Dying as Yourself - TV Tropes

"Only... I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense? I don't want them to change me. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not."

• In 07-Ghost, Teito's friend Mikage gets half his soul destroyed and is possessed by the big bad to attack and capture Teito. However, when Mikage is defeated and is dying, he spends his last moments giving Teito one last smile and hug.
• Bakuman。 has a Show Within a Show example: this is how the Muto Ashirogi team end their bestselling manga Reversi, by having their two main characters in it lose their demonic powers whilst plummeting towards Earth from miles above the ground. With it implied the characters chose to do so.
• At the end of the Battle Royale manga, this happens to Kazuo when he is killed by a gunshot straight through his brain. It "frees" his memories, and he is able to remember everything.
• Bleach:
  • When Kaien Shiba was possessed by a hollow, Rukia Kuchiki was forced to kill him to stop its rampage in his body. As he was dying, he thanked her for killing him and apologized to her.
  • Orihime's brother became a hollow after his death and attempted to kill Orihime. Ichigo beats him up and gives him a lecture about how older brothers are supposed to protect their younger sisters. For one brief moment, Sora manages to regain control enough to rip off his mask and share the goodbye with Orihime that they'd never been able to have before Ichigo finishes him off (at his request) to save his soul (the anime takes a Lighter and Softer approach by having Sora kill himself rather than the shounen hero doing it).
  • In episode 291 of the anime, when Kaname Tousen is stabbed and mortally wounded while in Hollow form, he returns to his true form, and his mental state appears to return to normal as well.
• The second episode of Bubblegum Crisis: AD Police Files has a fairly creepy case. The story centers around a woman who replaced her entire reproductive system with bionic implants so she'd stop having her monthly period. She eventually starts attacking prostitutes, ripping out their reproductive organs. At the end she is being chased by the AD Police, who are allowed to kill her on sight because she is categorized as a Boomeroid (someone who has more than 70% of their anatomy replaced with cybernetic components), and hence does not rate as a human being anymore. She ends up in an abandoned subway car filled with criminals; she rips off her clothes and allows them to rape her to death. The character Cara Iris realize that she chose to die as a woman instead of a boomer.
• Claymore: As Half Human Hybrids, every Claymore will eventually transform into a yoma monster. When they sense their time coming near, they send a "Black Card" to another Claymore close to them, requesting that they be killed while still human.
• In Code Geass, when Euphemia lies mortally wounded after being hypnotized to kill thousands of innocent Japanese, she finally manages to break the Geass order's power over her when it tries compelling her to kill her Japanese boyfriend... and then she dies.
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners:
  • Maine manages to pull himself back from the throes of cyberpsychosis long enough to arrange a "funeral pyre" of explosives to honor his dead lover Dorio, which would also kill him. He uses his final moments to encourage David to save himself before the explosion.
  • Lucy's True Love's Kiss manages to pull David out of his cyberpsychosis long enough for him to help her escape with Falco and provoke Adam Smasher into a Hopeless Boss Fight to buy them time. David uses his final moments to reject Smasher's offer to become a construct and goes out smiling, knowing he kept his loved one safe.
• Death Note: Light in the final moments of the anime. His eyes are drawn in a more innocent manner, and he sees himself before he ever became Kira while sobbing in sadness, indicating regret at having picked up the Death Note.
• Digimon Frontier: Cherubimon loses his monstrous appearance right before he dies.
• Fairy Tail: At the end of the Tower of Heaven arc, Erza gives a Really Dead Montage for Jellal, whose body they never found. In it, she theorizes that he returned to his good self before preforming a Heroic Sacrifice to save them. It turns out that he didn't die, he was just in a coma, but as Erza predicted, he did return to his old self.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Most homunculi die as themselves (which are usually hideous monsters, so it's mostly an inversion). Even "Father" is eventually sucked into the Gate to "not die" as himself, in the form he loathes, presumably for the rest of eternity. In an in-world aversion to this (and one of the few cases this trope is played straight), Bradley dies as a gray-haired old man, as he originally was a human and a part of him thought himself as such, being the only one of the Homunculi to keep this form after fatal injury and death.
  • Also the reason why Scar killed the chimera Tucker created: it was the mix of Nina and her dog Alexander, and there was no possibility of returning to them to their normal state.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Sloth has been spending all her "life" trying to prove she's not Trisha Elric, but as she's dying, she tells them to "take care of each other".
• In Fushigi Yuugi, Miboshi's power as a Seishi is to possess the bodies of living people in order to prolong his own life, and spends most of the series in the form of a small child... until he possesses Chiriko, who has just enough will power to throw him off, just long enough to commit single-bodied murder-suicide.
• Gankutsuou: The Count and Ferdanand get this when they kick it.
• Inori, Gai, and Mana are given this at the end of Guilty Crown, the latter two getting a sweet Together in Death moment and the former absorbing the Apocalypse Virus from Shu and killing herself in the process.
• Highschool of the Dead:
  • Hisashi Igou is bitten by one of "them" and requests this of Takashi. Unfortunately, Takashi hestiates long enough for Hisashi to become one of them.
  • Furthermore, in Episode 6, Kouta and Takashi request this of each other in the event of being bitten... but only in the dub, for whatever reason.
  • Saeko uses this to comfort a student who has been bitten and thus must be put down.
• In Inuyasha, Sango's possessed little brother Kohaku becomes himself again just for a moment before he dies. He gets better.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Phantom Blood: Black Knight Bruford is defeated when Jonathan manages to unleash a flurry of Ripple-infused punches on him. Since the Ripple is the essence of life itself, it temporarily revitalizes the zombie even as it starts to destroy his body and the honorable personality he had in life is restored. Bruford spends his final moments acknowledging Jonathan as a friend and passes on his sword "Luck" to him in honor of Jonathan's courage, going the extra mile of renaming his sword "Luck & Pluck".
  • Diamond is Unbreakable: Yoshikage Kira impersonated Kosaku Kawajiri after killing him to hide from the heroes. After getting his head crushed and appearing in the Ghost Alley, his face transitions back from Kosaku's to his original one as he threatens Reimi, only to get dragged away by the hands of the dead.
  • Stone Ocean: F.F.'s greatest fear was losing their intelligence and not being able to say goodbye to their friends if they died. Therefore, they're actually quite happy that, even though they died, they got to say goodbye to Jolyne and tells her not to bring them back, as it wouldn't be them.
• In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, after being brainwashed and forcing his best friend to kill him, Knuckle Joe's father shakes Nightmare's control long enough to make one final request: that Meta Knight brings his locket to his son.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999) has Volvagia being corrupted by Ganondorf during the seven years between Link's seal and Adult Link's awakening (long story short, Volvagia was actually a friend of Link who Link managed to buy from a Bazaar), and Link reluctantly fights Volvagia, with him continously attempting to get Volvagia to remember what it once was. It was only after Link was forced to decapitate Volvagia that it came back to its senses, and somberly tells Link that it "hurts." in one of the manga's biggest Tear Jerkers.
• At the end of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, in a combination of this and Staking the Loved One, Reinforce has Nanoha and Fate delete her permanently because she can't prevent her Self-Preservation Program from starting to regenerate.
• In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, one of the alternate timelines in Episode 10 ends when an imminently witch-ifying Madoka requests that Homura end her life. Homura complies with immense grief.
• In "Saint Seiya", anime only Crystal Saint, got brainwashed by Arles and went into a duel to the death with his former apprentice, Cygnus Hyoga. After getting the fatal blow by Hyoga, he regains control of himself, destroys the Ice Pyramid meant for Arles and finally ask for forgiveness for what he had done and giving one last lesson to his apprentice before dying in his arms.
• In s-CRY-ed, the Brainwashed and Crazy Biff's last words, after being only able to say "Hammer" for the entire season is a relieved sounding, "My name is... Biff."
• In Shadow Skill, insane Fallen Hero G is finally restored to sanity when he is forced to fight Gau in a lucid state. He self-destructs shortly afterwards as he was already a Paper TalismanLich Living on Borrowed Time but Death Equals Redemption.
• In Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry, Ralph Werec's insanity loses hold of him just as his sister is forced to kill him to keep him from enacting his Omnicidal Maniac vision on the galaxy. To heap on the symbolism, his musical pendant snaps off when it happens, just like her identical one did when he destroyed her Flyssa in the first episode.
• Transformers: Energon features the Autobot Inferno suffering from being corrupted by Megatron's power and being turned into an insane Decepticon. Eventually, as he was pulled into the Energon Sun, Inferno broke free of the influence and his Autobot symbol returned. Subverted somewhat as his spark (a transformer's soul) survived and was later given a new body, reborn as Roadblock.
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-: Syaoran is a soulless enemy after Acid Tokyo, but after Sakura's death, he returns to what he was before. We only find this out in the few moments before his death.
• A girl in Venus Versus Virus who's turning into a Virus manages to Resist the Beast enough. However, when she begins to lose self-control, Lucia shoots her; she's still able to die contently in her brother's arms.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, When a Dark Signer loses a Duel of Darkness while possessed by his Jibakushin (Earthbound God/Immortal), he gets "unpossessed" for a few moments before he dies.
• While it doesn't fall squarely under this trope, the book burnings of Pamoon and Laila in Zatch Bell! have elements of this trope, as Pamoon's pride as a warrior is restored before he goes, and Laila's book burning is at her request, since she has no part in the battle to decide the present Demon King. Before this, they were controlled into near paralysis by Zofis' inflicted fear.

