Exit, Pursued by a Bear



"Exit, pursued by a bear."

- William Shakespeare's The Winters Tale

When the bad guy is finished off by a large, vicious animal.

Related to Disney Villain Death, can be a form of Big Damn Villains, it's a method to keep the hero's hands clean while still dispatching the villain. The difference is that that trope is more removing an obstacle without losing karma for the heroes, but this trope tends to tie up loose ends, and often dispatches a villain the heroes didn't really need killed. Again, this is karma without getting the heroes' hands dirty. Often, the death happens entirely off screen, with the villain's gruesome mauling being merely implied instead of shown, though sometimes you will hear sounds or see a silhouette of the carnage. Can also be used to bring the villain Back From the Dead, since really, did you think a mere bear would stop him?

Though it doesn't have to be a bear, Everything's Worse with Bears. If it's another creature rather than an outright villain that gets chased away by the bear, it's because there's Always a Bigger Fish. And if the heroes called the bear here themselves, then it's Summon Bigger Fish. If it was the villain's own mistreated pet doing the mauling, that's a case of The Dog Bites Back.

Inverse of Villain Exit Stage Left. Compare We Will Meet Again, and see also Just Desserts. May invoke the Tethercat Principle.

As this is an Ending Trope, there may be spoilers ahead. Be warned.

Anime and Manga

 * Ms. Goldenweek in the manga of One Piece was last seen being pounced on by a giant riding duck and not seen again until about 250 chapters later in a mini-arc.

Comic Books

 * The graphic novel La Débauche. The fact that it is set in a zoo provides a convenient tiger.
 * Doctor Doom once got assaulted by his own attack dogs, because he got in the way of a fox and them, long long long story, because Doom was fighting a Batman analogue he'd lost part of his armor, so he instead fell off a cliff.

Film - Animated

 * In A Bugs Life, the ants discover that main villain Hopper is afraid of birds, so they build a fake one to try and scare him away. He sees right through their ploy; so when Flik and Princess Atta lead him to an ACTUAL bird in the finale, he doesn't realize it's not a trick until it's too late.
 * In Rock-a-Doodle, a shrunken Grand Duke is chased by his own nephew.
 * Captain Hook, from Disney's original film of Peter Pan, exits pursued by the crocodile. Depending on which sequel you go by (the animated sequel or Hook), it may have gone badly for the crocodile.
 * In All Dogs Go to Heaven, Carface is chased by the Big Lipped Alligator. Next time we see him.
 * At the end of Watership Down, Big Bad General Woundwort is last seen facing down one of the dogs that was killing the rest of his warren. He leaps at the dog, and then the narrator says "And General Woundwort's body was never found."
 * Invoked in South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut, where Saddam Hussein is mentioned to have been killed by a pack of wild boars (just to clear things up, the movie came out 5 years before the invasion of Iraq).
 * Botticelli from The Tale of Despereaux is ultimately done in by his own pet cat.
 * Happens to Felicia near the end of The Great Mouse Detective.

Film - Live-Action

 * In the Nicolas Cage/Samuel L. Jackson film Amos & Andrew, the bloodhounds from earlier in the movie go chasing after the police chief near the end.
 * In The Naked Gun 2 1/2, Robert Goulet's character survives a fall from a building unscathed, only to be mauled by a lion seconds later.
 * The climax from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls seems to imply the villain is not so much pursued by the gorilla as pursued by it.
 * Happens to a minor Villain in Trading Places.
 * Galaxy Quest: Fred uses the transporter to bring the rock monster on board the ship to attack Serras' minions.
 * Jurassic Park, which ended with the raptors getting eaten by the T Rex from earlier in the movie.
 * Mula Ram, the villain of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, falls into a river fulls of crocodiles and gets torn to bits.

