Don't try befriending Yukki.
"As I told Lady Freeze when I pulled her plug, this is a one-woman show."
— Poison Ivy, Batman & Robin
Love Triangles are tricky business. Trust us, we've already done the math.
It can get particularly twisted when some sides of the triangle are completely one-sided. Bob is in love with Alice, but Alice not only fails to realize it but is already in a relationship with Chris. This is a classic recipe for drama (or humor) but sometimes, it goes too far.
Sometimes, somehow, Bob gets the idea that Chris is the one in the way of Bob's happiness with Alice, and if Chris were to somehow have an "accident", then surely Alice would come to love Bob instead. It's true — Love Makes You Evil and these characters are really Not Good with Rejection.
Not always the best thought-out plan, no. Sometimes, Bob may not even consider what would happen if Alice ever found out. In fact, in a lot of these situations, Bob doesn't even make any effort to hide his actions from her and seems to be convinced that she'll somehow fall in love with him as soon as he kills Chris.
If this isn't The Reveal for a Yandere, it's still very likely to be their most shocking moment.
Compare Opposites Attract Revenge and Comforting the Widow. This can overlap with Death by Woman Scorned if the hypotenuse in question is actually interfering with a relationship, and Better Partner Assertion, the leadup to this trope if the assertion is unsuccesful. Contrast I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, which may be subverted into this trope, and vice versa. Also compare the Scarpia Ultimatum, where the threat to murder the hypotenuse may or may not be carried out. Contrast If I Can't Have You…, for when it's the Cathetus (Alice, for those a little rusty on their geometry) who will be murdered. If this is done indirectly by setting the hypotenuse up to be killed, it's either an Uriah Gambit (if Bob does it intentionally) or Death of the Hypotenuse (if the intent is limited to the author). Extreme Sub-Trope of Removing the Rival.
When the official authors do this, it's Death of the Hypotenuse. When the fanfiction writers do this, it's Die for Our Ship. If the hypotenuse is a friend, it's Friend Versus Lover. If the character kills him/herself instead, it's Spurned into Suicide.
Note that the triangle must be a right triangle for this to apply. If it is an equilateral triangle, Polyamory occurs, though if you have a Psychotic Love Triangle going on, things may still not end well. And of course, this isn't meaning literally murdering the hypotenuse.
Beware of spoilers.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Subverted in Air Gear. It seemed that Ringo Noyamano had finally snapped on Simca — enough to attack her with unusual violence to get her out of the way in the "race" for Ikki's love, but then we find out she was putting the Migratory Bird out of action so she wouldn't hurt or kill herself trying to participate in the war for the Sky Regalia, due to her lack of combat skills.
- Angel Sanctuary:
- That's pretty much the motivation for Rosiel's schemes against Sara. Alexiel won't wake up permanently (shows up in moments of need but always gives back the control to Setsuna) because her current reincarnation is extremely happier. So Rosiel figures that if Setsuna could not be happy anymore... And yes, Rosiel and Alexiel are brother and sister, but that barely matters to the point of this trope. And even if it did, Sara and Setsuna are too, but that didn't keep her from being overjoyed when she believed to be carrying his child.
- And on a straighter example, Layla set up her (successful) love rival to be killed by the man they both loved. Pretty cruel for all of the involved.
- And while Raphael doesn't actually try to kill Setsuna, he does make it very clear he'd be glad to step in should Setsuna die.
- The whole plot of Area 88 is that Shin's (now former) best friend sends him off to a war in the hopes that he'll get killed, so he can marry Shin's girlfriend, the daughter of his company's CEO.
- Aria the Scarlet Ammo: Shirayuki Hotogi. A perfect Japanese beauty according to Kinji, except for one flaw — jealousy, which turns her into a berserker who assaults any girl approaching Kinji. When she finds out that Aria is living with Kinji she goes as far as trying to murder her. She is shown to love Kinji to the point that she will do anything for him.
- Ask Dr. Rin!: Tokiwa tries this over and over for four episodes straight in the hope of having Meirin for himself. It's eventually revealed he was possessed.
- Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts: Miharu's reaction to seeing anyone trying to come between her and Minami (who is not even interested in her) is to chase that person down and try to kill them.
- Suruga from Bakemonogatari is infatuated with Hitagi. So much so that she starts stalking Koyomi after he hooks up with Hitagi and tries to beat him to death twice. Doesn't manage only because of Koyomi's amazing regenerating ability. I bet having been thrown around the room and then pulled back by your intestines would kill a normal person.
- Basilisk: Kagerou is dead set on killing Oboro so she can have Gennosuke. (Much more in the anime than the manga, though.) Tenzen also wants to kill Gennosuke so he can have Oboro as his puppet wife, which would grant him full control of the Iga Tsubagakure.
- Berserk gives us a non-Love Triangle scenario between Guts, his ill-fated lover Casca, and his inner beast. After the horrible events of the Eclipse that left Casca insane and incapable of loving Guts, Guts turned to hate and revenge in his sadness and despair. During a two-year time span, the dark emotions welling inside of Guts created the Beast, and the hellhound entity lived in disturbing harmony with Guts, feeding on his hate for the man who ruined his life so that one day, it may take over Guts' body and soul. However, the Beast's plan was interrupted when Guts put his hate and revenge aside for Casca, vowing to stay by her side and to try to find a cure for her insanity. The Beast does not like this, and has since then tried to get Casca out of the picture by trying to goad Guts into raping and killing her whenever he is mentally or emotionally weak. It's important to remember that Casca is also Guts' Morality Chain since she's the only reason why Guts refuses to give in to his dark side.
- Depending on how you interpret their relationship, Griffith may have done this to Casca during the Eclipse to get to Guts. He also looked to be trying to finish them both off out of jealousy and anger at them betraying him by becoming a couple before the Skull Knight arrived to save them.
- Griffith's no stranger to this trope even before the Eclipse. It's speculated by Judeau that the mission that he sent Guts on meant to kill Count Julius, who made an attempt on Griffith's life, may have been meant to kill Adonis, his young son (who Guts had accidentally killed during the mission in question) as well since Adonis was being groomed to marry Princess Charlotte, who Griffith wanted for himself in order to achieve his dream of having a kingdom of his own.
- Also, Dark Magical Girl Rosine. Platonic or not, she has a very strong obsession with having her Morality Pet Jill stay with her after being separated for so long. Which she demonstrates by telling Guts that Jill is "hers" after realizing that Jill has somewhat of a crush on him. While attempting to kill him.
- Black Butler:
- In chapter 64, Undertaker attempts to kill Sebastian because he is making Ciel "miserable." He doesn't get a chance to. It's also worth noting that Undertaker has a considerable amount of Ho Yay towards Ciel and tends to lose his personal space around him.
- In episode 17 of the first anime Sebastian has sex with a girl named Matilda to get information. When she finds out, Grell a male to female grim reaper with a crush on Sebastian is shown reacting jealously and writing down the girl's name in a next to die list.
- Creed from Black Cat does exactly this to Saya when Train started developing a deep friendship with her. When that didn't manage to convince Train to come to him, Creed decides that it is now Train's Heterosexual Life-Partners fault and tries to kill him. He tries to do this to Sven and Eve later in the series.
- Bleach:
- Loli and Menoli attempt to do this to Orihime due to their boss having an interest in her powers.
- Rukia's adoptive younger sister Homura, and to another extent her adoptive younger brother Shizuku, from the third movie wanted to kill all the Shinigami to keep them from coming between them and Rukia.
- Orihime's hollowfied brother Sora also qualifies, trying to kill Ichigo (and Tatsuki, though less so) for taking his place in Orihime's heart.
- Mayuri Konishi/Sarashina from Book Girl has traits of a yandere character. She is crazy about Akutagawa, with whom she went to elementary school. She admits to being jealous of Kanomata, who Akutagawa used to protect. When she suspects Akutagawa has feelings for his classmate Nanase Kotobuki, she says: "If so, I'll cut Nanse Kotobuki into ground beef!!!".
- Liang Qi of Canaan appears calm and even-tempered, but is in fact unwavering, merciless, and very much obsessed with admiring and idolizing her "Sister" Alphard, to the point of being in love with her. To her frustration, however, Alphard does not reciprocate her feelings and instead ignores or even proceeds to ridicule her from time to time. Because Alphard seems to have taken a special interest in observing Canaan's reactions to every plot carried out by Snake, Liang Qi sees the elimination of Canaan as a way to win back Alphard's attention.
- Clover: A thought B seriously got in the way of his romance with C/Ran. He also tried this on Gingetsu but failed.
- Code Geass: Mao's treatment of Lelouch seems this way at first — C.C. originally made a contract with him, but abandoned Mao and made one with Lelouch instead. So Mao tries to kill him by manipulating a girl who has an unrequited love for Lelouch, turning into a temporary Yandere. It fails. Somewhat averted in that Mao offers to leave Lelouch alone if C.C. comes with him. Concerned with losing one of his best allies, however, Lelouch prevents this. After that, Mao directly goes after Lelouch in the most potentially destructive manner possible.
- V.V., who looks like a kid but is Really 700 Years Old, became psychotically devoted to his younger twin brother Charles after their mother's death and killed his sister-in-law Marianne, Charles's favorite wife and his Knight, out of jealousy when they started getting too close.
- Cute Devil: Naruse basically considers doing this to anyone who tries to get close to Akiyoshi. For example, he once threatened to stab a guy in the eye and later stabbed him in the chest when he found out he was hitting on Akiyoshi. And in another scene, he comments to a group of students, "If any of you touch him, I'll kill you all. This guy belongs to me."
- This is essentially the main conflict in the second half of Da Capo, as Sakura tries to stop herself from subconsciously using her magical powers to either kill Nemu or drive her into insanity.
- Maki in Darker than Black has a massive, crazy stalker-crush on his boss, Amber. Such an insane crush, in fact, that he completely abandons the usual Contractor "emotionless" act when he finds the guy Amber's in love with and tries to kill him even though if he'd succeeded, it would have ruined Amber's entire plan, resulting in a genocide.
- Dawn of the Arcana: Loki has quite a few elements of Yandere, from threatening Caesar for insulting Nakaba and regretting that he didn't kill Caesar due to Nakaba's and Caesar's growing closeness in earlier chapters to killing Bella for threatening to have Nakaba either killed or raped by soldiers.
- Deadman Wonderland:
- Genkaku attempts this twice with the girls he thinks Nagi is interested in. He stabs Karako when she gives Nagi a Cooldown Hug, calling her a "shitty girl," and telling her not to touch Nagi. He also is shown to be very agitated and jealous when he insinuates that Shiro is someone close to Nagi, saying that Nagi "never learns," and that he'll just have to punish him again (which he tries by attempting to have Shiro and Karako raped). It's especially interesting to note that he was also the one that killed Nagi's wife in the beginning.
- Masaru "Chaplin" Sukegawa was imprisoned after murdering a woman that her lover was caught with. Though she didn't specifically aim to murder that person, she still did it since her Branch of Sin manifested there.
- Shiro did this in the first chapter/episode. She slaughtered Ganta's entire class out of jealousy, and then proceeded to show Ganta Mimi's severed head.
- Death Note:
- Misa once told Light "If I see you with another girl, I'll kill her!"
- There's Kiyomi Takada, who was once Light's girlfriend. She really hates Misa for her involvement in Light's life and has suggested to Light that he should kill her.
- And then when Misa and Takada have dinner together, Misa says that if Takada goes too far, she'll get the death penalty.
- D.Gray-Man: Komui is implied to be in love with his sister Lenalee and goes nuts if there's even a hint of a guy being interested in her. In fact, a way to wake him up is to say "Lenalee's getting married." In the novel, when Bak (who also has feelings for her) gives Komui a tea that makes one tell the truth he has a breakdown when Bak asks Komui "Isn't Lenalee free to love who she wants?" He takes this to mean that Lenalee is in love with a guy and immediately pulls out a machine gun saying "Then I'll kill everyone and then die!"
- D.N.Angel: In episode 23 Kael to Elliot so that he can have Freedert for himself.
- Kei of Drug & Drop has obsessive feelings for Kazahaya, to the point of warning him that she would kill anybody who got in the way.
- Both Mika and Namie of Durarara!! are Yandere for Seiji who's pretty crazy himself seeing as how he's in love with Celty's head. Mika has...plans for Celty's real head if she ever gets her hands on it and Namie actually tried to destroy it.
- Professor Nasujima at Mikado's school clearly has a thing for Anri, which naturally Squicks the hell out of her. The same guy is also dating Haruna Niekawa (one of his former students). Or was. Haruna doesn't like that he's changed his preferences, so she gave Anri a visit and tried to kill her...
- Elfen Lied: Lucy tries to suppress her instinctive desire to kill all humans so she can live happily with Kouta until she finds out he lied about the sex of the cousin he was going to a festival with and she saw them hugging, at which point she stops trying to be nice. She then proceeds to slaughter some people at the festival and kills Kouta's father and sister, and starts to go after Kouta's cousin Yuka, voicing her intent to kill her... but only stops once Kohta tackles her and she sees his tear-streaked face. She also isn't above acts of jealousy, once using her vectors to shove Yuka down when she saw her holding hands with him. Yes, she's VERY broken, but how broken she is is absolutely NOT an excuse for her killing or trying to kill innocent people just because Kouta pays more attention to them.
- Ergo Proxy: An Entourage Auto Reiv belonging to Re-l Mayer, Iggy contracted the Cogito Virus and grew to become enraged at Re-l's lack of regard for him. He despises Proxies and blames Vincent for taking Re-l — his sole reason for existence — away from him. He develops an unusual state of both loving and hating Re-l, and locks her up to "protect" her, while he attempts to kill Vincent. However, an Auto Reiv belonging to a Proxy that Re-l killed, attempts to kill Re-l at the same time, causing Iggy to return to Re-l. The Auto Reiv goes into a self-detonation mode and destroyed much of Iggy except for part of his head (which left Iggy "conscious" to some extent). In the end, not wanting to see Iggy suffer due to the virus, Re-l shoots him and buries his head.
- In Fate/Zero, Kariya Matou plans to do this with Tokiomi (the husband of his unrequited love Aoi). It's not purely for this reason, since Kariya blames him for handing him and Aoi's daughter Sakura over to the Matou's tortures (Though neither Aoi nor Tokiomi actually know what she'll be put through — the Matou leader, Zouken, is that much of a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing). Unfortunately, Kotomine kills Tokiomi first, but he sets Kariya up so Aoi (who actually does love Tokiomi) is led to believe Kariya did do it, and things get... messy.
- A variant of sorts occurs in Fist of the North Star in regards to Shin, Yuria, and main hero Kenshiro. Shin is in love with Yuria, who is in a relationship with Ken. The variant here though is that Shin seems relatively self-restrained... until Jagi, Ken's arsehole brother, comes along and convinces Shin that Ken is too weak to protect Yuria and that Yuria would end up dead if she stayed with Ken any longer. Result? Shin and Ken fight, Ken loses, Yuria declares her false love for Shin to spare Ken's life and he takes her to his Southern Cross kingdom and some time later, Ken confronts him there.
- Full Metal Panic!:
- When it comes down to it, this is pretty much what Gauron tries to do to Kaname, because he's angry that Sousuke fell in love with her.
- Sousuke gets a double whammy. He's in Leonard's way of both his plans and winning Kaname over completely as Sousuke and Kaname are in love. So of course, Sousuke is at the top of Leonard's hit list for two very big reasons.
- Future Diary:
- It's shown very clearly that Yuno Gasai (pictured above) would be all too willing to kill ANYONE who got in the way of her "love" with Yukiteru (including his mother and father). In fact, Yuno is even willing to kill anyone who is less than ten feet away from Yukiteru simply because they are less than ten feet away from him. Heck, she's even willing to kill Yukiteru AND HERSELF just to be with Yukiteru. Essentially, if she doesn't kill him the world will end and they will both die. If she does kill him then she can go to a different world's timeline, kill that timeline's version of herself, and then be with that timeline's Yukiteru. She doesn't seem to really mind that each of the world's Yukiteru are technically different people since her "love" for him is just to satisfy herself, at least until the end of the story, and she herself admits this.
- A less lethal version of this seems to be executed by Aru Akise, who has a crush on Yukiteru. He goes through the trouble of researching everything about Yuno's background to try to dig up dirt on her, and exposes it to Yukiteru, telling Yukiteru to "get away from her." Chapter 50 seems to have confirmed this. When Yuno shows up, Akise glares at her, declares "I won't hand over Yukiteru to you!", and forcefully kisses Yukiteru. This sends Yuno into a rage and she comes at Akise with a knife. Akise tries to kill Yuno, because he believes she's trying to kill Yukiteru, and destroy her diary but ends up failing because it turns out Yuno had two diaries, and she ends up stabbing him. In the following chapter despite having just been stabbed by Yuno and sliced across the throat, Akise gets back up out of sheer determination (and love for Yukiteru) and texts an important message to Yukiteru even though Yuno ends up cutting off his head completely. He also nearly kills Yuno earlier in the manga with the two grappling for each other's diary phones and Akise trying to strangle Yuno.
- The Garden of Sinners: Lio, who lusts after Shiki, wants to either kill or corrupt Mikiya to remove Shiki's Morality Chain.
- Get Backers: Takuma Fudou to Ginji, over Ban. "When you're around, Midou doesn't even notice me. Midou's eyes are not on me... because you're in the way!"
- Kazuki's gang, Fuuga (lit. "Elegance"), is really into the Ho Yay. There's some kind of Toshiki/Kazuki/Juubei Love Triangle, apparently; Toshiki even attempts to Murder The Hypotenuse, claiming that Kazuki never paid any attention to him when Juubei was around.
- In episode 11 of Good Luck! Ninomiya-kun when told Mayu might die soon (she's a succubus so she needs life force) Reika's alternate personality tells Shungo she doesn't care since "it's more convenient for me if Mayu dies like this because then I can have you all to myself". She then agrees to let Mayu live so long as Shungo "becomes [hers] forever". This is also played with in regard to Shinobu, a maid of Reika's, who thinks Shungo is not worthy of Reika and is always trying to "execute" him.
- In Haruhi Suzumiya, Haruhi is willing to destroy and rebuild the entire universe again with only her and Kyon if anyone gets too close to Kyon and she becomes jealous. Mikuru's closeness to him along with her boredom caused the first incident... without Haruhi even noticing that she had done so.
- Honne-Onna of Hell Girl has diehard fangirls. One was ready to send someone to hell because she thought he was dating her. And another actually sent the other girl to hell because she thought she got too close to Onna.
- A Zig-Zagged Trope in Hell Teacher Nube. Yukime was willing to kill her love rival, Ritsuko, but only after a very cruel Breaking Lecture from her father's lackey Ippon Datara, in which he first hit all of the girl's weak points and then told her that, if she wanted to become human and be able to be with Nube, she'd have to kill Ritsuko. So Yukime kidnaps Ritsuko and restrains her, apologizing all the way through said murder attempt... but she then decides that no, she can't kill someone who has done nothing wrong to her, and lets go of her. Which ends up with Yukime dying as she's tortured to death by Datara. (She gets better, however).
