To Absent Friends: Difference between revisions
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Two or more characters gather to grieve for a dead comrade, without a formalized structure. They reminiscence about the fallen, how much he will be missed -- or has been missed.
An actual wake is possible, as the bereaved can talk and drink without a ceremony to go through. Or they may meet somewhere, and talk. (They may not even intend to grieve, but they end up doing so.) A bar is likely, because the wake often involves alcohol -- so often that it generally does not appear only if it is impossible. Expect the dead to be toasted. ([[Drowning My Sorrows]] may convert into this if the drinker bumps into another friend.) Sometimes the drink is poured on the ground as a [[Libation for
Soldiers on a mission may start to talk, and lead to this, if they are waiting for something and have lost a comrade. (The situation in which alcohol is least likely to feature. But the [[Military Moonshiner]] may have some.)
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May also feature long after the death (or deaths) as characters remember all their dead and [[Famed in Story|tell stories of them]]. The toast is often "To absent friends". This can overlap with [[Tell Me About My Father]].
Suitable for a [[Bittersweet Ending]] or a [[Downer Ending]], but can happen anywhere in a story -- even as a [[Framing Device]] at the very beginning of a work that [[Starts
Contrast [[Forgotten Fallen Friend]], [[Dead Guy, Junior]].
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{{examples}}
== Anime&Manga ==
* In ''[[
* Raizen's old comrades-in-arms gather at his grave with lots of sake and flowers in ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]].''
** And let's not forget Yusuke-the-ghost attending his own wake in the [[Death By Origin Story|very first episode.]]
* In ''[[Monster (
* {{spoiler|Maes Hughes'}} grave in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
** There is a scene in [[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* When {{spoiler|Wolfwood}} dies in the [[Trigun]] manga, he and Vash share a final drink while he goes in what effectively ''is'' his wake. Then, when Livio wakes up from healing the fight damage, Vash has made a vast quantity of spaghetti, and their spaghetti-eating is several symbolic things, including affirmation of life, signal of Vash's willingness to accept Livio, and meal in honor of {{spoiler|Wolfwood}}. It is the saddest spaghetti ever.
** Vash also pours a bottle of whiskey off an observation platform in the anime version of Inepril. Not even clear just who he's honoring, but it's probably the dead. He has a lot of them.
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{{quote| '''Hob Gadling:''' To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due.}}
* In ''[[The Mighty Thor]]'', after Skurge the Executioner [[More Hero Than Thou|settles whether he or Thor]] will say [[You Shall Not Pass]] (by knocking out Thor), Skurge asks them to remember him at Asgard. Later, when Thor and Skurge meet in Hel, Skurge asks, and Thor is grieved to have to tell him that crises have kept them too busy to do so.
* This trope is the title to Chapter II in ''[[Watchmen (
* [[The Flash|The Rogues]] do this after one of their own is killed. They then have a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|"Rogue's Wake"]]
* At the end of ''Nexus: Alien Justice'', Horatio, Sundra, and Judah toast: "To absent friends and those still here. To justice, and home-brewed beer!" Something of a subversion, in that at least two of the friends they're toasting, Dave and GQ, are alive and well, just absent, and then GQ pops right back in just at that moment anyway.
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== Film ==
* Played straight in ''[[Star Trek III:
** Not totally for Spock, as Bones was unable to attend the get-together due to his apparent breakdown a couple scenes before.
** Also played straight in ''[[Star Trek Nemesis]]''.
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* Nearly universal in any sort of military fiction
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[
* The [[The Riftwar Cycle|novelisation]] of ''[[Betrayal
* Happens in the book ''First To Fight'' by David Sherman and Dan Cragg, it pops up throughout the rest of the series as well. To be expected, in a military series.
* Occurs in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Discworld]] novel ''[[Discworld
* In William King's [[Warhammer 40000]] [[Space Wolf]] novel ''Ragnar's Claw'', after Ragnar is gravely injured and {{spoiler|Lars}} killed, Ragnar is too ill to attend the funeral. When he is well enough to stand, the other young Space Marine gather, and their first words are "To {{spoiler|Lars}}."
