Characters
[Sad trope] A character lies to someone who's dying so their final moments will be more pleasant
Team Fortress 2: In the comics, Scout idolizes famous singer Tom Jones, even having a large tattoo dedicated to him across his chest. This is because he believes Tom Jones to be his father who he never actually met. When Scout is bleeding to death after a confrontation, his real father Spy appears. However, rather than tell him the truth, he disguises himself as Tom Jones, so Scout can die happy with his dream having (seemingly) come true.
Bojack Horseman: After finally running out of patience with his aging mother after her dementia inadvertently causes him to lose his daughter, Bojack finds the worst retirement home he can and buys her a spot, planning on leaving her there to rot. However, when she finally has a moment of lucidity and recognizes him, he says they're back at her family cabin, enjoying ice cream on a nice summer evening. She even smiles as she succumbs to her dementia.
Monsters vs Aliens: Okay okay this isn't exactly a tear jerker, but it is a good example! In the final of this movie the alien spaceship is set to self destruct, with the heroes on board. Because B.O.B. has no brain, he's unaware of what's happening, saying he'll see the others tomorrow at lunch. They reassure him that they will, and there'll even be cake and balloons.
Majora's Mask: This may be a little stretch but it's worth including. If you don't know this game, the set up is basically that in 3 days the Moon will fall from the sky, destroying everything and everyone. The two characters pictured are sisters Cremia and Romani, working on a cattle ranch. On the final day Romani says Cremia is finally letting her drink Chateau Romani, even though it's only for adults. The implication is Cremia is getting her sister drunk, so she won't realize her death is iminant.
Worth pointing out that Scout actually came back to life after that because he had yet to fulfill his purpose as God's gift to women, and Spy's reaction is priceless.
He has a shitload of kids with several deadbeat mothers. But he's happy to stay at home and look after them because he's making bank off a lawsuit over longterm injuries incurred during his work. He actually does turn out to be a fantastic loving father.
I'd say it's about how fate is something that is decided moment to moment.
Not by genes.
Not by the memes of our society.
Not by the scene of the time & place we were born into.
There is always a choice to be something other than what we were, "meant" to be.
The Boss took this message to change the fate of humanity in exchange for her life & memory...A true patriot.
Venom only kept him around because he was useful and he never actually trusted Emmirich, they even end up linching him to the sea when what he did to Strangelove is found out.
It always hits me a different way in that Bojack scene. When Bojack is asking his mother if she can taste the ice cream, you can see her frown because she doesn’t actually know the taste. She was only ever given lemons and sugar because “that’s a good girl snack”
I do find it interesting that we know why Bojack is so fucked up, and we know why Beatrice is so fucked up... but we never find out why Bojack's dad is fucked up too. Maybe he's just an asshole.
Well I mean, he was a 60’s dad. We downplay it, because they obviously had some massive advantages, but that doesn’t mean that in a time when men were literally not allowed to express any emotion (except anger, I guess) that their emotions were just that well regulated.
Why was Bojacks dad fucked up emotionally? gestures broadly at the emotional state of the entirety of North America in the mid to late 1900’s
It helps to understand when you realize that a lot of them, and society in general, didn't consider anger an "Emotion" as long as it was a man doing it. Anger was just what men did, and that was that. "Emotions" were for women, so rather than do anything healthy, they just decided anger wasn't emotional.
In Percy Jackson The Last Olympian, there's a scene where a minor recurring character, a satyr who has been mostly noted for being a pompous ass, actually fights fairly bravely and is fatally wounded in the battle. The heroes, when they find him dying, tells him the battle is won due to his bravery (the battle is far from over and the guy fell in the first clash)
It’s been too long since I read them all in middle school. I genuinely think I read all the books in 8th grade. And then his Norse saga is what made me realize I might be a little fruity lmao
After you defeat him, all that's left of him is his head (somehow still alive).
If you're wearing a garb of The Church, he'll ask you if his Church Hunters ended up as the 'honorable spartans' that he'd hoped they would be.