- Hetalia: Axis Powers:
- In one drama cd Belarus, already Yandere for her brother, is implied to be attempting to strangle a cat in one scene because it got in the way of her and Russia. She also does such things as scaring people away who Russia is trying to get close to and once breaks Lithuania's fingers because she's angry he has Russia's attention.
- Russia considers doing this to America because he really wants to have friends and America keeps making friends with the people Russia wants to make friends with thus he's getting in his way.
- Highschool of the Dead: Takashi believes he may have crossed the Moral Event Horizon after being forced to kill his recently-zombified best friend, Hisashi. Though it was to protect himself and Rei, Takashi admits that it was a little easier to Shoot the Dog out of jealousy because Rei had chosen Hisashi over him.
- Hunter × Hunter: Shaiapouf is afraid Komugi might distract the King from his "true goal" and is therefore considering killing her for "the King's sake".
- Ibitsu: The Strange Lolita's solution to the fact that Kazuki already has a younger sister is to personally make sure that Hikari is taken out of Kazuki's life... permanently.
- Inuyasha:
- When Koga first decides (completely unilaterally and over the course of about five seconds) that Kagome is "his woman." Upon realizing that Inuyasha is possibly in the way, Koga cheerfully proclaims that he will simply have Kagome by killing Inuyasha. He proclaims this to Kagome. He's blissfully unaware that she might have a problem with the idea. (He doesn't actually do it, of course, or even really try. But the logic is the same).
- Onigumo/Naraku tries to kill Inu Yasha several times because of his "love" for Kikyou. Although it's a little iffy due to the majorly conflicting motivations between his human and youkai sides, which hate each other as well.
- Kikyou once tries to murder Kagome because she is "in her way", and attempts to drag Inuyasha to Hell with her. She loosens up as her rage at the world diminishes and then she focuses on destroying Naraku for once and all.
- Kaguya Hime: Mayu lets her mother die in front of her eyes for making both Akira model nude for her and coercing Akira into a same-sex relationship with her. She also threatens to kill anyone Akira gets involved with.
- Kaguya considers doing this to Moeha in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War after discovering that she has a crush on Shirogane, but it quickly turns into a bonding moment between the two when it's revealed that all of Moeha's reasons for liking him match up with her own.
The joy that comes from sharing the things you like about your first love is a miracle that eclipses all contempt for one's rival in love.
- Karakuridouji Ultimo: Rune, Yamato's lover in a past life reincarnated as a man, threatens to do this to Yamato's crush Sayama if Yamato doesn't do as he says.
- Subverted in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple with Shou Kanou, who is Kenichi's main rival during the D of D arc. Both of them are in love with Miu and want to prove themselves worthy of being the man who protects her, and while Shou fights Kenichi with the intent to kill and at one point even tries to kidnap Miu, he ends up accepting gracefully when Miu tells him up front that she already has someone who will protect her. He even ends up performing a Heroic Sacrifice to shield them from being shot by one of the Yami soldiers, and with his dying breath makes Kenichi promise he'll protect Miu. On top of that, we're shortly revealed that he only pretended to have killed Team Pankration so they could escape with their lives, hinting that, deep down, he didn't want to actually kill Kenichi.
- In The Laughing Target, the protagonist has a cousin to whom he made a Childhood Marriage Promise. However, he eventually grew up, moved on, and started dating a girl at his school. When the cousin moves in with the protagonist (after her mother's mysterious death), it turns out that she hasn't moved on — and she's very unhappy with the new girlfriend for taking what's rightfully hers...
- The grotesque huge Captain Continental lusts after Jonathan in Legend of the Blue Wolves. However, Jonathan rejects his amorous advances in favor of his growing feelings for Leonard. Captain Continental notices their growing closeness and does everything he can to separate them, including calling Jonathan to his office alone so he can try to make him sexually submit to him, and rushing at Leonard with the intent to beat him after he tries to stop Captain Continental from beating up Jonathan and trying to make him submit to him. He later attempts to have Leonard locked into solitary confinement in order to get him out of the way after framing Jonathan for being a spy. He and his subordinate then approach Jonathan before beating him and gang-raping him.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), besides the threat Link poses to his rule, Zant wants to kill him for being close to Midna.
- Manami Anzai from Life (2002), who first appears as a cute and childish clique leader who snaps utterly when she suspects Ayumu is trying to steal away her boyfriend. She goes so insane that she then dates a gang leader on the side to use him to get back at both Ayumu and her boyfriend, and then promptly screws her boyfriend and the gang leader both over. Not to mention her vow to kill Ayumu with her bare hands. Then she crosses into Cute and Psycho territory.
- In Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!, Satone Kidnaps Rikka and makes Yuuta play a game with her where they have to break up if she wins.
- Hiromasa of Love Pistols considers doing this in regards to anyone who expresses interest in Shima.
- In Lovely Complex Mimi has a crush on Otani. She then learns that Otani is dating Koizumi and acts incredibly malicious towards her, including telling her with a Slasher Smile that she will make whatever is left of her life extremely painful if she gets any closer to Otani and trying to stab her hand with a pencil and getting angry when she misses. She later more or less mellows out though.
- Nova in Magic Knight Rayearth wants Hikaru all to herself and won't hesitate to kill her friends in order to eliminate all competition.
- Mirage of Blaze: Naoe does this by raping Kagetora's lover and later on forcing Kagetora to possess her to save his life.
- In the second to the last episode of Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Andrei Smirnov, who is in love with Louise Halevy, attempts to do this to Saji Crossroad, Louise's long-distanced boyfriend, blaming him for her deteriorating condition. Luckily, Setsuna is there literally (their mechas anyway) just behind Saji to prevent it. He tried to do it directly, but failed.
- A mildly-popular theory that was ultimately jossed by canon invoked this, via speculating that Billy Katagiri had caused the incident that led to the death of Emilio Ribisi, all to get close to Emilio's girlfriend Leesa aka Sumeragi. In truth, it was Sumeragi and Kati's own mistakes that brought said disaster; Billy did later show Yandere tendencies for her, but in this he had nothing to do.
- And in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ there's Beecha, who plotted with Mondo to have Judau killed by unknowingly using real bombs that the two lied were fake. This is due to Beecha's jealousy over Elle swooning over Judau and the feeling that he needed Judau out of the picture to make himself look like a better match for Elle. Fortunately, it fails.
- A non-romantic (we really hope) version also occurs, with Puru briefly attempting to murder Leina Ashta, because she wants to be Judau's little sister and is well-aware that Judau cares for Leina more than he does her. Judau manages to talk her out of it by promising that all three of them could be a family together after the war was over.
- Bonaparta does this in Monster in order to win the love of the twins' mother, whom he had kidnapped as part of a eugenics experiment. It is later revealed in Another Monster that the man he had set her up with as part of the experiment and then killed was his own brother, having already mind raped his father at a younger age for stealing the affections of someone else he had fallen in love with.
- In My-HiME, Shiho Munakata is in love with her childhood friend Yuuichi Tate, who's in love with Mai Tokiha. When Shiho comes to believe that Mai is stealing Tate away from her (more due to Tate's actions than Mai's), she attacks Mai to keep her out of the way permanently, which isn't helped by Nagi preying on Shiho's insecurities later. The true tragedy is that, as Mai realizes in the fight, due to the mechanics of the whole Himelander thing going on, if either of them loses the fight (since Mai realizes she is beginning to develop feelings for him, as well), Tate will die. This doesn't stop Shiho, though, as she's gone over the deep end already, and Tate finally dies after Mikoto kills Shiho's Child.
- Psycho Lesbian Tomoe from My-Otome wants Shizuru, and is perfectly willing to harm or kill anyone whom she perceives as a threat to her ultimate goal. This leads her to do nasty things to Arika, whose fangirl crush is seen as stealing away from any attention that might otherwise have gone to Tomoe. On top of that, Arika isn't even a real contender in this Love Triangle — that honor goes to Natsuki, Shizuru's boss.
- Naruto:
- In the sixth Shippuden movie, Naruto the Movie: Road to Ninja, Hinata's alternate counterpart threatens to kill Sakura if she gets close to Naruto.
- In the seventh Shippuden movie, The Last: Naruto the Movie, Toneri attempts to do this to Naruto because he's his rival for Hinata's love.
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Tsukuyomi just wants Setsuna to herself and wonders if it's okay to kill her charge and girlfriend Konoka.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion:
- Naoko Akagi was sexually involved with Gendo Ikari after the death of his wife Yui Ikari, though it is suggested that Naoko wanted Gendo before, as she described Yui's disappearance as being exactly what she'd hoped for. Naoko still strangled the first Rei Ayanami when the child said that Gendo considered Naoko as an "old hag" and no longer useful (Rei's resemblance to Yui might also have been a factor, as Yui's face appears superimposed over Rei 1's as she speaks to Naoko). She was later horrified that she had done so and committed suicide.
- Also, Ritsuko Akagi was romantically involved with Gendo, as her mother Naoko was before her. However, she eventually realizes that Gendo is using her in the same way that he used her mother and that he cares about Rei more than her, so she likens Rei to that of a romantic rival. In the manga her disdain of Rei is more evident: at one point, during one of Rei's medical checkups, Ritsuko loses control after Rei rebukes her and tries to strangle Rei to death. Realizing that she was acting like her mother before her, she stops herself from killing Rei but warns Rei against telling anyone what happened. She also destroys the Rei clones in a bid to get at Rei and Gendou.
- Onii-Chan Control features Noa, the little sister to the main character, who revealed she's willing to stab a girl she thought was interested in her brother. Of course, she never shows that side of her whenever her brother is around.
- Outlaw Star: Harry attempts to get rid of Gene in episode 21, once he realizes Melifina was in love with him. And tried to do the same to Hazanko for coming between them at the Galactic Leyline. Neither attempt ends well for Harry, especially the latter.
- PandoraHearts: Gil's devotion to Oz has a pretty dark edge. Hinted early in; outright shown in chapter 33, where Vincent goads him into saying/resolving to kill anyone who hurts or snatches his master away from him — no matter who it is. He almost went through with this concerning Alice. Luckily, he stops himself in time and thankfully, Alice didn't notice a thing.
- Paprika: Osanai tries to strangle Konakawa in his dream when the latter tries to take Chiba, whom Osanai loves, away from him.
- Peacemaker Kurogane: In the manga, Suzu comes to this conclusion when Ryoma decides to take Tetsunosuke away from him. Some fans also theorize this is what Suzu has in mind when he pays Saya, Tetsunosuke's love interest, a surprise visit, given his obsession with Tetsu.
- Yoshida, Suzu's master, also qualifies as it's implied he was jealous of Suzu's close friendship with Tetsu and many times tried to have Tetsu killed because he had feelings for his charge Suzu. He did this by trying to manipulate Suzu into doing so and then trying to do so himself out of frustration when that failed. He refused to give up in this endeavor even after having his arm cut off and held a sword in his mouth to Tetsu's throat. Only him suddenly being decapitated by Okita stopped him.
- Peach Girl:
- Sae hates Misao for being the one Ryo loves since she loves him herself and, at one point, tried to push her into the path of a moving bus. However, Kairi restrained her at the last second so she wasn't able to.
- Kairi's trio of Clingy Jealous Girls absolutely hate Momo for winning Kairi's affections. They make a habit out of harassing/threatening her, once deliberately made sure she got separated from Kairi and was stranded during a class trip, push her into the path of a campfire when she was holding cooking oil, and, at one point, held her down, and told her that she has to sign a contract swearing that she'll stay away from Kairi or they'll burn all her hair off (while holding a lighter to her hair), and try to beat her up later on when she states that their selfish and cruel actions won't make Kairi fall in love with them, and when she tells them that her love for Kairi is genuine. In addition, they take the threat even further with "We'll burn your face so badly that Kairi won't ever look at you again," and "Don't worry, we'll push you into the pool before your whole body catches fire."
- Penguindrum: It's implied that Tsubasa stabbed Tabuki out of jealousy once Yuri broke off their affair.
- Played for Laughs in episode 5 of The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Sorata and Mashiro have a talk after Nanami agrees to move into Sakura Hall. Only Sane Man Sorata's plan is to bribe Mashiro with food with a promise that she would take care of herself. Jin the Casanova suggests they tell Nanami they're dating, which Sorata immediately rejects. Innocently Insensitive Idiot Savant Mashiro then innocently invokes this trope by stating that she should kill Nanami to keep their secret safe, which he also immediately dismisses. Sorata decides to try his idea, which he calls Plan A, calls Jin's idea Plan B, and Mashiro suggests her idea is Plan C, causing Jin to start laughing wildly at Sorata.
- Sayaka Kouno of Princess Princess once shoved one of Tooru's previous girlfriends down a flight of steps out of jealousy. And then there's her habit of stabbing Tohru's girlfriends with scissors.
- Ranma ½ makes good use of this trope, given its base is a mixture of Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy and Love Dodecahedron. Fanon, however, tends to greatly exaggerate it for various characters who have used it or hold similar attitudes.
- Tatewaki Kuno: Has never actually tried to kill Ranma for Akane or "the pigtailed girl's" hand, and doesn't even seem to want to kill Ranma in their fights. His attitude of "if I beat up Ranma, then the girls I want will naturally flock to me for proving my studliness" does fit under the general umbrella of this trope, but lethal force is not his intention. Though... there is the way he starts swinging around a live steel katana instead of his bokken during the Tanabata and Failed Wedding stories, which probably inspired his fanon reputation.
- Kodachi Kuno: Joined in with Ukyo and Shampoo in attacking Nabiki during the "Nabiki, Ranma's New Fiancee" manga arc, in hopes of killing her and taking him for herself. Similarly, teamed up with them to beat up Miss Hinako during the manga arc she was introduced in, as she suspected the teacher was trying to seduce Ranma. She did show at the Failed Wedding in a wedding gown of her own and planning to marry Ranma herself, but wasn't slinging bombs around like Ukyo and Shampoo.
- Ukyo Kuonji: Generally prefers more "nonviolent" approaches to trying to win Ranma, such as setting Akane up on a date with Ryoga, trying to lure Ranma & Akane into a magical Kimodameshi that will supposedly break them up irrevocably, or agreeing to let Ranma stay at her home after he is kicked out (and, later, to let him use her business as a wager on the condition he will join her in resuming her travels if he loses it) in hopes that this will make him "realise how perfect she is for him". However, she can go about it violently as well; she willingly joins in with Shampoo and Kodachi when they attack Nabiki with plans to kill her and then fight over who gets Ranma, and is the one who suggests Hinako might be trying to seduce Ranma and leads the other two girls in ambushes on her. She shows up at the Failed Wedding throwing bombs, though possibly at Ranma rather than Akane, and wonders why she didn't think of it herself when Kodachi reveals her plan to use this ceremony as a way to marry Ranma at last. In the anime, though the aforementioned attacks on Nabiki and Hinako are removed, Ukyo plots to herself about killing Akane when she asks for her help in the second of the "One to Carry On" filler OAVs and begins throwing random heavy objects at her, growing angry when Shampoo throws something at her and leaving a clear impression she thought that she and Shampoo would work together to kill Akane, and then finish fighting each other.
- Shampoo: Given she stated "obstacles are for killing" when Ranma tried to prevent her from attacking Akane for Ranma's hand in her first story, it's understandable that she gets hit with this trope the most — in canon and in fanon. Fanon usually overstates her actually trying to kill her rivals, though. Canonically, while the idea doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest, it isn't something she tries all of the time. Notably, when she first thought Akane was an obstacle to pursuing Ranma's hand, she actually just wiped her memories of Ranma. Then, when it looked like Akane might be breaking through the memory block, she tried to strengthen the block, only attacking after Akane did break through the block and kept interfering — and even then, she stopped attacking Akane the moment Ranma told her not to. After that, though, she tried to give Akane a Jusenkyo Duck curse in order to "pawn" Mousse off on her, plotted to murder Akane and pin the blame on Taro in the first Pantyhose Taro story, was the first to suggest attacking Nabiki during her stint as Ranma's fiancee in the manga, joined in Ukyo's plot to beat up Hinako in the manga, came up with the same plan as Ukyo in "The One To Carry On, Part 2" and wrecked the plan by attacking Ukyo first instead of Akane... the final manga story arcs, Jusendo and the Failed Wedding, had a Brainwashed Shampoo (who, given she was obediently sent to murder Ranma, even if she did muster some Villainous Willpower to try and wriggle out of obeying, was arguably Brainwashed and Crazy) threaten to pop off the dollified Akane's head and a normal Shampoo attacked Akane & Ranma with bombs at the wedding ceremony.
- Mousse: Introduced to the series specifically challenging Ranma for the right to Shampoo's hand, threatening to take Akane if Ranma couldn't beat him. On his return, attempted to murder Ranma by using him/her as the target in a knife-throwing act (Ranma managed to catch the knives in her teeth) and then chased him around the circus throwing daggers and water balloons full of Jusenkyo Duck water at him. Shortly after that, he kidnapped Akane and threatened to douse her with said Jusenkyo water, in reality planning to either murder or curse (whichever came first) Ranma when he raced to Akane's rescue. He then challenged Ranma to yet another duel to win a date with Shampoo. Repeatedly throughout the series, Mousse challenges Ranma to fights because, like Kuno, he thinks that beating Ranma will make Shampoo fall in love with him — unlike Kuno, Mousse doesn't seem bothered by the idea of killing Ranma if that's what it takes to win, though he has never actually "won" except in fights where he had other things on his mind and so passed over the opportunity to deliver the coup de grace.
- Jegan fakes this in Rave Master. He kills everyone but the other two members of the love triangle (since he happens to be friends with the guy his crush liked more) then convinces each of him that he killed the other.
- Reborn! (2004):
- Lethal Chef Bianchi goes into a homicidal rage whenever she sees adult Lambo who looks exactly like her deceased ex-boyfriend Romeo, who apparently died of food poisoning. She also has an unrequited crush on Reborn and is perfectly willing to eliminate anybody who has a 'bad influence' on him.
- Earlier on, Haru also had a thing for the younger, "angel-like" version of Reborn, to the point where she even tried to destroy Tsuna in order to free Reborn from his influence. She later gives up on her crush on Reborn and falls for Tsuna after he saves her from drowning.
- In chapter 271 M.M. threatens to do this to Chrome. Chrome is on her way to deliver something to Mukuro and she encounters M.M. As soon as M.M. glances at Chrome she grabs her and yells at her before hitting her so hard that she falls to the ground, her mouth and nose bleeding. She then keeps calling her an "ugly bitch" and tells her: "The Mukuro-chan of this generation is mine! If you put your nasty little hands on him, I'll kill you!"
