Heroic Sacrifice/Western Animation

Examples of Heroic Sacrifices in Western Animation include:

In the season one finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Princess Yue sacrifices herself to revive the Moon Spirit, which had been killed by Admiral Zhao. She then becomes the new Moon Spirit. Though in this case she had been living on borrowed time her entire life, as the Moon Spirit had shared some of its life energy to prevent her from being stillborn, and she simply gave it back.
- Also, at the end of season two, Iroh stays behind in the caverns fighting Zuko, Azula, and all of the Fire Nation soldiers to buy time to allow Aang and Katara to escape to safety, even though he knew he couldn't escape himself.
  - Then, in the third season, Mai betrays Azula to prevent her from reaching Zuko and is imprisoned as a result.
- Also from season three, it is revealed through flashbacks that Katara's mother Kya lied about her daughter being a water bender, instead saying it was her. Her last words to Katara were "Everything will be all right." She was lying. However, it should be noted that she was expecting to be taken captive instead of killed, though it's no less admirable.
South Park:
- Kenny in the movie, earning a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in the process.
- Happens in "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut" when he uses his body to route the Hell's Pass Hospital backup generator, electrocuting himself to death in the process.
- Satan (that's right, The Devil himself) perishes this way, killed defending the citizens from Man-Bear-Pig. It even counts as Redemption Equals Death, seeing as he's seen in Heaven at the end of the episode. A pretty weird end for the Prince of Darkness, but then, it's a pretty weird show.
Batman the Brave And The Bold: "I have an idea. Just not sure it's a good one." -- Blue Beetle II (Ted Kord)
- Bwana Beast destroys himself at the end of Starro's invasion to save the planet.
- At the end of one episode, the Doom Patrol sacrifice themselves to save an island of people.
- In "Long Arm of the Law!" Plastic Man lets himself get turned into stone when promised that it will keep his family safe. Because Kite Man is Chaotic Evil, he releases the hostages... into the open, stormy sky, stuck to a kite. However, Plastic Man's sacrifice is ultimately reversed in time for him to save them.
In the second episode of Ben 10: Alien Force, the plumber agent saves Kevin's life, but tears his suit - since he doesn't breathe air, he dies. This is considered part of the reason Kevin agrees to help Ben for the rest of the series.
- Kevin's father, Devin Levin, jumps in front of a lethal blast to save Max Tennyson from Ragnarok.
In Code Lyoko, Aelita is sometimes a bit too eager to make a Heroic Sacrifice, despite the very strong disapproval of her friends (especially Jérémie). She actually went through it in Season 1 episode "Just in Time", but Jérémie managed to bring her back to the virtual world. Another close call was in Season 2 finale "The Key".
- In the end, her father, Franz Hopper, made the Heroic Sacrifice to destroy XANA, his creation, once and for all.
The Fairly OddParents "Wishology": Jorgen Von Strangle and Timmy Turner. Jorgen, in the first part of the trilogy, magically transforms himself into Timmy so the Eliminators and the Darkness do not take Timmy. Timmy at the end of the second part when he throws himself up into the Darkness so the group of people he is with are not hurt or captured. This is especially significant because in addition to his family and friends being in the group, three are his mortal enemies and four are magical fairies who are almost impossible to kill.
Fry does this a lot in Futurama.
- Near the end of "Love and Rocket", he realizes that Leela's oxygen tank is empty, and that she is too busy fixing the ship in order to save the lives of the crew to listen to his warnings. He then plugs her tube into his own full tank and nearly suffocates, saving her life in the process.

Leela: *reading off a candy heart* "U leave me breath-less!"

