That Man Is Dead: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|'''[[The Don|Carl Grissom]]:''' ''Jack, listen! Maybe we can cut a deal!''

|''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]''}}

 

 

If a genuine hero utters it (though they generally use one of the variations below), it's because their past life was naive, evil, or selfish, and it's a sign that they've overcome their problems in the beginning and are ready to ascend to the grand finale. If an [[Anti-Hero]] utters it, it's to emphasize their dark (or at least rebellious) nature. If a villain utters it to another villain, it's to show that they're [[Eviler Than Thou]].

{{quote|'''Eclipse''': ''"You know I don't go by that name anymore."''

'''Applejack''': ''"That don't matter. You'll still always be {{spoiler|Twilight}} to me."'' }}

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Everworld]]'', the witch Senna Wales abandoned her birth name when her mother left her, using "Senna"(which is a mispronunciation of her real name) as a way of separating herself from the "crying, lost little girl without her mother." She explictly thinks in the ninth book that, "That was all dead and buried now. Had been for a long time. I was me, I was [[Magnificent Bastard|Senna Wales]]."

* ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked]]'' - Done with Galinda, who changes her name to Glinda. More comedic and parody like in the musical then the book though.

* He doesn't take a new name, but [[Night|Eliezer]] describes his [[Determinator|spiritual hardening]] in these terms after he watches a cart dump children into a firepit. He's lucky enough to be spared, but ""[T]he student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me."

* In ''[[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]]'' {{spoiler|the narrator says that Phaedrus is gone, killed by electric shock, and he seems to legitimately believe it. Unlike most examples, the narrator gives his ex-personality a different name than his own (which is not revealed).}}

* In ''[[Symphony of Ages|Destiny]]'' by Elizabeth Haydon, Rhapsody is angsting over having people that {{spoiler|Llauron the Invoker}} is dead when he's actually still alive. (Her powers derive from telling the truth and only the truth. Telling a lie makes her lose her powers.) One of her friends tells her that if she had used {{spoiler|Llauron's}} full name, she would have been lying, but since she only used his title, technically, she didn't tell a lie, because {{spoiler|Llauron the Invoker}} ''is'' dead because he's no longer {{spoiler|the Invoker.}}

* The title character of ''[[The Sheik]]'' did this after spiting his English heritage and disowning his father:

* The narrator of ''Don Quixote, USA'' opens the story with a mild version of this: "Unfortunately I am--or at least was--Arthur Peabody Goodpasture." [[How We Got Here|Then the book explains]] how he was declared to have been murdered, became part of a revolutionary movement, {{spoiler|'''accidentally''' took over the movement, and successfully (again by accident) ousted the dictator}}. In the last chapter, leaving a wreath at a memorial to his supposedly-dead self, he comments about the way he originally was, "He was a fine young man and I miss him, but, Name of God, he was certainly stupid."

 

* In ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Sylar becomes furious when Bennet insists on calling him "Gabriel."

** Inverted in "I Am Become Death", when Future-Sylar insists that Peter call him Gabriel.

And if the folks will have me

Then they'll have me

 

Any world that I'm welcome to

** Which has a double meaning, given that the Undertaker is also known by the nickname "the Deadman".

* Done humorously by Chavo Guerrero when in the summer of 2005 he suddenly denounced his Guerrero heritage and transformed into "Kerwin White," a stereotype of the white, upper-middle-class 1960s American, complete with a sweater vest and a golf club and entrance theme reminiscent of the tunes of [[Frank Sinatra]]. On the night he made his first appearance (on ''Sunday Night Heat''), some people in the audience asked where the hell Chavo was, and "Kerwin" explained that he was out looking for work "with all the other unemployed Hispanics."

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* An innate part of becoming an Abyssal [[Exalted]]; you must throw your destiny and your birth name into the Void, to be consumed forever, and take on a moniker given to you by your Deathlord. Were you Rose once? Well, now you're Bitter Taste of Blood on Thorns. Oh, and if you ever let someone call you by your old name, you build Resonance, which may [[Walking Wasteland|lash out and kill people close to you]].

** One very, ''very'' important exception: as long as there's a positive Intimacy, [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones|the Abyssal's Lunar mate can always use that name without Resonance]]. [[The Power of Love|Love shatters the rules.]]

 

== Theatre ==

'''Sancho''' (in confused hope): Aldonza?

'''Aldonza''': My name is Dulcinea. }}

 

== Video Games ==

{{quote|"Neutral" ending: "You were a better man dead. As far as I'm concerned, you still are."}}

* In ''[[Blaze Union]]'', Gulcasa finds his childhood friend Jenon's insistence on calling him by his fake name Garlot extremely upsetting and continually tries to make him stop, to little effect. A similar exchange occurs between Nessiah and Eater in another route, when Eater tries to call Nessiah by his original name "Aries"; Nessiah cuts him off, offended.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Endstone]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20120702032014/http://endstone.net/2009/04/25/issue-1-page-14/ Cole Montaigne uses it word for word].

 

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Identity Index]]