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How Dare You Die on Me!

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"If you don't come back alive, I'll kill you!"
Cid, Final Fantasy IV Advance

Guy falls while Taking the Bullet for the Damsel in Distress. It's not Only a Flesh Wound, nope, he looks dead. Enough to be Left for Dead by the villain. Possibly invoking Pietà Plagiarism, the damsel cries over but curses the guy. She may even feebly beat up his dead body, admonishing him for:

In more optimistic works he'll wake up because, well, there's someone yelling and hitting him, and Death is Cheap compared to that. Expect Slap-Slap-Kiss as he'll be annoyed at being yelled at after just saving her life, and they get over it and (mushy stuff happens here). If it's a really sappy setting, expect a kiss to be involved in waking up their beloved. Sometimes, if he does die, he will leave something of himself behind.

The genders can be reversed, and it's also a favorite trope to enact between Rivals or even enemies, especially if one of them died through means other than at the Rival's hands. Compare Antagonist in Mourning.

May happen some time after the wound, when the first person believes the other is dying and tries to Converse with the Unconscious.

Can also occur after a failed attempt at resuscitation, often accompanied by a Big "NO!" or "live, damn you!". Common in medical dramas.

Compare and contrast Try Not to Die. May overlap with Died in Your Arms Tonight. May overlap with Anger Born of Worry if the person hopes the victim will pull through but fears the worst. As a Death Trope, beware of unmarked spoilers.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • ×××HOLiC: How Watanuki reacts when Yuuko's vanishing from the universe so it will be as if she'd died when she was supposed to. He's in tears, pleading to her "Please tell me this is all a dream!" and "You can't go!"
  • In the feudal arc of Air, Ryuuya is badly injured defending Kanna and doesn't seem as though he's going to make it. He's told her that as he's her servant, he'll do anything she says, so she orders him not to die. He doesn't... she does, though.
  • In the anime version of Akame ga Kill!, Tatsumi continuously promised that he would stay alive for his friends who sacrificed their lives trying to bring down the corrupt Empire. The penultimate episode shows Akame bursting into tears at the sight of an undeniably dead Tatsumi, with Akame berating the recently deceased hero for being unable to keep his promise.
  • In Berserk, Guts gets bashed around by the apostle Wyald to the point where he is believed to be dead. Casca, now his lover, slaps him around in a fit of anger and tears as she tells the unconscious Guts that he couldn't be dead because he promised to take her on his travels with him. He eventually comes around, though to the sound of Casca's screams as Wyald apprehends her and tries to make her feel like a virgin again.
  • In Black Butler, Ciel does this to Sebastian when the latter is discovered dead. It's a particularly Tear Jerker moment, with Ciel straddling Sebastian's dead body and repeatedly slapping him, all the while yelling that he didn't allow him to die, that he was supposed to be with him until the end. It was all an act, but it didn't make the scene any less heart-wrenching.
  • In Black Lagoon, a small-time crime boss hires some Mooks to take out the Lagoon Company for not playing exclusively for him. Naturally, they all die. Just before Balalaika pays him a visit, he's heard ranting about how the mook he hired completely screwed him over by dying.
  • In Bleach, Ichigo is killed by Ulquiorra and Orihime indicates this trope by repeating his name for several minutes. It works, he's not dead anymore.
    • Also invoked by Tsukishima, who flips out when he learns that Ginjou is dying.
    • After Zaraki impales Unohana in the throat in their fight to the death, it takes him a second or two to process what just happened. He doesn't take it well.
  • Code Geass got this as a Tear Jerker moment when Shirley bleeds to death in Lelouch's arms, promising to love him even if she's reincarnated, and Lelouch desperately and futilely trying to use his Geass to save her.
    • Not to mention in the final episode, when Lelouch dies. The juxtaposition of the scene is pretty striking, with the crowds celebrating his death and chanting the name of his assassin, and his sister Nunnally sobbing inconsolably over his body.
  • In Count Cain - Godchild Cain yells at an unconscious Riff after he's been poisoned basically telling him he's not allowed to die.
  • Light from Death Note screams "Come on, Damn it!" "Don't you die on me you idiot!", at his father when he dies. It is unclear whether Light is genuinely upset at his father's death, or is just acting to fool the other Kira investigation team members, or outraged that he didn't at least kill Mello. How to Read 13 seems to imply genuine mourning, as it is stated that Light's father is one of the only people he would never kill.
  • Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z was extremely distraught after Goku's seemingly permanent death during the Cell Games, because he'd never have a chance to defeat his rival. So much that he vowed to never fight again. The seven-year Time Skip shows that he got better.
  • In Dragon Knights, Cesia makes a promise to never let Rath get himself killed by his own suicidal tendencies. She does mess up once, but then all she's got to do is bring him back.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Fullmetal Alchemist mixes it up with Pietà Plagiarism near the end of the series, when Hawkeye gets her throat slashed and nearly bleeds to death. Mustang, panicked and on the verge of Manly Tears, does a lot of screaming at her to "Open your eyes!" and "Get it together!" In the English dub of Brotherhood, he says, "Don't you dare die! Stay with me, Lieutenant!"
    • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): You have Hawkeye arriving too late to protect Mustang from Archer. She finds him shot in the face and lying motionless in a pool of his own blood.
    "General! Dammit, Roy Mustang, answer me!"
  • This occurs in Fushigi Yuugi when Nuriko dies. It happens again with Hotohori's death. Miaka screams that he had lied when he promised to stay alive until his wife, Houki, gives birth to his son.
  • Great Teacher Onizuka: Urumi does this, even threatening to kill herself, when Onizuka has his Game-Breaking Injury and enters a coma. His best friend Ryuji does it as well.
  • Inverted in Higurashi: When They Cry:
    • Inverted. Being that Hanyuu is a ghost she cannot interact with anyone except a select few people who are born every once in a while. She becomes frustrated when Rika says she wants to not repeat the cycle again. Of course she didn't stay to her word.
