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Destination Defenestration

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There goes Chad from Accounting...
"The dictionary defines defenestration as the act of throwing a person or thing out a window.
[Spider-Man is thrown out the window of a skyscraper]
Really not my favorite word."
— Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man

The sad fate of many a Mook... mostly because it looks really cool. A sufficiently badass character punches, throws, or in any other way applies the force necessary in order to toss someone else through a window. A loud clangy window with shards rippling everywhere, at least in fiction. In Real Life, the window might be opened first.

How we see this trope typically depends on who is doing it. If a heroic character does it, we actually see them throw someone out the window, but typically not the very messy landing. With villains it's the other way around- to emphasize the cruelty. An ambiguously portrayed character may perform this feat, but you'll have to Take Our Word for It, since showing this trope usually inspires some sort of positive or negative feeling with whoever is doing it.

Bar Brawl Variants (particularly if it's set in the Wild West): Cut to street view of the pub. A character comes flying through the window onto the sidewalk, picks themselves up, and wades back into the fray with much-determined sleeve-pushing-up and angry muttering. Or it signals the end of the brawl.

A safety note: although fictional characters may be thrown through windows and get up again afterwards, in real life you can easily be killed by lacerations from large shards of broken glass, even when thrown through a ground floor window. Live-action TV doesn't use glass for this at all, but specially-made panes of sugar, which is weaker and breaks into much less dangerous shards. In other words, Don't Try This at Home!

See also Glass Smack and Slide for the more comical subversion. When someone does this with an object that's Appliance Defenestration. Compare Railing Kill for bridges and balconies, Thrown Out the Airlock when Recycled In Space, Walk the Plank for ships at sea or in the air, and Death Flight for flying someone into the sky and "dropping them off". Contrast Super Window Jump, when someone does this to themselves, usually intentionally. Also contrast Helpless Window Death, when the character is forced to watch through a window while someone else is killed.

Might overlap with Disney Villain Death. Not necessarily related to The Window or the Stairs, despite the name.

And remember: It's Not the Fall That Kills You…

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • A Bud Light commercial featured an office meeting, with the workers being asked for suggestions on how to save money. One guy suggested they stop serving Bud Light at the meetings. Cut to outside as the guy — still in his chair — goes flying through the window and lands on the ground outside the building.
  • A 90s commercial for Foster's Beer had a scene where a man is violently hurled out of a pub window by a woman while a nearby dog, who was resting on the front step of the pub's door, hauls ass away from the mayhem. What did it all translate from in Australian? The word "No".
  • An ad for Boot's No.7 cosmetics range features a woman in a white ballgown running from security guards, crashing through a window and dropping twenty storeys into an airbag, ending with her stunt double walking away and saying "I've never been the right age to.jump off a building".

    Anime & Manga 
  • In the opening sequence of the AKIRA movie, little guy Kaisuke knocks a rival gang member right through a window, reminding us that being Ambiguously Gay doesn't mean you can't kick major ass.
  • Angel Beats!: It's played for laughs in the very first episode. Twice. On the main cast.
  • In Beelzebub, Kanzaki tells Oga to do this to Shiroyama. Oga punches Kanzaki through the window instead.
  • Hilariously parodied in Bleach. When Ichigo kicks Ebern Azgiaro through his bedroom's window after he shows up out of nowhere standing on his bed (which seems to be kind-of a minor Berserk Button for him), Orihime actually opens said window so it won't break.
  • Case Closed:
    • Conan Edogawa gets thrown off a burning house's window in the Moonlight Sonata arc. Good thing, it's a first-floor window so the kid isn't that badly hurt. Bad thing? The one who threw him out, Seiji Asou aka Narumi Asai aka the Sympathetic Murderer, did that to save Conan from dying with him. Soon he dies in his burning home, playing the Moonlight Sonata in his dad's old piano until he either burns to death or fatally asphyxiates, as Conan and Ran can only sadly watch.
    • Also, several murders have the victims being thrown off windows and balconies or put in circumstances that will make them fall off. In fact, during the Night Baron case, Conan gets thrown off again by a killer of the week: this time it's a very high hotel balcony, but he lands in the pool of the place. Later, the victim of the week is killed in a similar way... plus being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
    • Subverted in a case where it looked that a talented illustrator had committed suicide by jumping off her balcony... but it was a ruse from her killer who staged a complex scenario to trick the police into believing she has killed herself. Conan saw through his act soon, obviously.
    • In a later case, Conan almost plummets from a Big Fancy House's balcony. The nearest person, however, cannot help because he is terrified by heights and about to panic, so the family butler rescues him. And this helps Conan and Heiji deduce how the murder of the case was done.
  • In the manga version of Chrono Crusade, Chrono actually tosses Rosette herself out the window when he becomes frustrated that she won't get up in the morning. When Azmaria responds with horror, Chrono quips "don't worry, there's a lake below!" Cue Rosette coming back up to the window in a soaking wet nightgown and a fish in her mouth.
  • The Cowboy Bebop episode "Ballad of Fallen Angels" has a very memorable scene where Spike is thrown out of the window by Vicious. He then falls in slow motion with the glass raining down alongside him, as soft music plays and fragmented flashbacks reveal their past together... and he casually flips a grenade through the window as he falls, ensuring a world of hurt for his tormentor.
  • A filler episode during the Trunks Saga of Dragon Ball Z had this: Chi-Chi hires a tutor named Mr. Shu for Gohan, who proves to be a Sadist Teacher who prides himself on beating his students with a whip when they don't do what he says, and who gets a sick kick out of openly and relentlessly mocking and insulting Goku. When Chi-Chi finds out his true colors, she's so pissed off that she calmly opens a window, throws him out of said window, and then jumps out the window and chases him off of her property while screaming at him to leave and never come back again.
  • This is how Terry's first love Lily perishes in the Fatal Fury first anime special. To make it worse, Geese throws her off a third-story window... with a Reppuken.
  • Rin Sohma from Fruits Basket, courtesy of Akito. She actually survives, though she is seriously wounded (and her cousin Hiro, who witnessed the incident, is totally traumatised). It helps that she was thrown from a "mere" second floor. Her boyfriend Hatsuharu does not take this lightly.
  • Happens to Ling Yao and Lan Fan from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood at least once.◊ It's hilarious due to how... nonchalant they look as they get thrown own the window itself.
  • Golgo 13 is targeted by cult members armed with hand grenades. He shoots one only to have a live grenade drop from his hand, so Golgo shoots into a nearby car window and dives through the broken glass so he's protected by the car's metal.
  • Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics: The witch in "Rapunzel" she pushes the prince out of the tower with her magic, unlike in the original stories where he jumped out or fell off on his own.
  • GTO: The Early Years:
    • Eikichi throws Takezawa through a window into the building where his gang have Shinomi prisoner.
    • Natsu throws a guy out a window in front of Kamata. Two chapters later, he throws Eikichi into a window.
    • At the school festival, Sakaki offers a million yen to anyone who can knock him out, with Ryuji failing with his Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and having to pay him ten thousand yen. Kiwamezawa takes a different approach, throwing the punching bag Sakaki's in out the second floor window.
  • Played for Laughs in Hetalia: Axis Powers, when Austria freaks out when young Italy sneaks into his bed and ends up kicking him off a window. It's supposed to be an allusion to one of the Defenestrations of Prague mentioned below.
  • In the anime version of High School Dx D, Issei punches Raynare through the glass and outside the church. In the light novels, it was through a wall instead.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable:
    • A heroic example takes place when before being murdered by Yoshikage Kira, the teenaged Reimi Sugimoto threw a toddler boy that she was taking care of outta the nearest window, saving the child's life but falling victim to the murderer almost immediately afterwards. The boy survived and grew up to adulthood... and into the manga artist and Stand User Rohan Kishibe, one of the main characters, who takes an It's Personal approach to the plot when he finds out about this. It's also lampshaded: an old monk who knew Rohan as a kiddo says that when little!Rohan was found alive after Reimi's death, he was so traumatized that he could only say "Reimi threw me out of the window!".
    • Another example from the same part occurs when Josuke is able to track down the minor antagonist Yuya Fungami, after spending all day being chased by his stand, Highway Star. Yuya turns out to be hospitalized after suffering a motorcycling accident, and points out that it would be cowardly of Josuke to beat up an injured man. Josuke responds by using his stand to heal all of Yuya's wounds, only to then beat him senseless and throw him out his room's window, thus leaving him in an even worse state than before.
  • Kimi no Knife: In chapter 1, a student gets thrown out of a window during a fight. Shiki manages to catch the lower half of the student's body just before he falls out.
  • In The Love and Creed of Sae Maki, Malevolent Masked Man "the Mysterious Baron" warns Misao and Ran that "Sae is a sleepyhead". When they exit the underground hall they're greeted by Jin, the Maki family Battle Butler, crashing through the window, followed by a berserk, Sleepwalking Sae.
  • In Love Pistols, Yonekuni's mother Makio pushes her girlfriend Karen out of a four-story window. Karen only survives because she's a madararui, and yet she still breaks her legs.
  • In New Grappler Baki, an escaped villain who wants to fight Baki kidnaps his girlfriend at Yujiro's behest (way to go dad) to induce him to fight at his fiercest, but comes to regret being in a room so high up. He's only saved by some previously established improbable climbing skills.
  • Bellamy, on his first appearance in One Piece, does this to some powerful pirate after he "cheated" in a game of poker.
    • Also, Elder Nyon gets kicked out of a window by Hancock. Good thing Nyon is very Made of Iron, so she doesn't really get hurt.
    • A very young Trafalgar Law gets tossed out of a window by his soon-to-be Big Brother Mentor, Corazon, who does it to try dissuading him from joining Doflamingo's group.
  • Towards the end of Private Actress, a man named Yuuichirou tries to kill Satoka, The Rival to Shiho because he blames her for the death of his girlfriend Misaki. Satoka, however, tricks him into falling off a window, and Yuuichirou is the one who dies instead. Shiho assists him in his last moments and he begs her to punish Satoka for her deeds in his Last Request.
  • Rosario + Vampire:
    • Outer Moka defenestrates Kurumu after her other self warns her about the consequences of leaving Tsukune alone with a succubus. Also a case of Beware the Nice Ones, as unlike her other self, Outer Moka avoids getting into fights if she can help it.
    • In the second serialization, Kurumu saves Mizore from an attempted suicide by auto-defenestration during the Yuki-Onna arc.
  • Happens to Eudial in Sailor Moon S, when she attacks Super Sailor Moon and she merely deflects it. She actually lives to tell... just not for long.
  • Sanctuary: Because of him cutting off illegal funds, Asami is briefly the target of a hit, but one of his assistants is the one being thrown out a window, "thanks" to the dark apartment preventing the assassins from properly identifying their marks.
  • In Shadow Star, the bully Hiroka is grabbed by Oni, the Shadow Dragon controlled by a girl she and other girls pretty much tortured, and she's then thrown out of a window as a Karmic Death.
  • Alisa does this to Xiaoyu in Tekken: Blood Vengeance.
  • Happens to Watanuki in xxxHolic, due to his friend/crush Himawari's Doom Magnet aura affecting him. Poor Himawari decides to willingly take his resulting injuries onto her own body, and as a result, she's soon Covered with Scars.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, during their duel Divine uses one of his monsters to pin Carly Nagisa to a large glass window, hurting her badly with electrical attacks before actually sending her through the glass. The impact kills the victim instantly. Although she recovers... Well, not entirely.

