One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#53: The Heroic Sacrifice

  Ah, the heroic sacrifice.  It is the most important plot point for epic fantasy stories, depicting the selflessness one has towards other people and the state of the world.  They do not think of themselves for a minute, realizing the solution of dying for the sake of everything is the most logical idea.  After a heart wrenching goodbye to their closest friends, they throw themselves at the looming danger, buying time for the other characters to fight the big bad off.  This type of climatic scene is inspiring, full of heart, and well... not so well thought out.  There has to be another solution to the problem besides death, right?

  The heroic sacrifice trope is one that has the potential to create an emotional scene in a story.  After all, seeing a character selflessly buy the team time through their own death definitely is going to make a majority of readers feel emotional in some way.  However, there is a price to this trope and that is logic.  When a character throws themselves at danger, it still is a form of suicide.  They may have saved the day, but at the end of the day they died for that cause.  Before throwing themselves at the danger, perhaps there could be another solution, one that does not kill a character in the process.  Then, everyone escapes and no tragedy needs to happen.

  Alongside the fact that a self sacrifice can be labeled suicide, think about how their actions might badly affect the other cast members.  If they had a lover, that person is going to be left in a state of despair and may give up on life itself.  The family of the person doing the sacrifice are going to be left in endless denial, and their friends will blame themselves for the deed.  It is a move that unless absolutely necessary should not be used at all.  Not to mention, it is an easy way out of the climax of a story, something authors tend to use maybe a bit too often.

  But you may say, so many people see this trope as a strong element in writing.  If you feel something from the character's selfless actions, does that not make it good writing?  The answer to that looming question is this; yes and no.  As I said before, a self sacrifice can be used well.  The sacrifice of Lucario from the Pokémon anime still is a strong, yet very emotionally sad moment.  The move was well thought out beforehand and Lucario's sacrifice saved the same Tree of Life his trainer had saved with his life a thousand years earlier.  No one else had the ability to use aura to heal Mew as strong as Lucario and the move helped the character understand his master's actions in putting him inside the staff for safe keeping.  In these cases, a self sacrifice is the way to go.  A self sacrifice can be the wrong move too, as evidenced very effectively by Steven Universe.  When the titular character turned himself in at the end of season four to save Beach City, the writers showed why this move was actually wrong.  First off, it left the cast in tears and in a state of hopelessness, all stuck in denial trying to find a way around the situation at hand.  Second, the move kind of betrayed Steven's promise to always fight together on his friend Connie's side, something that shattered their friendship for about a month following his return to Earth.  Finally, Aquamarine, one of the reasons Steven made the move in the first place, was too clever to be misled and still took one human, Lars, away into space despite Steven's sacrifice.  In this case, the self sacrifice ended up being the wrong move.  Continuing the fight against Aquamarine and Topaz would have been the much better solution, even if it would have been extremely hard and risky.

  Self sacrifices work depending on the way you use them.  If used right, it is a memorable highlight of the story.  If used wrong, it can cause more damage than the thing creating the threat in the first place.  This trope is like choosing between a toxic or nontoxic mushroom.  They look the same, but effect the body differently.