    • Played straight in the last episode of Minagoroshi-hen. It seems as if fate is about to be beaten, and all is well... until Keiichi is shot by the Big Bad. As he dies, Mion yells "No! This cannot be! This cannot be!" until she is forced to flee.
  • Inuyasha:
    • Upon finding his True Companion motionless on the ground in a fight against the Big Bad, Inuyasha cries out "Miroku! Don't you dare die!". The hitting happens after he wakes up, unscratched.
    • He uses the same sentence on Sango later on, after she betrayed them and got severely hurt for her efforts.
    • Played straight by Kagome after the fight against the Peach Man. Inuyasha has fallen off a 20-floor cliff, badly injured and in human form. The others can't find his body but assume he must be dead. When Miroku remarks that "Inuyasha probably died without regrets, for even as he sacrificed his life, he knew that he was saving yours", Kagome cries out that she didn't want him to and that he is an idiot. Miroku and Shippo join in, saying he was indeed a fool. Of course, Inuyasha is Right Behind Them, and not pleased to be called an idiot.
    • Near the end, Inuyasha has a similar moment when Sesshoumaru is severely wounded and crushed by Magatsuhi, after delivering a strike to Magatsuhi's true self. Believing he was dead/dying, Inuyasha tries desperately to free him, shouting "I'm not gonna let you die like this!"
  • In K, Misaki and Kusanagi both say this about Totsuka.
    • When he dies in Misaki's arms, Misaki gives the incoherent blubbering version.
    • Just after that flashback, when Kusanagi is in his bar, looking at all of the stuff Totsuka left behind from his expensive hobbies, he gives a remark like this - though it's more serious and forward-looking, considering that Mikoto, for whom Totsuka was a Morality Chain, is preparing himself for a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the killer that might just take the whole city down with him...
  • Lupin III: always happens when Zenigata is in mourning for Lupin.
    • The Lupin III: Part II episode, "Lupin the Interred," had Lupin assassinated by a paid mercenary. Zenigata insists it's a trick, while Jigen and Goemon destroy their surroundings since they can't kill Lupin.
    • In The Castle of Cagliostro, Zenigata sees Lupin's gang escaping from him and the Count, and Lupin himself is gravely injured. Pops shouts, "Lupin! You'd better not die before I get to arrest you!"
  • Mazinger Z: In episode 52, Kouji gets brutally hurt during a fight and falls unconscious. When he does not move or reacts, Sayaka gets grief-stricken. She kneels by his side, and she starts crying as holding him in arms. She pleads him not dying and not leaving her alone, and even makes an Anguished Declaration of Love. Then Kouji opens his eyes and he announces he is not getting married to a tomboy. Cue Sayaka wanting to kill him for real.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Chisame witnesses Jack Rakan's loss and "erasure" against Fate Averruncus. At that point, the poor girl is sobbing her heart out and telling Rakan (in her own gamer-like way) that someone as powerful as him is not supposed to lose both a fight and his life.
  • Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary: After Moji-sensei serves as a Living Crashpad to save Tobita, she begs him to wake up after he falls unconscious from hitting his head on a wall while saving her. She feels especially guilty because she'd told him to "fuck off and die" earlier that day.
  • Zoro from One Piece does this around the end of his flashback in the manga when his childhood friend Kuina died falling down the staircase and broke her neck. The anime version of the story tends to displace the original manga, but trust me, he was absolutely pissed at her for leaving him as well as saddened.
    • This becomes depressing when you consider that he apparently still considers her his best friend. The poor guy can never catch a break.
    • He was pissed because she was the only person he could not defeat, which was the reason why he took up swordfighting in the first place. He was pissed because she died before he can get the chance to defeat her, and saddened because both of them considered each other as rivals, intent on being the world's strongest swordsman in the future.
    • And because the universe has a twisted sense of humor, Zoro meets a Marine swordswoman named Tashigi who looks extremely similar to Kuina.
    • Crocodile is furious after Whitebeard is stabbed by a misguided ally (even though he didn't actually die from the attack). This is because he knew that Whitebeard should've been able to dodge that attack — an indication that Whitebeard had become weaker in the time since he defeated Crocodile.
  • In the final chapter of Ranma ½, Ranma cradles Akane's inert body after she has seemingly died after the battle with Saffron. He berates her for being a dummy (and hits himself for it).
    • In the ice-skating arc, Ranma takes a blow for Akane strong enough to crush all the bones in a man's body. When he doesn't respond to her, she assumes he's dead, then starts crying on his chest and calls him a fool. That's when he sits up, insulted that she wasn't more grateful for his sacrifice, and lets her know he was faking it. (He actually is hurt at that point, but he's a badass, so he walks it off.)
  • Happens afterwards, but in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: after Kamina dies, Yoko is in the shower and says to herself: "You said you would return that kiss a ten times over! Kamina, you jerk!"
  • In Tiger & Bunny, while Kotetsu note  dies in Barnaby's arms ;
    Barnaby: (Sobbing) Shut up! Don't talk like you're about to die!! You're not that kind of person! Your enthusiasm is your only strong point, isn't it!? I've been learning to make fried rice...so you have to try it someday! Kotetsu!
  • Tokyo Ghoul: As Shirazu lay dying Urie screams "DON'T YOU FUCKING DIE ON ME!" in a rather Tear Jerker scene.
  • In Vinland Saga brooding avenger Thorfinn has this exact reaction when Askeladd is fatally stabbed.
    Thorfinn: I'll never forgive you! How dare you die on me like this!? Get up! Let's properly finish this once and for all! I was supposed to be the one to kill you!
    Askeladd: Geez... It's time for you to stop being a kid...
  • A very emotional scene in the first episode of YuYu Hakusho, with Kuwabara barging into Yusuke's funeral demanding a fight with him. This might be considered an adult version of Please Wake Up. This is also a case of The Only One Allowed to Defeat You as this establishes that Kuwabara considers Yusuke a rival who challenges him and betters him the more they fight against each other.
    • Parodied in the Abridged series "You better come back to life or I'll kill you!"
    • Yusuke's mother Atsuko also gets one, in a drunken rage after the wake - "I didn't give you permission to die!"

