I of the protagonists does not walk away.

  The Dude: Oh man, they shot him!
  Walter: No, Dude, in that location were no shots fired.
  The Dude: Huh?
  Walter: It'due south a heart attack.

• In Defending Your Life romantic lead Julia mentions dying past tripping over a lounge chair and drowning in the pool. After non only having been a very accomplished swimmer, but likewise lived adventurously and risked her life heroically more than once (she'southward shown rescuing her kids from a burning edifice, only to run back within to get the dog). She finds the irony frustrating.
• In a Mexican movie chosen El Estudiante, the main grapheme's wife dies in her slumber just when the movie seemed to be nearly to finish. Saying information technology was something to cry virtually would exist an understatement...
• A special content in Final Destination 3 DVD revolved effectually various causes of decease, from the most unlikely to the nearly probable. The catastrophe was simply "Chances of dying - one:1".
• In the film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, the onetime consigliere who dies of a sudden heart attack when Ghost Dog bursts into the room, Guns Akimbo drawn.

  Consigliere: Jesus, IT'S THE FUCKING BIRD Human being! Ough, Jesus-...! [clutches his chest and falls down dead]

• The Mitt of God: Fabrietto's life is turned upside downwardly when he's 16 years old, when his parents are both killed in a carbon monoxide leak.
• In In Time, this is played straight in the story while subverted by the setting. Within the story, characters dice from the smallest mistakes, such every bit only keeping plenty cash for the bus ride dwelling house (without knowing that the fee has been increased), or getting so absorbed in your duty that you don't take the time to refill your clock when you lot take the chance. On the political level, still, information technology is made articulate that the system has been engineered for these kinds of mistakes to occur. The authorities is murdering their citizens on a genocidal level, while building in an element of randomization every bit an excuse to pretend that it's the victim'south own fault.
• In Last Action Hero, The Grim Reaper from the Seventh Seal picture appears in the existent world and does what the Grim Reaper tends to exercise. When he confronts the protagonist he tells him that he volition die. For i moment, the kid thinks he is going to be reaped, merely the Grim Reaper just tells him he'll dice as a grandad.
• Lawrence of Arabia portrayed the protagonist as a great dauntless hero. Afterwards all his unsafe adventures however, he died in a road accident on his motorcycle. At the kickoff of the film, no less. Notwithstanding, this was a Mortiferous Afar Finale, occurring many years later on he retired.
• In More than American Graffiti, John Milner spends the flick drag racing, merely to be killed past a drunk driver as he is driving home.
• Never Permit Me Get: The motion picture version ends with the protagonist thinking about how ordinary people aren't so different later all, how nosotros are all living our lives on death row.
• Discussed in Patton. At the stop of the flick the eponymous general about has a car accident, and he mentions how ironic it would be for someone to live through the worst of World War II only to die in a random motorcar blow. This is an innuendo to how the Real Life Patton died.
• Afterward 900 years of adventures, fighting bad guys, and leading the Jedi Club through war and peace, what finally gets Master Yoda in Render of the Jedi is but old age.

  "At present, will I balance. Aye, forever sleep. Earned it, I have."

• In A Single Human being, the principal character is a gay college professor, who decides to commit suicide after his partner dies in a car accident. At the stop, he decides that life is worth living later on all - and promptly dies from a heart attack.
• In Sliding Doors, 1 version for the main character is simply continuing in that location, having what would take perhaps been the near important conversation in a long and happy life. Of a sudden a automobile runs over her, giving one of the twin timelines a sudden Downer Catastrophe.

