Last Request: Difference between revisions
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Something you request right before you die. Sometimes offered to you by your executioner, in which case you might ask for something seemingly innocuous, but pivotal to your narrow escape [[Clear My Name|stratagem]] or even [[Thanatos Gambit]]. You might also be offered one last choice of dish which isn't good for escape but at least you die full. And you might ask them to [[Get It Over With]], which tends to be not what they expect. A common comedy version is asking to not be killed.
See also [[One Last Smoke]] for a character indulging a charming partiality one last time.
You can also transfer your responsibilities to someone else with your last breath. Asking someone to take care of your family, [[Bring News Back|deliver a message]], [[Best Served Cold|avenge you]], or generally [[Take Up My Sword|keep up the good fight]] is almost playing low though, as a deathbed promise even by request, is very hard to refuse and nearly [[I Gave My Word|unbreakable]]—even if [[What You Are in the Dark|no one would ever know]]. (Though if you are [[Dying as Yourself]], you may have no choice.) This can be made especially touching with a [[
Occasionally a near-death scene will be faked, in order to get someone to agree to something; most often played for comedy.
Tends to be called a Dying Wish if you're lying around and dying slowly. Compare [[Last Dance]]
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Belphegor offers this to Rudolf in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]''. He asks for a [[Ten Paces and Turn|duel]]. {{spoiler|He wins}}.
* Gren from ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]''. He knows he'll be dead by before the end of the episode, so he asks Spike to fulfill his dying wish by towing his ship into orbit and letting him float off in the direction of Titan, the moon he wished to see one last time.
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* [[Bleach]]: A dying Hisana Kuchiki asks her husband Byakuya to find her sister Rukia and adopt her into his family 50 years before the story begins.
* In a late episode of ''[[After War Gundam X|Gundam X]]'', Ennil El pretends that Dr. Tex Farzenberg is her lover and ask their captors for one last moment of intimacy. When she unzips her shirt, it reveals a set of flashbang grenades, which they use to escape.
* In ''[[Overlord]]'', Philip Dayton L'Eyre Montserrat (a minor noble of the Re-Estize Kingdom) was so despised by his subjects, that the last request made ''by his own father'' to Albedo (before his execution) was to make sure his son suffered. Albedo had up to that point been considering sparing some of Philip’s accomplices so she could let them kill him (and they certainly would have) but decided to honor the elder Montserrat’s request, handing Philip over to Momonga’s [[Torture Technician]] for use as a practice dummy for “information gathering techniques”. She ''certainly'' honored ''that'' Last Request...
== [[Comics]] ==
* On her deathbed, {{spoiler|Kathy}} in ''[[Shade the Changing Man]]'' {{spoiler|makes Shade promise to care for their baby}}.
* ''Adventures Of The Rifle Brigade''. One of the privates has the hots for his commanding officer and takes advantage of each minor bump and wound. One time it was a request for a handjob like 'Nanna used to do'. Nanna did no such thing.
* ''[[Nick Fury]]'' fufills one of his dying men's request to watch out for his kid. Said kid is a simpleton who, despite supervision, keeps injuring himself. Nick almost shoots the boy to put him out of his seeming misery.
* In ''[[Superman and Batman Generations]]'', a dying Joker asks [[Batman]] to reveal his identity to "confirm a suspicion" (namely that [[Legacy Immortality|he's not the first Batman]]; Joker's right, this Batman is Dick Grayson). Batman refuses, saying "You're the '''last''' person I'd want to see die happy!"
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* "[[Spider-Man (film)|Peter, Don't tell Harry]]."
* ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''. Eddie Valiant asks Judge Doom to grant one to Roger before "dipping" him. Doom agrees, and Eddie gives Roger a double shot of bourbon. This causes Roger to do his "steam whistle" impersonation, which distracts Doom and the weasels enough for Eddie and Roger to escape.
* [[Tron]]: Ram's [[Famous Last Words]]. "Flynn, help Tron..."
* In ''[[Die Hard|Die Hard with a Vengeance]]'', McClane asks Gruber if he has any aspirin. This doesn't help McClane escape his predicament, but it does give them a lead on where to find Gruber later.
* The Hatter's last request in ''[[Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'' is simply to ask the executioner to let him keep his hat on. The executioner simply shrugs and says, "Suit yourself, so long as I can reach your neck." Unbeknownst to him, the hat is part of the Hatter's plan to escape, and it works.
== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[The Broken Sword]]'', the dying hero's last request is for a [[Last Kiss]].
* In [[Ben Counter]]'s ''[[Warhammer
* In [[Star Wars/Allegiance|Allegiance]], Mara Jade's ally Tannis tells her, while dying of burns, to bury him out in space. She does.
* [[Artemis Fowl]]: The Opal Deception. Right before Julius dies he tells Holly something about saving Artemis, and you know what? He dies, and Holly goes to save Artemis.
* In ''[[Les Misérables]]'', Eponine asks Marius to kiss her on the forehead after she's dead. He obliges.
