Instant Death Bullet/Sandbox

Instant Death Bullet

That moment when a character takes a round and just dies. Maybe there was a moment of tension or a blazing gun battle then, suddenly it is all over. No final speech, no last moment heroic actions, no special final moments. They are simply dead. It is common to see a Mook or a Red Shirt to bite the dust in such an inglorious fashion. However, giving this treatment to named characters, known cast, or even the main characters, is often used for a gut wrenching experience.

The scene may play out in a tense but silent scene like a dark alley way where two characters are playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, or it could take place in an active warzone in the middle of a pitched battle. The scene can played any number of ways. There is a sense of sudden brutality and finality when someone dies by gun shot. Even the scenes in which a character is killed instantly can generate as much drama as a drawn out death scene. This is especially true if the character received any development during the course of a story.

This trope occurs when a character is shot once and dies instantly. Now it is important to note what is meant by instant death. There should be no final speech, no dying action, no drawn out death sequence. If a character is shot by a weapon like a shotgun in which a single shot fires multiple projectiles it still applies. If they are shot multiple times, torn apart or splattered by the single shot, the person or thing being shot is a Mook or a Red Shirt ,or take more then 3-5 seconds to die it is likely a different trope.

This trope is mostly applied to secondary characters, team/party members, The Dragon, and other supporting characters. However the Protagonist and Antagonist can subject to this treatment as well.

Basic Guide Lines For Being Instant Death Bullet A Example Is NOT Instant Death Bullet If
 * Character being shot is a non-Mook or Red Shirt character. They can be supporting cast, main cast, Protagonist, or the Antagonist.
 * Whoever does the shooting, shoots only once to kill the target. (This includes shotguns and shotgun like weapons one shot multiple projectiles)
 * They are either dead instantly or are dead in about 3-5 seconds to allow for natural reactions like reeling from being shot, flailing, twitching, and falling down.
 * The Character being shot is a random extra, Mook, or Red Shirt.
 * Whoever is doing the shooting shoots the victim multiple times with multiple shots, shoots them with a machine gun, the target is torn apart by the shot, or they have an elaborate or extended death scene. (Final actions, final speech, long drawn out death sequence lasting more than 5 seconds)
 * The victim is not dead instantly and instead takes a while to die.

An aversion to this trope should be when a character is fully believed to be dead but it turns out they are still alive or are only dying slowly. The key is everyone involved in the scene believes the person who got shot is dead instantly. Related Tropes Boom! Headshot!, Pretty Little Headshots,(more to go here)

Anime and Manga

 * Noir expresses this trope with a vengeance. ~ Details. Characters get this treatment or jus the mooks/redshirts?
 * Katanagatari: When  is shot,   dies almost immediately.

Film

 * ''Blood Diamond':When
 * Both used and averted in the film of Angels and Demons, where some of The Dragon's victims die instantly, but at least two others take another shot to die. ~Kind of Vague. Are vicitims extras or does the dragon kill some characters?
 * Hornblower: The Even Chance. After a duel ended in Horblower’s favour he was spared. Simpson attempts to kill Hornblower with a dagger, but is then dropped with a single Musket shot from Captain Pellew.
 * Done realistically/averted in the final battle Of Rambo 4. In which Rambo uses a 50-calibre machine gun to blow people apart. ~ I am 50/50 on this one. Pretty much everyone that is getting shot up are mooks. I can’t recall if any of the characters good or bad go down in one hit from any of the weapons.
 * Dirty Harry: The final confrontation with Scorpio. After being wounded in the arm by harry causing him to let the hostage go and dropping his own weapon, he is challenged by Harry to make his day. Scorpio goes for his gun and Harry blows him away with a single shot to the chest.
 * Pineapple Express: Parodied and averted. Red gets shot repeatedly, in two separate encounters, and still manages to (sort of) function normally. The first time he's shot, he actually appears to die... Only to wake back up seemingly fine. They shoot him again, and he appears to die again. It's only later in the movie that it's revealed he was still alive.
 * The Dark Knight Saga in which several people are insta-killed by bullets in the opening sequence alone.~ These characters, mooks, or red shirts?
 * Seemingly played straight when  in Blood Simple but later shown to be a rather horrific aversion when
 * The Departed: Played shockingly straight, several times in a very short amount of time. ~Details?
 * The Boondock Saints - almost everyone Connor and Murphy shoot dies immediately.
 * Boys Don't Cry when Candace (Lecy Goranson from Roseanne) is shot, going down like a sack of potatoes.
 * Enemy at the Gates:
 * Koulikov who has been sent to aide Vassili in hunting Major Konig, is shot dead while jumping across a gap in a damaged buildings floor. He falls the ground dead.
 * Dannilov in an act of repentance, for disparaging Vassili out of jealousy, stands up out of cover to be shot allowing Vassili to locate Major Konig. The Major shoots him dead with a single shot. Thinking he has killed Vassili he goes to investigate. He stops realizing he has fallen into a trap and turns around to face Vassili before he is in turn killed with a single shot.

