Parting From Consciousness Words

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Last Words, but before Instant Sedation rather than dying. Sometimes they possess a bit of the impact of actual Last Words because the fainting character is in bad shape and using the last strength they have to utter them or because their general situation is bad and they don't know if they will wake up again.

If they don't have any meaning, it's Non Sequitur Thud.

The last words from the person doing the drugging are Why Can't You Say Good Night?.

Examples of Parting From Consciousness Words include:


Film - Live Action

  • Mystery Men: Right after Captain Amazing asks what he just picked up is if not evidence, it shoots out a cloud of pink smoke:

Casanova Frankenstein: "It's a chloroform-deploying portable enticement snare."
Captain Amazing: "... - Ah, dang!"

  • Played with in 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL is effectively dead for the remainder of the movie, but is only shut down, as he's a computer. It's one of the most famous moments in film.

HAL: "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..."

  • Near the beginning of XXX, Xander is shot with a tranquilizer dart.

Xander: (confused) It was only a Corvette! *Thump*

    • This may come across as a Non Sequitur Thud, but it's not. Not ten minutes earlier in the movie, he had stolen a car (as part of a Take That to a Jack Thompson Expy). The car in question was a Corvette. Which led to the quote.
  • In the movie Death Becomes Her, Bruce Willis's character gets smashed over the head with a large vase. He turns to his attacker and asks "What?" before falling unconscious (and almost falling down a flight of stairs.)
  • In Spaceballs, Lon Star and Barf are stuck on a desert planet. As Barf collapses, he goes, "Oh waiter...Check, Please!! *Thud*" in a Non Sequitur Thud. Lone Star soon follows with a straighter example: "Must go on…must go on…who am I kidding? *Thud*"

Live Action TV

  • In the episode "Chains" from the second series of Blackadder:

Kidnapper: Excuse me, Meister...
Blackadder: Yes? What is it?
Kidnapper hits him on the head with a large stick
Blackadder: I said, "What is it?", not "Hit me hard on the head with a-" *thud*

  • Wilson in House: "You drugged me... *thud*"
  • Mal and Inara in the Firefly episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds" both get curse words as Saffron's knockout drug takes effect.
    • Almost. Neither of them quite manage to finish cursing, but they both say more or less the same thing: Mal gets "Son of a--" and Inara, "You stupid son of a--!"
    • And then there's Jayne's epic Non Sequitur Thud in "The Train Job".
  • From the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "I, Mudd:"

Mudd: What can I do?
Kirk: Nothing, Harry. Just.. go to sleep.
Mudd: What do you mean? [Dr. McCoy produces a hypo] Oh, now, now wait a minute, gentlemen. No, what I, I.. [gets injected] had in mind was actually more in the line of a few words of sage counsel, as it were. Advice..
THUNK
Kirk: Oh, Harry. I do believe you're putting on weight.

Spock: Your action is highly unethical. My decision... stands. [falls unconscious]
McCoy: Not this time, Spock.

  • Vedek Fala's "Faith...faith" as his suicide pill takes effect in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Covenant".
  • In one episode of Hill Street Blues, Lt. Hunter receives a gift in the mail from an admirer which he thinks is some sort of flute. One of the other officers in the precinct tries blowing into it. There is a pfft, and a feathered dart is sticking out of Hunter's chest.

Hunter: Oh. It's a blowgun. [Thud. Roll opening credits.]

  • Casey in the Chuck episode Chuck vs The Dream Job is shot twice with tranquilizer darts and has a third dart stabbed into his neck by Chuck.

Casey (to Chuck): "I'm gonna kill you when I wake up."


Web Comics

  • Dave in CRFH: "I will use the last of my consciousness to state that this is not cola, this is in fact plain and simple paint thinner."