History Main / EmptyChairMemorial

* To prove that this trope isn't necessarily a DeathTrope, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony kept a chair empty for that year's winner, Liu Xiaobo, who was being held as a political prisoner in China at the time. The prize was placed on his empty chair.

-->'''Blofeld:''' I regret to inform you all of the death of SPECTRE Number Six. Colonel Jacque Bouvier was killed by an unknown assassin. His services will be greatly missed.

* After the death of chef, author, and CNN correspondent Creator/AnthonyBourdain, a New York deli that he frequented set out his usual breakfast order at an empty table.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' adheres to the spirit of the trope if not the letter: Big Mom's Tea Party always leave an empty seat opposite of her for Mother Carmel. Big Mom held her in high regard, followed her dream, and [[BerserkButton gets annoyed every time someone mentioned her]].

* In a season three episode of ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'', Sophia befriends an elderly gentleman named Alvin on the boardwalk who always sits on the same park bench every day, and the two become inseparable. It turns out Alvin has Alzheimer's disease and is to be moved to New York where he can receive proper care. At the end of the episode, sometime after Alvin has already moved away, Sophia sits on the bench alone reminiscing on him, and she scolds someone who tries to sit in Alvin's place, screaming "Hey! Someone's sittin' there!". The episode closes on the empty park bench as she and Dorothy make their way home.

* ''{{Series/Leverage}}'': "[[Recap/LeverageS02E11TheBottleJob The Bottle Job]]" opens with Cora [=McRory=] moving through a wake at her late-father's bar and finds some of his poker buddies in the back playing a game. They honor their late friend by keeping a chair open for him.

* After Kate dies on ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', the other characters insist on giving her an 'empty desk' memorial. Ultimately, their new teammate is allowed to sit there, either signifying their acceptance of Kate's death and their new teammate or that having Ziva sit off in at a lonely desk would be awkward for group shots. Either way.

* After Quentin Fields' death in ''Series/OneTreeHill'', Haley prevents anybody from sitting in his desk and later, she and her students proceed to write goodbye messages on his desk in his honor.

* The episode ''My Five Stages'' of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' deals with J.D. and Dr. Cox working to try and make a terminally ill patient as comfortable as possible, and dealing with grief as they watch her go. The show opens with them making her a fake beach of the roof the hospital and relaxing with deck chairs and trying to avoid talking about what's coming. The bittersweet ending has J.D. and Dr. Cox sitting there again, smiling after accepting that she's gone, but still looking sadly at the empty chair she occupied.

* The video for Music/AvengedSevenfold's "Nightmare" ends with a shot of The Rev's unoccupied drum kit. The booklet with the album features a picture of the four remaining members drinking at a bar with The Rev's coat laying on an empty stool.

* The page quote comes from the poem "The Vacant Chair" by Henry S. Washburn, which was later set to music by George Frederick Root and became a popular song during the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar. It was written in the memory of John William Grout who was killed in Battle of Ball's Bluff at the age of 18.

* In ''VideoGame/BeaconPines'', Luka's deceased father's old fishing chair still stands by Old Pickler's Pound, where the two of them used to fish. Jetson, the local angler, offers Luka to bring it home with him, since it he does most of his fishing standing up any way, but Luka doesn't like the idea.
* In Dian Wei's ending of ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors 9'', Cao Cao, Xiahou Dun, Xiahou Yuan, and Xu Zhu are drinking and mourning for his death. There's an empty chair beside Cao Cao who suddenly stood up and looked at the starry night, commemorating that he would never forget Dian Wei's HeroicSacrifice at Wan Castle.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration 2'', Tetsuya Onodera refuses to take Captain Daitetsu's seat after his death, carrying on as Acting Captain.[[note]]Their ship, the Hagane, is one big ''Yamato'' reference.[[/note]] [[{{Jerkass}} Lee Linjun]] mocks this after his FaceHeelTurn, which makes his losing to Tetsuya all the more satisfying to watch.

** During the 1970's and 1980's, to indicate solidarity with Soviet Jews who were barred from practicing their religion, many a bar and bat mitzvah in the United States featured an empty chair on the pulpit with the name of a Soviet Jewish child who was unable to have a bar/bat mitzvah celebration.

* Auto racing has a version where pole position on the starting grid is left empty in respect of a driver that recently died. At the 1994 Monaco [[UsefulNotes/FormulaOne Grand Prix]] both front row positions were left empty in memory of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, who both died during the previous race weekend.

** It's not usually an official practice, but in many schools, if a student dies during the year for any number of reasons, many times, any seats they claimed in a classroom may remain empty for the rest of the school year, whether said classes had official seating charts or no. For example, Katherine Hruby was a high-schooler when her brother killed her and her parents, and her classmates left her seat empty for the rest of the school year.

* Peter Jennings's chair on Creator/{{ABC}}'s ''World News Tonight'' has remained vacant since his death in 2005.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' creator Creator/CharlesMSchulz built and owned the Redwood Empire Ice Arena (aka Snoopy's Home Ice) in his home of Santa Rosa, California. The arena has a small restaurant called The Warm Puppy Cafe, where Schulz would eat daily at the same table. While he was alive the cafe kept a RESERVED sign on the table when he wasn't there. Since he passed away [[https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/1b/25/87/9b/charles-schulz-table.jpg the sign has been left on the table permanently.]]