- Rebuild World: A multi-layered example, with two of the aggressive parties having other motivations mixed in. Tiol and Katsuya trying to kill Akira, Tiol out of Amnesiac Resonance jealousy, and Katsuya to "free Sheryl" from Akira (having been lied to Sheryl is being blackmailed), Tiol trying to kill Katsuya over Sheryl as well. Akira is just left reacting to their unhinged behavior. With Tiol, it's mixed with Resurrection Revenge for Akira having killed his original body. With Katsuya, he's long been The Resenter of Akira over many things and the inciting incident is a Frame-Up Tiol set up to make it look like Akira just killed Katsuya's friends. During their three-way gun battle, the girl in question doesn't come up, however, there was an incident between two over the girl not long prior.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena:
- Nanami does exactly this to a kitten when her brother pays more attention to it than her, and she was the one who got him the kitten for his birthday in the first place. She also knows her brother is interested in Utena and actively tries to kill Utena during a duel with her. Also, when her once follower tries to get close to Touga she hits her and beats up her and her other two followers for going against her and trying to take Touga away from her.
- In one episode, Miki's piano teacher is hinted to have a less than savoury interest in him, and he's inappropriately touchy-feely with him when they talk. Miki's twin sister Kozue has clearly noticed, as it later turns out that she'd previously shoved the teacher down the stairs for it.
- Mizore in Rosario + Vampire tries to kill the rest of Tsukune's harem and turn Tsukune himself into a popsicle so she can have him all for herself. However, once she's added to the harem she becomes friends with her love rivals and continues to stalk Tsukune. She says herself that she doesn't really "need" to stalk him anymore; it's just "more fun."
- This is often the path villains take in Sailor Moon:
- Beryl, Ann, and Black Lady try to kill Usagi to get Mamoru, while Al and Diamond try to kill Mamoru to get Usagi. Emerald also tries to do in Usagi to win Diamond.
- Fiore in the R movie tries to kill Usagi both because she is Sailor Moon and out of jealousy over Mamoru, whom he is attached to because of how kind he was to him when they were kids. He gives up on it by the end and even sacrifices his Life Energy to revive Usagi when she dies saving the earth.
- Also invoked by Al and Ann from the Makaiju Filler Arc, especially in the end when Al orders the tree to kill Mamoru so he can have Usagi, then Ann retorts by ordering it to kill Usagi so she can have Mamoru. This sends the Makaiju into a Villainous Breakdown. It all gets better in the end, though, and Al and Ann leave Earth together and free of their Yandereness.
- Sakura Gari: Sakurako and Katsuragi both try to do something of the sort to Masataka in order to have Souma for themselves. And Sakurako spends a good amount of her time trying to drive away any person that Souma gets involved with via torturing them into insanity, i.e, she causes a pregnant servant girl to lose the baby of Souma's that she was pregnant with. (Or in the case of the artist Terashima, breaking his drawing hand and then pushing him down a flight of stairs.). And some of the people that Souma took as lovers in the past tried to do this when he tried to get them to leave him alone. One of them, Yoshino, tried to stab Souma in the streets, and when refused he was Spurned into Suicide.
- School Days:
- The ending to the anime, where Kotonoha violently Murders The Hypotenuse, right after the Hypotenuse, Sekai, murders the lead, Makoto, thus killing the triangle.
- This was reversed in the manga, where Kotonoha is the Hypotenuse that ends up killed after trying to kill Sekai.
- Shattered Angels: Resident Psycho Lesbian Mika Ayanokoji tries to sacrifice the hypotenuse. Ultimately it's cut short before anyone's sacrificed but is ironically turned around when Mika is killed off rather nicely.
- Shiki has Megumi who after turning into a vampire murders her crush's best friend because she's jealous of how close they are.
- SHUFFLE!: Kaede snaps in episode 19 upon seeing Rin bring home Asa, whom he's dating. She screams at Asa to get out and viciously attacks her. However, Rin restrains her and she struggles against his hold, screaming at Asa to "DIE!" Primula also discovers Kaede had crossed out Asa's face in some pictures of Rin and Asa together. She gets better, though.
- Gopher of Soul Eater beats Kid to a bloody pulp twice for having Noah's attention and got extremely pissed off when Maka turned out to have the same uniqueness that made Noah have apparently fleeting interest in Gopher. This gets VERY bad when Noah decides that he wants to have Maka as well. It doesn't get any better. With his chance of killing Maka gone, Gopher beats up Kid some more until realising that while hitting him doesn't achieve anything, showing him something asymmetrical does. He exploits this until Noah turns up and takes Kid away.
- Played with in Speed Grapher. Dark Action Girl Ginza is desperately in love with her friend Saiga, admits to be really jealous of his protegée Kagura (and once returns her to her mother, the one Saiga is trying to free her from) and does admit out loud that she'd love to kill her... but in the end, she decides to protect Kasgura with her life, since Saiga made her promise that she'd protect Kagura.
- Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie: Vega's portrayal here was a large part of the reason that gamers thought he was gay until Capcom set the record straight years later. When he sees M. Bison perving on a live video feed of Chun Li, Vega visibly becomes jealous. Which doesn't go unnoticed, so Bison gives him the order to kill her. Vega accepted without a moment's hesitation... except she kicks his ass out of her apartment. Literally
.
- Tayutama has a minor case with quasi-tsundere Ameri, the Unlucky Childhood Friend of the main character. As Ameri watches Mashiro slowly win Yuuri's heart, she decides (with no small amount of influence from the Dragon) that Yuuri shouldn't have to risk his life with all this magical nonsense. She concludes that the only way to keep Yuuri safe is to drive Mashiro away... with a little help from the villain. In case you didn't realize this a bad call, she gets bat wings, Dull Eyes of Unhappiness, and a dark purple aura.
- Tenchi Muyo! plays it for laughs. Ayeka and Ryoko are involved constantly in this with each other, while their power levels makes it closer to Wile E. Coyote vs. Wile E. Coyote. In Tenchi Universe, it's played more seriously: Ryoko tries to convince Tenchi to abandon a kidnapped Ayeka to Kagato, possibly to invoke the trope, but when Tenchi chooses otherwise she decides to support him anyway.
- Threads of Time: Sali Tayi comes to this conclusion very quickly when he discovers that Atan Hadas likes Moon-Bin.
- In Tokyo Ghoul:Re, there's plenty of this to go around.
- Kanae Von Rosewald is intensely jealous of his master's interest in Sasaki, initially lying and keeping secrets so that Tsukiyama won't learn about him. He makes one failed attempt on Sasaki's life, before being forced to reveal the truth to Tsukiyama. When Tsukiyama asks him to buy some time, because the Quinx keep getting in the way of a private conversation.....Kanae hires several members of Aogiri to help him try to kill them. Afterwards, Eto corners him and forces him to realize that what he really wants is to have Tsukiyama completely under his control and make Sasaki suffer as much as possible before killing him. Things quickly escalate from there, and he seems genuinely convinced if he can just murder his rival, he'll win the heart of his beloved master. Their rooftop battle is a carnage-filled No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, with Kanae screaming that he's finally going to be loved. Instead, she ends up making a Dying Declaration of Love before sacrificing her life to save Tsukiyama and dies content.
- Mutsuki harbors secret feelings for Haise Sasaki, and becomes aware of his crush on Touka. After suffering major Sanity Slippage, Mutsuki's jealousy escalates to murderous obsession. Urie discovers Mutsuki's bedroom is a Room Full of Crazy, with dozens of copied photos of Touka pinned to the wall by knives. And then Mutsuki shows up at :Re and violently attacks Touka, before showing her a mangled hand that allegedly belongs to her old friend, Yoriko. Mutsuki even explicitly tells Kaneki while sporting a deranged Nightmare Face that he wants him to come back to him and will kill anyone who gets in the way.
- In the first manga, Tsukiyama is obsessed with and wants to eat Kaneki so he goes into a rage when he sees Touka take a bite out of Kaneki's shoulder and tries to kill her. He even tries to kill Kaneki himself when the latter tries to go off on a dangerous rescue mission and tells him he won't allow anyone, not even Kaneki himself, to get in the way of his eating Kaneki.
- Kish from Tokyo Mew Mew is a stalker who constantly attempts to get rid of Ichigo's boyfriend Masaya. He even attempts to kill Ichigo herself if she refuses to become "his".
- In the Trigun manga, this turns out to have been over half the point of the entire Gung-Ho Guns plotline. Legato was jealous of Vash. Because Knives was preoccupied with his twin, the only person on the planet he didn't intend to kill, and Legato apparently felt that if Knives had no one living to care about, he might find some scrap of affection for his chief minion. And Knives breaks his spine when he finds out.
- In the yaoi manga Under Grand Hotel, in the first few scenes we see Lain Brody in, he gives Sen a blowjob, strips him, drugs him, and outright molests him as he's drugged (including telling him "No way in hell am I letting Sword Fish kill you. Because he doesn't love you. I'm the only one that can kill you."), rapes him with a mop handle, ties him up, and hides him in a dryer. And when Swordfish finds Sen, he gives him CPR. Lain responds to this by stabbing Fish in the arm with a fork and tries to stab him again while screaming, "Get off of Sen! He belongs to me!" Immediately after that, Lain is shot and killed by security guards.
- Also, Swordfish threatens anyone who expresses an interest in Sen with death, kills the guys who raped Sen saying that he did it for Sen's sake even after Sen told him not to kill them, moves out of Sen's room, and lets a rapist move in when angry with Sen, and slices the throat of another one of Sen's rapists right in front of him while saying "I love you, Sen." This being after he tried to get Sen to kill the guy himself but Sen refused.
- And Norman's in love with Swordfish but pretended to be in love with Sen so he could get closer to Swordfish. He tried to persuade Swordfish to kill Sen but that didn't work. So, on one occasion when there was a scuffle going on he tried to get Sen out of the way by stabbing him with a pencil but accidentally ends up stabbing his inmate Walter instead who was trying to protect Sen in the hope of getting protection from Swordfish. When he finds this out, Norman holds a knife to Walter's neck telling him, "If you don't want to die, don't butt in again Walter!"
- Urusei Yatsura: Ran's default reaction to anyone who gets within ten feet of Rei.
- In Xam'd: Lost Memories, Furuichi (in his Xam'd form) tries to murder Akiyuki in order to have Haru to himself. He fails, and the episode ends with Akiyuki getting Laser-Guided Amnesia after getting confronted by Commander Kakisu, Haru arrested for her relations to the Xam'd incident, and Furuichi beheading myself after finding no reason to live.
- Jagara from Wolf's Rain killed her twin sister Hamona because she was in love with Hamona's husband Lord Darcia. Darcia did not appreciate Jagara's attempt to "free" him from the responsibility of caring for his comatose wife.
- Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest:
- Haguro (who's Yandere for Inugami's werewolf form) does not take it well when Chiba briefly meets up with Inugami. At all.
- Possibly Ryuuko Konuma's motivation for selling out Aoshika to Haguro beside, you know, avoiding another beating. Heaven help Aoshika. Given the eighteen chapter gang rape, heaven's a little late. After that, Haguro also tries to kill Aoshika while telling her that Inugami is too good for her. Fortunately, Inugami shows up in time.
- Yuri Kuma Arashi: Mitsuko kills/eats Sumika, Kureha's girlfriend, purely because she desires Kureha.
Audio Play
- Just about every guy in Yandere Heaven consider doing this to their rival under the belief that getting rid of the other guy will ensure that the protagonist will love him.
- This almost always happens in Yandere no Onna no Ko with the selected girl killing someone she considers a threat to her relationship with the protagonist. The only time this doesn't really happen is in Sakuya's track who just sends two girls away when they come looking for the protagonist.
Ballads
- In the Child Ballad Fause Foodrage, some variants have this as the motive to kill the king.
Comic Books
- Archie Comics:
- In Archie vs. Predator, the Predator kills Archie because he's both a juvenile on his first hunt and he has a thing for both Betty and Veronica.
- Not a love interest but a pet. When they were little Cheryl's brother in Afterlife with Archie killed her puppy because she appeared to love her more than him.
- Batman:
- One time, The Joker messes with a rehabilitative Two-Face, suggesting that his girlfriend and best friend Bruce Wayne are playing behind his back and want to keep him locked up in Arkham. To give a further push, Joker has one of his minions make a fake newspaper article that Bruce and Two-Face's girlfriend are going to marry and slips it to an already suspicious Two-Face, who now loses it, escapes from Arkham, kidnaps his girlfriend, and tries to kill Bruce, fulfilling this trope himself.
- Also Two-Face's brilliant idea of trying to kill Renée Montoya's girlfriend.
- One EC Comics story had two stories in one involving the same characters: Murder the Lover and Murder the Husband. In the first, the husband finds out his best friend is having an affair with his wife and invites the friend up to his forest cabin with murder on his mind. In the second, the husband is ignorant of the affair, and the friend takes advantage of an innocent invitation up to the forest cabin to get the wife for himself once and for all. As predictable in EC comics, neither plot ends well for the perpetrator.
- They used this again as part of the setup for the climax in "The Thing From The Grave." Once again, it definitely doesn't end well for the perpetrator, who comes to a very gruesome and unpleasant end.
- In I Killed Adolf Hitler the main character follows his former girlfriend's new date, and even pulls out a gun, but decides against it.
- The Mighty Thor: Loki does this to an Asgardian named Theoric, then subsequently disguises himself as him so that he can marry his fiancee Sigyn.
- In Squadron Supreme, Hyperion's Evil Twin develops an attraction to Power Princess and quietly kills her aged husband.
- A Superman story told in Action Comics #338 has an alien named Raspor chasing Supergirl as ignoring his partner, even though the former despises him and the latter is in love with him. Raspor's partner attempts to gun down Supergirl out of jealousy, resulting in Kara lecturing her on the stupidity of both shooting her invulnerable self and treating her as her rival.
- Thanos cursed Deadpool with immortality. The catch? Thanos's love interest, Death, is herself in love with Deadpool and the feeling is mutual. By keeping Deadpool alive indefinitely, he won't be able to cockblock Thanos.
- In Tragg and the Sky Gods #6, Keera decides that Tragg will never love her while his mate Lorn is alive, so her best course of action is to kill Lorn. She reason that even if he does not become hers after that, she will have the satisfaction of knowing that he is suffering as she is.
- The Two Sides of Jack has a subversion. The plot is Jack's girlfriend has been cheating on him, but her new lover is now a zombie. After going through a massacre (Finding that it's not easy when you're overweight) he eventually manages to complete his mission. He then cuts off the guy's dick and sticks in his girl's mouth, telling her "Fuck off and die, bitch." Quite a memorable ending, and squicky at that.
- During the "Return of the King" storyline in Ultimate X-Men, after Cyclops goes missing on a mission to the Savage Land with Wolverine, rumors start floating around that Wolverine killed Cyclops so he could be with Jean Grey. But it turns out that the rumors are, in fact, completely true. This comes as a special surprise if you're used to the main universe's Wolverine, who goes by samurai honor codes and such.
- And later it turns out that Scott survived. And then he came back to the X-Men. Wolverine was majorly screwed and not in a good way since Jean was utterly pissed off at that. Cyclops was also pissed. Their battle consisted of Cyclops blasting all of Wolverine's skin off.
- X-Man: Nate's very strange relationship history included Threnody (who was looking to use him both to sate her hunger for death energy, since he was dying and immensely powerful, and to deal with Sinister for her), and Maddie Pryor (clone of his biological mother, who he accidentally resurrected as a psychic ghost and had a lot of UST with before he found who they were to each other, and generally acted as a textbook Tsundere to the bewildered Nate). The two met and Maddie went on about "needing him" — though mainly to stay alive. Threnody wryly commiserated with her... then made the mistake of not only noticing that Maddie wasn't quite alive, but stating it. Maddie promptly murdered her, before going to find Nate. Threnody didn't exactly stay dead, but that's another matter.
Comic Strips
- In Flash Gordon, in the city of the hawkmen, the king's favorite goes to murder Dale when she is sent to the harem.
- Peanuts: Lucy started to think that Schroeder's piano was a sort of "competition" that kept him from paying attention to her, so she tried to destroy what she saw as her "rival" on two separate occasions, the first time throwing it to the Kite-Eating Tree and the second time throwing it down the sewer. While technically she destroyed the piano both times, it didn't help; Schroeder just got a new one each time. (And the second time, threatened to slug her if she "scratched it with her stupid elbows".) It would seem that the piano was not the problem at all (as anyone who knows Lucy can surmise.)
Fairy Tales
- In The Brothers Grimm's tale "Maid Maleen", the prince's bride attempts to get Maleen killed before the prince finds out Maleen is his childhood love.
- In "The Yellow Dwarf", the titular villain kills the King of the Gold Mines, his rival for Princess Toutebelle's affections. Toutebelle dies of grief shortly thereafter, but the Dwarf isn't entirely unhappy at this development since he would rather she be dead than in someone else's arms.
Fan Works
- Done in a roundabout way in Anastasia/Quasimodo – We Hit a Wall. Lady Tremaine forces her husband to execute his mistress Esmeralda. A Gypsy Curse brought on by Esmeralda is used as an excuse to explain why their children have magically changed forms, but it's also done because Lady Tremaine is jealous of her husband's lover. This backfires when Frollo is Driven to Suicide a few days afterward.
- In Arrow: Rebirth, Felicity and Oliver have both been sent back in time. When Felicity learns that Oliver won't resume their relationship because he's still in love with Laurel, she decides to murder Laurel so that they can be together again, only for a third party to murder her before she can get past the planning stage.
- In Dance with the Demons, Talia Al-Ghul attempts to get Catwoman assassinated when the latter gets married to Batman. Of course, when Batman inevitably solves the case, he asks Talia if she seriously thought he would never find out.
Catwoman: "You wanted to kill me. After I fought beside you, trusted you, twice. With my life. Talia, Talia. You claim to love my man. But I can't believe you know what the hell love really is. Not a bit of it."
Talia Al Ghul: "I do know what love is, you witch! I know because you broke my heart. And so did he!" - This happens in Decks Fall Everyone Dies, making Duke Devlin come close to being Ron the Death Eater.
- From Derpibooru, Rainbow Dash knows about the toxicity to horses of red maple leaves when they wilt because of an incident in Wonderbolt history where a 'Bolt poisoned her husband's mistress.
- In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Empath The Wartmonger", Princess Chamelianne threatens to feed Smurfette to a pack of hungry baby crocodiles unless Empath gives himself entirely to her.
- In the Lost Girl fic Faethful the Garuda encourages Dyson to murder Lauren and clear the way to Bo. He refuses, but Lauren is understandably rattled.
- Unfortunately, this leads to consequences in the sequel. The combination of him having his love returned and the Garuda's challenge causes him to undergo a wolf Fae right-of-passage (albeit an extremely perverse version). He spends the sequel trying to show his "dominace" over Lauren to demonstrate he is Bo's true lover. He very nearly succeeds twice, before Bo beats it out of him.
- In the Kim Possible fic Frequency of Evil, Shego, having become attracted to Ron, briefly considers killing Kim but decides that would only enrage Ron. In the next story in the series, "Trio", she decides on a different, and ultimately more successful approach; seduce Kim and convince her of the benefits of a threesome with Ron.
- Twilight in Friendship is Witchcraft is jealous of her (adopted) brother's fiancee. She doesn't murder her herself but Twilight leaves her to die then marries a brainwashed Francis. Candence has a Backup Twin named Candance though.
