Indiana Jones: Don't worry, Wu Han, I'm gonna get you out of here!
Wu Han: Not this time, Indy. I followed you on many adventures... but against the great unknown mystery... I go first, Indy!
Wu Han: Not this time, Indy. I followed you on many adventures... but against the great unknown mystery... I go first, Indy!
So here it is, the first episode of a brand-new story. You want to give a powerful first impression, the idea that this story will be different and you can't expect the typical stuff from this story. Aware that the Genre Savvy audience needs to be impressed, you need to establish this situation is serious.
For that reason, they wheel in the Sacrificial Lamb. They are presented as an important part in the plot or having a close relationship with the main characters, perhaps filling a character archetype (love interest, best friend, etc). Then, in a shocking twist, the lamb is slaughtered early on — by episode seven, tops, and likely sooner. The law is laid down: You like these characters? Well, Anyone Can Die here. You have been warned.
In short — This Character Exists to Die.
Because of their disposable origin, they are often forgotten once the plot actually kicks into gear. In the worst cases, this is followed by everyone acting as though the lamb never existed in the first place, and somehow still gets an "Everybody Laughs" Ending after dramatically losing a friend, love, or relative during the story. The opening credits may bill the lamb equally with the other non-lead characters, implying that they form part of the regular cast. And of course, if the lamb turns out to be an Ensemble Dark Horse, they may end up Back from the Dead very quickly.
Sometimes, to help maximize impact, they get to be the Intro-Only Point of View or are equipped with a Fatal Family Photo.
Compare to the Sacrificial Lion, who fills a similar purpose (die to establish threat) but whose character has been around for a longer time and whose death has long term repercussions with the characters and the story.
Note that technically speaking, the Lamb or Lion doesn't have to actually die for this trope to be in effect; sometimes, simply being crippled or otherwise brutally taken out of the story (at least temporarily) is enough to qualify. The important aspect is that the character exists to be a victim.
Contrast with the Red Shirt, who is not so much a character as he is a practice dummy for the villains; We Hardly Knew Ye, in which a character is introduced and dies much more quickly with less impact; and Monster Munch, in which a character is introduced purely to be killed by an enemy, showing off its abilities or lethality. Compare and contrast Survived the Beginning, when the story begins with a cast massacre, and the few who survive get some Plot Armor.
See also Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome, for the curious tendency of people who survive horror movies to wind up as this if they appear in a sequel.
See also Dead Star Walking and First-Episode Resurrection. Related to Doomed Hometown, which is meant to affect the protagonist rather than the audience, and Player Punch for the video game version.
As a Death Trope all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.
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Examples:
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Comic Books
- 100 Bullets: Lee Dolan is the second recipient of Graves' attache case that is seen. He gets a headshot from the target of his revenge.
- Aquaman (1989): A young rebel is shown sticking up for Aquaman, being brave, and reminding him of Aqualad. He's killed by the jellyfish to show they're a serious threat.
- An example is MVP in Avengers: The Initiative, though it turned out he was later cloned, making it almost a First-Episode Resurrection.
- The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman): There are a series of alternate Illuminati who exist just to die to the planetary threats which are menacing 616 Earth.
- Blood Syndicate, Team leader Tech-Nine spontaneously disintegrates from a Phlebotinum Breakdown at the end of the first arc.
- The DC mini-series Cosmic Odyssey features the heroes protecting four planets from the Anti-Life Equation. Three of those planets (Earth, Rann, Thanagar) were long-established worlds in the DC Universe, while the fourth (Xanshi) had only a couple of appearances prior to the mini-series, so it gets destroyed.
- Generation X: Blink dies in the crossover that introduced the rest of the team, via Heroic Sacrifice. She's remained dead, despite said death (She used her powers to "blink" apart a giant enemy, but couldn't get herself clear) being ready-made for a Never Found the Body return. (The Blink starring in Exiles is from the Age of Apocalypse timeline.)
- ...and then Exiles ended, so the original Blink was brought back, and retooled to have the same powers and look as the Exiles version but with short hair.
- Trajectory from the "new" Infinity, Inc..
- Legion of Super-Heroes: Legionnaire Blok was brought back solely to be killed by Roxxas the Butcher and push the Legion to reform during the early days of the Five Years Later continuity, although Blok was a character who had been created a decade before his death.
- In #0 of Seven Soldiers introduced is a new Seven Soldiers of Victory composed of veteran member Greg Saunders as Vigilante, Gimmix, Boy Blue, Dyno-Mite Dan, I Spyder, and Shelly Gaynor as the third Whip. Despite most of the members being strictly Z-List, with the exception of Greg and Shelly somewhat, fans had already grown to like them and were saddened when the majority of the team was killed off at the end of the issue.
