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Posthumous Narration: Difference between revisions
→Narrating the events leading up to their death: added example
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{{trope}}
{{quote|"''And then, I died...''"
|'''Serge''', ''[[Chrono Cross|Radical Dreamers]]''}}
{{quote|''"Don't think I'm alive because I'm narrating. Haven't you seen [[Sin City]]? [[American Beauty]]? [[Sunset Boulevard]]?" ''
|'''Dave''', ''[[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick-Ass]]''}}
Occasionally, in watching a show or film that features a narration in voice over, you find that the narration is ''not'' because the writers got too lazy to show what's happening, but because they want to present you with the odd phenomenon of a deceased character telling you the story. There's no explanation given for why or how this character can tell the story in question, or whom he's telling it to; we don't see him (assuming it's him) as a ghost, or as a character writing or speaking his last words. He's just a very talkative voice that happens to belong to [[Posthumous Character|a character who doesn't survive the movie]].
See also [[Dead All Along]] and [[Dead to Begin With]]. Compare [[Did You Die?]]
{{deathtrope}}
{{examples}}
== Narrating the events leading up to their death ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
* ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]''. "September 21st, 1945... That was the night I died."
* ''[[Samurai Jack]]'': {{spoiler|X-9}} in the Tale of X-9 Film-noir episode.
* At the beginning of ''[[Bokurano]]'' one of the characters is monologuing, presumably having seen the events of the series already. The character is {{spoiler|Waku, who died in the second episode.}}
=== Comic Books ===
* A few ''[[Sin City]]'' stories do this.
=== Film ===
* The narrator of the film ''[[American Beauty]]'', who comes right out and tells us that we're going to see him die at some point.
* ''[[Sunset Boulevard]]'' actually ''starts'' with William Holden's death; he tells us his story in [[Flash Back]].
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** Also subverted: {{spoiler|The main character is shown dying in a car bomb at the start of the film, but it is later discovered that he escaped with his life.}}
* Another interesting variation in the movie ''[[Fallen]]''; the narrator isn't dead, but he ''is'' [[Not Himself]].
* Also from Brazil, the movie ''Redentor'' - though you don't know the protagonist is dead in the first scene, [[How We Got Here|only when the narrative eventually reaches that scene]]. Considering his ghost emerges from his body shortly later, it avoids the "no explanation given" part.
* Both Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson's characters from ''[[The Bucket List]]''.
* Danny Devito's character from ''[[L.A. Confidential]]''.
* ''[[Double Indemnity]]'' is narrated from Walter Huff/Neff's [[Apocalyptic Log]].
=== Literature ===
* Tie-in novel ''[[Halo]]: The Flood'' features this, mainly as a way for the reader to get information about a battle [[Undead Author|that no one actually survived]].
* The whole ''point'', played for laughs, of [[Shel Silverstein]]'s poem "True Story."
* In [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''[[Bio of a Space Tyrant]]'' series, which is presented as being the title character's memoirs edited for publication by his daughter, the final chapter of the last book rather unexpectedly ends with his death, which he narrates in detail. This is followed by an afterword by the daughter, which is mostly a [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]] but also explains that he did write most of the memoir while he was alive, leaving it off just before he embarked on the journey on which he died, and that after she began editing the manuscript, she found the final chapter on her desk one morning, rather spookily written in her own handwriting...
* The Brazilian novel ''The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas'' (also known in English as ''Epitaph of a Small Winner'') by [[Machado de Assis]], which the protagonist opens by dedicating "to the first worm who eats my corpse". (and [[Follow the Leader|in the trend]] set by ''[[Pride and Prejudice And Zombies]]'', received the version ''[[Everything's Deader with Zombies|Undead Memoirs of Brás Cubas]]'')
* In ''[[The Book Of Skulls]]'' by [[Robert Silverberg]], two of the four narrators are dead by the end of the story, yet they still narrate the events leading up to their death, leaving the reader wondering who it is to whom they were actually talking.* A Russian book "We were executed in 1942" is narrated from the point of Soviet soldiers [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|who were executed in 1942]].
* In Nick Perumov's books, '''most''' of the narrating charachters die later in the book.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* Subverted in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' 2-part season finale "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday": Rose Tyler begins each part saying "This is the story of how I died"...only it turns out she was merely trapped in a parallel universe while being declared dead in her own. Since she is separated from the Doctor forever though, this could have [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|more than one meaning]]...
* Played straight in the final episode of ''[[Doctor Who Confidential]]'', in a section called "River Song's Story" - River Song sums up the events of her life [[Timey-Wimey Ball|in the order she experiences them, as opposed to the order the viewers saw them]], up to and including her death. Justified in that her consciousness was subsequently saved in a computer, and it's that version of her narrating the story, post-[[Doctor Who/Recap/S30/E09 Forest of the Dead|"Forest of the Dead"]]. We see her telling the end of the story at the end of that episode.