    Comic Books 
  • A darker, creepier example of this trope occurred in the aftermath of The Death of Superman: Lex Luthor is anguished by Superman's death, but not because of any secret love for him or anything like that; he's furious because he had an "I am The Only One Allowed to Defeat You" mentality towards Superman. At one point, Lex, alone in his office, curses Doomsday for killing Superman before he could and shrieks, "I WAS ROBBED!!!"
  • In issue 2 of Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy, X-23 has a bit of this towards Wolverine. Laura tells Kitty after an outburst in the Danger Room that she feels angry because she thought of Logan as immortal and indestructible, and because he promised to always be there for her if she needed him. His death leaves her feeling as if that was a lie, and leads her to question her own life. By the end of the issue, she ultimately comes to terms with this and has moved on to feeling sad over his passing, but also pride in the example he set.
  • Immortal X-Men: In issue #13, Professor X says Magneto "died on me" after their death the previous year in Judgment Day. This does overlook Erik dying because he got his heart ripped out.
  • Another gender-flipped version in Runaways, when Gert convinces 80's!Geoffrey Wilder that Chase isn't innocent enough to make a satisfactory sacrifice to the Gibborim and ends up getting killed instead. Chase promptly has a Freak Out and spends most of the next six issues trying to bring her back...using the Gibborim. The others convince him that it's not what she would've wanted, though, and he is finally convinced to let her remain dead.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Sonic's girlfriend, Princess Sally, was devastated seeing Sonic "die" in an explosion after destroying a deadly alien weapon, not knowing that he was actually thrown halfway across the universe. A year later, Sonic returned, and the two kissed and continued their relationship. A following mission, however, reminded Sally again of how easy it was to almost lose a loved one, and she begged that Sonic would step down from his role as a hero. He reluctantly declined because of the Eggman threat. She then slapped him in front of their family and friends and they argued on the bigger priority, love or duty. A break-up followed.
  • Star Trek (IDW): During the "Galileo Seven" arc, Uhura threatens to "kill" Spock if he isn't found alive on the uninhabited planet.

