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Littlest Cancer Patient: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.LittlestCancerPatient 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.LittlestCancerPatient, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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A particularly risky form of [[The Woobie]], which is much more likely ([[Tropes Are Not Bad|though not inevitably]]) to fail than be successful with the audience. The Littlest Cancer Patient, as you may have guessed from the title, is a small child, rarely over the age of twelve, with some form of terminal disease. This character's sole [[Rule of Empathy|reason]] for existence is to [[Glurge|tug your heartstrings so hard]] they're [[Tastes Like Diabetes|torn from your chest]].
The Littlest Cancer Patient has a rather specific form of [[Contractual Immortality]]. They may find themselves on a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists, menaced by the [[Monster of the Week]], in the path of a huge tidal wave, or in any form of danger. [[Like You Would Really Do It|But rest assured]] -- the only thing allowed to kill them is their illness. And that will rarely happen in the course of the story unless the writer(s) [[Yank the
Occasionally, the Littlest Cancer Patient is used to give a [[Pet the Dog]] moment to [[The Big Guy]], [[The Lancer]], or sometimes even a [[Dirty Coward]]. Another common use is for an athlete to swear to win a game or match for the sake of this poor, sick child, never taking to mind the possible repercussions if they ''failed'' to do this. Nowadays, though, you can expect cruel subversion for that. ([http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF150-A_Hit_for_Bobby.gif Hilarious subversions work too.])
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'''[[No Real Life Examples Please]].''' Real children don't exist to tug your heartstrings. (Debatable)
{{examples
== Advertisements ==
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* A surprisingly well-done and heartbreaking case in the ''[[Naru Taru]]'' manga, {{spoiler|[[Action Mom]] Jane Franklin teams up with Shiina to rescue her son Robert, the LCP of the story, who is also a Dragon Bearer, and who's been kidnapped by the Japanese government so they can use him for their purposes. The child even dies in her arms peacefully after they rescue him.}}
* Hayate in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's''. That the villains were doing what they did because they thought it would save her life placed them in the [[Hero Antagonist]] side of the morality scale.
** If by the villains you mean the Wolkenritter. The ''actual'' villains {{spoiler|were [[Well
* The [[Cute Shotaro Boy]] from the seventh and eighth volumes of CLAMP's ''[[Tokyo Babylon]]'' qualifies, although he has a rare kidney disease rather than cancer. Not only does he rack up massive Moe points with the audience, he's also the indirect cause of {{spoiler|Seishirou's eye being destroyed}}, as his mother went {{spoiler|batshit crazy and tried to tear the Subaru's kidney out, and instead ended up gouging his Seishirou's eye out right in front of him}}... resulting in even more [[Break the Cutie|angst and woe]].
* There's one episode of [[Vandread]], where Bart makes freinds with one of these (the entire damn planet's got a terminal disease of some sort). {{spoiler|She dies before Bart could fufill her last wish, or she could complete her doll of him, leaving it without hair. Bart goes bald and skull-waxed from then on.}}
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* The book and movie ''[[Thank You for Smoking]]'' has its main character deliberately set up to share a talk show stage with a [[Littlest Cancer Patient]] and thus be ruined; he manages to actually get out of it with better publicity than before. Parodied in that afterwards, he is revealed as a hired actor.
* [[Connie Willis]]'s novel ''Passage'' has Maisie, on the list for a heart transplant. But she's a tough kid; she reads as many books as she can get about ''disasters'', to remind herself that death happens to everyone. Her mother, on the other hand, is in deepest denial. None of this affects her status as [[The Woobie]].
* Subverted in Tom Clancy's ''[[Rainbow Six]]''. Terrorists taking over a Spanish theme park take a group of tourists hostage, including a contingent of terminally ill children, one of whom is the very incarnation of the trope, the little girl cancer patient in a wheelchair who's just so damned 'nice'. Then when their demands are refused, [[Moral Event Horizon|they shoot her in the back and leave her corpse to wheel out the front gate, still in the wheelchair.]] Needless to say, while the other terrorists are taken out quickly and cleanly, the executioner receives a rifle bullet to the spleen (courtesy of the sniper who watched him kill the LCP) [[Asshole Victim|An extremely slow and painful death follows.]] To be fair, the squad's leader (Ding Chavez) [[What the Hell, Hero?|makes his displeasure known to the sniper after the mission]]... [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|but no one]] ''really'' is displeased.