    Comic Books 
  • In the first issue of Alias, Jessica Jones deals with an unruly client by chucking him through the window on her office door. This scene is recreated in the first episode of the live-action series.
  • In The Attack of the Annihilator, Batgirl gets thrown off a rooftop by a telekinetic pulse of the titular villain. Fortunately, she's caught by Supergirl, who was visiting Gotham City.
  • The Batman Adventures: At the end of "Mad Love", the Joker throws Harley out of a fifth-story window for the terrible offense of being better at killing Batman than him.
  • In the 2010 relaunch of Birds of Prey, White Canary has just finished her Evil Gloating and is starting to leave when this happens:
    Black Canary: Hey Eggwhite. Guess... Guess what I just noticed? Both your hands are occupied. [Canary-Cries her through a window]
  • Black Moon Chronicles: As the Baron of Moork, Wismerhill is badgered by the guild leaders who demand more rights of him. He eventually gets so annoyed that he throws the head of the guild through the castle window to his death. Two scared engineers then respectfully ask their lord if they should restore the window, given that they've already had to repair it twice that very week. Wismerhill is so amused that he promises them he'll just use a sword next time.
  • In Daredevil, the title character does this to someone practically every time he visits Josie's Bar for information. Eventually, Josie relocates underground, so when Hornhead inevitably shows up to beat the Kingpin's whereabouts out of her patrons, at least he can't throw them through windows.
  • Domino Lady: In the Eros Comix miniseries, Domino Lady knocks the crime boss Lester Musgrove out of a window in the radio station atop a skyscraper.
  • In God Hates Astronauts, Doctor Professor claims that he shot Star Fighter out of a window in their headquarters, but...
    Star Fighter: It's a secret underground headquarters! Underground, dammit!
  • In Heart of Empire by Bryan Talbot, a mook crashing a political meeting tries to throw a hand grenade. Victoria takes the live grenade from him, stuffs the grenade in his mouth, and throws him through a window.
  • Hitman (1993) has Defenestrator, a member of Section Eight who is a loony superhero wannabe armed with a window frame. He throws criminals through it.
  • X-23 does this to a Mook she's shaking down during the "Mercury Falling" arc of New X-Men: Academy X (while dressed up as a schoolgirl for some inexplicable reason). Fortunately for the Mook, Hellion is there to catch him and fly him back up again. When Julian scolds Laura about killing people, she flatly points out that he didn't die because Hellion saved him.
  • Power Girl: Satanna goes to the Shazam! villain Dr. Sivanna to get a weapon to kill Power Girl, and she gives him her body as payment. Afterwards, he attempts some minor small talk which Satanna finds unnecessary because they are villains, and she feels disgusted by their "business exchange". He agrees with her, then points out that since they are bad guys and she already gave him what he wanted, he no longer cares for what she wants. In reaction, Satanna try to attack him, and he gets her thrown out the window.
  • In the first issue of Prez (1973), Boss Smiley pushes one of his own Mooks out of a window for making a thoughtless comment. One of the remaining mooks calmly starts patching the window glass back together.
  • In one issue of The Punisher MAX, a Corrupt Corporate Executive presses Frank's Berserk Button by dealing in slave trade. Frank corners her in her office in a skyscraper. Since windows are made out of reinforced glass, Frank proceeds to methodically break the window using the woman until the frame gives and defenestration is achieved.
  • Robin:
    • Robin (1993): Tim Drake versus King Snake. Snake tells Tim that if he surrenders, he'll kill him quickly. Tim manages to trick Snake with a feint and swing down from the opposite side to kick Snake through a window.
    • In Red Robin, Tim himself gets kicked out the window of a skyscraper by Ra's Al Ghul after foiling the villain's plans.
  • The Sandman (1989): This happens in World's End when the corrupt Carnifex of Aurelia gets thrown through the window of an attic crypt by his undead predecessor into his Karmic Death.
  • Bane does this to hilarious effect in Secret Six #9. He gets a hold of a mook and is about to execute his Signature Move when the mook pleads with him: "Don't crack my spine!" Bane, out of respect "for the man this city belonged to" — Batman — chucks him out the high-rise window instead.
  • In Silverblade #2, Emmett gets hit by his own ricocheting buckshot and knocked backwards through Belinda's window where he plummets into San Fernando Valley (with the effect possibly being given a magical push by the falcon).
  • Simon Says: Nazi Hunter: In one panel, a Nazi is thrown through a window.
  • Two instances occur in Sin City: Dwight is thrown out of a window by Manute in A Dame To Kill For. Manute is likewise tossed out of a window by Wallace in Hell And Back.
  • This happens in Spider-Man a lot. In a famous scene◊, Spider-Man does it to Wolverine. Being Wolvie, he just stands up and walks back up...
  • In Star Wars (Marvel 2015), Chewbacca and Threepio enter a seedy bar looking for Luke. They ask the patrons for information on Luke's whereabouts, but to no avail. Cue Chewbacca throwing one of the patrons through a window.
  • In the Obsession miniseries of Star Wars: Republic, Asajj Ventress does this to Obi-Wan Kenobi with the Force during the Battle of Boz Pity.
  • Sullivan's Sluggers: During a Bar Brawl, two people, one of whom being a member of Casey's baseball team, ends up thrown through a window.
  • Supergirl:
    • Subverted in The Strange Revenge of Lena Luthor. Lena Colby believes her out-of-control telekinesis has killed Supergirl by nullifying her powers and throwing her out of the window. In reality, Lena was being gaslighted by a criminal gang, and "Supergirl" was an impersonator who pretended to be pushed out of the window and fell into a cushion put on the fire scape on purpose.
    • Supergirl (Rebirth): In Reign of Cyborg Supermen, a Kryptonian zombie grabs Ben Rubel by the collar and tosses him against a window. Ben crashes through the glass and falls down, but Supergirl shows up and stops his freefall.
  • Superman:
    • Accidentally done by a Metallo in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?. Lois is trying to escape from him when she stumbles backwards and falls off an open window. Good thing Superman was around.
    • In Superman: Birthright, Lex Luthor throws Lois Lane off a rooftop, hoping that Superman is too busy to stop her freefall. He isn't.
  • In an issue of Transmetropolitan, Spider Jerusalem threatens to have his bodyguard defenestrate someone. "And you wouldn't want anything to happen to your fenestrates, would you?"
  • In The Unbelievable Gwenpool, when his accountant fails to find any records on Gwen, M.O.D.O.K. throws him out the window to his death.
  • Watchmen begins with this. Somebody kills the Comedian by hurling him out his apartment window onto the sidewalk far below. The rest of the plot is finding out why. Detectives at the scene acknowledge how improbable this would be in Real Life. The window, like those of any skyscraper, was made of tempered glass that is almost impossible to shatter. Only extreme force could have thrown the Comedian through it, meaning this was no accident and no ordinary attacker.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): A policewoman gets shot out a window by an addict who was using one of the experimental weapons the White Magician recently flooded the black marked with. Her most serious injury comes not from being "shot" or going through the window but by the abrupt halt when Diana lassoed her and stopped her momentum a bit too quickly, though it still saved her life as the abrupt halt against the cement she'd been headed for would have been fatal.
  • X-Factor (2006):
    • Happens to one of Madrox's dupes after he refuses to be bought out by Singularity, courtesy of Damian Tryp Sr.
    • Monet throws Madrox out of the window after he tells her about the Love Triangle situation with between them and Siryn.
  • Subverted in the Yoko Tsuno story The Devil's Organ. Yoko apparently gets thrown off a window by the "Black Knight" a.k.a. Karl Moebius, but a huge tree branch stops her fall enough for her, an accomplished Action Girl, to right herself off and fall safely.

    Comic Strips 
  • The Far Side has a comic with a doctor being hurled through a window of a building signed "Institute for the Study of Emotional Stress."
    "Hey... I feel better already."
  • Garfield was once on the receiving end of this when he gave a particularly insulting "assessment" on one of Jon's trademark tacky outfits.

    Fan Works 
  • In The Abyss Between Harry casts a blasting curse which pushes Lucius through a French window.
  • In Adrift in a World Harry banishes Lucius Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle through the glass sliding door on his hotel room balcony.
  • In All You Need Is Love Naomi gets fed up with Matsuda and throws him out the window, much to everyone's relief.
  • The Bridge:
    • King Sombra sneaks into Princess Cadance's bedchambers and attempts to stab her in her sleep. Xenilla arrives in time to tackle him, sending them both through the window. They crash through a roof and land inside, mostly unhurt.
    • During their fight in a hospital, Monster X throws Enjin out the window. Enjin gets up from the pavement immediately and reenters the building. A few minutes later, X gets knocked unconscious and blown out a window by an explosion.
  • Chasing Dragons: When the Old Faith launch their rebellion in Gulltown, their first act is to storm the Pearly Sept, where the much-hated Gerold Arryn is getting married. While the rest of the wedding guests are slaughtered, the bride and groom and their in-laws are thrown out a sept window to their deaths, in a mockery of the Arryns throwing people out the Moon Door.
  • In this one-shot featuring Darcy/Bucky in a Soulmate AU, Dabbling in Soulmates, Bucky developed a habit of throwing bad guys through windows over the years because his soulmark (Darcy's first words to him) said so. Meanwhile, Darcy won a spelling bee because of the word "defenestration".
  • A Darker Path: When Atropos' power detects that Aisha is in danger, she throws a drug dealer out a third-floor window so he lands on the guy who is the threat.
    Atropos: I recommend the experience. We should start Throw A Drug Dealer Out The Window Day. Make it an annual event.
  • An Empire of Ice and Fire: When Tywin returns to King's Landing following Joffrey's regime's disastrous loss at Riverrun, he expresses his displeasure by taking Joffrey's chief military advisor Amory Lorch and tossing him out a window to his death.
  • Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters: At one point during the Sack of Torus Filney, a duel occurs between Phobos' Token Good Teammate Viscount Servantis and the Rebellion's Token Evil Teammate Rhouglar, which ends with Servantis kicking Rhouglar out a window. The fall isn't far enough to kill him, but he's left heavily injured.
  • A Hole in Your Mind:
    Dumbledore: Prestwick the Mad?!? He was removed from his position violently, by defenestration from his office by his Deputy, Agatha McGonagal, who was then promptly arrested and Kissed by Dementor after she admitted her guilt the day afterwards. She didn't even open the window first.
  • Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily: While resting in an apartment within the Fog Car — or the Infinity Train version of Silent Hill —Specter has had more than enough trouble with Easter (A living lightning bolt sharing space in his body and is now separated from him) and makes his anger known by kicking them out of the window. He learns to regret his action scenes later.
  • In Intimidation Can Be Fun Harry sends a Ministry employee out a window after he states that Harry and Draco, who're being forced together due to a marriage law, will be firm friends within a week and life partners after a month if they just give it a try.
  • The J-WITCH Series:
    • At one point in "Gladiatorial Clash", Jade and Cornelia use the Snake Talisman to sneak up on the Enforcers and toss them out a window.
    • In "A New Dawn", Shendu throws Miranda and Wong through windows and far away from the castle in a show of force.
  • During a Noodle Incident in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, the four dropped some people who burst into their tenth-floor hotel room out of the window. Because they're Actual Pacifists, though, Ringo caught them telekinetically before they hit the ground.
  • Almost happens to Tsuruya in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, when she catches Yamane Jun and his group in their clubhouse and Yamane tries to "silence" her. Then Kyon shows up...
  • In the 17th chapter of Loved and Lost, a guard dares to ask from King Jewelius if massacring the entire population of Ponyville along with the heroes is a little extreme. In response, Jewelius magically throws the poor guard out of the throne room's window, saying that it's a lot extreme as the guard falls from the castle tower.
  • A Man of Iron: In Chapter 70 of Book 3, Tywin is thrown out the window of his office to his death by Margaery after he learns that she and Loras are actually Magneto's children, fostered by the Tyrells as part of a long-term alliance with the Blackfyres.
  • The Mission Stays the Same: Jack blasts an Eclipse merc off the top of a building during the mission to recruit Thane.
    "Have a pleasant flight, motherfucker!"
  • In Harry Potter fanfic Moratorium, Dolores Umbridge gets thrown out a window, courtesy of Harry.
  • The New Adventures of Invader Zim:
    • Season 1:
      • In Episode 15, there's a brief gag where an angered Tak uses her Mind Control implant to make Sara throw herself out a classroom window.
      • Another minor example in Episode 19. When Zim is wrecking his house in a rage over Tak retrieving the Meekrob crystal before him, it's mentioned that he threw the Robo-Parents out a window. They apparently had no problem with it.
    • Season 2:
  • At the end of the 18th chapter of Old West, this is done to Henry by his employer Dufayel and Ramirez Arvenga when Dufayel decides that Henry is too volatile to be trusted anymore. However, while Henry has a not-so-short fall (he was injured with a knife and bullets, no less), he remains alive thanks to his burning desire for vengeance and flees to fight another day.
  • In Opening Dangerous Gates, Gajeel throws Gray and Natsu out the window when they try to join Lucy, Levy, and Erza in the bath.
  • In Chapter 17 of Origin Story, entitled "This Might Sting a Little", Alex Harris tosses Sentry through the bedroom sliding glass door of Hawkeye's old house. It actually turns into an involuntary Fastball Special, as she throws Sentry into Thor hard enough to knock them both out of the air.
  • In the lore episode of Panem Reborn, Rubius Dalton is thrown out of a window following a protest by the Victors against a possible 101st Hunger Games. He survives the fall but is ran over by a vehicle.
  • A Shadow of the Titans: At one point during the Gotham Arc, Jade telekinetically tosses Scarecrow out a third story window when she finds out that he kidnapped and experimented on her neighbor Asuka-Tammy. He apparently walks away more angered than harmed; Penguin speculates that his costume is padded for protection against that kind of thing.
  • In Thinking In Little Green Boxes the first act of the new Magic Avengers is to throw most of the Ministry of Magic people out of their office windows.
  • In Tiberium Wars, a Nod soldier tries to rape a female GDI prisoner. In this story, the Brotherhood of Nod has declared rape a capital offense and anyone caught doing it can be summarily executed. Cue one of the Black Hand bursting into the room, beating the would-be rapist against the wall while listing off his offenses and then hurling him out a third story window.
  • Happens to Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan comic Twilight's First Day. After knocking her books into the bathroom sink, she magically powers up the clockwork hoof-dryer to try and get them dry again, causing a mini-tornado that flings her out of the bathroom window.
  • Rainbow Dash finds herself on the receiving end in the Triptych Continuum, but would like to get some clarification on events.
    Rainbow Dash: Twilight? Come on, Twilight, let me back in! Just for a minute! You didn't tell me what "defenestration" meant before you threw me out the window! I need to use the dictionary!