    Fan Works 
  • Mahanon, in the Dragon Age: Inquisition story All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird, gives his best friend Victoria a variant - he has legitimate reasons to believe she's dead, and when she turns up alive, he tells her to never do it again. Later, when their positions are somewhat reversed, she turns it back on him.
  • In Being Dead Ain't Easy, Seto Kaiba is not happy at all that Joey dies in his arms and tries insulting him to make him stay awake. It doesn't work.
  • Hinata in Black Flames Dance in the Wind: Rise of Naruto is furious with Kiba over his suicide, citing that he had a level of support she dreamed of having and that his situation wasn't too bad comparativelynote .
  • A variation in the Pokémon: The Series fanfic, Common Sense. Shortly before escaping the sinking St. Anne, Jessie tells James that she'll never forgive him if he doesn't make it back.
  • Played for drama in Dragon Ball Z: A Good Man. Just as Justiciar Nevrrest is about to kill Vegeta while he's weak and defenseless. Dr. Tottle, a physician working for her shields Vegeta from her attack. Suffering a fatal blow in the process. Vegeta is devastated, expressing his grief by yelling angrily at the doctor for getting himself killed in such a way.
  • Played for Laughs in the Troll Fic Finding Love in the Fire. Eragon trips and falls, impaling himself on Brisingr. Saphira's reaction to this is somewhere between this trope and shocked denial.
    It couldn't be happening.
    We'd gone over this so many times.
    The strategy was perfect.
    He was going to kill Murtagh.
    HOW IN THE HELL DID THE WORLD'S LAST HOPE FOR PEACE DIE IN SUCH A STUPID WAY?
    THAT MORON!
  • In Frozen Fractals, Anna reacts this way when her best friend Kristoff is stabbed trying to save her and her sister Elsa.
  • In How the Light Gets In, the four-year-old Mary asks Dean, her father, if she can be mad at her mother for dying.
    Dean: You can be as mad as you want. I'm mad, too.
  • In the RWBY fic It's Time To Say Goodbye Nora endures Ren's death by vacillating between dissonant apathy and blind fury. During one scene, she vents this fury by shouting at his grave.
    "You know, it was really dumb for you to jump out in front of the claw like that."
    I looked at his picture. It was still there. I wasn’t sure if someone was supposed to take it home or something.
    "You didn’t
    have to do that. It was really dumb."
    He didn’t answer me. It was like he was being quiet, waiting for me to stop talking so he could try and comfort me.
    "No, no, no, I know what you’re trying to do and I’m not going to let you. You’re the reason I’m so alone right now. This is
    your fault, not mine! You jumped in the way! NOT ME! DO YOU HEAR ME?! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
  • Last Rights: Eleya has this reaction to Senior Chief Athezra dying after taking a shell fragment in the chest.
    Eleya: No, no! Don't you dare die on me! (checks his pulse) Oh, you phekk'ta died on me.
  • In Learning To Swim, this is Rain's response after she saves Cats from drowning, as he's ingested a dangerous amount of water. (There's an element of guilt in her anger, as it's partly her fault that he tried to swim in the first place.)
    I grasped his thin shoulders and shook him. "Don't you die on me, don’t you dare fucking die! You stupid little baby!"
    Suddenly, Cats gasped and coughed up enough water to have bathed in. I pushed him to his side so he could spew without getting more of it on me. "I'm not a little baby," he gasped leaning on his elbow. His eyelids were still a frightening purplish color. "Why Rain gotta be so mean all the time?"
  • In Naruto: The Abridged Series, Orochimaru does this to the third hokage. What makes it funny that he had just spent an entire episode trying to kill the third, and failed. The third beats him by giving up his life to seal away Orochimaru's arms and Orochimaru's exact words are "Sarutobi, don't you die on me! Give me back my arms, then die on me!"
  • Star Trek: Phoenix: The root issue for the conflict between Twilight and Sunset in the second season stems from Sunset's close call with death and subsequent two-year disappearance. Twilight mourned deeply for those years and, just when she eventually managed to let go of her and move past her grief, Sunset simply returned well and unharmed. The resulting conflict of emotions messed Twilight up something awful, leading her to deeply resent Sunset for dying on her and especially, and irrationally, for not staying dead and sparing her the need to fear losing her all over again.

