View source for Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu

{{trope}}
{{quote|'''[[The Flash]]:''' ...You lose.
'''[[Fan Nickname|Brainthor]]:''' Hardly. Look around you -- the Justice League is completely defeated, and so are you. For all your efforts, you have but inconvenienced me, '''speck'''.|''[[Justice League Unlimited]], "Divided We Fall"''}}

Okay, so you've just gotten into a brawl with your local [[Eldritch Abomination]], just after you deliver the [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Knockout Punch]] against him. Apparently as a final "screw you," something bad happens to you, or the world you live in, in such a way there is almost no way to solve that problem that will be done without sacrifice.

Congratulations, you just broke your arm punching out Cthulhu.

This trope is called upon as a way of showing the true futility of trying to stop the physical or literal manifestation of an all-powerful being. It really doesn't matter if you have powerful mythical weapons or giant galaxy destroying guns; the physical form of him is irrelevant to his powers to [[Curb Stomp Battle|utterly smack you aside with merely a nod]]. It just can't really be done. [[Eldritch Abomination]]s such as the namer of the trope himself do not feel much pain from being punched out, since all you did was merely [[Fighting a Shadow|destroy his physical manifestation]], and punching him out will only delay your demise as you:

# Stop him for now; when he wakes up, [[Unstoppable Rage|he is going to be pissed]].
# Find out your punch [[The Worf Barrage|didn't even graze him]].
# Have a broken arm, so when he wakes up, [[Oh Crap|you will be screwed]].
# Are now possessed or infected with [[The Virus]] as a result of touching or killing him, [[Doomed Protagonist|and will eventually]] ''[[And Then John Was a Zombie|become]]'' [[He Who Fights Monsters|him...]]
# Actually ''do'' defeat him, but only at the cost of [[Pyrrhic Victory|almost everything you were trying to save]], up to and including [[Go Mad from the Revelation|your sanity]] or your [[Our Souls Are Different|soul]].
# Actually ''do'' defeat him, but have drawn the attention of even ''[[It Got Worse|worse]]'' [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|things that]] [[Avenging the Villain|want revenge on you]].
# Kill his weak form, [[One-Winged Angel|then he transforms...]]
# [[My Death Is Just the Beginning|Set off his back up plan]] - can be anything from a child with a water squirter to a bomb to the awakening of a giant demon.
# Find out that he was the sanest of the bunch; without him, the [[Evil Power Vacuum|smaller fry are now beating up one another and the brawl takes out the world since there is no one to lead them]]. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]].

This trope can also extend to normal all-powerful organizations, or an alien race where it is only a temporary victory and the next battle can be for sure a total defeat. For endings related to this trope, either 1) [[Bittersweet Ending|A close call]], or 2) [[Downer Ending|all for naught]]!

[[Sub-Trope]] of [[Pyrrhic Victory]]. Unlike [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]], this one ''will'' happen in a [[Cosmic Horror Story]].

{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'': Slow-acting, but inevitable..  {{spoiler|If you gain the power to fight Witches, you will become a Witch.}} Played straight in  {{spoiler|one timeline, to world-ending proportions}}, averted in another  {{spoiler|''[[Mercy Kill]]''}}, and invoked in a third. Arguably, this trope is the driving reason for the plot of Homura's entire story arc.
* In perhaps a literal example, in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', Sanosuke punches Shishio so hard that he shatters all the bones in his hands. Shishio, however, is barely even temporarily inconvenienced, and answers by punching Sano back, and defeating him instantly.
** It should be noted that Sanosuke's hand by that point was practically begging to be shattered in its next punch (especially if used with the Futae no Kiwami), after the toll it had suffered in the previous fight.
* In ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'', a giant boar-demon attacks an Emishi village and the protagonist, Ashitaka, is forced to fight and kill him. In the struggle, Ashitaka receives a curse on his right arm, which [[Cursed with Awesome|grants him superhuman strength]] but will eventually kill him.
* In ''[[Pokémon: The First Movie|Pokémon the First Movie]]'', Ash pulls a [[Shut UP, Hannibal]], and proceeds to try to punch Mewtwo out. It fails, miserably. Then pulls himself off the ground and [[Determinator|tries to punch Mewtwo out again]]. {{spoiler|He dies on the third try to stop Mewtwo.}}
* In ''[[Zeta Gundam]]'', Camille defeats Scirroco by crashing his waverider into Scirroco's cockpit and crushing his body. With his dying breath, Scirroco mentally attacks Camille and leaves him catatonic.
{{quote|''Scirroco:'' "You may take my life, but I will take your soul!"}}
** {{spoiler|Eventually, he got better. Well, a little bit. Can't ever pilot again, but all it ever brought him was pain either way, right?}}
* In ''[[Slayers]]'' Amelia tried to punch out the [[Physical God]] Ruby Eye Shabranigdu but broke her arm instead.
** And of course there's the [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]] Lina often relies on to defeat such demon lords with. Each use risks destroying the universe if executed poorly ( {{spoiler|by attracting the attention of The Lord of Nightmares, leaving the fate of the entire universe to the erratic whims of its now cognizant Demiurge}},) like when Lina was swallowed up mind, body and soul to fuel it, only returning through a mixture of sheer luck and (in the anime) [[The Power of Love]].
* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' does this roughly every time it turns around. One moment which comes to mind is when Goku uses his Kamehameha at Kaioken x4 in a [[Beam-O-War]] against Vegeta, with the fate of the planet hanging in the balance, and ultimately sends Vegeta flying into the stratosphere. Then Yajirobe gives Goku a light congratulatory slap on the back, and Goku screams in pain due to the [[Heroic RROD]] brought about by the Kaioken. Vegeta falls to earth, hurt but not nearly as badly as Goku is, and just transforms...
** Tien often pulls this trope, over-exerting himself to near death (and in the fight with Nappa, complete death).
* Arguably the ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' Manga ends this way. {{spoiler|Eternal Sailor Moon does a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to prevent the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of Chaos from rising. After [[Unexplained Recovery|she gets better]], we're told that Chaos was not completely destroyed. Sailor Cosmos confirms that Chaos will be reborn as a Sailor Senshi itself, and that it will instigate a huge cosmic war that will tear the galaxy apart and that the damage and sacrifice necessary to destroy it will ''be just as bad as losing the war''. While Cosmos [[Our Time Travel Is Different|traveled to the past]] to prevent its rebirth, she realized that Chaos' rise was inevitable and that there WAS no [[Take a Third Option|Third Option]].}} Oddly the characters don't seem to perturbed by the bleak future that awaits them, preferring to enjoy their happy present lives {{spoiler|taking comfort that life will always go on even if the galaxy is destroyed by war.}}
** To be fair given how Cosmos's plan to stop Chaos would basically kill the galaxy its understandable that they where alright wit their win.
** I think this interpretation of how the future will play out is kinda [[Completely Missing the Point]] of the entire series. Usagi has been told that there is no third option every single time she faced a new enemy. Every single time, she found a third option anyway. When Chaos rises in the future, she'll just [[Defeat Means Friendship|Befriend]] it or something.
* Asuka feels the full weight of this trope after defeating the {{spoiler|SEELE invaders and the Eva Series}} in ''[[End of Evangelion]]''. The last shot of her {{spoiler|half-devoured}} mecha juxtaposes it with {{spoiler|the regenerated Eva Series joining Shinji's [[Instant Runes]]}}, heralding [[The End of the World as We Know It]].
** Technically, Shinji Broke His Mind Punching Out 15 Cthulhi.
* In ''[[Bokurano]]'', the dimensional robots are so powerful that conventional militaries stand no chance. You do have ''Zearth'', your own dimension robot which proved to be [[Always a Bigger Fish|more powerful than some of them]] but {{spoiler|it's run on your lifeforce and will drain you dead}}. Don't want to punch them? {{spoiler|Your universe will perish. You can't lose a single fight, either.}}
** {{spoiler|And if you try to reverse-engineer the robots, the guys in charge will just eat everyone on your planet.}}
* This ends up happening to Jaden during his final duel with Yubel in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]''; {{spoiler|thanks to the nature of Yubel's monster effect, each time Jaden destroys (or forces Yubel to destroy) her copy, it merely evolves into a stronger version of itself. Eventually, Yubel becomes so powerful from Jaden's attempts to stop her, that the only way he ''could'' take her out is to intercept a [[Fusion Dance]] attempt of hers that would've resulted in [[The End of the World as We Know It]] and use it to scrub the duel prematurely by ''fusing his soul with Yubel's, having the monster in his head for all eternity''.}}
** It's not that bad;  {{spoiler|since Yubel was purged of the Light of Destruction when she and Judai got fused, and had all her Yandere urges satisfied, she calms down significantly and becomes friendly, if not a [[Deadpan Snarker]].}}
* During the Skypeia arc in ''[[One Piece]]'', the [[Badass Normal]] Skypeian, Wiper, goes one-on-one with [[A God Am I|God]] [[Psycho Electro|Eneru]]. After a tense fight, Wiper manages to ''kill'' Eneru by using the [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|Reject Dial]], at the cost of severe damage to his own body. Unfortunately for Wiper, Eneru's electric Devil Fruit immediately acts like a [[Magical Defibrillator]], restarting the tyrant's heart. Sorry Wiper, looks like killing him once just isn't enough.
** Later on, Luffy faces [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Magellan, who's coated in an armor of deadly poison}}. Luffy manages to get some hits in, {{spoiler|but ultimately he isn't strong enough to keep Magellan down and succumbs to the poison}}.
* The beginning of the HGSS arc of ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' starts off with Gold {{spoiler|facing off against Arceus}}. Needless to say, his team is getting their asses kicked, though Gold says that they just have to hold out 'till Silver arrives. How that's going to make a difference is yet to be seen.
*  Taken to the [[Logical Extreme]] in ''[[Bleach]]'' [[All Blue Entry|where]]  {{spoiler|[[The Starscream|Gin]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|epically destroys half of Aizen's chest]] [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|with a hidden Bankai.]] [[One-Winged Angel|Aizen's]] [[Boring Invincible Villain|inevitable]] [[Curb Stomp Battle|retalliation]] [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|involves,]] [[Trauma Conga Line|among other things,]] [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|ripping Gin's arm off.]]}}
* In ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'', Netero nearly kills the Chimera Ant King Meryem—possibly the most powerful lifeform on the planet at that time -- {{spoiler|by stopping his own heart to trigger the incredibly powerful bomb implanted in his own body. This desperate move only fails because two of Meryem's strongest minions sacrifice most of their power and body mass to restore him.}} Later, Gon utterly destroys {{spoiler|Neferpitou, the second strongest Chimera Ant alive by forcefully aging himself to vastly increase his power. Said powerboost comes at the cost of a shortened lifespan and the possibility that Gon will never be able to use nen again.}} In a more literal example, {{spoiler|Gon's right arm is torn off by zombie!Pitou when Gon lets his guard down thinking the battle was over after he crushed Pitou's head. Gon pins the monster down with his own ripped off arm and finishes it off with a final "rock" attack that apparently leaves Gon on the brink of death.}}
** However this is subverted  {{spoiler|when it's revealed the deadliest part about the bomb implanted in Netero is the ''poison'' that will kill everything that comes in contact with the bomb or people poisoned by it. That kills Meryem for good.}}
* ''[[Transformers Cybertron]]'': Destroying Unicron has the side effect of creating an unholy abomination of a black hole that unless stopped using the series' [[Plot Coupon]]s will annihilate the entire universe, possibly even the multiverse.