* In Suzanne Collins's ''[[The Hunger Games]]'', Rue asks Katniss to sing for her. Despite not singing for years, Katniss comes through.
* In the opening chapter of the first book of [[The Stormlight Archive]], King Gavilar gives his assassin a dark-glowing sphere of unknown origin and nature, to keep away from "them", and a cryptic message for his brother. The assassin obliges in taking the sphere and leaving the message because he believes the last wishes of the dying are sacred.
* "Look at me..." {{spoiler|Snape}}'s [[Last Words]] to [[Harry Potter|Harry]], he wants Lily's eyes to be the last thing he sees.
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene|The Golden Age]]'', it turns out that Phaethon is suing to have his father declared dead after his father had died to save him and been revived from a noumenal recording, not becuase he is an [[Ungrateful Bastard]] but to carry out his father's Last Request.
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** Later on {{spoiler|Wesley's last request is for Illyria to shapeshift and pretend to be the deceased Fred}}, and it (she?) complies.
* In the last episode of ''[[Flight of the Conchords]]'', the [[Imagine Spot]] song features three Russians played by Bret, [[Stalker with a Crush|Mel]] and her husband stranded on a small boat, with the Bret character continuously being asked for his Last Request before the others [[I'm a Humanitarian|eat him]]. He keeps asking them to sing and dance in the hopes of exhausting them too much to do it. [[Nightmare Fuel|It doesn't work]].
* One episode of ''[[Reno 911!]]'' featured a injured and bleeding Junior being held by the new recruit while they await an ambulance. He seems like he's dying so she agrees to sleep with him if he pulls through. They keep talking and realize they are, in fact, cousins. As the ambulance arrives, Junior hops to his feet (not nearly as injured as he was leading on) and she finds herself shocked and disgusted that he intends to hold her to agreeing to have sex with him.
* In [[Tin Man (TV series)|Tin Man]], the Mystic Man's direct order to Cain to protect DG "at any cost" becomes this.
* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' TOS episode "The Obsolete Man". The title character is about to be executed by the State for having an obsolete job: being a librarian. He is allowed to choose the method of his execution, which he takes advantage of to show how cowardly and weak the State is.
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* On ''[[Torchwood]]'', {{spoiler|Ianto asks Jack not to forget him, and Jack tells him he never could.}} Still up in the air as to whether Jack keeps his promise.
* On ''[[The Vicar of Dibley]]'', Letitia requests that Geraldine take over her role as the easter bunny, secretly delivering chocolate eggs to people on the night before Easter, dressed in a rabbit suit. On her way around the village, Geraldine {{spoiler|is surprised to run into another easter bunny, quickly converses with him and arranges to do different parts of the village, before running into a veritable throng of people in rabbit suits whom Letitia has pulled one final prank upon.}}
* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' : In "Armageddon's Game", representatives of the T'Lani and Kellerun arrive in the abandoned town where O'Brien and Bashir are holed up, intending to kill them, as [[He Knows Too Much|They Know Too Much]] about the harvester viruses. O'Brien has a request that's rather simple - let Bashir help him stand up, as he doesn't want to be shot lying down. (He's been infected with the virus, and is too weak to stand on his own.) They let him do so, and fortunately for them, this brief delay gives Sisko and Dax enough time to beam them to safety.
* A dark example occurs in the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode "Fool For Love" where Spike relates to Buffy the first time he killed a Slayer, during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Her last words before he killed her were, in Mandarin: "Tell my mother I'm sorry." Unfortunately, Spike could not understand the language.
== [[Theater]] ==
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== Webcomics ==
* [[Pibgorn]] [http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2003/10/23/ Have you any last requests?]
* In ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'', the [[Show Within a Show]] ''Rebel Cry'' has [https://web.archive.org/web/20120520101736/http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00678.html our hero get a free meal per the last wishes of the founder].
* In ''[[Erstwhile]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20131107152205/http://www.erstwhiletales.com/allfur-01/#.T2-1_dm6SuJ the dying queen asks for a promise not to marry anyone less beautiful than she is, and gets it.]
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* Parodied in ''[[Venture Bros]]'' when Brock non-fatally stabs a Guild Henchman. The Henchman still thinks he's going to die and requests Brock sing to him the technotronic song "Move This".
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' used this in "Cape Feare": to stall for time, Bart's last request to Sideshow Bob is to perform the entire score of ''[[Gilbert and Sullivan|HMS Pinafore]]''. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|He does]], and it works.
* In the ''[[Harley Quinn]]'' series, Harley combines this with [[Gallows Humor]] before attempting to use a device to get by the laser grid trap that just turned their [[It Makes Sense In Context| mouse-commando-accomplice]] into [[Ludicrous Gibs]], telling her crew, “Okay guys, you know, if my body gets diced up by lasers here, I dunno, do something fun with it, like mail my ear to a random family and say, ‘We have your daughter!’ you know, something like that.” (The lady has been judged criminally insane for a reason.) Fortunately, she manages to avoid the trap and survive.
== Webseries ==
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[[Category:Dialogue]]
[[Category:Last Words]]
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