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"In real battles, I think people probably respond to trauma either by going catatonic or with black humour. But in movie-land, when a friend is wounded, the Deep Magic says you have to yell his name. (If his name is "No!", that means he's actually dead.)"
Phoenix: "Answer that one - in eight words or less!" Jake: "I only need one. NOOOOOOOOO!"
The moment when a character realizes that something awful has happened, or notices that something awful is about to happen, and screams "Nnnooooooo!!!!" If the character is rushing to prevent the something-awful from happening, a slow-motion effect can be employed to draw out the tension of the moment, sometimes to the point of drawing out the "No" into a comical bass growl. (Editors with more foresight will combine this trope with the one that indicates a character in shock by muting the soundtrack.) This trope is very susceptible to becoming Narm, but does raise the question of exactly how a character should handle a crisis without coming off like a weakling (by going catatonic), a monster (by cracking a grim joke), or too crude to allow on air (by swearing one's head off)
Used both seriously and for comic effect. Very common on sitcoms. Sometimes the Big No ends the episode with a Cliff Hanger.
Nearing the point of becoming a Discredited Trope.
Occasionally the character will shout something other than "No!" -- usually shouting the name of the character that something bad is about to happen or has just happened to. This is slightly less discredited.
When a villain screams the Big No, it's usually as his plans are crashing down around his ears and is usually the last thing he ever says.
Examples:
Web Comics
- 8-Bit Theater once replaced the big "NOOOO!" with the big "FUUUUCK
 !".
- Tedd's father uses this in El Goonish Shive, when he's realized he's said he'll pay for eight teenagers to eat pizza, while at a meeting far away. The person he's talking to thinks her ideas are being criticized. The comic is helpfully titled 'I Graduated from the George Lucas Directing Academy'.
- Subverted in the third panel of this strip of Sluggy Freelance, where a "little no" gives the dramatic impact a Big No is supposed to have.
- Vaarsuvius uses it in Order Of The Stick strip #504, titled That's a Surprisingly Common Reaction.
- Captain SNES has had its fair share of them
- Dr. Wily does the traditional NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! When he realises he's in a catch 22 as the VP of Nexus and doing anything to ruin Nexus would cause Blues to torture him, meaning he would have to go against his nature and save it from the stupidity that was President Haggar.
- Alex Willams, replaces the Big No with the Big FUCK, and purposely extends it to buy time to think.
- Shortpacked! gives us Robin's reaction to finding out that Felix Gaeta is portrayed by the same man that voiced Nightscream from Transformers: Beast Machines.
- Averted in Girl Genius webcomic, when Gilgamesh Wulfenbach is led to believe that Agatha was killed by a rogue clank.
- They rather use it in a different setting.
- And when Agatha goes Sparky after a cup of Vanamonde's rather strong special blend of coffee, he and his grandfather Carson share a joint "NO!" when she asks for another.
- Candi presents the rare quixotically hopeful drunken ex-boyfriend version.
- Today Nothing Happened: This very wiki is responsible in this strip.
- Bob the Angry Flower has it at the end of this strip.
- Used pretty straight in Final Blasphemy here and later in the same issue.
Live Action TV
- Used non-ironically in Doctor Who, "Age of Steel." By a cyborg. Used non-ironically quite frequently in the new Doctor Who series actually - "The Fires of Pompeii" has at least two characters BigNoing simultaneously at its climax. And then there's the yet-unrecognized baddie whose end is hilariously interspersed throughout this compilation.
- Yet-unrecognised? That's Sutekh, Big Bad from The Pyramids of Mars.
- MacGyver, episode "Flame's End": When MacGyver's New Old Flame's car blows up, the action slows down as MacGyver rushes toward the car, the soundtrack mutes, and MacGyver shouts her name.
- When, in de Very Special Episode "Blood Brothers", Jason Priestly's character accidentally shot himself, things went slow-mo and Mac Gyver yelled not that character's name, but the name of his childhood friend who died after accidentally getting shot.
- The X-Files ended a cliffhanger episode like this.
- Played straight (and generally approved of) near the end of Angel's Season Three. Possibly helped by the hero sobbing so hard he can barely get the word out.
- Used often on Hercules The Legendary Journeys, particularly the episode "Not Fade Away".
- Played straight (and also approved of) in Supernatural - All Hell Breaks Loose where Dean has just finally found Sam and seen him get stabbed in the back. Helped by the fact that the viewers are probably feeling the same thing and his look of complete panic and devastation at the sight of his little brother getting knifed.