    Films — Animation 
  • This fate befalls Butt-Head in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, when, while wandering through the White House, he stumbles upon Chelsea Clinton, and has the audacity to hit on her. Cut to Butt-Head flying through the second floor window.
  • In Russian Stop Motion classic The Cameraman's Revenge, after the titular cameraman catches Mr. Beetle cheating on Mr. Beetle's wife with the cameraman's girlfriend, Mr. Beetle throws the cameraman out the front window of the hotel.
  • In The Cat Returns, just... don't irritate the Cat King, whether you're performing for him or breaking out in hysterical laughter from another act. (Both victims are tossed through high windows with no glass, but naturally, as cats, they're okay and show up sitting against the wall in a later scene.)
  • Early on in The Emperor's New Groove, this is the fate of an elderly man who accidentally interrupts Emperor Kuzco's dance routine. Other Rule of Funny Anachronism Stew notwithstanding, this takes place before glass windows were invented, so there was no glass to break, and the old guy lands and gets tangled up in some banners. At the end of the film, when Kuzco (now much less of a jerk) apologizes, the old man responds with "It's not the first time I've been thrown out a window, and it won't be the last! What can I say, I'm a rebel!"
  • In The LEGO Movie, Lord Business threatens Bad Cop with this as means of You Have Failed Me. Ultimately, he goes with a much crueler punishment... which he levies against Bad Cop's parents.
  • Stitch actually throws Jumba out of a window near the end of Lilo & Stitch just right before hitting him with a VW Beetle.
  • In the beginning of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Squidward catches SpongeBob in the shower with him, and after a small conversation with SpongeBob, Squidward kicks SpongeBob out of his window.
  • Woody does this to Buzz in Toy Story so that Andy will have to take him and not Buzz to Pizza Planet. In fairness, he only meant to knock Buzz under the desk, but things quickly spiraled out of control.
  • During the climax of WALL•E, just right before Captain McCrea finally shuts down AUTO for good, he actually punches GO-4 out of the cockpit window, causing him to get smashed to pieces upon hitting the floor just below it.
  • Wreck-It Ralph: In 8-bit form, while on-duty in "wrecking mode", Ralph breaks open Gene's window and throws him out of it during game play.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Andhadhun, Simi kills Mrs. D'Sa by throwing her out of a window.
  • At the end of the forgettable Charles Bronson movie Assassination (1987), the villain behind the attempted murder of the First Lady gets thrown through a window. We then hear a radio report saying he "died of a heart attack" despite the fact that any number of people must have seen the incident, and the injuries would be more consistent with suicide or an accidental fall.
  • The Avengers (2012):
    • Loki hurls Tony through the window of the 80th-or-so floor of Stark Tower in a rage after his attempt to brainwash Tony fails. Tony saves himself by realizing what's about to happen and quickly calling for JARVIS to send the Mark VII armor (which can assemble itself around him even while he's plummeting towards the ground, homing in on the bracelets he put on earlier) through the window after him.
    • In a later scene, Captain America gets blown through a window while blocking an explosive with his shield to save a group of civilians, subsequently landing onto a taxi on the streets below.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: Part of Team Cap's Dynamic Entry to reinforce Wanda and Vision during the Scotland fight scene involves Falcon swooping in and kicking Proxima Midnight through a glass storefront.
  • Batman Returns:
    • Max Shreck pushes his assistant Selina Kyle out a window in an attempt to murder her. It doesn't take, mainly due to Selina being revived by her cat Miss Kitty and her feline friends.
    • Prior to that, when two clown gangsters leap onto the bonnet of the Batmobile and try to shoot Batman through the bulletproof windshield, Batman simply hits the brakes abruptly, sending them flying into a burning display window.
  • In Beverly Hills Cop, a group of Victor Maitland's thugs throws Axel Foley through a window in the ground floor of a building. It shatters spectacularly. What makes it especially cruel is that There Was a Door right next to the window that they could have thrown Axel through, they just wanted to be asses about it.
  • In Blade Runner, Zhora is dramatically defenestrated, though she was probably 'retired' by the preceding gunshots.
  • Blastfighter: The first time Wally and his buddies attempt to pick a fight with Tiger, he punches one of them through the window of the grocery store.
  • Braveheart: King Edward grows annoyed with his son's male lover and tosses him out the window.
  • In Bruiser, Henry throws Janine out of a window: using a chair to smash the glass first. The extension cord that wraps around her neck ensures that she never reaches the ground.
  • The Burning: While struggling with his prostitute victim, Cropsy knocks her partially through a window.
  • Burnt Offerings: The house's last victim, Ben, is killed from being forced out of a tall window by an unseen supernatural force, falling to his death.
  • This happens to Franklin Bean in Cadence. Humorously, if you watch closely, as the cameras change the POV, Franklin falls out the window facing one way but ends up landing facing the opposite direction.
  • The Charge at Feather River: When Sgt. Baker finds Pvt. Ryan dallying with his wife, he punches Ryan out through a window.
  • Children of the Corn:
    • The children in Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice take over Mrs. West's electronic wheelchair with an RC controller and force it in the middle of the road, where it is hit by a truck which sends it flying through the window of the local Bingo hall.
    • A corn doll is thrown at Cole in the opening of Children of the Corn: Genesis, which somehow sends him flying through a window that is on another side of his house.
  • In Clownhouse, Casey and Geoffrey shove the lunatic Dippo out of the upstairs window of the house to his death.
  • The climatic shootout of Commando ends with John (Arnie) shotgunning the main villain out of his mansion's window.
  • Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny: The film's pagoda climax culminates with Hades Dai throwing protagonist Wei-fang through ther sixth floor's window, which Wei-fang barely survived by grabbing on the temple's awnings.
  • The Crow has Eric Draven getting blown out a window by the four guys who attacked his apartment and his girlfriend. He returns the favor to one of the four guys in question, Skank, whom he throws right out another window to his death.
  • Curtains offers an odd example; thanks to cutting two separate scenes together, a character is shown falling outside through a second-story window, and then crashing back inside through a first-story window.
  • In Danger!! Death Ray, a Mook attempts to take out Bart Fargo by — wait for it — leaping at him as he stands in front of a window. Bart merely performs a Nonchalant Dodge, then says "What a shame".
  • In Darkman, Durant throws Pauly out his apartment window without bothering to open it first; resulting in a fatal Car Cushion.
  • The Dark Tower (2017): At one point during the climax, one of Walter's Mooks tackles Roland out a window, leading to them both crashing onto a bus.
  • Death Rides a Horse: During the fight in Burt Cavanaugh's saloon, Bill punches a bartender out through a window.
  • Death Ring: When Matt breaks into Vachs' mansion to rescue Lauren, he is confronted by Ms. Ling. During their fight, he grabs her and hurls her bodily out of the upper storey window.
  • In Deewaar, Vijay throws Samant out of a window to his death several floors below.
  • Destroyer (1988): After grabbing the priest at his execution and lifting him by the neck off his feet, Ivan throws said priest through the window into the witness room.
  • In Diamonds Are Forever, Plenty O'Toole is thrown out a window by some Mooks out to get Bond but survives due to landing in the hotel pool. When Bond compliments the head Mook on their aim, the Mook reveals "I didn't know there was a pool down there."
  • Die Hard: Just ask John McClane what he did to Hans Gruber, or better yet, ask Hans's brother Simon.
  • Parodied in Dirty Work when Mitch is thrown through a bar window, then, as if unfazed by this, immediately pulls out his tape recorder, and says "Note to self; learn to fight!"
  • Death Wish 4: The Crackdown: This is how Frank Bauggs met his maker in the hands of Paul Kersey, getting knocked out his penthouse window and falling onto a car.
  • Dragons Forever: Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao does this consistently to mooks, one of them which ends up being kicked by Jackie out of the windows of an ocean liner, through a safety rail and into the sea.
  • Dredd: The final confrontation between Judge Dredd and Ma-Ma is concluded with him chucking her out of a penthouse window after he gives her a dose of the Slo-Mo drug giving the audience a chance to see it in slow-motion.
  • Drive Angry: At the end of the Designated Girl Fight, Piper throws her opponent out through the rear window of the camper.
  • End of Days: Jericho (Arnie) flings Satan of all people out of a window after rejecting his We Can Rule Together deal.
  • Eraser: During the cabin shootout, Krueger (Arnie), hanging from the ceiling, takes out a mook in this fashion kicking him out of a window.
  • Eve of Destruction: EVE VIII hurls a bank robber out a window.
  • Fatal Chase: Among the film's main antagonists, a married couple, the wife dies in this manner from being decked out of a tall window.
  • This is how Nicole's evil boyfriend David is taken out in Fear (1996).
  • First Blood: During Rambo's breakout from the police station, a random policeman gets kicked out of a window by Rambo.
  • The martial arts movie Flag of Iron has the protagonist, Iron Monkey Luo Xin, killing two of his opponents by kicking their blades back into their guts, through their backs, and sending them flying backwards through a tavern's windows with the bloody blades still sticking out their guts when they land.
  • In Foxes, one of the main characters rides his skateboard by a bully and pushes him (explosively) into the plate glass window of a supermarket so the kid he's picking on can escape.
  • Friday the 13th:
  • In Gremlins, this is the fate of Asshole Victim Mrs. Deagle when the gremlins mess with her stair lift to send her flying up and out the upstairs window.
  • This is Malone's first onscreen kill in Give 'Em Hell, Malone. The film literally opens with a Mook being shot out of a window in the first two seconds, before cutting to the shootout occurring inside between Malone and several other Mooks.
  • In Golden Swallow, the second Chang brother dies from falling through a restaurant's top-floor window... after getting his jugular sliced open by the legendary assassin, Silver Roc. Said victim is a ruthless landlord who framed an innocent farmer and had an entire family, including a young boy, murdered over a land dispute, so he's obviously not going to be mourned.
  • In Hancock, the titular character does this to several Mooks who are attacking him in a hospital.
  • In Hangmen Also Die!, the intended Getaway Driver for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich does this to himself after being brought to the Gestapo headquarters by jumping out of a window to his death rather than be interrogated.
  • Hannie Caulder: When Hannie shoots Frank Clemens, the impact of the bullet is enough to send flying backwards through the window of saloon, where lands on top of a woman walking by in the street.
  • Occurs in Happy Death Day when the killer Lori is kicked out the second story window of the sorority house and hits the ground. Right in front of sorority girl Emily, who can only scream in terror and run away.
  • In a deleted scene from Happy Gilmore after Happy finds out how cruelly an orderly (played by Ben Stiller) is treating his grandmother and the other residents, he does this to him.
  • Father Malius gets shot with a harpoon gun and flies through a window in Happy Hell Night to his not-death.
  • In The Haunted Mansion (2003), the evil ghost can materialize enough to catch protagonist Jim Evers (Eddie Murphy) in a Neck Lift, then flies upward and sends him through a window.
  • Hong Kong Godfather has a scene establishing the villains have no qualms about hurting children, by having one of them flinging the grandson on a rival mob kingpin through a glass window to death. See for yourself.
  • The 1959 film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles opens with Sir Hugo Baskerville throwing a hapless servant through a window at Baskerville Hall.
  • In Hudson Hawk, Hudson takes out the vicious fox terrier Bunny this way by shooting him in the mouth with a tennis ball launcher causing him to go flying out the window of the castle.
  • In The Imperial Swordsman, several Mooks gets decked out of a tavern's windows by the titular hero. Said tavern is located facing a cliff, by the way.
  • In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana and his father are trying to escape Nazi Germany via airship before they get caught by the SS officer Vogel. Indiana heads for the bathroom, during which time Vogel boards and eventually finds Henry Sr. At this moment, Indy returns dressed as a member of the airship crew and gets Vogel's attention just long enough to swiftly chuck him through an open window of the gondola all the way down to land on a pile of luggage. Indiana then turns to see the entire cabin staring at him in horrified silence at seeing what he just did.
    Indy: (Beat, then shrugs) No ticket.
    (Entire cabin of passengers suddenly swarm him waving their tickets in a panic)
  • The death of Wong Chi-shing in the first film of The Infernal Affairs Trilogy.
  • In the Line of Duty 4: Witness: The main villain, Michael, gets kicked by Rachel and Luk, one at a time, until he ends up falling through a glass barrier to his death.
  • Jojo Rabbit: The titular character fully completes his rejection of Nazi ideals by symbolically kicking Adolf Hitler out of a window.
  • Kick-Ass: Big Bad shot out the window. And then exploded. WITH A ROCKET-PROPELLED GRENADE.
  • Kung Fu Hustle have the Tailor's first action scene; when the Axe Gang members fights the Coolie, one of them, thinking the Tailor to be a cowering civilain, attacks him only for the Tailor to throw said mook out of his store's windows before stepping out to join the fray.
  • A Killer's Blues: The assasination in a funeral parlour ends with the mob boss getting hit by a speeding trolley containing an empty coffin while standing near a window, where he ends up getting knocked out the window as well. For good measure, the coffin flies out the window with him, before landing on him.
  • The climax of the otherwise forgettable (and cringe-inducing) kung-fu comedy, Lady is the Boss has the titular lady, Mei Ling (played by Kara Wai) decking The Dragon out of a gymnasium's window. In one of the biggest continuity problems the film has to offer (and that's saying a lot), the window is already broken when Mei Ling's allies barges through a few minutes ago, but it's magically unbroken until Mei Ling has to kick the dragon into it!
  • In Last Action Hero, during Danny's Imagine Spot, Hamlet (Arnie) flings a guy out of a castle's window.
  • The Last Rites of Ransom Pride: During their fight in the Pride house, The Bruja tackles Juliette out through the closed bedroom window.
  • In Left Behind (2014), Chloe Steele witnesses somebody getting shotgun-blasted through a glass door window during the chaos that follows the Rapture taking place.
  • In the comedy Love at First Bite, Dracula is attacked by muggers while walking the streets of New York, so he uses his powers to toss one through the window of a TV store. The mugger grabs a TV set from the window display and runs off with it.
  • In The Man Who Changed His Mind, Dick—in Laurience’s body—manages to escape a deadly gas chamber and falls out of a window, breaking all his bones.
  • Plot element in Minority Report, where the psychic precogs see visions of the hero shooting the villain, sending him flying out of a hotel window.
  • Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol has an assassin killed being kicked out a window of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world! It's also justified by the fact that the window had been removed earlier.
  • More Dead Than Alive: After catching up with Luke Santee in the Ghost Town (just after Santee has killed Billy), Cain crash tackles him through a plate glass window and the pair of them crash out into the street.
  • An accidentally self-inflicted version happens in Mystery Date (1991) when a martial artist hitman misses his target and gets the window...
  • In The Night Stalker Skorzeny effortlessly throws an orderly trying to subdue him out a window during his attack on the hospital.
  • Something of a signature move of Chuck Norris movies, through the late '80s (examples include Breaker! Breaker! and Forced Vengeance), usually executed via screaming jump kick.
  • In 9 to 5, Violet finishes Mr. Hart off in her Imagine Spot by ejecting him through his window. This was after she had poisoned his coffee.
  • Once A Thief have more than one mook getting decked through windows in the final shootout, with a rather ridiculous moment where Jim booby-traps a microwave oven, places a basketball on it, and the resulting explosion with a flaming basketball somehow sends a mook flying halfway through a kitchen before the guy goes through a window.
  • In Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge, Eric lifts Mayor Karen Wilton over his head before hurling her through the office window into the atrium of the mall where she falls to her death.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs in Polar when someone tries to escape a hit team by jumping through the window. Unfortunately, he doesn't have enough force and just bounces off the glass. The hit team promptly kill him and walk out, whereupon the window breaks.
  • The eponymous protagonist of The Possession of Michael King does it intentionally to himself to protect his daughter.
  • Prairie Fever: During the Bar Brawl, Preston hurls James bodily through the saloon window.
  • Prince of Darkness: During the climax, two of the possessed get tossed out a window by the protagonists.
  • Not shown, but there was much talk in Pulp Fiction about Marcellus Wallace throwing "Tony Rocky Horror" out of a fifth story window — supposedly for giving his wife a foot massage, though Mia denied it.
  • In The Pumaman, both the Big Bad and the sidekick start the movie by tracking down and defenestrating people who matched the biological profile of Puma Man (because his cat-like powers would allow him to survive the fall). The only difference is, the villain is the one who expresses something like remorse, saying that he hopes they've found the right one for the sake of the innocent men yet to be "tested". Vadinho, however, didn't throw anybody but Tony out a window and that was because he already knew he was the Puma Man. The Fridge Logic here should be readily apparent.
  • In Quigley Down Under, the sharpshooter protagonist finds out that the "wild animals" that Cattle Baron Marston hired him to shoot are, in fact, Australian Aborigines. Cue Death Glare from Quigley, followed by Marston being hurled out the window.
  • In The Raid: Redemption, Rama kills an Elite Mook by pulling him right out a window, bringing both of them crashing down the fire escape. Rama lives by using the other guy to break his fall but emerges in worse shape than at any other point in the movie.
  • Also in Ransom Mel Gibson's character throws the bad guy through a storefront window pane. The Soft Glass part is averted, though, in that the villain gets his throat cut by the broken glass.
  • Return to a Better Tomorrow: The false caretaker who abuses Lobster Tsui's daughter while Lobster is in prison. When Lobster finds out the truth upon his release, he immediately marches to the caretaker's place, beats the snot out of him and pushes him through a fourth-storey window. Somehow he survived.
  • This is the fate of the corrupt bishop from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves courtesy of Friar Tuck, who is thoroughly fed up with the bishop's greed and corruption, and loads him up with enough gold (and thirty pieces of silver) to "pay the Devil ON YOUR WAY TO HELL!"
  • This happens a lot in RoboCop (1987), to bad guys and Robo alike, the most famous example being Dick Jones. Another memorable one is when Robo tosses Clarence Boddicker through several glass windows while Mirandizing him.
  • The abduction scene of the exploitation film, Run and Kill, where the ruthless psychotic main villain of the picture proves he have no qualms executing the elderly by shoving the main character's 80-year-old mom out of a twelfth-storey-window.
  • Happens accidentally in Scavenger Hunt (1979). Lars (Arnie) throws a medicine ball to Henry, who catches it. The impact propels him backwards out the second-floor window off the gym.
  • The Scribbler centers around a series of apparent jumper-suicides at a high-rise halfway house for mental patients. Turns out the deaths weren't suicides, but murders courtesy of a more-unhinged-than-usual patient. She later hurls the main character out the window; luckily, her Wall Crawl powers save her.
  • In Seven (1979), Ed kills Mr. Lee by sliding him along his conference table and out the window of his penthouse: without opening it first.
  • Hilariously performed in The Shadow. Except, in this case, the Shadow actually tries to save the Mongol warrior he's interrogating, but the Mongol throws himself off "to serve his Khan." Cut to Moe, the cab driver, reading a book called "Improving Your Psychic Abilities." He says, "I sense someone's coming" just as the Mongol lands right beside his cab!
  • At the end of Shaft (2019), Shaft II kills Gordito by shooting him out a window to his death.
  • In Sha Po Lang, this happens to Inspector Ma Kwun at the end. Unfortunately for Wong Po, this results in his wife and daughter both getting killed when Ma's body lands right on their car.
  • One of the bad guys gets thrown out of a high-rise window by Burt Reynolds in Sharky's Machine. Notable in Real Life for the record-setting high-fall stunt performed by "King of the Stuntmen" Dar Robinson.
  • SHAZAM! (2019):
    • When Billy Batson goes to town after gaining his powers for the first time, he ends up interrupting a robbery by throwing a pair of robbers through a store's windows... before apologizing for the damage.
      Billy: Sorry 'bout the window! But you're welcome for not being robbed!
    • During the Board to Death sequence, Sivana tosses his brother out of the board room's window to fall to his death dozens of stories below. Shortly after, at least one of the board member's bodies gets tossed out as well once one of the Sins bites the head off.
  • Shanghai Grand: The fate of a triad boss who tries intimidating the two protagonists at the end of the first act, where he ultimately gets flung through a restaurant's third floor window.
  • Soultaker features this trope complete with Slow Motion. Unfortunately, this makes the fall looks more comical than a threatening show of force and is riffed mercilessly as the guy slowly falls down.
  • Special Female Force: In the final shootout, a terrorist is about to shoot Madam Fong, but Fa arrives just in time and kicks him through a tall window pane to his death.
  • The ultimate fate of an unlucky ninja in the live-action Speed Racer movie. He attempts to poison Speed Racer, but Pops Racer isn't having any of that. Pops is a mountainous collegiate Greco-Roman wrestling state champion who is quietly furious that this ninja would dare to attack his family. The ninja is short, twiggy, and just had his pants ripped off by a monkey. Pops proceeds to manhandle the ninja, smash him through furniture, and finally throw him onto a dessert cart and kick him out a nearby window, ejecting the hapless, no-pants mook into the night.
    Trixie: Oh my god, was that a ninja?
    Pops Racer: More like a non-ja. Terrible what passes for a ninja these days.
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Happens to the would-be assassin of the Federation President at the end, courtesy of Scotty.
  • Star Wars:
    • In Revenge of the Sith Palpatine uses his Force Lightning to shoot Mace Windu out the window (and it's a rare case where the glass had already been broken).
    • In The Empire Strikes Back, during their lightsaber duel in Cloud City Darth Vader sends Luke out through a window using heavy pieces of equipment shoved at him with the Force.
  • In Steal, Frank is thrown through a high window, but survives because he lands in a swimming pool.
  • Subverted in Stroker Ace as the window Stroker sends Aubrey through is actually dividing the hallway from a second-floor walkway over an indoor swimming pool, which Aubrey falls into instead.
  • The Substitute: In the first installment, Shale fights some gang members and school security guards in an upper floor library. Shale throws nearly all of them out the same window, though only first first opponent actually breaks glass.
  • In Sunset, Tom Mix punches the Australian houseman through the closed French windows of Victoria's house. Being on the ground floor, this is not as fatal as this trope often is.
  • Supercop 2: The fate of a Mook Lieutenant, through a third-storey window before landing on a table.
  • Terminator:
    • In The Terminator, this is what the Terminator does to nearly everyone it fights. Sometimes it picks someone up and looks around for window to toss them through.
    • Terminator 2: Judgment Day:
      • The above is mocked in T2, where the Terminator attempts to throw someone through an unbreakable window in the asylum.
      • The T-800 is pitched through a plate glass store window by the T-1000. It doesn't slow it for long.
      • Also played straight at the beginning in the biker bar, where it throws one of the bikers through a window, and he lands on a parked car.
  • Today We Kill... Tomorrow We Die!: During the fight in the trading post, O'Bannion hoists one of the Comancheros over his head and hurls him out through the window.
  • Today You Die: In the middle of a shootout, Steven Seagal gets ambushed by a surprisingly agile kung-fu fighting mook who kicks Seagal's pistol out of his hands. One short fight later and Seagal flings said mook through a nearby window leading to a twelve-storey drop outside.
  • The fate of Jerry Wang in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Laserbeak tosses him out the window after he discovers that "Deep Wang" gave Sam some information about their latest plan. That and he outlived his usefulness.
  • Transylvania 6-5000: When the Frankenstein Monster stops suddenly, Radu gets flung off the monster's back and through the window in the stable door.
  • In The Walking Dead (1936), Merritt suffers a heart attack while trying to attack Ellman with a chair and falls backwards through his bedroom window.
  • In Watchmen, that's how the Comedian meets his death in the opening confrontation with the Hidden Villain as he gets hurled out a skyscraper's window with great force.
  • The Live-Action adaptation of the Wicked City manga has a demon being killed in the opening scene, firstly by decapitation and then by her headless body falling through a tall window before hitting the ground twenty storeys below.
  • The evil spirit in Witchboard throws Zarabeth through a window where she she is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice on a sundial.
  • Wonder Woman: When Diana throws down in the warehouse in Veld, two German soldiers fly through a window; one flies through right in front of Steve and the boys as they try to keep up on the ground outside, and another gets a knee to the gut to send him flying as Diana finishes off in the warehouse and runs across the lower level's roof.
  • Zero Tolerance: The main villain, Manta, dies in this manner when protsgonist Jeff (played by Robert Patrick) chucks him out of a penthouse window to a twelve-storey drop.
  • Zorro (1975): The final battle between Zorro and Huerta had both combatants battling in a bell tower, culminating in Huerta trying to knock Zorro to his death. Zorro managed to prevent himself from falling by grabbing the bell's rope, where he ends up swinging sideways until crashing through an ornate stained-glass window. Cue Huerta emerging to the tower's balcony... only to see Zorro already there waiting to finish the duel.