** In Lee Lightner's ''Wolf's Honour'', Ragnar and {{spoiler|Torin}} talk of {{spoiler|Haegr}} at their last meeting.
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'''Face''': "Dia, this is Wraith Squadron. You're ''never'' going to have that." }}
* [[John Ringo]] and [[David Weber]] have this as pretty much the toast whenever characters drink. Often the reason why people drink in the first place. Their joint series, [[Prince Roger]] has this in spades.
** Weber manages a particularly vicious subversion of this in [[Honor Harrington
* In [[Jim Butcher]]'s [[Dresden Files]] novel ''Turn Coat'', {{spoiler|Morgan}} is officially denied a [[Meaningful Funeral]] as part of the coverup. They resort to an impromptu wake instead.
* [[Gentleman Bastard|Locke Lamora]] practices the Camorri tradition of "pouring a glass to air," setting out a drink for a friend who's gone -- whether that means dead, or simply long absent.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s "[[
* The first book of the Invasion cycle in the [[Magic:
* In a few of his [[
== Live Action TV ==
* In one episode of ''[[M*A*S*H
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' has this trope, like many others, to an art form. It's played quite frequently in the Viper rec room, especially. Apollo's retirement toast is an awesome example of the trope. (involving five shots of a potent drink--quite possibly [[Military Moonshiner|eau de flight deck]]):
{{quote| "To Galactica!" (Apollo takes a first shot amidst cheers)<br />
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Crew: So say we all.<br />
Starbuck: So say we all. }}
* [[News Radio]] had one of these episodes for Phil Hartman's character [[The Character Died
* [[Sesame Street]]. Mister Hooper. That is all.
* ''[[Rescue Me]]'' does this fairly frequently (particularly the transition from [[Drowning My Sorrows]]), especially with respect to the firemen lost on 9/11 (a recurring theme, if not the central one of the show).
* At the end of ''[[
* In the final episode of ''[[
* ''[[The West Wing]]'' episode "Requiem" combines this with the [[Meaningful Funeral]] to provide a heartfelt (and [[Tear Jerker]]) send-off to Leo McGarry and, by extension, his actor John Spencer. Combined very effectively with the [[Meaningful Funeral]] at the beginning of the episode; the funeral is presented so as to mourn Leo's death (and Spencer's), whereas the wake is about celebrating his life and how much his friends loved him.
* [[The Next Generation]] has an episode in which they find Scotty persevered in a transporter beam for over seventy years. As the events of the episode wear down on Scotty, he takes a private moment alone in a holodeck simulation of the original Enterprise where he toasts to his now gone comrades.
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{{quote| ''The war changed us... pulled us apart... I want my friends in my life, because someday we're going to wake up and we're going to find that someone is missing from this circle. On that day, we're going to mourn, and we shouldn't have to mourn alone.''}}
** Done more lightheartedly when Julian and O'Brien come off the holodeck dressed as Spitfire pilots, and raise a pint of bitter "To Clive!"
* The closing in scene of "The Breaking Point" in ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]'' has Sgt. Lipton narrating while he and the rest of Easy Company are resting in a church. He begins listing off the casualties they suffered over the course of the Battle of the Bulge and the corresponding soldiers start fading away until the church looks ''far'' emptier than it did before. [[Tear Jerker|It's a particularly heart-rending scene.]]
* ''[[The Pacific]]'' does this as well in episode 3, with Basilone and Morgan ordering about a dozen different drinks and toasting their dead friend {{spoiler|Rodriguez}}, and even getting into a fight with another patron who makes a tactless comment.
* ''[[CSI New York]]'' has done this twice, first for Aidan Burn near the end of the second season, and then for Jessica Angell at the end of the fifth season.
* In the finale for ''[[Space: Above and Beyond]]'', Wang gives one of these, listing every Wildcard to die during the show's run, ''as part of the [[Battle Cry]] that he gives during his [[Last Stand]] to [[Heroic Sacrifice|cover the escape of the ship carrying the rescued colonists]].
* The Freddie Frinton sketch ''[[
== Music ==
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== Theater ==
* The meal scene in [[
* The songs "Drink With Me" and "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" in ''[[Les Misérables (
* In Shakespeare's [[Macbeth]], this trope is subverted as in [[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]. Macbeth proposes a toast to everyone's "general joy" and "to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here!" Unbeknownst to the guests, Banquo has been murdered and his ghost has returned to haunt Macbeth.
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