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Can't Live Without You: Difference between revisions
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This trope is not about people who can't stand to live apart from each other but are still physically able to do so; for those, head over to either [[Living Emotional Crutch]] or [[If I Can't Have You]]. See also [[Soul Jar]] when it also gives a form of immortality.
{{examples}}
== Anime
* [[Sailor Moon]]: if the Maijuku dies, Al and En go down as well. Or as En's dub counterpart explains, "if the Tree ''dies'', ALAN, ''we'' die!"
* {{spoiler|Fai and Kurogane}} in ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]''; the former can't live without the latter, since, {{spoiler|as a vampire, Fai's dependant on blood for feeding, and can only feed on Kurogane.}}
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* In ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'', one character, {{spoiler|Chrome Dokuro}} can live only because {{spoiler|her organs, the originals of which have been removed, are physical illusions cast by Mukuro Rokudo}}.
* In one chapter of ''[[Black Jack]]'', the title doctor surgically attaches a young boy with lungs weakened by heart disease to his mother until he can get an organ donor.
* ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' has the doublet system, in which random pairs from heaven and hell are linked. If one dies, the other dies. After they are linked, their memories are erased
* In ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', if Piccolo were to die, then Kami would as well and vice-versa. Also involves [[Synchronization]].
* ''Sequence'', by Saenagi Ryou, starts out with the main character, [[Ordinary High School Student|Kanata]], accidentally freeing a [[Badass Adorable|young imprisoned vampire]], and getting his heart ripped out for his trouble. The vampire, who isn't actually a bad [[Ambiguous Gender|person]], ties their life forces together to keep Kanata alive.
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* In ''[[Princess Resurrection]]'', protagonist Hiro needs infusions of chi/blood from Hime (depending on anime or manga) to continue his existence or he dies within days. Okay, he's ''technically'' already dead, but it still works in context.
▲== Comics -- Books ==
* In the [[Marvel Universe]] villainous duo Hammer and Anvil were linked by an alien device that gave them superpowers but also linked their life force. When one was shot in the head, the other also died.
* [[Cloak and Dagger (comics)|Cloak and Dagger]] of the same universe depend on each other a little less
== Films -- Animation ==
* In ''[[Tangled]]'', Gothel is dependent on Rapunzel's magical hair to keep her perpetually young; without it, she will rapidly age until death.
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* In ''[[Battle Royale]] II'' the students are paired up so that if one of them dies the [[Explosive Leash|exploding collar]] of their partner also goes off.
== Literature ==
* In ''[[Dragonriders of Pern]]'', the dragons are symbiotes who literally can't face life without their rider: a dragon who fails to find a compatible rider upon hatching will die. If they bond to a rider and the rider dies, the psychological trauma causes the dragon to cross the [[Despair Event Horizon]] and commit suicide. The only exception is a queen dragon whose rider dies while the dragon is waiting for eggs to
* In ''[[Howl's Moving Castle (novel)|Howl's Moving Castle]]'' by [[Diana Wynne Jones]] (and [[
* Inverted in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'', as the prophecy in the fifth books points out, "Neither can live while the other survives." However, you could say that it is played straight, {{spoiler|as Harry is an unintentional horcrux. When Voldemort kills him, he seals his own death.}}
* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]''
** Aes Sedai and their Warders have this type of bond. If a Warder kicks it, the Aes Sedai will be hit with pretty fierce depression, occasionally bordering on suicidal. Warders who lose their Aes Sedai generally go whole hog, becoming [[Death Seeker
** The Aiel also seem to have a toned down version.
** Also, there seems to be some sort of link between Rand and {{spoiler|Moridin}} that has had all sorts of weird effects ever since {{spoiler|their [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|balefire]] crossed paths in ''A Crown of Swords''}}.
* Inverted in ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'': {{spoiler|Instead of a person being dependent on an object, it's the other way around -- the Labyrinth can't survive without Daedalus.}}
* Due to plot complications involving the source of his agelessness, the eponymous protagonist of the German pulp series ''[[Professor Zamorra]]'' has recently (as of this writing) become dependent on his friend Rhett Saris not so much to stay alive as to keep his ''youth''; without him, he would revert to his actual chronological age, which while not actually enough to kill
* In the [[Honor Harrington]] novels, it is common for bonded treecats to suicide after their human partner dies. Since the natural lifespan of a treecat is considerably longer than that of a (pre-prolong) human, the bonding pretty much meant that bonding with a human meant that the treecat would sacrifice several decades of their lifespan.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'':
** The Jaffa race in the [[Stargate Verse]] can't live for long without having a Goa'uld larva inside their pouch, until a medicine that has the same effect is discovered in one of the later seasons.