- Star Trek (IDW): In the first story arc (and just like the TOS episode that inspired it, "Where No Man Has Gone Before"), officers Gary Mitchell and Lee Kelso are introduced as being Kirk's friends from Starfleet Academy, who he requested specifically because they were two of the most capable officers he knew. Both die by the end of the second issue (Kelso killing himself after Mitchell possesses him, and Mitchell himself dying after he attempts to kill Kirk).
- Kole, of the Teen Titans comics, was created just so she could die in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- Trinity War: Doctor Light, a literally just-inducted member of the Justice League of America, who is incredibly pleasant and nice, a stark contrast to his previous depictions, is (apparently) killed by a sudden discharge of Superman's eye-beams to kick off the event.
- Wonder Woman (1987): Matthew Michaelis is introduced as an old war buddy of Steve's, and every bit as brave and dutiful... but he's a newly-created character with no real ties to anyone else and nothing to teach Wonder Woman, so he gets cut down during the big firefight with Ares' cultists.
- All but one of the members of the X-Force revamp later known as the X-Statix were killed at the end of the first issue - including the team leader and narrator. Later, the new team assembled in the wake of the original group's demise saw Bloke and St. Anna bite it on their first mission. The survival rate improved slightly until the Spike and U-Go Girl died just before the change to X-Statix.
- In the Bronze Age revival of the X-Men comic, Thunderbird is killed two issues after he's introduced. He was actually created to be kicked off the team in his first issue, but the writers changed their mind at the last moment. Then they realized they no idea what to do with him.
- X-Men 2099: Serpentina is easily the most likeable character, is the closest thing to a love interest for the viewpoint character, and has the less than impressive power to stretch her arms. She dies in the third issue, the end of the first story arc.
Fan Works
- Arcanum: Melanie is killed when the White floods the slums to ward off the Grimm, with her sister and Junior implied to have suffered the same fate. Ruby finds her corpse floating in the flooded ruins.
- Echoes:
- Sai is killed by Naruto's Rasengan at his request after his early betrayal, helping set the tone of the story and show what type of Naruto we were dealing with. Shortly after, Yamato is killed by Orochimaru to show us the bad guys are smart enough to just shoot their enemies.
- Yugao Uzuki from Naruko's world is the first sympathetic character outside of Kazama's world to die; if Yamato and Sai were the set-up for the tone of Echoes, she is the reinforcement of it.
- Kabuto from Chibaku's world is killed off early by the Madara Trio in order to establish that Anyone Can Die. This turns out to be one of the lighter casualties of the series.
- Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily: Kisaragi explains the story of how he met Tokio in the 400 Rabbits Car, which involved him being introduced to his friend Utahoshi. Utahoshi was a kind and gentle rabbit who was hoping to take the throne and be the next White Rabbit. Unfortunately, due to Grace and the Apex coming in, when he tried to reach out to a terrified Tokio — who was trying to escape the Apex after they had assaulted him — he let his back be turned, and Grace pluged a celestial bronze knife — a weapon that kills anything non-human aka everyone made by the Train — into the back of his skull, killing him. It showed just how dangerous Grace and the Apex are and her and apathy towards anyone that wasn't Apex.
- Son of the Sannin: A nameless trio of genin are seen babysitting Shizune and Shisui's kids shortly before they're ambushed by Danzo's Root agents. Two of them are promptly offed while the third runs away in fear.
- A Waterbending Quirk plays with this with the Hunters: Vixen, their information gatherer, is swiftly sacrificed by their leader Iktomi in order to further their plans. Then it turns out that part of that plan was turning her into a Trojan Prisoner who leads the police into a trap.
Films — Animation
- 9: 2 is the first of 9's kind he meets, fixes 9's voice, tries to defend him from a monster ten times his size and half-cat skeleton half-machine, gets caught and carried off by it, is revealed to have been rather well-loved by his group, is subject to a rescue mission by 5 and 9, and gets killed as a result of 9 having a Too Dumb to Live moment as soon as it looks like he's in the clear. All within the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie.
- Barbie and the Secret Door has Nola, a fairy who Malucia drains magic from to show she's evil—and to trick her into showing her where the Queen Unicorn hides.
- In Batman: Assault on Arkham, as soon as the Suicide Squad is assembled and briefed, KGBeast decides that Amanda Waller is bluffing about the implanted bombs. He soon becomes an object lesson to the others that Waller is not bluffing.
- Big Hero 6: After Hiro Hamada is bailed out of jail after participating in an illegal underworld bot-fighting club, his older brother Tadashi takes him to S.F.I.T., the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, where he meets Tadashi's friends, who will later become his teammates and friends. After a fire breaks out in the exhibition hall, Tadashi rushes in to try to rescue Professor Callaghan, only for Tadashi to be killed, with Callaghan apparently killed as well, only for Callaghan to survive and be unmasked as Yokai, vowing revenge against Alistair Krei and his Krei Tech company, because he believed his daughter Abigail was killed, only to discover that she is alive and well.
