Dying Moment of Awesome: Difference between revisions

* The title character in [[Damon Runyon]]'s short story "Earthquake" is a very strong criminal who flees to South America after accidentally killing a cop. Tough cop Brannigan tracks him down, but as he is about to arrest him a strong earth tremor shakes the little town and nearly collapses the orphanage. Earthquake props the door-lintel up so that Brannigan can arrange for the survivors to be rescued, but there is no way to get him out. However, he has time to tell Brannigan that he knew what he was doing before he stepped into the breach, and this is his way of making up for killing the cop. Another earth tremor then finishes him off mercifully.

* [[Beowulf]] goes out in a manner befitting a legendary warrior and literally epic badass. As an old man (quite some time after his defeats of Grendel and Grendel's mother) his people are menaced by a dragon. Beowulf goes out alone to fight it, and although he ends up needing a little help from one of his warriors, he takes the dragon down. He dies short while after the battle and is buried with the dragon's hoard.

* In ''Matter'', this applies to Djan Seriy Anaplian, and her brother Ferbin. Ferbin sacrifices himself to satisfy the Iln's curiosity, so that his sister can get close enough to detonate her implanted antimatter reactor. And this is to stop the Iln from destroying a highly populated [[Big Dumb Object|Shellworld]].

* A lot of people in Philip Reeves' ''[[Mortal Engines]]'' get one of these.