** In one story arc, Daniel and Vala put on bracelets that create a link between them, so that to be any more than a few feet away from each other can cause them extreme physical discomfort and eventually death.
* ''[[Star Trek]]''
** The same thing happened to Picard and Dr. Crusher on ''[[Star Trek: The
** The Trill and their symbionts in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' Verse: they share knowledge, and Trills can live just fine without a symbiote, but if a symbiote implanted in a Trill is removed the process invariably proves to be fatal to the host.
** ''[[Star Trek]]'' seems to love this one. The Bynars are a race of cyborgs who always live and work in pairs and can't function alone.
* ''[[Farscape]]'' used synchronizing bracelets for a few episodes involving negotiations.
* This trope was intentionally invoked in the now-rare Hindu practice of ''sati''
▲== Myths & Religion ==
▲* This trope was intentionally invoked in the now-rare Hindu practice of ''sati'' -- when a man died, his wife burned herself to death on his funeral pyre.
* Truth in Television for some cultures - Yanomamo rainforest Indians believe that everybody has a kind of animal doppelgänger called a noreshi, which takes the form of aerial or arboreal animals for men or ground-dwelling animals for women. They say that to kill one's noreshi would cause the person drop dead and vice versa. Many intentionally try to find their rivals' noreshi for this reason, as outright murder is a pretty damn stupid idea in a culture where inter-village alliances are about as sturdy as damp tissue.
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons
** Some races in ''D&D'' have their [[Life Force]] linked to an item, plant or place, mostly nature spirits or descendants of some such, with direct inspiration from folklore or mythology. Nereids carry a shawl that contains their soul, and someone seizing it and threatening to destroy it can control the creature. Dryads and Hamadryads are linked to a single tree in the forest. Bamboo and River Spirit Folks, from the ''Oriental Adventures'', are synchronized with a specific bamboo grove or river, respectively. Damaging a linked tree or place will weaken or wound those spirits, and destroying it will kill them.
** 4th Edition actually has an entire race built on this
== Video Games ==
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* Alcatraz in ''Crysis2'' is only kept alive by the Nanosuit, and even then, just barely. At a couple of points in the game the player has to use the suits defribillator system to revive him. Though the suit ends up being less of a life support system and more of a symbiote over the course of the game.
* Late in ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]'' Dark Pit discovers that if anything serious happens to Pit he's affected by it too, and makes keeping Pit alive his top priority.
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Code Lyoko]]'': Although Aelita is materialized in the second season, XANA ensured the kids couldn't [[Cut the Juice]] on him by linking Aelita to the Supercomputer. She would lapse into unconsciousness whenever the machine is turned
* After Fry is critically injured in a car crash in ''[[Futurama]]'', [[You Fail Biology Forever|his head is attached to Amy's body to make sure he survives until his body is healed.]]
* Likewise to the above ''[[Futurama]]'' entry, in a "Treehouse of Horror" episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Mr. Burns' head was attached to Homer's body.
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* ''[[Wakfu]]'': The whole Sadida people is linked with the Tree of Life, a huge sentient tree at the heart of their kingdom. This prove a lethal weakness when [[Big Bad|Nox]] decides to drain the [[Life Energy|wakfu]] of the Tree of life, and thus of every Sadida alive.
* This, along with traits of [[Synchronization]], is the case between Demona and Macbeth in ''[[Gargoyles]]''.
== Real Life ==
* Invoked in a thought experiment often brought up about the abortion debate, where you are asked to be connected to a concert pianist or rocket scientist for nine months because they need your blood supply to live.
* Biological examples:
** Mitochondria in eukaryotic
** Many flowering plant relies heavily on insects in process of breeding.
** Most hight plants can built hightly beneficial symbiotic link with fungus. However, some plants literally cannot live without one.
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[[Category:One With the Index]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
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