    Literature

• In The Belgariad by David Eddings, Rhodar is a tactical genius who is somewhen killed not in battle or heroically, but from a general organ failure brought about from years of overeating.
• Another Stephen Rex series, The Dark Tower, has the idiot-savant psychic Sheemie, one of Roland'due south oldest friends (though they were separated for a long time), die in the last book of an infected wound on his human foot.
• A graphic symbol in one of Katherine Kurtz'southward Deryni novels survives numerous conflicts and and so dies after slipping on a stone staircase. Ane of his disbelieving friends cries "death should be more than difficult."
• Discworld:
  • One of the seven barbaric heroes chronicled in Interesting Times dies from... choking on a concubine (err... cucumber). This is what urges the rest of the group to seek a more glorious decease for themselves (fifty-fifty though they have effectively settled down at the end of the previous book) in The Final Hero.
  • Death is stated to believe that anybody is dying, and everyone will die, because of this trope, which makes request him whether or not your electric current prognosis is terminal a moot bespeak.
  • Nosotros see this happening to Auditors who start developing traits associated with being alive. This is justified in universe in that Auditors, not being alive, can exist for always, only beingness alive implies that you will one day be expressionless and thus have a finite existence. Because any finite number compared to infinity is duplicate from nix, whatsoever Auditor that appears to have begun to alive will instantly dice.
  • Hogfather plays with this past having several Auditors turn into vicious dogs in order to interfere directly with events. They are horrified to observe that life is addictive and that they can't plough back, and because they are now alive they are now also no longer allowed from Decease (who is, by this point in the story, royally pissed off at them...)

    Decease: it gets under your skin, life. metaphorically speaking of course. and the more you struggle for the next moment the more alive you become... which is where I come in, as a affair of fact.

• In Stephen King's novel Duma Key, protagonist Edgar defeats an evil force with the help of his new best friend, Jerome Wireman, who has previously survived a Bungled Suicide where he shot himself in the head and lived. They both survive the encounter, but Wireman all of a sudden dies of a heart attack a few months later on.
• Discussed in Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. The final chapter concerns an army officeholder who shot himself in the caput on a bet to evidence that he was destined not to die (the pistol jammed)... and then was killed past a drunk Cossack a few hours later. It's left unclear whether this event confirms that he was destined to dice that very day (which is the protagonist'southward belief), or if it's a straight example of this trope (as a minor character thinks).
• Assassinations are mutual enough in the Honour Harrington books, both for strictly political and for conspiratorial reasons. In the People'southward Republic of Haven, a popular method used by the government was to adjust an aircar accident, and in afterward books, the villains would utilise nanites to either imitation decease by natural causes or crusade people to proceed brief suicidal courses of action, to include committing assassinations themselves. So when Arnold Giancola, a Havenite politician interfering in attempts of the new restored Commonwealth of Haven government to negotiate a peace with the Star Kingdom of Manticore, meets a very natural very untimely expiry in an aircar accident, the government officials are at a loss for how to avoid looking like they had him assassinated.
  • Information technology gets ameliorate: One time the Havenites acquire about the greater conspiracy they accept been a victim of, they officially accuse the Mesans of Giancola's murder, long later on the readers would take stopped caring about the guy. Albrecht Detweiler is shocked and dumbfounded at the accusation, every bit that was ane of the few of import deaths he didn't take annihilation to exercise with at this point.
• The novel for Kamen Passenger Ghost reveals that Takeru Tenkuji concluded up dying of a heart attack at 33.
• This trope is discussed and given the name "Oz the Gweat and Tewwible" in Stephen Male monarch'southward Pet Sematary.
• In Warrior Cats, Leopardstar is an ambitious and occasionally combative true cat who first appears in the second book and is one of the more prominent RiverClan characters, especially after becoming its leader. She ends up living long (more than than 10 years, which is amazing for the setting) and dying of diabetes.
• In The Wintertime Queen, Count Zurov tells the protagonist most a friend he had one time, an army officer who participated in the most brutal fights but died in peacetime of accidental alcohol poisoning.
• Flintstone Fireforge, ane of the founding heroes of the Dragonlance novels, adventures, and setting, expires of a eye set on while striving to go on up the pace of travel set by his far younger adventuring companions.
• In TheWitcher, Geralt of Rivia spends his life fighting monsters, spirits, cursed humans and all manner of unsafe and supernatural foes…only to run across his end being stabbed unawares by a scared peasant with a pitchfork. (This is subverted in the video games, where he is revived)

