Dying Declaration of Love

"V: I fell in love with you, Evey, like I no longer believed I could.

Evey: Then I don't want you to die!

V: That's the most beautiful thing you could have ever given me."

- V for Vendetta

Death seems imminent for a character. Her grief-stricken Love Interests who has been doing the Will They or Won't They? sidestep with her decides that he'd better let clean with his feelings for her or else he'll have to live with the thought of never having said it to her.

In other cases, it's the dying person who confesses her love. Apparently, looming death is the best time to make those tragically intense romantic declarations that you cannot spit out when your love is healthy and you are, too.

May include a Now or Never Kiss (but hopefully not a Last Kiss).

Oftentimes, it turns out that the person is actually Not Quite Dead, usually right after the confessor declares his feelings, and he tries to back out of what he just said. Or the revelation that she'll live comes right before the critical word (a Last-Second Word Swap may be required) to keep the Will They or Won't They? situation alive.

Has a 50:50 chance of being subverted nowadays, but far from being a Discredited Trope. Common subversions include the confessed-to becoming irritated that it took a death threat for the confessor to finally overcome his Cannot Spit It Out problem, the dying person faking it, or helpfully pointing out that the death bed is not the most ideal place to say those words. In some cases, the person who's about to die (or otherwise lose any chance of being with his or her beloved) will consider doing this, but decide not to for certain reasons, such as not causing undue anguish to the person he or she is going to leave behind, making this an Aborted Declaration of Love.

A kinkier variation of this is the "we're going to die tomorrow, and I don't want to die as a virgin" mindset.

Formerly known as Going Down with the Ship, which has now been reappropriated for the traditional (and more literal) use of that phrase.

Anime and Manga

 * Neon Genesis Evangelion: Misato brings the Subtext between her and Shinji out in the open.
 * Although that could have been Misato just desperately saying anything that came to mind to try and get an emotional reaction out of Shinji, who was slipping at least halfway into a Heroic BSOD at the time. While
 * This wouldn't be the first time, though. Misato made a pass at Shinji while they were both still grieving a few deaths. Even if it's just to comfort and motivate him (and/or herself,) her choice of the means was a little too convenient a trend.
 * Played straight in X 1999, when  last words to   are... actually we never get to hear what they were, but you can take the obvious guess along with everyone else.
 * At the end of Kannazuki no Miko, Chikane declares her love to Himeko, after.
 * The finale of Code Geass' first season has C.C. offer words of encouragement to Lelouch, then kiss him (much to his obvious surprise) before she goes down with the Humongous Mecha in order to deal with an Axe Crazy pursuer. Lelouch seems to have written it off as part of her Mysterious Waif powers, as neither of them brought the issue up in the second season.
 * The novelization says that he instinctively knew the kiss wasn't out of love, but rather a failsafe measure should he be captured.
 * Also, confesses her feelings to  as she's bleeding out through a bullet wound.
 * Played heartbreakingly straight in Macross Frontier.
 * In the movie, Michel, instead the dying declaring of love is given to.
 * , in the Grand Finale of Noir, to . Leads to a Take My Hand moment.
 * Mai-HiME sort of does this, with Mai
 * Full Metal Panic Fumoffu plays with this in the last episode, where a supposed biological agent infects the class and they all think they're going to die. Sagara asks Kaname to take her clothes off and she debates whether they should consummate their relationship before death and Ono seems to be ready to tell Tokiwa what he feels about her.
 * Naruto:.
 * Which could take a while, since.
 * In Saikano,.
 * Technically, she doesn't die, but the effect is still the same as from StrikerS Sound Stage X of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha franchise tells Subaru that she loves her as she rests in Subaru's arms and falls into a deep sleep that would last for ten years... or a thousand.
 * In Rave Master, when Haru and Elie finally confess their feelings for one another Haru is about to die..
 * Simon, from Fairy Tail does not admit his feelings to Erza until he's three seconds from dying. Subverted in that he never actually confesses to her (he just thinks it, and all his friends knew). He did try to tell her once eight years ago but was interupted by an attack, since he decided to tell her while she was leading a rebellion.
 * In Higurashi no Naku Koro ni,.
 * From Katanagatari episode 12 -.
 * In RahXephon,  What to do?  . When , we see how
 * Patrick attempts to invoke the trope in the final battle of Mobile Suit Gundam 00. When a Gaga tries to crash into his superior and love interest's ship, he promptly nails the bad guy in a You Shall Not Pass... only for the next Gaga to charge out of the smoke straight into him. He just smiles and says "I did really love you, Kati..." right before the Gaga explodes, provoking a Say My Name from her. Subverted in that not only the explosion didn't kill him (he's not called Colasour the Indestructible for nothing...), he later married her.
 * Inverted in Ai no Kusabi with a Dying Demonstration Of Love.
 * An Axis Powers Hetalia example comes in the dub, when England is dying after an incident involved a penjandrum and Scotland. America rushes to England's bedside and is clearly distressed. England manages to say, "America, I'm in lo-" before the Grim Reaper cuts him off. He recovers, but the shippers absolutely exploded.
 * Since even mentioning the name of the series is a spoiler, here:
 * Heartbreakingly subverted by  in Berserk. He tries to do this with , but can't quite say it, and only manages a comment on how she's crying. His last thoughts are "That's it!? Those are my last words!?".
 * in Gundam Seed Destiny. She even manages to say "I love you", while she was never able to use first and second person like this before.
 * from Ashita no Joe sorta does this to  (It should be noticed that  ).
 * In Sanka Rea,