• Batman: An early Golden Age Detective Comics story features a man named Lamb who, after falling downstairs and hitting his head, gains a split personality named Wolf, who awakens at midnight and commits the crimes from the book he was reading at the time. At the end, he is chased by Batman through the museum and falls down the same stairs, breaking his neck, and reverting to Lamb as he dies.
• The Incredible Hulk: Just barely averted with Betty Ross. When Skaar stabs Red She-Hulk, Betty reverts to herself in time to die... only to be saved by Doc Samson.
• Justice League (2018): A future version of Cheetah alludes to this just before pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to help the Justice League escape.
• Lucifer: When Lucifer kills the demon Musubi, he asks her if she's sure she wants to die wearing the form of a Heian lady and she replies that it's easier to kill.
• Mega Man (Archie Comics): In the epilogue to the Mega Man 3 storyline/prologue to Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Unite, half of the Wily Robot Masters absolutely refuse to live out their lives in forced normalcy and opt to be shut down. This really hurts Mega Man and Roll.
• Red Daughter of Krypton: A body-surfing enemy is taking over Supergirl's mind, so she removes her Red Ring (even though Red Lanterns die if they take their rings off) as a last resort to kill it while she can still think for herself.
• Revolutionary War: Killpower shakes off Mephisto's conditioning for a moment and asks the assembled heroes to kill him before that personality returns. They oblige.
• The Spirit: Towards the end of Darwyn Cooke's run, the titular vigilante evokes the trope by name after being nearly beaten to death by Big Bad El Morte, ripping his mask off while saying "I want to die as me".... He doesn't actually die, but it does invoke this trope.
• Swamp Thing: In the story "The Curse", a young woman's repressed anger at her misogynistic husband causes her, under occult influence, to transform into a werewolf and attempt to kill him. However, even in her frenzied state, she can't bring herself to do so. Upon hearing from the Swamp Thing that he can't release her from her "cursed" state, she impales herself in despair. She then transforms back into human form and, before dying, asks the Swamp thing if her husband's okay. When he assures her so, she dies happily.
• Teen Titans:
  • After Madame Rouge is fatally wounded by Beast Boy in New Teen Titans #15, the mental conditioning that she'd been subjected to by the Brain finally wears off. With her dying breath, she expresses regret for her actions, and urges Beast Boy to escape her exploding fortress before it's too late.
  • Jericho is possessed by the evil spirits of Azarath during Titans Hunt. He manages to get rid of them for a moment and asks his father for a Mercy Kill. Understanding his suffering and what's at stake, Deathstroke kills his own son.
• Usagi Yojimbo: After Jei is exorcised from her, Inazuma dies like this in her brother's arms after months of Fighting from the Inside.
• Watchmen has a possible example when Rorschach dies at the end of Chapter 12: he takes off his mask and is killed while he has his human face visible, rather than what he refers to as his "real" face, which is his mask. He said earlier that the mask is a face he can tolerate, face of someone who sees no grey areas in world. In the end he is killed by his friend, because he refuses to hide a terrible secret. Thus, he gives up, abandons his face and tells his friend to kill him. Alternately, he doesn't need the mask to be his face; he is Rorschach through and through, sticking to his principles by accepting death rather than compromise, so it doesn't matter what face he wears on top anymore.
• X-Men:
  • Played with during one of the most known examples, in The Dark Phoenix Saga. Jean Grey taps into a source of infinite power, the Phoenix Force, and becomes Phoenix — when she gets Drunk with Power, she turns into Dark Phoenix, a being so insanely powerful that she may destroy complete solar system on a whim. The X-Men fight against her, attempting the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight. Eventually, the good Jean does emerge, but asks her friends for a Mercy Kill. Neither Wolverine nor Cyclops can bring themselves to do that, as they love her, so she eventually commits suicide.
  • Karima Shapandar, under the control of her Sentinel programming, attacks Utopia and is disabled during the fight by Hellion. When she briefly reasserts herself over her programming, she begs Hellion to kill her to prevent her from attacking everyone again, and he complies.
  • In Nightcrawlers #1, Wallcrawler volunteers for a likely suicide mission, scouting the World Farm, as he can feel Sinister's presence growing at the back of his mind, eating away at his free will. The stolen lab complex on the World Farm has teleport shielding, so he dies instantly when he reappears there. Over the next century this becomes a tradition for Nightkin who feel their identity slipping away.