    Live-Action TV

• Played with in Angel where one of the prophesies concerning the eponymous vampire is that he volition "save the world, so dice." Eventually it's revealed that a more accurate translation would be "save the world, then eventually dice in the sense that you volition get a mortal human again, which is kind of what you've been hoping for ever since you got your soul back."
  • A similar thing was washed later in the series with Eve. She spends an unabridged episode hiding from Hamilton, claiming that if he finds her he'll kill her. When he catches upward to her, he merely severs her contract. When asked why she said she would die if he caught her, Eve answers that now that she's mortal, some day she volition.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy's mother is simply dead i day. While the audience shouldn't exist surprised by a death (in the Buffy-poesy, at any rate), it was totally unexpected that she died the way she did. "I Was Made to Love You" ends with Buffy coming home, and her mother is expressionless on the flooring. The next episode is called "The Trunk", and apace reveals that it was a unproblematic aneurysm — caused by complications from a process she underwent before in the serial to remove a encephalon tumor.
  • Bonus points that everyone was then surprised and unsettled that information technology wasn't anything extraordinary. Xander, especially, is shaken, maxim things like this don't just happen. Anya, who usually has a very matter-of-fact attitude towards supernaturally related decease and violence, is completely at a loss and in tears.
  • Played With in "Aid". Buffy, while working as a school counselor, meets a educatee named Cassie who has predicted her own expiry. The Scoobies spend the episode trying to find out who might exist after her, and larn of a cult that intends to cede Cassie. Buffy saves Cassie from the cult, and then saves her from a booby-trap by communicable a crossbow bolt inches from Cassie's head. Cassie dies presently after of a eye set on.
• In Choujin Sentai Jetman, Gai/Black Condor cheats expiry by Vyram many times and finally defeats them with the residual of the team ... then dies in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue afterward existence stabbed past a random mugger on the style to his friends' wedding.
• CSI Verse
  • CSI:
    • "Ending Happy" consists of a guy who suffered a Rasputinian Death. After surviving beingness poisoned (by seafood to which he was allergic), shot in the throat by a crossbow, beaten with a crowbar and poisoned again (this fourth dimension by snake venom) he sits down past a pool, and so falls in and drowns when the chair (which he refused to repair earlier in the flashback) collapses. Fabricated all the more frustrating for the squad as iv people confess to killing the human, but to find out that wasn't what had really done him in. Whether or not they're charged for attempted murder isn't addressed.
    • In another episode, a US Marine survived several tours in Iraq only to pause his neck falling off a ladder his first week dorsum dwelling house. (The reason CSI got involved was because somebody bankrupt into the funeral home to steal his brain. ^note It was office of a scheme to stop a mixed martial artist from being posthumously diagnosed with CTE, opening his trainers and the league to lawsuits. The Marine was Jewish, meaning his body wasn't embalmed and therefore his brain could plausibly be substituted for the MMA fighter's.)
  • CSI: Miami: Ane victim who was just walking down the street died when another man savage off a third-flooring balcony and landed on him. Not just was he crushed, his neck was sliced by a cd the other man was holding when he cruel.
  • CSI: NY:
    • "The Fall" had someone who appeared to have been pushed off a balustrade. Not only was he an Asshole Victim, it happened at a party and so a lot of suspects were present. His bodily cause of death was drinking and then much he lost his balance when he tried to accomplish upwards for something hidden in a gargoyle's mouth on the balustrade. In a similar scenario in CSI, a college daughter found expressionless in a dumpster backside her residence hall turned out to have fallen into the dormitory garbage chute head-offset while trying to retrieve a wastebasket she'd accidentally dropped into it. Even in the CSI franchise, it's not Ever Murder.