    Film — Animation 
  • In Home (2015), a major turning point in Tip and Oh's uneasy alliance comes when Oh dives underwater for a couple of hours and she kicks him and rants about him letting her think he'd died.
  • Littlefoot in The Land Before Time tearfully says that his mother should've known better than to take on a Sharptooth and that it's all her fault that she died. Then he blames himself for wandering too far and being threatened by the Sharptooth, forcing his mother to defend him. The elderly dinosaur he's talking to comforts Littlefoot and tells him that it's nobody's fault that his mother died.
  • Monsters vs. Aliens, when Insectisaurus is shot down, Link shouts at him, "Don't you dare close your eyes!" He becomes a butterfly.
  • Briefly in Disney's Tarzan, when Terk is pulling unconscious kid Tarzan out of the water: "C'mon, don't die on me... don't die on me, you weren't supposed to do it—!"
  • Subverted in WALL•E, when WALL•E's memory appears to be wiped, after trying various tricks to restore it, EVE vigorously shakes WALL-E with an angry expression in an attempt to "wake him up", but then resigns and mournfully "kisses" WALL•E.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Happens twice in The Abyss, first when Lindsey Brigman has drowned and her husband Virgil "Bud" Brigman yells at her while performing CPR to try to bring her back. Later on in the movie, when Bud faces death thousands of feet below her, Lindsey returns the favor.
    Bud: Goddamn it, you bitch! You never backed away from anything in your life!...Fight, goddamn it! FIGHT!
    Lindsey: Bud, please! Listen to me, please! Goddamn it!...You dragged me back from the bottomless pit! You can't leave me here alone now! Please. Oh, God, Virgil, please.
  • A funny variant is found in Adventures in Babysitting, when the group is mistakenly informed by an emergency room doctor that Brad has died. Upon seeing him alive, his best friend embraces him and says, "Don't you ever die on me!" Brad, who has no idea what's going on, is understandably confused by the directive.
  • In Angel (1984), Mae manages to fight off the Serial Killer, but is fatally stabbed in the process. Solly finds Mae and holds her while dies; all the time yelling ''Don't you dare die on me!". Mae's main concern is that Solly not allow Angel to see her body cut up like this.
  • The Avengers:
    • He doesn't directly address Coulson or his corpse, but after Coulson is killed by Loki while trying to defend Thor, Tony Stark angrily calls him an idiot while clearly holding back tears when Steve finds Tony brooding at the spot where Coulson died a half an hour or so after his death.
    • Nick Fury is the first to find him as he's dying, and reacts similarly.
      Fury: Just stay awake. Eyes on me!
      Coulson: No, I'm clocking out here.
      Fury: Not an option!
  • At the beginning of Ever After, Danielle's father suffers a heart attack, and Rodmilla, his new wife, starts wailing "You cannot leave me here!" as he dies. Never mind, you know, his kid standing right there. She's not very nice.
  • Field Of Lost Shoes: During the Battle of New Market, Jack Stanard pushes Johnny Wise out of the line of fire, taking the brunt of a Union volley. With the melee still going on, Johnny holds Jack and pleads with him to live. Jack says "I can't carry you forever, Johnny. It's Up to You Now." and passes away. Cue Johnny's Extreme Mêlée Revenge Rampage against the Yankee soldiers.
  • In the film Flatliners, David Labraccio (Kevin Bacon) is determined to resuscitate Nelson (Kiefer Sutherland), and continues even after it's clear that Nelson is gone, going so far as to hit him in the chest to try to get his heart going again and saying "Come on, Nelson!"
  • The Hunger Games: Katniss has a rather distressed reaction when she thought Peeta consumed the nightlock berries.
    Katniss: Damn you, Peeta, damn you!
  • An entirely unsentimental version in The International, as Clive Owen's character is speaking to a Professional Killer who's a potential witness against the villains who are trying to kill him — after the killer catches a machine-pistol burst in the chest, Owen slaps him and says, "Don't you fucking dare!"
  • Jurassic Park III: After Paul Kirby narrowly averts a Heroic Sacrifice to save his wife and son from the Spinosaurus, the crying Amanda calls him an asshole and begs him not to leave them alone. Then he reveals that he survived the scuffle and they're reunited again.
  • Happens in Lethal Weapon 3 film as part of Murtaugh's Heroic BSoD after having to gun down one of his son's friends in a shootout.
  • In The Long Kiss Goodnight, Samantha/Charly gets one of these from her eight-year-old daughter, combined with Worst Aid.
  • Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia had Tom Cruise's character doing this to his estranged father, in sort of a verbal Slap-Slap-Kiss.
  • The Matrix franchise:
    • The Matrix: After Neo is seemingly killed by Smith in the Matrix, Trinity insists to him that he cannot die because he's the One and she loves him. This works because the kiss Trinity administers along with those words makes Neo realize he isn't actually dead (only virtually dead and "Your Mind Makes It Real") so he revives. In other words, the input from the Matrix told his brain he was dead but the input from the real world trumped it.
      Trinity: Neo, I'm not afraid anymore. The Oracle told me that I would fall in love, and that man, the man who I loved would be The One. And so you see, you can't be dead. You can't be, because I love you. You hear me? I love you.... Now *get up*.
    • The Matrix Reloaded: After Trinity is fatally wounded during the scene Neo has repeatedly foreseen in his mind, including during his dreams:
      Morpheus: Trinity, don't you quit on me now.
      Trinity: I'm sorry.
      Neo: Trinity. Trinity, I know you can hear me. I'm not letting go. I can't. I love you too damn much.
  • Happens at the end of Ong-Bak, Humlae dies and Muay spends her last lines of the movie cursing him for dying.
  • In Pitch Black, this is Riddick's response when Carolyn Fry is dragged away and killed by the monsters. Immediately beforehand, this was also the motivation used to get him up after he was bleeding intensely and in a state of panic, just having been nearly killed by the creatures.
  • Twice in Red Tails:
    • Deacon has been badly wounded, and is suffering from both serious bleeding and a head wound. He fades out of consciousness, his plane sliding into a dive, as Easy screams helplessly at him to wake up and pull up. He wakes up, regains control of the plane, and crashes on landing. Despite being doused in gasoline before the plane caught fire, he is pulled out and survives.
    • Easy finds himself in a similar situation with Lightning towards the end of the film. Lightning's plane plows into the ground and explodes.
  • Robin Hood - czwarta strzała parodies this mercilessly - Marion has the Merry Men take shifts telling Robin not to die after he's wounded. He still does.
  • Scrooged: During his Christmas Present vision, Frank discovers that Herman, a homeless fellow whom he had just spoken to at Claire's homeless shelter, has frozen to death in the NYC sewers since the last time he saw him. Knowing that Herman had just been somewhere where he would have been safe and warm, Frank flies into a heartbroken rage:
    Frank: You moron! YOU JERK! WHY DIDN'T YOU STAY AT CLAIRE'S?! WHY DIDN'T YOU STAY WITH CLAIRE!? SHE WOULD'VE TAKEN CARE OF YOU, YOU WOULD'VE EATEN, YOU WOULD'VE BEEN WARM! YOU MIGHT BE ALIVE!! YOU'D BE A PRETTIER COLOR, I'LL TELL YA THAT!!!
  • In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Watson to Holmes, while trying to artificially resuscitate him: "I know you can hear me, you selfish bastard!"
  • The Terminator has Sarah Connor trying to motivate a mortally wounded Reese (showing signs of the leader she's supposed to become):
    Sarah: Move it, Reese! On your feet, soldier! On your feet!
  • Done comically in The Wrong Box - Morris and John Finsbury (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) are taking their uncle Joseph on a train trip on the news that a relative's imminent death will net them a fat inheritance - after the train crashes, Morris finds a dead body he thinks is Joseph's, and tearfully curses him for selfishly dying and leaving two helpless orphans destitute.
  • Sort of subverted in Young Frankenstein. After it appears Frankenstein has failed to bring a corpse back to life, he begins to strangle the dead body claiming he has ruined him. Of course his two assistants attempt to pull him off for fear that he'll kill him.