- Chicken Run: One of the chickens, Edwina, also known as #282, has stopped laying eggs. She is killed and eaten by the farmers to remind the viewers that yes, this is a chicken farm, and yes, when they get too old, they get eaten.
- Epic (2013): Queen Tara is killed to establish just how dangerous the Boggans actually are.
- Mulan (1998): The captured sentries guarding the Great Wall of China. "How many men does it take to deliver a message?" "One..."
- Sausage Party: This trope is of significant value to a movie where the main characters are food. There's the Irish potato who was singing "Danny Boy", then an Italian tomato, then a head of lettuce, a loaf of bread getting sliced by knife, strips of bacon, a block of cheese, a bunch of tortilla chips, and baby carrots.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse would have featured an Australian Spider-Man among the Alliance of Alternates. However, unlike the other Spider-People, this one did not originate from the comics or any other prior part of the Marvel Comics media. In fact, as soon as he's introduced, he would destabilize and die, showing that the other characters' occasional glitching isn't just for show.
- Watership Down had Violet, a rabbit extra who didn't exist in the book, dying early on to show the world was full of danger. But to those who remember the book, it was a foregone conclusion anyway since once they reach Watership Down, they have no females to continue their lineage with and have to search for more.
Films — Live-Action
- Air Force One: After the plane is hijacked and President Marshall apparently escaped, the National Security Advisor, Jack Doherty, initially fills the role of the Defiant Captive during "Die Hard" on an X stories, till Korshunov simply shoots him while speaking with Vice President Bennett, showing that he is serious with his demands.
- All You've Got: Gabby's widowed firefighter father sticks around long enough to congratulate her after a game, host a party for his family and friends and give her a family heirloom before dying on the job in the third scene.
- Army of the Dead: Cummings is a walking Hate Sink, a power-tripping rapist security guard who exploits his position of authority at the refugee camp to force the women there to have sex with him. In fact, Lily recruited him into the Caper Crew specifically for this purpose, to have somebody who nobody would miss to sacrifice to Zeus and his alpha zombies so that the rest of the crew can progress deeper into the Vegas Strip without being disturbed.
- Battle Royale: Fujiyoshi and Nobu are handpicked by Kitano to die first so that their deaths can traumatize the 40 other students into quiet submission. But other than those two, because this is about Japanese children forced into killing each other as a game, most of the characters can be considered sacrificial lambs as many don't even have any dialogue or screen time other than being revealed to be dead or getting killed on-screen.
- Big Game (2014): The tour guide, to make Hazar Kick the Dog and show that he's a Psycho for Hire.
- Blade (1998): Karen's ex-boyfriend has a brief bit of banter with her in the morgue to establish him as an alright guy just before a skinless vampire rips his jugular out and attacks Karen. His death propels Karen into the plot and gives the audience a real taste of how brutal vampires can be.
- The Boys from Brazil: Barry Kohler is a young man who risks his life to uncover a sinister conspiracy involving a group of former Nazis in hiding in Paraguay planning to assassinate a group of minor civil servants over the next few years, even when warned not to press further and go back home. After the movie follows him for about twenty minutes, he's killed when the Nazis discover that he's spying on them, but not before he relays some valuable information to Ezra that sets off the entire plot in motion.
- Breakheart Pass: The murder of Dr. Molyneux quickly establishes that there's far more going on on the train than a simple mission to transport medicine and support troops to Ft. Humboldt.
- Children of Men gives Julianne Moore star billing only to have that character Killed Off for Real roughly ten minutes into the movie, clearly establishing it as an Anyone Can Die film.
- Steven Seagal's character in Executive Decision. On some posters, Seagal was given equal billing with Kurt Russell, making his death a real shock.
- Fright Night (2011) has "Evil" Ed. He's the main character's ex-best friend and is already on to Jerry's status as a vampire. He's also played by the recognizable Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Then he's bitten by Jerry less than twenty minutes in, though he doesn't actually die until later.
- Sandra Brody dies in the first fifteen minutes of Godzilla (2014) due to severe radiation poisoning.
- Both segments of Grindhouse use this trope:
- In Planet Terror, you get to know Dr. Block's lesbian lover just long enough to care when she gets eaten.
- Death Proof takes this trope to 11 by setting up an entire protagonist cast and then smoking them in one fell swoop.
- In Hot Shots!, the most sympathetic trainee pilot dies about a third of the way into the movie, after ticking just about every 'doomed' box an action film can offer (beautiful loving wife, hasn't signed his life insurance papers, is carrying the evidence to crack the Kennedy murder case in his pocket....) Maybe he shouldn't have picked "Dead Meat" as his callsign...
- The Hunger Games: Several tributes are seen being threatened/killed both on-screen and off, such as the curly-haired teenager who hides in the Cornucopia before getting sliced by Cato when he tries to escape. Rue and Foxface could also be a case of this.