• In As the Wind Blows, a realistic variant occurs with an elderly and senile Shiro when he dies with his memories returned. Naturally, it allows him to die in peace.
• In Break My Heart, Break Your Heart, Gabriel Reyes briefly emerges from within Reaper as he lays dying, just long enough to say goodbye to his friends and apologize for all the evil he had done.
• In Cenotaph, Stormtiger, after turning into the newest Butcher, blows his own head off rather than remain trapped in the prison that's being controlled in that manner.
• John Druitt in Concerning Us. When they find a way with Janine to remove the elemental from his brain both know that it can mean his death, but agree that it's their best option. In the end they succeed but the elemental kills him — still, in his last moments, he's finally free.
• In the Warcraft fanfiction Coup de What, Deathwing regains his mind as Neltharion after being mortally wounded. Despite knowing that Alexstrasza could heal him, he asks her not to, preferring to die as Neltharion rather than inevitably being corrupted by the Old Gods again.
• In Dangerous Tenant, Jill Valentine chooses this when the Doctor confirms that the only thing keeping her alive after sustaining serious injuries is a subtle strain of the T-Virus, as Jill doesn't want to risk becoming another mutation and the Doctor having no time to find a viral combination that will save her before Wesker initiates his own plans to infect the world with another strain of the virus.
• Dark Chocolate is a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Death Fic where Wonka refuses treatment for his leukemia. He would rather not risk spending his last days being unable to eat candy due to the medicine.
• Happens within A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism, with a chaos infected knight delivering message to the main character while holding back his corruption by pure force of will, going out with a shout of defiance.

  "You didn't get me, you hear me?!? Reinhardt Hertwig died with his soul free!"

• EVA Sessions: Someplace Vast and Dry: Kyoko briefly regains lucidity long enough to tell Asuka how much she loves her, before dying from a stroke caused by a combination of her Contact Experiment-induced dementia and complications from a head injury inflicted by a terrorist during the hostage situation at the NERV Evangelion Center six months before.
• In the Pony POV Series Recursive Fanfiction Fading Futures, Twilight Tragedy manages to Set Right What Once Went Wrong via telepathic messages to her past self, preventing the Epilogue timeline from ever happening in the first place. However, as a result, the timeline begins to fade, everyone basically dying and being reborn as their Reharmonized counterparts. She spends the rest of her time before her impending final confrontation with Discord comforting her friends as they do this trope. Her original plan was to allow her pent-up revenge and pain to consume her and become Nightmare Purgatory for one last Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Discord, but upon realizing that if she brutally kills him in cold blood when he can't defend himself, she'll have become She Who Fights Monsters. She manages to free herself from Nightmare form, lets go of all her pain and suffering, and forgives Discord, deciding to fade away as Twilight Sparkle rather than Twilight Tragedy or Nightmare Purgatory.
• Happens to Twilight Sparkle in Fallout: Equestria. After spending over two centuries as part of the Goddess' Hive Mind, including being used as a genetic template for one of the three sub-races of alicorn drones, she manages to temporarily free herself after the Goddess' demise by leaping into a host body. After helping Littlepip and company escape the exploding facility her consciousness 'died', represented by the cutie mark on the host body fading away.
• In A Growing Affection, Sasuke has allowed Orochimaru to perform a Grand Theft Me in return for Itachi's murder. And he is forced to swear that if he interferes in a fight between Orochimaru and any of his former teammates, Sasuke's soul will be ejected from his body. Uchiha chooses to do so anyway, so that he can give Naruto a chance to kill his body while he is in control.
• Gordon Freeman in Half-Life: Full Life Consequences. He was reanimated by the Combine's science, but John Freeman breaks it off of his face. He dies, but with a smile on his face.
• Attempted in In Sheep's Clothing, in a flashback in which Queen Chrysalis is the victim of an imminent Grand Theft Me:

  All at once, I felt a pull on my very essence, as if hooks had dug into me and had begun to drag me towards the box she held. At the same time, something foreign was burrowing its way into my body. All of a sudden, I knew. She was going to become queen not by trying to take my magic, but by stealing my body. I was being evicted, torn out without ceremony or care, separated from the font of power that marked me as queen of the hive.
  My fear turned into determination. With a final burst of magic, I took hold my axe one last time. If she was going to take my body, I was going to make sure she felt it.
  I aimed my axe at my own neck and hurled it, just as I had finally lost my grip on my own body.

• In Maim de Maim, this trope is much of the reason as to why Nui tries to kill herself after Ragyo cancels her antipsychotics prescription — without said medication, her split personality (Nui Prime) will take over, and she isn't keen on letting that happen. Her attempts end in failure.
• The Doctor Who fanfic The Moment Has Been Prepared For centers around Donna Noble's death from the perspective of her granddaughter by her side on her deathbed. Right before dying, Donna becomes Doctor-Donna again and remembers all her adventures with the doctor. Arguably a subversion — Donna regenerates and doesn't die after all.
• Brainwashed and Crazy Luu-Luu from The Night Unfurls, when she is stabbed through the chest by the Holy Moonlight Sword of a reluctant Kyril. She thanks him for doing the deed as he holds her hand during her final moments.
• In Poké Wars: The Exigence, Harley's Ariados becomes animalistically hungry due to the dampener removal. He spends several chapters following May and her group, trying to figure out a way to kill them without the blame falling on him. During a Ursaring attack, however, the inner voice that represents his pre-removal self wins over the bloodlust, and he tackles Harley out of the way of a Hyper Beam that burns the bottom half of his body to nothing.
• Averted in the Death Note fanfic Story of the Century. Original Character Erin attempts to destroy the notebooks under Light's and Misa's ownership to restore them to their original personalities, and to keep L from testing the 13-day rule, but L blocks her. When Light is cornered and Ryuk writes his name in his notebook, he dies in his father's arms, defending Kira's cause with his last breath.
• Super RWBY Sisters: At the end of "RWBY and the Seven Sirens", as the Empress Siren lies dying, her corruption fades, giving her a chance to apologize to both the heroes as well as the other sirens for everything she did before she dies.

