History Main / VictorianNovelDisease

* Viciously subverted in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'' when [[PlayerCharacter Arthur Morgan]] contracts tuberculosis. He [[NothingButSkinAndBones loses weight rapidly]], his eyes become sunken and bloodshot and his complexion becomes [[EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette noticeably paler]]. It also [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration affects the gameplay]], as your cores drain much faster than normal.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* The Pale Bride of ''VisualNovel/AnalogueAHateStory'' suffered a non-Victorian version of the trope. Though the exact nature of her disease is left ambiguous, it compromised her immune system and left her with [[YourDaysAreNumbered only a few years to live]]. The situation was so bleak that her father opted to place her in [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation]] instead. When the mysterious GirlInABox was awakened centuries later, culture and technology had regressed so severely aboard the ship that her new adoptive family simply couldn't grasp that she was ill. All they saw was an [[RavenHairIvorySkin unusually pale]], beautiful girl.

When suffering from Victorian Novel Disease, you can expect to meet plenty of people OopNorth or [[FunetikAksent from Zummerzet]], who will probably end up teaching you a thing or two about class, life in the mills or in the countryside, and how to love someone for real, amongst numerous other lessons. That is, when they ''aren't dying of [=VND=] themselves''.

* ''Film/MoulinRouge'' is based off of The Lady of the Camellias (see below in Literature.)

* ''Film/DarkVictory'' offers a peculiar example. This trope is initially averted, as Creator/BetteDavis suffers from relatively accurate symptoms of brain cancer--dizziness, headaches, blurred vision, numbness. However, it's played utterly straight after her brain surgery, which fails to cure her but somehow leaves her with a form of brain cancer that has her feeling healthy and vigorous and looking lovely until an attack of blindness that signifies her death is mere hours away.

-->'''Heroine:''' They will not have me for long. I have consumption, and will be dead before the year is out.

* Creator/AgathaChristie describes in her autobiography how her elderly grandmother tried to make Agatha seem more interesting to suitors by speaking of how frail and sickly she was. This resulted in the suitors (being 20th century boys) becoming very concerned, and Agatha very ''annoyed'', since she was as healthy as anything.

** The Holmes canon has a couple of cases of "brain fever", usually brought on by severe stress, which reads to the modern reader as a much more scientific version of this. (Both Doyle (in RealLife) and Watson (in the story) were Doctors, and as such, not likely to tolerate the usual version of this trope, with such a vague diagnosis and such a vague cause--but brain fever was an actual, contemporary diagnosis made by actual doctors, and still is, under the more specific headings of "Encephalitis", "Meningitis", "Cerebritis", Scarlet Fever, and, as in the case of the brain fever in ''The Naval Treaty'', possibly "stress-induced psychotic break".)

* Subverted by Lady Pole in ''Literature/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell''. Superficially she would have appeared to have something like TB (exhaustion, languor, weight-loss, depression etc.) but in fact she was being harrassed (i.e. slowly tortured to death by being forced to dance, night after night) by faeries. Quite a few people were seriously worried about her health but her mother refused to hear a word of it.

* Fantine in ''Theatre/LesMiserables'' dies of an unspecified disease ([[AllThereInTheManual identified in]] [[Literature/LesMiserables the novel]] as consumption/tuberculosis) and passes shortly after singing a beautiful song to her absent daughter. Unlike most examples, she is certainly not chaste (she had been employed as a prostitute for weeks before) nor traditionally beautiful (she's already had her hair chopped off and teeth removed, although the number of the latter depends on the production and is almost always HandWaved as her back teeth so that they don't have to preform dental work on an actress every night). In [[Film/LesMiserables2012 the film]], she is barely able to sing, and coughs the whole way down.

* Another operatic use of this trope is Mimi in ''Theatre/LaBoheme''. She faints immediately after first entering Rodolfo's apartment; he sees her pale complexion and falls in love. At the end, not surprisingly, she dies from consumption/tuberculosis.

* Marie Duplessis, the famous French courtesan who inspired ''La dame aux camelias'' and by extension ''Theatre/LaTraviata'', really did die of tuberculosis, and her last two lovers stayed with her til the end.

* In The movie Wanderlust, it is stated that the main female character Linda suffers from Eczema yet she is played by Jenifer Aniston who has flawless skin

* In one episode of Quantum leap there was a character with Down's syndrome who neither looked or acted like he had anything of the sort

* In the movie Wanderlust it is stated that the main female character Linda suffers from Eczema, yet she is played by Jennifer Aniston who has flawless skin

In one episode of Quantum Leap there was a guy with Down's syndrome, who neither looked or acted like he had anything of the sort

In modern times, a virulent strain has developed as the SoapOperaDisease. The LittlestCancerPatient is usually more upbeat about their [[YourDaysAreNumbered impending death]]. A common treatment for this is HealthyCountryAir.

In modern times, a virulent strain has developed as the SoapOperaDisease. The LittlestCancerPatient is usually more upbeat about their [[YourDaysAreNumbered impending death]].

* The Pale Bride of ''VisualNovel/AnalogueAHateStory'' suffered a non-Victorian version of the trope. Though the exact nature of her disease is left ambiguous, it compromised her immune system and left her with [[YourDaysAreNumbered only a few years to live]]. The situation was so bleak that her father opted to place her in SuspendedAnimation instead. When the mysterious GirlInABox was awakened centuries later, culture and technology had regressed so severely aboard the ship that her new adoptive family simply coudn't grasp that she was ill. All they saw was an [[RavenHairIvorySkin unusually pale]], beautiful girl.

