In a game I’m playing, an “assassin-type” says right before a fight: 死んでもらう
The subtitles translate it as “you’re going to die”. How would you translate that literally?
At first I thought it would be something like “die for me”, but I suppose もらう is more someone doing something for someone else? So would it be more like “I’ll have you die”?
I want to understand this so I can get a better grasp of how もらう is used.
Literally it would be
Die [per my request]
Okay, then what’s the difference vs. くれる? All the examples I’ve seen here for くれる were “do something for me”, whereas もらう was “I’ll have someone do something (for me)”. The only difference I noticed is that the first refers to the person you’re speaking to, the second refers to a third person (doing something).
So “die (per my request)” seems like it would be くれる not もらう?
くれる shows thankfulness towards the giver while もらう shows the action of the speaker receiving.
Consider:
私に母が贈り物をくれた
私が母に贈り物をもらった
Both mean the same thing overall but in the くれる version it is the mother doing the action but in もらう it is I doing the action.
So, 死んでもらう probably shows so a selfish or arrogant personality.
(As a side note I think I’ve heard 死んでくれ before when a bad guy tried kill some one who they had to kill or else they would be killed, don’t remember what show it was though, so it’s definitely possible to say it that way too. Sort of a “please die so I can live” vibe. Not that that means the bad guy actually respects the person they’re trying to kill. I think it makes them sound more desperate.)
The difference between くれる and もらう is the request. くれる doesn’t actually have the request meaning. Therefore, it sounds nicer to ask if you can do xyz for me (out of your own volition) with くれる. If you use もらう it’s rude or it’s with your subordinates.
I’d like to add my two cents…
くれる = give (me) – the subject is you
もらう = (I) receive – the subject is I/me
In Bunpro, the てｘｘｘ versions are translated as:
～てくれる = do something for (me)
～てもらう = have someone do something for (me)
(There’s another discussion about in-group and out-group, but here I’m simplifying to just “me” and “you”.)
But if you look at the root verbs, you could translate it as:
～てくれる = do something and give (me) (the benefit of the action)
～てもらう = do something and (I) receive (the benefit of the action)
So, putting that together with your example:
死んでくれる = You die and give me the benefit = You will die for me. (statement)
死んでくれ = You die and (command) give me the benefit = Die for me! (command)
死んでもらう = You die and I receive the benefit = I will benefit from your dying. (statement)
If this were an American movie, to get the same feeling, I imagine the bad guy would say something like “I’ll enjoy watching you die”.
Another subtle thing happening here is that Japanese omits the subject, but we have to put a subject in English. I think because Japanese usually omits the subject, people usually talk with “I” as the subject of all their sentences (yeah, ok, not “all”… I’m making a point 
). So in Japanese, we’d say 犬に宿題を食べられちゃった which is “(my) homework was eaten (unfortunately) by the dog!”, or more naturally “The dog ate my homework!”. Notice the subject in Japanese is me/my stuff, where in English the subject is the dog.
So, with your example, the assassin makes a statement with himself as the subject 死んでもらう。
Thank you, that makes more sense to me now.
I agree with @FredKore’s explanation, but I do think that the most faithful/accurate English translation is “I’ll have you die!” like OP @Wanyudo suggested, since ～てもらう is used to describe receiving a favor.
Also, like @FredKore said, it is a statement, not a command/request. So, in general, I’d say “I/we will have [person] do [verb] for my/our benefit” is a good way to think of this phrasing.
To add to this discussion:
てもらう seems to be more of an imposition on the other person. This can get awkward to translate into English directly. In the case of 死んでもらう as @Kai stated “I’ll have you die!” is a faithful translation, but not really natural. That’s probably why the game translators opted for something like “You’re going to die”.
Whereas てくれる is more like asking for a favor eg. 掃除してくれる？ Could you do some cleaning?(as a favor to me) or receiving a favor without necessarily asking eg. 彼女がセータを編んでくれた She knitted a sweater(for me as a favor).
On a related note, in humble speech there is also this often used form させてもらう or させていただく. Directly translating this yields something like “I’ll get you to allow me to do X”, which sounds a bit imposing and confusing. However, this phrase is considered humble speech I think because it indicates the acknowledgement of the speaker that they are imposing their will on someone. Eg. 紹介させてもらう - this phrase can be translated (in order from most direct to most natural) as "I’ll get you to allow me to introduce (myself)/"I will humbly introduce (myself)/ "allow me to introduce (myself)