- Played completely straight in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which despite being released after Raiders of the Lost Ark, is in fact a prequel. In this film, Indy's sidekick gets killed within the first five minutes, but of course since this is chronologically the first Indiana Jones film, the audience never got to know him.
- Amelia, one of the two candidates who's nice to Eggsy, from Kingsman: The Secret Service exists solely to show that the training for new Kingsmen really is dangerous and can cost lives. Except it isn't and she was really a plant from the Kingsmen themselves, precisely to give the other candidates the impetus to try as hard as possible.
- Sarah from Law Abiding Citizen. Quite upsetting to see since Sarah was one of the nicest and least corrupt characters in the film.
- In Masquerade (2021), Sofia gets just enough screen time to come across as sympathetic before she's murdered by a masked intruder.
- Art Lean from Mortal Kombat: The Movie mainly existed to show the characters (and the audience) how badass Goro was (and give Johnny Cage some serious motivation to kick his four-armed ass) as well as give Shang Tsung a major Kick the Dog moment by devouring his soul.
- Mr. Nice Guy opens with Demons member Gina (Tina in the international version) being beaten and Buried Alive in The Mafia's "guest house".
- Johnny from The River Wild is a harmless Nice Guy who exists mainly so that Wade can kill someone and demonstrate that his ruthlessness isn't just for show.
- Scarface (1983): During Tony Montana's first drug deal, he and his wingman Angel Fernandez get taken off guard by the other dealer and Angel is savagely hacked to death with a chainsaw, to show how dangerous the drug trade is.
- Drew Barrymore's casting as Casey from Scream (1996), who is one of the first ones to die in the movie, gave the first major sequence of the movie some much-needed Emotional Torque.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The two officers who die due to a transporter accident, showing that despite all the advancements in science and technology, space exploration is still a dangerous business in the 23rd century.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Engineering cadet Peter Preston. In the Director's Cut, he's introduced as Scotty's young nephew, eager to get into space. He ends up dying horribly in the line of duty when Khan attacks... and Scotty isn't even given time to mourn him, as he has to get back to repairs.
- In Star Trek (2009), Captain Robau, Acting Captain George Kirk, and the USS Kelvin all bite the dust in the film's opening, their ultimate purpose being to preserve the lives of Winona Kirk and her newborn son, James T. Kirk. Also, later in the film, Amanda Grayson dies just moments before she can be beamed away to safety. Because, you know, Spock facing the destruction of his homeworld and the annihilation of his entire race isn't having a bad enough day already.
- Starship Troopers 3: Marauder actually has an innocent-looking female aide-de-camp called Lamb, who gets executed for sedition.
- Star Wars:
- A New Hope has Owen and Beru Lars, Luke's adoptive guardians, who get slaughtered by stormtroopers offscreen to show that the Empire will kill anyone who's in their way.
- The Empire Strikes Back brings in Dack, Luke's gunner. Luke apparently knows him better than we do.
- The Last Jedi has Rose's sister Paige, who dies during the bomber attack at the very beginning of the movie.
- The only reason Slipknot of Suicide Squad (2016) is in the movie seems to be to show that Waller wasn't bluffing about the implanted bombs.
- Similarly to the above, the only reason Taskmaster exists in Thunderbolts* (2025) is to show that every member of the team is in danger and that Valentina has lured them into a trap.
- The movie version of Twilight (2005) features Waylon Forge, a character not in the books who apparently merely exists to have the movies show the vampires actually killing someone.
- When Trumpets Fade: Bobby, the wounded but optimistic comrade our hero carries off the front in the opening scene, then shoots.
- In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as part of his Establishing Character Moment, Judge Doom used a poor, innocent Toon shoe to demonstrate the Toon-killing power of his Dip.
- Wonder Woman (2017): Antiope, a figure very close to Diana, is killed early in the story by human invaders. This death establishes the threat of humans and the war and encourages Diana to go out into the world of man.
Literature
- American Girls Collection: Marta is introduced as Kirsten's best friend on the long journey from Sweden to America, and once they land in America, it seems that Kirsten and Marta's families will be able to travel together to Minnesota so the girls will not have to be separated. Then, Marta suddenly dies during a cholera epidemic. Marta is mentioned briefly in Kirsten Learns a Lesson, but her short life and tragic death are more a way for the author to show the precarious circumstances of immigrants and pioneers in the mid-19th century.
- The Ask and the Answer: Maddy is one of the few cheerful and optimistic characters and her death early on demonstrates the senseless brutality of the Mayor's men.
- Baccano! kicks off its three-way train hijacking when a cultist shoots the Flying Pussyfoot's cheerful redheaded young conductor. Or so it seems. The gunshot is for the cultist's death, after said young conductor kicks the gun out of his hand and turns it on him. Then the young conductor makes his "corpse" by nabbing a second hijacker and shaving his face off with railroad tracks. Then the young conductor decides he's going to deal with this whole train hijacking situation by going on a blood-soaked killing spree. And thus the Rail Tracer is born. For bonus points, he even hangs a lampshade.