    Literature 
  • 1632: In the novella The Wallenstein Gambit, Wallenstein does this to Emperor Ferdinand's man in Prague, in a second attempt at the 1618 Defenestration of Prague, this time making sure there's no miraculous survivor as happened in the 1618 event.
  • Animorphs: In book 7, in a heated skirmish between 4 Animorphs plus Ax and 8 Hork-Bajir while in a skyscraper, Rachel as a grizzly bear shoves one of the latter out a window... letting Tobias in, and putting the foe to rout.
  • Artemis Fowl: Jon Spiro wishes he could still do this, but if you throw an employee out a window these days, he'll phone his lawyer on the way down.
  • In The Belgariad, this is the fate of Silk's nemesis Brill, after a short but ugly battle atop Rak Cthol (well, technically he was thrown over a parapet).
    Garion: It was Brill.
    Belgarath: Again?! What was he doing?
    Silk: The last I saw of him, he was trying to learn how to fly.
    Belgarath: [looking puzzled] Maybe it'll come to him in time.
    Silk: He doesn't really have all that long. [sound of crashing from far below] Does bouncing count?
  • One of The Many Deaths of You in the Choose Your Own Adventure books. And it's a plot point in Louise Munro Foley's The Mystery of the Highland Crest: the curse on The Clan was triggered after one of the old leaders, a beautiful Lady of War named Margaret, fell to her death from a tower's window during an attack on the family castle, apparently pushed down it by her treacherous twin sister Emily.
  • Discworld:
    • In Men at Arms, Detritus throws Cuddy out a window to go find help when they're both locked in a freezing-cold ground floor room.
    • In Jingo, Vimes throws a Klatchian woman out a window to save her when the embassy is on fire. Detritus catches her.
    • In a Science of Discworld book this happens to some Omnian fanatics.
  • Dragaera: In The Phoenix Guards, the main cast meet Mica when he becomes the victim of one of these.
  • The Dresden Files: In book 8, Proven Guilty, Harry gets an apprentice in the form of Molly Carpenter, and her mother informs Harry that if the girl ends up coming to harm under his care, she'll come round to his office and throw him out the window. Harry replies "Death by defenestration. Got it."
  • The Fall of Gondolin: As looking for his family during the battle, Tuor discovers that Maeglin is trying to take advantage of the chaos to kidnap his wife and murder his son. Mad with rage, Tuor seizes and hurls Maeglin off the battlement, and his body hits the rocks before falling into the flames burning the hill.
  • In the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge admits that Margaret Thatchernote , of all people, tried to throw him out the window of her office during their first meeting.
  • Howl of the Werewolf: How Van Ricten the Vampire Hunter meets his maker, when confronting the Countess Isolde in her tower; the Countess' werebat servant grabs hold on him and tackles Van Ricten towards a nearby window with a steep drop on the other side, but as he crashes through the window Van Ricten managed to fire a fatal shot into the werebat, resulting in both of them falling to their deaths.
  • Into the Hinterlands: Councillor Rubicon, a politician who came up from the commoner class, takes a derisive attitude to the Non-Idle Rich Allenson, saying that he probably thinks he's beneath his status to duel. Allenson retorts that duels are "a stupid way of settling disagreements"... and instead throws him bodily out the nearest window. It's only a bit later that another councillor reminds him they're on the third floor.
    Allenson: Oh dear. I hope I have not killed him.
  • Land of Oz: In The Lost Princess of Oz, the main characters are consulting with the (ordinary-sized) ruler of a village during their search for the lost Ozma. A giant enters and interrupts them. The ruler throws the giant out of the window.
  • In Max Barry's Machine Man, this happens to Better Future's Corrupt Corporate Executive Manager when he jokes about Lola's EMP Heart Trauma.
  • In The Malloreon, the sorcerer Senji relates to the protagonists how the Melcene University, upon learning that he appeared to be immortal, decided to test it by hiring someone to throw him out a window. This turned out very poorly for the defenestrator.
  • In Pact, there is an unnamed Boogeyman in the Tenements section of The Abyss whose whole power revolves around throwing people and others out of windows and off tall objects. Later he becomes the key player in a Brick Joke when he reappears during the climactic battle in the endgame and deals the final blow to the demon Barbetorem, kicking him off of a building into a Bottomless Pit.
  • Archer is introduced this way in Parellity. Not giving, nor receiving, but both.
  • In the second book of Ranger's Apprentice, Alyss and Halt go on a diplomatic mission at a local baron's castle — who turns out to be an arrogant, sexist pig. When the baron in question makes the massive folly of insulting Alyss by ripping up her credentials and further insults her mentor Lady Pauline (a woman who Halt is in love with, by the way), Halt throws him out the window into the moat. A pair of workers emptying privies into the moat don't even flinch.
  • In See You in November a Rhodesian special forces operative ponders an assassination method where you knock on someone's hotel room door, club them on the head when they answer, drag the body to the window and throw them out. The coroner invariably concludes the death was "suicide while the balance of their mind was disturbed." Later a member of the Rhodesian negotiating team falls out the window while in England, and after the coroner gives this verdict despite no apparent signs of depression, he wonders if this trope was in play.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire
    • Much of the tragic events of the novels lead from Jaime Lannister pushing Bran Stark out of a tower window because he witnessed him having sex with his sister, Queen Cersei.
    • This is what ultimately happens to Lysa Arryn, which is Laser-Guided Karma seeing as she was threatening to do the same thing to Sansa Stark.
    • There is a historical example known as the Defenestration of Sunspear, so named because Princess Meria Martell (at the time pushing 90 years of age and blind) personally disposed of Lord Jon Rosby by dragging him to the very top of the Spear Tower in Sunspear and chucking him out of a window. Despite said tower being one hundred and fifty feet high, Lord Rosby is said to have suffered a kinder death than the rest.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • Happens to a Yuuzhan Vong Mook in Rebel Stand, courtesy of Kell Tainer. Except the panel doesn't shatter — it pops free of the structure and falls with him.
  • Sweep: The Story of a Girl and her Monster: When Mr. Crudd tricks Nan into coming to him, one thing he tries to do is push her into a fireplace. Then Charlie, who secretly followed Nan, bursts into the house, grabs Mr. Crudd, and throws him through a window.
  • Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch". Collected in Tales from the White Hart, which are framed as tales heard but-not-quite-believed by an Expy of Clarke himself and told by the irascible and enigmatic Harry Purvis at The White Hart, a fictional pub near Fleet Street at which scientists, engineers, science writers, and science-fiction writers would congregate. "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" is the story of a couple in 1950s Britain, in which the husband, Osbert, accuses his wife Ermintrude of talking too much — specifically 100 times as much as he does. Being a sound engineer for the BBC, Osbert sets up a word-counter, which works at first, but his wife figures out a way to make it so that Osbert has the higher count, which infuriates him, particularly after he figures out that she'd surreptitiously recorded his speech and had him playing on a loop while he was not at home. Ermintrude falls out a window shortly afterward, although it isn't clear if she's pushed. Shortly after the tale wraps up, a woman comes into the pub and chews Harry Purvis out — to which he replies meekly, "Yes, Ermintrude."
  • Played with in The Tamuli. When a character is asked what she did with a mook, she replies that she defenestrated him. The character who asked looks ill until she explains that she threw him out the window.
  • This happens a couple of times in The Traitor Game:
    • In the Evgard storyline, Argent, in an attempt to get Columen and Iaspis to safety, pushes some Mereish soldiers out through some windows.
    • Shitley pushes Michael through a window at one point. When Michael's mother sees him, she is worried that he jumped deliberately. Michael points out that if he did, he would have at least opened the window first.
  • Brazilian writer Luis Fernando Verissimo likes writing about weird-sounding words. One of his texts was about "defenestration", and he tries imagining how the word might actually be used in the everyday life (brutally injured man in the sidewalk points up: "I was defenestrated...", and a bystander: "Poor man! And then they threw him out the window!").
  • In the thriller Victoria, a corrupt federal official is thrown out of a window several stories up by a mob of angry citizens and does not survive the experience. This instance explicitly references the famous Defenestrations of Prague.
  • The historical backstory of the Vorkosigan Saga includes Mad Emperor Yuri's Defenestration of the Privy Council. (Referred to by various characters but never actually portrayed or described in detail.)