- Parodied in Spaced, in which Tim screams "NOOOO!!!" at the top of his lungs when cradling the body of his fallen best friend Mike, who has just been shot whilst saving Tim from an ambush by a hated rival and has just given a moving eulogy. It's worth noting, however, that this is merely a paintball game, and Mike, having merely been shot by a gob of paint, is far from dead; indeed, the scene immediately cuts to the two of them leaving the paintball centre casually chatting about how much fun they had.
- Later parodied again in the first episode of the second season, in which Tim, recounting events in voice-over, introduces Mike -- who runs to the centre of the pavement, falls to his knees, and screams "WHYYYYYYY?!?!?!" at the top of his lungs for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
- The Mad Scientist gave a Big No because The Middle Man and his Side Kick thwarted her plans in the series' first episode.
- Ned Bigby from ''Neds Declassified School Survival Guide" has used the Big No when things were going badly for him.
- Used to great effect on The Daily Show during, of all things, the 2000 election aftermath. At the end of a long montage involving the host and correspondents working through 37 days of hell, during which they turn to cannibalism and Jon and Stephen apparently fall in love, Al Gore concedes and it looks like it's all over - when suddenly Stephen is shot dead. "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
- Parodied to the max in Garth Marenghis Dark Place, in which practically every dramatic / tragic moment in the series will be punctuated by someone - usually Rick Daglass - screaming "Nooooooo!!!" at the top of his lungs, in slow motion, for at least a full minute.
- Miami Vice episode 'Calderone's Demise' features a string of no less than eight succesive iterations of the slow-motion Big No.
Film
- This is done to great comedic effect near the end of Austin Powers and in Evil Dead 2, when Ash finds that the only bridge to leave the haunted shack is totally destroyed. "No... Oh God no... no... NO! NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
- In a good deal of cases, it's the character's final line of the movie (there are even cases where it's the final line of the movie: here, Wesley Snipes' Jungle Fever, the telefilm Christmas Every Day...).
- Each of the six Star Wars movies uses the Big No at least once:
A New Hope: Luke gives a Big No when Darth Vader kills Obi-Wan.
The Empire Strikes Back: Luke responds to the revelation that Vader is his father, in a fairly predictable way.
Return of the Jedi: Luke snaps and shrieks a Big No when Darth Vader announces his intention to try turning Leia to the Dark Side.
Phantom Menace: Echoing Luke in A New Hope, Obi-Wan does a Big No when Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon.
Attack of the Clones: Obi-Wan again, when Anakin charges recklessly in to fight Dooku.
Revenge of the Sith: Anakin/Vader, upon discovering that Padme is dead.
- Darth Vader's usage of it at the end of Revenge of the Sith was criticized by many fans (and, subsequently, memed to death). Some voices just can't handle the Big No, and audiences found out the hard way that James Earl Jones' is one of them. Do Not Want indeed.
- This editor has always wondered why George didn't go with a wordless primal scream, which James Earl Jones's voice is well-suited for -- in Mufasa's death scene in The Lion King (see the example below), he proves it. Maybe he couldn't find any other place in the script to put it in.
- Speaking of which, fitting a Big No into each of the prequels must have been a struggle without having Luke to say it. In fact, we could have almost called this trope the "Luke No".
- Parodied in this strip of Loserz.
- And in this strip of Digi-Comic.
- Played agonizingly straight in the first The Lord Of The Rings movie, though it wasn't nearly as stale when the source material was written. (Not that the source material specified a "big no", but...)
- According to this, yelling "NOOOOOOO!" is the distinguishing characteristic of the hero from Battlefield Earth.
- Ator from Cave Dwellers is mocked on MST3K for shouting "No!" while helplessly tied to a stick.
- The Lion King: Simba screams it as Mufasa falls to his death in a well-done and dramatic way.
- The Mummy Returns: Imhotep, the titular returning mummy, actually slides on his knees into the frame to deliver one when the other Big Bad for the film is defeated. To compound it all, he was kinda late.
- Spider Man 2: Yelled by Otto Octavius when he wakes up and finds that his tentacles - which have a mind of their own - killed all of the doctors who were about to operate on him while he was unconscious.
- This troper feels Terminator 2 had the best Big No ever, when Sarah Connor sees the good terminator walk out of the elevator. Not knowing he's good, Sarah falls down, but first has a look of disbelief on her face. Then as she runs the other way, her screams build up in volume until she finally lets out her Big No.
- Delivered to great comical effect near the end of the Alvin And The Chipmunks movie.
- In the Dungeons And Dragons movie, Riddley Freeborn's "NOOOOOOOOOO!" when Snails dies.
- The anguished slow-mo scream of the protagonist in the Dungeons And Dragons movie, upon seeing his Sidekick friend Snails stabbed to death (after heroically attacking a villain all by himself), drew involuntary laughter from a movie-going audience at a cinema in Germany. It didn't help that Snails the thief was clearly supposed to be the Plucky Comic Relief but failed miserably, except at becoming the proof that even in Fantasy, the black guy dies first.