    • "Right Next Door" had a woman whose high heel got caught in a sidewalk grate causing her to trip, fall through a shop-front window, and bleed to death on the spot. Her case was solved during the Common cold Open.
• Mutual in Expressionless Like Me. Since the main characters work in the External Influence department, quondam-age deaths are however rare, but their clients' causes of expiry include machine accidents, diving-board mishaps, aggravation of an existing spinal injury, and falling space-station shrapnel (more than interesting, merely withal sudden and pointless).
  • The all-time instance is when they're in a bank waiting on a decease to occur. Every bit the time gets closer, a bunch of armed banking company robbers blitz in, while at the same fourth dimension, a wife catches her hubby having an thing with a coworker. With all this tension going on, murder or an accidental shooting seems imminent... but no, the whole situation manages to resolve itself peacefully. So who dies? The guy who walks in 10 seconds later to cash his paycheck, slips on the floor and breaks his cervix in the revolving door.
• Medico Who:
  • The deaths of the Physician's incarnations are unremarkably very dramatic and noble (especially Two, Three, 5, and all of the new series Doctors) simply have been this in a few cases. The Kickoff and War Doctors simply die quietly of one-time age between adventures (unlike the Eleventh, who died of former age but in the rather more dramatic context that he'd aged to expiry due to stranding himself on a single planet for hundreds of years). The Fourth Doctor died from the fall after slipping off a radio tower he was climbing — though the fact that he (and the audience) knows from the moment he showtime sees the Watcher that he'south not getting out of that story alive makes it a bit less sudden. The Sixth Doctor slipped and bashed his head on the TARDIS console and died. The Seventh Physician got hitting with a stray bullet by happening to be in the vicinity of a gang incident, and so died in a medical accident when the surgeon trying to resuscitate him got confused by his Bizarre Alien Biological science and killed him on the operating tabular array.
  • "Tooth and Claw" references it: Queen Victoria mentions the legend that anyone who owns the Koh-i-Noor will die, and the Doctor responds that that's true of anything if you wait long plenty.
  • The Weeping Angels' victims. The Angels won't (usually) kill you, instead they'll ship you back in time and you lot end up dead in present time only from living out what was left of your life. This is why the 10th Doctor calls them "the but psychopaths in the universe who kill you nicely".
  • Information technology'south heavily unsaid that, afterward all the times they died, the one thing that permanently killed off both Captain Jack Harkness and Rory Williams is old historic period. Assuming Jack really does become the Face of Boe, so he passes away after well-nigh five billion years.
  • The expiry from old historic period of the Brigadier in "The Wedding of River Song", which forces the Eleventh Doctor to go and confront his own decease.
  • Danny Pinkish gets run over past a automobile, due to carelessly stepping out into the road while using his mobile phone, in "Dark Water". Clara even complains most how ordinary a expiry it is.
• Referenced in the Firefly episode "The Message", in which the eponymous message from i of Mal's onetime war buddies includes the declaration that "Nosotros went to state of war never looking to come back, but it's the existent world I couldn't survive." Subverted somewhat in that he's not actually dead, and while he does go himself killed by the terminate of the episode, it's non a mundane death.
• Maester Aemon dies of quondam age, in his bed, on Game of Thrones, only about the but grapheme to dice a completely natural death in the show.
• Given a nod in the episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy has what is ultimately diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome. Afterward being told by a number of doctors that there's nothing actually incorrect with her and even told by one that information technology's all in her head, she gets an examination by her neighbour, Harry Weston (a pediatrician), because he's the only physician she knows she can trust.