==  [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Marvel Universe|Thor]] managed to slay the Midgard Serpent - a giant dragon among giant dragons - with a massive hammer blow to the head. He was already in constant pain and obliged to wear a full-body armor suit for support due to a curse by [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|the goddess of death]], but the death blow literally ''reduced him to a pulped ([[And I Must Scream|yet still living]]) mass of flesh contained within said armor''.
** Given he was prophesied to die after killing the Midgard Serpent, as per [[Norse Mythology]]; this is actually a plus.
** A more graphic example was when he hit an invulnerable Viking named Herald Jaekelson so hard it nearly tore his hands off.
** In ''[[Fear Itself (Comic Book)|Fear Itself]]'', {{spoiler|Thor's battle against his [[Evil Uncle]] Cul Borson aka the Serpent aka the Norse god of fear -- who turned out to be the ''true'' serpent destined to kill him -- ends in a [[Mutual Kill]].}}
* The only way for [[Doctor Strange|Dr. Strange]] to beat Shuma-Gorath on his home turf was to tap into the demon's power source. Using Shuma's power started to make him become another Shuma-Gorath though and "killing" Shuma only sped up the process, so Strange had to commit suicide. Luckily someone else was able to save the Doctor, which was good a while later when we learn Shuma hadn't died and reformed his body.
* In ''[[Hellblazer]]'', this is pretty much the only way the only kind of win John Constantine ever pulls off. To get rid of [[Monster of the Week|this issue's monster]], chances are [[And Your Little Dog, Too|either someone he loves has to die]], or [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|his actions set up an even greater problem to be dealt with at a later date]].
* One ''[[Exiles]]'' arc features Galactus attacking earth, and for once he's actually at full strength rather than nearly dying from starvation. Eventually team powerhouse Thunderbird manages to break Galactus' skin and insert a device specifically made by that earth's Reed Richards to hurt the creature. Thunderbird is left brain dead from the shockwave though he does manage to get Galactus to flee.
* At the climax of Marvel Comics' Generation One ''[[The Transformers (Marvel Comics)||Transformers]]'' series, Circuit-Breaker, a.k.a. [[Handicapped Badass|Josie]] [[Genius Cripple|Beller]] attacked [[God of Evil|Unicron]] with all her power, paralyzing him long enough for Optimus Prime to destroy him with the Creation Matrix. Sadly, however, Beller was left catatonic as a result.
* Played straight litterally in [[Les Legendaires|Les Légendaires]], where protagonist [[Magical Girl|Jadina]] attempts to punch the [[God of Evil]] Anathos. Anathos stops her attack with ''one finger'', and ''causes her arm to break in the process''. Even worst, he mentionned she is lucky he needed her alive at that point, because otherwise he would have let her ''kill herself'' punching him.  {{spoiler|Then immediatly subverted when Jadina [[Out-Gambitted|Out-Gambits]] [[Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?|him]].}}
** And before this, [[The Hero|Danael]] already suffered a case of [[The Virus]] against Anathos when coming up with a scheme to prevent him from reincarnating into Shimy, only to serve as the host instead of her.


== Film ==
* In ''The Astronaut's Wife'' - a [[Recycled in Space]] version of ''[[Rosemary's Baby]]'' - the heroine {{spoiler|tricks the alien possessing her husband by acting like she's going to commit suicide through a variation - an ''awesome'' variation - on the [[Electrified Bathtub]], only to electrocute him instead. Unfortunately, the alien manages to flee her husband's body and possess her instead, for a [[Downer Ending]]}}.
* The third film in the series has ''[[The Amityville Horror]]'' house getting [[Stuff Blowing Up|destroyed]], though this fails to stop the evil, with it just living on in the form of mundane objects like lamps and clocks salvaged from the rubble, which allows the evil to spread out all over the country and establish "new homes" when people obtain the junk.
* The 1998 film ''[[Fallen]]'' is about a demon that can leap from one body to another instantaneously. It ends with {{spoiler|the lead character leading it into the middle of the woods, then poisoning himself before shooting the demon's current host. Cut to a nearby ''cat'', and the narration picks up again: "Oh! You forgot something, didn't you? Back at the start, I said I was going to tell you about the time I ''almost'' died. [chuckles] Be seeing you."}}
* ''[[Damnatus]]''. All the heroes give their lives to try and stop G'guor, an Eldar spirit accompanying them pulls a [[Thanatos Gambit]], and inquisitor Lessus invokes [[Earthshattering Kaboom|exterminatus]] on the planet, but the outro voiceover implies that G'guor will ''still'' be back someday.
* Implied for the inevitable sequel to ''[[Avatar]]'';  {{spoiler|There is literally nothing stopping humans from coming back and bombing the shit out of Pandora, and they could even arguably justify it as retaliation. In the original script this was addressed by Jake bluffing about some super virus that would kill any human who set foot on the planet.}}
** However, {{spoiler|given the transit time between Earth and Pandora, they have at least a decade to prepare.}}
*** And, honestly, do you believe that Cameron would  {{spoiler|doom his so beloved cute environment-friendly Science-is-Bad Na'vi for a Downer Ending?}}
*** And there is ''one'' thing stopping them. The insane amounts of money they need to go back that they may not be able to spend without the unobtanium to fill their wallets.
*** And the obvious fact that attacking the planet on that scale could easily cause irrepairable damage to said unobtanium, making the mission all for naught.
**** No damage would occur to the mineral AT ALL, because  {{spoiler|the weapon used will be an engineered bioweapon that will wipe out everything compatible with Navi neurochemisty, which is damn near EVERYTHING}}.  {{spoiler|Seriously, if they can engineer the Avatars, which combine human and Navi physiology, they must know the entire biochemistry of the planet inside out.}}
*** Considering Cameron is planning on filming two more sequels, it's highly likely that the army will step in to help the [[Sarcasm Mode|poor innocent corporation who got kicked out by the evil natives]], despite the prohibitive costs of sending a large armed force 4 light-years away (it's mentioned in [[All in The Manual|background material]] that most of the equipment used by the corporation had to be assembled on location).