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the 1000 Ways to Die episode "Habeas Corpse", a sleazy lawyer kept demonstrating a stunt where he would jump on the tempered glass window on the 40th floor, but would be bounced back afterwards, but one time, he wasn't so lucky.
  • Agent Carter essentially Book Ends its first season with fight scenes that end like this — in the first episode, Carter throws the Leviathan agent who broke into her apartment out the apartment's window, while the season finale has her kick Dottie out of the window of the hanger radio room she's confronted the villains in.
  • Angel:
    • Angel shoves a vamp out the window in the pilot episode. He bursts into flames from the sun, of course. No cleanup required!
    • In "Long Day's Journey", the Beast throws Connor out a window.
    • Happened to Angel himself in "Shells". Illyria easily tossed him out of the window and then used her super speed to exit the building before he's even hit the ground, passing Angel as he's still falling in (what seems like to her) slow motion.
    • In "Damage", Spike gets tossed out of a fifth-floor window by a Slayer. At this point, he's almost jaded.
      Spike: Just thought I'd see what it was like to bounce off the pavement. Pretty much what I expected.
    • In "Reprise", no sooner does a Senior Partner materialize in front of its employees than Angel lunges for its throat and tackles it through a window.
  • Arrow: When the Count returns in Season 2, he's able to deduce the titular hero's real identity and sets up a hostage situation for him, which ends with the Count taking three arrows to the chest and being knocked back through an already cracked window to fall what looks like a couple dozen floors.
  • The Avengers (1960s): Lampshaded when Steed advises Tara King (who is practicing her judo) that if possible she should throw her opponent through a plate glass window.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • In "I Was Made To Love You", Spike gets thrown out the window of a college house party by a robot. It's seen as funny in this case, since Spike is, at that point, a character that the audience loves to hate, and of course vampires generally can't be killed by glass unless they get a really bad cut around the neck region.
    • A different version of this trope occurs in "This Year's Girl" when Buffy and Faith are demolishing Joyce's house during their fight. Faith throws open a French door into Buffy's path so she runs right through it.
  • Charmed: Phoebe's Fetus Terrible forces her to shove Paige out of a window in the attic. Luckily Paige's powers include the ability to Orb allowing her to save herself before she lands on Darryl who was approaching the house just below her.
  • CSI: In "Stalker", Nick gets shoved out of a window when he is surprised by the guy whose apartment he's searching, and winds up being hospitalized.
  • CSI: Miami: In one episode, Horatio rescues a young woman about to be raped, just in the nick of time. He then explains to the perp that he's going to give him a taste of what to expect while he's in prison... and proceeds to throw him through the end window of the trailer in which he'd been holding the woman hostage.
  • Dark Hole: Hwa-sun accidentally defenestrates herself along with a zombie. She survives by grabbing the wall and climbing back up.
  • Doctor Who:
  • In an episode of Everybody Hates Chris, Chris tries to decide if telling his father that he drove the car around town without permission is the best thing to do. He has an Imagine Spot of his father doing this to him, prompting Chris to keep it a secret.
  • Fear the Walking Dead: After Strand becomes a Wasteland Warlord in Season 7, he develops a terrifying habit of throwing anyone he believes is acting against him (which his growing paranoia makes a vast list) off of the roof of the building he's turned into his fortress.
  • In Firefly, Malcolm Reynolds gets thrown out of a bar window at the beginning of "The Train Job". Subverted that the "window" is actually a hologram, not glass, and doesn't shatter. How useful that would be for keeping the weather out was the subject of some debate (see the show's Headscratchers page), but one gets the impression that it's the kind of bar where people getting thrown through the window is a regular occurrence.
  • Forever Knight
    • In the pilot of this Vampire Detective Series, Nick Knight and Don Schanke are faced with a hostage situation. Nick tells Schanke to keep the man talking while he "goes 'round the back", greatly puzzling his partner as they're several stories up. Nick them uses his vampire powers to float up to the window and yank the man through it.
    • In "Last Act", Nick shoves a murderer through a high-rise window (without opening it) and is entirely willing to let him fall, but fortunately his partner shows up.
      Schanke: Nick, you solved this thing! Besides, think of the paperwork if you drop him.
  • In Heroes, Peter Petrelli gets telekinetically thrown out of a window.
    • Matt Parkman is tossed through a window by Jessica.
    • Claire's college roommate Annie, in what's initially assumed to be a suicide. When talking about it, Claire's friend Gretchen seems strangely pleased by the opportunity to use "defenestrated" in a sentence.
  • In the second season finale of Hannibal, the eponymous character's surprise protege does this to Alana, who later remarks in "Aperitivo", "I’ve always enjoyed the word 'defenestration'. Now I get to use it in casual conversation."
  • In High&Low, Kohaku kicks Aoyagi out of a 2nd story office.
  • Hitler: The Rise of Evil: Fritz Gerlich is contacted by a man who has inside information on Nazi Party collusion with shady foreign investors. This source is later pursued by several SA men at a train station, who throw him through a window to his death.
  • Hollyoaks: Texas Longford dies on her wedding day when she's pushed out of a window by her new husband.
  • In Jekyll, Benjamin Lennox and Christopher Browning find out the hard way that annoying Hyde is a very bad idea:
    Hyde: I'm wondering about that wee window up there and if you'd fit through it at speed.
    [Christopher stands to attention]
    Benjamin: This is Christopher... and in the event of you attempting any violence on my person, Mr. Hyde, Christopher's going to take an attitude, and believe me when I tell you when you don't wanna be there when Christopher takes an attitude. [...] Now, there's two things we can do, here: I can tell you what the hell I'm talkin' about, or you can try and throw Christopher out that itty-bitty window. I don't think Christopher'll fit.
    [Gilligan Cut to Christopher, bloody and covered in bits of glass, hauling himself off the pavement]
  • Line of Duty: In Series 2, a rookie cop dies when a dangerous suspect shoves her out a hospital window several floors up.
  • Pictured atop this image is Lost, when John Locke is spectacularly thrown out a window by his own father and becomes paralyzed as a result.
  • Luke Cage (2016):
    • Cottonmouth throws Tone off the roof of his nightclub after Tone fires into Pop's Barbershop with two submachine guns in a botched hit on Chico, and Pop is killed in the crossfire.
      Cottonmouth: Nothing humbles a man like gravity.
    • Cottonmouth himself dies in this way. Mariah Dillard tosses him out of his private box at the nightclub, and then when that fails to kill him, she finishes him off with a microphone stand.
    • Luke gets thrown through the same window as Cottonmouth during a fight with Bushmaster late in Season 2.
  • In the MacGyver (1985) episode "Phoenix Under Siege", the villain of the week happens to be a martial arts expert and makes a jump-kick at our hero in a high-rise building but misses and ends up crashing through the window instead.
  • Max is physically introduced this way in The Master.
  • Played for Laughs on Monty Python's Flying Circus.
  • Motive: The Victim of the Week in "A Problem Like Maria" is killed by being thrown face-first through a 7th storey window.
  • When Mr. Robot's protagonist, Elliot Alderson, was a kid, his dad pushed him through a window because he told his mom about his dad's leukemia. While we don't see him being pushed through the window, we do see the aftereffects, where he's laying in the snow, blood coming from the back of his head, as his parents rush to his side.
  • When The Musketeers are captured (along with the king, queen, Dauphin, and some courtiers) by an Axe-Crazy fanatic masquerading as an astronomer, Aramis offers said fanatic some unwanted advice and gets himself thrown out a 3rd or 4th storey window. Being one of the eponymous heroes, he lands on an awning, shakes off his injuries and climbs back up the side of the building to help rescue the royal party.
  • The Outer Limits (1995): In "Awakening", when Beth Carter finds out that her co-called friends were the ones who have been Gaslighting her, she attacks them and knocks them through a window, which makes them fall to their deaths.
  • Painkiller Jane: Happens in the first episode, where Jane's second encounter with a Neuro results in her partner being mentally coerced into throwing both of them out of a skyscraper window. Both of them die on impact. She gets better.
  • Person of Interest:
    • John Reese has a Running Gag where he enters a Bad-Guy Bar and beats up everyone inside for information, ending in a final mook being thrown through the window onto the street. On one occasion it's Reese who gets thrown out the window, but he just brushes off and goes back inside again.
    • In "Critical", Reese is informed that the Victim of the Week's number has come up before. He asks Who Would Be Stupid Enough? to risk their life a second time. Cue embezzler Leon Tao flying out the window of a ground floor office and landing at his feet, having pissed off yet another gang of thugs with big bank accounts.
    • In "Liberty", in accordance with Team Machine's Thou Shalt Not Kill policy, Sameen Shaw is proud to inflict Only a Flesh Wound on a mook, only to have him stumble out the window to his death.
  • The Professionals:
    • The fake suicide version opens the episode "Everest Was Also Conquered" when a whistleblower to an impending corruption inquiry gets thrown out the window by her police protection detail, who've been bribed or blackmailed into the act.
    • In "A Stirring of Dust", Doyle is Bound and Gagged so takes care of an assassin by kicking him through the window. He gets a bollocking for that from Cowley however, as the assassin got his throat sliced up so can't be made to talk.
    • Used as a plot-point in "Blackout" when a woman is found with cuts and bruises indicating she jumped out of a window. Later a CI5 agent sees a window covered by a sheet of cardboard (instead of being properly boarded up) and realises the window was broken recently.
    • In the Action Prologue of "Fugitive", a female terrorist posing as a hotel waitress brings a breakfast tray for a senior member of the CIA staying in a London hotel. Two other terrorists who've been waiting in a nearby room then force their way in while the door is open and bundle him out the window.
  • In Psych, Shawn Spencer is kicked through a window (albeit a glass free window covered by thin wood slats) in the episode "Romeo and Juliet and Juliet". In the same episode, Gus accidentally threw Shawn through a glass window when the two of them were attempting a little late night undercover investigation.
  • Psychopath Diary: In-woo accidentally defenestrates himself when his fight with Dong-sik leads to him crashing into an already-cracked window. He survives thanks to a passing garbage truck.
  • Happens in reverse (yes, reverse) in Red Dwarf when the crew ends up on an alternate Earth where everything goes backwards. Lister is propelled into a broken window, restoring the glass, and is caught by the thugs he's fighting.
  • In a recent Saturday Night Live sketch, President Barack Obama, when antagonized by his Republican rivals and egged on by Rahm Emanuel, "hulks out" and turns into "The Rock" Obama, and throws his enemies out the Oval Office window — though, as John McCain is assured, "Relax, it's only the first floor."
  • In Sherlock after a CIA agent injures Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock captures him and ties him up. Then he calls the police to report him, requests an ambulance and describes in gruesome detail the injuries that the burglar has received, then states that the man fell out the window. In the next shot, John is helping Mrs. Hudson wash up when a shadow falls past a window, with a loud crash.
    Mrs. Hudson: Oh! That was right on my bins!
    [cuts to the ambulance driving away while Sherlock and Lestrade stand on the curb]
    DI Lestrade: And exactly how many times did he fall out the window?
    Sherlock: Oh, it's all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: This rarely happens in the Star Trek universe, as the windows are made of transparent aluminum and you'd cause Explosive Decompression is you threw someone through them. That didn't stop Geordi and Ro in "The Next Phase", however. Afflicted by Intangibility, they are pursued by a Romulan in the same situation. When Geordi comes across him and Ro brawling, he manages to punch the phased Romulan straight through the hull — partially including a nearby window — and into space.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
    • In "Tacking into the Wind", it being impractical to throw anyone through a window on a space station, the room where Worf and Gowron duel is conveniently supplied with a static tactical display inexplicably printed on a huge vertical sheet of glass, for Worf to be dramatically hurled through.
    • While the Ferengi don't have a lot of capital crimes, the few they have are traditionally executed by this trope. Being thrown from the top of the 40-story Tower of Commerce not only ensures the sentence is carried out, but the landing site down below is set up so that observing Ferengi (being Ferengi) can make bets on the landing.
  • Stranger Things:
    • In the Season 3 episode "E Pluribus Unum", Eleven saves Nancy from the miniature Mind Flayer stalking the hospital by flinging it around the room, and finally throwing it through a window to splatter on the pavement about five floors below.
    • In the Season 4 finale "The Piggyback", Nancy uses a shotgun to blast Vecna out of an attic window in the Upside Down version of the Creel house. Unfortunately, while badly wounded, he survives to escape.
  • In Supernatural Meg is pushed out a window by the daeva she summoned in "Shadow".
  • In a Super Sentai team-up special, Tetsu is undercover and really, really doesn't need Eiji revealing that he's SPD. So Tetsu pretends that Eiji is an enemy, and pitches him out of a window to shut him up. It's even more hilarious than it sounds.
  • In one episode of The Tick (2016), the eponymous Tick is thrown through an office window something like 20 stories up by anti-hero Overkill, then shown thinking about how he is falling and grabbing onto a flag pole to try to stop. Said flag pole breaks and he slams face first into the ground. He gets up completely okay, afterwards, being nigh-invulnerable. This falling scene came from the original cartoon.
  • In the Titans (2018) episode "Together", Dick is thrown out of a motel window by Dad of the Nuclear Family, landing on a car below. Being Robin, this barely slows him down.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959): In "What's in the Box", during his brutal attack on his wife Phyllis, Joe Britt punches her in front of an open window and she falls to her death. Although he had not intended to kill her, the glimpses of the future shown on his television indicate that he will be convicted of murder and executed for his crime.
  • The Twilight Zone (1985): Discussed in "Act Break". Maury Winkler and Harry are writing a play in which an English aristocrat named Roger kills a woman named Ethel but they can't decide how he should do it. Harry suggests throwing her out the window. When Maury says that people don't die from being thrown out of first story windows, Harry thinks that she should fall into a swimming pool that is being renovated. They eventually agree that Roger should strangle Ethel.
  • Walker, Texas Ranger:
  • Warehouse 13:
    • In a season 1 episode, Pete throws himself out the window of a building that won't let anyone leave. While the initial jump is a Super Window Jump, the fact that the house in question tosses him back through another window puts this in Destination Defenestration territory. Destination Refenestration?
    • In season 4, an Artifact throws Pete out of a house through the window. He wasn't even standing close to said window at the time.
  • In the WKRP in Cincinnati episode "Hoodlum Rock", the polite and well-dressed but evil rock group Scum of the Earth throw a bellboy out of the window of the hotel they're staying at. But...
    Blood: What floor is this on?
    Johnny Fever: The ground floor.
    Blood: Pity.
  • The X-Files:
    • In "The Erlenmeyer Flask", a doctor who was involved in the experiment is thrown out of the window of his lab. It's supposed to look like a suicide.
    • In "Schizogeny", the victim was pulled out the window, not pushed. By trees.
  • In The Young Ones episode "Nasty", Vyvyan threatens to put the next person who asks if they have a video through the window. When Neil asks, Vyvyan subverts this trope by ripping the window off the wall and smashing it over Neil's head.