Comic Books

 * Cruelly subverted in the Beyond! miniseries. Spider-Man gets killed by Venom and dies proclaiming his love to Mary Jane...or so he thought. He's actually so delirious from his wounds that he mistook Medusa for his wife. Medusa got the sentiment though, and was so upset that she very nearly executed Venom.

Fanfiction

 * In The Man With No Name,.

Film

 * Subversion in the film Almost Famous: When the plane hits a storm, the band members start making admissions to each other. William takes this opportunity to confess to Penny that he loves her, except she's not on the plane to hear it and she never finds out.
 * Played straight in the Tiny Toon Adventures movie, in which the cast is being pursued on an Indiana Jones-style minecart ride with a chainsaw-wielding psychopath trying to kill them, and Babs and Buster both confess their feelings for one another.
 * In the movie Serenity, as the crew is besieged by the ravenous Reavers, Simon finally manages to get over his lack of confidence and confesses his feelings to Kaylee. Kaylee's response? "Hell with this, I'm gonna live!"
 * Played with in Galaxy Quest; a Time Bomb is about to reach zero, with Gwen and Jason seemingly having failed to disarm it. Jason moves to tell Gwen that he loves her - but just as he's getting the words out, it turns out that the bomb is defused, and he moves on without saying it, leaving Gwen very interested as to what his next words were going to be.
 * Independence Day toys with the "don't want to die a virgin" variant twice. In the first instance, after the alien ship appears over Los Angeles, teenaged Alicia Casse's then-boyfriend tries using "do you want to die a virgin?" to persuade her to have sex with him, but is foiled by the arrival of her older brother. Later in the film, Alicia herself tells another boy that she doesn't want to die a virgin, to which he replies something to the effect of "we'll both die as virgins together." The latter scene, however, only made it into the Special Edition DVD version of the film.
 * Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. As Han's about to be frozen in carbonite in order to test whether or not the process is survivable, Leia tells him that she loves him.
 * And in Attack of the Clones, Padmé confesses her feelings to Anakin right before they're brought out to be executed.
 * In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Melman confesses his love for Gloria as the plane is going down. Unfortunately, Gloria is fast asleep.
 * Subverted in Dogma, where the protagonist agrees to have sex with Jay if the world is about to end to get him to work with her, but when the world IS about to end, she refuses anyway.
 * In Titanic, Rose confesses her love to Jack when she thinks they are both going to die in the freezing water. Ultimately, only he dies.
 * Played for laughs in The Blues Brothers; two Illinois Nazis are falling to their deaths in a car, their eyes and mouths open in shock. One turns to the other and says "I've always loved you". The other Nazi simply looks at his lieutenant without changing his expression.
 * In all three films of The Matrix trilogy. Inverted in the first film, in that Trinity knows Neo can't be dead because she loves him. Subverted in Reloaded,  Played straight in Revolutions,
 * Tangled:

"Joseph: I tried to prove myself to you, but I know nothing of books or alphabets or sun or moon or... All I know is Joseph loves Shannon. That's all that really matters to me."
 * Far and Away: After Joseph gets crushed by a horse and hits his head on a rock, Shannon rushes to his side. He can feel himself slipping away, so he ends up confessing his love to her.