* Subverted in an episode of the sitcom ''[[Wings (TV series)|Wings]]''. An episode opens with Joe face down in a pool in a shot intentionally reminiscent of the opening of ''[[Sunset Boulevard]]'', with a voiceover from Joe telling us that he's going to show us how he got there. At the end of the episode (Part I of a two-parter where Joe leaves Sandpiper Air and Brian, Lowell and Helen have to figure out how to track him down and convince him to come back) it's revealed that he was face down in the pool because he was setting a new breath-holding record at a wild party.
=== Music ===
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeKgLLaa4-E "Melanie"] by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] is a song sung by a [[Stalker with a Crush]], in the last verse of which he describes how he threw himself from a sixteenth-story window because the object of his affection rejected him, then notes that even though he's dead he still loves her.
=== Video Games ===
* Uriel Septim in ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]''. He even [[lampshade]]s his own death.
=== Web Comics ===
* ''[[Sore Thumbs]]'' lampshades it in [http://sorethumbs.keenspot.com/d/20050427.html one story arc], which has a narrator who tells us up front that he's dead and talking to us from Heaven. {{spoiler|We never found out which character he was, and everybody who wasn't a main character wound up dead.}}
=== Western Animation ===
* The ''[[American Dad]]'' episode "Star Trek" (nothing to do with the [[Star Trek|show]], for once) starts in the [[Noir]] style with Steve lying facedown in a pool of cherry jello. Steve narrates how he became an accomplished children's book writer by writing a book making fun of Roger. He gets everything he wants, including a giant mansion and a pool of jello. There's also a movie that is going to be filmed based on his book. Then it turns out that the person in the pool was actually an actor who was supposed to be playing Steve in the movie accidentally killed by Roger (he wanted to kill Steve). The episode ends with Stan helping Steve dump the body in a lake. Steve admits this was "kind of a screw to the audience" and apologizes for it.
== Narrating the events ''following'' their death ==
=== Comic Books ===
* Simon, the [[Sacrificial Lamb]] in ''[[Gear]]'', gets a brief monologue after he dies. Interestingly, the comic shows far more of his personality here than it did when he was alive.
=== Films ===
* In ''[[The Grey Zone]]'' the girl who survived the gas chamber and was executed narrates the results of the Auschwitz uprising.
* In ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan]]'', the ending monologue is given by {{spoiler|Spock}} after his death. Of course, what the audience doesn't know is that he's [[Only Mostly Dead]].
=== Literature ===
* In Kurt Vonnegut's novel ''Galapagos'', the entire story is narrated a million years after the fact by the ghost of someone who died back in 1986.
* {{spoiler|Rachel}} in the final ''[[Animorphs]]'' book, which was a little weird because the books had previously emphasized the [[Direct Line to the Author]] trope, and there wasn't an explanation for how she could continue to record her thoughts {{spoiler|as she died on an enemy spaceship.}}
* Susie Salmon in ''[[The Lovely Bones]]'', who also does a little narration before her death.
* In [[Douglas Coupland]]'s novel ''Girlfriend In A Coma'', Jared - who died of cancer while still in his teens - is the narrator for most of the book, although Richard narrates most of the first part.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* Mary-Alice Young, the narrator of ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'', died in the opening of the pilot episode.
** ''[[The Strangerhood]]'' explicitly parodied this:
{{quote|'''Wade:''' But didn't you, like, die and stuff in the last episode?
'''Nikki (voice over):''' "It's called artistic licence, you loser!" }}
=== Music ===
* The song "Passage" by [[Vienna Teng]] is told from the point of view of a young woman killed in a car accident as she describes moments from the lives of her loved ones as they move on.
=== Video Games ===
* {{spoiler|Martin Septim}} in ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]''. Made more weird by the fact that he {{spoiler|turned into a dragon.}}
* In the ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' DLC Honest Hearts, Jed Masterson also does the closing narration, even though he died at the very start of the tale.
** This can also happen with various major characters in the main game and all DLC. ''If'' they die, of course.
=== Western Animation ===
* Stinkmeaner from ''[[The Boondocks]]'' narrates several times throughout "Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy", even [[Interactive Narrator|interrupting Huey at one point]].
== Narrating the events both before and after their death ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
* In ''[[Death Note]]'', L does this in the opening to the second Re-Light Special: "L's Successors".
** [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]] in the same special with Watari. He shows up during these segments, but he merely acts as an announcer/human title card. He does not talk about his own death or any other events of the film.
* Well, you can say that in a way, Kirie Goshima of ''[[Uzumaki]]'' [[Fate Worse Than Death|isn't really dead...]]
* In ''[[Windaria]]'', the story begins at Alan's funeral and is told by him after his soul has left his body.
=== Comic Books ===
* Jackie in ''[[The Darkness]]'', who [[Unexplained Recovery|gets better]]. {{spoiler|Twice.}}
=== Film ===
* Ed in one of the "Plot-Hole" featurettes on the ''[[Shaun of the Dead]]'' DVD. He gives voice-over narration about how he died and turned into a zombie, but he speaks articulately. He doesn't grunt incomprehensibly like his zombie form does at the end of the actual movie.