== Literature ==
* In ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', when Fingolfin sees all his army defeated, he rides to the very gates of Angband to defy Morgoth himself, inflicting several wounds to him. It doesn't end well. However, he did inflict wounds on Morgoth that ''would never heal''. There's a reason why this is one of the greatest [[Moment of Awesome|Crowning Moments of Awesome]] ever.
** The final battle of the First Age could qualify too, sure the hosts of the Valar have destroyed Morgoth's forces and he's captured and beaten, but the entire continent that everyone not living in Valinor has called home since pretty much the dawn of time ends up so damaged it breaks apart and gets swallowed by the sea. AND even though Morgoth is sealed beyond the Void, it turns out one day he will escape leading to the Dagor Dagorath, the final battle the will destroy everything.
** Melkor essentially writes suffering and imperfection into fate before the world's creation, and after he becomes Morgoth pours his essence into Middle Earth itself, so that even after his spirit gets banished his presence remains; he ''is'' the evil that exists in the world.
** Two examples occur in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. First, Gandalf's famous [[Heroic Sacrifice]], when he killed the Balrog but died from the ordeal. Second, Eowyn actually did break her arm fighting the Witch-King, but that wasn't the worst wound she suffered; just ''touching'' the Witch-King is enough to seriously harm you, so when she and Merry stabbed him, their respective weapon arms were hurt and they needed special medicine to recover.
*** Eowyn wound up so deeply comatose she was at first mistaken for dead.
* One interesting example is from one of [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s own short stories. In ''The Dreams in the Witch House'', a fellow manages to stop a servant of said Eldritch Abomination, but is unable to save the child from sacrifice. And even though he manages to stay sane throughout the ordeal, he is later killed by an [[Eldritch Abomination]] drilling itself out of his body as punishment, and his friend, seeing this, ends up in a mental institution.
** This also happens in ''The Thing on the Doorstep''.
** Even the ''original'' ''Call of Cthulhu'' had a textbook example of this. When the titular Thing attacks, a sailor rams him with a yacht, forcing him to retreat back to R'lyeh. The problem is, Cthulhu is still very much alive, having reformed soon after getting punched out. As for the sailor, not only does [[Go Mad from the Revelation|the entire ordeal push him off the deep end]], [[Avenging the Villain|but it's hinted that Cthulhu's cultists kill him soon afterward.]]
*** Ironically, Cthulhu himself isn't even all that high on the power-scale of Lovecraftian abominations. Yes, he's bigger than a Deep One or Mi-Go, but he's really just a mouthpiece for the ''real'' cosmic-caliber deities like Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth.
** Any kind of victory over Lovecraft's [[Eldritch Abomination]]s, is, at best, delaying the inevitable.
*** Which is the point of the expansion to the ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' role-playing game, ''[[Delta Green]]''. An entire task force, that doesn't officially exist, whose entire duty is to 'delay that inevitable' for another few years, and continually.
* A literal case in the first book of [[War of the Dreaming]]: Peter Waylock attempts to use Thor's hammer against an enemy sorcerer, and ends up breaking both his arms—not good, considering he also can't walk.
* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', the Dragon (no, not [[The Dragon|that one]]) took independent action and led a strike force of [[Gender-Restricted Ability|male channelers]] in storming [[Mordor]] and sealing the hole in the Dark One's prison. (He disregarded the original plan, to include females and use certain absurdly-powerful power-enhancing artifacts, after the forces of evil overran the locations of the access keys to said artifacts and political strife among the channelers resulted in all female Aes Sedai refusing to participate.) Good news: mission accomplished. Bad news: the Dark One subsequently tainted the male half of the One Power, thereafter driving anyone who used it insane and thus causing ''[[The End of the World as We Know It|the Breaking of the World]]''—the face of the world reshaped, billions killed, and the entire utopian society crushed into mythology. Though the society was kind of in the crapper from a decades long war against the forces of darkness anyway, though at least not entirely broken up.
* In ''[[Old Kingdom|Abhorsen]]'' by [[Garth Nix]], the only way to seal the [[Big Bad]] would result in {{spoiler|the death of the caster of said seal thanks to a backlash effect and the [[Big Bad]] trying to [[Taking You with Me|take her with him]]. Our <s>fearless</s> borderline-[[Death Seeker|suicidally depressed]] heroine goes through with it anyways, but survives when the Disreputable Dog bites off her hand, saving Lirael's life.}}
** In ''Sabriel'', the first book of the series, the titular character's father uses the bell Astarael, which sends anyone who hears it deep into Death, to try to permanently kill the book's undead villain. It doesn't work. It does, however, delay him enough for Sabriel to get away and find a better way of killing him. Which also doesn't work. So she [[Sealed Evil in a Can|seals him away instead]].
* A frequent [[Downer Ending]] in [[Philip K. Dick]] short stories. In one case, the [[Eldritch Abomination]] in question turns out to be ''[[God Is Evil|God]]'', and the minor wound the hero received in the encounter ends up being fatal.
** That would be Faith of our Fathers I assume? In that sense it is seen as a vaguely optimistic outcome, as it's hinted rebellion is impossible, so his minor act of defiance (in literally punching Cthulu in the face) is a victory for the human spirit. After he is 'branded' as a result with a deadly sore, which slowly spreads over his body, he chooses to ignore it and spend his last night making alive love with his girlfriend as an act of humanity, denying Cthulu a moral victory.
* In a short story by [[David Brin]] (which was made into a comic book) a soldier broke the spear by which he ought to have been killed over his knee. The spear belonged to Odin, and his knee didn't really like the treatment.
* In the ''[[Warhammer 40,000]] [[Blood Angels]]'' novel ''Deus Sanguinius'', Rafen manages to slay the [[Eldritch Abomination]] Malfallax. However, {{spoiler|Malfallax's death comes with a curse that triggers the Black Rage in all of the nearby Blood Angels, and while Rafen manages to free them of it, Malfallax's true form is still alive in the Warp, plotting vengeance on him.}}
* The first arc of the ''[[Deathstalker]]'' series ends with the protagonist delaying the Recreated long enough for them to be restored to their true forms. However, the stress of doing so leaves him too exhausted to return to his point of origin or even fight effectively. Instead, a man who destroyed countless armies is murdered by a pack of half-mad drug addicts, far from friends and allies. [[Prophecy Twist|They even took his boots.]]
* In ''[[Forgotten Realms|Azure Bonds]]'', the red dragon Mist lays down her life to destroy the vile god [[Eldritch Abomination|Moander]].
* ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'':
** Harry's origin story arguably goes both ways.
*** Voldemort as Cthulhu: Harry survives Voldemort's attack, but both his parents had to die in the process, Voldemort is left alive as a wandering spirit with a big grudge against Harry, and {{spoiler|Harry is now a [[Soul Jar|Horcrux]], carrying a piece of Voldemort's soul around with him.}}
*** Harry as Cthulhu: Voldemort kills both Harry's parents. But when he tries to kill Harry, who is protected by [[The Power of Love]], his spell backfires, destroying his body and forcing him to wander as a spirit until someone can forge him a new one.
** In ''[[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (novel)|Chamber of Secrets]]'', {{spoiler|this almost happens to Harry--he kills the Basilisk, but is poisoned by its venom, and he would have died if it hadn't been for the restorative properties of phoenix tears.}}
** In ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)|Deathly Hallows]]'', [[spoiler: Harry is forced to give his life to stop Voldemort (who, due to his extensive use of [[Soul Jar|Horcruxes]], is now a borderline [[Humanoid Abomination]]). The reason for this sacrifice is that during his failed attempt on Harry's life, Voldy accidentally transferred a bit of his soul into Harry's body, [[Tomato in the Mirror|turning Harry into a Horcrux.]] This means that as long as Harry is alive, Voldemort can't die either, because a bit of his soul will be tethered to Harry's body. The good news is that the reverse is also true--that due to a complex bit of magic that occurred during Voldy's resurrection, ''Harry's'' soul is bound to ''Voldemort's'' body, allowing Harry to return to life without the soul fragment in him.. This means that after Neville destroys the final Horcrux, Harry can finally kill Voldemort.]]
* In ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', Winston and Julia {{spoiler|break their souls ''failing'' to punch out Cthulhu.}}
* In the ''[[Chronicles of Prydain]]'' book ''The Black Cauldron'', the only way to destroy the eponymous [[Artifact of Doom]] is for someone to willingly throw himself/herself into the Cauldron, an act that would kill that person as well. {{spoiler|Prince Ellidyr, who for most of the book was a [[Prince Charmless]], saves the day by making the sacrifice.}}


== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The seventh season of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', the Scoobies take on  {{spoiler|[[Made of Evil|The First Evil]], who cannot take corporeal form and therefore can't be killed}}. They manage to defeat its army, but only after  {{spoiler|destroying the Hellmouth by [[Earthshattering Kaboom|literally blowing up Sunnydale]] and after the deaths of Spike, Anya, and several potentials.}} Even then,  {{spoiler|they never truly defeated it. How can you defeat pure evil?}}
* In the season five finale of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', Sam Winchester deliberately breaks his arm punching out Lucifer when he, after inviting the Devil to possess him,  {{spoiler|somehow manages to throw the both of them back into the Devil's Cage.}} The upside:  {{spoiler|the Apocalypse is averted.}} The downside:  {{spoiler|Sam's soul is trapped, for the foreseeable future, in an abyss with an enraged and betrayed Satan.}} The personal kickback is nonexistent.
* Pretty much the basis of the Wraith conflict in ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''. The tech level of Earth and its allies is enough to hold them off, but there are so many of them each victory is just delaying the inevitable.
* The first 8 seasons of [[Stargate SG-1]] consist of the Tau'ri and their allies trying to avoid (and sometimes causing) Type 6(ish). As the Tok'ra are fond of saying, lots of warring Goa'uld are preferable to one all-powerful Goa'uld.
** In season 10, [[SG-1]] manages to "kill" all of the Ori (they're energy beings so "kill" isn't quite the right word), but this doesn't stop their followers from continuing their war on the galaxy.
* This trope very nearly comes to pass in the Season 4 finale of ''[[Angel]]'', when Angel narrowly succeeds in thwarting rogue [[Powers That Be|Power]] Jasmine's attempt to [[Mind Control|brainwash]] the entire human race [[Knight Templar|for its own good]] by breaking her powers of illusion. While this does weaken her somewhat, it mostly just convinces her that humanity [[Omnicidal Maniac|should die instead]]. Thankfully, Angel's son Connor (who is Jasmine's mortal father) turns up and manages to punch her out for good. Hey, being Cthulhu's dad [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|has its advantages]].
** And the trope then ''does'' come to pass, as with her out of the picture, the human race goes from its Jasmine-induced state of perfect understanding and empathy with all other human beings to [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|normal]]. The crash brings out suicidal and homicidal tendencies in most of the population, including Connor himself. The good guys are forced into a [[Deal with the Devil]] for a [[Reset Button]] and the Devil in question claims to be dealing with them out of respect for their demonstrated aptitude for inflicting pain and suffering on levels its own minions had failed to match. The messenger of said Devil starts out by congratulating the heroes for "thwarting world peace". [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]].
** The series finale features Angel and his gang causing as much damage as they can to Wolfram and Hart, having determined there is no way to take down the Senior Partners themselves. They successfully destroy their agents on the mortal plane and disrupt operations enough to set back the apocalypse significantly. However, the time they purchased for Earth costs them heavily and the [[Big Bad]] send [[Bolivian Army Ending|an army to make their displeasure known]].
*** And the comics show that this results in L.A. being cut off from the rest of the world and plunged literally into Hell. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]].
* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'': The Tale of the Curious Camera. The protagonists destroy the camera by making it take a picture of a mirror, but the demon possesses a video camera instead. Then they smoke it out of that, only for it to invade the computer.
** In ''Pinball Wizard'', Ross wins the life-size pinball game, but is doomed to replay it forever.
** In ''Super Specs'', the attempt to close the portal to the parallel universe results in that universe taking over "our" space and trapping the heroes in a [[Pocket Dimension]].

== Music ==
* The final act of Fireaxe's epic 4 hour album [[Food for the Gods]] centers around [[Satan|the devil]] leading [[The Legions of Hell|an army of demons and damned souls]] and conducting an all-out invasion of Heaven to try and murder God, which culminates in a {{spoiler|type 5}}.

== Mythology ==
* In [[Greek Mythology]], Sisyphus managed to cheat death by chaining up Thanatos. However, doing so messed up the whole cycle of life and death. So eventually the impulsive Ares frees Thanatos, and Sisyphus was dragged to the underworld. His punishment? Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a steep hill... But it will always roll back down again whenever he's almost at the top, forcing him to perform this pointless task forever.
* Ragnarok, the end of the world in [[Norse Mythology]], is full of this. The gods kill the giants and monsters, but almost all of them get killed in the process. Odin gets killed by the giant wolf Fenrir, but is avenged by his son Vidar. Thor kills Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, but dies of the monster's poison. And Loki gets killed by Heimdall, but not before bringing Heimdall down with him.


== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* In ''[[Exalted]]'', the Exalted killed the Primordials. Their Death Curse has led to two apocalypses so far and counting.
** Also, She Who Lives In Her Name's last act before being sealed away was to [[Ret-Gone]] vast swathes of Creation into nothingness. According to accounts by [[The Fair Folk]], who witnessed the whole sequence of events from outside creation, even the splendor of the First Age was just a tiny, burned-out remnant of what Creation used to be.
*** To be more specific, the [[Ret-Gone]] didn't just destroy physical area, it supposedly annihilated nine-tenths of Creation on a conceptual level. Whole principles of being ceased to exist, leaving only what players and characters understand as conventional reality. It's a reality with magitech, super-sorcery and god-given Elder God-smacking heroes. But the implication is that the time before the Three Spheres Cataclysm is more or less impossible to wholly comprehend.
* The whole business of fighting [[Cosmic Horror|Chaos]] in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. Any really powerful daemon simply cannot be destroyed by physical means, as they live in the Immaterium, and there's exactly one [[Psychic Powers|psyker]] powerful enough to fight them on their turf... and he's on the life support for the last ten millennia. All that [[He Who Fights Monsters]] could do is to banish the daemons back to the Warp, for them to return again later. Even though such banishments aren't exactly the bed of roses even for the Daemon Princes, and many lesser daemons could be vanquished entirely with proper procedure, this fight is essentially a defensive one, with no chance of a true victory. And the Enemy is dangerous indeed.
** For example, take Lucius the Eternal, Champion of Slaanesh, one of the aforementioned Great Champions. If he is killed in battle and the foe takes even the slightest satisfaction from or pleasure in his death, he [[Demonic Possession|possesses]] his killer and eventually takes him over entirely, with the former victor now nothing more than another screaming face on Lucius's armor...
*** What if the Necrons or other mechanical beings manage to kill Lucius?
** Since the Immaterium is implied to not view time the same way as the material universe, it's very possible that the only thing this accomplishes is to protect the physical universe. Daemons, on the other hand, can very likely make a jump to a later timeline, starting anew with little (if any) visible wait.
* This is why you can't kill a Titan in ''[[Scion]]'' - Fate, being an utter asshole in the ''Scion'' universe, will go berserk if something that big is taken out of reality. When Ymir died, the Ice Age ended, causing worldwide catastrophe. The best the Gods can do is make the Titans into [[Sealed Evil in a Can]].
* ''[[Kult]]'' plays with this. {{spoiler|[[Humans Are Cthulhu|Humans are actually super beings]] who are unaware of their power. Various supernatural forces try to prevent humans from being awakened, yet their efforts seem to be futile.}}
* In ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'', it's possible (if your investigators are insanely brilliant and cunning) to hit Cthulhu with a nuclear weapon. The game has rules for what happens when you do this. What are the rules? Cthulhu regenerates about 15 minutes later... but now he's radioactive.
** [[Doom (Comic Book)|That can't be good!]]
** There is literally nothing that humanity can do which will kill Cthulhu for more than 1d10+10 minutes. When the stars are right, everything is over. Until then, you might be able to put him back to sleep until next time, at the cost of your sanity and probably your life.
*** and as an added bonus, in the event of Cthulhu's death (which there is no known way to cause) he will be immediately reborn from one of the other eldrich abominations.
* The entire premise of the ''[[Arkham Horror]]'' Board Game. You can stop the Big Bad, but they'll always be back some other time.