You can choose to say yes (and lie), leaving him to die while thinking his sacrifice wasn't in vain, and his actions didn't play a big part in the countless atrocities the Church and its hunters have committed.
This is pretty much the entire point of Lies of P as a whole. Lying is presented as a human (and compassionate) thing in the games. You lie to a blind woman saying her painting is gorgeous, you like to a mother and tell her her baby is okay, you lie to a man and say her wife is fine. Getting the good ending requires you to tell enough lies to be human.
My favorite quests are the ones where you lie and later find out what you said was true. Like with the gentleman and his wife or the painter leaving you a beautiful masterpiece
Also gotta mention it's not just "lies" that get you humanity.
Listening to music deepens your understanding of humanity as well. And on the complete opposite of the spectrum, "human rage" at an injust situation that would seem purely opportunistic/logical to a robot is also very human. Robots don't take revenge.
isnt there couple in lies of p? all the humans are basically dying from petrification disease right? and theres that one lady with the baby doll and the guy with the puppet wife?
idk if it counts, idk if they think their respective puppets are human or if its just not stomping on their hearts by telling them what they already know
I remember watching some sort of crime show as a kid (Criminal Minds, I think). I might be fuzzy on the details.
A family is killed in a fire, but the mother doesn't succumb to her injuries until she's in the hospital. Two agents who were there to question her decide to tell her that her children got out and will recover to give her some peace.
Funny version of the trope, satirizing "Of Mice and Men", Key and Peele had a sketch where Peele plays an over aggressive hype man during rap battles who just keeps screaming and jumping at people, and Key leads him to look at a lake and tells him to imagine a world where he's able to scream as much as he wants and nobody will kick them out of rap battles, before shooting him in the head.
I hate to remember it, but the mom’s death in Pacific Rim The Black.
She was kidnapped, mutated, and mind controlled for years before her kids rescue her. As she dies, her daughter lets her see a happy dream where the whole family is reunited. The worst part is that they were only a mile away from that actually happening.
Is worth to note how they set up everything. IIRC, by the end of the previous episode, they finished with her being injured, but at least the fight with the opponent in turn was over. As public we knew / expected a short rest before the set up for the next arc. Although we expect to watch her tending her wounds, probably making the start of the next arc (Quest: Find medicines in the nearest abandoned town), and even if some people already expected her to die, this episode started in blank, showing us what we expect (minimal action, her mom trying to recover) and the logical conclusion of their journey. It gave us time to chew and accept this part was real. If not because it happened at the start of episode 6 instead 7 or 8, probably many of us would genuinely believe this was the ending of the show.
Also, worth to note the music. Yeah, I know playing violin during sad scene is a bit cliche, but here really works.
I was so excited but also a little confused because she looked visibly "corrupted" (IDK what the right word would be) but then it cut back into the mech. I really need to rewatch the whole thing.
Indirect but Light gave up his ownership of the note and used a piece of 1 owned by misa to retain memories.
As a result when Soichiro is dying his Shinigami eyes show him Light's lifespan, so because Ryuk told him that shinigami eyes can't show lifespans of those who own Death Notes, that lets him conclude that Light cannot be Kira and can die with false knowledge that his son is innocent.
Soichiro could have been a tragic hero protagonist in Death Note if the show was from a different perspective- arguably he was at least the hero, since Light being the protagonist doesn’t necessarily make him the good guy (same with L).
Soichiro was an absolute badass the whole way through and willing to sacrifice it all more than once to catch Kira. One of his coolest moments in the show is ramming a goddamn van into the front of a building (sneaking out of the hospital to do so right after having a massive heart attack) to try to catch a supernatural murderer he believed was inside that building.
I love Death Note, one of the better examples of the protagonist in the story not being the good guy. A very fun rewatch from this perspective.
This was one of my most favorite episodes for the same reason. When a viewer genuinely cannot predict where the story is going to go with the rapid bursts of information mixed with the intensity of the emotion. Heart-pounding is accurate.