"Joseph: I often wondered about that."
 * After he dies, Shannon confesses that she loved him from the first time she saw him. He comes back to life and interrupts her with:

Literature
""Must you believe you are about to die in order to bring yourself to kiss a lady?""
 * In one of the Belgariad books, Adara has been shot and believes herself to be dying. She confesses her unrequited love to Hettar, only to be told that she isn't dying after all. And that Hettar isn't going to let her pretend it didn't happen.
 * In The Curse of Chalion, before Cazaril sets out on a suicide mission, he relays last minute instructions to his love interest, who is ignorant of his plans. Impulsively, he kisses her before he leaves to die. Later lampshaded by Lady Betriz:


 * In Bruce Coville's Dark Whispers, part of The Unicorn Chronicles, Belle and Finder are ambushed and Finder is badly wounded. his last words are to Belle, saying, " I always thought you were beautiful" before dying in her.. well, not arms, as they are unicorns, but about as close as it gets.

Live Action TV
"Cordy: It's me, Cordelia? I know you can't answer me, but... God, this is all my fault. You joined the swim team to impress me. You were so courageous. And you looked really hot in those Speedo's. (chuckles) And I want you to know that I still care about you, no matter what you look like. And... and we can still date. Or, or not. I mean... I understand if you wanna see other fish. I'll do everything I can to make your quality of life better. Whether that means little bath toys or whatever.
 * In The Mighty Boosh Howard declares his love for Vince, right before they are about to be killed by the Black Frost. Then the Black Frost is killed. Cue awkward silence.
 * Star Trek: Voyager. B'Elanna Torres confesses her love for Tom Paris when they're both floating in space with their suits having just run out of oxygen. His response is semi-subversive: "You picked a great time to tell me." Moments later they're beamed to safety.
 * And the holographic Doctor confesses his love for Seven of Nine (along with several other things, like the fact that he's compiled a list of Captain Janeway's worst command decisions) when he believes that his program is about to shut down permanently. Seconds later it's repaired, leaving a very embarrassed Doc.
 * When he thinks he is going to die Amelia Earhart's guide admits he loves her...only for the doc to tell him he'll be just fine.
 * Babylon 5: With the ship powerless and about to be blown to smithereens, Lennier admits he loves Delenn. Naturally, in that moment they are saved. Delenn lets him save face by pretending she didn't hear him...which is kind, and appropriate for the Minbari, but makes him feel even worse.
 * Similar scenario in Farscape with Crichton and Aeryn, except they skip the words and spontaneously start making out with each other. They both blame it on the heat of the moment afterwards.
 * at the end of "A Hidden Memory". Though in this case, it was clear that she was in love with Crichton. She merely reaffirmed her love and asked if things had been different, could he have loved her. To which he replies "Yes".
 * In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on the verge of the Scoobies' latest attempt to stop The End of the World as We Know It, Xander proposes to Anya. She calls him on it, saying he's only doing that because he knows they're all going to die and he won't have to follow through. He immediately responds that he's proposing because he knows that they aren't going to die and rather that they will succeed at saving the world again.
 * Also played straight when Xander and Willow are trapped by a villain who they believe will soon return to kill them, and have no hope of rescue. Their respective significant others then burst in with the heroic rescue, only to catch them making out.
 * Subverted however in the finale
 * A different take on this appears in "Go Fish" when Cordelia thinks Xander has been turned into a fish monster.
 * A different take on this appears in "Go Fish" when Cordelia thinks Xander has been turned into a fish monster.

Xander: (walking up behind her) Uh, Cordy? That's not me."