== [[Video Games]] ==
* In [[Xenoblade Chronicles]], in a literal interpretation of the trope, Dunban loses the use of his right arm after using the Menado to repel the [[Nigh Invulnerable]] armies of Mechon not once, but ''twice''.
** And [[Determinator|even after that]], he just [[Katanas Are Just Better|switches to a weapon light enough]] to wield with the only arm he can still use and joins your group again later on.
* ''[[Call of Duty 4]]'' 's ending pretty much ends up with {{spoiler|everyone dying, whilst trying to escape from saving everyone in America from a nuclear death, killed by the man that set off the nuclear devices in the first place}}
** Apparently, its sequel ''[[Modern Warfare 2]]'' also suffers this with {{spoiler|almost everyone dead because of General Shepherd's betrayal in an attempt to write his name in history, thus revealing him to be the [[Big Bad]] and having all those who know about it and pose a threat to him killed off. Luckily, He gets killed but now the protagonists are branded as terrorists and are hunted across the world.}}
*** {{spoiler|Doesn't really matter that he's dead. He got what he wanted (a call to action in order restrengthen America's fighting force), he's just too dead to take command of the subsequent fallout. That duty will fall to someone else. But he got the blank check and the war he had envisioned, which is all that really had to succeed in his plan (him being alive would simply be a perk, and if anything, two rogue soldiers who were supposedly working under him now being responsible for his death could only amp up the call to action).}} The very essence of the trope exemplified.
* ''[[X-COM]]'' follows this trope with Terror from the Deep. X-COM forces manage to destroy the [[Eldritch Abomination]] that the aliens were attempting to revive that ''definitely'' would have killed humanity (being effectively invincible once awoken). Unfortunately, the alien city T'leth (in which the abomination was sleeping) managed to rise above the waves before the final victory, and explodes rather spectacularly. This first of all kills all the aquanauts who secured the final victory, and second, severely poisons huge swaths of the ocean and setting off cataclysmic cascading environmental disasters, such that by the time of the final game in the series, ''X-COM Apolcalypse'', the earth has almost completely been reduced to a wasteland.
** And by the end of ''Apocalypse'', humanity's last bastion of hope, Mega-Primus, has been devastated by the extended interdimensional war.
*** Except that, by that time, humans already have a number colonies on other worlds, including Mars, as per ''Interceptor''. Furthermore, the original plan was to build a number of [[Mega City|Mega Cities]] to hold all of Earth's population, but the enormous costs only allowed them to build the prototype - Mega-Primus. It's possible that they may build others eventually.
* ''[[Resistance]]'' follows this trope, as in the sequel, you find out despite your effort to take down the spire in London, they managed to get to the United States, and most of the United States has fallen against the Chimera.
** And then after you {{spoiler|manage to detonate a nuclear bomb in the middle of a Chimera fleet, ''[[And Then John Was a Zombie|you become a Chimera too]]''}}, [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|making the hero's actions mostly pointless]]. Although [[Sequel Hook|another sequel has been confirmed]].
*** Bet you the final one will make humanity officially extinct.
** Resistance 3 continues the trend. Despite Hale's work in Resistance 2, humanity has officially lost the war against the Chimera. You play as Joseph Capelli, who works with [[La Résistance]] to give punching out Cthulhu one last go. Let's hope he finds more success than Hale did.
*** {{spoiler|He does.}}
* The process of defeating Lavos in ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' resulted in it {{spoiler|absorbing the [[Mysterious Waif]] who had power over space and time}}. Now in ''[[Chrono Cross]]'', the result is far worse, an entity that consumes time itself, who cannot die because somewhere, there is a dimension where you failed to kill it.
** That doesn't stop you from chasing the bastard to the literal End of Time and using the eponymous piece of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] to cross the time streams, {{spoiler|which [[Save Both Worlds|saves both worlds by fusing them into one,]] [[Urban Legend of Zelda|releases Schala from the Time Devourer's clutches]] and [[Ret-Gone|erases said Time Devourer from history]]}}. The only thing that [[Bittersweet Ending|taints this finale]] is that everything you've done over the course of the game didn't happen in this shiny new timeline, and several characters were only born or created as a result of your actions... so what happens to them?
* Most of the defeats of Dark Matter in the ''[[Kirby]]'' series seemed to be type 1 of this, with Dark Matter just coming back meaner and with an even more grand attack on the ''Kirby'' universe in the next game. So far, it looks like he finally ''is'' dead for good after ''Kirby 64''.
** Humorously, Kirby doesn't really care; as long he carries his [[MacGuffin]] weapon all he does is smack the shit out of Dark Matter and return to eating and sleeping.
* Just about everyone in ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'', {{spoiler|with the exception of the main character, it seems}}.
** Not really, since each character's actions added up and {{spoiler|destroyed all three evil abominations at the end, thanks to Mantorok's [[Taking You with Me]] scheme.}}
* In ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]: Mask of the Betrayer'', it is likely that the person who kills the spirit-eater will receive the curse next.
** Also, you can try to devour the soul of {{spoiler|Myrkul}}, but Kaelyn will advise against it, warning that doing so might result in this.
* In ''[[Gears of War]]'', the game ends with the heroes {{spoiler|dropping the Light Mass Bomb on the overwhelming Locust Horde}}. However, when ''Gears of War 2'' begins they find themselves {{spoiler|pushed back to their last defensive position with a new sickness called Rust Lung spreading among the human population.}}
** ''[[Gears of War]] 2'' also ends with {{spoiler|humanity sinking Jacinto, the last refuge they have against the Locust.}} Good idea! Problem: {{spoiler|it might not have worked, so humanity is now pretty much defenseless if the Locust are still alive in any shape or form.}}
*** According to ''[[Gears of War]] 3'', {{spoiler|[[It Got Worse|it didn't]]}}
* ''[[Persona 3]]'s'' heroes {{spoiler|defeat the avatar of Nyx, but unfortunately, Nyx just keeps on coming, responding to humanity's subconscious wish for death. The main character has to [[Heroic Sacrifice|sacrifice himself]] to hold Nyx at bay permanently.}} Then in the [[Expansion Pack]], the heroes end up just going ahead and beating up {{spoiler|humanity's subconscious wish for death itself}} - but even then, it's stated that it's going to take a lot more work to solve the root problem.
** This is a ''very'' common theme in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games.
*** Yes, but it's not usually taken to this extent. ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne|Nocturne]]'', for example, ends on a fairly upbeat note if you get the Freedom ending (if we ignore the fact that you have simply given this incarnation of the universe some time until God decides to reboot it again). ''[[Persona 4]]'' completely averts this, and strongly hints {{spoiler|after beating Margaret}} that {{spoiler|Persona 3's main character's death might be somehow reversible}}
*** Actually, that's pretty much the extent it's always been taken to in Persona. In the first one, {{spoiler|Defeating Pandora causes Maki's ideal world to disappear, along with ideal Maki. Which means the actual version of Maki that the characters got to know and care for disappeared into the ether}}. In ''Persona2'' Innocent Sin, {{spoiler|they fight and defeat the literal incarnation of humanity's malice, only to have one of their allies die, which in turn fulfills a prophecy that causes the end of the world. The only way to fix it? Strike a deal with an entity of immense power to rewrite history... effectively undoing all the personal growth the characters have experienced and significantly weakening the side of good.}} ''[[Persona 2]]'' Eternal Punishment, in a rematch against {{spoiler|the big bad, one of the main characters has to be sacrificed because his mere presence gives tips the scales in the big bad's favor}}.
*** ''[[Nocturne]]'' implies that the protagonist of ''[[Shin Megami Tensei II]]'' was cursed with a [[Fate Worse Than Death]] for killing [[God Is Evil|YHVH]] in the climax of that game. It didn't even stick, as YHVH/God will keep coming back as long as anyone believes in him. {{spoiler|The Demi-Fiend can put himself in a position to help take down God for good... By allying himself with Lucifer, discarding his humanity and then destroying all of Creation, leaving no humans left to resurrect God with their faith. Even then, the ending doesn't say if you succeed, merely that Lucifer is preparing for a second Rebellion -- and you just invoked [[It's Personal]] against ''God''.}}
* In ''[[Castlevania]]'', Dracula curses Simon Belmont just before he is killed, giving him wounds that would never heal. Subverted in ''Castlevania II'' when Simon gathers up Dracula's body parts and resurrects him to kill him again, releasing himself from the curse. Yes, that's right. He punched out Cthulhu, broke his arm doing so, then brought back Cthulhu and punched him out ''again'' with the broken arm.
*** Julius also paid a hefty price for his victory against Dracula. While he does {{spoiler|kill Dracula for good (reincarnation doesn't count)}}, he loses his memories and becomes an amnesiac wanderer that gets trapped in Castlevania for ''decades''.
* In ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'', one of the main heroes literally breaks his mech's arm to pieces trying to punch out {{spoiler|Ingram Plisken's}} new mech.
* In ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'', one thousand years ago, a group of four adventurers sealed the game's [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] - only to find that once they hid the [[MacGuffin|keys to that evil's power]] away, they each became trapped in a black box. And the seal only [[Exty Years From Now|lasts a thousand years anyways]]...
* In the ending of ''[[Killzone]] 2'', {{spoiler|Visari is dead}}, but at what cost? {{spoiler|Most of ISA's military force is destroyed and its remnants are stranded on Helghan and Helghast has some of the ISA's nuclear arsenal ready to use on them, and the bulk of their forces were just in hiding.}}
**  {{spoiler|However, ISA being invaded is the least of the characters concerns since Visari's death has effectively started a civil war...oops}}
* In ''[[Supreme Commander]]'': the means by which the war was ended by the unspecified victors comes back to bite everyone in the ass in Forged Alliance.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'', {{spoiler|Golbez}} and FuSoYa manage to take out {{spoiler|[[The Man Behind the Man|Zemus]], which only succeeds in [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere|releasing his spirit, Zeromus.]]}} This also severely weakens them to the point where [[No One Could Survive That|their most powerful attacks]] [[Nigh Invulnerable|do absolutely nothing]].
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', Celes manages to stab Kefka... it just happens to coincide with him becoming a God and destroying the world. It's a long, long time before the heroes are able to try a second time.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', the traditional Final Summoning kills the Summoner who performs it and only temporarily gets rid of the monster Sin, which is why the heroes [[Take a Third Option|look for another way]], hoping to [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|eliminate Sin once and for all]].
** And when they {{spoiler|are able}} to find one {{spoiler|it causes the main character (the saved summoner's [[Love Interest]]) to cease to exist, since he was from a dream world sustained by the same entity responsible for creating Sin}}. Of course FFX-2 {{spoiler|makes this all better by bringing Tidus back in the [[Golden Ending|best ending]]}}.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]-2'', where {{spoiler|you kill the Immortal Guardian Caius, and everything seems to be well, only to be kindly reminded that the heart of the goddess of time and death was beating inside his chest and by literally stabbing it you killed her, making time, life and death cease to exist. Which was Caius' goal all along. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]}}.
** The game also sheds a new light to ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'', when you find out that, in fact, {{spoiler|your arm should've been broken when you killed Orphan, and the only reason it didn't was because the Goddess took pity and resurrected everyone, thus creating the time rift that caused all the events in the sequel to happen. Which means that if the benign Cthulu that you accidentally murdered in XIII-2 hadn't saved everyone in XIII, she wouldn't die and... break everybody's arm. So to speak..}}
* The hero of the first ''[[Diablo]]'' game winds up with a case of [[The Virus]], since the only way he could come up with to utterly stop the Lord of Evil was to shove a chunk of it into his face. The hero of [[Diablo II]] figures out a better way... [[When All You Have Is a Hammer|and hits it with a hammer.]]
* The ending of ''[[Mass Effect]]'', regardless of whether you save the Council or not, sees the Citadel fleet smashed, and possibly the human fleet with heavy casualties, in exchange for destroying Sovereign. Gets very ominous when you realize that Sovereign was only one {{spoiler|Reaper}}, and that the rest of the {{spoiler|Reapers}} are still coming, even if you stopped their usual strategy.