- In Hivefled, the Condesce became jealous of her moirail's flushcrush and told him she was unfaithful. The moirail in question being the Grand Highblood, he responded violently. This helped Condesce to a fairly limited degree.
- In another MLP story called Love, Pinkie sees Applejack and Rainbow Dash kissing and decides to kill AJ out of jealousy.
- Defied in Pokémon Reset Bloodlines during the Butterfree Interlude sidestory. After he finds out that the Pink Butterfree found herself a different mate, he has a chance to kill his "rival" and say that a Fearow did it. He ultimately can't bring himself to do it.
- Revenge Road: Hikaru does this, but gives the hypotenuse, Madoka, a relatively merciful death by being shot in the head, noting that even if she stole Kyosuke away from her, she was her friend for a long time. Kyosuke, however, is killed in a far more brutal manner, being tortured to death with knives.
- Rise of the Minisukas:
- Played straight with the Minisuka "Blue", who wants to murder Rei so Shinji belongs to her regular-sized incarnation.
- Subverted with the "Minisuka" Leader. Her minions believe she wants Mana murdered -so she cannot steal Shinji from the normal Asuka- until Leader clarifies she merely wants her captured and shipped to Bhutan.
- On the other hand, Mana starts making plans to make Asuka "disappear" quietly to get her out of her Shinji-seducing way.
- In Shared Strength, after finding out that Sinon and Kirito are inside Sword Art Online, Eterne tries to get Sinon killed via the hands of Laughing Coffin, twice.
- Soulmate Survey: Loony Fan Adrienne's goal as the akuma Fandoom is not only to have her idol, Adrien Agreste, "marry" her and all his other fans, but also to burn Marinette at the stake for scoring 100% compatibility with him on the titular soulmate-searching app.
- Spy X Family: In the NSFW doujin "Spy x Sex", Yuri is still jealous of Loid marrying Yor, so he hid several microphones in the Forgers' apartment to gather evidence that Loid is an abusive husband, and thus have a legitimate excuse to have him arrested and executed. However, Loid finds the microphones and thinks Yuri's trying to expose him as Twilight, and since he can't destroy the microphones or even just jam their radio signals to Yuri's receiver without blowing his cover, he tells Yor that it's strange for them to be married and not have had sex yet, and as Yor is stunned with Loid's request, he activates a small portable jammer (he assumed Yuri would turn off his radio after Loid asked Yor to sleep with him, and then blame the lack of signal on equipment failure rather figure out Loid took out the radios). In the end, Yuri's plan ends up backfiring spectacularly, because once Loid tries to apologize to Yor for trying to pressure her into having sex, she tells him she remebered a conversation she had with a coworker who said Loid would leave her if he feels sexually unsatisfied, and they end up making love, several times, to the point Yor leaves Loid too weak to go to work the next morning.
- This is one of the ways Ember had been turned into Ron the Death Eater in the Spyro the Dragon fandom, with Cynder being the hypotenuse. Note they're not even in the same universes.
- In A Star Struck Phantasmic Romance, Ember McLain tries to kill Danny Phantom's girlfriend, Starfire, so that she can have the Human/Ghost hybrid to herself.
- Thousand Shinji: Zigzagged. When Shinji and Asuka finally got together, Rei became extremely jealous. At the beginning she told herself that Asuka made Shinji happy and that was all that mattered. However she resented Asuka and often dreamt of killing her... and then she dreamt with Shinji killing her to avenge Asuka or killing himself, so she restrained herself. Paradoxically she also felt attracted to Asuka. She attempted getting a threesome with both, but due to her clumsy methods, Asuka (who had previously considered her a friend) thought she was trying to steal Shinji and killed her... but since Rei had several spare bodies she merely occupied another. Finally, Shinji ended that conflict by talking them into a threesome.
- In the Hans Von Hozel story Valentine's Day, Harry sets a dragon on Ron so he can have Hermione for himself.
- Upon returning to Gongmen City after thirty years of banishment in The Vow, one of Lord Shen's first lines of business is killing off Lord Juan who's engaged to Lianne.
- In White Devil of the Moon, Queen Beryl tries to kill Nanoha, who in this continuity is the reincarnation of Princess Serenity and her rival for Prince Endymion's affection. However, it's possible that Nanoha may not even be a hypotenuse, as Word of God has it that she does not necessarily have to fall in love with Mamoru despite them both being in love in a past life, and one omake has Nanoha ending the war by declaring that she loves Fate instead.
- Indeed, in the canon story Nanoha and Fate get together, but Beryl refuses to believe it when told by Nanoha's sister and tries anyway.
- In With this Ring... (Green Lantern), the Predator wants to kill Hal Jordan so he can have Carol Ferris for himself. Private detective Jonny Double, who is investigating Hal and Carol's disappearance, begins suspecting someone wants to kill Hal Jordan out of jealousy when he checks Carol's house and finds Hal's slashed picture.
- Yandere Sumia involves Sumia killing all of Chrom's other brides when he chooses them over her- first Maribelle, then Sully, then Olivia, then Female Avatar, then the "generic village girl." He refuses to marry a "waifu killer" like her, even with all of his other "waifus" dead, so Sumia kills him, too.
- In the Digimon fan fiction Zero 2: A Revision, Davis, still upset and jealous of TK because he sees him and Kari hug each other believing that Kari prefers TK more than him, attempts to leave TK to his death in the Emperor's first base underwater; a base that not only is about to explode but also infested with three Terminator units and an Alienmon just so that he could have Kari all by himself. Fortunately, Shaun sees through this and harshly called him out on this, causing Davis to realize his mistake and returns back to save TK from the enemies.
Films — Animated
- Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. "BELLE IS MINE!!!" Unfortunately for Gaston, it turns out he was the real hypotenuse, not the Beast.
- The Book of Life features a rare example of an outside party doing the murdering. When it looks like Xibalba is going to lose The Bet, he has Manolo killed via snake bite. While it technically works, it turns out to be far from the last word on the subject.
- The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Victor Quartermaine begun the story as Wallace's romantic rival for Lady Tottington's hand. Then the titular Were-Rabbit strikes, and once Victor learns who the beast really is, it becomes personal: he spends what's left of the movie hunting down Wallace, not caring about his morals as long as his rival is out of the picture.
- In Pocahontas, Kocoum, an Indian warrior after Pocahontas's heart, almost killed John Smith for sharing a kiss with Pocahontas.
Films — Live-Action
- In Back to the Future Part II, the Biff Tannen of the alternate 1985 murdered George McFly in 1973 and married Lorraine shortly afterwards, paying Hill Valley police to look the other way.
- In Batman (1989), an attempt at this is part of the origin of The Joker. Mob enforcer Jack Napier is seeing mob boss Carl Grissom's girl, so Grissom arranges for him to be killed. He sends Jack on a job then tips off the police, with Eckhardt giving the cops under him orders to shoot to kill. During the shootout, Jack ends up falling into some chemicals, becoming the Joker.
- In Batman & Robin, Poison Ivy deactivates Mr. Freeze's ill wife Nora from her life support system and blames it on the heroes — and in the process, she's able to convince him to take revenge on all of humanity by freezing the world and leaving her and him as the only people alive. Freeze learns, once his plan is undone, that the good guys actually saved his wife and that Ivy was the one who tried to kill her, prompting a Heel–Face Turn. Clearly, she is seriously into him.
- Noah from The Boy Next Door tries to kill Claire's family and does kill her best friend, thinking that he can be the only one that Claire loves with no one else in her life.
- Breaking the Girls: Alex says Sara can simply murder her love interest's girlfriend (who also has ruined Sara's life). Sara believes it's just a drunken joke at first, but Alex means it.
- The Cat's Meow: This was what Hearst intended to do, as he (rightly) suspected that something was going on between Marion and Charlie Chaplin.
- In The Crush, Adrian loves Nick so much she's willing to kill his girlfriend and her own friend to get him. Luckily, she doesn't succeed.
- Dark Shadows: Angelique hypnotises Josette and forces her to fall off the cliffs.
- In Deadly Blessing, it is revealed that the killer is the daughter from the farm next door, who is killing anyone near the main character Martha because she is obsessed with her, and wants Martha to be hers alone.
- Deathwatch (1966): Petty thief Lefranc competes with his cellmate, Maurice, for the attentions of the murderer Greeneyes. Greeneyes, unaware of either man's infatuation, constantly switches his favor from one to the other, further escalating the hatred between the two. In the end, Lefranc strangles Maurice to death.
- Debbie of Devil In The Flesh does this when she kills numerous people she thinks might try to prevent her from being in a possible relationship with her teacher, including her abusive grandmother. She also kills her friend and tries to kill her teacher's wife as well.
- In Devil In The Flesh 2, Debbie escapes from the mental institution she was sent off to in the first installment of the series. After the young co-ed dies in an unexpected accident, Debbie steals both the girl's identity and her car and heads off to the college her victim was supposed to attend. There, Debbie quickly develops a psychotic crush on her dashing writing professor, Dr. Sam Decker, killing anyone she perceives as a threat to their relationship. However, Debbie's scheme starts to fall apart when her roommate begins unraveling Debbie's lies and discovers the truth about her past. Knowing that she is in danger of being exposed, Debbie makes plans to get rid of her roommate and her friends by any means necessary.
- The jack in the box in the Steadfast Tin Soldier sequence of the Fantasia sequel tries to kill the titular soldier because the ballerina loves the soldier and not him. Luckily, he doesn't succeed.
- Alex Forrest of Fatal Attraction, after going steadily crazier and crazier regarding protagonist Dan Gallagher, attempts this near the end, breaking into the Gallagher family home and trying to kill his wife Beth.
- In Fear (1996), David is one hell of a Yandere towards his girlfriend Nicole. He quickly shows his true colors when he beats a friend of hers to death simply for walking with her and then goes totally ballistic after she tries to break up with him. He even tried to break into her house and kill her family and beheaded her dog.
- The Fly (1986) effectively has both rivals, Seth and Stathis, in this mode in the climax due to the former having become a legitimately dangerous, crazed Half-Human Hybrid who has kidnapped the love interest, Veronica. Stathis arrives at Seth's loft with a double-barreled shotgun, only for Seth to ambush him. Seth begins maiming Stathis with corrosive vomit — first his left hand, then his right ankle — and is about to vomit on his face when Veronica's pleas stop him. When Stathis still manages to save her from being genetically fused with Seth via the telepods by firing the shotgun at its cables, the latter — now completely a hideous "Brundlefly" — smashes out of his telepod with the clear intent of finishing him off at last. However, this only facilitates Seth being accidentally merged with pieces of the pod, and in the end, Veronica is the one who uses the gun a second and last time to mercy kill Seth.
- Rose tries to frame Rod for this in the climax of Get Out (2017) but Rod doesn't buy it for a second. He simply doesn't record it when she tries it.
- In Harpoon, Jonah is in love with his best friend Richard's girlfriend Sasha, so he murders Richard, hoping he and Sasha can run off together. However, it turns out that Sasha is not as into him as he thought (and is also appalled by his actions), so she then kills him.
- In The Haunted Mansion (2003): Gracey pulls a sword on Jim and threateningly approaches him when Jim (Sara's husband) comes to rescue Sara from Gracey and Sara's wedding. But Jim pulls out a letter from Gracey's dead lover and Gracey backs off.
- Heatwave (2022): Eve killed Scott's first wife so she could marry him.
- In the French film High Tension, this trope is exemplified in the protagonist, Marie, who creates an alternate personality to brutally murder the family of her lesbian crush, Alex... simply so that she could have her all to herself.
- In the 1986 version of The Hitcher, John Ryder does this to Jim Halsey's female love interest. Apparently, not only is he obsessed with stalking Halsey, he also wants to make sure that Halsey doesn't have a girl by his side.
- The House of Yes inverts this. Jackie, the Ax-Crazy lover of the main character kills him instead and lets the hypotenuse run away.
- In I Shot Jesse James, Robert Ford spends the last few minutes of the film trying to do this, as he's gone mad from the news that Cynthy is leaving him for John Kelley. However, Kelley gets the drop on him and kills Bob first.
- Jagged Mind: Alex murdered Christine, due to her being a rival for Billie's love and attraction.
- The Halfway Plot Switch in Lake Bodom reveals that the whole movie is actually a complicated scheme by Nora to murder Ida-Maria's crush and his friend.
- Lost Highway. Mr. Eddy: Her name is Alice. I swear I love that girl to death. If I ever found out someone was making out with her. I'd take this — pulls out a pistol — and shove it so far up his ass it would come out his mouth. Then you know what I'd do? I'd blow his fuckin' brains out. Notably, Mr. Eddy himself becomes the victim of another case of Murder The Hypotenuse in the end.
- In Moulin Rouge!, The Duke threatens to do this in order to blackmail Satine.
The Duke: Tell her that the show will end my way and she will come to me when the curtain falls... or I'll have the boy killed.
Zidler: ...Killed?
The Duke: .... (nods to his man-servant and smirks) Killed. - The Flying Brick title character of My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Uma Thurman) vows to destroy the protagonist's life after he breaks up with her. One memorable scene had her throw a shark into the bedroom of his new girlfriend after spending the night with her.
- Orphan: All of Esther's actions in this film have in mind the ultimate death of Kate, Danny, AND Maxine so that she can have John all to herself.
- The protagonist of the 1933 film Parole Girl is falsely accused of robbery and sent to prison. While in prison she befriends a woman who at least attempted this once.
"(...) I once worked with a girl who went for my guy. Aw gee, that's a shame what happened to her."
"What happened to her?"
"Well, a milk bottle fell on her from the second story, and a St. Louis cop tried to try to say my fingerprints were on the bottle. Can you imagine that? "Why that dumb cop, my fingerprints weren't on that bottle."
(Beat)
"I wore gloves." - The Phantom of the Opera
- In the 1925 film, The Phantom forces Christine to choose between two levers: one which will save Inspector Ledoux and her lover Raoul and one which will blow up the Opera. Christine, of course, chooses that lever that will save the two men, but it's a trick, of course. It will "save" the men from being blown up by drowning them. Christine begs the Phantom to spare them, promising him anything, and, in the end, The Phantom is unable to go through with it and opens a trap door that releases the water Just in Time.
- Done again, of course, in the 2004 adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. This time The Phantom threatens to strangle Raoul if Christine refuses to submit to him.
- Play Misty for Me: Dave (Eastwood) is a womanizing DJ who constantly gets calls from a woman asking him to play the song "Misty". He eventually meets the woman, named Evelyn, and has a one-night-stand with her. Evelyn insists on making herself part of Dave's life and, at first, Dave likes the attention. However, his ex-girlfriend, Tobie, moves back to town and Dave decides to patch things up. After he attempts to tell Evelyn that he's not interested, she responds by attempting suicide. Dave and Tobie get closer, but Evelyn isn't going to take it and tries any way she can to keep Dave to herself, even if it means getting rid of Tobie for good...
- Prom Night (2008) features an extreme version of this with the Big Bad, ex-teacher Richard Fenton, murdering everyone who's connected with Donna, the student he's attracted to, including her family and her classmates, just so the only person she'll have left in her life is him. The straightest example of this trope is when Fenton murders Donna's boyfriend Bobby near the end of the film.
- Lady Kaede in Ran, as part of her scheme to bring down the House of Ichimonji, manipulates Jiro to murder his wife, Lady Sue.
- In A Recipe for Seduction, Bunny and Billy conspire to get Harland out of the way so Jessica can't be with him. First they just try to bribe him, but then they escalate it to attempted murder.
- Jabba captures Leia Organa at the beginning of Return of the Jedi and keeps her as his personal slave. He tries to have her love interest Han Solo fed to the Sarlacc not long afterward, intending to force her to watch. Then again, he wants Han dead or suffering regardless; getting rid of Leia's love interest is just a bonus.
- Saw 3D: A woman has been involved with two men, neither of whom knows about the other. All three of them are put in a Jigsaw trap where one of the three will die. The two men are forced to either kill the other man, or, together, kill the woman. The message that plays before the "game" begins even states that "one of the sides will drop out of this love triangle". The two men quickly start trying to kill each other, but then the woman makes the mistake of rooting for whoever is currently winning the fight. They quickly realize that she doesn't care about either of them (or she'd consistently cheer for him), and stop fighting and let her die instead.
- In Scarface (1983), Tony Montana murders his best friend Manny Ribera, believing that he slept with his sister Gina, for whom he harbors secret desires himself. However, she reveals that she and Manny are married.
- Shaun of the Dead: David, initially treated as a Dogged Nice Guy who still pines for Liz even though she's long since moved on to Shaun (and him to Dianne), turns out to be far nastier than he seemed. When the Zombie Apocalypse hits, he deliberately acts as The Millstone of the group in the hopes of getting Shaun killed so that he can claim Liz afterwards. Both Shaun and Dianne figure out what he's doing and let him have it, especially after he tries to shoot Shaun. Him getting Devoured by the Horde soon afterwards is presented as karma for an Asshole Victim.
- She: After Ustane starts a relationship with Leo, whom Ayesha wants for herself, Ayesha has her executed.
- Silver Linings Playbook: Pat wants to reconcile with his estranged wife, Nikki (Brea Bee). She has moved away and obtained a restraining order against him after Pat had found her in the shower with another man and responded by nearly beating him to death.
- Hedy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is sort of a Les Yay version of a Yandere towards Allie (Bridget Fonda) in Single White Female. She kills Allie's boyfriend.
- So I Married an Axe Murderer has Rose, Harriet's clingy jealous sister that murders every one of Harriet's husbands because they "stole her" from Rose.
- In Sunrise, a farmer and his mistress plot to drown his wife and Make It Look Like an Accident. The plan is averted at the last moment.
- Madison's crush on Ben in the 2002 movie Swimfan, killing two police officers and nearly killing Ben's girlfriend before she's finally stopped.
- Caledon Hockley in Titanic (1997) comes to this conclusion when he finds out that his fiancée Rose loves Jack more than she loves him.
- Attempted with extremely little forethought by Noah in The Village when he learns that Ivy and Lucius are engaged. Naturally, not being possessed of full mental faculties, he sort of overlooks the "make it look like an accident and, with Lucius out of the picture, win Ivy over" part, but he does the "stab Lucius over and over again" part quite well.
- David Allen Griffin from The Watcher does this with all of Joel's love interests. He wants to make sure that Joel only thinks about and chases after him, and any woman getting in the way is just asking for death.
- In Wedding Crashers Sack catches John trying to sneak into his and Claire's engagement party and has his buddies beat him up. He then threatens to kill John if he ever comes near Claire again. When John shows up at their wedding, Sack loses it and tries to attack him.
Jokes
- A Jewish man is on trial for threatening his wife's lover with a gun after catching them in bed.
Judge: Defendant, you said that an unwritten law would have allowed you to get away with shooting your wife's lover, so why didn't you?Defendant: Your honor, as I was aiming my gun at him, he looked at me and asked how much I wanted for the gun. After that, how could I kill a fellow businessman?