    Memes 
  • In The Boardroom Suggestion, a boss asks 3 employees to make a suggestion. After one of them makes a suggestion that the boss doesn't like, his Disproportionate Retribution to the employee in question is to throw him out the window.

    Music 

    Music Videos 
  • In the music video for Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood", at the end of the opening fight, Swift is kicked out a window, falling into a parked car in the street below from where she begins singing the song.
  • In the music video for Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It", the band repeatedly throws Douglas (played by Mark Metcalf) out of the windows of his house with The Power of Rock. At the end of the video, the band's backed him into a corner with windows on both sides. He smugly stands in front of a solid wall, thinking he's outsmarted them. He goes through the wall anyway.

    Myths and Religion 
  • In The Bible's Books of Kings, the evil Queen Dowager Jezebel was betrayed by her own retinue and thrown out of the palace window. It's also a stunningly powerful aversion of the hero/villain dichotomy with regard to how horrifically it's described. She hits the ground, falls apart like Judas and gets eaten by dogs. (The latter had previously been prophesied by Elijah, incidentally.)
  • According to his legend, Saint Bernard of Menthon was a Sheltered Aristocrat who wanted to be a priest rather than giving into an Arranged Marriage. As he was trying to escape from the family castle, he threw himself off a window... located 12 meters above the ground; two angels took a hold of the "flying" Bernard and helped him reach the land unharmed, then guided to the nearby archdeaconry.

    Pinball 
  • In Capcom's unreleased Kingpin, mobster Frank Gritty gets killed by being thrown out of a window.
  • In Lights... Camera... Action!, the rooftop Chase Scene includes a bystander knocked through a skylight window.
  • WHO dunnit (1995):
    • Some cases begin with the killer throwing the victim's body off the roof of Tony's Palace, causing it to crash through a skylight.
    • Scoring a Jackpot during multiball shows a person being thrown through a plate-glass window.

    Print Media 
  • In the MAD "Tales from the Duck Side" comic "Absurd Man of Alcatraz," a Death Row inmate is ejected through a window from a spring-loaded seat. The warden angrily bursts into the room where this happened, shouting: "You IDIOTS! I said Lethal IN-JECTION, not E-JECTION!"

    Pro Wrestling 
  • This played a part in one of the most famous tag team breakups in wrestling history when Shawn Michaels threw his Rockers teammate Marty Jannetty through the glass window of Brutus Beefcake's "The Barber Shop".
  • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was sent crashing headfirst into a plate glass window at the hands of The Undertaker on the May 3, 2001, episode of WWF Smackdown
  • There's an infamous series of spots (including a couple of nasty looking botches) from a WWE(then F) match between Kurt Angle and Shane Mcmahon at the King of the Ring in 2001 — Shane ended up being thrown through three glass windows that made up part of the set, when the glass didn't break they simply repeated the spot (almost always a big no-no in wrestling) making the whole sequence that more brutal and deranged.
    • It's usually a big no-no because it makes it look scripted (which it more-or-less is) rather than free-flowing (which is how it's supposed to look). They got away with it because Kurt Angle had quite obviously been trying to do just this, rather than a spur-of-the-moment thing. Adding to the brutality, he was throwing Shane with a belly-to-belly suplex, which is done by flinging someone upside-down over your head. So when Shane bounced off the plexiglass, he landed on the back of his head and neck, twice, before the glass broke. Then got sent through two more panes.
  • In Lucha Underground, people frequently get thrown through the window of the owner Dario Cueto's office. He frequently complains that getting the window fixed is expensive.

    Radio 
  • Discussed in The Ricky Gervais Show when Karl talked about how a baby is more likely to survive being thrown out of a window than an adult because its unaware of what's happening so it won't tense up (which, according to Karl, causes falling damage). Stephen and Ricky told him he was talking crap and (in very serious tones) told him not to throw any babies (or cats) out of windows ever.

    Roleplay 
  • In Darwin's Soldiers, Alfred throws someone through a reinforced window...with fatal results.

    Sports 
  • Happens from time to time in ice hockey. More likely in smaller arenas that use cheaper glass but even specially-designed NHL-quality glass can shatter with a hard enough hit.
  • Charles Barkley did this to a fan as retaliation for getting hit with a cup of ice.