** Entirely likely in ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'' as well. Depending on how well or poorly you prepare, your entire team of [[Video Game Caring Potential|lovable squadmates]] may very well die helping you stop the Collectors... and even if they don't, congratulations! You just {{spoiler|pissed off an entire race of mechanical [[Eldritch Abomination]]s so badly that ''every last one of them'' knows your name... and they're all coming after you now}}. Not to mention that you either {{spoiler|destroyed your best chance at understanding their technology enough to fight them effectively,}} or you {{spoiler|left it in the hands of a terrorist organization}}.
*** You know what the worst part of that is? The one Cthulhu you meet that can give you the worst arm breaking if you're not careful? {{spoiler|He was a Cthulhu '''''baby''''', just barely out of his equivalent to a womb, and he was born prematurely. You can be scared now.}}
** This all gets blown out of the water by the [[Ending Aversion|Controversial]] endings of ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', which go so far as to call into question whether ''[[Mass Effect]]'' is [[Lovecraft Lite]] as generally assumed or [[Cosmic Horror Story|Cosmic Horror]] crossed with [[Space Opera]]. To begin  {{spoiler|No matter what endings you choose, or what choices you make, the mass relay network is destroyed, which in ME lore would mean supernova sized explosions in every system containing a relay. That would mean that virtually all life in the galaxy would be destroyed, in addition to the many nasty effect society losing its main form of intergalactic travel. Each ending has its own flavor of [[Grimdark]] consequences as well; in the "Destroy the Reapers" ending, a nondescript amount of the galaxy's technology is destroyed as well; it's implied that all mass effect based technology is destroyed, meaning the end of galactic civilization is assured. This is also the only ending in which Shepard can live. In the other two, "Synthesis" and "Control" Shepard dies, and in the former case, has forcibly converted everyone into cyborgs; essentially what Saren wanted from the reapers in ''[[Mass Effect 1]]''. Depending on the interpretation, the "Control" ending might be no better.}}
* ''[[Mega Man X]]'': Sigma's first defeat of {{spoiler|Zero}} causes Sigma himself to "inherit" what was later known as the Sigma virus.
* This is the basic tone of the ending to the 2008 ''[[Prince of Persia]]''. A sequel might change it, though.
* In ''[[Halo]]'' lore, the Forerunners were forced to activate the Halo Array and commit mass suicide to stop the Flood from taking over the galaxy. The downside? It only sent the Flood to sleep, and now the galaxy is defenseless. And also, because every species that was picked to survive the firing eventually discovered the Halos, the Flood are released again, and nearly take over Earth once they're able to infect a Slipspace-capable ship. Though they are {{spoiler|stopped by glassing part of Africa}}, they then begin a [[Xanatos Gambit]] to have the humans and Covenant Separatists deactivate the Halos and then {{spoiler|double cross them, hoping to kill them all.}}
** Of course, they are then fittingly {{spoiler|taken down by Cortana's own [[Xanatos Gambit]], having lured the Flood to the one place in the universe where the replacement Halo (which was destroyed in the first game) can be fired to kill the Gravemind without actually hitting the rest of the galaxy}}.
** However, this trope comes back if Cortana's story in Halo Legends: Origins (in which she was a Rampant [[Unreliable Narrator]]) is true in certain respects. If the right parts are true, the Flood are still around, and our heroes can't use that plan again.
* In the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3HXgvl8lp0 E3 video demo] of ''[[Scribblenauts]]'', God, riding a skateboard and holding a shotgun, fights Cthulhu. As per the trope, they both die at the end of the fight.
** The question is: which one was supposed to be the Cthulhu, given the choices?
* In the lore surrounding ''[[Warcraft]]'', Aegwynn, the super-powerful Guardian of Tirisfal, comes up against the Dark Titan Sargeras (or, some argue, only his avatar) and defeats him with surprisingly little effort. The downside? Sargeras' spirit escapes his dying body and enters Aegwynn's womb, possessing her unborn child who later becomes the first game's [[Big Bad]].
* ''[[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories]]'''s worst ending is essentially this: {{spoiler|After Rozalin/Overlord Zenon awakens again, she's not in the mood to listen to any reason and Adell is forced into fighting her. He accidentally kills her in progress, which doesn't inconvenience her spirit too much as she possesses Adell and the first thing she does is to make him [[Shoot the Dog|eat/brutally kill his siblings.]]}}
** Another [[Nonstandard Game Over]] can be invoked if you defeat  {{spoiler|Laharl}} before you're supposed to, because he  {{spoiler|[[Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum|throws a superpowered temper tantrum]] and destroys all of existance}}.
* An inevitability in ''[[Warning Forever]]'', in which your tiny ship fights an enemy that comes back bigger each time after it dies. It [[Adaptive Ability|evolves to cover whatever weakness you exploited last time]], so no matter how skillfully you defeat some ultimate form it had developed, it will be back, and while you'll be exhausted from the last fight, it will only be strengthened by your efforts to destroy it last time.
* In the ''[[Family Guy]]'' video game, there is a sequence in Peter's level where you can punch God. [[One-Hit Kill|This goes about as well as one would expect.]]
* Two out of the three ''[[Dragon Age]]'' endings feature this trope. {{spoiler|In order to slay the Archdemon, a Warden must be sacrificed. [[Heroic Sacrifice|You can take the blow yourself]], or send either Alistair or Loghain to do it for you.}} You can also [[Take a Third Option]], but the jury's out on what consequences this will have for Thedas in the future.
** There's a more blatant example in the gameworld's lore: that of the [[Vestigial Empire|Tevinter Imperium]]. The [[Zombie Apocalypse|Darkspawn Blights]], one of which you spend the whole game repelling, are the broken arm resulting from Tevinter's long-ago, [[Black Magic|blood-magic-fuelled]], [[And Man Grew Proud]] attempt to enter [[Spirit World|The Fade]] and usurp the power of [[God]].
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has the Lich King Raid as its epic moment, after your party broke their arms trying to punch them. Tirion goes in and helps do him in. Yes Arthas is dead, but there is still a need for another Lich King so Bolvar offers himself to the throne. So much for a victory feast with the Alliance and Horde as Azeroth celebrates the lich king's defeat
** Arthas himself has an origin story involving versions 4 and 5 of this from trying to defeat the Scourge...
*** Or more specifically to kill Mal'Ganis. {{spoiler|Which he didn't.}}
** Kael'Thas' defeat at Tempest Keep was "only a setback," which you learn when you fight him again at Magister's Terrace.
** The Old Gods are THE [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch abominations]] of warcraft, unfortunately, they're also burrowed into azeroth's core, permanently killing even one may result in the planet dying.
***  Actually, [[Word of God]] confirms that it's basically not possible for us players to permanently kill any of the Old Gods at all, the best we can do is force their influence out of Azeroth. Temporarily. At best.
**** There appears to be a way to permanently remove the effects of the Old Gods (and probably expel them permanently, or at least force them to start from scratch). However, it would result in the death of literally every living being on the planet by activating the Reorigination Device (a planet-wide [[Reset Button]]). There may be other problems with this, as the Titans chose to not use it between when they noticed the problem and their departure from Azeroth.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]:[[Birth By Sleep]]'': One of the main characters, Ventus, {{spoiler|loses his heart}} as a result of defeating the [[Eldritch Abomination|Unversed]] once and for all.
** Of course, [[Complete Monster|Vanitas]] was partially to blame.
* ''[[Kings Field]] II'' sees the character's father, the former hero and saviour from the first game, get possessed by a demon and release waves of Eldrich Horrors upon the world. Your character must pick their way through this bleak hellscape, and hunt down and kill his own father. Best part - if you fail to get a particular magic sword (obtainable only by sacrificing your one and only friend), then the demon then possesses you. The final narration informs you that peace returns to the land, and life returns to normal... only for your character to slowly fall to the demon and eventually re-release the demons, repeating the cycle - only this time, there's no one to stop you.
* In the Japanese version of ''[[Breath of Fire IV]]'', [[The Emperor]] Soniel (largely via his head priest [[The Dragon|Yohm]]) attempts to kill Fou-lu (who not only happens to be the [[King in the Mountain]] that founded the empire Soniel is head of, but is also a ''literal'' [[God-Emperor]] coming to reclaim the throne) in increasingly savage ways (including, at one point, the use of a [[Fantastic Nuke]] with ''Fou-lu's girlfriend as the warhead''; this merely was the major point in the [[Trauma Conga Line]] that [[Driven to Villainy|shoved Fou-lu over the edge]] to being a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]). The final attempt involved Soniel [[Back Stab|back-stabbing]] Fou-lu with a sword made from the decapitated head of a god whose full summoning failed; this pisses off Fou-lu, who proceeds to decapitate Soniel with the very sword he was back-stabbed with.
** Unfortunately, the actual Lost Your Head Trying To Back-Stab The God-Emperor moment was a victim of [[Bowdlerisation]] in the international Playstation and all Windows ports—leading to a bit of a [[What Happened to the Mouse?]] moment.
** The [[Comic Book Adaptation|manga adaptation by Mag Garden]] not only turned the scene [[Up to Eleven]] but turned it into a Crowning Moment Of [[Take That]] (to the censorship)--Fou-lu has [[Blood From the Mouth]], decapitates Soniel by [[Energy Weapon|a sword of pure energy]], and then pushes out the [[Evil Weapon|Dragonslayer]] by hand...after having been run ''completely through''.
* [[Breath of Fire II]]  {{spoiler|ends with [[Bittersweet Ending|a sour note]], even in the [[Multiple Endings|Best Ending]]}} however, the  {{spoiler|"normal" ending is the most egregious case of this, and the best ending doesn't help a lot either}}
** Bad ending:  {{spoiler|[[The Hero|Ryu]] and company ask the great dragon to watch over the gate to hell. [[Oh Crap|Cue all the demons running rampant over the earth]], and [[The End of the World as We Know It]]}}
** Normal Ending  {{spoiler|[[Badass Abnormal|Ryu]] [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Punches Out Evans]], who turns into a Giant Eldritch Abomination, Ryu uses [[The Power of Friendship]] to bring his friends back to life, kicks the crap out of evans and runs back home. Cue him taking his mother's place as a sleeping dragon, to seal off Evan until he comes back, but [[And I Must Scream|not being able to move or communicate]]}}
** Best Ending:  {{spoiler|Same as the above, but [[Breath Weapon|Ryu]]'s Father hooks himself up to the flying machine in [[Meaningful Name|TownShip]] to seal off the entrance in Ryu's stead. Evans, however, is not destroyed, only sleeping, and eventually it'll [[Came Back Wrong|come back stronger]]}} Subverted, in that  {{spoiler|[[Capcom]] [[Orphaned Series|hasn't tied up this]] [[Plot Hole]] in almost two decades}}
* ''[[Gradius]]'' is BUILT on this trope. Congratulations on killing the [[Big Bad|final boss]] and blowing it up into a bunch of pieces! Too bad that each of those pieces will regenerate totally into another Big Bad. Each with their own army.
* Killing the [[Bonus Boss]] of ''[[Baldur's Gate|Throne of Baal]]'' {{spoiler|Demogorgon Prince of Demons}} is an understandably daunting and challenging ordeal. {{spoiler|All this does is free him from his prison in Watcher's Keep and sends him back home to the Abyss. Thanks to the rules governing demons and devils, he will be free to invade the material plane in a hundred years if he feels like it.}} Defeating it is still preferable to letting it roam free of course.
* In ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]: Ghost of Sparta'', Kratos and his brother Deimos kill ''Death''. It comes at a terrible price: Deimos loses his life saving Kratos during the battle, and Kratos loses his brother again. Especially tragic since Kratos' goal throughout the game was to save Deimos.
* The [[Downer Ending]] of [[Galerians]] invokes this trope in multiple ways. {{spoiler|Yes, the protagonist Rion succeeds in destroying the [[Master Computer]] [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|gone wrong]], but [[Doomed Protagonist|the effort of it breaks his brain]]. Plus, the [[Master Computer]] has a backup plan. Queue sequel.}}
* [[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]: Literally, in fact, considering Batman sprays explosive gel on his glove before decking  {{spoiler|Titan Joker across the face. But because Batman is badass and will never let the Joker win, never, the "punching out" part actually sticks.}}
* Depending on how you interpret the [[Silent Hill]] series, even the good endings mean that whatever malevolent entities surrounding the place just lie dormant until the next schmuck with a [[Dark and Troubled Past]] comes around. And then, of course, there are the bad endings, where you defeat the [[Big Bad]], but your own sanity has suffered beyond repair.
** In [[Silent Hill 4]], Henry is implied to have literally broken his arm in the good ending.