Literature

 * In The Druid of Shannara, Psycho for Hire Pe Ell is killed by the Koden, a gigantic bear. It's implied to have been set up by the King of the Silver River, as revenge for the death of his daughter. In High Druid of Shannara, the Shapeshifting Moric is last seen lying on the ground as an actual Dragon approaches it. Meta-irony much?
 * Happens in The Space Trilogy, of all places, with Mr Bultitude, an actual bear.
 * The Judge Dee story The Haunted Monastery ends like this, involving an actual bear.
 * In Kenneth Oppel's novel Airborn,
 * The villainous bandit Dorath is torn apart by wolves just as he's about to "remove the charms" of the princess Eilonwy in The Chronicles of Prydain.
 * In the Doc Savage story Fortress of Solitude, the escaping John Sunlight is followed to a point where his tracks meet those of a polar bear next to an open lead in the ice. Since there's a lot of blood and no tracks leading away, they draw the obvious (and incorrect) conclusion.
 * At the end of Harry Potter, Umbridge is captured and carried away by a herd of centaurs. Dumbledore somehow persuades them to let her go between chapters, and she turns up in the hospital wing relatively unharmed (though she jumps if someone mimics the sound of hooves). When she tries to sneak out of the castle, Peeves catches on and she ends up exiting, Pursued by a Poltergeist with a Walking Stick.
 * At the end of Peter and the Sword of Mercy, are eaten by the giant crocodile Mr. Grin.
 * In the Sister Mary Helen mystery Death of an Angel, the B plot covers an alumna's plan to murder her domeineering, abusive mother.
 * In The Cat Who Said Cheese, tracks  to Moose County,  the bees swarm, who is found dead the next morning.

Live Action TV

 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
 * In "The Zeppo", the villain is making a speech about how he will be coming back, when he opens a door on Werewolf Oz. He is not seen again, and in the next scene Human Oz remarks that he feels full for some reason.
 * In "The Pack", the evil zookeeper ends up being eaten by hyenas after Buffy hurls him into the hyena pit. Knowing her, she probably didn't mean for him to end up in the pit, but she doesn't shed any tears about it later.
 * The Master and The Rani end one episode of Doctor Who trapped in a malfunctioning TARDIS with a rapidly-growing T. Rex bearing down on them. They come back later with no explanation, natch.
 * In the Merlin episode "Lancelot and Guinevere", Hengist is trapped in the widderen's cage and eaten alive before he can pursue the main characters.
 * Helen Cutter's death in Primeval is between this and a Shut UP, Hannibal. Her Hannibal Lecture to Danny is rudely interrupted by a velociraptor which knocks her over a cliff.

Music

 * In the Vocaloid song Moonlit Bear, this is

Theater

 * The Older Than Steam Trope Namer is Antigonus from William Shakespeare's The Winters Tale. Though not truly the villain, he is dispatched in this manner. (And unlike most of the other examples on this page, the bear literally comes out of nowhere just for this scene.)
 * Lucius Malfoy gets attacked by Werewolf!Lupin and dragged into the Forbidden Forest in A Very Potter Sequel.
 * The crocodile finally gets Hook in the climactic scene of Peter Pan.

Video Games

 * In Turok: Evolution, Tal Set defeats Bruckner but will not kill him because he "does not deserve a warrior's death." The compsognathus eat him instead.
 * Mr. Kincaid in Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia is pursued by a Wailord.
 * During the credits of Mega Man 9, you see what happened to the 8 Robot Master bosses; the Mighty Glacier Concrete Man is seen chasing Dr. Wily. Whether his programming would allow him to actually hurt the weak, human man remains to be seen.
 * In Paper Mario, Chapter 2's boss,, exits pursued by his pet Chain Chomp.

Western Animation

 * In an animated version of one of The Brothers Grimm's lesser known fairy tales, Jorinda and Joringle, the witch is subject to a Baleful Polymorph into a rat and pursued offscreen by her Right-Hand-Cat.
 * A Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? episode had Zack and Ivy chased by jaguars in a Mayan temple before running into VILE henchmen. The bad guys ended up at the bottom of a pit with the jaguars drawing near.
 * Snidley Whiplash ends one episode of Dudley Do-Right being pursued by the rotating blade of his own sawmill.
 * Considering that Wild Kratts is a lighthearted kids show focused on animals, this happens all the time to the three main villains.
 * A couple of Kim Possible episodes end with Dr. Drakken fleeing from an enraged Shego.
 * In an episode of Garfield and Friends, Garfield is working on a movie as a stunt cat and put in several dangerous stunts. Garfield looks through the script to see what's next and finds out it involves him apparently being mauled by a bear. Garfield pours honey on the director's chair and when he sits down he gets stuck. The bear is attracted by the honey and chases director who has to hop off set.
 * The Veggie Tales short "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps" literally has a bear chasing the titular character (played by Larry) off the stage at the end. Because singing to him didn't cure the bear trap on his paw.