"Die, sacrifice."
- Beka Cooper: The death of Verene serves as a reminder of just how dangerous Dog work is and the harsh statistic that twenty percent of trainees are killed on duty.
- Bride of the Rat God: Both Christine and her stuntman wear an Artifact of Death that ended up a prop in a film. The stuntman is killed, and Christine's friends have to save her.
- "The Chadbourne Episode": Truman Curtiss's sole purpose to the story is to be the first human to go missing in Chadbourne and to be eaten by the ghouls, which not only sets the plot in motion but also justifies the massacre of the ghoul family, including the ghoul children.
- Dead Six: Train is introduced as one of Lorenzo's companions and then quickly killed off in order to show that Big Eddie will not give Lorenzo's men a choice in accepting his job.
- Dragons of Requiem: Lady Mirum is killed off in the second chapter (and in her POV chapter, no less) right after the story makes her seem like she'd be a main character. After she dies, the next chapter shifts over to one of the real main characters, Kyrie Eleison.
- Kim Delaney in The Dresden Files, both in Fool Moon specifically and the series as a whole. She's presented as Dresden's sort-of apprentice but is torn to shreds by a loup-garou while attempting to contain it with a partially-complete magic circle that Dresden refused to teach to her in full. This sets the loup-garou up as the major threat of the book and starts Dresden's Character Arc of realizing that concealing information from people, even "for their own good," can have tragic consequences.
- The elven guards in the first chapter of Eragon. Paragraphs of detailed, important-sounding description... boop, gone.
- The Fallen World: Myskaros Norar is the first named death of the expedition, killed by the Jewels unit to show they are not to be taken lightly and how far the Republic is willing to go to claim the new dungeon.
- Goblin Slayer: The first chapter focuses on a party of rookie adventurers as they go into a goblin cave to rescue some kidnapped women. Unfortunately, their inexperience and overconfidence proves to be their undoing, as the warrior of the party gets horribly slaughtered, the mage is overpowered and stabbed with a goblin dagger that turns out to be poisoned and she has to be put out of her misery when the poison spreads too far, the monk ends up beaten to a pulp and horribly gangraped, and the priestess is only spared these or many other grim fates by the arrival of Goblin Slayer, who proceeds to wipe out the entire nest using deadly tactics and strategic use of the priestess's miracles. The only survivor of the rookie party other than the priestess is the monk, but because of her traumatic ordeal at the goblins' hands, her brief life as an adventurer is over.
- Harry Potter:
- Frank Bryce, the Muggle who Voldemort kills in the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, plays this role, even combining it with Intro-Only Point of View. His entire purpose was basically to show that Voldemort is BACK! (At least Frank gets a cameo later when he comes out during the joining of wands along with Voldemort's other kills.)
- Charity Burbage in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Her death in the very first chapter is to show that the war with Voldemort will be serious, and that not all deaths will be heroic and noble.
- Hedwig serves this purpose in the final book. While some of Harry's loved ones had died in previous books, this usually happened near the end of the books, often as a result of a heroic sacrifice. Hedwig's death came within the first few chapters and was unceremonious, clearly signalling that people would start dying much more often.
- Emmeline Vance appears to be an in-universe example. Snape claims to have given the information to the Death Eaters that led to her death. It is thus likely Snape was instructed to do this by Dumbledore, as a ploy to gain Voldemort's trust.
- Henderson's Boys: A young boy named Hugo becomes part of the plot in the first book, only to get shot in the back by a Nazi officer 10 chapters later and die.
- His Dark Materials: Tony Makarios is an example of this trope. Pullman introduces him by revealing a great detail about his life — he's of mixed heritage, he has an alcoholic mother and he's poor. However, all Tony exists to do is to die in order to show the reader the utter existential horrors of the intercision process.
- In a twist on the usual Sacrificial Lamb, almost the entire character list of Jacob's Trouble, the Gathering Storm "disappears" in Chapter 5, some 75 PAGES INTO THE BOOK! The ENTIRE CREW of the Icarus 4 disappears, except for one man. The author states that this in order for the reader to become familiar with the characters, to like or dislike them, in an attempt to give the reader an idea of the feelings that those persons not taken in Rapture would experience.
- The Mark of the Horse Lord: Phaedrus the gladiator kills his only friend Vortimax in the first chapter.
- The Maze Runner: Chuck makes it only to the end of the first book, having become True Companions with Thomas and being treated like everyone's annoying kid brother. He also figures out the final part of shutting down the Maze.
- Joey and Ajax from The Pirates Covered in Fur. The former was one of the main characters' boyfriends, while the latter was part of Michum's main group. They're both killed off in the same chapter to show how ruthless Lyle's invasion will be and to enforce that Anyone Can Die.
