Fatal Family Photo: Difference between revisions

* Subverted in ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'', at least partially. Jorge Figuerosa talks about going back to his mother's house and eating alligator stew, while Captain Lennox actually talks ''to'' his wife via webcam and sees his baby. Neither of them die in the movie (although Fig died in a cut scene).

* We see a brief shot of Dryden's picture of his wife and kids on a table when [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] kills him in the opening of ''[[Casino Royale]]''.

* {{spoiler|Nikolai}} from ''[[Predators]]'' shows a photo of his two children and becomes the next to die. {{spoiler|Edwin steals the photo and uses it to gain sympathy from Royce and Isabel. He too dies shortly afterwards.}}

* In Anthony Mann's ''Men in war'', American soldiers find the family photo on the corpse of a North Korean. So those [[Dirty Commies]] are simply ''men'' ?!

* Agent Fielding pulls one out in ''[[Time Cop]]''.

* In [[Apocalypse Now]] it is not a photograph but a {{spoiler|tape recording of the family back home. And the character is dead before it finishes playing back.}}

* [[Saving Private Ryan]] has an interesting variation in that technically it was {{spoiler|a letter that Caparzo reveals after getting shot by an enemy sniper. Said letter gets taken by [[The Medic]], Irwin Wade, with the presumed intention of mailing it after the mission. Wade dies about half-way through the film, and the letter is taken by Captain Miller, who gets shot during the final battle}}.

** It is even clever lampshaded when {{spoiler|Reiben is seen removing the letter from Miller's coat as he is dying, with an extremely uneasy look on his face}}.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Harry Potter]].'' {{spoiler|Lupin! How could you have taken out that photograph of your newborn son! And you, Fleur, giving him reason, too! You fools!}}

** {{spoiler|I have to say I'm impressed with the rapidity with which this trope took effect, there. One minute he's stupidly playing show and tell practically in the middle of a battle, and no more than ten pages later...}}

** The weirdest part is that he only took out the picture and started blabbing about it to relieve the tension from the uncomfortable moment {{spoiler|Percy's sudden return}} had created.

*** As if to add insult to injury(or death), his wife dies as well. Good job, {{spoiler|Lupin}}

* Played with in [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[Gaunt's Ghosts]] novel ''Straight Silver''. {{spoiler|Gutes}} laments that he has no photographs of his dead daughter and granddaughter; they had intended to send him some after, but then Chaos destroyed their planet. Then he dies.

* Inverted in ''The Things They Carried''. In one section, Tim O'Brien is showing Kiowa a picture of his girlfriend when an attack on the camp begins. O'Brien survives, but Kiowa doesn't.

* Inverted in ''[[Gears of War]] 2'', where Dominic shows everyone a picture of Maria, his wife who had gone missing in the war. It turns out that {{spoiler|She was captured by the Locusts, put into a Work Camp and gets a [[Fate Worse Than Death]]. So Dom has to kill her.}}

** The first [[Gears of War]] plays it straight with Rojas. The first mention of him is when you see an unidentified corpse from a bridge, and one of your squadmates says something along the lines of 'I hope that's not Rojas. His little boy turned two last week". The corpse you saw WASN'T Rojas, but you do find his mutilated body later.

* In the introduction sequence of ''[[Xenogears]]'' we see the Captain open up and look at a photo locket before he sets off the [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]]. As the scene plays out the camera focus pulls back to show us that it's a photo of his (presumed) wife and child. On a second play through of the game you {{spoiler|realise that they bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the characters in the game that follows}}.

* Barry Burton of ''[[Resident Evil]]''. The guy's a nut for his family and keeps a photo of them in his pocket. Later in the game, If the player decided, Barry will be knocked off a cliff to his death, leaving the photo of his family behind. In a reverse example, in Jill Valentine's ending (if Barry survives, and if the player dosen't rescue Chris Redfield) Barry will show the same picture to Jill and talk a bit about his family

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Photography and Illustration]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]