    LARP 
  • In Empire LRP, there is a skill called Stay With Me which stops someone from dying and gives them a hit back. It works exactly like this Trope. It has a counterpart of Rousing Speech, to heal someone even more via Dramatic Shouting.

    Literature 
  • In The Dragon and the George when Daffyd has been bitten/poisoned by harpies, Danielle responds by telling him she loves him and ordering him not to die. Daffyd is implied to fight off the poison by sheer Heroic Willpower.
  • In Dragon Bones, Ward is very, very angry at Oreg, for not only making a Heroic Sacrifice but manipulating him into doing the killing.
  • In Gene Stratton-Porter's Freckles, Angel, having dug up Freckles's family, is annoyed that he is still near Death by Despair.
    YOU JUST TRY DYING AND YOU'LL GET A GOOD SLAP!
  • In the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Straight Silver, the sniper Jessi Banda is stabbed through the lungs during a particularly brutal trench fight on the frontline. Her squad commander, the normally rude and dismissive Major Rawne, cradles her (while badly wounded himself - his torso is nearly pulped) while ordering her to stay alive.
    Rawne: Don't you die on me. I fething order you to be okay.
  • Hogfather: Susan gets this when the Hogfather dies and she can't even figure out why.
  • Katniss with Peeta in The Hunger Games. It actually happens more than once but the most prominent example is probably when his heart stops after hitting the force field in Catching Fire.
  • A variation occurs in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream— the sadistic supercomputer AM is enraged when all of the human characters die except one, not because he cared about them, but because he can no longer use them as outlets for his hatred of humanity. In revenge, he turns his torments on the sole human character remaining, Ted— whose eventual fate is, incidentally, where the title comes from.
  • In Labyrinths of Echo by Max Frei the protagonist once accidentally cured a wounded man suffering from magical compulsion by wishing aloud his "patient" would be okay. And later discovered that while his own domination spell is dangerous, ordering its victims to recover may fix even terminal disease or otherwise incurable insanity.
  • In Midnight's Children, Ahmed reacts badly to the death of his friend Doctor Narlikar. He calls it a "betrayal" on account of the fact that Ahmed couldn't actually attach his name to Narlikar's business due to religious persecution, and was thus totally dependent on Narlikar to give him the profits.
  • The Outsiders: Right before and right after Johnny's death, his big brother figure Dallas curses him and Ponyboy for being stupid and naive enough for getting into the things that lead to his death, completely loses it, and ultimately commits Suicide by Cop.
  • Variation: In the book The Princess Bride, after being stabbed by the six-fingered man, Inigo has a vision of his father:
    Inigo: ...sorry, Father... I'm sorry...
    Domingo: I don't want your "sorry"! My name is Domingo Montoya and I died for that sword and you can keep your "sorry". If you were going to fail, why didn't you die years ago and let me rest in peace?
  • The Redwall book series, by Brian Jacques. Two instances. One is after a character is found in the woods badly wounded and is told "If you die, I'll kill you!". Another version is in a separate book where a character that's been unconscious is told by a friend that if he dies, the other character will never speak to him again. This is lampshaded by the now-conscious character remarking that it'd be interesting to see that.
  • Arya Stark does quite a bit of this in A Song of Ice and Fire, angry at the adults who keep failing to protect her.
    • Also played with when Cersei demands that Lord Giles be told, "He does not have my leave to die."
  • Auria with David in Those Who Cry Green Tears after she tries to save him after he stayed behind to save her.
  • In the Warhammer 40,000 novel Helsreach, Black Templar's Reclusiarch Merek Grimaldus has this reaction when a Titan's princeps (whose Titan he had just saved from being overrun) was dying from the strain of controlling the massive machine. He demands the crew get the Titan working, but they inform him that it is impossible without the princeps. To solve the issue, he proceeds to remind the dying princeps that she swore to fight by his side and to shake it off and get up. This allows the princeps to regain her sense of self...and pisses her off enough to retake control of the Titan, due to the sheer insult that a machine thought it could control her. All to the utter shock of the crew.
    Grimaldus: You swore to me that you would walk. Stand, Zarha, STAND!
  • Nynaeve does this to a wounded Aiel Maiden in Book Three of The Wheel of Time. On purpose, though: it helps her to get angry enough to channel and heal her.
  • Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff's "May she wake in torment!" speech upon receiving the news of Cathy's death. A portrait of a man so enraged at his dead beloved for leaving him that he wishes torment on her immortal soul.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Happens in season 4 of Angel, when Gunn is momentarily killed and brought back by an electric shock and acts cavalier about it - Fred breaks down in tears and starts screaming "You died and left me all alone!"
  • Gene Hunt gets one of these in Ashes to Ashes (2008) after Alex passes out from hypothermia.
    • Also when she was drugged by Summers and when she mysteriously stops breathing after being chloroformed
      • Also arguably when he drags her out of the road in the first episode:
        Gene: Do you know how much paperwork there is for suicides?!
  • In Babylon 5, Ivanova's emotional reaction after Marcus uses an alien life transfer machine to save her life, nearly at the cost of his own.