- When confronting a getaway Space Bee in "The Sting", Fry throws himself in front of Leela so the bee would sting him. It didn't quite work out that way...
- "The Why of Fry" involves Fry infiltrating a Death Star-like Brain Spawn station with the almighty Niblonian's vehicle of choice—a "Scootie Puff Junior"—gambling on being condemned to an eternity in oblivion than risk Leela's safety in the end. Good thing Nibbler remembered Fry's little bit of advice: "Scootie Puff Junior sucks!"
- Fry did this yet again in Bender's Big Score. Well, not quite him. Lars, his time clone, broke up with Leela when he realized it would cause a Temporal Paradox, killing him in the process. Upon the original Fry's attempt at reconciling them, Nudar holds Leela hostage. Knowing his life is going to end one way or the other, he kills himself blowing Nudar up with a self-destructing Bender clone.
- Also, in "Into the Wild Green Yonder", Fry realizes that he is "the Dark One" who he has been pursuing and must kill in order to save the galaxy. Fortunately, his logic was flawed (as per usual) and he survives and also kills the real Dark One.
- Cannon robot Big Bertha in "The Prisoner of Benda," sacrificing herself to help the Professor save Emperor Nikolai by compromising the last of her structural integrity with one last Human Cannonball.

:^[1] But you could get a new body. You could have a rich, full life!
Big Bertha: I am trying to have a rich, full life!

