Tragic Keepsake: Difference between revisions

* Nagi in [[Deadman Wonderland]] wears a scarf {{spoiler|that belonged to his dead wife}}, as well as a locket. {{spoiler|He believes it contains a picture of his infant son, but in actuality there is nothing inside the locket; his child was cut out of his wife's belly and the body preserved in a jar.}}

* In a dark example, in ''[[Afro Samurai]],'' the titular character carries around ''his father's severed head'' in a basket, until it (the head) is destroyed in a battle.

* Jing from ''[[King of Bandit Jing]]'' carries his mother's soul in a crystal, making it the [[Soul Jar]] variety.

** For a while, Kira had the paper origami flower given to him by the little girl on the doomed shuttle.

* After his little sister Aya is hit by a car and left in a coma on her birthday, Ran Fujimiya in ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' not only starts wearing an earring from the pair he'd bought for her present, he also starts using her name.

** One interesting case for {{spoiler|[[Anti-Villain|Fate Averruncus]] (Tertium)}} is {{spoiler|[[Trademark Favorite Food|coffee]]. Shiori's sister made him some apparently good coffee, he went back to work and had some terrible coffee and then when visiting her again found her wounded. She got Rewritten, he avenged her and noted that [[Tear Jerker|he won't be able to drink it anymore]].}}

* Hayate's [[Creepy Cool Crosses|Schwertkreuz]] in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', which was all that remained of {{spoiler|the first Reinforce}} after her [[Heroic Sacrifice]].

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', Wado Ichimonji was a sword that was once owned by Zoro's friend Kuina's family, but after she died he took it as a reminder to fulfill their promise for one of them to become the world's greatest swordsman.

* Slightly subverted in ''[[Bleach]]''. Orihime's brother Sora gave her hairclips that she thought were too childish, and after a fight, Sora leaves without [[Never Got to Say Goodbye|Orihime saying goodbye]]. After he dies that day in a tragic accident, Orihime wears the hairclips every single day... and they become a sort-of [[MacGuffin]] that allows her to channel her powers when they awake.

** Mami's bells end up as a Tragic Keepsake (and in fact a legitimate Tragic [[Memento MacGuffin]]) a second time during the [[Battle in the Center of the Mind]] (that incorporates the "bad end" of the game). {{spoiler|Ryu confronts Fou-lu with Mami's bells, noting she's ''the'' counterexample to Fou-lu's arguments that [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|Humans Are Bastards]]--even going so far as to explicitly point out that Mami's bells are Fou-lu's "most treasured possession". This triggers a failure of the [[Split Personality Merge]] (which leads up to the manga's rendering of the "good end" of ''IV'').}}

* {{spoiler|Tsubaki}} from ''[[Mirai Nikki]]'' once had a toy ball given to her by her deceased mother. {{spoiler|Becomes a [[Chekhov's Gun]] when Yukiteru finds it and uses it to distract Tsubaki and kill her.}}

* The title character from ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'' has his father's pelt.

* ''[[Cyborg 009]]'': Albert Heinrich has the ring that belonged to his [[Death by Origin Story|tragically lost fiancee Hilda]] on a chain around his neck. Eventually, it comes in handy when {{spoiler|he uses it while nearly completely paralyzed to shoot down Cyborg 0011.}}

* {{spoiler|A piece of Baron's headband}} in ''[[Genesis of Aquarion]]''.

* Guts from ''[[Berserk]]'' wears {{spoiler|a throwing knife strap}} after [[It Got Worse|The Eclipse]] in memory of {{spoiler|Judeau and all the other members of the Hawks who perished.}}

*** But it also reconstructed in that Guts knows that Casca is the only person that he has of value in the world, and [[Morality Chain|without her presence]], he would have gone off the deep end long ago. That, and Casca is the only living testament of the very few good and pleasant things that have happened in [[Dark and Troubled Past|Guts' life]]. And with the possibility of seeing her cured of her insanity, Casca is really the last window of optimism that Guts has left to see in this world.

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': {{spoiler|Kamina found his signature [[Badass Cape]] worn by his father's corpse.}} In ''[[The Movie|Lagann-hen]]'', {{spoiler|Simon wears Nia's wedding ring as a necklace after her death.}}

* Pictured above: Christopher Walken keeps his buddy's watch ''up his ass'' in a POW camp in Vietnam for two years so he could give it to (the child) Butch in ''[[Pulp Fiction]]''.

* Inigo Montoya of ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'' wields the sword that his father forged for Count Rugen, [[You Killed My Father|who killed him]] after he refused to sell the sword to him at only a tenth of the price that Rugen promised he would pay.

* Colonel Mortimer from ''[[For a Few Dollars More]]'' has a pocketwatch given to him by his sister. There's another pocketwatch that once belonged to the sister in question, but was taken by Indio {{spoiler|following her suicide as he was raping her.}}

* When [[James Bond]] went on his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] in the movie ''[[Licence to Kill]]'', his keepsake was the cigarette lighter that once belonged to Felix Leiter, the friend he's seeking to avenge. Becomes a [[Chekhov's Gun]] when he uses it to set the [[Big Bad]] on fire.