- Used, complete with slow motion, in Dead Poets Society.
- Delivered straight in Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix when Sirius Black falls through The Veil in the Death Chamber. Harry screams it. In a twist, the scream is given silently, with the score playing over it.
- Subverted by Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast: "Nonononono NO!"
- Aliens, when Ripley is dreaming that she has been impregnated by a facehugger Alien.
- In Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, we get to see not one but two characters deliver the "Big No", combined with firing their weapons wildly, in very short succession.
- Parodied in Mirror Mask: "NOOOOO! I DON'T WANNA BE A WAITER!"
- Parodied in the endings of Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2. In the former, as the Final Girl screams, she is ran over by a car. In the latter, the Final Girl meets the psycho again. She does the Big No, he does a Big Yes... and gets run over by a car.
- In Back To The Future, Marty does this when seeing Doc get shot by the Libyan terrorists. However, he adds on by saying "NOOOOOOO! BASTARDS!!!!" It then turns out at the end that Doc was wearing a bulletproof vest.
- He does it again (without the "BASTARDS!!!!") in Part II, when he discovers that Biff Tannen has changed history and married his mother.
- Merlins Shop Of Mystical Wonders features a truly glorious NOOOOOOOOO!", complete with slow-motion running towards the camera.
- In Sweeney Todd there is a Big No issued by the titular character after he is informed of his wife's rape. Rather effective due to it blending in with his wife's screams at the end of the musical number/flashback, "Poor Thing."
- Done straight by the villain Zeebad in Doogal as he is pulled back into imprisonment.
- The infamous 1983 film The Lonely Lady seems to think this trope automatically equals brilliant writing. Roger Ebert probably said it best:
The movie's whole plot hinges on Pia's ability to rewrite a scene better than her jealous writer-husband. When the star of her husband's movie weeps that she can't play a certain graveyard scene, Pia whips out the portable typewriter and writes brilliant new dialogue for the star. What, you may ask, does Pia write? Here's what: She has the grieving widow kneel by the side of the open grave and cry out (are you ready for this?) "Why? Why!!!" That's it. That's the brilliant dialogue. And it can be used for more than death scene, let me tell you. In fact, I walked out of this movie saying to myself, "Why? Why!!!"
- Virgil Brigman lets out a "NOOOOOOOO!" in The Abyss after Lindsey drowns herself so he can tow her back to the rig.
Theater
- At the end of Act Two of The Phantom of the Opera, Erik does this right before he crashes the chandelier. Although, in this case he screams, $22CB-O-O-O-O!", but the effect's still the same.
- This troper has seen the actual script, and he's actually shouting "Gooooooo!!"
Western Animation
Anime/Manga
- Pedro from Excel Saga is infamous for doing the Big No at least Once An Episode. And when I say a Big No, I mean it.◊
- Used straight in Record Of Lodoss War by two characters at the same time.
- Used in Trinity Blood at the climax of episode 22.
- Used in Neon Genesis Evangelion by Asuka at the end of her Mind Rape. And by Shinji after realizing his Mecha has been used by his father to crush the Entry Plug loaded with his unconscious best friend - more an inarticulate yell, actually.
- In Digimon Adventure, Hikari does one when Wizardmon dies, leading to the activation of her crest. It was strangely cut from the dub.
- Equally as strange, the clip was shown in a brief flashback in a later episode, except during a voiceover narration, so her voice was not heard.
- Lloyd has the character name variant in the fourth Tales Of Symphonia OVA. This happens when he discovers that Collette was willing to sacrifice herself because of him. It's both dramatic and unintentionally comical, as the context is dramatic, but Lloyd's very strange reaction before he shouts out Collette's name amused this troper greatly. That is a more subjective point, though.
- Mai-HiME is has more than a few instances of this happening. Of course, what with all that's going on in that series (especially later on), the characters can be forgiven for yelling Big Nos.
- Hayate has a huge, primal one near the end of the second season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Considering how it punctuated a particularly nasty Break The Cutie moment, the overall effect was quite chilling.
- Gundam Wing has Duo give a massive one when Trowa destroys Deathscythe.
Commercials
- A tongue-in-cheek instance was used in commercials for the "Geek Squad" technical support service broadcast in late 2004.
- A recent Snickers commercial had an interesting subversion: A viking, after learning a store had no Snickers, initially does a Big No straight and while doing so, throws a garbage can at a car to get his point across. After learning that they had dark chocolate Snickers, however, he does the exact same thing as before... except with a "Big Yaaaaaaaay"!