  Dorothy: Am I going to die, Harry?
  Harry: I'thousand afraid so.
  Dorothy: Really?
  Harry: Sooner or later on, I guarantee it.

• In the Jonathan Creek episode "The Reconstituted Corpse", the mundane manner of the victim's death proves a stumbling block for solving the mystery. The victim died from a brain aneurysm subsequently being struck on the head by a piece of pipe that rolled off a scaffold by blow. The aneurysm took several hours to take consequence and she just died where she stood.
• In the backstory of Lexx, Kai is sentenced to decease past his fellow Brunnan-G. Since they're a race of The Ageless, this merely means that he is cut off from whatsoever keeps them that way.
• This was the reason backside Tasha Yar getting a Red Shirt death instead of an "Our hero saves the universe and goes out with a concluding quip" sort of death when her extra left Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was intended as a Surprisingly Realistic Consequence moment - the point was that information technology was pointless. However, fans don't like it that realistic when it comes to their character getting bridge'd. She returns in an Alternate Universe episode, and gets a much better ending (though about likely still won't survive.)
  • Against all odds she really does survive, as related past a grapheme literally built-in of that alternate continuity, then dies again pointlessly years before she dies the first time. Ah, Negative Space Wedgies.
  • Invoked by Q in Tapestry. Picard asks if being spared being stabbed in the heart means he won't dice. Q retorts, "Of course yous'll die! Just at a later engagement."
• The point of the Supernatural episode "Mystery Spot". Dean Winchester, a guy who's survived witches, ghosts, vampires, demons, urban legends, and really angry humans, is killed over and over again by things like slipping in the shower, eating bad burritos, getting hit by a car, and having a pianoforte fall on him. It's widely regarded equally one of the series'due south funniest episodes.
• In the Welcome Back, Kotter episode "Goodbye, Mr. Kripps", an unpopular teacher has a center attack while yelling at Vinnie, who mistakenly believes that he killed the teacher and turns himself in to the police as a result.
• The X-Files: In "Beyond the Sea", Scully'due south father dies of a center set on, probably the most normal expiry in the whole series. Ironically, past the fourth dimension Scully has accepted the fact that nobody can escape death ("Tithonus"), it'due south implied she has become immortal.

    Music

• Played for laughs in Alestorm's "Swashbuckled". Admiral Nobeard was so fat he was invulnerable to both sword and gun. He ended upwards choking to death on a pretzel.
• "The Final Gunfighter Ballad" past Johnny Greenbacks ends with the eponymous gunfighter—at present elderly and suffering from dementia—run down past a car while standing in the street.
• Type O Negative's vocal "Life is Killing Me".
• Hank Williams'south vocal: "I'll Never Go Out Of This World Alive". Interestingly, Hank Williams Jr and Hank Williams 3 also recorded or contributed to recordings of this song.
• Life'll Kill Ya was the title of one of Warren Zevon's last albums, although in a sad irony information technology was released before his terminal cancer diagnosis.

    Newspaper Comics

• In a few strips of Dilbert, Dogbert tried a stint as a fortuneteller. In an effort to give an infallible prediction, he told Dilbert that he will somewhen die.

    Tabletop Games

• Ars Magica has rules for aging. Every wintertime later a character turns 35, they must brand a gyre (with penalties for poor living atmospheric condition and advanced age, or bonuses for practiced living conditions and longevity rituals); failure ways they either larn an crumbling-related affliction (similar weakening eyesight or poor hearing) or a Decrepitude betoken. If they have besides many afflictions already, they must take the Debility betoken. Once they take enough Decrepitude points (depending on edition - 10 in 4th, 5 in 5th), they dice of onetime age at some point in the following yr. The book notes that, since this is the 13th century, dying of old age is an accomplishment worthy of praise all its ain.
• In Dungeons & Dragons, no course of magic or other means can undo death by one-time age.
• In Exalted, fifty-fifty the well-nigh glorious Solar Exalt will die if he lives long enough. The discovery of this dominion led to peachy dismay/sobering amongst the get-go generation of postal service-Primordial War Solars. Attempting to avoid this is the reason the Carmine Empress fell into the Ebon Dragon's claws. Doesn't employ to Abyssals who suffer from Eternal Death, as well every bit Infernals who go Primordial 2.0.
  • On a more specific note, in that location are cases like Chejop Kejak (the lead Sidereal who fears what volition become of his faction when he succumbs to quondam age), the fact that several potential candidates to the Scarlet Throne are discounted on the basis that they're as well close to the end of their lives, and Ingosh Silverclaws (an extremely prominent Lunar) having passed away shortly before the starting time of the game's introduction bespeak.