  • In the final episode of the 13th season of Canada's Worst Driver, there's a skit in which host Andrew "operates" on the hero car for the season, which has been badly damaged by the bad drivers. He shouts "Don't you do this to me!" and tries to revive it with jumper cables, but it flatlines.
  • An odd version in Castle when Beckett desperately tries to resuscitate a murderer who she's just shot, calling for him to stay with her because he's the man who killed her mother and the only lead to why she was murdered.
  • Charmed had Piper screaming and breaking down at her older sister Prue's grave, managing to be incredibly heartbreaking. Piper only did this after Paige told her it was okay to be mad at Prue for dying, and that Paige herself was angry at her parents for dying.
  • A "near death" version on The Closer after Sanchez takes three shots to save Provenza:
    Chief Johnson: Detective Sanchez, listen to me! I'm issuing you a direct order. Keep breathing! Do you hear me? Keep breathing!
  • Doctor Who:
    • In "Last of the Time Lords", the Doctor almost demands that the Master not die on him. Made all the worse by the fact that the Master actually could save himself from death if he chose to. He's simply dying to spite the Doctor.
      The Master: Dying in your arms. Happy now?
      The Doctor: You're not dying, don't be stupid. It's only a bullet. Just regenerate.
      The Master: No.
      The Doctor: One little bullet. C'mon.
      The Master: I guess you don't know me so well. I refuse.
    • "Forest of the Dead": River, in her first-last appearance about the Doctor: "If he dies, I'll kill him!"
    • This exchange between the Doctor and Wilf in "The End of Time" Part 1:
      The Doctor: [bluntly] I'm going to die.
      Wilfred: Well, so am I, one day.
      The Doctor: Don't you dare!
      Wilfred: All right, I'll try not to!
    • "The Curse of the Black Spot":
      The Doctor: Come on, come on, Rory, not like this, not today!
    • In "Before the Flood", Clara has a Freak Out when the Doctor indicates he's resigned himself to dying. (Due to the Timey-Wimey Ball being in play, Clara has already seen the apparently deceased Doctor in the future.)
      Clara: Not with me! Die with whoever comes after me, you do not leave me!
  • Firefly:
    • In "Jaynestown", when one of the mudders dives in front of a shotgun blast intended for Jayne, even when it's been proved Jayne isn't the hero the village thought him to be, Jayne goes ballistic. Afterwards, he's really shaken up by the incident, not comprehending why the mudder had saved his life at the expense of his own. "Don't make no sense...".
    • In "War Stories", when Niska resuscitates Mal after having tortured him to death "Mr. Reynolds...? You died, Mr. Reynolds. If you die, I can't hurt you anymore."
  • Game of Thrones Used as a motivation speech before a battle by Sandor Clegane to his troops.
    Clegane: If any of you die with a clean sword, I'll rape your fucking corpse!
  • In a first season episode of Gilmore Girls, Emily freaks out in the hospital when Richard has a mild heart attack and berates him for it (although he actually survives).
    Richard: Emily, listen. If I die...
    Emily: No!
    Richard: Emily...
    Emily: Richard Gilmore, there may be many things happening in this hospital tonight, but your dying is not one of them.
    Richard: But—
    Emily: No! I did not sign on to your dying. And it is not going to happen. Not tonight, not for a very long time. In fact, I demand to go first. Do I make myself clear?
    Richard: Yes, Emily. You may go first.
  • M*A*S*H may very well have been the first to popularize the surgeon's "Live, Dammit, live!" line, with Hawkeye and his obsessive drive to prevent death in a line of work that's just crawling with it. No wonder he nearly cracks in the last episode.
    "C'mon... live, dammit, live! Don't let the bastard win!!"
    "Live, that's an order!"
  • On The Mentalist, Lisbon keeps telling Sam Bosco that it'll be OK, that he can't let a little lead stop him. Heartbreaking.
  • NCIS:
    • Gibbs orders his subordinates not to die on a regular basis, and it seems to work. This occurs notably in SWAK when Tony has the plague.
    • Ziva does this with the man who killed her father and Jackie Vance when he eats a cyanide-laced cigarette—not out of any affection, but because they want to bring him in alive to find out who hired him.
  • One of the first scenes of the first episode of Red Dwarf involves a welcome back party for a dead crewman who has been resurrected as a hologram. During his toast, he says the following:
    "As you know, Holly's only capable of sustaining one hologram, so my advice to anyone more vital to the mission than me is, if you die, I'll kill you."
  • During the Season 1 finale of Star Trek: Picard, a recently-deceased Picard discussed with Data how he had executed a Heroic Sacrifice in the events at the climax of Star Trek: Nemesis, and his feelings about him having done so. While Picard had remembered his own death, since Data uploaded his consciousness to B-4 before Enterprise-E's battle with the Scimitar, he did not remember his own death.
    Picard: You don't remember your death. I can't forget it.
    Data: Apparently, I had ended my existence in the hope of prolonging yours.
    Picard: That's right. Before I had even grasped the nature of our predicament, you had conceived and executed it. I was furious!
    Data: My apologies, Captain. But I am not certain I could have done otherwise.
    Picard: True. That might've been the most Data thing you ever did. I've always wished that I could've said I was sorry that it was you and not me.
    Data: Captain, do you regret sacrificing your life for Soji and her people?
    Picard: Not for an instant!
    Data: Then why would you imagine I regret sacrificing mine for yours?
  • Wilhelmina in Ugly Betty yells this hysterically as Bradford dies in the middle of their wedding.