- Parodied in a Commercial for Corn Pops, we see a box sitting on a ledge overlooking the San Francisco skyline, someone knocks it over, and tries to grab it before it falls, in slow motion along with the obligitory "Noooo!!!", only he fails, and the camera pulls back to show us that the ledge was only 3 feet off the ground of a hill overlooking the skyline. The man reaches down and retrieves the box.
Video Games
- Villains in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney are prone to breaking into a Big No when Phoenix destroys their alibis. Damon Gant does it twice - and that's before he actually slips into a Motive Rant. Actually parodied at one point when The Judge does the Big No - and then stops and wonders why, since he's not the one in trouble.
- In the same case, Phoenix lets out a Big No if you present to the judge at one point a piece of cloth with Ema Skye's fingerprints on it. This makes everyone believe Ema really did accidentally kill the victim in the incident two years ago, making the trial impossible to win and you're notified that you eventually lost.
- Stages in Elite Beat Agents and Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan are touched off with the rescuee screaming in anguish (with the Big "HEEAALLLLLP!"/"OOOUUU-EENNN-DAAAAAN!", respectively), prompting an arrival and a dramatic entrance from the titular Big Damn Heroes.
- Max Payne breaks into the Big No right at the end of the opening level when he finds out that he was too late to save his wife.
- This was parodied, along with everything else concerning the first Max Payne, in the Show Within A Show "Dick Justice" in Max Payne 2.
- Star Fox 64 does this when Fox gets killed. Peppy and Falco doesn't use the Big No to a huge effect like everyone else does, but Slippy lets out a normal Big No.
- Related to the "shouting the name of the character" variation, "SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!".
- No slow motion but a really big NOOOOOO! can be seen from Garrett in Thief 2 (of Thief series) when Viktoria sacrifices herself in Soul Forge
- In the final episode of Sam And Max Season One, Sam lets out a normal Big No when Hugh Bliss separates Max's bliss and renders him kind and passive (the horror!).
- Eliwood does this twice in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword, first when his father dies and later when he realizes the dragon he just killed was Ninian.
- Near the end of Myst III: Exile, villain/Woobie Saavedro does a less drawn-out version of this trope when you trap him behind the ice shields on Narayan. Repeatedly. In a dramatic, tormented, heart-wrenching manner. He does it again when you go to retrieve the MacGuffin from him, only this time, it's even more of a tearjerker.
- Half Life 2 and its subsequent episodes frequently feature Alyx merely whispering 'no!', or shouting it as a stunned reaction without the traditional overegged drama of the 'Big No'. These changes do not help as much as Half-Life's writers think they do.
- Mega Man X4: WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRR?!?!!?
- Cecil lets out a big WHY? in the DS version of Final Fantasy IV after he destroys the Village of Mist.
Literature
- An unintentionally hilarious example is seen at the end of Marianne Curley's The Key, where Ethan screams it after his true love Rochelle takes a magic arrow to the chest for him. Rochelle, who is narrating the story and using present tense, is able to tell us that the last thing she hears, before she pops her clogs is Ethan screaming "Nooooo!"
- In the first Wild Cards book, Dr. Tachyon shrieks "Noooooooooooooooooo!" (I counted the o's) when he believes he has failed to prevent his friend Angelface from being shot. This troper's impression is that this was not as much of a cliche when the book was written, in 1986, but she still found it an off note in an otherwise very intense scene.
- In George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel A Clash of Kings ship-captain Davos Seaworth unleashes one of these during the bloody naval assault on King's Landing, when he realizes that one of the other attacking ships is about to set off a particularly nasty trap.
Silliness
Stand-Up Comedy
- One of Jon Stewart's more recent standup routines features a joke mocking everyone's fear of the Y2K bug (after the fact, of course). "What was the deal? [in ominous voice] 'On New Year's Eve, at midnight, all of the world's computers will fail...and the world will be forced to live as it id...in 1982!' NOOO! NOOOOOO NO-HO-ho-hoo...I won't be hungry like the wolf again..."
Real Life
- Parodied in Stephen Colbert's "audition tape" for the post of White House press secretary, where Colbert repeatedly uses this as he is pursued by Helen Thomas.
- When Wookieepedia, the official unofficial Star Wars Wiki, was going for their first Featured Wikia of the month on the Wikia main site, there was some consternation when they discovered they were losing to WikiFur, the Furry Fandom 's Wikia. This sent them on a wild scramble for more votes. The furries, to their credit, played up their role of villain with the following message on the Wikia boards. "Join us, and together we can rule the Internet as Wookie Fur!" Wookieepedia made the only appropriate response.
- A few years ago, an infamous online video began to spread, which showed a guy spoiling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to a bunch of Harry Potter fans waiting outside a bookstore for the novel. One fan's reaction: "NOOOOOOOOOO! You Bitch! YOU BITCH!!".
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