- Kitson Glade in The Priory of the Orange Tree. He's an upbeat, loyal friend to Loth and tries to make the best of the fact that they've been sent on a suicide mission as the new ambassadors to Yscalin (aka Mordor). When they get themselves into the quest to stop the Nameless One's return, Kit dies in a random earthquake during their escape through Yscalin's caverns. Kit's death signals just what kind of dangers everyone is in now, and that there is no guarantee that anyone's death is going to be "meaningful".
- The Reynard Cycle: Maxon, Lord Chanticleer's steward and POV character of the first chapter of Reynard the Fox, suffers an offscreen death shortly after the conclusion of said chapter.
- Ringing Bell actually takes this literally with the tragic death of Chirin's mother, which quickly changes the entire tone of the story. The death of Chirin's mother causes the story to quickly become a cautionary tale about revenge.
- So far, every prologue (and epilogue) character in A Song of Ice and Fire has died. Chett was lucky enough to have an offscreen death.
- The Sunne in Splendour: Several early chapters are told from the point of view of Edmund, Earl of Rutland. Portrayed as thoughtful, wise-beyond-his-years, and caring of his younger brother, the future King Richard III. The novel sticks to history and seventeen-year-old Edmund is murdered, Red Wedding Style, against the rules of honor while he is a prisoner of the House of Lancaster.
- Tails of the Space Gladiators has Jamie Garvon, an inmate who becomes one of David's close friends, and he also teaches him some tips about surviving in prison. He's killed in chapter 6 to show just how deadly the other gladiators and tournaments are and to hammer in that no one is safe.
- Tales of the City: As a concession to what was happening in real life at the time, one of the later books has Michael's longtime love John suffer an off-screen death from HIV/AIDS.
- In Those That Wake, Isabel dies halfway through the book; she didn't get much characterization, but she's mourned, and her death shows things are serious.
- Ogilvy the astronomer in The War of the Worlds (1898) is an early example. He is one of a handful of named characters, is a friend of the narrator, and takes part in much of the action of the novel... until he is killed by a Martian Death Ray in Chapter Five.
Podcasts
- Most of the cast of the Cool Kids Table game Creepy Town, of course. Jake even refers to the first victim likely to die as a "lamb to the slaughter".
Roleplay
- Destroy the Godmodder:
- Most of the summons that manage to last a significant amount of time then killed by the latest major threat to demonstrate how dangerous they are. Wilson managed to Subvert this due to his initial insignificance and neutrality and survives until the end of the game, and Build managed to do likewise.
- There was an actual entity called the Sacrificial Lamb that was summoned in 2, intended to be this trope — but it ended up being possessed by Nether Parasites and resurrected as the very dangerous Goat from Heck.
- Survival of the Fittest has a variation of this trope, where usually an NPC is murdered in the prologue. In the first version, it was a nameless student that Danya shot because he was wearing his hat sideways, and Danya "didn't like punks". However, true to this trope, in other versions (and alluded to in the first version) the teachers, who the characters had probably interacted with at some point during pregame are promptly shot. And very often, the prologue is told in the perspective of one of the teachers murdered.
- It happens with the students as well. When V4 started, a few characters active during pre-game were killed off immediately, namely Remi Pierce, Warren Brown, Reika Ishida, and Chris Davidson.
- And in V5, prominent pregame character David Russell commits suicide in his opening post. He is soon followed by Daniel Whitten, and Naomi Bell.
Theatre
- EPIC: The Musical has Polites, Odysseus’ kindly and optimistic best friend. He gets his own song to convey his personal philosophy, which is, as the lyrics go, “this life is amazing when you greet it with open arms”. He dies in the seventh song of the musical, Survive, when hit with a club by Polyphemus. His death continues to haunt Odysseus throughout the narrative, still singing his refrain in the back of his friend’s head.
- The prologue of Key Largo by Maxwell Anderson features an A.E.F. unit in the Spanish Civil War that has already been whittled down to five men. The one who decides to leave the lines later reveals that all the others were killed shortly after.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
- Sayaka Maizono, the Ultimate Pop Sensation. She's set up to be a love interest and is effectively the Deuteragonist of the game until the first chapter, wherein she's the first to die, thus establishing that even seemingly-important characters are not safe.
- Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Fashionista, gets an extra shout-out in the game’s intro and is set up to be a potential main character, until she's unceremoniously executed by the mastermind in the first chapter for violating a rule. Things are not how they seem in her case, however, as the "Junko" in the game is actually her twin sister Mukuro Ikusaba. The real Junko Enoshima is the one who orchestrated her twin's death, and she's also the mastermind behind the events of the game. In the unofficial English translation, Monokuma even lampshades and discusses this after Junko's death.
Monokuma: I'm really feelin' it right now— the importance of tropes...
