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{{trope}}
Wills combine death and the prospect of riches, making them potent plot devices. People will commit crimes to get in the will, or comply with [[On One Condition|bizarre conditions]], but some are lucky enough to receive a massive inheritance [[Unexpected Inheritance|out of the blue.]]
The fun starts before the will writer's death, with the decision about who gets what. Since they can keep changing their mind, there is ample opportunity for coercion, both by them and of them, and there may be several versions of the will floating around.
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If the will writer is a jerk, or worse, they'll use the threat of being cut out of the will to control the prospective heirs. 'Do as you're told, or [[Inadequate Inheritor|you'll be out on the street without a penny to your name]].' In the worst case, the children will be reduced to virtual slaves. The relatives may snap and kill the [[Asshole Victim|will writer]], or they may suffer in silence, but either way, the will writer often has the last laugh, [[Passed Over Inheritance|leaving their entire fortune to an ironic charity.]]
Just as often, the prospective heirs will try anything to get in the will. The ethical simply treat their rich uncle with extra kindness, visiting regularly and naming children after him, but draw the line at openly asking to be in the will. The less ethical may go as far as marrying the will writer, [[
Crooks go further. Crooked lawyers, and other advisers, may insert small print in the will, or whole extra pages, so that will writer doesn't sign what they thought they were signing. If they can't tamper with the actual will, they may just forge one outright. Less subtle villains will use overt coercion to dictate the will, possibly even at gunpoint.
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Once they're in the will, the villain then usually kills the will writer, before they can revoke the will. A [[Black Widow]] specialises in this crime.
Sometimes, everyone knows where the will is, and they can get straight on with reading it. Other time, it is hidden, accidentally or on purpose. It might have been posted to Outer Mongolia by mistake, or it might have been hidden to keep the villains from realising that the will in their favour had been revoked. There is usually a deadline the will has to be found by.
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If the plot is about the hunt for the will, it's a [[McGuffin]] will.
Traditionally, everyone involved gathered in the lawyer's office, and listened to the will being read out, but these days [[Video Will|video wills]] are increasingly common. Small bequests come first, with the most dramatic revelations at the end. Either way, it gives the dearly departed a chance to speak from beyond the grave.
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The will is also a popular time to reveal unknown relations - illegitimate children, secret adoptions, siblings who have been missing for fifty years. If there was a murder, these people are now suspects. If they're not at the will reading, they'll need to be tracked down. This can also provide a [[Deus Ex Machina]]; the protagonist inherits from a distant relative they've never heard of, just when it's most convenient.
Sometimes the inheritance doesn't always go to who people [[Mind Screw|think it is going to go to]]. Often times the [[Inadequate Inheritor
For the most part, the reading of the will is a case of [[Artistic License: Law]], rather than [[Truth in Television]]. In [[Real Life]], the only people who actually see the will (after death) are the lawyer, the executor/administrator/commissioner of the estate, and the probate court. A beneficiary ''does'' have the right to see the will, but he must specifically request it.
There are various ways of getting a will thrown out. The disappointed heir could look for a later will, which means going back to finding the will.
If the will writer was killed, their murderer is automatically disinherited. The heir just has to prove they did it, setting up a [[Murder Mystery]]. Forgery and tampering are subtler crimes, so are usually left to the more cerebral mysteries.
A marriage or divorce which took place after the will was drafted may invalidate it; conversely "separated" is still technically "married", an annoying legal pitfall for inheritances.
If the villain simply had undue influence on the will writer, such as a [[Black Widow]], or if the will is unreasonable, the only option is to take it to court. Many of the [[On One Condition|more bizarre conditions]] would be thrown out if they were challenged, but these cases are notoriously slow, so are seldom the main focus of a plot.
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{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnHUI43FoRU This commercial] for DirecTV. Well, at least Chauncey won't have to pay inheritance taxes.
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In one case from ''[[Detective Conan]]'', the family of Yukiko's childhood friend comes together at the family estate to hear the reading of the deceased patriarch's will. Things are tense (aside from the inevitable murder) thanks to the arrival of an uncle who nobody had seen since he moved to Brazil 30 years
== Comedy ==
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* ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' has [[McGuffin|Marvin Acme's will]], which was hidden. ([[Hidden in Plain Sight|In plain sight]], as a matter of fact.)
* ''Greedy'' is pretty much entirely about the second and third paragraphs under ''Writing the Will'', above.