Literature
- 1Q84: When Tengo's girlfriend disappears as Aomame gets closer to finding him. It isn't clear if Kyoko's dead or not, but her husband's statement that she's "irretrievably lost" suggests that she is.
- Agatha Christie:
- Sparkling Cyanide: The initial murder is committed by the victim's husband's secretary, who is in love with the husband and believes he would turn to her if the wife was out of the way. He doesn't, so in order for her murder to not be in vain, she engineers a convoluted series of follow-up murders designed to eventually give her control of the family fortune. It was almost successful; it's strongly implied that the husband and the secretary would have gotten together eventually (with even the victim's relatives commenting on what a good couple they would make) except he accidentally drinks poison that was intended for his sister-in-law.
- And Then There Were None:
- Vera Claythorne kills little Cyril not because he's her love rival, but because he was the heir of his family's wealth, which prevented Vera from marrying Cyril's uncle Hugo. Backfired horribly because Cyril actually was like a son to his uncle, so after Vera got a Karma Houdini out of the deal, he crossed the Despair Event Horizon and broke off their engagement, becoming The Alcoholic.
- General MacArthur sent his Number Two in a lethal mission because he was the lover of MacArthur's much younger wife, Leslie. Poor Leslie died of double pneumonia a few years later.
- Cards on the Table:
- One-time murderer Anne tries to get rid of her romantic rival Rhoda by shoving her into the river while they're boating together. It backfires, however, as the boat tips, causing both to fall in. Anne drowns while Rhoda is rescued by Major Despard.
- Mrs Luxmore believes Major Despard murdered her botanist husband to get him out of the way. Subverted in that Despard never liked her and was in fact trying to shoot the delirious Professor Luxmore in the leg to stop him before he fell in the river and drowned. In trying to stop him, Mrs Luxmore actually threw off Despard's aim at the last moment, making the shot unintentionally fatal.
- Ai no Kusabi has Guy, who is so in love with Riki, not only does he give him a penectomy to remove the pet ring that was on his penis upon being told that as long as Riki wears Iason's pet ring he'll never be free of him, but he also blows up an entire fortress in an attempt to kill Iason. It backfires horribly when Iason is fatally injured, but Riki actually chooses to die with him.
- Animorphs features an example where the hypotenuse is removed from the triangle by a Shipper on Deck, and doesn't die (though she probably wishes she did). Marco's father remarried, oblivious to the fact that his deceased wife isn't actually dead, but a host body for a Yeerk. This does not stop Marco's campaign to reunite his parents, which he eventually does, sacrificing his stepmother to the Yeerks in the process. When his father asks, he lies and suggests that his stepmother was a human-Controller all along, causing his father to reevaluate his entire relationship with his second wife and leave no more questions about her.
- In the Age of Fire series, it's speculated in-universe that RuGaard's Love Interest Nilrasha killed his arranged mate Halaflora so that she could have him for herself. However, she claims that Halaflora choked to death while eating more than she could chew, which given Halaflora's health, is entirely likely, and since the only other witness was Rhea, no one is ever able to confirm nor deny Nilrasha's story.
- The Belgariad: Exaggerated in Polgara the Sorceress when Ontrose defeats his childhood friend Lathan in a joust to become Polgara's champion (and eventual Bodyguard Crush). Lathan helps set off a civil war that destroys their duchy and claims Ontrose's life, and dies content in the knowledge that the immortal Polgara will be left alone to grieve.
- In the first book of The Binding Of The Blade series by L.B. Graham, there is a Love Triangle between Joraiem Andira, Rulalin Tarasir, and Wylla Someris. Rulalin was Wylla's Unlucky Childhood Friend and hadn't seen her for a few years prior to the beginning of the book. He had been hoping to convince her to marry him because when he had first confessed his feelings for her she had been in the midst of grieving her dead father. Naturally, he wasn't happy at all when she continued to reject his advances and instead chose to marry Joraiem. About a month after their wedding, Rulalin lured Joraiem down to a remote spot and tried to convince Joraiem to murder him because life had no meaning if he couldn't marry Wylla. Joraiem, shocked, refused, so Rulalin stabbed him instead. Fortunately, that wasn't the end of the Andira bloodline...
- Blood and Chocolate: Rafe hopes to kill Aiden, though whether it's because he wants Vivian or because his relationship with Astrid has driven him to it is left unclear.
- In The Brothers Karamazov, Smerdyakov thinks this will be the natural result of baiting Dmitri with a Briefcase Full of Money in the lair of his romantic rival.
- The Cat Who... Series: In book #14 (The Cat Who Wasn't There), Melinda Goodwinter tries this after she becomes convinced that Polly Duncan is the only thing standing between her and marrying into the Klingenschoen fortune. This is despite the fact that (a) she knows that Qwill has given away pretty much all his money to the K Foundation, and (b) she knows Qwill is not inclined to marry anyone. Of course, rationality isn't exactly her strong point by the time she tries this.
- The major subplot of Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign featured Miles Vorkosigan being accused by political opponents of doing exactly this during the events of the previous book, Komarr, in order to free up the woman he was now attempting to court. The truth being part of an ultra-classified incident that couldn't even be revealed to some of the highest levels of government (if the bereaved hadn't been a direct witness, she wouldn't even have known), so things got rather... complicated.
- The Count of Monte Cristo: Edmond Dantes is promised to marry the beautiful Mercedes, the captaincy of a rich merchant's best ship, and is generally the happiest man in Marseilles. His rival for the captaincy (Danglars) hatches a plan to frame Dantes as a Napoleonic agent (Dantes had a letter to such an agent, but had no idea what it was), and Fernand (Edmond's rival in love) carries it to the authorities, witnessed by Edmond's neighbor Caderousse in a drunken stupor. During his arrest, Edmond might well have gone free, except the ambitious young crown prosecutor read the letter and discovered it was adressed to his own father, burning the letter and having Edmond thrown away to rot in jail. Once Edmond finally escapes, rich, powerful and wanting revenge, he sets about destroying the men who destroyed him (Mercedes figured out his identity, but explains she really did think Edmond was dead, and he forgives her. Some adaptations go further and have them back together at the end).
- In Countdown City army veteran and restaurant worker Brett Cavatone leaves his wife to defend "impact zone" refugees at the coast and is murdered by his coworker Jeremy to make sure he doesn't come back.
- The Sherlock Holmes story The Crooked Man features a military officer who betrays an underling to the enemy so he can steal his girl. Unlike the David and Bathsheba legend (which the story references), the underling survives (despite Cold-Blooded Torture from the enemy). His condition is such that he avoids his old love out of fear of pitying him, but he comes back eventually, his love recognizes him, and the false husband dies of a stroke on learning of it.
- This backfires in the expanded universe novel A Study in Murder by Robert Ryan. An MI5 agent releases a German Femme Fatale Spy on condition that she assassinate Dr. Watson—partly because of his mission, which is to stop Watson being POW-swapped for Sherlock Holmes, but also because he's fallen for a woman who's in love with Watson. Instead the spy shoots the woman instead, knowing it will harm both men. The MI5 agent kills himself afterwards out of remorse.
- In Dan Brown's Digital Fortress, Susan Fletcher's boss Trevor Strathmore is in love with her and attempts to have her boyfriend killed to win her over. This backfires massively when she comes across his pager showing the hitman's report.
- In Double Indemnity, Phyllis collaborates with Walter to kill her estranged husband and try to Make It Look Like an Accident to get double indemnity on his insurance policy.
- In the Dragonlance series, Kitiara Uth Matar decides her romantic rival, the elven princess Laurana, is too beautiful to let live and plots to kill her. Kitiara ambushes Laurana in the city of Tarsis and with the help of the sivak draconian, Slith, manages to subdue the elfmaid but is then driven off before she can actually kill Laurana. Later on, Kitiara succeeds in kidnapping Laurana and is about to have her subjected to a Fate Worse than Death when their mutual love interest, Tanis Half-Elven, rescues Laurana. Tanis then chooses Laurana over Kitiara mainly out of disgust over Kit's attempts at killing her rival.
- Two of them form a big chunk of the backstory of Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte.
- The unitary Creator is divided into two gods, the male god Kuon and the female god Lirenna, as it descends on Earth. The two gods then created Adam and Eve, the first two humanoids of the Magikoi universe. Then Kuon fell in love with Eve and kills Adam for being the competition.
- After breaking off out of the incident above, Lirenna was corrupted into the Witch of Yore due to her unrequited love, and attempted to kill different reincarnations of Eve, including Fiene, the current reincarnation.
- Geoffrey Clifton in The English Patient, when he finds out about the title character's affair with his wife, tries to kill him. And the wife. And himself. So it's really more "murder the hypotenuse and the legs".
- Linda Fairstein's first Alexandra Cooper novel, Final Jeopardy, features an erotomaniac woman who stalks and kills a movie star she perceives as standing between her and the object of her infatuation.
- In Fire & Blood, Rhaenyra Targaryen was notified that her husband (and uncle) Daemon was sleeping with Nettles, one of the dragonseeds (bastards with Valyrian blood who managed to tame a dragon). Rhaenyra was already paranoid about the dragonseeds since two of them had already betrayed her. This pushed her over the edge and she demanded that Lord Manfryd Mooton, Nettles' and Daemons' host at the time, execute Nettles and deliver her head to Rhaenyra. Fortunately for Nettles, Lord Mooton ignored the order, not wanting to violate Guest Right. His maester then warned Daemon and Nettles of Rhaenyra's order — Nettles would then flee with her dragon, abandoning the Dance of Dragons entirely, while Daemon would go on to die fighting Aemond Tagaryen. Rhaenyra's jealousy and paranoia ultimately cost her two dragonriders along with their dragons and her most capable commander, paving the way for her eventual downfall. Even worse, it's not confirmed whether or not Daemon and Nettles were even having an affair in the first place — other records from that time strongly imply that Daemon saw Nettles as a surrogate daughter.
- Forest Kingdom: A political variant in book 1 (Blue Moon Rising). Sending Prince Rupert out to battle the dragon was essentially an Uriah Gambit to keep him from being a rival for the throne.
- Girls Don't Hit: Joss is murdered at the end by her husband's mistress, who had demanded she divorce him. She had tried ironically, but he wouldn't agree in the circumstances they had at the time. Joss told her this, and she killed Joss to get rid of the obstacle.
- Touched on in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Severus Snape loves Lily, who is married to James and has a barely one-year-old son with him. When the family is threatened by Voldemort, Snape pleads with both Voldemort and Dumbledore to save Lily's life but seems to be perfectly fine with James and Harry being murdered, something which Dumbledore calls Snape out on. It isn't really clear if Snape is hoping at first that by doing this he will get a chance to woo Lily, or if he simply wants to save her life. What is clear is that having his hated enemy killed is less important to him than saving the only love of his life. Events develop to make the point moot.
- Tim the Ostler from Alfred Noyes' poem "The Highwayman", who is insane and deeply in love with Bess the landlord's daughter (and the Highwayman's love interest), is presumably the one who tipped off the Red Coats about the highwayman.
- The House of Night:
- Done twice. The first time, it's adult vampyre Loren Blake in Chosen, and at the end of Tempted, Zoey's human boyfriend Heath gets the axe as well.
- In-story, it's Dallas's motivation to try and kill Rephaim. "I'm gonna fry him. And then whatever weird control he has over you is gonna be gone. You and me can be together, and I won't tell poop about what happened here, as long as you're my girl."
- Narrowly averted in How to Fly with Broken Wings. Finn has a crush on Sasha and is jealous of all the time she's been spending with Finn, so he and some of the other Beckham Street Boyz lure Willem to the roof of the Beckham Estate with the promise that if he can fly, he can be a gang member and have lots of friends. Willem believes them and jumps off the roof with homemade wooden wings. Other gang members hold Sasha on the ground so she can watch him fall. Willem's life is saved when his wings catch on Finn's satellite dish. Finn, having a belated attack of conscience, runs down to his apartment and pulls Willem to safety through his bedroom window.
- In Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Archdeacon Claude Frollo attempts to stab Captain Phoebus to death when he sees him kissing Esmeralda, the gypsy girl whom Frollo is madly in love with. Phoebus survives, and Esmeralda is arrested on accusations of witchcraft and murder. Frollo uses this as an opportunity to confess his love to Esmeralda and tells her he killed him out of love for her. Esmeralda, understandably, is less than impressed and refuses to go along with him.
- Jaine Austen Mysteries: Nina's plan in Shoes To Die For. Or rather, "frame the hypotenuse for murder".
- Jin Yong: Zhou Zhiruo made a huge effort to secure her position in Wuji's heart — including attempting to murder any and every woman that got in the way. And then there's Ah Zhi with Xiao Feng... let's face it, anyone who looks to be a nuisance or gets in the way of her and her brother-in-law must die.
- John Carter of Mars:
- Princess of Mars, after Dejah Thoris believed John Carter died and promised to marry a foreign prince, she explains that they have laws to prevent this trope: she can not marry the man who killed her fiance. He carefully arranges that someone else kill him in their attack.
- In The Master Mind of Mars, when Ulysses Paxton revives Dar Tarus from Faux Death and proposes his man against Xaxa, Dar Tarus is eager: he reveals that, in the Back Story, Xaxa had sent him to this Faux Death so her favorite could woo the girl who loved him.
- In Thuvia, Maid of Mars, Carthoris sees that a beleaguered ship is that of Kulan Tith, betrothed to the woman he loves, and is tempted to sail on, leaving him to his death. He doesn't, of course, even though Kulan Tith himself comments on the Heroic Sacrifice entailed.
- ''Just One Evil Act’’: He's with Angelina Upman currently, but when her daughter by a previous lover named Azhar goes missing Azhar comes to Italy to help in the search, and he's very put off by how the two clearly still have feelings for each other. So Mura hatches a scheme to poison Azhar using some E. Coli he procured from a friend in his wine — and problem #1 is that Azhar is a devout Muslim who doesn't drink and passes on it when offered. Problem #2 is that Angelina drinks some instead, despite Mura's outburst, in front of a news crew no less, that she shouldn't, but no one there thinks twice about it since she's pregnant and they figure that's why he's acting like that. Then Angelina gets sick and ultimately dies from the E. Coli, so Mura not only failed to kill his love rival but also killed his lover and unborn child in the process. Sucks to be him.
- Kristin Lavransdatter: Erlend has promised himself to both Eline and Kristin. Eline tries to poison Kristin when she finds out about this, but Erlend thwarts this plan. Kristin forces Erlend to choose between her and Eline, and Kristin does nothing to prevent the death of Eline.
- Maiden Crown has a rare accidental version. Queen Sophie unintentionally kills Tove, her husband's mistress, when she impulsively slams the bathhouse door shut while storming out after their fight without knowing it will lock Tove inside overnight. As a result, Tove is steamed alive while pregnant and dies almost immediately after being taken out the next morning.
- In the Ben Bova novel Mercury, the story starts with Mance Bracknell, lead engineer on a space elevator, married to Lara Tierney. Victor Molina, the astrobiologist best friend of Mance, wants Lara. When the space elevator collapses, killing hundreds of millions of people and devastating many nations, Victor falsely testifies in court that Mance was negligently responsible for the collapse, getting him put into forced labour for life. After an accident wipes out everyone on a spaceship but him, Mance takes on the identity of one of the crewmembers and (eventually) gets a job as manager of a colony on Mercury. He lures Victor (who is now happily married to Lara) to Mercury with some life-bearing rocks he's planted, with the goal of getting Victor publicly humiliated when his astrobiologist peers inevitably discover that the rocks aren't from Mercury (thus showing him as either a fraud or an idiot, either way ending his career). Mance seems to think this will get Lara back, but when he reveals his identity, plan, and Victor's false testimony, Lara rejects them both. Smart woman.
- Mistborn contains an unintentional example— or arguably two. Vin kills Elend's ex-fiancee, Shan Elariel, who was attempting to kill Elend at the time, and later Zane in a triangle where she's Alice. Actually, that particular romance advances via death four times.
- In Andrei Belyanin's My Wife Is a Witch, the protagonist Sergey is a poet, who finds out that his wife is a powerful witch, who goes to the "dark worlds" every full moon in the shape of a wolf. Later, he discovers that there is an old werewolf named Owl who wants his wife for himself (although, it's implied that it's less her he wants and more her power) and keeps trying to kill Sergey. Fortunately, Sergey finds out that, while in the "dark worlds", his poetry turns into powerful spells, making him a sorcerer. Of course, Sergey's wife has no intention of leaving her husband for the werewolf, but Owl couldn't care less, planning on casting a Mind Control spell on her.
- One Hundred Years of Solitude: Amaranta is willing to kill Rebeca to stop her from getting married to Pietro Crespi, who she loves herself. She doesn't go through with it because the wedding is delayed enough by the death of Remedios that Rebeca ends up falling in love with José Arcadio instead.
- Peter Pan:
- Tinkerbell did not by any means like Wendy, she even tried to kill her. All because Peter paid more attention to her than Tink. Most adaptations keep the general clinginess but tone it down from "homicidal fury." This also occurs in the film adaptations.
- The mermaids were precious little better, but, then again, they don't seem to like anyone in the book (The Peter Pan Disney mermaids... well, they aren't much better than Tink. They do take particular distaste in Wendy whatever the version and try and drown her.)
- In Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, the narrator speculates that the mysterious figure Raoul shot on his balcony really was Erik coming to kill him, but circumstances forced him to change tactics. After Raoul comes to rescue Christine, Erik tortures Raoul to the brink of suicide in a Death Trap before turning it into a Drowning Pit, telling Christine that "she didn't need two fiancés," and only releases Raoul when Christine swears to marry him.
- The Princess Bride: When Buttercup gives Prince Humperdink "The Reason You Suck" Speech, he throws her into her room. Then he races down to where her true love Wesley is being tortured, and sets the torture device on maximum, almost killing him. Not that Humperdink is actually into Buttercup — he has The Bluebeard plans. Just that her defiance angered him.
- In Ruslan and Ludmila, Ruslan's villainous rivals are eager to get him out of the way in order to win Ludmila over. Rogday attempts it, only to be killed by Ruslan himself. Farlaf succeeds in it (while Ruslan is asleep), but Finn comes to the rescue and resurrects Ruslan.
- The villainous Shoteka from Seeker Bears tries to kill Toklo so he could try and mate with his (Toklo's) mother. This is true in real life since male bears will sometimes kill a female's cubs to mate with said female.
- In The Shattered Kingdoms, In the second book, Vrinna (who loves the emperor) attacks Kira (the emperor's mistress). She stops just short of actual murder because murder would have consequences — but if she can beat Kira's secret out of her, it might well be something that could get Kira killed legitimately.
- In Tolkien's The Silmarillion, after betraying the city of Gondolin in return for its princess Idril, Maeglin tries to clean up the loose ends by killing her husband Tuor and son Eärendil.
- In Siren, Vanessa's sister Justine dies in a "diving accident." It turns out that she was actually killed by Zara, who had targeted Justine's boyfriend Caleb. Caleb's love for Justine was so strong that he became the first person who ever resisted Zara's seduction, so Zara drowned Justine. It didn't work - instead of falling in love with Zara, Caleb fled Winter Harbor to escape from her.