• In Afro Samurai: Resurrection, Kuma, said to have had so much of himself replaced by cybernetics that nothing of his original personality remained, shows there's still some humanity left in him after all before dying.
• Vincent's death at the end of Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, and his choice to not kill Electra, having just remembered his life with her, definitely falls into this trope. "I remembered your face."
• Towards the end of Digimon: The Movie, Kokomon turned into his pure, virus-free form shortly before disappearing. He gets better.
• Kitaro Birth The Mystery Of Gegege: It takes almost 70 years for Tokiya's soul to be put to rest after being turned into a Kyoukotsu.
• In Mune: Guardian of the Moon, the Big Bad, Necross, was once a hero and guardian until something went wrong. The protagonist, Mune, realizes that he's had a Corruptor wound around his heart the entire time, and tears it away. Briefly, Necross morphs back into his original form before dying.
• Happens to King Candy/Turbo, the Big Bad of Wreck-It Ralph. The climax sees him merging with a Cy-Bug, and being defeated by Ralph exploiting a piece of Cy-Bug programming, namely, that they are programmed to always go towards bright lights, even if said bright light comes from an erupting volcano. He alternates between straight following the Cy-Bug programming and protesting, with the shift being marked by a change between his King Candy disguise and his true appearance as Turbo. It's his true, protesting self that's in charge when the volcano vaporizes him.

• A variation in Blade II. Nyssa has been bitten by Nomak and is succumbing to The Virus. Per her request, Blade gently carries her out into the sunlight, allowing her to die as a vampire. Priest asks for this earlier in the film, but it's too late.
• In The Bourne Identity, the Professor has a lapse of humanity shortly before he dies in order to deliver the Arc Words to Jason: "Look at us. Look at what they make you give."
• In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dracula reverts back to his young human form as he lay dying.
• In The Crazies (2010), Russell realizes that he's going to succumb to the craziness soon and goes down in a Heroic Sacrifice to buy time for his friends.
• Dawn of the Dead (1978) subverts this with Roger. Rather than accept Peter's offer to kill him as a human, Roger chooses to succumb because he "wants to try to not come back as one". He reanimates and is shot.
• The alternate ending of Disturbing Behavior has this happening to Gavin. In his last words, he laments the fact that he'll never get to meet his idol, Trent Reznor.
• Doom: When Goat realizes that he's turning into a zombie, he kills himself. He crosses himself before bashing his head fatally against the wall, showing that he's still himself at the time.
• Dracula: The Dark Prince: Leonardo is bitten by vampires during the rescue attempt to save Alina. He uses a crossbow to destroy the ceiling above to expose sunlight and destroy him.
• In The Exorcist, Father Damien invites the demon who possesses Reagan into him in order to save her. This causes his skin to go white. The moment just before he flings himself out of the window, his skin returns to normal.
• The trope is repeated in The Exorcist III where Father Morning is able to weaken the demons' control of Damien long enough for Kinderman to get in a few shots at the request of Damien.

  Damien: BILL, NOW! SHOOT NOW! KILL ME NOW—!

• The Fly (1986) features a Double Subversion of this. Seth Brundle doesn't think he can die as himself before the Brundlefly persona can take over — however, given that he does silently request Veronica to kill him with the shotgun, Seth does die more human than monster on the inside.
• Infamously in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason reverts back to his child form after drowning in toxic waste.
• Fright Night (1985). After "Evil" Ed Thompson is converted into a vampire and turns on his friends, one of the characters presses a cross into his forehead, branding him. After he's killed by a wooden stake in the heart, the forehead brand disappears and his face relaxes, indicating that he's finally at peace. Subverted in the end and the later canon comics — he's not dead, he's still a vampire, and still a bit of a creep.
• Fright Night (2011): Similarly to the original's example, Ed, after being turned into a vampire by Jerry on a bad night, gleefully assists his new maker in tracking down the heroes and trying to kill his former friend. However, the moment Charley stakes Ed, Ed spends his final moments before disintegrating gently telling Charley that it's okay, and a freeze-frame bonus as he crumbles shows his face reverting to his human appearance just as he crumbles.
• From Dusk Till Dawn: After he is bitten by the vampires, Jacob makes his children promise him to put him down before he turns. Unfortunately, when that time comes Scott hesitates and gets killed, before Kate finishes him off.
• Pvt. "Gomer Pyle" from Full Metal Jacket threatens to go on a shooting spree. He is referred to by Joker by his real name Leonard. This causes Pyle to stand down and kill himself.
• Prince Koura from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad regains his youth in the climax and is killed as a young man.
• Harbinger Down: The Harbinger's captain gets infected and orders one of the others to keep him covered with the spray tank of liquid nitrogen. Eventually he begs to be frozen now rather than wait for the infection to take its course. Unfortunately, the monster that infected him is Not Quite Dead and kills the man with the tank before he can do so.
• The Hunger Games: Kind of. It's what Peeta wants. If he's going to die in the arena, he doesn't want the Games to change who he is, like they often do with other tributes.
• In The Invisible Man (1933), Griffin becomes visible again when he dies.
• The Lazarus Effect: Once Eva hits Zoe with enough tranquilizers, she calms down before dying. Then subverted: not only does Zoe survive, it might have been just a dying dream.
• After David from The Lost Boys dies, his beard stubble disappears and he looks much younger. The vampire curse which plagued him had been lifted.
• The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: After spending years believing that he's Don Quixote, Javier has a fatal fall and regains his sanity. Just before dying, he recalls that he was cast for the role of Don Quixote because Toby thought he had "the kind of face you see in insurance commercials."
• In Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Winston is scratched by a Crank and infected, so he begs his friends to help them so that he won't become a Crank. Newt hands him a loaded gun, and the rest quietly leave. After the group travels far enough, a gunshot is heard.
• In The Monster Squad, when the Wolfman is fatally wounded, he turns back into a human and manages to whisper "Thank you" before expiring.
• Morbius (2022): After Michael stabs the Big Bad with the poison syringe, he loses his Game Face and pleads for his life, and Michael finally calls him by his real name, Lucian, instead of Milo, the Affectionate Nickname given when they first met as children.
• In The Neanderthal Man, the titular monster transforms from a Neanderthal back into a human before he dies.
• The Notebook is based around the fact that people with dementia occasionally experience moments of clarity, which can be comforting if slightly disturbing for the family. It's one of the most depressing chick flicks ever.
• Onmyōji (2001): Sukehime chooses to commit suicide, and is able to die as a human rather than as a murderous demon.
• In The Return of the Living Dead, Frank does this by turning on the morgue crematorium and climbing inside, having just seen Freddy give in to the pain and become another brain-eating zombie. That he's doing this to try and preserve his humanity through his destruction is obvious; he solemnly removes his wedding ring, kisses it and hangs it up, then offers a short prayer to be forgiven before immolating himself.
• Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • Although he had just tried to kill Spider-Man, Green Goblin's last words in Spider-Man show some of Norman's humanity peeking through.

