Someone tell Virion that Armor Is Useless doesn’t apply to this universe.
"Alright, it's time to redeem myself. Through one final act of redemption [stands between Gohan and a fairly slow Beam] I'll save Gohan an— Wait a second, why didn't I just grab him? I can probably still do that now, actually. Yeah, that's it, I'll grab him, and throw him out of the wa— AAAARRRRRGH!"
— Piccolo having a realization too late to actually do anything, Dragon Ball Z Abridged
Everyone all knows the trope. Everyone's caught in a life-or-death situation. One of the characters hedges their bets, steps forward so the others survive, and ends up on the "death" side of the equation. Pathos is obtained, tears are shed, etc., etc.
Except... well, did they really need to do that? Couldn't they have gotten out of the way of the death trap once it was smashed and about to explode? Couldn't they have just held out for a few seconds longer until help arrived? Couldn't they have just talked them all out of that?
What can be said, it's pathos — logic must be left by the wayside. The Plot Reaper has spoken.
A Stupid Sacrifice is what happens when a Heroic Sacrifice has a head-on collision with Fridge Logic. It is not a Senseless Sacrifice, where someone offers themselves up as a sacrifice only for outside factors to make it useless; this is when a sacrifice occurs when anyone in command of all their logical faculties could've seen that it didn't have to end that way. Surprisingly little overlap with Martyr Without a Cause, but sometimes the result of Chronic Hero Syndrome: The Knight Templar or Well-Intentioned Extremist may make them — and lament them as Dirty Business — because they can't be bothered to notice that they were unnecessary. In the case of video games, it can involve Cutscene Incompetence and/or Gameplay and Story Segregation, where a threat is portrayed as serious enough to justify a Heroic Sacrifice when the player character should logically be able to handle it. If a proposed sacrifice is nixed on the grounds it would be stupid, see Who Will Bell the Cat?. Note that this doesn't apply when the character could have lived, but quite clearly didn't want to.
Often a case of Writer on Board. They want this character to die, for whatever reason. There are no other alternatives, period. This situation makes it similar to Dropped a Bridge on Him; the "sacrifice" part making it "honorable", but they weren't going to make enough effort to make it the only logical way.
If the sacrifice is stupid because it didn't accomplish what it was supposed to but was still the logical choice, that's Senseless Sacrifice, not this trope. The two tropes can overlap when a Stupid Sacrifice doesn't accomplish its goal, but it is rare.
A Sub-Trope of Heroic Sacrifice. A Counter Trope to Negate Your Own Sacrifice. Compare "Shaggy Dog" Story.
This is a Death Trope, so beware of unmarked spoilers!
Example Subpages:
Other Examples:
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Card Games
Comic Books
- Batman:
- Villain the KGBeast, while trying to escape a pursuing Dark Knight, continually foiled his attempts to bind him with rope by cutting it with his axe. Then when his left arm is caught in the rope... he cuts off his hand, even though it's been established that he could've just cut the rope.
- The Batman Adventures: In Gotham Adventures #9, Sensei fights Batman and Batgirl, who come to arrest him for his role in the murder of Boston Brand. Their battle is stopped by Ra's al Ghul, who orders Sensei not to kill them because Ra's requires Batman for his plans, and when Batman refuses to leave without the Sensei, Ra's orders the Sensei to go with Batman. Sensei refuses, not wanting to spend his final years in prison. Ra's tells him that it's an order and he does not have a choice; not wishing to disobey his master, but at the same time not wanting to go to prison, the Sensei decides to Take a Third Option and quietly walks out one of the windows of his mountain hideaway, falling to his death, to everyone's shock. Ra's calls Sensei a fool, revealing that he had planned to let Batman take Sensei, but not keep him, and calls him an infuriating waste of a useful agent.
- Superman:
- In Superboy (1949) #5, Superboy interferes when a couple of crooks are attempting to kidnap Lucy. When one thug pulls one gun out, Lucy steps between Superboy and the thug, screaming she will not let them hurt him, while Superboy cries her to stop because he is bulletproof (unlike herself). Fortunately for Lucy, Superboy was quick enough to melt the speeding bullet.
- The Death of Superman: Superman seems to lampshade this about his original battle with Doomsday, commenting during the rematch that he spent too much effort going toe-to-toe with Doomsday when he could have tried using his maneuverability and ranged attacks to soften the beast up.
- At the end of the 1941 "Scientists of Sudden Death" arc in the newspaper comics, Ralph Roland attempts to shoot Superman. He fails because Lil Danvers jumps in the way and dies. This sacrifice lacks justification, as Lil had, on prior occasions, seen Superman get dumped in a vat of chemicals, stabbed, and repeatedly get caught in bridge-destroying explosions to little apparent effect, which Superman notes after the fact.
- Optimus Prime, from the original The Transformers Marvel Comic Series, would have a poor human boy destroy him after inadvertently harming several bystanders in a battle against Megatron and the Combaticons. Said bystanders were NPCs in a video game the boy was playing. Thankfully he is restored in a later issue, though his sacrifice was completely unnecessary in the first place.