    Video Games

• Ezio Auditore de Firenze, a much-feared assassin who comes to controlling the entire Mediterranean region throughout Assassinator's Creed Two, Brotherhood, and Revelations, dies of a heart attack at an advanced age after years of idleness. Which is but the mode he wanted it as he had chosen to give upward the life of beingness an assassin years ago.
  • However, there are theories that he was, in fact, poisoned past a man he talked to moments before dying, as seen in Embers.
  • Similarly, Altair is near ninety or so when his story finally ends. The last command the histrion gives him is "Sit a moment and rest..."
• Crusader Kings takes place with a very mortal cast, in a very turbulent and illness-ridden era, over several centuries. It can be rest assured that while some will autumn in glorious battle, many, if not well-nigh, of your dynasty will meet a less-than-glorious end by disease, old historic period, or misfortune. In the second game, Norse rulers go bonus prestige if they raise a runestone to an antecedent who didn't dice a mundane death.
• In Disgaea: Hr of Darkness, it'southward mentioned that the previous Overlord, Laharl's father, an incredibly powerful demon who'd taken on the worst that Heaven and Hell could throw at him and won died... from choking on a pretzel. Or possibly not.
• Dwarf Fortress: There'due south a pretty damn big chance your legendary axedwarf won't die in an ballsy battle worthy of history, just rather will get defenseless in a cave-in, drown/burn down in a badly engineered cistern/magma reservoir, become caught in an blow with a minecart or ill-placed machinery, or simply contrivance off a ledge and fall head-first.
• Fallout:
  • Fallout: The "bad ending" for Junktown has town villain Gizmo taking accuse and becoming an untouchable criminal offense boss, until he chokes to death on a iguana-on-a-stick.
  • Fallout: New Vegas:
    • Invoked when Caesar offers the Courier the chance to make up one's mind how Benny volition die. When asked, Benny chooses to die of old age, in his bed, preferably subsequently a marathon session of sex with a pair of prostitutes. Whether or not this works is up to the histrion.
    • While it doesn't happen during the games story, Caesar is headed this way. If the thespian, at least temporarily, sides with the Legion that he has a brain tumor that is causing him headaches and mood swings. The histrion tin choose to try and operate him themselves, only a successful attempt requires either high medicine skill, or a loftier enough luck. Or they tin go on a fetch quest to get car-physician parts needed for a diagnosis. The Courier can also employ this as an opportunity to assassinate Caesar and brand information technology look similar an accident or otherwise natural. With high enough Speech or Medicine skill, information technology'southward possible to remain on friendly terms with the faction after.
• Ghostbusters: The Video Game: The Spirit Guide entries for some of the ghosts and Cursed Artifacts use this as Blackness Comedy. For example, Pappy Sargassi—the Fisherman Ghost which you encounter in the Sedgewick Hotel—survived a terrible shipwreck, but shortly thereafter he high-strung to death on a fish-stick while on land.
• Many of the notable shades of the dead in Hades died in trigger-happy battle or by earning the ire of the gods themselves. Eurydice remarks that her ain death was very sudden and mundane for a semi-divine nymph, having been bitten past a venomous serpent.
• In Icewind Dale, 1 boss states that the world is dying. Why? Considering it is living.
• In Koudelka titular graphic symbol Koudelka - a medium and Jerkass squad-mate James - an Vatican agent, both wind upwards at a curse-soaked manor in the heart of the Welsh state side - Koudelka to investigate a troubled spirit broadcasting ache for miles, and James to recover a stolen antiquity implied to be in the manor - a manor endemic past his erstwhile-friend Patrick Heyworth and his former honey-involvement Elaine Heyworth. Adequately early on in it'due south revealed that the ghost in torment and James'due south quondam beloved-interest are the same person and the psychotically depressed Patrick may have stolen said cursed artifact to attempt to bring her back... with predictable results. Elaine's death drives the entire game and along with the villain'due south and 2 of the three main-graphic symbol's motivations and... it turns out she died due to a random senseless burglary that had turned trigger-happy while her hubby was out getting groceries. The entire game, and by extension the entire series, happens because of an utterly random benign nominal life-tragedy, that the survivors merely could not accept and and then took absurd and desperate deportment to disengage.
  • Further in the serial in Shadow Hearts: From the New Earth the game'southward main-grapheme, Johnny Garland, waking upward after several years, Johnny apparently having survived a random accident, but awaking to observe his father and twin-sis did non. Daddy Garland may have died due to to something other than said accident, and it may have something to exercise with that artifact Patrick Heyworth had stolen years prior.
• At the finish of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Snake meets with his father Large Dominate at Arlington National Cemetery where they brand up for lost fourth dimension. At this indicate Serpent is going to dice within a year's fourth dimension, at all-time, due to preprogrammed Clone Degeneration that has accelerated his aging, and Big Boss is going to die because of a virus that is programmed to kill him. Naturally one of the questions that Snake asks of his father is, "Am I going to die?" Big Boss' response is a simple ane, "Everyone dies. There is nothing you tin can do to stop it. Aught yous tin can do to run away from it. All that's important is that you don't waste the time you take left."
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice features legendary Isshin Ashina, the 90 year old patriarch of the Ashina Clan, whose lands are being slowly invaded by the Interior Ministry. When the Ministry launches a total-fledged attack on Ashina Castle tardily in the game, he picks up his sword and sets off to defend his castle...only to keel over and die in the next room. This is later on defied when Genichiro Ashina sacrifices himself to resurrect Isshin at the peak of his strength.
• In Stellaris, fifty-fifty an Immortal Ruler isn't... Quite immortal. Self-inflicted gravitational irregularity, neglecting proper maintenance protocols... Even mortal leaders often die in reasonably mundane means, with such mundane causes as "old age"...
• Subverted in World of Warcraft with Lei-Shen the Thunder King. Legends and semi-official in-game history says he only died of old age. World of Warcraft: Chronicle later revealed he was killed by the Forge of Origination, which also wiped out his army and turned Uldum into a desert.