In The Mighty Ducks' first episode, Canard throws himself into dimensional limbo to save the rest of the team and allow them to pursue Dragonus to Earth.
- Also, in the episode "The Final Face Off", Wildwing destroy Dragonus' dimensional ray to prevent the Earth from being invaded and conquered by the Saurian army, even though he knows that the dimensional ray was the only way he and his friends could return home to Puckworld, and as a result they are now permanently trapped on Earth.
Iron Man: Armored Adventures does this a few times. The first is when Arthur Parks, a former super-villain named the Living Laser sacrifices himself to save Tony in Designed Only for Chaos after joining the hero's side.
- Later attempted in the season one finale when Gene pushes Pepper out of the way of Fin Fang Foom's attack and is apparently killed. Ironically, his heroic sacrifice is what allowed him to acquire the fifth Makluan Ring and then betray the very friends he was helping
Codename: Kids Next Door:
- In what is possibly the only existing example without any possibility of physical injury, Tommy Gilligan (Numbuh 2's brother) has just been assigned to Sector V. He saves the sector, and the whole organization, from being turned into animals by the Big Bad. However, by removing his DNA from the registry he is not allowed to be part of the organization, even though the others (who had never liked him) now believe he should be.
- "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E."; a common fan theory is that Sally Sanban (Numbuh 2's grandaughter) may have Ret-Gone herself by helping to prevent the Bad Future from occuring, especially since the altering of the timeline caused (as shown in the Series Finale) Kuki and Wally to eventually marry (which they did not do in Sally's timeline), thus altering the heritage of Kuki's family line.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe;
- Zigzagged in "The Roboto Gambit", Roboto plunges headlong into Tri-Klops' army of skeletal warriors to distract them so He-Man can get to the villain and destroy the device controlling them; Roboto himself seems to be destroyed in the process. There's even something of a Tear Jerker later, as Teela (who had doubted his ability to fight) mourns for him, but seeing as he's an android, Man-At-Arms manages to repair him.
- Played straight, however, in the legend of King Greyskull, the hero charges into battle against Hordak's armies, despite a prophet's warning that he will not survive the battle. He defeats Hordak, but true to the prophecy, he succumbs to his wounds after doing so.
In King of the Hill, Bobby becomes covered in a swarm of angry, venomous fire ants that cover their victims and kill them by all biting at the same time. However, Dale grabs his hand, allowing the ants to swarm onto him instead (Dale is an exterminator, and the ants have a grudge), whereupon they proceed to all bite him at the same time, nearly killing him. He gets better, though Hank first has the opportunity to cradle him in his arms and thank him for saving his son.
As in the comics example mentioned above, Ferro Lad on Legion of Super Heroes sacrifices himself to stop the Sun-Eater in the first Season Finale.
In ReBoot, Hexadecimal, after her Heel Face Turn, in order to destroy Daemon, fragmented herself in order to administer a cure to the Net.
- And just before doing that, gives little Enzo a parting gift that alters his icon so that when he touches Nibbles again, its mind is restored and Wellman Matrix returns to Mainframe... well, as a null, anyway.
In Superman: Doomsday, an internally-injured Superman, seeing Doomsday about to murder a child for the fun of it, flies him up past the atmosphere and then gives him the biggest bodyslam in history. The impact kills Supes, too. If only for a little while.
Dinobot, in the Transformers: Beast Wars episode "Code of Hero", fights the entire Predacon force on his own to prevent them from altering history. He drives them off, but is mortally wounded in the process.
- Luckily for him though, he got to die as he lived—quoting Shakespeare.
In the Transformers Armada episode "Crisis", Optimus Prime sacrifices himself to shield Earth from the Hydra Cannon. He comes Back from the Dead three episodes later.
- In the season finale, Megatron sacrifices himself to prevent Unicron from reviving.
In Transformers Animated, Optimus Prime does this in "Transform and Roll Out", defending the Allspark from Starscream. He comes Back from the Dead about a minute later, though.
- There's also Omega Supreme, much to Ratchet's dismay. He sacrifices himself heroically twice, once offscreen, in the Great War, and the second time in the same episode he's resurrected in, this time to protect the Autobots from the blast of the malfunctioning space bridge. The mech's the embodiment of this trope - he's literally made to sacrifice himself if need be!
- Arguably, Bumblebee in "Autoboot Camp" might qualify, although it is non-fatal. He does, after all, take the blame for a tower falling on his Drill Sergeant, Sentinel Minor, to protect Bulkhead from being drummed out, since Bulkhead saved his life when the spy in the camp replaced the paint in the weapons used for a training exercise with live ammo. After he's (supposedly) caught the spy, and Sentinel has told him that he's Elite Guard material, Bumblebee gets drummed out instead. Sentinel is a real Jerkass.
- And now there's Prowl letting himself be absorbed by the Allspark to give it enough strength to stop the Omega Supreme clones, which are rigged with bombs, from destroying everything in a hundred-mile radius, drawing tears from every fan watching.
- In the Japanese Transformers: The Head Masters, Optimus sacrifices himself to stabilize Vector Sigma at the beginning of the season. This is his Final Death of the series, at least in animated form (there was later a toy line and manga called Battlestars: The Return Of Convoy, where he was brought Back from the Dead).
Wolverine and the X-Men gave one to a Sentinel named "Rover." Best friend to Marrow and only able to say the word 'destroy' with varying degrees of emotion. To get the information to stop the Bad End Rover gets into a fight with five evil Sentinels. Buying time for Professor X and the others to get the information needed and escape. He's being destroyed by a bunch of tiny wolf-like sentinels, his last word is to his friend Marrow, "Run."
Justice League:
- Batman attempts this in the Season 2 Grand Finale. To prevent the Thanagarian's hyperspace bypass generator from destroying Earth, he sets the Watchtower space station on a collision course with the generator, then insists on staying in the Watchtower to ensure that it doesn't drift off-course. Once Superman learns what Batman is doing, and he flies in to pull Bats out just in time.
- Metamorpho appears to do this in "Metamorpho" turning himself into a chemical solvent to destroy a rampaging Kaiju-sized monster. He manages to reconstitute himself and survive, soberly saying, "I am never doing that again."
- In the episode Legends, a few members of the Justice League get transported to a bizarre Golden Age/Silver Age-style alternate universe where various cornball heroes and villains battle over Seaboard City. After The Reveal that the whole city, heroes/villains and all, was a Lotus Eater Machine, the Justice League attempts to fight the true villain, but they lose badly. They're saved by the local heroes, the Justice Guild, who charge into battle despite knowing the villain's defeat would result in a Dream Apocalypse that would take them along with it.

"We sacrificed ourselves once to save this world. We can do it again."