== Webcomics ==
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', the [[Precursor Heroes|Order of the Scribble]]'s attempts at {{spoiler|sealing the Snarl}} may count as this. They successfully manage to {{spoiler|patch up the holes in the Snarl's prison}} with the gates, but one of them dies and the survivors break up for good, with bad blood between many of them. Said bad blood ends up destroying any united plan they may have had for protecting the gates, allowing Xykon to attack them piecemeal.
** Further arm-breaking occurs when it turns out their solution to containing the Snarl allows for someone to access and control the power of the Snarl without setting it free, which is essentially the main plan of every major villian in the series.
* [[Shadowgirls|Charon McKay]]'s first punch against [[The Dragon|Deep One Prime]] was a massive [[Shoryuken]] that splintered some of the shadow-armor on her hand.


==  Web Original ==
* In ''[[Draw With Me]]'', it becomes {{spoiler|did you just lose your hand trying to punch out Cthulhu (in this case, an instantly regenerating glass wall).}}
* In Peasant's Quest from [[Homestar Runner]] Rather Dashing {{spoiler|gets burninated after throwing the trogsword at Trogdor.}}
* Phase, in the [[Whateley Universe]], fighting a tiny aspect of a demon trying to gain a foothold in this dimension. She stalled it long enough that it could be sealed off again. For now. But she ended up with broken bones, life-threatening injuries, psychological damage and hideous nightmares that required intervention to stop.
** Halloween at Whateley, since killing Sara was the whole point. Not only did it fail, but the two commanders of the force that attacked are now wanted by the criminals as well as the law, and the one who ordered the attack got into deep shit, and a good portion of the attacking soldiers were killed or taken into MCO custody.
* Jay from ''[[Marble Hornets]]'' in Entry #52  {{spoiler|tackles the Operator/Slender Man, but in doing so he loses the last seven months from his memory.}}