"The Doctor: If I don't make it back, tell Rose... tell her... oh, she knows."
 * Subverted/parodied in Caroline in The City: Doped up and about to enter surgery, Richard admits to Caroline that he loves her. Shocked, Caroline asks him if it's true; he says it is... then gives the same drugged-out confession to the nurse.
 * In season three finale of The Nanny. Maxwell's first confession of love to Fran was when they were on a plane that was about to crash. He takes the confession back after they get home safely. For much of season four, many characters, especially Niles, give him crap for taking back the confession.
 * Parodied in the second-to-last episode of Seinfeld: The plane's going down, the series is ending, and Jerry and Elaine are about to reveal their true feelings for each other... when the plane levels off. They make a safe landing, the confessions go unsaid, and the series ends in a completely different manner.
 * Mal and Inara to the letter, in the Firefly episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds". Saffron knocks Mal out with her sedative-laced lipstick, Inara finds Mal out cold and kisses him and begs him not to die before passing out herself. And of course, when they wake up, Mal misinterprets how Inara came to be knocked out, saying "I knew you let her kiss you."
 * Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future: In the series finale, Jennifer Chase confesses her feelings to Jonathan Power, just before she dies in her last stand.
 * Stargate Atlantis episode "Thirty-Eight Minutes." The stargate-sized ship gets stuck in the wormhole while returning to Atlantis. The episode title is the established amount of time before the gate shuts down and everybody in the ship dies. Sheppard is about to tell Weir something, but is interrupted by somebody in a "I have a plan" moment. At the end of the episode, Weir asks him what he was going to say. He claims it was "take care of each other," but Weir is obviously unconvinced.
 * In a later episode McKay confesses his love for Keller while losing his mind to Space Alzheimer's. Sadly, he doesn't remember this after he's cured.
 * For the Doctor Who episode "Doomsday", instead of impending death it's . During their final communication, Rose confesses that she loves the Doctor, but.
 * The Series 4 finale seems to imply he wanted to say when he got cut off.
 * The Doctor comes close to using this trope in another episode, also with Rose. Well, maybe.


 * in Day Four of the Torchwood miniseries Children of Earth
 * Bosco and Lisbon, anyone?. So damn tragic.
 * In Castle, (warning: major S3 season finale spoilers follow!) but only time will tell how the rest of the trope plays out.
 * Why, with yet another season of UST, of course.

Tabletop Games

 * Played straight in Doomtown with Corky Hendricks' last words.
 * In Last Night on Earth, the GM can invoke this, if two characters are in the same room and he has the card, he can force them to skip a turn. Often leads to Sex Equals Death, as that makes it easy to surround them with zombies so they can't escape.

Theater

 * In the play Cyrano De Bergerac, the titular character makes a deathbed confession to Roxanne that it was he who wrote the letters to her, not her dead husband, and that he loved her. This makes this Older Than Radio.
 * Sort of. It's more that he's just not quite sharp enough to keep up the lie, and she figures it out. She keeps needling him about it, but it's really more of a reluctant admission than a declaration, and it wasn't the dying so much that got him to confess.
 * Éponine in Les Mis confesses her love for Marius after she gets fatally shot.
 * This being Les Mis, they have time to sing about it.
 * In the third act of Götterdämmerung by Richard Wagner, Siegfried - having been given an antidote to the potion that made him forget about his love for her - relieves his first kiss with Brünhild in his dying moments after Hagen stabs him in the back. Later on, Brünhild, who co-engineered Siegfried's death, makes a huge declaration of her love for Siegfried before she leaps into his funeral pyre.

Video Games
"Ashley: Whatever happens down there, I just wanted to say... Wait. You know what? I'm not telling you! You want to hear this, you'll just have to come back to me."
 * Averted in Mass Effect. If you're playing Commander Shepard as a male character and are following the Ashley romance subplot, you get this conversation immediately after the sex scene, but before you've decided whether this is a one-time 'impending-death-exception' thing or you will continue to pursue your relationship against all the various social & legal obstacles between you (You are her commanding officer, after all). All this as you're only a few minutes from dropping onto a hostile world against impossible odds to confront the boss villain:


 * Played straight in the Liara relationship storyline, where she thanks the Commander for everything after the sex scene.
 * In Tales of the Abyss,.
 * In one of the possible "false endings" of Odin Sphere, Mercedes confesses her feelings to Ingway with her last breath.
 * It's also inverted earlier, as last words is to proclaim to  that he always hated him and never felt any parental love for him at all.
 * Near the finale of Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World,
 * In Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, the last of Ezio's Repressed Memories of Cristina ends with
 * In Prey, Tommy tells Jen he loves her after . Yes, to her.
 * Some Fire Emblem characters' death quotes do briefer versions of this, mainly in the Akaneia games where there's only one possible pairing for any given character if at all. It's also a recurring tendency for cases of lovestruck antagonists.
 * Parodied in a cinematic of the original Starcraft. When two hicks are about to be killed by Zerg, one turns to his fellow and claims, "I love you, Sarge!" to which the other responds in utter bafflement.

Visual Novels
"Saber What are you doing?! It is impossible! Please stop! I do not need you to save me! Why... Why do you not understand that? No, if you die because of something like this, I-
 * In FateStayNight's Fate route, Saber admits she loves Shirou right at the end of the game. Then she fades back to her real world and falls asleep wondering if she can dream herself into Shirou's world again. She dies in her sleep.
 * An earlier example could be Shirou's first vocal declaration to Saber. He's been stabbed through the chest, and is about to go up against THE strongest fighter in the whole Grail War who just wiped the floor with Saber in one shot. Shirou must have known he was going to die but:

Shirou SHUT UP! ....Just... be quiet for a second... You can rely on others... rely on...