- Ultimate Marvel: Ultimate Quicksilver is killed in the events leading up to Ultimatum when he jumps in the way of a shot meant to kill Magneto. Why he didn't just catch the dart, or knock it out of the air is anyone's guess. Though he gets better, somehow.
- In Chris Clairmont's first arc on Uncanny X-Men, John Proudstar, A.K.A, Thunderbird, sacrifices his life to take out Count Nefaria by smashing into the cockpit of his getaway plane. This sacrifice seemed to be for nothing as it's later revealed that Nefaria survived and Banshee claims he could have saved him and stopped Nefaria if he had just jumped off the plane.
Fan Works
- Here Comes the New Boss: Although Flinch is proud of Taylor for being willing to put her life on the line, he gently points out that it would be a mistake to do that at a Simurgh fight, since it could result in an unkillable uncontrollable Simurgh bomb (either from the Chorus being directly affected, or being inherited by someone who was). Amy is initially taken aback to hear that the the Chorus persuaded Taylor not to take the risk.
- Just Like Him
(RWBY): Discussed in regards to Pyrrha's final stand from canon. Jaune, giving his friends a Hypocrisy Callout for saying he shouldn't throw his life away in the line of duty, points out that they've all been glorifying Pyrrha for going to fight Cinder and refusing to withdraw, after Cinder had already achieved her goal and Beacon was already doomed, which logically means that Pyrrha threw her life away fighting a pointless battle, and the only difference her last stand made was that all her loved ones needlessly lost someone they cared about, and the world needlessly lost a very valuable Huntress who could have done far more good by strategically withdrawing with everyone else and staying alive beyond that night.
- The Mountain and the Wolf (Game of Thrones & Warhammer Fantasy): Daenerys pulls a Go Through Me... on Drogon when he's fighting the Wolf. Danaerys is a human, the Wolf is a ginormous Chaos warrior, and Drogon is a giant scaled dragon, thus rendering her use as a shield utterly pointless. Making the sacrifice even stupider is that the Wolf was actually trying to avoid killing her; it only happens because she gets between them.
- Parallel Realities (Mass Effect): Mordin takes a pistol shot meant for Eve (or Anahit, as she's referred to in the story) and dies, making him one of the few canon characters that's Killed Off for Real in the story. Even though Eve, being a krogan, probably could have shrugged off that shot.
- Someone to Watch Over Me (Miraculous Ladybug): Adrien attempts to give up the Cat Miraculous to a new holder after he learns Ladybug's identity — except that that doesn't change the fact that he knows who she is, plus he manages to give away his own identity and hers and learn Rena Rouge and Carapace's identities in the process. Plagg is not amused.
Films — Animation
- Cars 1: A non-lethal example. Lightning McQueen stops right before the finish line to help The King finish the race. He could've crossed the finish line first and then go back to help The King. It's likely that, since McQueen stopped valuing the Piston Cup, he wanted to give Chick Hicks what he wanted.
- Stoick's death in How to Train Your Dragon 2 involves him taking a fatal shot from a brainwashed Toothless that was meant for Hiccup. This is made a stupid sacrifice when you consider that he could have instead tackled Toothless or knock-pulled his head aside, both of which were performed with dragons in the first movie by other vikings. He was even closer to Toothless than Hiccup!
- The Iron Giant: The Iron Giant decides to kill himself by flying into and detonating the nuclear missile. While many viewers have considered this a pretty amazing sacrifice, he could have instead used the vast array of weapons he showcased before; he even had an eye laser automatically/reflexively activated whenever he looked at a threat before, but not this time. Apparently, a missile is not a threat, but a child's toy gun is... The end of the movie does however show that he survived the blast anyway. It's likely that he wanted to be Faking the Dead so that governments wouldn't come after him again.
Radio
- Spoofed in Nebulous when Rory decides to go out to face gigantic murderous Artificial Human Housewives so Nebulous and Paula can secure the doors. Nebulous and Paula both repeatedly point out to him that he doesn't need to because they've already secured the doors and they have an easy way out of there for all of them. Every time this is pointed out to Rory he uncomprehendingly repeats "That is a sacrifice I am prepared to make".
Tabletop Games
- The BattleTech TCG had a card called Taking The Hit, whose card art shows a tiny 30-ton Spider taking several shots for an 85-ton Gunslinger that's already taken cover. The flavor text lampshades the pilot's decision:
You've got to be pretty suicidal to pilot a Spider anyway.
- Warhammer 40,000: The Death Corps of Krieg are a particularly fanatical Martyrdom Culture even for the Imperium, each soldier of which is a Death Seeker raised to atone for their ancestors' sins of rebelling against the Imperium. All well and good, except that it manifests as this trope. Where other regiments have commissars to encourage men to duty and sacrifice, Krieger commissars are there to stop them from throwing their lives away when they can keep fighting elsewhere.
Theatre
- Death of a Salesman: The eponymous salesman, Willy Loman, commits suicide in hopes of leaving his family his life insurance money, an act which renders the policy invalid. Most policies still pay out if the suicide happens a certain time after the policy is first taken out, but the play explicitly states that Willy's wasn't one of them. His widow also mentions having made the final mortgage payment, meaning that their financial burden wasn't nearly as bad as he presumed.