== Western Animation ==
* The page quote is taken from an episode of ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', after the titular league knock themselves out in the process of destroying the [[Doomsday Device]] of a near [[Physical God]] {{spoiler|[[Nanomachines|Nanomachine]]-controlling Brainac/Lex Luthor fusion}}. The villain, able to rebuild it a matter of minutes and being utterly undamaged, shrugs it off with the above comment. {{spoiler|It is then subverted, when Flash [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|taps into the Speed Force]] and uses it to demolish the villain atom by atom, faster than his nanomachines can compensate.}}
** The Justice League episode ''The Terror Beyond'' featured a team of [[The Defenders|Defenders-expies]] set up to beat back an incursion of [[Eldritch Abomination]]s, which they end up doing by killing [[Expy|Ichthultu]]... but  {{spoiler|Solomon Grundy}} dies in the process.
** A much less serious version of this trope happened in "This Little Piggy" when [[Batman]] and Zatanna picked a fight with [[Physical God|Circe]]. The two [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLRfGRC6xS make a fair account of themselves] until Circe actually starts fighting ''back'', at which point she reveals that she's basically just humouring them. Since Circe is basically a [[Screwy Squirrel]], they manage to talk their way out of further confrontation.
* Anything, and I do mean ''anything'' used to try to stop the [[Shadow Raiders|Beast Planet]]; turn your whole planet into an energy gun? Not even a scratch. [[Ramming Always Works|Ram it with another planet]]? It's annoyed. ''Turn a planet into a bomb'' and blow it up when The Beast is eating it? Doesn't even get heart burn. The best the heroes do is send it somewhere else, so it just attacks another system.
* Something similar happened with Alpha Q's planets in ''[[Transformers Energon]]''. When Unicron came to eat their world Scorponok set off a bomb in the center of the planet in order to destroy him, since their own lives were forfeit anyway. Unfortunately the bomb only sent Unicron into a temporary coma, and when he woke up Alpha Q was trapped inside him, alone and slowly going mad.
* In ''[[Gargoyles]]'', the heroes (and anti-heroes) find themselves up at one point against [[Physical God|Lord Oberon]], ruler of [[The Fair Folk]]. They try various weapons against him, which do nothing, until finally hitting him with an iron harpoon that does some serious damage. Unfortunately, even an injured Oberon is stil the most powerful character in the series, and now he's ''really mad''.
{{quote|Oberon: I am... vulnerable... to iron. You have hurt me. Hurting me was a '''mistake'''!}}
** Should've made another bell.
*** Though keep in mind the bell was used when his powers were greatly reduced. Given he was at full power by this point, chances are the bell would have done very little to weaken him.
* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', Admiral Zhao manages to kill Tui, the Moon Spirit. La, the Ocean Spirit, gets pissed, fuses with Aang into an enormous [[One-Winged Angel]], and lays an absolute smackdown on a massive Fire Nation fleet. After Tui is revived via [[Heroic Sacrifice]], La parts with Aang, grabs Zhao, and drags him underwater.
** Later in the series, the Gaang is fighting knowledge spirit Wan Shi Tong, who's trying to sink his library and trap them forever so they won't try to use his knowledge to hurt people. Sokka manages to knock Wan Shi Tong unconscious by [[Moment of Awesome (Sugar Wiki)|hitting him over the head with a book]]. The Gaang barely manages to escape the sinking library with knowledge that can help them win the war. But unfortunately, the library still disappears, {{spoiler|Appa gets stolen during the fight}}, and worst of all, the Gaang's new friend Professor Zei gets dragged down with Wan Shi Tong and the library. Presumably, Zei stays trapped there forever.

== Real Life ==
* Honeybees die whenever they sting a human, or anything else with thick skin.
** Note that they will try to avert this. If they have to give up their life for one tiny attack, they will make sure to make it count. [[Zerg Rush|Usually by]] [[Death of a Thousand Cuts|having the whole hive sting you at once]].
* Eleazar Avaran, one of the leaders of the Maccabean revolt, where the Jews fought for and won their freedom from Seleucid rule. Eleazar killed a war elephant with a spear, but the elephant fell on him and he was crushed to death.
** This is also a crowning moment of awesome. Having no idea how to deal with Elephants he ran under the thing when it reared... and allowed it to fall on him, spear planted firmly in the earth.

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[[Category:Cosmic Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:Did You Just Index Cthulhu]]
[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]