I was wanting to avoid causing any unnecessary deaths, if at all possible, but I guess a sacrificial lamb really is necessary! Man, I love that trope!
But hey, you guys get it now, don't you?
- Euphoria: Miyako Andou is killed within the first few minutes via electric chair to demonstrate to all of the other participants the consequences of refusing to play the Deadly Game.
- Higurashi: When They Cry subverts and uses this by killing Mion, Rena, Keichii, Takano and Tomitake in the first arc, only to see them back again because of the "Groundhog Day" Loop. They die again in other arcs too. Frequently. However, we find out halfway through the second season that Takano actually never died, and never actually does.
- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: The Ninth Man dies at the start. Brutally. And it happens before the player can make any narrative choices at all, making it clear that there's no saving him. Invoked by Zero as the purpose of this is mainly to establish to the other players that the threat of the Nonary Game is very real, or at least to convince them this is the case even though only Ace is actually in danger.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Mia Fey, Phoenix's Sexy Mentor for the first case, becomes the victim of the second. However, she sticks around after the fact to serve as the main character's mentor through the magic of spirit channeling.
- Tsunagari Chess School:
- Kenji, your teacher who teaches you chess strategies for the first two days; the first sign of the game being something darker than a normal dating sim is when, on the third day, you can hear a news report about what turns out to be his murder.
- Hinamari, the first girl you meet, is initially built up as an important character and potential love interest. But when she gets ready to ask you out early on, she's stabbed in the neck and dies, signaling the beginning of the Deadly Game and true plot of the story, and is mostly forgotten about afterwards.
Web Animation
- The Amazing Digital Circus: The concept of Abstraction is introduced in the pilot episode with Kaufmo, a clown avatar who had just gone through the process immediately preceding the events of the episode, as everyone (including Audience Surrogate newcomer Pomni) discovers partway through. This serves as an excuse for the regulars of the Digital Circus to explain what Abstraction is and that it can happen to any human player come a Sanity Slippage.
- RWBY has Tukson, a bookstore owner who had defected from the White Fang. He's murdered in the opening scene of Volume 2 to demonstrate how dangerous Mercury and Emerald are.
Webcomics
- Richard from Earthsong (Crystal Yates). Killed (well, sent home, but close enough) inside the first 25 pages. Played with, in that he is in fact a bad guy. Also provides the important point of explaining WHY they fight the bad guys.
- Golden Jane from Everyday Heroes. Helped Jane Mighty get started on her life of crime, then was killed by their boss.
- One Eye from Goblins. His most important contribution to the plot is to become a motivation for Big Ears to become a paladin.
- Poor smart but frail Siatra from Horse Age. Lorko is deeply affected by the death of his sister and best friend, and Siatra's mother leaves the herd soon after.
- 8 characters emerge from boxes at the start of morphE. All synopses mention only 5 characters emerging from the crates. 8 - 5 = 3 characters dying in chapter 1.
- Off-White: The entire pack (except for one) that was introduced in chapter 2. Yes, even the puppies.
- Nia from Tower of God met Ja on the 20th floor of the Tower and became his friend and partner, and then got horribly eviscerated by Lurker to show that he's not just in it for shits and giggles.
- Unsounded: Cara gets enough introduction to be very sympathetic, and then is killed rather horribly to ensure the reader understands that this is a work that won't shy away from child deaths and that Starfish is reprehensible.
Western Animation
- BoJack Horseman zigzags this trope often:
- Jeffretariat is a Deconstructed Character Archetype example. He had his own ambitions and life, yet all people remember him for is his death being one of the catalysts for his brother's suicide (courtesy of being Secretariat's younger sibling, whom by comparison he couldn't help but come off as dull).
- Kinko, a child refugee in the impoverished country of Cordovia, is killed during a bombing at the camp. Diane, having gotten attached to him, is broken by his death. This, coupled with the philanthropist/benefactor of the camp/Action Fashionista Sebastian St. Claire brushing off his death in order to focus on rebuilding the camp, leads Diane to suffer a Heroic BSoD and return to Hollywood where she crashes at BoJack's, avoids talking to her husband Mr. Peanutbutter and tries to drink her weight in alcohol.
- Herb Kazzaz may have had a small role in the show, most of it just being flashbacks, but the viewers still got to know him just enough. Although it was known he was going to die from the third episode of the season, they wound up playing for laughs. The day his cancer surprisingly goes into remission, he's tweeting while driving and hits a truck. That doesn't kill him; the peanuts inside the truck do.