Web Animation
- In Ducktalez, Huey grabs unto Vegeta's back and self-destructs to keep him from harming Scrooge. Dewey immediately points out how pointless that was since he has a perfectly functioning rocket launcher with him.
- Green Guy from Girl-chan in Paradise uses his number one ability to vaporize himself and a girl who puts price tags on things.
- Played with in If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device. Santodes sacrifices himself in an attempt to save a downed Emperor from a Chaos-empowered Horus. While there were few good options at the time, the fact that he primarily did this so he wouldn't be upstaged by a random guardsman, or the fact that he stripped down naked prior to doing so, is what makes the efficacy of his Heroic Sacrifice attempt questionable. He ultimately did survive but had to be interred in a life-supporting Dreadnought as a result of his injuries.
Webcomics
- In one strip of Korean comedy webcomic ASAEKKIGA, two escaped prisoners are walking down a set of railway tracks while handcuffed together. They reason that they could break the chain if they had a train run over it, but that only one of them would be able to survive that since the other would have to be on the tracks when the train hits. One of the prisoners nobly offers to be the sacrifice, tearfully telling his partner that he's the one who deserves to live and wishing him goodbye. Then, moments before the train's about to hit, he notices a second pair of prisoners on the other side of the tracks doing the same thing— only they've looped the chain of their handcuffs over the rail in such a way that both of them can sit safely off to the side.
- In Awkward Zombie the slim, fragile archer Virion decides to take the spears and arrows... for Kellam, who's got such good armor that he's not even taking damage from the spears and arrows. This is a reference to the in-game animation, but doesn't reflect the actual mechanics.note
Katie: Thank you for leaping into a pillar of flames for no reason, but I think the character six times your size probably doesn't need your guardianship.
- Darths & Droids:
- Qui-Gon's death becomes one of these. The character playing Qui-Gon has an ability that likely would have kept the character alive but argues with the GM that it should not be used.
- This later becomes a recurring theme with Jim, who tries to sacrifice his characters in a heroic, noble, and totally pointless fashion at any available opportunity, even when the GM tries giving him outs. Eventually, Ben gets wise and has his character tackle Jim's before he can do anything at all.
- Qui-Gon's death
- In Girl Genius, when Gil goes to get Tarvek off Castle Wulfenbach and stay himself, Tarvek accuses him of this, and that the notion was inspired by penny dreadfuls.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Miko, when she destroys Soon's Gate. It also doubles as a Diabolus ex Machina. Apparently Miko failed her spot check on the fact that the ghost of Soon was one attack away from killing both the Big Bad and The Dragon, thus ending the threat. And since Soon's Gate is what bound his spirit to the material plane, he doesn't even get to carry out that attack. Of course, Miko is badly delusional at that point.
- Played nonlethally and more comically with Logann Brightstone, who walks through a Blade Barrier (a powerful damaging spell) and suffers immense pain and injury in the process, in a display of dwarven tenacity... only for Durkon, his ally, to then dispel the Blade Barrier in a matter of seconds. Logann grumbles about Durkon having ruined the moment.
- Discussed by Roy at the Godsmoot: while he could possibly take out the new High Priest of Hel (whom he was unable to attack due to the rules of the event, unlike the previous one) and end the vote with a favorable result, he would get killed in the process due to the other clerics being bound to enforce those rules, the Big Bad would move on to the remaining gate without the Order standing in his way, and another Godsmoot would be called soon enough.
Roy: Recent lesson, connected to that "dying" thing: Noble sacrifices only make sense when they solve the problem at hand.
Web Videos
- In his video recounting his Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke run, Alpharad ran into some trouble against Lance's Dragonite. Seeing no other path to victory, he sent in his Weezing and ordered it to use Explosion. Right as it detonated, however, Alpha noted that he probably could have just used his Magneton instead, which resisted all of Dragonite's attacks and was easily strong enough to finish it off.note
- Parodied in the CalebCity short When the writers REALLY want to write off a character.
- Piccolo in Dragon Ball Z Abridged. In the original show, the beam was much faster and Piccolo didn't have time to think, so he wound up instinctively Taking the Bullet for Gohan. In this version, the beam is slow enough (because the original clip was in slow motion) that he has time to think about his other options, but waits too long to act on them.
- The Leeroy Jenkins Video isn't really going that badly when Leeroy charges into the Rookery — a sensible party would have just let him die, leaving them able to resurrect him at their leisure. Instead, though, they insist on charging in and trying to save him. The Plan itself also involved several of these, as the Paladins were to cast Divine Intervention (which kills the caster to make the target invulnerable, but also incapable of acting) in an attempt to protect the mages while they AOE down the whelps. This ends up including Leeroy himself.
- W92Baj in Mindcrack Ultra Hardcore Season 7's finale, when he charges Nebris in an attempt to kill him despite the numerous obstacles between them and the fact that he has a bow, which he could use to win with no trouble at all on his part.