* ''[[Smallville]]'' Lana Lang wore a piece of the meteor that killed her parents as a pendant. That's right, she wore as jewelry ''a piece of the meteor that killed her parents''. And since the audience needs to understand that it's kryptonite, she just ''won't stop talking about it''...

** It makes one wonder just why they haven't, in a series where Kryptonite can do almost anything under the right conditions, done the one other thing that normal green Kryptonite does: gives humans cancer after long-term exposure. Hell, in the normal DC ''and'' DCAU continuties, Lex Luthor got cancer by having a kryptonite ring around. Or even turn her into a meteor freak.

* In Japanese drama ''[[Shokojo Sera]]'', the necklace main protagonist Seira gave her father before he left was given back to her upon his death. And when she would later run away from the school, it was the only thing she brought with her.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' fan favorite "The Inner Light", a probe downloads the experiences of an alien civilization into Picard. From his point of view, {{spoiler|he gets married, raises children, watches his friends pass away, and wakes up to discover that the civilization had been wiped out a thousand years ago}}. He gets a flute, and in a [[Continuity Nod]], the flute appears in later episodes.

** He also had opera tickets that he eventually let wash away into the ocean in the episode that aired around the 10th anniversary.

* In ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'', woe betide the man who dares steal Mr. Gold's chipped teacup—a relic from the fairytale world, where the cup was chipped by Belle. The fact that Mr. Gold {{spoiler|is one of two people in Storybrooke who remembers his true identity}} means that while other characters ''are'' seen with their own emotionally-significant objects, only Gold is aware of the significance of his own keepsake.

 

 

* Dart from ''[[The Legend of Dragoon]]'' keeps a gem his father once had before he and his mother were killed by the Black Monster. {{spoiler|This is later revealed to be the Dragoon Spirit of the Red-Eyed Dragon, which allows him to go into Dragoon form.}}

* ''[[Persona 3]]'' has a couple of these. Mamoru, the Star Social Link, carries his father's car keys (from the car he died driving); when you max out the link, {{spoiler|he decides to take responsibility for his family by working in a factory; as a sign he's moved past his father's death, he leaves the car keys with you.}} The Sun social link has what could be called a subverted one, the notebook Akinari wrote his story in {{spoiler|before he died from his disease; in the epilogue, you offer it to his mother, but she asks you to keep it so that she can hear the story from Akinari himself in the afterlife.}}

** The girl's route in the remake also shows a few. Ken, who is a social link, keeps the key to his house (which was destroyed and left him without a home and a family). {{spoiler|When he overcomes the regrets of losing his mom and realizes he suppressed all of the loving memories with her for the sake of revenge, he gives the protagonist that key, representing how he moved on, along with she is just as important him as those memories.}} Koromaru also has the collar that he used to wear on his walks with his late master, and Shinjiro also has pocket watch which he cherishes, and as he's an orphan also, it's likely it was from a family member. There's also Ryoji, who gives you a ring {{spoiler|as proof that he was once human, before going on to cause the Fall.}}

* In ''[[Dragon Quest IV]]'', [[The Hero]] {{spoiler|can pick up Elisa's feather cap after her [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}}.

 

== Webcomics ==

* [[Homestuck]]: In the End of Act 5, after {{spoiler|the Exiles are massacred, Serenity, WV's firefly companion, hangs around PM}}.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'', Mako wears [[Scarf of Asskicking|a red scarf]], which is a common fashion statement for Firebenders in Republic City. But he is unusually attached to his scarf. When he goes to the restaurant with Asami Sato, he wears it with his tuxedo. Later on, she buys him a silk scarf, which he does not wear, so she asks why. [[Tear Jerker|Mako tells Asami the scarf is all he has left of his murdered father]].

 

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Though it's usually not to remind us why we're on our [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], in [[Real Life]], people will often keep and wear/use things belonging to relatives who've passed on.

* As a matter of fact, several religions keep a whole collection and record of these things. The most famous ones are [[wikipedia:Relic#Christian relics|the Catholic relics]] - the most poignant and tragic (and sometimes, creepy) are those that belonged to all kind of martyrs, but any inspirational beloved will do. Relics come in three flavors: body parts of the actual saint (can vary from drops of blood in a bottle to an entire body, bonus points if it's uncorrupted), items that were worn in a regular basis by the saint (i.e.: Saint Pio of Pietrelcina's gloves which he used to cover his stigmata), and items that were merely touched or blessed by that saint (such as a robe, a piece of the Holy Cross, a favorite shepherd's crook, etc.) Several miracles are credited to relics, no matter what flavor they are: i.e., in Italy the vial that contains the blood of Saint Gennaro is said to have its contents miraculously liquified during the saint's feast.

** As a bonus, during medieval ages there was a whole ''black market'' of relics, where diverse Catholic groups would steal them and either sell or smuggle them to other places. An example would be [[wikipedia:Catherine of Sienna#Veneration|Saint Catherine of Sienna's head]].

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[[Category:Death Tropes]]