Literature

 * Of Mice and Men: This is an important point in the finale, when Curley


 * Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: A PIRA operative is shot and killed instantly. Given that he was shot in the head by a .50 MacMillan (which was used to utterly destroy a truck engine moments before) it was more akin to Your Head Asplode. ~ Anyone know if this was a mook/redshirt or a character?


 * The Dresden Files: In Changes is shot in the heart and is still alive for a few seconds after falling into freezing water. It was previously mentioned that this was a good way to kill a wizard since they wouldn't have time to use a death curse. In this case he had time to use a death curse but didn't care enough to and didn't have a target in mind. ~We talking 3-5 seconds or is this more drawn out?

Live Action TV

 * In The Sarah Connor Chronicles
 * Burn Notice
 * In the season two finale, this trope is in full force. Fiona shoots in the guts with a rifle and  immediately drops to the ground. It is a .300 caliber rifle, which hits with a lot of force. ~ So anyone know if the victim as dead on the spot or just left to die slowly?
 * Max And Paddys Road To Nowhere: Almost displayed, but soon subverted. Paddy is seemingly shot in the back by a mentally deranged friend of Max's, tumbling out of frame. However it is later shown that the gunshot was not fatal as he manages to sneak up and knock the assailant out with a traffic cone. It is later revealed he was shot right in the right buttock... Although this brings up whether being shot in such a place would really leave him able to walk around, never mind heave a traffic cone with enough force to knock someone out.
 * Doctor Who
 * Played straight in Eleventh Doctor episode "The Pandorica Opens"; However,
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Tara gets shot by Warren, and dies within seconds. She barely got "Your shirt" out before she kicked the bucket.
 * Happens often in 24, but one significant aversion was done during one of Kimberly's subplots in Season 2. She is stuck in the house with the man who has been trying to kill her all day, she calls her dad for help and uses one of his guns to shoot him. To her horror, her dad tells her to shoot the guy again to make sure he dies. ~ Any details for the victims going down in the first shot?
 * The shapeshifters in Fringe die instantly when shot in the middle of the forehead, but shooting them anywhere else has no effect. ~ I am pretty sure this would be under

Tabletop Games

 * GURPS : Only hits to vital organs or the brain are liable to kill someone instantly unless they're extremely fragile for some reason.

Video Games

 * Ghost Trick Just about everyone who gets shot goes out this way, sometimes multiple times. Of course, it makes sense from a gameplay perspective, as Sissel's ability to go back in time to four minutes before a person's death would be sort of useless if they died after lingering for an hour in a hospital. ~ Do any characters die or just mooks/redshirts?
 * Call of Duty series
 * Call Of Duty averted when the Last Stand/Second Chance perk is equipped. Mortally wounded players can stay alive for about thirty seconds, lying on the floor and wielding a pistol, though the next hit will kill them. Adhered to though in that some attacks do ignore this perk. Modern Warfare 2 combines a similar feature with regenerating health. ~ Not Sure about this entry.
 * Playing Hardcore multiplayer makes every bullet a potential Instant Death Bullet.
 * Call Of Duty 4. The Big Bad, Zakhaev, Played straight at the end of "Game Over" however when
 * Metal Gear:
 * Played completely straight with who gets executed by Solidus with a single bullet to the forehead for trying to buy a few more seconds for a miracle to happen that saves Raiden.
 * Persona 3: Played straighter with, who goes down almost immediately to one shot and would have been dead within seconds without supernatural healing that  ~ Unsure about this one.
 * Assassin's Creed: The wrist gun the player can get. ~ Does this work as a single shot death on characters or just mooks?
 * Rainbow Six: Early games in the series, any hit can be instant death for you or an enemy.
 * Team Fortress 2: A Fully charged shot from a sniper rifle against any class with less health than a Demoman or a Soldier dies instantly, headshot or not.

Real Life

 * Christopher Lee, who worked in the Special Operations Executive (read: Spy!) during World War II, once demonstrated to a film crew what his experience of seeing someone shot was - Essentially, he ran, stopped, looked down at the wound, looked up with great surprise, and crumpled to the ground. Apparently, this was incredibly funny. Coming from a man who claims to have a distinct knowledge of the sound a man makes when he's stabbed, we can assume it's also accurate