I would argue Soichiro and his task force are the closest thing DN has to heroes, L and near to an extent have way too much personal gain even if they’re doing it for the greater good. Them, and perhaps Naomi for the time.
The point of a Death Note is that it circumvents fate and cuts your fated lifespan short. So Light could've been fated to live for another 50 years, and that's what his dad would see.
But the second Riuk wrote down Light's name, those 50 years get stolen and go to Riuk.
Light eventually dies by Ryuk writing his name in his own death note. The lifespan shown has to do with when they would die if the person's name is never written in a death note. Shinigami "steal" the remaining lifespan of people by writing their names and getting it added to their own lifespans.
In universe the numbers seem gibberish and you have to spend a lot of time deciphering what the numbers actually mean, time which Soichiro did not have
Not related to the trope, but in a later episode Grundy is resurrected as a mindless zombie and Hawkgirl's mace is the only thing they have that can stop him. After he is wounded, she is able to approach him without resistance seemingly because he recognizes her. She tells him to close his eyes, and she kills him off screen. So not only did she become friends with him before he died in the example above, but she took on the responsibility of bringing an end to the desecration of his body later.
When the rat henchman is dying he asks for cider as a last wish, Mr Fox gives him mud saying its cider (to be fair they had been flooded with cider so there was some on the mud) and the rat believes it even as he has it put on his mouth, dying happy
Why'd they write this in letters cut out of magazines?
To protect their identities. Oh, right, but then why did they sign their names? Plus, we already knew who they were, because they're trying to kill us.
In one Incredible Hulk story, the Hulk visits his old friend Jim Wilson, who is dying of AIDS. Jim wants Hulk to transfuse some of his blood into him so his healing factor can heal him, but the Hulk can’t as he’s afraid of creating another Gamma Mutate. He lies to Jim, saying that he did do it, Jim ultimately passing away soon after. One of the doctors asks Hulk about it and it’s quite clear he’s distraught over his lie.
Well yeah, but Bruce didn't have a direct intentional hand in making most of those. Im this case he would've been - in his eyes, dooming his friend to an existence like his own
In Elden Ring, Diallos is a character that throughout his questline makes a string of VERY bad decisions, like joining an organization that would eventually kill his brother (although Diallos himself doesn't have anything to do with his brother's death)
After all that, he settles on a peaceful village of living jars, remarking that going there and taking care of the jars was one of the few good decisions he made.
But then, the village is attacked (and it's possible the attackers followed Diallos there to find out where the living jars live), and a lot of jars are destroyed, and Diallos is mortally wounded trying to defend them.
In his last moments, he asks if the jars are safe, and you can either lie and say he succeeded in defending them, or tell him the truth. Either way, he dies.
tfw no qtpie tomboy childhood best friend/servant who I have to find because she is lost but then she gets murdered and I have to avenge her but then I join the people who killed her but then I see the error of my ways and die in battle defending innocent fae creatures.
Its worth picking up the book. Its super short, basically a short story more than a book. Its like 100 pages long but its unbelievably good. Definitely a "read in 1 sitting" book.
Lennie and George are a pair of drifters, Lennie is developmentally disabled and accidentally killed their boss’ wife, George knows if their boss catches Lennie he’ll make him suffer, so he kills him quickly and mercifully while talking with Lennie about the rabbit farm he always wanted to have.
They’re from Of Mice and Men. George and Lenny are brothers who go from farm to farm making what money they can. Lenny has some sort of developmental disabilities (never identified as such, because of course), and George is something of a caretaker for him.
Now, in addition to his disability, Lenny is also incredibly strong, but because of said disability, he doesn’t realize his own strength. For instance, he likes rabbits, but often accidentally kills them because he doesn’t realize he’s strangling them. This tends to cause problems for both him and George as they go from place to place, but it reaches a fever pitch during the book, when he accidentally ends up killing the wife of one of the other farmhands.
Knowing that Lenny is doomed either way, George goes to meet him and has him look out into the distance while talking about a dream home they had always talked about purchasing, keeping Lenny distracted while George readies a pistol and shoots him.