    Norman: Peter... don't tell Harry.

  • Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2: "I will not die a monster!"
• Star Wars:
  • In Return of the Jedi, Anakin Skywalker's final wish before dying is that his son remove his mask so he can look at him "with [his] own eyes". And he does: his eyes are not the red-ringed sulphur-yellow of a Sith he had as Darth Vader, but the blue eyes he had as a Jedi.
  • The Rise of Skywalker sees Kylo Ren follow in his grandfather's footsteps, becoming Ben Solo again in time to give his life for Rey. This is highlighted by Rey taking his hand and holding him in her arms, which she said she would only do for Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren.
• Thor: Love and Thunder: After the Necrosword is destroyed, Gorr's body returns to normal, but he is still focused on his revenge. It's only when Thor tells him that Eternity can bring his daughter back to life instead of killing the gods that the loving father he was finally returns. He spends his last moments cradled by his returned daughter.
• Time After Time: Stevenson nods to Herbert when Herbert goes to remove the time machine key which will kill Stevenson. Stevenson knows he's a monster and needs to be stopped.
• In TRON: Legacy, Rinzler, who turns out to be the corrupted Tron, has a Heel Realization while he and Clu are chasing Sam, Kevin and Quorra in fighters above the Sea of Simulation, and commits a Heroic Sacrifice to help the heroes get away. As he sinks to the bottom, his Tron Lines change from orange to blue.
• In Van Helsing, the title character kills Mr. Hyde, who turns back into Dr. Jekyll right before he dies. Apparently, this trope applies to many of the monsters Van Helsing kills, which causes some people to consider him a murderer.
• Warcraft (2016): Before dying, Medivh returns to his human form and has a final chance of redemption by opening a portal to Stormwind in the middle of the orcs' camp, allowing the human prisoners to escape.
• At the end of The Wolfman (2010), Gwen fatally shoots Lawrence. As he lays dying he reverts to human form and thanks Gwen for doing what needed to be done.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X2: X-Men United: Lady Deathstrike is kept under Stryker's control by use of a formula which periodically has to be renewed, as indicated by her irises changing color. She has a fight to the death with Wolverine which ends when he injects her body with liquid adamantium—moments before the formula wears off. We see her eyes change, and she looks at him before dying.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand: The Phoenix transforms from a nasty veined, green-grey skinned demon with black eyes to her regular self; Jean Grey smiles peacefully when Logan kills her.

• The 10th Kingdom: The Big Bad reverts to her original, non-evil persona when dealt a mortal wound and spends her last moments consoling the daughter she'd spent the series trying to kill.

  Virginia: No! No! No, please, don't die, don't die! Just remember who you are!
  Christine: It's too late. Don't cry. My little girl. [smiles] My little girl. I gave away my soul...

• Babylon 5:
  • Londo's death; he's had a keeper on his neck keeping him controlled for the last 18 years or so. Only in rare times does it let him free as himself for a few minutes or hours, usually if he gets drunk. Takes the form of Prophecy Twist as he had a vision when he was very young of him being strangled to death by G'Kar, as shown in the first episode, but rather than being an act of hatred it's an old friend carrying out a Mercy Kill.
  • "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" has a variation. A fascist dystopia is using holographic simulations, endowed with the forms and (initially) the personalities of Sheridan, Delenn, Franklin and Garibaldi, to make a propaganda film discrediting the Interstellar Alliance. Rather than allow the film to be released and tarnish the legacy of his long-deceased friends, the Garibaldi hologram hacks into the system and broadcasts the plan, as well as the location of the secret base where the film's being made, to the enemies of the people making it. Unfortunately, this starts a nuclear war, although it was implied to be about to start anyway, and Garibaldi made sure the good guys got the first shot.
• In Being Human (UK), Lauren begs for an assisted suicide with this as justification. She says that pretty soon the girl who was afraid her parents catching her smoking won't be there anymore.
• There's a Bonanza episode titled "The Dark Gate" in which one of Adam's friends has lost his mind and started stealing cattle and abusing his wife. The poor man dies at the end, but when he does he acts like somebody waking up from a long nightmarish sleep.
• Breaking Bad: The series finale, "Felina", has a dark spin on this. Walter finally admits to his wife that everything he did as Heisenberg, he did for himself, because he enjoyed it rather than for his family, as he stated many times over the course of the series. Shortly afterward, he dies in a drug lab, the place he's realized he was always meant to be.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Used in "Becoming, Part 2" when Buffy defeats Angelus just as Willow completes her spell to turn him back to Angel. Although he is himself again, Buffy has to kill him anyway to close the gate that Angelus opened. It's reversed when he comes back, though.
  • Glory can never be killed so Giles murders her mortal avatar Ben.
  • Spike's mum, in the much, much later (Season 7, near the end) episode "Lies My Parents Told Me". With particular reference to the moment of grateful self-recovery.
• Doctor Who:
  • Padmasambhava in "The Abominable Snowmen", released from the grip of the Great Intelligence and finally able to pass on in peace...

    "At last... my soul is freed. Thank you for returning, Doctor, and... saving me from myself."

