Til Murder Do Us Part

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Somone is attempting to kill their spouse (or already has), either to collect on life insurance, because the voices in their head told them to do it, or for some other reason. Maybe they're really a serial killer who marries their victims and then offs them in succession. Or maybe Divorce Requires Death in this setting.

Most often the couple is newly wed, and the unfortunate victim usually won't suspect a thing until after the wedding, when things start to take a turn for the disturbing.

Compare The Bluebeard and Black Widow, who do this over and over again.

A common parody is to have the protagonist think his spouse is trying to do this, often with several Stab the Salad moments.

Examples of Til Murder Do Us Part include:


Comic Book

  • Played with in Batman Adventures #16, where the Joker starts reciprocating Harley Quinn's affections, and even proposes to her—just after she receives a letter informing her she's inherited a fortune. The twist is that the letter is a fake, which Harley sent herself; she's Genre Savvy enough to realise it will cause the Joker to marry and murder her, but mad enough to believe that if she reveals the truth once they're married, he'll have no reason to murder her and they'll live happily ever after.
    • The really messed up part? In the closest thing the Joker gets to a "sweet" moment, he finds it incredibly romantic that Harley went to such lengths and agrees to marry her anyway.

Film

Literature

  • There is a short story by Robert Sheckley (I think it is called "Trap"), where an alien sends a few animals and then his spouse through a teleporter disguised as an animal trap. He was tired of his wife, but they were married for life.

Live Action TV

  • Taken to an extreme degree in Monk, and somewhat less so in Psych, where pretty much every other mystery ends with someone trying to kill their spouse, oft times with little reason beyond just wanting to do it. The worst example was that one time in Monk where the husband found a suicide note his wife wrote years ago, and decided to kill his wife simply because he realized he could with no risk.
    • There was also that time the foreign diplomat was killed. Political Assassination? Someone trying to start an international incident? Nah, he picked up some guy's jacket by accident, and the guy killed him so that he could retrieve the evidence that he killed his wife, which was in the jacket.

Video Games

  • Variant in Final Fantasy X: Yuna marries Seymour as part of a ploy to get him Sent (the only way to kill someone off for good in that 'verse), she figures he'll be too... "distracted" to put a stop to her until it's too late. And Seymour himself is marrying Yuna as part of a ploy to get her to become attached to him, as he knows that only The Power of Love can kill Sin, and thus, once he gets Yuna to love him, he will become her Final Aeon and become Sin, which will kill Yuna in the process. So, in short, both of them are planning to off the other.
  • James in Silent Hill 2 killed his wife, although it was revealed to be a Mercy Kill, as she was suffering from a terminal illness.
  • Hitman: Blood Money features a mission called "'Til Death Do Us Part" wherein the player must kill the groom at a wedding. It is implied that the bride is the one who called the hit. There are instances where the groom's death will cause her to say "Finally."

Western Animation

  • In an episode of The Simpsons, Selma marries deranged serial killer Sideshow Bob, who plans to kill her on their wedding night, and then go after his now-nephew Bart. Luckily, Bart is able to convince the family of Bob's intentions, and Selma divorces him.
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