Near the end of the fourth season of Winx Club, Nabu decides to try to close the shadow abyss in order to save the Earth fairies. He succeeds, but uses up all of his energy and dies as a result.
Chaotic, Tangath Toborn. Twice. Granted, if you're going to go, the way he did so was incredibly awe-inspiring, and of course he'd be the one brave and heroic enough to do it. But for a show where they Never Say "Die" and Death Is Cheap...not to mention his final moments and the memorial and monument he received...
In Monsters vs. Aliens, it's not death, it's something worse. The whole movie is Ginormica just wanting to be plain, normal Susan Murphy again. Then the alien extracts the Phlebotinum from her, making her normal-sized again. In order to save the planet, she drops the quantonium on herself, turning her back into Ginormica permanently.
Galaxy Rangers loved this Trope. At least four examples in the series, starting with Eliza, who ordered the ship with her kids to blast off, leaving her to a Fate Worse Than Death.
Played for Laughs and Subverted in Madagascar Escape 2 Africa, when Melman the giraffe thought he was dying when the other giraffes saw brown spots all over his body. He allows himself to be sacrificed to a volcano to bring water back to the reserve. Thank You, Julian. Gloria manages to save him. Afterwards, Mort arrives with the shark still chasing him. The shark misses and falls into the volcano. The shark's fate is a villainous sacrifice.
The Vizier from Shadow Raiders gets a good one.
In The Brave Little Toaster, Lampy, Kirby, and Toaster all pull this off. Respectively by allowing himself to be struck by lightning, jumping off a waterfall, and jumping into the gears of a trash compactor to jam the machine. They all get better, but the "deaths" of Lampy and Toaster were traumatizing, as the viewer probably believed they actually were dead for a few minutes.
- Radio also did this in the sequel by giving up his function tube in order to save their obsolete super computer friend, and seeing as how they needed him to save their animal friends, it counts double. Considering that it was because of him that the only other tube broke, it was the least he could do.
Van Rook of The Secret Saturdays jumps in front of an energy beam intended for Drew. It was the first (and sadly last) truely heroic thing he ever did.
The Flash from Justice League Unlimited in the episode Divided We Fall. It's the league's Darkest Hour, and the founding members are down. The Flash built up energy by running circles around the planet, literally, and culminated with using the energy to defeat Luthor in an explosion. Because of this, he sort of phased out of reality. He got better very quickly.
Octus from Sym-Bionic Titan pulled one of these in order to save Lance.
Suprising, Regular Show has had some truly heroic ones. In "Benson Begone", Benson prepares to perform one to save everyone from the demonic Susan by running her down with a limo, only for Leon, a character from earlier in the episode, to jump into the limo. He then pushes Benson to safety and takes out Susan's heels, causing her to fall back into Hell while he spirals out of control and crashes into a wall, the limo exploding on impact. A second one happens in "Go Viral" where the episode's Big Bad, the Warden Of The Internet, tries to kill Mordecai, Rigby, and Pops to stop them from escaping her Cyberspace prison. Suddenly, one of the other viral videos she captured, the Wedgie Ninja, grabs her and gives her a wedgie, telling the others to run. After they escape, he keeps it up and eventually causes the Warden to explode, killing himself in the process but making the internet safe for viral videos once more.
In The Simpsons, it's revealed that Waylon Smithers Senior went into a nuclear reactor core unprotected and turned it off, in the process giving his life to save Springfield, everybody at the plant and Waylon Smithers Junior. One of the few times Mr Burns shows any respect for any character in the series.
Teen Titans character Terra does this. Her power is manipulation with the earth (hence her name). In the Season 2 finale a volcanic eruption is set in place under the city. Terra uses her power to stop, and seal it, but the price for doing so is her turning to stone.
From Harley Quinn; After realizing that Poison Ivy's (successful) plan to terraform Gotham into a Garden of Evil results in civilians being painfully transformed into mindless Plant Person Slave Mooks, Harley exposes herself to the chemical herself, hoping her own death will convince Ivy to call it off. Note that while Ivy does call it off and aborting the plan cures and saves Harley, Harley did not know that. As a bonus, this convinces Bane to forget about the stupid pasta maker.
Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee", Mariner seems almost too eager to do this when she, Ransom, and two novice Ensigns are being stalked by Moopsie, a Killer Rabbit that drinks the bones of victims. After a heated argument with Ransom, Mariner decides to throw herself to the beast to distract it so the others can escape. Ransom, however, thinks up a safer, non-lethal version of this Trope, he tells Mariner to knock his teeth out. (Adding "That's an Order!") Seeing as Mariner has wanted to do that for the past two seasons, she gladly complies, and they use the teeth to lead Moopsie back to its containment.

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