  • In "The Mutants", Varan and his warrior clan choose this rather than await the mutation that has taken over the other inhabitants of their planet, charging the Overlords' space station to certain death.
  • Cheetah Person Karra in "Survival" reverts to human form as she dies, and has time for a few last words with Ace.
  • In "The Age of Steel", the Doctor destroys all the Cybermen's emotional inhibitors, causing them to remember their humanity and realise what they've become, which in turn causes their heads to explode.

    Cyber Controller: What have you done?!
    The Doctor: I gave them back their souls!

  • In "The Satan Pit", after the Beast is flung into the black hole, the Ood trapped on Krop Tor as it falls in after him are freed from his control, looking very confused.
  • Averted in "The Lazarus Experiment": although Lazarus returns to his original human form when he dies (both times), his personality was the same throughout, even when he was in his monstrous form.
  • The villain of "The Unicorn and the Wasp" is brainwashed to kill thanks to an Exposition Beam informing him of his heritage getting mixed up with the murder mysteries his birth mother is a fan of. At the end, when he drowns, it's implied he may have returned to normal when he releases Agatha Christie, who was mentally linked to him, from the link before she would have died.
  • A heroic variation is basically invoked on the Doctor by each of their regenerations, made visible at the end of Ten and Eleven's respective lives: the first phase of regeneration is that the Doctor's current body "resets" before the Doctor changes into their next self (Ten losing his facial injuries and Eleven resetting from his advanced age back to his original youth).
  • What the Twelfth Doctor tries to do in lieu of regenerating in "The Doctor Falls". He doesn't want to go through the agony of becoming a new person all over again because he's at last content with the man he currently is. Instead of regenerating, he stops the process and allows himself to die. Only his companion, Bill, and her lover Heather have something to say about this. Moreover, while he still manages to stop it in the final scene of this story, his first incarnation suddenly arrives on the scene...
• In Dollhouse, a doll is programmed to murder an enemy of Rossum, but manages to resist and commits suicide. It's a slight variation in that it wasn't literally themselves, but rather an imprint that had managed to gain control.
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: Matthew's fiance Ingrid gets bitten by a rabid dog and soon the symptoms of the disease develop: she screams and moves about uncontrollably, she's afraid of water and she doesn't recognize anybody. When her death is near, she regains lucidity and is again like her own self. Matthew comes to her to say goodbye and they have a metaphorical wedding.
• Alia in Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Possessed by Baron Harkonnen, her suicide breaks his hold over her, returning her to her normal self.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Implied in "The Winds of Winter". When King Tommen sees the Great Sept explode, with his wife Queen Margaery, her brother Loras, their father Mace Tyrell, Kevan Lannister, the High Sparrow and several hundreds of people inside, destroying part of King's Landing with wildfire, he takes off his crown before jumping off a window, dying as Tommen Baratheon instead of as King of the Seven Kingdoms. In addition, in jumping out the window of the Red Keep, he's finally able to make a single decision as his own person without anyone guiding his hand — not Tywin, not Cersei, not the High Sparrow.
  • Word of God has confirmed that Bran's warging wore off by the time that Hodor actually held the door against the Wights. Hodor therefore chose to hold off the Wights and allow Bran and Meera to escape of his own free will. His last thoughts were even that of happiness, knowing he managed to save his friends' lives.
• Highlander: Strongly implied in the episode "Turnabout". Duncan's fellow Immortal Michael Moore turns up, saying that his old enemy Quentin Barnes is on the loose and killing again, thirty years after being executed for the murder of Michael's wife. It turns out that Barnes is a Split Personality, sharing time with Michael, and the "Barnes" personality is getting stronger. In the climax, Michael seems to briefly retake control and hold himself motionless so Duncan can kill him, and Barnes with him.
• In Horatio Hornblower episode "Retribution", the mad Captain Sawyer seems to regain his sanity when Wellard enters the cabin, intending to kill him so that he won't name either Hornblower or Kennedy as the man who pushed him. Sawyer confronts this calmly and admits that Wellard is worthy of respect. Though Wellard can't go through with it, the Spanish break in moments later and Sawyer stands side-by-side with Wellard, calling him a brave lad just before they're both shot down.
• In Kamen Rider Kabuto, the Scorpioworm as Tsurugi tells Tendou to kill him. Also counts as Suicide by Cop, since his Face–Heel Turn and everything that followed was a gambit to get most, if not all, of the Worms killed.
• In the final season of Lost, Sayid, who has been in an emotionless state and serving the Big Bad for the entire season, finally breaks out of it and performs a Heroic Sacrifice, dying to save his friends.
• Merlin (2008): In Series 4, this is Lancelot to Merlin after Morgana brings him back from the dead as a 'shade', controlled entirely by her, and forces him to stop Arthur and Gwen's marriage, leading to Gwen's banishment of Camelot. Just before Merlin gives him a proper funeral, he awakens as himself once last time to thank Merlin.
• Once Upon a Time (2011):
  • Invoked twice, though no one actually dies, in the Season 2 Finale. Greg and Tamara have activated a trigger that will destroy Storybrooke and kill everyone. Grumpy gives Rumpelstiltskin a potion that he will cause Lacey to lose her cursed memories and return her memories of her as Belle, saying that she shouldn't die as Lacey. As Regina prepares to sacrifice herself to stop the trigger, she begs Emma to let her do it citing this:

    Regina: Everyone looks at me as The Evil Queen, including my son. Let me die as Regina.

  • Invoked in the Season 5 mid-finale by Hook. He was turned into a Dark One and consumed by the darkness, almost dragging all of Storybrooke into the Underworld. But finally seeing Emma in danger made him strong enough to fight it off and he begs her to stab him with Excalibur and let him destroy their darkness with his death.

    Hook: Let me die a hero. As the man I want you to remember, please.