* ''The Ultimate Gift'' uses a will at the beginning of the film to set up the story. The protagonist has to perform the convoluted tasks set forth in the will in order to inherit billions.
* ''[[Dark and Stormy Night]]'' plays this to the hilt as the set piece. Complete with and [[Old Dark House]].
* ''[[All of Me]]'' has [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|the main character's lawyer]] suggesting in no uncertain terms that the will may be challenged "if you are not of sound mind" after an abrupt, unexpected change leaves everything inexplicably to one person.
* [[The Film of the Book|The film adaptation]] of ''[[The Borrowers]]'' involves an unscrupulous lawyer claiming that the deceased in question never wrote a proper will, thus making him the sole beneficiary of her estate including the house that her niece's family — the film's protagonists — are currently living in. In reality, she had an extra copy hidden in the walls of the house itself because [[Properly Paranoid|she never did trust lawyers]].
* ''[[Mousehunt]]'' kicks off with the protagonists' father leaving them his string factory and an old repossessed house that turns out to be (A) the work of a famous architect and (B) inhabited by the eponymous mouse.
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** In ''The Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach'', the odd bequest is Great-Uncle Joseph's stomach, {{spoiler|which happens to be packed with a number of very large high quality diamonds (thoughtfully swallowed by Great-Uncle before he commits suicide)}}.
* [[Stephen King]] wrote a [[Sherlock Holmes]] story where the [[Asshole Victim]] used his will to dominate his family.
* Several wills are plot points in the ''[[Harry Potter]]''
** Sirius Black, Harry's godfather leaves him his entire estate.
** Dumbledore leaves Harry, Ron and Hermione specific items in his will, (they're carefully considered [[Plot Coupons]] for his big [[Thanatos Gambit]].)
** Whether Harry's parents had wills is unknown, but he does inherit both of their entire estates as
* ''[[The Westing Game]]'' involves a man leaving his will in the form of a convoluted game, the winner of which will become his heir.
* In [[L. M. Montgomery]]'s ''[[A Tangled Web]]'' eccentric Aunt Becky willed that the name of the heir of a priceless heirloom will only be disclosed a year after her death. Because the will dropped a few hints that a unknown judge would be selecting the heir, the family members spent the rest of the year trying their best to live up to what Aunt Becky would have wanted in an attempt to win the heirloom.
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* In an episode of ''[[Married... with Children]]'', Al Bundy's Uncle Stymie, the only male Bundy to be a success in life (Al credits this to the fact Stymie was the only one who never married), left his $500,000 estate to the first male Bundy to have a legitimate son named after him. Considering that the lawyer who read the will would later marry a male Bundy and give birth to Stymie Junior to get the money, Al and the other Bundys who didn't get the money even though [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|could have challenged the will under claims of undue influence]].
* In ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' two-part episode "10 Million Dollar Sheriff", Rosco Coltrane believed he'd inherit ten million dollars from his uncle but it was later revealed that will was inaccurate and Rosco only inherited ten dollars. {{spoiler|Obviously, he only learned the truth after accumulating debts he relied on the ten-million-dollar inheritance to pay.}}
* ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]'': During a posting to an aid station at the front Hawkeye makes out a will. One of the soldiers who works there says he's seen lots of guys do that.
** An earlier episode has Frank Burns, delirious with a high fever, thinking he's going to die and dictating his will to Father Mulcahy. Among other things, he leaves "all profits from my prescription kickbacks" to his children and his clothes to Margaret Houlihan.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* In [[Shadowrun]], upon the death of the Great Dragon Dunkelzahn, his entire hoard was divided in the most ridiculously convoluted will in history, with bequests ranging from the practical to the symbolic to the absurd (including the largest bequest: over thirteen billion dollars to repay the one gold coin, "accounting for inflation and interest," that Art Dankwalther's ancestor had lent Dunkelzahn in the Fourth Age). It was so extreme that a [[Mega Corp]], the Draco Foundation, was set up just to manage the will. All of this, of course, was related to the dragon's monumental [[Gambit Roulette]] to prepare the world to defeat the [[Eldritch Abomination|Horrors]] when they showed up again.
** For the curious, the entire will (minus some in-universe legal BS), plus some out-of-game annotations, can be found [https://web.archive.org/web/20110119014130/http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/Dunk_Will.htm here].
*** Be warned: It's '''''long''''' -- 'Print Preview' in Firefox shows ''62'' pages.
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