    Tabletop Games 

    Theatre 

    Video Games 
  • In First Encounter Assault Recon, the Point Man is thrown through a window by an explosion during his first encounter with Alma.
  • In Floor 13, you direct a secret organization whose only purpose is to keep the Government in power. Fail either in the goal or in being secretive enough, and a certain Mr. Garcia shows up to throw you out the window... from the aforementioned thirteenth floor.
  • The Force Unleashed:
    • Starkiller gets stabbed, thrown across the room a few times, then thrown out the window INTO SPACE all by someone he thought was on his side.
    • In escaping the subsequent level, this can be done to Stormtroopers, and there is an Xbox Live Achievement/Playstation Trophy for doing it.
    • In the sequel, Darth Vader Force-Pushes Juno Eclipse through a window. In the Light Side Ending, she survives. In the Dark Side Ending, she doesn't.
  • With Friday the 13th: The Game averting Soft Glass, it's possible to damage and even kill yourself if you go out a broken window or fall a story down. One of Jason's environmental kills even involves throwing a counselor through a window.
  • This trope is a bit of a hallmark for Tom Francis:
    • Gunpoint has this happen to the player character at the beginning of the game. He gets flung out of his apartment's window, hits the wall of the building next door, and falls through the glass ceiling below him. After you get out of the building, it's revealed that he jumped out of the window himself, trying out a pair of "hypertrousers" that lets you jump with enough strength to shatter glass windows. There's even a track in the soundtrack called Defenestraight to my Heart. During standard gameplay, you have the ability to do this at will (if there's a window nearby).
    • In Heat Signature, this happens again during the tutorial, but in space. Yes, the spaceships have windows. Yes, you can suck guards outside by shooting windows. If you're a traditionalist of the trope you can also smack or blast them through the window the old-fashioned way; especially useful when armor negates damage but not knockback.
    • In the trailer for Tactical Breach Wizards, somebody gets kicked out of the window in the first twenty seconds. On Steam, the three games are even referred to as The Defenestration Trilogy.
  • At one point in God Hand, Gene boots a mook out a window. He then helps a second mook line up with the window before doing the same to him.
  • In Mad TV (1991), the bosses of the three TV stations do this to the employees they fire, resulting in an animation of the poor schmuck tumbling from a high-up floor of a skyscraper onto the sidewalk below.
  • MadWorld:
    • Elise is SPANKED out a cathedral window.
      Holmes: Out the window with her wings clipped! Now that's a classy kill... DID YOU SEE THAT?! THAT WAS AWESOME!!!
      Kreely: Oh yeah! Jack did a great job!
    • You can do this to Mooks in the Courtyard of the Mad Castle, and you can also do it in the Facility level...right into SPACE for a messy end.
  • Defied by the Big Bad of Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death, whose gigantic Base on Wheels is proudly dubbed "The Indefenistrable III". It lives up to its name by not being thrown through a window at any point in the game. Whether its two predecessors lived up to their names is a question left answered.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Mass Effect 2 invokes this trope:
      Eclipse Trooper: I've got nothing more to say to you. If you—RENEGADE INTERUPT
      [Shepard pushes him through the skyscraper window]
      Shepard: How 'bout "goodbye"?
      Jack: Damn, I need to take lessons from you.
    • In Mass Effect 3, if she's still alive, Miranda Lawson will do this to her father with biotics. We don't see the body, but it's through a reinforced window twenty feet down to a factory floor.
  • The Matrix: Path of Neo has, at least, one level where you can throw Mooks out a window.
    • During another level you can throw an Agent down through a skylight.
  • Max Payne 3 combines this with a Super Window Jump at the beginning of Chapter 2, where Max pushes a mook through the VIP lounge window.
  • This is how Sigma is defeated in Mega Man X7.
  • In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Berserker Lord tosses a Federation soldier through the window in order to herald the boss's entrance. It's worth considering that the "window" is an external panoramic viewport overlooking the docking bay of a starship. An external docking bay. This implies that it is very thick tempered glass capable of holding an atmosphere, and the Lord throws the poor Redshirt through it so hard that it shatters into a bajillion tiny pieces.
  • Minority Report: Everybody Runs allows the player to throw enemies through plate glass windows. It was such a fun highlight of an otherwise lousy game that Nintendo Power named it best Guilty Pleasure of 2002.
  • Mr. Shifty: The titular character can punch people through windows. But only if the punch would have killed them anyway.
  • In Murdered: Soul Suspect, Ronan gets thrown out the window during his fight with the Bell Killer. The landing mostly killed him, but Ronan managed to pull himself back until the Bell Killer shot seven bullets through his chest to finish him off.
  • During the climax of Mystery Case Files: Broken Hour, Meredith Huxley gets blasted through a glass clock face on top of a huge Clock Tower and plummets down to her demise.
  • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: It's possible for the final boss in his second form to instantly kill Travis by punching him out the window. This fact is actually foreshadowed as early as the scene where Travis meets with Sylvia outside a restaurant, where a guy falls out from the sky into a car. Seems to be a favorite of his. Travis then does the same to him, but the latter survives by going One-Winged Angel.
  • Queen Jocasta tells the player character in Oedipus in my Inventory to "get Baby Oedipus out of the castle". This is how he chooses to interpret it.
  • Oni has a pretty hilarious take on this in the third level. Konoko is at the top of a tower in a factory complex. A squad of TCTF troops is outside, being pinned down by fire from Syndicate goons in the main lobby. Konoko radios to say she'll be right down to help them when a previously-defeated Syndicate goon stands back up.
    Demo Trooper: Fool! I've just triggered my detonation harness! In five seconds this entire tower will be vaporised!
    ''[Konoko looks at the trooper, out the window, and back to him; cut to an exterior shot of the tower, where the trooper smashes out the window, falls through the skylight of the lobby, and detonates]
    TCTF Officer: Uh, roger that. Foyer secured.
  • In Overwatch's Retribution event, the opening cinematic has Reyes shoot Antonio with his shotgun. The impact of the shot pushes him out the window he was standing in front of.
  • Paprium ends with you facing the Final Boss, Murdock, in his penthouse office, ending with you uppercutting Murdock through the office's window to his demise.
  • River City Girls: After beating the final boss, the protagonists decide to drop-kick them out the window of their penthouse office. Unfortunately, they're a lot too enthusiastic about the drop-kicking and thus go sailing out the window themselves. They have time to lampshade how they Didn't Think This Through before hitting the ground. Fortunately, as the game is highly comedic they're just fine, if a little banged up.
  • Saints Row:
    • In Saints Row, this is what Ben King does to Tanya Winters at the end of the Vice Kings arc. Granted, she managed to hold onto the window until Ben stomped her arm, but it still counts.
    • In Saints Row 2, The Boss shoots Dane Vogel right out of an office building at least seventy feet in the air after subduing Ultor.
  • You kill the Big Bad of the Taito Light Gun Game Under Fire like this.
  • This happens twice to Nathan in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, both times he's thrown out by Nadine.
    • The first time occurs after Sam has stolen the St. Dismas cross and the group are trying to get away. Nate opens a door and comes face to face with Nadine, who promptly hands him his ass. She finished the fight by kicking him out of a window, expecting the five story fall to kill him. Naturally, he's able to survive by clinging to a curtain and throwing himself onto the side of the building.
    • The second time happens much later, in chapter 15. After Nathan and Sam survive a chain of RPG shots, Nadine gets the drop on them. During the ensuing fight, Nadine throws Nathan out of a window and he once again needs to scale the side of a building (this one much less stable) but this time, it's to rejoin the fight.
  • Yakuza 0: After fighting his way through Dojima HQ to reach Kuze, Kiryu faces off against Yoneda in a bathroom, having punched, kicked, slammed and beaten the man with furniture who still won't give up all the way through the building's myriad of rooms and corridors up to this point. What finally puts the guy down until he appears later in the game is Kiryu smashing Yoneda's head into a urinal, then quite literally dropkicking him out of the window!

    Visual Novels 
  • The protagonist of Double Homework throws Dennis out of a second-floor window when he sees Dennis in Johanna’s bed undressed.
  • Fate/stay night: In the Fate route, Rider kicks Shirou out a window, but he uses a Command Spell to teleport Saber to his location and she catches him. Of course, if the player is dumb enough to have Shirou say a long speech to summon Saber instead of the simple, "Please come, Saber!", Shirou will splatter on the ground mid-sentence.

    Web Animation 
  • In the Chimney Chickens episode Comeback King, the Delinquent Rob McLaury hoists the High-School Hustler Blaze Hanson by the backs of his jacket and pants, and throws him out the window with much breaking of glass. To add insult to injury, when Blaze lands on the ground a couple of stories below and groans "I've fallen and I can't get up!" Rob yells back "You're talking, and you can't shut up!"
  • Fall of the Crystal Empire inverts this by having Princesses Celestia and Luna begin the battle against King Sombra by Smashing through a stained glass window.
  • In the imaginary Dangeresque films created by the Homestar Runner characters, Dangeresque does this to himself (or rather, to his beleaguered stunt double, Strong Sad) as a Running Gag.
    Dangeresque: Looks like I'm gonna have to jump!
  • RWBY:
    • In the Yellow trailer, when Junior pulls out some of Yang's hair, she punches him through the window of his own club. They're fighting on the ground floor. She punches him so hard he smashes through the window of the next floor up and falls a storey before landing on the street. Ouch.
    • In episode one, Ruby deals with the first of many mooks by kicking him out a window of the store they were trying to rob.
  • Unbiased History: The episode on the Defenestrations of Prague cover all the notable real-world instances of this in Prague be it of Papists or Commies.

    Webcomics 
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: "Now tell me where Ronald is before I super-size your pain for only thirty-nine cents more!"
  • Two of the Time Travellers get defenestrated in the last panel of this Dresden Codak strip. The Tokamak twins demonstrated why they wear lightning bolts on their shirts.
  • In chapter 33 of Drowtales, Shodun, an agent of the Nidraa'chal, does this to Sandaur.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Damien and Adrian Raven were both blown out what was partly window. Both survived this and falling one story down to the ground after, both being tougher than normal humans.
  • Ennui GO!: In "Defenestration", Hashim accidentally launches Sarah out their bedroom window while having sex with the force of his thrusting. She ends up landing on Izzy in the yard.
  • Freefall: Sam Starfall observes that this happens to him a lot, and it makes him thankful that the people on Planet Jean have chosen to build out instead of up; getting defenestrated is a lot safer when you're on the ground floor.
  • Girl Genius:
    • While on board Castle Wulfenbach, Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer! twice get knocked/carried off through one of the airship's windows, only to almost immediately reappear unscathed.
      Othar: FOUL!
    • Later on, Martellus von Blitzengard (better known as Tweedle) awakens to find that in defiance of his orders, an advisor has decided to open some impending negotiations with a show of force and gotten a significant fraction of their airfleet obliterated. When that advisor acts smug about how much more he knows about royal politics despite having just gotten their asses kicked, Tweedle hurls him through a window of their zeppelin and orders an immediate landing, an edict which nobody present is in any mood to defy.
  • In Goblins, Minmax defenestrates Dellyn Goblinslayer after he finds out that he rapes his yuan-ti slave nightly. It's a ground floor window, but it's the thought that counts.
  • Hark! A Vagrant's Strong Female Characters give us...post-coital defenestration!
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • In the prequel book Start of Darkness, Xykon is strangling Right-Eye, but after Redcloak stands up to him, he merely throws him into Redcloak, who is standing in front of a window. They fall out, covered in cuts from the window.
    • In "Sore Loser", Roy is fighting Sabine when all her magical enhancements wear off. She surrenders and attempts to seduce him instead, telling him he can do anything he wants with her now, so he cheerfully uses the privilege to toss her out of the warehouse to the street below.
    • Haley gets knocked out of a window by Tarquin in "Block and Tackle", who later apologizes for her defenestration.
    • In "Silencing Descent", the High Priest of Hel tries to get rid of Belkar for good at the Godsmoot by throwing him out one of the temple's windows and sending him down a mountain. He survives thanks to a Feather Fall item he had recently obtained, but his grudge against the vampire is greater, along with being upset that the comic cut away when he was in peril.
  • Nova from Overlord Academy reacts to people hitting her Berserk Button by doing this.
  • Hejibits has the executive thrown out for suggesting what customers want. This gave birth to the Boardroom Suggestion meme.
  • Sluggy Freelance: In "On the Run", Bun-bun takes over a group of Black Ops Elves who used to work for Santa Claus, keeping tabs on everyone being naughty and nice. Since Bun-bun has made it to the top of the naughty list every year and repeatedly tried to kill Santa Claus, the elves are very unwilling to work for him. Thus, his method of persuasion is to go down the chain of command throwing people out of high windows until he gets to someone willing to serve him. Much later, in "Falling", he throws that elf out of a window too for doing stuff behind his back, but he's got softer, and it's only high enough to break his bones.
  • Tales from Somewhere: In The Legend, "Eye Contact", Morten tosses an unnamed character out the window of the tavern because they tried to insist on taking his spot at the bar. It is soon revealed that he does this on a regular basis.
  • unOrdinary:
    • John flips Gavin out an upper story widow in their first fight when he charges at John. Due to Gavin's ability he's able to drag himself to the infirmary to get patched up.
    • Blyke blasts a rampaging John out a window later on. He isn't much worse for wear either, as he borrows Blyke's ability to break his fall.

    Web Original 
  • Cobra Kai: Two in a single episode ("December 19," the third-season finale). One happens to Bert after his investigation of a cat noise outside the Larusso household (landing him through the inside kitchen window). The other happens with both Kreese (who had previously gone at it with Johnny) and Daniel during their confrontation at the namesake dojo.
  • In The Other Kind Of Roommate, Xander not only deals with the first Agent of the story in this way, but says it's become so normal that he moved a dumpster underneath to catch all the falling bodies.