Saber You're wrong. You're more important than me, your life is more important, so you should take care-"

Shirou I want you more than anything else! There's not one thing that can replace you. Sorry, I... I like you the most out of everything. So I'm not going to let a guy like him take you!"



Webcomics
"Kid Radd: Just this once, I wish the miraculous rescue had taken a little longer..."
 * Played with in the Web Comic Order of the Stick, in this strip.
 * And then somewhat played straight, somewhat averted in this strip when
 * It goes a step further: in D&D, you can always choose to fail a saving throw.
 * Kid Radd plays the "We're going to die, so..." and stops right before the kiss (as it turns out they'll live after all). Naturally, they hang a lampshade on it.

":''' How do I say "I love you" to a corpse?"
 * Subverted in Angels 2200, as Hammer is unable to tell Kid about her feelings for her, largely because of their relationship as leader and subordinate. She is shown saying it when preparing to stay behind as part of a Heroic Sacrifice, but then it's revealed that it's merely what she wants to say and that she realizes that it is not the right time to do so, and she makes a face-saving line about "loving" Kid's hair..
 * In El Goonish Shive, Grace gives one to Tedd (who wasn't there but may have still heard it) just before she thinks she's about to die.
 * Occured in a Nuzlocke Comics fan run:, to be precise. Being a Nuzlocke run, the reciever of the confession had just been Killed Off for Real, leading to the depressing question of...

Web Original
"Bakura: Marik, I... I hate you. I hate you with all my heart. I hate you more than I've ever hated anybody. I hate you so much I can barely take it. In fact, I want to go on hating you for the rest of my life. And if our world is destroyed, well, I won't be able to hate you anymore.
 * In a deleted scene from Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series episode 46, Marik and Florence get a Dying Declaration of Hate as they are about to be killed by Melvin. ...a moment which is quickly killed by Marik insisting he's straight.

Marik: Oh, Bakura! I had no idea you felt that way about me! I-if it makes you feel any better, I hate you too. I think I hated you from the moment I first met you.

Bakura: In that case Marik, if we win this duel, let us go and make sweet hatred together. Just you and me. Hating each other. All night long.

Marik: Yes! Wait a second, are you coming on to me? I already told you, Bakura, I'm not gay!"

Western Animation
"Bob: Dot, I... want to tell you....
 * Played straight in Disney's Beauty and The Beast.
 * In one episode of The Simpsons, Smithers says "what the hell!" and kisses Mister Burns when everyone thinks the end of the world is coming. An embarrassed Smithers tries to play it off as professional affection, but Burns doesn't really buy it.
 * Hey Arnold: Helga, when she's mistakenly diagnosed herself with a fatal illness, decides to confess her love to Arnold. Phoebe interrupts her at the last minute, but Arnold still looks suspicious, so she tries to cover it up with her being delirious and out of her mind. Naturally, it works.
 * Played straight in Beast Wars; Tigatron and Air Razor, apparently about to die, vow that their sparks (souls) will always find each other, and take each other's hand.
 * It gets taken a BIT too literally...Meet Tigerhawk, the result of those two sparks being captured by the Evil Aliens and fused together into an incredibly powerful Transformer sent back down to Earth to take out Megatron for messing up the timestream. And then die again.
 * Captain Planet and the Planeteers: When Wheeler and Linka are trapped in a Gas Chamber, Linka starts telling Wheeler that even though she acts like she doesn't care about him... and succumbs to a coughing fit just as the others finally get the doors open. She tries to deny everything as soon as they're out the door, but Wheeler gets the message.
 * In the second season of Re Boot Bob and Dot find themselves cornered in an alley with a powerful virus. With what seems like no way out, Bob starts to confess to Dot, but she interrupts him and tells him that she knows. Of course, they end up saved at the last moment by another character.

Dot: I know, Bob. I know."


 * Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes: Giant-Man delivers one to The Wasp after saving her from getting shot by a Kree sentry carrying a bomb that could wipe out all life on Earth. However, Giant-Man only gets as far as, "Jan, I love..." before fainting. He regains consciousness by the end of the episode, but becomes too shy to finish the declaration when Wasp asks him if he still has anything important to say.