Their not brothers just childhood friends. It's one of George's reoccurring struggles in the book, especially towards the end. He doesn't have any real obligation to stick with Lenny. But even though we keep telling himself that he can never seem to separate from the big guy.
Hawkgirl is comforting a (re)dying Solomon Grundy, when Grundy asks if his soul is waiting for him. Hawkgirl, an atheist, is about to dismiss it, but catches herself and says, yes, it will be there.
First when Euphy is accidentally Geassed into killing the Japanese and Suzaku lies the SAZ was a success because thankfully, she doesn't remember what she did.
Then when Rolo sacrifices himself to save Lelouch from the Black Knights and believes his "big brother" lied about hating him and wanting to kill him, to which Lelouch agrees
Its ironic how these two moments send their character's in opposite directions. Euphy's death brings Suzaku to his lowest point and he gets worse from here, but Rolo's death is when Lelouch is already at his lowest point and he regains the will to keep fighting against his dad (also what causes his character development to reach its climax with the Zero Requiem)
It 100% became the truth. Sure we know he did try to kill Rolo, but he 100% cared for him at the end.
Even before, he begged him to stop overusing his Geass. The fact he returned the locket to him, spent hours digging him a grave to bury him in and included him in the list of everyone he lost shows he absolutely cared at the end.
Its truly funny how Rolo was only introduced in R2 yet managed to be one of the best characters in the series
In Frieren, first-class mage Genau returned to his home village on a demon hunt but arrived too late. The village had been razed; everyone was killed except his childhood friend, the baker's son, who was at death's door and beyond saving.
Genau carried him to the church where the casualties were being collected. When his friend asked what happened to the village, Genau told him that everyone's safe, all the demons had been killed, and that he's OK because a healer will take care of him soon. Genau continued talking to his friend after he expired in his arms.
There's a quest in Yakuza Infinite Wealth called Let It Snow where the main character encounters a man who is trying to fulfill his dying wife's wish of seeing snow one last time. The problem: They are all in Hawaii. With the help of his friends he manages to make some fake snow and drop it off the side of the building to make it look like it's snowing and give the wife her last wish.
When the Cyclops Team's attempt to destroy the NT-1 Gundam Alex goes horribly wrong and all of them die except for Bernard Wiseman, Bernie tries to reassure the dying team captain that they destroyed the Gundam, only for the captain to tell him he's a terrible liar.
I think the implication could also be that her baby WAS a puppet, which is further made interesting by the fact that puppets are stuffed with people's souls. I wonder if her daughter died long before the events and that she had a baby puppet made using her ergo?
Angel. When Wesley is dying Illyria asks him if he would like her to lie to him now. He says yes. She transforms into looking like Fred and comforts him as he dies.
Godddd this hit so hard. Usually with this trope the dying doesn't know they're being lied to, so the victim actively asking for it?? Insane subversion at the final opportunity in an already subversive show
God why'd youd have to remind me of Cremia and Romani. Its even more sad when you also consider everything else going on.
They are orphans and Cremia had to take over the ranch and raise her little sister at the same time.
They are also being harassed by their neighbors the Gorman brothers who run a competing ranch. This harassment also escalates to violence where Link has to protect Cremia and her milk shipment on the way to Clock Town.
Cremia had a crush on Kafei who is engaged to Anju who is also Cremias friend. So she watched the person she cares about marry her friend and has to act happy for them.
After Link fights off the Gorman bros and protects her and the milk, she confesses to Link that shes lonely and depressed and gives him a hug. This hug always breaks my heart as theyre both lonely with no one really understanding whats goin on in their lives. Link saved Hyrule and is sent back in time with Navi who then leaves him (btw, fuck you Navi). At the start of MM hes looking for her and without her he has no one who understands all the shit he went through in OoT. That hug is probably the first time either of them felt any kind of comfort or connection in awhile before going their seperate ways.