* Although it's consumption she has, little Eva in ''[[Uncle Toms Cabin]]'' [[Glurge|definitely qualifies]], making it [[Older Than Radio]]. When she dies a peaceful and saintly death, [[Unfortunate Implications|all the slaves present convert]].
* Tiny Tim in ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' by [[Charles Dickens (Creator)|Charles Dickens]] is likely the Urexample .
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** The Wish-a-Wish lady {{spoiler|grants his wish.}}
* In the ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' episode "Dead Man Walking," Owen has a [[Pet the Dog]] moment with the Littlest Leukemia Patient, who explicitly states that he's gonna die anyway and doesn't want the second shot of chemo the mean old doctors are giving him. Owen then goes on to save the kid, denying him the chance to die with his eyebrows intact by wrestling with Death himself. Way to go, Owen.
* Cruelly twisted in the ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' episode "Sick", their [[Ripped
** A related story from ''Criminal Intent'', "Faith", has similar motivations: The [[Littlest Cancer Patient]] whose blogs, phone interviews and autobiography brought the nation to tears {{spoiler|turned out to be a complete hoax: her [[Genre Savvy]] "guardian" wrote the book and blog herself, faked the phone calls, and even accepted donations of home medical equipment to stockpile for future sale on eBay. The truth only came out when a would-be benefactor insisted on meeting the girl in person}}.
* [[CSI: Miami|Horatio]] is forced to divulge the existence of his brother's illegitimate daughter (and her mother) to the widow when the daughter requires a bone marrow transplant and neither himself nor the mother is a match.
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* Parodied in ''[[Sam and Max]]: Beyond Time and Space'', where Timmy Two-Teeth is dying of [[Soap Opera Disease|terminal]] [[Tourettes Shitcock Syndrome|Tourette's.]]
* ''[[Panzer Dragoon]] Orta'' viciously deconstructs this with the story of Iva Demilcol, who, despite his illness (and not even being ten years old!), is fully expected to perform as a soldier of the Empire. {{spoiler|He doesn't get better, either.}}
* ''[[Dead Rising 2]]'' has the protagonist's daughter Katie, whose need for a zombie infection suppressant is Chuck's main motivation. She's an example of this done right, sympathetic enough to inspire [[
== Web Original ==
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** In "Tears Of A Clooney", Hayley apparently battles a form of cancer while Stan and Francine are away. She's seen on the line with the Make-A-Wish foundation, talking to George Clooney, who is driving next to Stan. Stan asks who it was, and Clooney replies "some sick chick", lampshading how shallow and pointless many people think the Make-A-Wish Foundation really is. Don't worry, {{spoiler|Hayley gets better.}}
** In another episode, the [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|"Grant A Dream"]] Foundation has a dying leukemia patient whose wish was to play quarterback for the New England Patriots. [[Be Careful What You Wish For|Cue the opposing football players all piling on top of him]], even as the announcer quips that "little Johnny should have wished for some blocking."
*** This episode's [[Two Lines, No Waiting|A-plot]] is about Peter scamming the system in order to revive a cancelled TV show he likes; when the Foundation comes back expecting a dead kid for publicity, Peter claims he healed Chris and the B-plot comes into play.
** So did [[South Park]] when they finally decided to kill [[Chew Toy|Kenny]] forever. "He said his wish is not to die." Instead, he got Madonna... whom he railed against (translated by Stan) as being "irrelevant" - all with her outside the door, and apparently not having heard.
* Such a character appears in an episode of ''[[Metalocalypse]]''. In keeping with the [[Contractual Immortality]], she dies naturally rather than by any of the contrived accidents that usually fell those associated with Dethklok, but unusually for this trope, the death happens on screen.
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