One Last Smoke/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character does a particular habit one last time before he dies.

  • Straight: Bob knows that he's about to die, so he has one last smoke.
  • Exaggerated: Bob decides to smoke his entire box of cigarettes at once, since he's about to die anyways.
  • Justified: Smoking is a form of stress-relief for Bob, which he uses to help relieve the stress of his impending death.
  • Inverted: Moments after Bob is born, he starts smoking a cigarette.
    • Bob has a cigarette moments after being pardoned from death sentence.
    • Bob decides to try his very first cigarette, he's about to die anyway.
  • Subverted: SUPRISE! Turns out Bob doesn't die after all.
    • Bob's final wish is to have one last smoke before he dies, he pulls out the box, only to discover it empty.
  • Double Subverted: After his near death experience, Bob quits smoking, so it turns out that cigarette really was his last.
    • Somebody else hands Bob a cigarette.
  • Parodied: Bob stops the action so he can casually get up and walk to the store to buy some cigarettes, then comes back and continues as if it never happened.
  • Deconstructed: Bob is dying of lung cancer from his own smoking addiction. He requests to have one last cigarette before he dies, much to the dismay of others who tried and failed to get him to stop up until his death.
  • Reconstructed:
  • Zig Zagged: Bob smokes before he dies, but Death Is Cheap, so he comes back. This ends up happening a lot.
  • Averted: Bob does not smoke. Alternatively, he does not appear to be facing death at any point.
  • Enforced: Having Bob smoking a cigarette in the face of death puts his normally innocent habit in a darker light.
  • Lampshaded: "Huh, I'm about to die, sounds like a good time for a smoke."
  • Invoked: Bob smokes a cigarette and then commits suicide.
  • Exploited: Bob requests to have one more smoke before he dies. Right after he lights the cigarette, he pulls out an aerosol can which he uses to make his Last Stand.
  • Defied: Bob leaves his cigarettes behind.
  • Discussed: "Bob, you've had your whole life to smoke cigarettes, now's not the time.
  • Conversed:
  • Played For Laughs: Bob gets killed by a Knight Templar for smoking in a no-smoking zone.
  • Played For Drama:

Maybe I'll go back to One Last Smoke one more time before the end.