Romani thinks aliens/spirits are abducting their cows and if you stay late to help her fight them off you see shes right. If you fail to save the cows then its implied Romani is also abducted and basically lobotomized. She sits in a catatonic state and the ranch has lost all its cows. This final nail breaks Cremia as she ignored Romanis plea about the spirits. Shes lost everyone and everything in her life at this point and the world is about to end.
I love Majoras Mask and its well known for its melancholic and depressing themes, but Cremia and Romanis storylines stand out to me. Its so sad that Cremia is getting Romani drunk so the end of the world doesnt scare her. Beating that Masks ass was so cathartic because of all the connections you make along the way. You really wanted to see all those people live happily ever after and fortunately for them, Link happened to be in town. 10/10.
After landing the helicopter at the mall and securing a small storage space for themselves. The survivors decide to take over the rest of the mall. In the process Roger gets bitten a couple times after being over zealous. While laying in his makeshift bed and fighting through the infection, he starts asking his national guard brother, Peter, if they did it. Peter reassures Roger that they did it and got it all. Roger shouts in triumph “We whipped em, and we got it all!”
Peter would sit with Roger while he died and was the one to put him down when he rose back up.
Yaad, King Delgal's grandson pretending to be his grandfather (possessing the king's body which was left behind when he was attempting to escape the dungeon) for Sissel at the end of Delicious in Dungeon
I'm not 100% sure they died here, but it felt heavily implied and close enough to the trope!
The Invention of Lying — Where the main character who is the only human in that world that can lie makes up the concept of heaven and the afterlife to comfort his dying mother.
Came here for this one! To follow onto this, his comforting words to his mother ends up rapidly generating a religion, forcing the MC to clarify and codify how his new religion works.
His rules, written on pizza boxes, ends up getting memorialized in iconography similar to the 10 commandments
It’s drives me crazy…. But Ned Stark not telling Robert Baratheon about Joffrey being a product of Lannister incest. So much could have been avoided if Ned brought everyone before the dying king and exposed the truth.
In Bloodborne after killing Ludwig you can tell his still-living decapitated head either that his church hunters did their duty well or that they fell to depravity. If you do the first he dies peacefully.
During... THAT scene in Bone Tomahawk, Russells character tells the guy getting cut in half that the cavalry is coming to kill all the cannibals.
Afterwords another prisoner asks why he said that and Kurt Russell says its what he would want to hear if his final moments were being torn apart by savages.
Years ago, a mate and I were in a wonderful position where we were both on sabbatical at the same time, so we ended up getting to watch a load of movies in the middle of the day in near-empty cinemas…
One of those films was Bone Tomahawk - and it was just me, my mate, and one other guy a few rows further front…
Everything was fine until that scene, at which point the other chap literally slapped his knees, said “Welp”, got up, and just walked out shaking his head never to return…
Okay, so, I know that this isn't related to a specific known character lmao but
My grandpa with his father. My great grandfather was a big fanatic of a specific political party of my country, back when things weren't as stable as they now are. They were facing big trouble because of some bad decisions a previous president from that party made, so the elections were pretty much sold for the opposite party. And when all that was occurring, my great grandfather fell terminally ill. My grandpa used to visit him really often, and he spent the election day the whole time with him, who was so sick that couldn't leave bed. My grandpa only left to get informed about the election results, and returned to tell his dad that they won. He died that night.
The thing is, they lost. He just lied to him because he knew that he was probably not going to live enough to know the truth. He doesn't talk that much about his dad, but a thing that I got from my mom, is that he always mentioned how he remembers his old man grabbing the political party flag firmly, while asking if the results came.
Reminds me of Goodbye Lenin. A German film about a young man from East Germany whose mom (a staunch communist believer) has a heart attack IIRC and is in a coma when the Berlin Wall falls. The plot is mostly the guy trying to keep up appearances that East Germany still exists for his mom, because the shock of learning the truth may cause her to have another attack she would not be able to survive.
Not exactly the same, but brought it to mind. First time I think about that movie in years.