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • In Amphibia:
    • In "True Colors", King Andrias attempts to kill Sprig by callously dropping him out the window of his Ominous Floating Castle. This ends up awakening Anne's Super Mode, while Joe Sparrow saves Sprig.
    • In "Turning Point", Grime's plan for him and Sasha to escape the self-same castle was for him to throw Sasha out the window and jumping out after her. Unfortunately, he didn't have a plan for surviving the crash into the ground, but luckily, Joe Sparrow was there to catch them and help them get to Wartwood.
    • In "Adventures in Catsitting", the Plantars mention 'Cousin Stanley' who ended up being The Thing That Would Not Leave (and possibly wasn't an actual relative of theirs). Eventually, they had enough and made him leave... by chucking him out of a second story window into the nearby swamp.
  • Arcane: In "Some Mysteries Are Better Left Unsolved", Powder notices some commotion outside the arcade they're hiding out in, and sees Marcus and some Enforcers grilling passersby about where they could be hiding. The impudent man they're currently interrogating opts to spit on Marcus's shoe, who simply looks at him while taking a breath. Powder then tries to warn everyone about what's going on, before getting cut off by the man getting flung through the arcade's window with a slow-motion crash, making any explanation moot.
  • In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "On Leather Wings", Man-Bat attacks a security guard and flings him through a plate glass window from several stories up. He survives because he falls into a river below.
  • In the pilot episode of The Boondocks, 8-year-old Riley fires a shotgun at Ed Wuncler III, knocking him through a window onto the lawn in the middle of a garden party. The twist? He asks Riley to shoot him, to prove how strong his Kevlar vest is. It helps him survive a two-story fall in a pile of broken glass, too.
  • In the first episode of Bounty Hamster, Cassie waits by the window for her inept Bounty Hunter Marion to be tossed through after losing a spontaneous Bar Brawl.
  • Courage the Cowardly Dog has an example in the episode "The Transplant". After the Computer tells Courage how to defeat a kangaroo monster, it takes the opportunity to snark at him ("Please deposit twenty-five cents for the next five minutes, or your call will be interrupted."), at which point an annoyed Courage promptly chucks it out the attic window.
    Computer: Some people can't take a joke.
  • In one episode of The Flintstones, Fred and Barney are helping a billionaire detective with a case. When Fred goes to the apartment of some suspects, they throw him out the window. Outraged at them doing that, the detective tells Fred to go back in and throw them out the window... only for it to happen to Fred again.
  • Roddy MacStew is thrown out by Gutierrez in the origins episode of Freakazoid!. He survives but leaves a him-shaped hole in the snow (it is Christmas Eve).
  • In one episode of Goof Troop, when Pete learns that new safety inspector Goofy didn't shut down his rival car dealer like he wanted, he attempted to do this to him. When Peg refused to let him, Pete opted to throw him towards the camera.
  • In Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama, Kim feels that guys seeing her doing this to henchmen on TV weirds them out.
  • Happens to Amon in the 12th episode of The Legend of Korra, who then lands in the ocean.
  • Happens to Doctor Feelbad (an ambulance monster truck wrestler) in the Pixar animated short "Monster Truck Mater".
    Doctor Feelbad: Your next stop is the hospital! (Tormentor (Mater's monster truck alter ego) pulls him onto the ropes from behind the ring)
    Tormentor: Don't worry, I'll git ya some flowers. (he lets go, and as a result, Doctor Feelbad is thrown out of the arena and into a hospital, where the referee then counts to three)
  • The Simpsons:
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man has this happen a lot, and the episode "Catalysts" provides the page quote.
    Spider-Man: The dictionary defines defenestration as the act of throwing a person or thing out a window... Really not my favorite word.
  • In one episode of the 1960s Spider-Man series, Doctor Octopus throws the hero out a window and rather optimistically proclaims that he's gone for good. Spidey immediately returns through the same window.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Kidnapped", Obi-Wan Force-pushes Darts D'Nar's tactical droid out of a large picture window after D'Nar activates the bomb he'd attached to it, and the droid explodes in midair.
  • Star Wars Rebels: In "An Inside Man", Ezra Force-pushes Agent Kallus through a large glass pane, one of those control room displays common in the Star Wars universe.
  • Happens occasionally in Superman: The Animated Series, giving Superman somebody to rescue. At least once Clark Kent is thrown out of a high window, and it takes a well-placed open manhole and quick costume change for him to preserve his secret identity.
  • SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron:
    • "The Metallikats": Mac and Molly drop Callie out of a window for denying their parole. Fortunately for Callie, the SWAT Kats show up just in time for one of their Big Damn Heroes moments.
    • "Destructive Nature": Dr. Viper, annoyed that one of his Plantimals let Callie get away, knocks it across the room towards a window with his tail. In a subversion, it just splats against the glass, which doesn't break.
    • "The Ci-Kat-A": Razor fires a missile through the window of the Megakat Tower penthouse. It hits Brainwashed and Crazy scientist Dr. Street in the face, sending him flying through the air and out the other window at the opposite side of the room.
    • "The Origin of Dr. Viper": The SWAT Kats knock Viper out the lab window at the end of the episode. He survives and escapes into the sewer.
  • The Venture Bros.:
    • A flash back to Doc and Brock's college days ends with a rampaging Brock throwing someone through a window. He also does this to a random thug in the pilot episode.
    • In a later episode, Rusty leaps through the window of a skyscraper. He's not committing suicide, he wants to show off a device that lets him hover. Unfortuntly for him, he didn't take into account the glass shards and a huge one punctures his leg, causing him to black out.

    Real Life 
  • There have been least three notable Defenestrations in Prague in the past 600 years, the third of which is the Trope Namer since the word "defenestration" was first coined to describe the event. (That particular defenestration, of some Catholic officials from Prague City Hall by Protestant burghers, started the Thirty Years' War; unlike the other defenestrations, the defenestrees survived.note ) The earlier ones (1419, 1483) were associated with the proto-Protestant Hussite heresy and general rebellion in Greater Bohemia and Moravia. The fourth and last happened in 1948, the victim being Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk; Dirty Communists were implicated in that.note  Though there wasn't such a thing as a Czech 'nation' at the time, people of the present day nation-state of Czechia often consider Defenestration their nation's National Sport. Apparently, Czechs just don't feel it's a proper revolution until somebody gets thrown out a window. Political protests have been known to feature their targets being defenestrated in effigy.
  • During the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping's son Deng Pufang was tortured by the Red Guards before being thrown out of a third-floor window at the Beijing University; he survived, but was left a paraplegic. While neither openly denounced the revolutionaries, nor Mao for that matter, there are rumors that Deng Xiaoping always held a grudge towards Mao over the incident.
  • A story about windows and the Cultural Revolution was that of the famous mathematician Chen Jingrun (whose groundbreaking work on the Goldbach Conjecture is usually rather anti-climatically over-simplified in the lay press as "proving 1+2=3"), who defenestrated himself from the top floor of his office building to escape Red Guards. He would have fallen to his death except a tree broke his fall and he managed to land unharmed. Apparently, the leader of that Red Guard brigade was very impressed, saying, "It is no wonder that you are a famous mathematician. You even know how to select the angle when you jump out of the window."
  • Toronto lawyer Gary Hoy apparently had a fondness for throwing himself against skyscraper windows to demonstrate their strength, which worked out just fine until July 9, 1993. His faith in the strength of the glass was justified; the window didn't break but instead popped out of its frame and Hoy fell 24 stories to his death in an act of self-defenestration.
  • Murder, Inc. killer Abe "Kid Twist" Reles became a police informant to avoid the death penalty. After he sent several of his bosses to the electric chair, he went out a 6th story window at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island. The official story was that he was trying to escape, which is pretty absurd. He was being "guarded" by several New York City policemen, but no one was arrested for his murder/suicide/accident. The newspaper headline announcing his death was "The Canary Who Could Sing, But Couldn't Fly." Very cold.
  • In 1969 alleged anarchist terrorist Giuseppe Pinelli somehow went fatally out of the fourth-floor window of a Milan police station while being interrogated. The death was officially declared an accident, to the disbelief of many. The incident inspired Dario Fo's play Accidental Death of an Anarchist, although the death is not actually depicted in it. One area of suspicion was that his arms were not broken, indicating he was dead or unconscious when he fell, as an instinctive reaction by someone falling head first (even a suicide) is to reach out their arms to protect their head.
  • Similarly, in 1920 New York City Italian-born anarchist Andrea Salsedo died after falling to his death from a 14th-floor window. He had been arrested in connection with the anarchist bombings which had rocked the US in 1919, due to one of the bombers accidentally blowing himself up. A flyer discovered by his body was traced to the print shop where Salsedo worked (an anarchist newspaper was printed on the premises). Salsedo was held by the Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the FBI) for eight weeks incommunicado, without a lawyer, and reportedly harshly interrogated. Whether he killed himself or was murdered has been a source of controversy. Some claim he chose suicide to avoid implicating fellow anarchists if he broke during interrogation. Others claim he did give names, so perhaps he killed himself out of guilt. There have been allegations that he was severely beaten by BOI agents during interrogation, and thrown to his death. Whatever the case, his fate was overshadowed with the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti (connected with the same group) just two days later.
  • In South Africa in The Apartheid Era, The Bureau Of State Security adamnatly insisted black activist Steve Biko was interrogated robustly but within the legal guidelines, and they were so solicitous of his welfare that they even opened a window to air the twelth-floor interrogation room. Ag, jislaaik, man, we couldn't be blamed for a communist fanatic choosing to throw himself to his death rather than crack under interrogation, and he was an ANC terrorist anyway, so what's the big deal?
  • When someone in the body politic is found dead under a shattered high-level window, conspiracy theories flourish right on the spot. Norwegian politics have two examples:
    • Center Party politician Nils Trædal was found like this in 1949, apparently the day before a crucial political debate concerning the leadership of the Norwegian home front during World War II. He had been instrumental in securing that said home front did not seize complete political power after the German capitulation in 1945, and therefore, theories about his demise began to grow. Years later, another Center Party leader stated he had committed suicide, but...
    • During the debates concerning where to put a new main airport in Norway, a certain scientist with good arguments against the current plans was found dead outside his hotel in Denmark, presumably thrown out of the window of his room. This example is jarring because he was naked, and all his data was stolen. The airport 'was laid out as planned — and nobody ever talked about it again. Officially.
  • Similarly, when the ex-US Secretary of Defence James Forrestal was found dead under the window of his room in the Naval Medical Center, where he was interned for depression treatment, the theories of foul play were more than abundant. However, presiding over a controversial winding down and acrimonious reorganizing of a US post-war military, Forrestal was under a lot of stress, especially when differing political ideas brought him up against his former close ally, the President, and Truman fired him in the end after learning of his surreptitious contacts with his archrival Dewey. It's entirely possible (and generally believed most probable) that Forrestal did become suicidal, even after his state of mind seemed to improve, knowledge of clinical depression being rather slim in the late Forties. The oft-told legend that he threw himself from the window, shouting "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!", is still a legend, though. While Forrestal did believe that the confrontation with the Soviet Union was inevitable, nobody had seen him (or other people) defenestrating himself, and if any suicide note was written by him, it was an excerpt from the Sophocles tragedy Ajax.
  • The death of the Serbian Nazi collaborator Milan Nedic in 1946 involved him falling out of the window of a hospital in Belgrade. It's still not fully clear whether he willingly threw himself off to avert being tried and surely executed, or he was thrown out by others.
  • As this video shows, it is perfectly possible for a momentary lapse in judgement to result in people defenestrating themselves through ground floor glass windows and doors. While some ground floor windows and doors are reinforced with this in mind, it doesn't take much force from someone running against a thin plate-glass window to send it crashing down.

 
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Video Example(s):

"Daddy's Gone Now..."

(Spoilers) After unpacking the boxes that are never unpacked, looking at his stuff, and notices that his journal is completely blank, it is revealed that Charlie, Emily's imaginary friend is actually David's twisted split personality. Flashbacks shows "Charlie" murdering Alison with a pillow for making out with another guest at a New Year's Eve party & pretending that she commit suicide in the bathtub, pushing Elizabeth out the window & receiving an arm scratch from her, and killing a butterfly in half after coming out of a cave.

Example of:
Not-So-Imaginary Friend

Roberto fights Fry

Stewie's Peter ...

Tossing the bad...

Chi Chi throws ...

"Cute and Fluffy!"

Defenestration ...

Cousin Stanley

Out the Window

"How about 'goo...

Everybody Hates...

The Raid 2 - De...

Alternative Title(s): Thrown Through A Window

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"Daddy's Gone Now..."

(Spoilers) After unpacking the boxes that are never unpacked, looking at his stuff, and notices that his journal is completely blank, it is revealed that Charlie, Emily's imaginary friend is actually David's twisted split personality. Flashbacks shows "Charlie" murdering Alison with a pillow for making out with another guest at a New Year's Eve party & pretending that she commit suicide in the bathtub, pushing Elizabeth out the window & receiving an arm scratch from her, and killing a butterfly in half after coming out of a cave.

How well does it match the trope?

Example of:

Main / NotSoImaginaryFriend

Media sources:

Report

"Daddy's Gone N...

Roberto fights Fry

Stewie's Peter ...

Tossing the bad...

Chi Chi throws ...

"Cute and Fluffy!"

Defenestration ...

Cousin Stanley

Out the Window

"How about 'goo...

Everybody Hates...

The Raid 2 - De...