• In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Beryl takes off her crown as her lair collapses and says that she is tired of pretending to be a queen
• An example from Rescue Me may apply, though it does not involve death. Chief Jerry Reilly's beloved wife is rapidly deteriorating due to Alzheimer's disease. For weeks, she's been calling him "Bud", her brother's name. After she tries to kill herself while he's out, he realizes that he can no longer care for her properly and commits her to a nursing home for Alzheimer's patients. After he says goodbye to her and begins walking away, she calls after him on the verge of tears, "Jerry!"
• Ashley in Sanctuary (2007). She breaks free from the brainwashing just long enough to address Magnus, shed a tear, and decide to kill herself along with the last bad guy.
• Smallville:
  • In "Visage", Tina Greer dies as herself after her Karmic Death.
  • In "Eternal", Davis tries to convince Chloe into doing a Mercy Kill, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. When Clark crashes in, Doomsday starts to emerge, and the fear for Clark's life overcame her guilt and she pulled the lever. Davis turns back to being himself as he dies. Unfortunately, it doesn't stick.
• Stargate-verse:
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • In "The Enemy Within", Charles Kawalsky is taken over by a Goa'uld and undergoes surgery to remove it; he says beforehand that "I want to wake up as myself or not at all."
    • "Serpent's Song" ends with the death of Apophis; without him, his host quickly ages and dies as well, and Daniel performs an Egyptian death ritual to let the host Face Death with Dignity. Sokar later uses the sarcophagus to bring Apophis back to life, but hopefully nothing of the host survived death.
    • The end of "Forever in a Day", after Teal'c shoots Sha're to save Daniel. Ammonet (the symbiote) dies leaving Sha're just enough time to tell Daniel she loves him before she dies as well.
  • Stargate Atlantis has a variation when Rodney comes down with "Second Childhood", basically advanced Alzheimer's. Ronon and Teyla want to take him to a particular location that will allow him to regain his identity long enough to say his goodbyes and die with dignity. Once they get there, Rodney immediately says "The hell with dying!" and is actually pissed off that they thought he'd be better off cognizant of his impending death. Of course, they eventually do find a way to remove the parasite from his brain.
• Subverted tragically in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Collective", as the oldest leader of a group of Borg children disconnected from collective continues to remain stubbornly loyal to the Borg after the other children begin to regain their individuality. When he is electrocuted, his last words are "We are Borg."
• Supergirl (2015):
  • In "The Darkest Place", M'gann M'orzz asks a vengeful J'onn that if he's going to kill her, she wants to die in the human form she's chosen, rather than her original White Martian form.
  • In "Ace Reporter", Jack turns out to be both mind-controlled and kept alive by a nanobot swarm.
• Supernatural:
  • In Season 1. Meg, possessing an innocent human woman at the time, is thrown out a several-story-high window, but her powers keep the body alive. Episodes later, Dean and Sam exorcise Meg out of her body, and she thanks them right before dying from the injuries.
  • In Season 4, Dean says that at least Sam will "die as a human" if the demon blood detox kills him.
  • Played with in early Season 7. Castiel has absorbed thousands of souls from Purgatory and goes mad with the power. After committing multiple atrocities, he manages to expel the souls and becomes himself again, promising to redeem himself to Dean. However, his body is also infected with Leviathans, which take over and cause his vessel to break down completely and he is presumed dead.
  • In Season 9, after being branded with the Mark of Cain in Episode 11, Dean is corrupted by its influence and slowly becomes Ax-Crazy. In the season finale, after he's fatally wounded by Metatron and dying in Sam's arms, Dean admits he's actually relieved to be dying because the Mark "was turning me into something I don't wanna be." Unfortunately, dying is the final step in doing just that, and Dean is subsequently resurrected as a demon.
• In Twin Peaks, it is eventually revealed that Laura was killed by Bob because she refuses to allow herself to be corrupted by him and do the Black Lodge spirit's will. James mentions that on the night she died, she had some sort of breakdown in front of him, and when she came out of it, she was "the same old Laura", who then proceeded to go off and allow herself to be killed.
• Ultraman Mebius Gaiden: In Ghost Reverse, MechaZamusha tells Mebius to kill him before he becomes a revived Empera.

• Castle Amber: Theophile, the Abbot of Perigon, turns into a monster called the Beast of Perigon when a red comet is overhead. If killed, he returns to his true form.
• Some vampire characters in Vampire: The Masquerade seek to become human again, at any cost. The books suggest that if such a character dies in an act of true self-sacrifice, they die as a human rather than as a vampire.
• Warhammer 40,000: The Emperor of Mankind blasted the daemonically enhanced Horus with a mind spike of such power that it sent the Chaos forces occupying Horus' mind running home screaming. He could see the man that was once his most beloved son in his eyes. Sadly, the Emperor couldn't risk Horus getting possessed again, so he mind reamed him even harder at Horus's own request.

• In the concept album for Jekyll & Hyde, as Hyde dies, his voice fades back to that of Jekyll.
• Peer Gynt has the protagonist dying as himself after a life of not being himself. He needed The Power of Love to get that far.
• In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde dies after Jekyll's friends trick Hyde into using a batch of the formula with a lethal flaw. Jekyll resurfaces for a moment to thank his friends before death overcomes him.

• In Aselia the Eternal - The Spirit of Eternity Sword, if you don't recruit Kyouko and Kouin, the former dies finally freed of the mind control/brainwashing that had been forced on them.
• Fate/stay night: Berserker (in a constant state of madness) gets one of these in the Fate route after being killed for good by Saber, holding a brief conversation with her about the weapon she just used. To a lesser degree in the UBW route as well, as he wills himself back to life for one last shot at killing Gilgamesh because he remembers that Illya reminds him of his own lost child, and then forces himself to remain manifested as she dies to Let Them Die Happy. (Ironically, a similar scene occurs in Fate/Zero with that war's Berserker, returning to the knight Lancelot after being fatally impaled by Saber.)
• In Higurashi: When They Cry, Shion gets a moment of sanity (and regret) before finally dying... sometimes. Once, she actually commits suicide out of remorse after apologizing to Satoko and the others in her mind; in her last breathing moments, she imagines a happy life where she's Satoko's loving older sister. (She gets her wish in another timeline.)

• This is Damien's ultimate fate in Wolf Song: The Movie. At the end of the movie, he is possessed by the Death Alpha, but Kara, his daughter, manages to bring him back to his senses (albeit momentarily). He instructs her to kill him to avoid a Fate Worse than Death for him and the rest of the pack; she reluctantly obliges.

• College Roomies from Hell!!!: Roger Pepitone's mother turns back into a human when Margaret kills her, the first time she'd killed a human at that point. Since she's destined to be a post-apocalyptic warrior, this seems to affect her more than it does Roger.
• In The Order of the Stick, Durkon manages to do this after being turned into a vampire.^note  He bided his time and, when the moment was right, shoved all of his memories into the vampire spirit simultaneously, which (temporarily) caused the spirit to be identical to him long enough to allow Belkar to kill him before he was overwhelmed by the vampirism again.