* In ''[[The Bucket List]]'', the opening narration {{spoiler|makes it look like Carter outlives Edward. It's actually the other way around.}}
* In the Russian film ''Zvezda (The Star)'', the captain who sent titular scout unit to their deaths narrates the result of their sacrifice at the end of the film. Then he mentions that he also died later in the war.
* The main action of the much-maligned [[Public Service Announcement|public information film]] ''[[Apaches]]'' is intercut with scenes of preparation for a tea party, commented on by the film’s young narrator, Danny. At the end, the party is revealed to be Danny’s funeral wake. "I wish I was there... honest."
=== Literature ===
* Bibi Chen in ''Saving Fish From Drowning'' by [[Amy Tan]]. She mostly narrates the events after her death, but also flashbacks to her childhood and events some time before her death. She doesn't get around to narrating her own death until the very end of the book, because she herself has no idea how she died.
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' is always narrated from the first person, so in ''Ghost Story'' {{spoiler|which takes place after Harry's death in ''Changes''}}, Harry Dresden narrates it while dead as a ghost. {{spoiler|He's revived.}}
* In a Poem Within A Book example, "The Legion's Pride", recited by a soldier in ''[[Lord Darcy|A Study In Sorcery]]'', is couched as a posthumous declaration by another [[Alternate History|Anglo-French]] soldier, who'd died during a peacekeeping mission to avert conflict between rival German baronies.
* In an oddly justified example, the story of ''The Children's Hospital'' by Chris Adrian is told by "the recording angel," a being required to observe and record in exact detail [[The End of the World as We Know It]] and the life of a woman (our protagonist) who will play a key role in it, from her birth to her death. Said recording angel just happens to be what is left of the main protagonist's older brother, who committed suicide as a teenager, several years before the events of the book. In the midst of the story, he occasionally cuts back to a childhood memory of himself and the protagonist, although he never refers to the brother in the first person in these scenes.
* The prologue of the first book of the ''[[Magnus Chase]]'' series "The Sword of Summer" has Magnus explain to the readers that they are going to read how Magnus died in agony.(which happens in the second chapter if this troper remembers correctly) the rest of the book and the sequel books involve him going on adventures through the nine realms and battling various Monsters, going up against various gods, competeing in war games in Vahalla and preventing Ragnarok.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* The episode "Random Shoes" from ''[[Torchwood]]'' does exactly this, with the events after Eugene's death being narrated by Eugene as they are figured out in the present. Massively confusing, but very interesting.
* The murder victims in every episode of ''[[The Forgotten]]''.
* Augustus Hill in ''[[Oz]]'' does his [[Lemony Narrator|odd narrations]] throughout the series. {{spoiler|He's killed in the Season 5 finale.}}
* The ''[[Investigation Discovery]]'' series "Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets" uses this as its basic premise: each episode has the victim of a [[Real Life]] crime narrating the circumstances surrounding their murder.
=== Music ===
* The ''[[Barenaked Ladies]]'' song "Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel". Just think about that title for a minute.
* The song ''Long Black Veil'', originally by Lefty Frizzell, has the singer telling how he came to be hanged, and why a woman secretly mourns for him.
* The first-person character in the song [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2H6qC23RPY "The Thing" by Phil Harris] describes the events of his life after he discovers the never-identified object on a beach one day, and what happens after he dies and tries to enter Heaven with the Thing still in his possession.
=== Theater ===
* In ''Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World'', Musa's roommate Abdallah died in a ferry accident during his pilgrimage to Mecca, and narrates during scene transitions.
=== Video Games ===
* In ''[[Prince of Persia]]: The Two Thrones'', the rescued Empress of Time is the narrator and dies at the end of the tutorial section of the game. Given her mystical nature as the incarnation of Time, it is at least partially justified.
** After the [[Big Bad]] is defeated, she shows up in the form of the Sands of Time and leaves for another world. Given that she ''is'' the Sands, it makes sense that she was simply trapped inside the [[Big Bad]].
* In ''[[Age of Empires II]]'s'' Joan of Arc campaign, the main narrator is a French nobleman. In the last mission, where he can be controlled as a hero unit, he states the possibility that he could die in the battle, and if he is killed, he says "It is here... that my tale shall end." After the player wins the mission, he continues narrating regardless of whether he survives or dies, and refers to Joan's being canonized as a saint, which happened in 1920, long after he died.
* [[Eternal Darkness|"My name is Doctor Edward Roivas. I am a clinical psychologist. I am also dead."]]
* In ''[[Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations]]'', the narrator is Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, who died fairly early on in the series. He talks about his own funeral too.
=== Western Animation ===
* In ''[[Tangled]]'', Flynn Rider starts out narrating the film with "This is the story of how I died." {{spoiler|He did. But he got better.}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Death Tropes]]
[[Category:Posthumous Narration]]
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