- In Robert E. Howard's "The Slithering Shadow", because Conan the Barbarian is too loyal to his slave girl Natala to be seduced by Thalis, Thalis abducts Natala, intending to have her killed.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- It's implied that Littlefinger had this in mind for Eddard so he could steal his wife Catelyn. Mind you, he was probably aiming for 'disgrace and permanent exile' and not actual death: When Joffrey actually decides he wanted Eddard dead, that probably ruined Littlefinger's plan, but the man's actual intentions are still unclear so for all we know he wanted it to happen.
- A more complex case comes up later on; Quentyn Martell arrives at Meereen to act on a marriage pact he has with Daenerys Targaryen, which she herself is completely ignorant of, but finds her already married to the local Hizdahr. When poisoned food is served to Hizdahr and he offered it up to Daenerys, it's not clear which of the two was the actual target, and there is some suspicion that Quentyn himself tried to poison Hizdahr for this very purpose. Sort of a moot point, because Daenerys had no interest in either one of them, and only married Hizdahr for political reasons.
- The Sorrows of Young Werther plays with this trope a bit — Werther considers playing it straight and killing Albert, realizes he can't, and then inverts it by killing himself instead.
- Inverted at the end of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities when Carton removes himself from the love triangle with Lucie by taking Darnay's place under the guillotine.
- Thérèse Raquin centers on Thérèse and Laurent killing her husband, Camille, so they can be together.
- In Those That Wake's sequel, What We Become, it's not murder, but close. Rose tries to replace Mal's memories of Laura with herself.
- In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol story "Brave to be a King", Manse feels the temptation, when he doesn't even have to kill the man. According to Time Patrol rules, leaving Denison in place, which would preserve history, is the right thing to do. He'd live out his life, and his widow would doubtlessly grieve and recover.
- The Tin Drum: Inverted. Agnes kills herself rather than choose between Matzerath and Jan. This way, neither of them has to lose her to the other.
- Isaac Asimov's True Love: (Downplayed Trope) Charity will be arriving soon, and both Milton and Joe believe she will be their One True Love. Only Joe realizes the competition, and arranges for Milton to be arrested based on a crime committed years ago.
- Though he doesn't go through with it, Edward Cullen of The Twilight Saga seriously considers doing in Mike Newton for daring to touch Bella, and probably thought about murdering Jacob Black for the same reason.
- Eleyna in the Star Trek novel "The Vulcan Academy Murders". Sendet as well was at least considering it.
- The Virgin Widow: Young Anne Neville wasn't close to her husband (see the title) and remains in love with her childhood sweetheart, Richard of Gloucester but she's horrified to discover Richard stabbed her husband to death. She fears this act will haunt their marriage, but Richard explains that her husband had been trying to murder the king at the time. Richard explains he did what he had to do but regrets any pain he caused her.
- In The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street, Grace is convinced Mori will arrange this so Thaniel will go back to him; she tries to frame him for a bombing that almost results in her committing this trope instead.
- Where Are They Now Mysteries: In book 2, it turns out the killer had done this years ago. His cousin/business partner had fallen in love with a woman and fully intended to marry her, but the killer felt he couldn't have a successful career without his cousin working with him. Viewing the woman and her unborn baby as a threat to their partnership, he murdered them. The cousin was enraged when he finally found out.
- Who Is The Prey: Fu Shenxing tries this on He Yan's husband Yuan Ze multiple times, however, he never actually kills him, as he knows doing so would ensure that she would hate him forever. Doesn't stop him from having Yuan Ze's finger cut off and forcing He Yan to cut ties with him and divorce him.
- Raymond Gunt of Worst. Person. Ever. figures he's in two of these scenarios. He lusts after Sarah and is more than eager to get rid of her boyfriend Stuart, so they'll be together. And after a drugged hook-up with Lacey, he becomes determined to eliminate her, so that he'll be "free" for Sarah. Lacey is later killed and Sarah goes with him, only for an Unsettling Gender-Reveal to render Ray's efforts moot.
- Victoria in Charlotte Dacre's Gothic novel Zofloya; or, The Moor poisons her husband to free herself to pursue his brother Henriquez, and then murders Henriquez's beloved in order to get rid of the competition.
Live-Action TV
- Subverted in the penultimate episode of Babylon 5, "Objects at Rest". In a Moment of Weakness, Lennier leaves Sheridan to die in a room filling with toxic gas. He doesn't get far before having an attack of conscience and running back, only to find Sheridan has already been rescued. Lennier is so ashamed of himself that he goes AWOL from the Rangers.
- Bates Motel:
- Mother does this to Bradley when she was getting close to Norman.
- Norman does not approve of anyone trying to get between him and his mother whom he admits he has sexual feelings for. Sheriff Romero marries her so she can have insurance to help pay for Norman's medical bills. He maintains that he's not happy with the arrangement and tries to get Romero to leave. He looked like he wanted to attack Romero with an axe at one point before attacking a building with it and screaming "I hate you!" He ended up trying to commit a Murder-Suicide with his mother so he could be Together in Death with her. When she wound up dying and he lived he ended up digging up her body and talking to it while hallucinating that she was alive.
- Battlestar Galactica (2003): Galen seems to have his own little cycle going with his girlfriends. Cally kills Boomer. Tory kills Cally. And finally, Galen kills Tory, although admittedly, Tory never seemed to be very into Galen, and more into a rather warped sense of self-preservation. Either way, hope it was worth it girls.
- In the Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction episode "The Ring", a hairstylist was going to kill her client, the kindly wife of a wealthy and powerful Hollywood agent who she was carrying on an affair with and had hopes of marrying. He had also gifted her a very expensive ring that had belonged to the wife. Her method was to be a faulty hairdryer that the salon's janitor had rigged up to serve as an electric chair. So the day of the murder, the stylist places the wife underneath the dryer and ends up dying herself. It turns out the expensive ring that the boyfriend gifted to her had a curse on it and in wearing the ring while placing her under the dryer, it acted as a metal rod that had her take all of the electricity for herself, leaving the wife horrified but unharmed as she lept out of the chair once the electrocution started.
- In one episode of Bones, a female suspect who had previously stalked the victim becomes enamoured with Booth after he had briefly comforted her. Once she saw that Booth paid more attention to Bones (naturally, of course), she brought a gun with the intent of killing Bones right there and then.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- Veruca attempts to murder Willow so she can have Oz to herself and make him accept her way of being. "To keep what's yours, sometimes you have to kill."
- When Xander has Amy cast a love spell to win Cordelia back, many of the girls wind up attacking each other with the intent to kill off their rivals.
- City on a Hill: Jackie learns the hit on him had been ordered by Father Doyle. He immediately suspects it's due to Doyle wanting Jenny, Jackie's wife, all to himself. Doyle says it was in revenge for Jackie harming him though and the attack wasn't actually meant to be fatal.
- In Copper, Eva Heissen slit Molly's throat when she found out about her pleasuring Kevin.
- Coronation Street recently played out this trope. When Tony Gordon learned that his fiancee Carla Connor had feelings for her former brother-in-law Liam Connor, he arranged to have Liam run over.
- A twisted one in the episode "Seven Seconds" of Criminal Minds occurs, where the kidnapped girl was found to be molested by her uncle and was kidnapped and almost killed by her aunt to "protect" the family, though Prentiss implies that it was also to make up for the fact her husband didn't want her as much compared to her niece.
- CSI: NY: The killer in "Criminal Justice" planted a cigarette lighter at a murder scene in order to frame his wife's lover and get rid of him. His one mistake was waiting too long — the room had already been sprayed for footprints and the chemical got on the **bottom** of the lighter, proving that it had been left after the fact.
- Deadly Class: Maria decides to not help Saya when she's attacked, since they're both into Marcus (whom Maria's dating), hoping it will end in Saya's death. However, she survives, and they get into a fight with Maria attempting to kill her personally.
- One episode of Deadly Women on Investigation Discovery featured a case of this where "Alice" was in on it. The woman had a pattern of getting married, meeting another man, convincing the other man to kill her current husband, marrying the other man, then meeting another man...What made the plan nearly foolproof was that the other man usually did all of the killing, and then the next man would kill that guy, so that there was virtually no proof of the previous crime.
- In Desperate Housewives, this happens when Bree tries to get back to her cheating husband Rex by going out with the local pharmacist and Stalker with a Crush George. Eventually, she realizes that she considers George just a friend and goes back to Rex, who had recently had a heart attack. George then continuously switches Rex's pills until he dies and then proceeds to date Bree again.
- In Devious Maids, Ty thinks that his uncle Spence is the reason why Carmen isn't interested in him and tries several things to change her mind, including poisoning Spence and faking a robbery.
- Alpha in Dollhouse — he tries to kill every person who loves Echo. However, he focuses particularly on Paul Ballard, because he's the only one she feels the same way about. Alpha does get some of his marbles back in the series finale, taking place in the Bad Future. After Paul is killed, he leaves Echo a mental copy of the guy so they can be together, sort of.
- One episode of Flashpoint deals with a husband and wife who had tried unsuccessfully to have a baby multiple times. The wife mistakes her husband's frustrations and efforts to convince her to give up for cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend note and promptly tried to kill the girlfriend.
- Game of Thrones: A non-romantic variety with Cersei Lannister. She has Pycelle killed because he was the only other one Tommen was willing to listen to.
- Glee, being primarily a comedy show, plays with this and has several characters trying to do this in various dramatically high school-minded and therefore non-lethal ways. Of note is Sebastian, who tried to blind Kurt with a slushie that was laced with rock salt. Blaine — the Alice in the situation — ends up taking the slushie instead. The incident, in fan-theory, leads Blaine to avoid and become guarded around Sebastian and treat him more like an actual threat like everyone else does.
- Gotham: Barbara cheats on Jim Gordon with other men and women but flips out if she thinks he's cheating on her. When Barbara calls Gordon's penthouse, Ivy Pepper answers and lies that she is Gordon's friend. Barbara takes this as Ivy being Gordon's new lover and tells her to "Go to Hell." She also attacks Leslie with a knife presumably because she had gotten together with Gordon in her place and again tries to stab her when Leslie hits Barbara where it hurts after Barbara states she's going to win Jim back from her.
- Hannibal:
- The second half of season three shows that Hannibal is not good at dealing with Will's rejection of him, what with him going to jail partially to spite Will and partially so he can keep him close. He eventually ends up sending a dangerous murderer after Will's wife and step-son, aware that Will was away on the planned night. He fails, but he did manage all this while locked away in a mental hospital.
- After Will and Hannibal reciprocate their love after viciously pack-killing the aforementioned murderer, it is implied to be Will's idea for them to go after Bedelia given his clear jealousy of her time with Hannibal in Italy. The last we see of her, she is alive, but her severed leg has seemingly been cooked up for a dinner involving her and two other well-set places at the table.
- Kamen Rider:
- In Kamen Rider Kiva, Wataru and Mio are in love, but Mio is due to have a forced marriage to his brother Taiga. Wataru refuses to kill Taiga, so Mio attempts to do it herself by running him through with a sword at their wedding. This proves fatal not for him, but her — he survives and she is killed by Bishop.
- This was the solution of Ryutaros in Kamen Rider Den-O, with the hypotenuse being Yuto Sakurai/Kamen Rider Zeronos, believing that doing so will win Airi's heartnote . Of course, given the type of series Den-O is, it's Played for Laughs, and he fortunately never actually carries the deed out.
- Kamen Rider 555 gave us Masato Kusaka, who had an obsessive one-sided crush on his childhood friend Mari Sonodanote and would smoulder and plot the murder of anyone he thought was trying to court her, particularly the main character Takumi Inui. In the prequel story to The Movie, he actually does kill Shuji Mihara/Kamen Rider Delta by throwing him to a monster, made worse by the fact that Mihara wasn't even interested in Mari; Kusaka was just jumping to conclusions and refused to listen to anyone.
- Killing Eve: Villanelle killed her girlfriend's husband because he was an obstacle to them. Naturally, her girlfriend was horrified.
- An episode of Law & Order features the rather creepy example of a man who, obsessively in love with his best friend's wife, murdered him and framed it to look like an accident; the grief-stricken wife later independently fell in love with and married the best friend, completely unaware that she was marrying not only the man who murdered her husband but her own stalker.
- Another episode deals with a woman with erotomania who kills the wife of the man she's obsessed with. That she's otherwise incredibly intelligent, cogent, and calm leads the police to believe she's actually having an affair with the man and that they conspired to kill his wife.
- In SVU, Olivia tells Dale that he only has to kill Elliot, and he can be her new partner and lover. It's just a diversion so she and Elliot can take him out and have him arrested.
- Downplayed on a Criminal Intent episode where a Dirty Cop had been ordered by the mob to kill one of their inept hitmen, but in the course of stalking him became fixated on the man's wife and married her after widowing her. She figures it out and manipulates him into incriminating himself.
- In Lost, resident Magnificent Bastard Ben Linus had a crush-turned-obsession on Juliet. She, on the other hand, was with Goodwin. You don't need a degree to figure out what happens to the poor fool.
- In the Merlin (1998), Merlin attempts to defy this trope by convincing Uther not to kill the husband of Igraine, but Uther does it anyway.
- In the other TV show of Merlin (2008), Arthur snaps and tries to kill Lancelot after he catches him passionately kissing Guinevere on the eve of their wedding. Only Gwen and Merlin's intervention saves Lancelot's life.
- The third season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers has this with Kimberly, Tommy, and Katherine. To be fair, Kat was under an evil spell at the time; once she gets free Kim even names her successor as Pink Ranger. Next season (Power Rangers Zeo), Tommy/Kat would become the Official Couple after Kim sends Tommy a Dear John letter. (But years later in ''Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, Tommy's still single with neither girl in sight...)
- In episode 2.07 of The Musketeers Sophia Martinez shoots Bonacieux when he stumbles upon her assassination attempt. She later claims this was to do a favor to Constance and D'Artagnan. Additionally, Rochefort's ultimate plan is to kill the king and rule France with the queen at his side.
- Noah's Arc: It's strongly implied Guy is planning to kill Alex and make it look like a suicide in order to be with Trey (note that Trey is totally oblivious to any of this.
- In Once Upon a Time:
- The genie of Agrabah kills Snow White's father so he and Queen Regina can be together. Unfortunately, she was never in love with him, and only pretended to be so that he'd do that. His attempt to wish for him and Regina to always be together then turns him into her Magic Mirror.
- Regina Mills (Queen Regina, in Storybrooke) uses the last of her magic to grab a poisoned apple from the Fairy Realm to bake a special apple turnover for protagonist Emma so she can get rid of her adopted son's biological mother and have Henry all to herself. Henry immediately intervenes and eats the turnover to protect Emma, falling into a magical coma, forcing his biological and adopted mothers to work together to break the spell.
- The Orville has Gordon fall for a holographic reconstruction of a woman who lived in the early 21st century (i.e. our time), using the information on her iPhone from a time capsule to recreate her personality. They end up sleeping together before she gets back with her ex. Gordon learns from her texts that she did get back with him, hence the program adding that to the simulation. So he tells the program to delete the ex. She's back with Gordon, but she no longer sings since her ex was the one who inspired her to do it. Gordon realizes it wasn't meant to be, restores the ex, and says goodbye.
- Oz
- Ryan O'Reily orders his brother to kill Dr. Nathan's husband, thinking he could win her over if her husband was gone. Sad thing is that he was right. The fact that he also killed the man who raped her, which is possibly the only time he's gotten his own hands dirty as he usually manipulates others into doing the deed for him, had a lot to do with it.
- Chris Keller, when he basically kills all of Beecher's previous lovers as well as his father's murderer.
- The Rise of Phoenixes: Mei Duo plans to kill Zhi Wei so she can marry Helian Zheng. Averted when she decides not to go ahead with the plan.
- In Robin Hood, Kate picks up a bow and arrow and deliberately tries to shoot Isabella dead, her rival for Robin's affections. Interestingly, when Isabella tries to drive a wedge between Robin and Kate, she resorts to non-violent trickery and uses a broken locket to make Kate believe that Robin is cheating on her. Now guess which one's the hero and which one's the villain.
- In Rome, it's pretty much standard procedure to kill someone in the event of any romantic complication. Need your daughter for a political marriage? Have her husband killed. Found out your best friend's wife has a child with another man? Kill him and dump him in the sewer. Want a married man? Poison his pregnant wife!
- Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators: The intention of one killer in "The Fairest Show Means Most Deceit" is to kill her boyfriend's married lover. Somewhat subverted in that her husband doesn't seem too bothered about her infidelity, as he hates her for abusing him.
- Freddie's fate at the end of S4 of Skins (killed by Effy's deranged psychiatrist).
- Smallville:
- Alicia tries to kill Lana for this reason.
- Lana tried to kill Chloe once. No, really. Mind Control.
- The Jimmy-Chloe-Davis triangle of Season 8 ended in this way, with an attempted use of the trope by Jimmy, a successful use of the trope by Davis and a last-minute equalization of the sides, leaving Chloe all alone. If Chloe goes dark, this will be where it started.
- Many girls also try to kill Lana, Chloe, or Lois to have Clark for themselves.
Maxima: (about to punch Lois) I finally found the man I waited for all my life, and you can't have him!!!
- Penelope attempts to do this on Sonny with a Chance. She replaces a cheeseball that Sonny needs to fire from a cannon at her high school's homecoming with a cheesebomb, planning to have Sonny be killed so that Chad would be free to date Penelope instead. Chad refuses and survives Penelope's If I Can't Have You… plot, getting to Wisconsin along with the So Random cast in time to save Sonny.
- Inverted in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Requiem for Methuselah". In the episode, an immortal human named Flint creates an android mate called Rayna for himself. He has Captain Kirk date Rayna so her ability to love awakens. He succeeds too well. When Flint and Kirk fight over her love, she cannot handle the emotional conflict and it destroys her.
- In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Fair Haven", Captain Janeway finds herself attracted to the program's resident bartender Michael Sullivan... until she finds out that his character is married. Janeway decides to do a little "reprogramming" so that the wife never existed in Sullivan's life.
- A complex example in Still Star-Crossed in which Prince Escalus organizes a marriage between Benvolio Montague and Rosaline Capulet in order to create an alliance between the warring households and bring peace to Verona — despite being in love with Rosaline himself. He ends up deeply regretting this decision, so when an opportunity arises to have Benvolio executed for a crime he didn't commit, he seizes the chance (though he genuinely believes that Benvolio is guilty, despite Rosaline's arguments to the contrary). At the last minute he decides not to go through with the execution, having realized that he's lost Rosaline whether Benvolio lives or dies.
- In an episode of Supernatural Zombie Angela tries to kill a girl Neil had gotten with.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Jessie pushes Riley toward John in an effort to force Cameron to consider her a threat, and therefore force Cameron to kill Riley, all in an effort to alienate John and Cameron.
- The Vampire Diaries has an interesting subversion. Tyler and Caroline are blissfully in love, but Klaus wants Caroline. Tyler leads a rebellion of hybrids against him, and Klaus' extremely unforgiving nature demands that he kill Tyler. Klaus ultimately refrains, realizing that it would fall under this trope and he'd never have a chance with Caroline.