• In Adventure Time, when the magic that keeps the Ice King a.k.a. Simon Petrikov insane (and immortal) is dispelled, he tells his fiancé Betty not to restore it, as he'd rather die from No Immortal Inertia than go crazy again. She instead convinces him that she can cure his insanity without killing him, and so he goes back to being the Ice King for the time being.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "Lake Laogai", Jet has been brainwashed by the Dai Lee. Although he seems to have broken free at first by memories of his lost family, he finally regains control for real after Aang reminds him he was a freedom fighter (and his memories of his crew). He tries to kill Long Feng. He fails, and Long Feng instead launches a large rock formation which hit him, causing him to die, presumably from internal bleeding. Of course, he dies free and with honor, telling the heroes to escape while they still can.
• BoJack Horseman: Due to the way her life was set up, it's difficult to tell exactly who Sarah Lynn's self was; however, through a series of flashbacks, it can be deduced that she was worn down into a drug-addicted, alcoholic nihilist as a result of many things. Still, before she dies in "That's Too Much, Man!", she realizes that she doesn't like anything about herself. Her parting words in the planetarium she'd been longing to go to are heart-breaking for most fans of the show, as they not only show that she never strayed from her childhood dream (shut down by her Stage Mom), but are also unclear final words until the screen goes black.

  Sarah Lynn: Isn't this place amazing?
  BoJack: Totally. I always forget there are more than just the six stars you can see in the Los Angeles sky.
  Sarah Lynn: Yeah, that's cool too, but I meant this building! It's a giant dome! Domes are so cool.
  BoJack: I prefer rectangular buildings, as I've firmly established.
  Sarah Lynn: I wanna be an architect...
  Neil Degrasse Tyson/Planetarium Show: Be it horse, cat, human, or even lizard, our lives are but the briefest flashes in a universe that is billions of years old.
  BoJack: See, Sarah Lynn? We're not doomed. In the great, grand scheme of things, we're just tiny specks that will one day be forgotten. So it doesn't matter what we did in the past or how we'll be remembered. The only thing that matters is right now, this moment, this one spectacular moment we are sharing together. Right, Sarah Lynn? [beat] Sarah Lynn? [beat] ...Sarah Lynn?

• In Final Space, this is indirectly invoked on one of the zombified alternate Garys: Invictus is exorcised from him, and he remains alive with his wrecked body for about a minute during which he talks with the main Team Squad before expiring.
• Invincible (2021): The first Reaniman experiences this. After his helmet is removed, he sees his reflection and partly snaps out of the brainwashing, looking at his roboticized arms and realizing what he's become, he commits suicide.
• The Owl House: In the Grand Finale "Watching and Dreaming", after being separated from the Titan's heart, Belos' body reconfigures into his original self, Philip Wittebane, who thanks Luz for "freeing" him from a "terrible curse" that made him do evil things. It's a blatant lie that gets undone when the boiling rain hits this human form, burning it and revealing a decaying, muddy skeleton barely clinging onto life. In a sense, this is Belos' true self: a miserable, manipulative monster of Gravesfield inhabiting Philip's corpse.
• In the Samurai Jack episode "Jack and the Lava Monster", the Lava Monster briefly resumes human form after Jack defeats him, at which point he rapidly ages from his time as a golem. Jack gives him his sword before, as he had hoped, the Valkyries come to take his soul to Valhalla.

  Viking: I. AM. FREE! At last, my flesh is restored! The curse... is... lifted...

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Savage Opress was originally a Proud Warrior Race Guy who defended the other Dathomirian males from the Nightsisters. After Ventress chose him as her champion, however, Mother Talzin used magic to turn him into a vicious, hulking brute who was, well, meaningfully named. He stays that way until the end of "The Lawless", when he's mortally wounded by Sidious, whereupon he reverts to his original personality and tearfully tells Darth Maul "Brother, I am an unworthy apprentice. I'm not like you. I never was..." before dying.
• In Transformers: Prime, Silas, who was combined with the sparkless body of Breakdown by his scientist before becoming the Decepticon's new lab rat, was infused with a mix of Knock Out's Synthetic Energon and Dark Energon, turning the body into an Energon-hungry Terracon. During his rampage, he ends up freeing Arachnid (ironically the one who killed Breakdown in the firstplace), who cuts off the body's connection to the Dark Energon. She then opens up the body's chassis, attempting to destroy Breakdown's spark, only to find a weak and tired Silas, who thanks her before passing away.

• People with dementia occasionally experience moments of clarity. It can be rather creepy but also comforting for the family if that person didn't have long to live.
  • This is also the reason why some countries allow elective (as in: the sick person asked for it themselves) euthanasia for people suffering of dementia.
• Up until recent sources have determined to be sketchy in terms of validity, the ancient Persian Emperor Cambysses, first son of Cyrus I, experienced this. During his campaigns in Egypt, the losses and his paranoia over maintaining his power drove him mad. He eventually had his brother, Bardia, assassinated. But then, it was revealed to him while he was on his deathbed that it was another court member that had claimed to be Bardia trying to vie for power; he broke down and begged his advisors to take revenge for his brother.
• Most antipsychotic drugs reduce symptoms of schizophrenia somewhat, but clozapine is the only one that ever really provides a cure. Unfortunately, it also causes side effects ranging from diabetes to agranulocytosis (severe loss of immune system function). Even though these are serious, many "super-responder" patients choose to risk death and remain on clozapine — electing to risk dying as themselves.
• If you believe the story about her Demonic Possession, then this is supposedly how Anneliese Michel died.
• Terminal lucidity is the medical term for a rare and poorly-understood phenomenon occurring in patients with profound mental illness or neurodegenerative disease — though it has been documented in those not suffering from pre-existing conditions as well — shortly before death. In terminal lucidity, the patient's faculties and memories return in the final weeks, days or hours before they die. It's not known for sure what causes this, but for the dying and their family, it may provide them some comfort to see some of what made them who they were return after such a long and horrendous decline, even if the end is near.
• Business example: Radio Shack was founded in 1921 to serve the then brand-spanking-new electronics hobbyist market, which at the time meant ham radio. In the mid 90s it started focusing more and more on consumer electronics, especially cell-phones, at the expense of individual components of interest to hobbyists. This put it up against giants like BestBuy and later Amazon, against whom Radio Shack couldn't compete. By the start of The New '10s the writing was on the wall, and in a last ditch effort to save itself, Radio Shack tried going back to its roots by catering to the maker movement by offering things like 3D printers. This didn't work, and it declared bankruptcy a few years later. It's now remembered by older hams and other electronics nerds as the place down the street where you could buy resistors.