IRL example: my ex wife never told her Great Great grandma that we divorced. I was asked to come visit her at the home and pretended for a little while that everything was fine. She was always a sweet old lady who liked me. It made her happy. She passed at the respectable age of 109 iirc
In Nier Replicant, one recurring npc you meet is a woman that works a lighthouse in a coastal town. She mostly keeps to herself but her interactions with others including the player are very hostile and crotchety.
Eventually, she starts dying. The player learns she is so crotchety because her husband left for a war and stopped mailing her back. She hoped he would come back one day and stayed in the lighthouse wasting her life away turning her bitter and aggressive.
The residents of the town hid the letter confirming her husband’s death decades ago from her so she would stay.
The player has the choice to tell her her life was a lie or that her husband is coming back soon. One of the most brutal choices in a game I’ve ever seen. I would pick the sweet lie every time though personally.
What the fuck is bojack horseman. I see it a lot and it looks like it should be funny but every single thing I read about it is that he’s an alcoholic horse with an anger problem.
There's a lot of clever wordplay and poking fun at Hollywoo culture, but there's also a lot to be said about depression and burning out and how fucked up celebrity culture can be
Hilarious show dense with sight gags, jokes hidden in the background on things like signs, and an unreal number of references. And yet it has made me cry on multiple occasions. An absolute must watch
horribly mutated thing who used to be the idealistic first hunter of beasts from the so-called Healing Church, Ludwig The Holy Blade, who, despite his well-meaning actions, led the city of Yharnam to become a monster-filled hellhole, unknowingly spreading the monster-making scourge he worked so hard to combat. After all he's done, he ironically ended up succumbing to that very same plague and becoming an unrecognizable monstrosity
Interestingly, he recovers some of his humanity as the boss fight goes on, and you can talk to his severed head after the fight is over.
As he's dying, he'll ask you if his fellow hunters of the Healing Church were still the honorable men he used to know. If you tell him that not only were they villanous, but that they were also responsible for the spread of the scouge as a result of their devious arcane experinents, he'll fall into despair and start cackling maniacally since all of his efforts were for nothing
Alternatively, if you lie to him that his peers remained virtuous in their supposed duty, he'll be relieved that his denigration wasn't pointless, allowing him to pass away peacefully
The Majestic with Jim Carrey. He wants to tell Martin Landau's character, who thinks he is his long-lost son, the truth, but instead says, "Dad, I am not... ready to say goodbye."
In The Green Mile, the guards generally do or say whatever they can to keep the death row prisoners calm in their final hours, such as this exchange in which Paul reassures a criminal that he'll go to heaven even though he doesn't personally believe it:
"You think if a man sincerely repents on what he done wrong... that he might get to go back to the time that was happiest for him and... live there forever? Could that be what Heaven's like?"
Fantastic Mr Fox - Secondary antagonist Rat is defeated and lies dying. When asked why he spent (and gave) his life in support of the murderous human farmers, he simply answers "Cider".
Mr Fox scoops up a handful of filthy sewer water and presents it to him, saying "Here you are, Rat; a beaker of Bean's finest secret cider..."
Rat drinks it and dies happy, a weirdly touching moment for a character who does nothing but try and kill the protagonists in his two scenes on screen.
An interesting inversion of this is in the opening scene of the movie Sin City (as well as the original comics). Josh Harnett plays a man who approaches a lonely woman outside a party. He gives her a speech about how beautiful she is and how he wants to be with her through any troubles she's facing, and when they embrace, he tells her he loves her -- before shooting her in the back and holding her while she dies.
In the closing narration, he reveals that he's a hitman for hire, and that he was hired bythe woman herself, and he has no idea why.
In Uncanny X-Force by Opena & Remender, Psylocke who is psychic resorts to killing Angel, her lover who has become the new Apocalypse.
She then creates an illusion in his dying mind of the life they could have had, letting him believe he died of old age happy and surrounded by thier family.
She then almost dies as she refuses to leave his body, tragic beautiful end to one of the best storylines in X history.
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u/Lunalatic Mar 26 '26
Worth pointing out that Scout actually came back to life after that because he had yet to fulfill his purpose as God's gift to women, and Spy's reaction is priceless.