- Sarah Lynn only has around four episodes where she plays an integral role, although her importance in BoJack's life makes her seem like a very important character, similar to Herb. However, her death is a shock. In "That's Too Much, Man!", she agrees to go on a six-week bender with BoJack, her Parental Substitute and previous TV dad on Horsin' Around. Although she lampshades the likelihood of her dying young in her first appearance, it's mostly Played for Laughs. That being said, her overdose on a brand of heroin, fittingly called BoJack, is Played for Drama and certainly rough to watch. It happens right after she seems to have a Heel–Face Turn as she realizes how unhappy fame made her. Sarah Lynn had been wanting to go to the planetarium since they first started their bender and BoJack finally takes her to one after witnessing her BSOD -– heroic or villain is up to interpretation. She reveals that she really only wanted to go because she admires all of the work that goes into constructing domed buildings. The final interaction goes like this:
Sarah Lynn: Isn't it amazing? [...] No, I mean this building. Domed buildings are so cool.
BoJack: I prefer rectangular buildings, as I've firmly established.
Sarah Lynn: I want to be an architect.
[BoJack is inspired to dive into existentialism, via the audio and visuals playing before them.]
BoJack: See, Sarah Lynn, we're not doomed. [...] Right, Sarah Lynn? [beat] Sarah Lynn? [beat] ...Sarah Lynn?
- A whole episode of Clone High is devoted to parodying this trope. It begins with the narrator telling viewers that one character will die, and assuring them that they're not going to do something cheap like bring in a new character just so they can kill him. The show then proceeds to do exactly that, in an incredibly obvious fashion, complete with the cast going out of their way to act like the new guy had been around all along ("Oh Ponce, you're a regular character!") Ponce dies almost immediately after the regular cast are done telling everyone how much they love him.
- Ripcord in G.I. Joe: Renegades, though his death wasn't just for drama: The premise of the show is that his teammates are being pursued for his murder (which they didn't cause) and the destruction of a Cobra Industries plant (which they were responsible for, but they acted in self-defense).
- Gravity Falls: Discussed in "The Legend of the Gobblewonker", as Dipper is going over his plan to catch a photo of a lake monster.
Dipper: What's the number one problem with most monster hunts?
Soos: You're a side character and you die in the first five minutes of the movie. Oh, wow, am I a side character? Do you ever think about stuff like that? - In Legion of Super Heroes (2006), Ferro Lad dies two episodes after his introduction in an awesome Heroic Sacrifice. His death was the same as the comics, but watchers and readers got to know the comic version for much longer.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): Cat is an elderly member of the Knothole Freedom Fighters, most of whom are teenagers. He quickly establishes himself to be a voice of reason who is quite willing to put himself in danger to save his allies. Unfortunately, that willingness gets him captured: when a mission in Robotropolis goes awry, Cat takes it upon himself to direct the SWAT-bots away from everyone else... and ends up bound and brought before Doctor Robotnik, who politely asks him to reveal the location of Knothole village. Cat refuses, and is tortured off-screen. Sonic manages to track down Cat's jail cell later on, finding him looking the worse for wear. Before he can attempt a rescue, Cat informs him that Robotnik has found Princess Sally — the very person they're fighting to put on the throne. She's gone off searching for evidence that her father might still be alive. Cat insists that Sonic leave him behind because her safety comes first. Sonic goes to protect her, promising to return, and he does — only to find Cat's cell empty.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Hooky", Patrick invites SpongeBob to play on the fish hooks cast into Bikini Bottom by humans. Seeing there are so many hooks and not one fish around, SpongeBob asks "Where is everybody?", Patrick replies he did see a kid playing with the hooks earlier and the camera zooms to child-sized shoes laying on the ground...
- Total Drama:
- The 2007 season has a non-fatal example when Heather steals Eva's Walkman so she can inevitably throw a tantrum so that the latter's team can vote her off despite her strength and athleticism proving useful in challenges.
- Done a second time in Revenge of the Island when Scott, seeing that Silent B's intelligence could throw a wrench in his manipulation, convinces their team to vote B off, which ends up working.
- Done a third time in the season premiere of the 2023 reboot where Bowie convinces his team that Caleb's hunky physic means that he could be a threat both physically and manipulatively and that booting him off first could be their only chance of survival, this works.
- This trope is Ezekiel's entire gimmick. He competes in the 2007 season, he gets booted first due to his misogynistic comments. He competes in World Tour, he gets eliminated first again because he gave his team's stick to a crocodile.
- Transformers: Prime:
- Cliffjumper is briefly brought back to life, but he Came Back Wrong, and then dies in an explosion, with no signs that he'll return. His relation to Arcee is explored in a flashback in "Out of the Past".
- There was also Tailgate, another partner whose death has driven Arcee mad. The show never reveals Tailgate's appearance.
- Wheeljack mentioned all the other Wreckers died in the war before they brought the war to earth, including Seaspray and Roadbuster.
- Most of the Monarch's henchmen in The Venture Bros. only last a single episode before being brutally killed by Brock Sampson or another threat. Only Henchmen 21 and 24 survived all of them until the third season when 24 was killed in an explosion.
- Morph in X-Men: The Animated Series, who came Back from the Dead due to popularity.