Go Out with a Smile: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (cleanup after bot) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Anakin:''' Now go, my son. Leave me.
Line 244:
* [[Redemption Equals Death|Sydney Carton]] from [[Charles Dickens]]'s ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'': "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord?"
* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] [[Ultramarines (novel)|Ultramarines]] novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', Larana Utorian, dying and deranged by her suffering at the hands of the Chaos forces, nevertheless manages to collect her wits and smile at the dying {{spoiler|Leonid}}, thus giving him the courage to {{spoiler|set off a grenade, [[Heroic Sacrifice|killing them]] and the Chaos forces that could have pursued those of their party who could escape}}.
* In ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'', every vampire that gets killed leaves a smiling corpse, with the implication that their vampiric nature was a curse they're glad to be free of. (Even Dracula himself, in the moment between his death and his body crumbling to dust.) Van Helsing stated that this was the main reason he was able to keep executing the helpless
{{quote|{{spoiler|"And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman."}}}}
** In [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s ''[[The Dracula Tape]]'', the Count hangs a somewhat cynical lampshade on this by observing that nothing seems to make a vampire look more 'at peace' to breathing humans than the knowledge that he or she is finally safely dead.
* Played straight in the last ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' book when {{spoiler|Fred}} is crushed in a bomb-like explosion
** Not to mention {{spoiler|Sirius}}, whose laughter "Had not quite died from his face" before falling through the veil.
* [[The Thrawn Trilogy|Thrawn]], after he is finally defeated and then [[Bodyguard Betrayal|stabbed by his bodyguard]], smiles and tells Pellaeon "[[Famous Last Words|But... it was so artistically done.]]" before [[Eye Lights Out|his eyes go out]].
Line 258:
* In ''They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'', Gloria often tells her only friend, Robert that she wishes she were dead, and finally [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|asks him to shoot her, because she doesn't have the courage to kill herself]]. He obliges, and [[In Medias Res|at the beginning of the book]], recalls her expression as she died: "She was relaxed and comfortable and she was smiling. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile."
* In the short story "Call me Joe", when a man is dying (after dumping most of his mind into an artificial body, similar to the ending of the [[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]), the doctor remarks that he saw many people who didn't want to live, but this is the first one to smile until the last moment.
* In a short story by [[Robert Sheckley]], a planet has a civilization of [[Death Seeker
* "[[The Little Match Girl]]"
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' has Tywin Lannister who almost never smiled in life practically grinning during his funeral. This is something of a subversion, because most of the characters are convinced that his mouth is twisting as a side effect of the corpse rotting, but [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones|Tywin's sister Genna]] seems to hope that it is this trope.
Line 282:
* In ''[[The Mentalist]]'', Bosco not only smiles himself, but manages to make a tearful, distraught Lisbon who loves him (and they've just had an [[Anguished Declaration of Love]]), smile. Just the most heart-wrenching death.
* Narrowly [[Averted Trope]] in ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' after Lancelot is captured and about to be executed after securing Guinevere's escape from a warlord's keep. When he's threatened with a slow and painful death, he only gives a beautific smile and tells them that because Guinevere is safe, he dies happy. Only for the men to drag a recaptured Guinevere back into the arena. But then Prince Arthur saves them both anyway.
** At the start of the fourth series Lancelot gets another chance to
* Beautifully done in ''[[Farscape]]''. After absorbing a lethal amount of radiation the clone of John Crichton smiles at Aeryn Sun and delivers one of the most heartbreaking lines in the series. "Don't worry about me, I've never felt better."
* Archie Kennedy in the sixth installment of the [[Horatio Hornblower]] mini-series, after saving Horatio's life and career. Albeit something of a tearful-looking smile (and largely there for Horatio's sake), but still one that could light up a room.
Line 389:
* In ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'', [[Darkseid]] was left to die on an exploding asteroid after being beaten by Superman. Darkseid's only reaction to his impending death? Sneer and mock Superman's failure to kill him personally.
{{quote|'''Darkseid''': Heh. ''Loser''.}}
* When ''[[Transformers Armada]]'' {{spoiler|Starscream}} does his death monologue with a sword through his chest, he's got a heartbreakingly peaceful smile on his
** Similar thing happens with {{spoiler|Prowl}} in ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. Cue crying fangirls.
*** Cue [[Tear Jerker|crying]] ''everyone''.
| |||