Noose Catch
Ofttimes, a villain shall tumble forth from a high place, never again to be seen. For many reasons, this allows The Hero to remain virtuous and ethical. However, sometimes, this is simply not quite enough.
Perhaps they can swim.
Perhaps one is worried that they'll never find the body. They definitely want him gone.
Or perhaps he's just really evil, yet no court will find him guilty.
When one of these annoying problems poses itself, there is a solution; Noose Catch.
This is when a (character, usually a) villain falls from something rather tall, such as a tree, a cliff, a construction site, or a building, and is stopped by some long, thin, dangling object that happens to wrap around his neck. Vines, chains, ropes, most anything will do.
But no, this doesn't just stop them from falling. It also kills them. Sometimes, their neck just snaps. Otherwise, they get to hang there, dying, as the ropes slowly chokes them to death...
This is commonly used as something like an Ironic Death, as you may have avoided being hanged due to a normal trial, due to lack of evidence or a broken court system, but you still get to be hanged by "other" means. Fate can truly be a cruel mistress. Similarly, it could be the Vigilante Man taking matters into their own hands. Because really, many fatal falls only needed a neatly placed push.
Otherwise, this can be just as easily used in rather the opposite manner, to show that indeed, this villain certainly is just that evil. To be hanged is often seen as the. most. justice-filled way to die. While beheading is often used to show that the executioner is pretty much sadistically evil. But with a nice and proper hanging, it's the hangee that gets the Spotlight of Evil. Thusly, it proves beyond a doubt that this villain got exactly what he deserved.
A Sub-Trope of Disney Villain Death. Compare [or contrast, whichever] No Kill Like Overkill.
As a Death Trope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.
Comic Books
- This happens to a criminal in a Golden Age Seven Soldiers story—he's already been sentenced to death by hanging and escaped prison to avoid that fate. Naturally, while fighting Green Arrow and Speedy, he manages to fall off a cliff with a rope in such a way as to hang himself.
Film - Animated
- Clayton's death in Tarzan, where he falls out of a tree and is hung on vines below.
Film - Live Action
- In the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, Lord Blackwood falls and is hung by chains.
- In Hard Candy, this is what happens to Jeff, the pederast photographer. Hayley, his would-be victim, drives him to it.
- The Golden Child. One of the Big Bad's henchmen had a chain that he used to snare opponents. Near the end of the movie the title character managed to wrap the chain around the henchman's neck. When the henchman fell over a balcony, he ended up being hung by his own chain.
- The Corrupt Corporate Executive in The Island was hung with his own grappling hook.
- A variation occurs in the Dutch horror movie De Lift ("The Elevator" later remade as "Down" and "The Shaft"). As the titular homicidal elevator is destroyed and crashes to the bottom of the shaft, the Corrupt Corporate Executive responsible for its creation gets entangled in the loose cables and is hung in the elevator shaft.
Literature
- Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist accidently hung himself while trying to escape out a window; the plan was to have the rope under his shoulders, but he got freaked out and fell out with it around his neck. Possibly the Ur Example.
Video Games
- The latest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3, features this happening to Makarov, the series' Big Bad.