    Web Animation

• In RWBY, Ozma was known equally an Invincible Hero and a I-Man Army who could plow through hordes of Grimm through his mastery of combat and magic. In the end, he's killed by a simple illness. Unfortunately, his wife failed to accept this (the both of them were rather young and she was just freed from being a Girl in the Belfry fairly recently), and the entirety of the plot proceeds out of this failure.
  • At that place'south as well Fria, the Winter Maiden. She'due south 1 of the most powerful entities in the world, only she'due south besides very old and on her deathbed without anyone doing anything to hurt her. In the terminal boxing of Volume 8, Fria manages to repel Cinder, herself a Maiden, with a blizzard and then cold nobody could achieve her without freezing, only dies before long afterward of old age, managing to be the first Maiden of the series to go out on her own terms and pick her successor.

    Web Original

• In this article in The Onion, all decease is treated as totally unexpected, with people being surprised and horrified that people actually tin die from aging.

    Western Blitheness

• Archer: I episode revolves effectually the survivors of Woodhouse's Globe State of war 1 battalion dying off, with newspaper clippings talking about foul play being suspected, and since the group created a tontine presently before the war, which by now is worth almost i £Million, it seems like 1 of them is killing the others. Nope, equally it turns out, the deaths occurring so close to each other was genuinely just because of old age and accidents, since virtually of them were pushing 90, and the newspapers were just trying to drum up sales.
• Bojack Horseman: Bojack's neglectful father Butterscotch Horseman spent his whole life working on a novel which ended up flopping when it was finally published, and Butterscotch publically challenged whatever of his critics to a duel. One human took him upwardly on it, and the two met in Golden Gate Park with revolvers, prepared for a archetype 10-step duel...and at the count of v, Buttersotch turned around to enquire him exactly what he thought virtually the novel, tripped on a tree root, and busted his head open on a stone.
• One of the Hitler Ate Sugar tactics used on the Justice League past "Glorious Godfrey" was as follows: "Since the Justice League has been around, 50% of marriages ended in divorce, the other 50%... in death!" Of course, to him, it was but business concern, nothing else.
• Rick and Morty: The alien arcade game Roy: A Life Well Lived, which simulates the life of a human named Roy from childhood and lets the actor alive nonetheless they want, has this happen when Morty plays it. In centre-historic period, Roy has a dramatic brush with cancer, survives it after a heroic struggle... so promptly dies a few years later at age 55 later falling off the step-ladder in the carpet store he works at and breaking his neck.

  Rick: (reviewing Morty's performance) Expect at this. You lot beat out cancer and so you went back to work at the carpet store?! Boo!

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LifeWillKillYou

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