* Since 1873, the United States Supreme Court has commemorated the death of a Justice by draping black cloth over his/her chair in the courtroom.

* At the premiere screening of ''Series/GoodOmens'', the seat beside Creator/NeilGaiman was reserved for his co-author, the late Creator/TerryPratchett, as it had been their dream (and Sir Terry's dying wish) to see ''Good Omens'' adapted for the screen. Sir Terry's seat was occupied instead by his trademark hat and scarf, and a packet of popcorn[[note]]Sir Terry had said prior to his death that he wouldn't believe a Good Omens adaptation would be made until he was sitting at the premiere eating popcorn[[/note]].

* On Veteran's Day (formerly Armistice Day, i.e. 11th Day of the 11th Month) many table service restaurants will have a single table set in remembrance of the fallen similar to the military custom describe above. Texas Roadhouse in particular is known for observing this tradition. https://www.newslinq.com/texas-roadhouse-veteran-initiative/

* After Wrestling/BrayWyatt passed away on August 25, 2023, the following episode of ''Wrestling/WWESmackDown'' paid tribute by shining a spotlight on Bray's rocking chair in the middle of the stage.

* In October 2020, a group of people who had survived UsefulNotes/{{Covid19|Pandemic}} and/or had lost loved ones to the virus set out 20,000 empty chairs on the lawn across from the White House as a tribute to the 200,000 people who had died in the epidemic; though they had to lower the number to make the project feasible, they were able to use this to drive their point home, pointing out the vast expanse of chairs before reminding onlookers that had they been able to set out chairs to represent the true number of fatalities, it would have been over ''ten times'' as large.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'', "The Dead Pool": Castle invites his protege (a newly published crime novelist) to come to the authors' poker game, and he tries to sit down in a particular chair. The group warns him off, saying "That's [[Creator/StephenJCannell Cannell's]] chair." He then gets a lecture that the group keeps the chair of a dead player empty for a year. This aired [[InMemoriam after Stephen Cannell's actual death]].

Compare ThisIsMyChair, EmptyBedroomGrieving, and MissingManFormation. Sub-trope of ShrineToTheFallen as the chair can serve as one.

* After Creator/MatthewPerry passed away in October 2023, many ''Series/{{Friends}}'' fans paid tribute to him by sharing a screencap from the episode "The One Where Ross And Rachel... You Know", [[https://www.tbsnews.net/sites/default/files/styles/very_big_1/public/images/2023/10/29/370126294_1057340292089713_992537943294999637_n_1.jpg where Joey turns to talk to Chandler]], but notices his La-Z-Boy chair is empty.

* * The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Chair_Memorial Empty Chair Memorial]] in Juneau, Alaska, United States, dedicated to the 53 Japanese-Americans then living there who were forcibly relocated to internment camps during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The name refers to high schooler John Tanaka who was relocated a month before his graduation, and whose classmates left him an empty chair during said graduation.

* * The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Chair_Memorial Empty Chair Memorial]] in Alaska, United States, dedicated to the 53 Japanese-Americans forcibly relocated to internment camps during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The name refers to high schooler John Tanaka who was relocated a month before his graduation, and whose classmates left him an empty chair during said graduation.

--> '''Edmund''': So sorry I'm late. (Tries to sit in the empty chair)
--> '''King''': Hold it! You dare sit there, boy? That was King Richard's seat - would you insult his ghost?
--> '''Richard the Third''' (materialising in the chair as a ghost): Yes, find your own chair, you smelly little dog's pizzle.

Compare ThisIsMyChair, EmptyBedroomGrieving and MissingManFormation. Sub-trope of ShrineToTheFallen as the chair can serve as one.

* After Wrestling/BrayWyatt passed away on August 25, 2023, the following episode of '''Wrestling/WWESmackDown'' paid tribute by shining a spotlight on Bray's rocking chair in the middle of the stage.

* After Wrestling/BrayWyatt passed away on August 25th, 2023, the following episode of '''WWE [=SmackDown=]!'' paid tribute by shining a spotlight on Bray's rocking chair in the middle of the ring.

* After Wrestling/BrayWyatt passed away on August 25th, 2023, the following episode of '''WWE [=SmackDownn=]!'' paid tribute by shining a spotlight on Bray's rocking chair in the middle of the ring.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' creator Creator/CharlesMSchulz built and owned the Redwood Empire Ice Arena (aka Snoopy's Home Ice) in his hometown of Santa Rosa, California. The arena has a small restaurant called The Warm Puppy Cafe, where Schulz would eat daily at the same table. While he was alive the cafe kept a RESERVED sign on the table when he wasn't there. Since he passed away [[https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/1b/25/87/9b/charles-schulz-table.jpg the sign has been left on the table permanently.]]

* After the death of chef, author, and Creator/{{CNN}} correspondent Creator/AnthonyBourdain, a New York deli that he frequented set out his usual breakfast order at an empty table.