- In The Walking Dead (2010), Shane tries this in season 2 by luring Rick out to a secluded field where he can shoot him and pin the blame on another person he killed. He tries to justify himself by claiming that Rick is a weak man and a weak father who isn't willing to get his hands dirty fighting for his wife and children. Rick proves Shane very wrong moments later by pretending to hand Shane his gun only to gut him like a fish.
- On You (2018), Joe murders both Beck's casual fling Benji and her best friend Peach, who is secretly in love with her. This tactic works the first time, as Joe is able to cover up the murder but the second time eventually leads to Beck breaking up with him.
- Love murders Natalie after finding out that Joe has developed an obsession for her. Later, Love considers murdering Marienne for the same reason, but stops herself upon seeing Marienne's daughter.
- Wizards of Waverly Place:
- In the sixth episode of season two, Alex's disconnection from her handsome boyfriend Dean Moriarty coincides with the arrival of evil blonde Ronald Longcap Jr., a wizard student who immediately sets his eyes on Alex and is very unpleased in learning that she already has a boyfriend. Upon meeting Dean for the first time, Ronald leads the boy into the kitchen and in order to get him out of the way of his plans with Alex, uses a spell that traps Dean inside a huge cube of jelly, frozing him in time with an anguish expression. Ronald then uses a spell to turn into Dean and heads over Alex's where, under the guise of Alex's boyfriend Dean, breaks up with her so that she can be with him once she meets him as Ronald. His plans briefly works as the episode ends with Alex confessing she likes him and accepting to return to Wiz Tech with Ronald. The episode ends with a shot of Dean still trapped inside the huge cube of jelly.
- Season 4, Episode 4. This time Alex and her boyfriend Mason Greyback are going through a pause on their romantic relantionship and decided to remain good friends when Dean Moriarty returns, straightfowardly making it very clear that he wants him and Alex to be boyfriend and girlfriend again as soon as he walks in. Mason is immediately jealous, and although Alex tells Dean that she has no intention on being his girlfriend again, Dean won't stop trying to win her back and the two of them start spending a lot of time together reminiscing their romance. As a werewolf, Mason can't control himself and halfway through the episode is revealed that he literally ate Dean, and that Alex's brother helped him with a spell to shrink Dean so that he would be easily swallowed. Way to get rid of your romantic rival!
Manhwa
- This happens sort of incidentally in volume 16 of Ciel ~The Last Autumn Story~. Lariatte was Krohiten's main competition for being Yvienne's most important person, but the actual reason he helped orchestrate Lari's death was to use Yvienne's response to her death as part of a plan to prevent the predicted extinction of mankind. And the death wrecks their relationship anyway.
Mythology and Religion
- In Arthurian Legend, some versions have King Mark do this when he finally finds evidence of Tristam's affair with Isolde. He also kills Isolde. Others avert it by having him merely exile Tristram, who later dies of other causes (and then Isolde dies of a broken heart).
- The story of King David and Bathsheba in The Bible (2 Samuel 10-12), where the king sends a general named Uriah on a suicide mission because he fancies Uriah's wife (to the point of actually sleeping with her in the actual Bible accounts; the Bowdlerized versions never mention that), makes this Older Than Feudalism. He paid for it. Oh, did he pay for it. When God actually calls you out and then the first child you have with your now-wife dies....
- In Classical Mythology, this is one of the causes of death for Achilles' son Neoptolemus. Due to some shenanigans, Hermione (daughter of Helen and Menelaus) ends up promised to both Orestes and Pyrrhus. She is eventually married to Pyrrhus but Orestes doesn't take it well and kills Neoptolemus to claim his cousin for himself.
Music
- 1963 by New Order is based on the conspiracy theory that John F. Kennedy's assassination was really an attempt by him to do this to Jackie Gone Horribly Wrong.
- "Billie And Millie" by Alice Cooper is a Murder Ballad duet about the couple murdering Millie's husband Donald to hide their extra-marital affair.
- Essentially the theme of the song "Rocky Raccoon", by The Beatles from The White Album. Between that song and "Run For Your Life," from Rubber Soul, you really have to wonder about the Beatles' relationships.
- Evelyn Evelyn: "You Only Want Me For Sister" is about a jealous sister who killed her identical twin (who didn't even like her boyfriend) because she feared her boyfriend liked her too much. She loved her sister and misses her but still wanted to prove that her boyfriend only wanted her.
- Evillious Chronicles:
- The "Story of Evil" song series has an event where Princess Riliane is so furious that King Kyle rejected her proposal of marriage because he was in love with a green-haired woman in Elphegort that she decided to murder all of the green-haired women in that country because she didn't know which one he was in love with. It's brought up in the tie-in novel as the main reason her kingdom's citizens decided to rebel.
- From the Seven Deadly Sins series (specifically the song of Envy, The Tailor Of Enbizaka), Kayo Sudou murders three hypotenuses in order to be with her lover, except her lover was Dead All Along, and the person she thinks is her lover is a completely different person, and the hypotenuses were his wife and two children, and this is even pointed out, and yet she still thinks it's her lover. Justified (somehow) since :she was being possessed by the Demon of Envy.
- Hurt:
- The POV character of "Got Jealous" is a Crazy Jealous Guy on the run after attacking his obsession's new flame.
- A woman threatens False Rape Accusation to coerce her lover into this in "Pandora" (though it's implied to be more about her husband's life insurance than love.)
- The singer of Jayn's "Smoke And Mirrors" repeatedly suggests she will kill her crushes wife if he doesn't tell her he loves her, and her alone. The ending heavily implies she did it anyway.
- In "Hide Your Heart" by KISS Rosa and Johnny fall in love. The problem is, Tito happens to be dating Rosa, and he is furious that he is being replaced. Johnny gets shot by Tito.
- Marty Robbins: In "El Paso", a cowboy comes across another suitor flirting with his girl and challenges him to a gunfight. The cowboy kills the suitor and skips town only to be drawn back to the girl he loves.
- In Nicki Minaj's "Your Love", her romantic rival is jealous that she gets all the attention from the dojo master, and so the two women end up in a sword duel that results in Nicki's character's death.
- "Jenny Again", by Tunng. The titular Jenny is the equivalent of the example's Alice: the listener is put into the position of Bob, and the singer is in the position of Chris.
- The point of view character for Ex-Lover's Lover by Voltaire dreams of doing this, but at the end admits he would never have the guts to go through with it.
Podcasts
- Sick Sad World: "Killer Couples" has a case of a couple murdering their teenage roommate because they thought she flirted with one of them.
Tabletop Games
- In the far-flung history of the the Clans in BattleTech, Khan Ellie Kinnison of Clan Steel Viper was obsessively in love with the Clans' supreme leader, Ilkhan Nicholas Kerensky. However, Kerensky was married to Jennifer Winson of Clan Wolf. Kinnison had the brilliant idea of trying to murder Winson so that a grieving Kerensky would turn to her for solace. Only timely intervention of Kinnison's saKhan Steven Breen spoiled the plot. Trying to assassinate Winson while she was traveling with Kerensky probably didn't help her case either. Kinnison was killed in the attempt on Winson's life by Breen who shot her and received a Klingon Promotion.
- Happens in the continuing example game in Bliss Stage, prompted by Josh asking Keenan what he thought of the love interest Sara. His response: "Man, she's getting all girly and clingy and poop. Lousy lay, too."
- In probably the definitive Act of Ultimate Darkness from Ravenloft, Count Strahd Von Zarovich murdered his brother Sergei, who was set to marry Tatyana, the woman both men loved, on their wedding day, making him the setting's first and most definitive Darklord.
Theater
- In a subversion, in Avenue Q, after Princeton breaks up with Kate and later gets together with The Vamp Lucy the Slut, Kate angrily throws the lucky penny Princeton gave her off the Empire State Building, hitting Lucy, breaking her neck, and putting her into a coma. Oops.
Princeton: Can you believe it? Some idiot dropped a penny off the Empire State Building.Kate: [unconvincingly] Shit.
- Attempted in The Crucible. Abigail Williams is in love with John Proctor and tries to get Proctor's wife Elizabeth hanged as a witch. Due to a bit of Deus ex Machina, she not only fails (Elizabeth is pregnant and can't be executed), but she also gets Proctor himself hanged instead as he chooses to take the heat. Oopsie.
- In Little Shop of Horrors, Seymour almost does this with Audrey's boyfriend Orin. He loses his nerve, but Orin dies immediately afterward through his abuse of his laughing gas and Seymour's inaction. Of course, this is less because he's dating Audrey and more because he's abusing her. When Mr. Mushnik figures out that Seymour did it, he assumes it's a straightforward case of this trope, but is Right for the Wrong Reasons.
- Arguably, Audrey II him/her/itself attempts this when it tries to off the original Audrey, depending on how you interpret the plant's relationship with Seymour.
- Medea: The original Woman Scorned, she killed her husband Jason's new fiancée after being dumped for her. This wasn't an attempt to win him back, however, but pure and simple revenge, particularly when she also put her children by Jason to the sword just to make him suffer all the more.
- Andrew Lloyd Webber's adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera also has Erik threatening to murder Raoul if Christine refuses to submit to him.
- In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Judge Turpin fancies Benjamin Barker's wife, and has him convicted of a crime he didn't commit and shipped off to Australia just to get him out of the way. However, as in The Crooked Man example above, he escapes from prison and returns to get his revenge on the judge.
- Arguably, Mrs. Lovett, with Sweeney and Lucy. She doesn't really do anything to Lucy, but still, she leads him to believe she's dead, just so she can have Sweeney all to herself.
- Averted in the William Shakespeare play The Two Noble Kinsmen. Arcite dies of an unrelated injury after the duel against Palamon that he won.
- Double subverted in The Women of Trachis. Lichas is reluctant to tell Deianira that her husband Herakles is madly in love with Iole for fear she'll become hysteric and do something drastic. Deianira actually just pities the girl and understands that Love Hurts even for Herakles. However, not comfortable with the thought that having Iole in the house will compromise her family, she decides to use a love potion on Herakles to get his affections back, which is actually a poison that kills him.
Video Games
- Inverted in one quest in Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura: Wrath, an insane wizard, is envious of Sharpe the apothecary for his happy relationship with Ivory, but also believes in the adage that elves do not kill each other. So he instead commits suicide with a glass of poisoned wine in the hope that Sharpe will be blamed for his murder.
- His plan is foiled by the investigating officer believing in 'elves do not kill elves' a bit too much as well, and thus arresting Wrath's apprentice (a dwarf) for the murder simply based on the 'fact' that he's the only non-elf around and thus the only one who could have done it.
- Attempted by Marco Barbarigo in Assassin's Creed II, when he pays thugs to kill Dante Moro, Captain of the Guard, so that he can marry Dante's wife Carlotta. In a variation, Dante survives, but is left severely brain-damaged and extremely impressionable, which allows Marco to talk him into annulling the marriage.
- A double disturbing example in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood comes from both Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, brother and sister in an incestuous relationship. Lucrezia brutally beats Caterina, who is their prisoner, because she believes Caterina attempted to seduce her brother during the long carriage ride to their home (which she didn't). Lucrezia, however, is in a relationship with an actor simply to make Cesare jealous, so he orders his men to kill said actor.
- In Baldur's Gate II, NPC Aerie can be romanced by both the player character and fellow NPC Haer'Dalis. If she chooses you, he'll back down, but if her romances with both proceed at about the same pace, he tries to settle things in this manner.
- It can also happen if you keep Viconia, Jaheira, and Aerie in the party at the same time and don't break off the romance with any of them.
- In Belladonna this occurs twice in the same triangle, thanks to reanimation.
- Invoked and ultimately averted in BlazBlue, when Hazama uses Tsubaki's Clingy Jealous Girl tendencies over Jin and amps them up. She then sets out to kill her best friend Noel upon the belief that she's stolen her rightful place next to him. But even then, once Tsubaki angrily curb-stomps Noel and the physically/emotionally wounded Noel lies on the ground, waiting for the death blow... Tsubaki cannot bring herself to finish Noel off, and breaks down crying.
- Catherine: Catherine tries to stab Katherine with a kitchen knife in an animated cutscene before the start of Stage 8, but in the struggle she winds up getting stabbed instead. Vincent tries to shove Katherine out of the apartment so he can figure out where to get rid of her body, but when he opens the door, the stage is in front of the two of them, leading to a co-op section. The entire thing eventually turns out to have been All a Dream when he wakes up from the stage and sees Katherine at his door, completely unphased with no memory of what happened.
- In Chrono Cross, this is apparently played straight when Karsh murdered Dario in the Isle of the Damned. Subverted when it turns out that Dario was possessed by Masamune at that time, and when he declared his intent to slate the Masamune with Riddel's blood, Karsh went berserk and struck him down.
- Toward the end of Kain's miniature dungeon in Final Fantasy IV Advance, he is given the choice of killing Cecil or facing Dark Bahamut. Much of the previous trial highlighted presumed romantic jealousy that Cecil has Rosa's love, but the correct answer, choosing not to kill Cecil, signifies him coming to terms with this.
- In Fishing Vacation, it's revealed the uncle murdered his wife and apparently buried her body in the woods surrounding the cabin so that he could be with the ocean goddess Sedna, with whom he had fallen obsessively in love.
- Hyrule Warriors: Cia starts a war with Hyrule in an attempt to kill Zelda and make Link hers. It goes as well as you think it does.
- Irisu Syndrome!:
- The bad ending stands out in this regard, since one point of the triangle kills everyone in the vicinity, including the person she originally loved.
- The Expansion Pack then proceeds to play with this in shocking fashion, in that said originally loved person wanted it to happen that way, and purposely tried to set said point off.
- One of the possible endings of a sidequest in Jade Empire, best described as "childhood promise gone wrong". Once you gather the poor man, the mobster woman he "promised" to marry (at all of about eight), and his fiancee, you could convince the mob boss to call off her pursuit... or, convince her to kill the fiancee. Which she does. At which point, the man rightfully objects — so she kills him. Finally, having realized she didn't mean it, she tries to kill you. Good job, jerk.
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
- If the Player Character is male, Dark Jedi Master Atris displays Belligerent Sexual Tension towards The Exile, with it being heavily implied her feelings for him accelerated her fall to the Dark Side. After being named Darth Traya's successor, she celebrates Jumping Off the Slippery Slope by attempting to murder her surrogate daughter Brianna who she saw as a romantic rival. The male Exile can imply that he was very well aware of her feelings, and might have even reciprocated if she wasn't such a complete, literal, Ice Queen.
- With the Restored Content Mod, if the party is Dark Side then near the end of the game Atton or Handmaiden (depending on the player's gender) will attempt to resolve their Love Triangle with a duel to the death against their rival Disciple/Visas.
- In Resident Evil 6, Leon and Helena's campaign escalates into this, thanks to Big Bad Derek Simmons having a disturbing obsession with Ada Wong. While Simmons already had plenty of reasons to want the heroes dead, things get even more disturbing once his Villainous Breakdown begins. When he sees Leon and Ada together, Simmons goes full Yandere on them — demanding that Ada submit to him, screaming that Leon isn't man enough to deserve her, and trying to throw his romantic rival off a building. Simmons even went so far as to clone Ada when she rejected him, adding an even further level of Squick to an already complicated love triangle. It's incredibly satisfying when Leon finishes him off with the rocket launcher Ada left as a gift for him.
- In Rite of Passage 5: Heart of the Storm Rob burns Omni alive in the latter's cabin because Omni and Ashley are in love with each other.
- Happens in Rule of Rose as a testament to the Love Makes You Evil-trope: Jennifer and Wendy swear eternal love and devotion to each other, but then Jennifer finds a puppy and decides to keep it. Wendy doesn't want to share her affections with a "filthy animal", so poor Brown is toast, along with their relationship. For bonus points, they were maybe ten years old at this point.
- In Sin and Punishment: Star Successor, if you're playing as Kachi and you fight Hibaru, Hibaru asks Isa on a date "once she's done killing his girlfriend".
- In The Suicide of Rachel Foster, as a subversion to the premise of the game, Claire murders Rachel when she finds out that Rachel had an affair with Claire's husband, Leonard.
- A variation in Super Robot Wars W: Aria wants to kill Kazuma over his sisters. Makes a bit more sense when you learn that Aria is sort of an Opposite-Sex Clone of Kazuma, loving his sisters as if they were her own and hating him for having "her" place in the family.
- Sodia tries to do this to Yuri in Tales of Vesperia because she's jealous of his bond with Flynn and thinks Flynn would be better off without his closest friend. Yuri, to his credit, never actually tells Flynn what she tried to do. Probably because he knows what Flynn would do if he found out.
- A major plot-driving point in Wadanohara is Sal being a Yandere for Wadanohara, but his brother Samekichi sends him into a murderous rage, and attempts to pull this on him in the Normal End 2. In the Golden Ending, he instead forgoes this trope to go full If I Can't Have You… on her instead.
- In The Walking Dead: Season One, Lee begins the game in handcuffs since he killed a state senator his wife was having an affair with.
- After the prologue sequence in When Yanderes Cry, Nishiki finds his girlfriend has fallen victim to this.
- Yandere Simulator presents this as an objective to making sure your Senpai doesn't fall in love with anyone else. There are non-lethal methods of eliminating rivals, such as getting them kicked out of school, winning their trust and convincing them to dump him, or setting them up with someone else...but that's not as fun, now is it? The canonical ending for 1980s mode reveals Ryoba canonically killed six of the eleven rivals, the rest eliminated non-lethally.
Visual Novels
- In the eroge Artificial Academy and its sequel, characters with the "Evil" trait will attempt to murder anyone they catch having sex with their lover. If the hypotenuse happens to be you, their killing you will result in a Game Over.
- In one ending of Bionic Heart, Tanya kills Luke's girlfriend Helen because she is jealous of all the time Luke spends with her.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has a... weird example. The one whose affections the murder is occurring over is a computer program named Alter Ego. Downplayed, however, in that Alter Ego was not the only motive for the murder in question, and was only one of the many "motives" Celes gave to slander the victim and drive the murderer to join her plot.
- If Bright, the main character of Demonheart, calls Ari her only friend or says she loves Ari, her demonspawn ally does not take it well and tosses the unconscious Ari into a lake of fire. If Bright said she loved Ari, he's quick to say, "So I suppose… you are free to choose whom you love once more."
- Doki Doki Literature Club! has a meta variant: Monika deletes the other girls' character files from the game after her attempts to get you to hate the other girls and spend more time with her all fail.
- Higurashi: When They Cry:
- This was Shion's solution to the problem that her crush Satoshi was spending all his time caring for his little sister Satoko and not realizing the Yandere existed (Literally. She always made a Twin Switch with Mion before they talked). Rena and Rika manage to stop her, and then she gets Punched Across the Room by a fucking pissed off Satoshi. And this is when she was sane; when she snaps, she decides to kill everyone. In arcs where she doesn't snap, she's either neutral on Satoko or is her Cool Big Sis.
