Speak Ill of the Dead

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Sometimes, not even death will curtail disrespect for one's enemies. In fact, it provides free rein to voice disapproval and disdain!

The opposite of Never Speak Ill of the Dead. When this is played for laughs, it's probably putting The Fun in Funeral.

No real life examples, please; that's just rude.

As a Death Trope, Spoilers ahead may be unmarked. Beware.

Examples of Speak Ill of the Dead include:

Anime and Manga

Fan Works

Film

  • While he doesn’t quite hurt Milo the same way he hurt Kida (he voluntarily killed the King of Atlantis, though it wasn’t entirely his intention), Rourke from Atlantis: The Lost Empire decides to speak ill of Milo’s late grandfather simply because he disagreed with him in life, and goes as far as to step on the picture of him Milo brought of him.

Literature

  • From A Christmas Carol: when Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future, he sees many people stealing from a dead man, laughing at how much better things are without him, and telling nasty stories. He's horrified to find that person was him, and that no one genuinely misses him.
  • Break of Dark: When they shoot down the German pilot in Blackham's Wimpy, Blackham and his crew not only spend the next 20–30 minutes exulting and mocking him as he burns to death, but carry on their celebrations when they get back to base. Strongly implied that this is why he comes back to haunt them.

Live-Action TV

Theater

  • In Ajax, Agamemnon and Menelaus have good reason to hate Ajax after his attempted slaughter of their army, but veer a little too close to religious blasphemy in denying Ajax burial rights after he has committed suicide. Odysseus in comparison gives up his grudge and persuades them not to violate sacred rites.
  • Subverted in Julius Caesar. Anthony's speech sounds like it's going to be this ("I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him") but by clever twisting of his words he turns the assembled people against Caesar's killers.

Video Games

  • In World of Warcraft, Varian gets upset when Anduin says the recently deceased Magni convinced himself that Moira was brainwashed to avoid having to admit that his desire for a male heir drove her to the Dark Iron Dwarves. Anduin, unlike most of the characters on this page, respects Magni, but believes that "You can be an honorable man and still make mistakes."
  • After one of your True Companions from SEES dies in Persona 3, the school holds a memorial service. During this, you overhear some of the students talking bad about the recently deceased, and can choose to confront them.
  • In Saints Row 2, Shogo attacks Aisha's funeral as Johnny Gat wants a moment to bury her in peace so he can personally fight with him. Shogo disregards that and gets buried alive for his trouble.
  • In Professor Layton and the Last Specter, Barde was so unpopular in Misthallery that people spoke ill about him after his death, greatly upsetting his children.
  • In Ace Attorney Investigations, Manfred Von Karma calls Byrne Faraday incompetent as a prosecutor before and after finding out that he's been murdered. In the sequel, Manosuke Naito insults his dead fellow bodyguard Gai Tojiro in the first case, and everyone else is horrified. Naito also turns out to be Tojiro's murderer.