* In ''Film/{{Cinderella 2015}}'', Ella's mother is seemingly dying of an illness but still looks beautiful, if a little thin.

[[folder:Fan Works]]

* Music/VanMorrison's "T.B. Sheets" is an [[SubvertedTrope subversion]].

* Marguerite aka The Lady of the Camellias (from the novel by Creator/AlexandreDumas ''fils'') is dying of a VictorianNovelDisease. Because nothing, not even the deterioration of one's lungs, should stand in the way of one's career as a successful courtesan!

The epitome of the fragile, delicate woman is the IllGirl -- AlwaysFemale, [[NatureAdoresAVirgin always innocent]] [[ChasteHero and pure]], almost always young [[note]] (usually in her teens or twenties, someone you wouldn't ''expect'' to be terminally ill)[[/note]], always dying of some disease that is very slow at actually killing her. As she lies enthroned in her beautiful sickroom, everyone around her spends countless hours musing poignantly on her death and/or trying to surround her with the things she loved most in life. Her proximity to the eternal gives her immense wisdom and insight, and she will be a neverending source of advice and comfort to her caretakers, to the point where it's hard to tell who is comforting whom. And, of course, since WomenAreDelicate, no aspect of her disease (whatever it may be, [[TheDiseaseThatMustNotBeNamed if it's named at all]]) is "icky" in any way, even if it would be in RealLife: she will never suffer from vomiting or diarrhea, never sweat more than a light glisten despite possibly running a fever, and any [[BloodFromTheMouth blood or mucus she coughs up]] will always land delicately in her lace handkerchief. Even when her weakness becomes so great that she can barely move, [[InspirationallyDisadvantaged she will never succumb to anger, despair, or frustration.]] When at last she slips the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God, those around her (one of them likely [[DiedInYourArmsTonight holding her frail form in his arms]]) will smile through their tears and [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth rejoice that her pure soul has taken its flight from this dirty world]]. Gag.

The epitome of the fragile, delicate woman is the IllGirl -- AlwaysFemale, [[NatureAdoresAVirgin always innocent]] [[ChasteHero and pure]], almost always young [[note]] (usually in her teens or twenties, someone you wouldn't ''expect'' to be terminally ill)[[/note]], always dying of some disease that is very slow at actually killing her. As she lies enthroned in her beautiful sickroom, everyone around her spends countless hours musing poignantly on her death and/or trying to surround her with the things she loved most in life. Her proximity to the eternal gives her immense wisdom and insight, and she will be a neverending source of advice and comfort to her caretakers, to the point where it's hard to tell who is comforting whom. Even when her weakness becomes so great that she can barely move, [[InspirationallyDisadvantaged she will never succumb to anger, despair, or frustration.]] When at last she slips the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God, those around her (one of them likely [[DiedInYourArmsTonight holding her frail form in his arms]]) will smile through their tears and [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth rejoice that her pure soul has taken its flight from this dirty world]]. Gag.

The epitome of the fragile, delicate woman is the IllGirl -- AlwaysFemale, [[NatureAdoresAVirgin always innocent]] [[ChasteHero and pure]], always dying of some disease that is very slow at actually killing her. As she lies enthroned in her beautiful sickroom, everyone around her spends countless hours musing poignantly on her death and/or trying to surround her with the things she loved most in life. Her proximity to the eternal gives her immense wisdom and insight, and she will be a neverending source of advice and comfort to her caretakers, to the point where it's hard to tell who is comforting whom. Even when her weakness becomes so great that she can barely move, [[InspirationallyDisadvantaged she will never succumb to anger, despair, or frustration.]] When at last she slips the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God, those around her (one of them likely [[DiedInYourArmsTonight holding her frail form in his arms]]) will smile through their tears and [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth rejoice that her pure soul has taken its flight from this dirty world]]. Gag.

If you're the star of a [[VictorianBritain Victorian Novel]] or an opera which could have been adapted from one, you're preferably [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold blonde]] and [[InnocentBlueEyes blue-eyed]], [[PurpleProse with an alabaster brow and feet light as the entrance of Spring]]. So [[IncorruptiblePurePureness pure]] are your thoughts that you faint at even the ''sight'' of blood, and have little stomach for gory tales.

* One one-scene character in ''{{Sharpe}}'s Regiment'' is a streetwalker by the name of Belle, who's got terminal tuberculosis. Sharpe spots the symptoms straight away.

* ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'' contains an absolutely textbook example of both this and TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth in the person of little Eva St. Clare. Fortunately, it drops in plenty of [[AnvilsThatNeededToBeDropped general tips]] about education, evangelism and (of course) equality along the way.

* ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'' contains an absolutely textbook example of both this and TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth. Fortunately, it drops in plenty of [[AnvilsThatNeededToBeDropped general tips]] about education, evangelism and (of course) equality along the way.

* The real Marie Duplessis died of tuberculosis, and her last two lovers stayed with her til the end.

* In ''Film/SherlockHolmesAGameOfShadows'', Irene dies from "a rare form of tuberculosis", due to Moriarty poisoning her tea.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/NextTownOver'', Markus [[http://squidbunnies.com/nto/?p=326 thinks]] that Vane Black looks faint and pale and might have consumption. Given her previously revealed antics, this is improbable.