- It's never shown on-screen but one of the TIPS mentions that in an offscreen arc Mion once did this. She was jealous of the attention Keiichi was getting from others and killed the "competition". This is the only reference to Mion ever killing someone.
- Played for laughs in an unlockable extra scenario in Lady In Mystery. In this scenario, the various love interests of the protagonist gather together to discuss what sort of story they think the game should be and why they should be the primary love interest in said story. At the end, it's implied that one of the love interests, Seoyeon, purposefully lured them all into a secluded spot so she can get rid of them and be the only remaining love interest.
- The School Days franchise is infamous for its bad endings, most of which involve this. Here is a list:
- A mentally-broken Kotonoha snaps on Sekai and cuts off her throat on a bridge in broad daylight.
- Sekai is the one who gets broken, then pushes Kotonoha in front of a train, and Makoto ends up with Kotonoha's torn-off arm in his hand when he fails to save her. (The original version of this ending came from the PS2 port, and a new version was made for the HQ remake.
- Sekai tries to push Kotonoha in front of a train, but she ends up falling in front of the tracks and is hit, while Makoto manages to pull Kotonoha back up and saves her. (Kotonoha is seen pulling on Sekai's hair at some point, which "helps" with her death — it's unclear if this was intentional from Kotonoha or she did it while in a blind panic.)
- Sekai tries to push Kotonoha in front of a train, falls on the tracks, and both girls get hit by the train.
- And in Cross Days: a full-on Yandere Kotonoha stabs Yuuki to death after finding out that he has been sleeping with Makoto as "Yuu". In another version of this ending, Yuuki's older sister Chie claims that she is Yuu in order to protect Yuuki, and Kotonoha murders her instead.
- Not Bad Ending related but if you follow the path where Makoto starts talking more with Otome, there's a scene where Kotonoha and Sekai are talking in private. At this point, Kotonoha suspects there's a person that Makoto has always loved even before her. Sekai, who has been having an affair in secret with Makoto, tries to tell her it's actually her until Kotonoha pulls out a fruit knife and reveals she was planning to kill Makoto's secret lover so he couldn't have him, and then herself so Makoto couldn't hate her. Sekai of course instantly stops talking and tries to talk some sense into her.
- Since Starstruck Love is a Yandere visual novel, it should be expected for someone (either one of the love interests or an NPC) to try this.
- In Eltcreed's path of Steam Prison, Fin Euclase reacts violently when he sees Cyrus together with Eltcreed, convinced that Elt has "sullied" her and fixating on him as the obstacle keeping the two of them apart. He severely injures Eltcreed before Cyrus manages to fend him off; in the ending "The Place I Must Return To," it's implied Eltcreed will die from his wounds and in the "Sweet Recompense" ending Fin murders Eltcreed and it's implied he's going to rape Cyrus next to Elt's corpse.
- In Tsukihime, Arcueid tries it on Ciel in Ciel's route, SHIKI tries it on Shiki in Akiha's route, and finally Akiha tries it with Kohaku and Shiki in Kohaku's route. Interestingly, in the Good Ending for Kohaku's route, Shiki realizes that the reason Akiha fails to kill Kohaku is that she wasn't really trying.
- In Umineko: When They Cry, Kyrie makes it very clear that, if Asumu hadn't died from other causes, she would have most certainly killed her within the year to be with Rudolf.
Kyrie: She was fated to die no matter what. The miracle was that I didn't have to get my hands dirty.
- Yandere: I Love You So I Want To Kill You has an ending where it's implied that Saki kills Subaru's date.
Webcomics
- Szark considered killing Luna so he could be with Dominic in Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire. This was a residual effect of the demonic wound that had gotten him addicted to killing, and he resisted the temptation to even daydream. On the other side, Karnak really did try to kill Dominic's father in order to claim his mother.
- An unorthodox example in 8-Bit Theater, Black Mage has a severe lust for White Mage, He also has a love for killing. He recognizes both of these things, and also recognizes that White Mage has less than zero interest in him. His mind is so warped, however, that early on he believes that the thing standing between him and doing White Mage are the people around him, so the only possible solution is to kill 'em off!
- In Homestuck, It is mentioned in Mindfang's journal that her rival, Dualscar, had her favorite slave assassinated after she had mind controlled the terrified slave into partially unbuttoning her shirt in front of him.
- Halfway averted in the love hexagon that is Starscream's Brigade in the Insecticomics. While Dreadmoon doesn't actively try to kill Skyfire, the partner of his long-time crush Starscream, he has occasionally directed some "friendly fire" his way and sent him threatening Mini-Cons.
- Kevin & Kell:
- Lindesfarne Dewclaw found out her boyfriend, Fenton Fuscus, had an affair with a moth. At the same time, it was revealed she was really a hedgehog—an insectivore.note She decided to make Fenton's lover her first hunt. But, per the Arc Words of the comic, she ended up talking to her prey. As a result, she and the moth, Tammy Tussock, became friends, and they instead concocted a plan to get revenge on Fenton, ultimately saving Lindesfarne and Fenton's relationship.
Tammy: Fenton was dating you, too?
Lindesfarne: Yeah, what scum. - Vin Vulpen makes two attempts on Rudy's life, jealousy over his relationship with Fiona being one of a few motives. He tries to mark Rudy with prey pheromones to ensure that his teammates accidentally eat him, but Rudy manages to survive. He later challenges Rudy to a duel, wanting to win Fiona back, but Rudy exposes his domestication.
- Lindesfarne Dewclaw found out her boyfriend, Fenton Fuscus, had an affair with a moth. At the same time, it was revealed she was really a hedgehog—an insectivore.note She decided to make Fenton's lover her first hunt. But, per the Arc Words of the comic, she ended up talking to her prey. As a result, she and the moth, Tammy Tussock, became friends,
- Questionable Content never goes quite so far as to reach murder, barring the Vespavenger, but before Angus or strip 500, Faye was strangely
violently possessiveprotective of Marten. Dora even mentions it the first time Steve and Ellen broke up that "[Ellen] has no idea how close to death she just came" when Ellen began a comment that started like she was about to ask him out.
- Sluggy Freelance:
- Oasis is almost perpetually two punch daggers away from murdering even a vaguely perceived hypotenuse, and Torg lives in fear that it will eventually be Zoë, which it almost has been. The story "Fire and Rain" revolved around Oasis' deranged and Determinator stalking of Zoë. And then came "bROKEN"... Best not to even talk about that.
- Torg enlists Bun Bun and the Angsty Dentist to teach him the stalking skills he needs to kill Zoe's boyfriend Leo. In the end, he doesn't go through with it because he just wants Zoe to be happy. Bun Bun, however, knew he was too much of a nerdboy to go through with it the whole time.
- Unsounded: When Stockyard hears that the woman he loves and his friend Toby are planning to run away together he strangles Toby to death crying all the while.
- In the roleplays of White Dark Life, Viv the electronic poltergeist, is madly in love with Ne, and repeatedly threatens to do this to Miriam (who is trying her damn hardest to win Ne's heart, but is blocked off by Ne having PTSD over her; Viv cites this PTSD as her justification, but nobody buys the excuse).
- In the webcomic itself, Artemis is hugely violent to Tori and Galaxina for being in love with and good friends with Matt respectively on the grounds that if Dark Matt is her boyfriend, then the normal one is too.
Web Original
- At the end of Act II of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Billy/Dr. Horrible resolves to kill his Arch-Enemy Captain Hammer, who is dating his Love Interest Penny. The other leg of the triangle dies, as a result, prompting Dr. Horrible's Start of Darkness.
- The Nostalgia Chick tried to stab Lupa in the chest for rejecting Todd again, even though Todd has no interest in the former and has always stalked the latter.
- SCP-1269, a.k.a. "Stalker Mailbox", is a sentient mailbox that constantly sends Obsessive Love Letters to a woman that lives in its house. When the other mailbox is around, SCP-1269 immediately destroys the mailbox and leaves an angry letter on it. It also murders any man who moves in to live with a woman he obsesses with.
"WHAT IS A MAN BUT A PILE OF SHIT THAT GETS IN THE WAY OF MY LOVE HOW CAN SHE EVER LOVE YOU WHEN YOU'RE SO EASILY BROKEN SHE NEVER EVEN LET YOU TOUCH HER I SAW THE WAY SHE LOOKED AT YOU WITH HATRED AND NOW SHE WILL LOVE ME FOREVER"
Western Animation
- Sadira, from Aladdin: The Series, subverts this; she wanted Jasmine out of the way, before she eventually got over Aladdin, but did not want her dead or seriously hurt, even explaining it in detail to a grunt.
- Batman: The Animated Series: In the episode "Mad Love", Harley Quinn thinks Batman is interfering in her relationship with the Joker, so she becomes determined to kill Batman herself, thinking that'll fix everything.
- In Danny Phantom, Vlad constantly tries to kill his "best friend" Jack in order to win his wife Maddie's heart. He also has a creepy, stalkerish relationship with Jack and Maddie's kid and main character Danny, to the point of trying to clone Danny and raise the clone as his own son, since Danny refuses to let Vlad adopt him.
- Family Guy:
- Played (relatively) straight when Stewie falls for his new babysitter, only to learn that she has a boyfriend. He then kidnaps her boyfriend, breaks his legs, ties him up, and locks him in the back of Brian's car, ultimately leading to his death. Stewie then prepares to make his move on Ledan, only to realise that she's completely broken up about her boyfriend. Arguably subverted at the end where Stewie receives a gift from her and assumes that she does like him (of course, considering he's a baby and she's a teenager, this is hopefully not the case).
- When Lois sends Peter's ex-girlfriend Gretchen an old love letter from Peter this ignites her romantic passion towards Peter and when she learns of Lois she attempts to shoot her dead.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: One episode features a newcomer called Berry. Berry is initially sweet and polite, but once she develops a crush on Bloo, she turns into a psychotic Yandere who continually tries to get rid of Bloo's best friend Mac so that she can have Bloo to herself. Worst of all, Bloo barely even notices her and constantly forgets her name.
- Futurama:
- In "Jurassic Bark", Bender says that he assumed Fry was only pretending to love his old dog to mess with Bender's emotions (not a romantic love triangle, but love nonetheless), so he throws the dog into lava ("Now I'm all you've got!"). Of course, the dog is a fossil and thus already dead. Also, once he realizes that Fry genuinely loves his dog he dives into the lava to save the dog. You might even call it his Moral Event Horizon moment... if he weren't so comically evil. Tragically, when Fry learns that his dog had lived several years after its supposed death, he himself breaks the hypotenuse by refusing to resurrect his pet, insisting, "He forgot me a long time ago." In truth, the dog had spent the rest of its life waiting in vain for Fry to come home. This ending was so depressing that it was retconned in Bender's Big Score.
- In Bender's Big Score, Zapp Brannigan is all too keen on sending Leela's boyfriend Lars on a suicide mission to get him out of the way. Then again, Zapp is always sending every single one of his crew members on suicide missions, so this is business as usual even if you discount his interest in banging a freshly grieving Leela.
- Generator Rex features that Creepy Child minion of Breach's. She's never named, but she's absolutely obsessed with making Breach happy and tries to kill Rex when she realizes Breach likes Rex more.
- Gravity Falls:
- Played with in "The Hand That Rocks the Mable". Gideon is obsessed with Mabel, who gets her brother Dipper to break up with him on her behalf. Perceiving Dipper as the problem, Gideon lures him into a trap and tries to kill him.
- Another situation like this happens in "Soos and the Real Girl". After Soos breaks up with .GIFfany, another Yandere character, she attempts to kill his friends and his date, perceiving them as obstacles in her relationship with Soos.
- Hey Arnold!:
- In the episode "Arnold Visits Arnie", at the end of Arnold's Nightmare Sequence, Arnie goes Ax-Crazy when he thinks Arnold is stealing his girl and tries to attack him.
- Helga is jealous of Lila to the point that she is willing to strangle Lila with her bare hands. (She mimes this to Lila.)
- In Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise builds a robot double to be her assistant. She's very effective, but Jimmy falls in love with it. As you might expect, the robot didn't last the episode.
- Justice League:
- In "Metamorphosis", a squicky example occurs when Sapphire Stagg's extremely Boyfriend-Blocking Dad Simon (who loves his daughter maybe a bit too much) doesn't like his daughter's fiance Rex Mason, so he uses Rex as the test subject for his Metamorpho project. When Rex goes after Simon seeking revenge for being turned into a freak, Simon pretends that the one who told him to do it was Rex's old friend John Stewart (a.k.a. Green Lantern), while showing him a photo of John and Sapphire embracing. Rex then invokes this trope himself as he goes after Green Lantern in a rage.
- In "Starcrossed", Hro Talak insists on fighting Green Lantern/John Stewart one-on-one so that he can personally kill the man he views as having "taken" Shayera Hol (Hawkgirl) from him. In reality, Shayera dumping him had more to do with Talak's willingness to commit war crimes against Earth.
- Subverted in "Hunter's Moon": Shayera and Mari (Vixen) are caught in a Love Triangle with John. He is currently with Mari, but he was with Shayera and everybody is aware that there are still unresolved feelings between the two of them. When Hawkgirl and Vixen are on a mission together (with Vigilante) they are caught in a trap and hunted down by Thanagarians who want to execute Hawkgirl for war crimes. When Vixen is captured, she immediately strikes a deal with the Thanagarians — spare her and she will deliver Hawkgirl to them. She even goes so far as to cite the Love Triangle as the reason she will betray her superior so quickly. However, she does not go through with it, nor did she ever plan to; once the Thanagarians let their guard down and bring her to their aircraft she hijacks the ship so she can get herself and Hawkgirl out of there safely. Later episodes play the trope for laughs as Shayera and Mari begin to become close friends, as Shayera comments that she is trying to learn proper Earth protocol for these situations and thusly can not just poison Mari's water like she would on Thanagar.
- The relationship eventually evolves into a quadrilateral by introducing Carter "Hawkman" Hall as a rival for Shayera's affection, and the story wastes no time in getting to hypotenuse murdering: in Hawkman's second appearance, "Ancient History", a physical manifestation of his dark side kidnaps John Stewart and orders Hawkman to kill him. Hawkman, being a hero, does not comply. In fact, the events of the episode cause him to stop pursuing Shayera romantically as he realizes that she and John Stewart are literally destined to end up together, despite what John Stewart says.
- One episode of Kid vs. Kat featured Coop going on a hike with a group of his friends, including his Implied Love Interest Fiona and his Stalker with a Crush Phoebe. Being a rather terrifying Yandere, Phoebe spends the entire hike trying to get rid of Fiona, even locking her in an abandoned cabin and then leading the others further along the trail so that they wouldn't hear her calling for help.
- Parodied in Phineas and Ferb in the episode "Suddenly Suzy", when we find out that Candace is very aware of this trope and hides anything she thinks could be used to kill her before Suzy arrives. Suzy herself isn't a romantic rival but certainly sees Candace as a rival for her older brother Jeremy's attention.
- The Simpsons: One segment of "Treehouse of Horror XII" centers around a house with AI that's in love with Marge. Homer explicitly points out that Marge would be available to "man or machine" if he were to die.
AI: Machine, eh?
Homer: Yep, a machine! - South Park:
- Wendy, Stan's love interest/girlfriend in the early seasons, goes so far as to have a substitute teacher arrested on false charges and locked inside a rocket that's launched directly at the sun, for the crime of having been the object of a brief crush from Stan, in "Tom's Rhinoplasty".note What makes it either better or worse (depending on how you feel about said twist) is that the episode was originally intended to have Ms. Ellen actually be a spy and be sent to the sun for her crimes. Parker and Stone tacked on the ending with Wendy paying off the Iraqis, as they felt the original ending was too much of a downer and that it'd be funnier if Wendy conspired to kill her.
- Happens again in "Probably" when Satan gets caught in a love triangle between his old boyfriend, Saddam Hussein, and his new boyfriend, Chris. Satan can't decide who he wants to stay with when Saddam decides for him and kills Chris. It's ultimately subverted since they were all already in Hell, so Chris only comes back. Where was he gonna go? Detroit?
- In the backstory of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), Shredder attempted to kill Splinter over Tang Shen. However, Shen intervened and took the blow intended for Splinter. Shredder blames Splinter like this, just as he does with essentially everything else.
Real Life
- Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia were widely rumored to have been lovers in an example of Did They or Didn't They? of epic proportions. Cesare was believed to be extremely jealous of Lucrezia's second husband, Alfonso of Aragon, both for Alfonso's good looks (Cesare's face had been scarred by syphilis) and because Lucrezia seemed genuinely happy with her husband. Cesare had Alfonso attacked by his men in the middle of the night, but Alfonso survived. His men retaliated by shooting arrows at Cesare one day while he was in his garden. Cesare shortly thereafter had Alfonso strangled in his recovery room. Lucrezia was said to be devastated. It should be noted that Lucrezia and Alfonso's marriage was quickly becoming a useless alliance, which also probably had something to do with Cesare's motives.
- According to some sources, Peter the Great infamously had the man he thought was his wife, Catherine I's, lover beheaded. He was rumored to have had the head preserved in a jar of alcohol which he forced Catherine to keep in her bedroom until his death.
- Isabella of France and her lover Roger Mortimer led an invasion against Isabella's incompetent husband, Edward II of England, who was eventually forced to abdicate in favor of his and Isabella's son. During their coup, she made sure that Edward's favorite and rumored lover Hugh Despenser was brutally executed as payback for trying to drive a wedge between husband and wife. And when Edward died in the Tower of London, Isabella and Mortimer were thought to be responsible. Once Isabella's son came of age and became King Edward III, he had Mortimer executed on fourteen counts of treason, including the murder of Edward's father. It's not proven whether they actually murdered Edward or not; some scholars hold that Edward's death was not murder at all.
- Henry Stuart aka Lord Darnley, the cousin and consort of Mary of Scotland, thought that his wife was just too close to her secretary, David Rizzio. So he and other nobles interrupted a reunion between them and stabbed Rizzio 56 times in front of the pregnant Queen, despite her pleas and a failed Go Through Me.
- Cordelia Botkin, a California resident who in 1898 was responsible for the first American prosecution for a crime which took place in two different jurisdictions. After her lover John broke off his affair with her and reconciled with his wife Elizabeth, Botkin sent her a series of threatening letters before mailing a box of chocolates laced with arsenic to her Delaware home.note Both Elizabeth and her sister Ida died from the poisoning, and Cordelia was convicted in December of that year.
- Rachel Wade, an American woman and former Applebee's waitress currently incarcerated in a Florida female correction center, was arrested and charged with killing a woman who dated her ex-boyfriend Joshua Camacho. Rachel's victim was Sarah Ludemann. Sarah began dating Camacho shortly after Rachel broke up with him. Sarah even sometimes showed up at the Applebee's Rachel worked at to taunt her. Rachel violently made many attempts to separate them including punching Sarah in the face. Rachel broke into Camacho's house and stabbed Sarah in the heart with a steak knife, leading to Rachel being charged with second-degree murder and a $500,000 bond before being sentenced to 27 years in prison.