    Music 
  • "Pretty Angry" by Blues Traveler. John Popper wrote this song expressing his sadness over the death of his bandmate/best friend Bobby Sheehan.
    And I wanna shout from my guitar
    Come out, come out wherever you are
    The joke is over, open your eyes
    A heart like yours, it never dies
    And I found your keys behind your chair
    I still can see you sitting there
    This isn't funny; don't fool around
    You let me go... you let me down
  • "Dark Wings" by Within Temptation includes the lyrics "Don't you die on me/You haven't made your peace/Live life, breathe, breathe".
  • Leæther Strip almost invokes the trope name with "Don't You Dare Die On Me".
  • The small-time West Virginia rock band The Weber Brothers has a song called Don't You Die on me, which includes the lines "Don't you die on me! If you do, I'm never gonna forgive you. Don't you die on me! Such an underhanded thing to do!"

    Theatre 
  • If/Then has a song called "I Hate You" in the "Liz" timeline. The protagonist's husband, a military medic, goes on deployment against her wishes. While her insults and declarations of hate start out as Anger Born of Worry, they take a different turn when it's revealed he was killed in the medical tent.
  • In Next to Normal, Dan resents Diana, in part, because he's afraid she'll hurt herself again. Also, this trope is the underlying reason everyone resents Gabe so much.
  • The play Our Country's Good has Duckling pleading with a dying Harry to not die. When he dies anyway, without ever waking up, she lets out an anguished "I hate you. No, I love you. How could you do this to me?!"
  • RENT combined it with the Ironic Echo:
    Who do you think you are / leaving me alone with my guitar?

    Video Games 
  • A very sad example from Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits: When a Darc is finally reunited with a mother he has grown up assuming betrayed him and his demon father, he is first furious at her. Then she takes a soldier's bullet intended for him, causing him to yell at her, "No dying, you hear me?!? You can't die until I've killed you properly! Mother? Mother!?"
  • Jaheira to her husband Khalid in Baldur's Gate: "You die on me and I swear you'll never hear the end of it!" When he's killed in the sequel, It's Personal.
  • A variant of this trope in Chrono Trigger. After Crono is blasted out of existence at the hands of Lavos, his friends set out to revive him using the titular Chrono Trigger. If you have Lucca in you party following the end of the quest, she hugs Crono, belting out this trope almost word-for-word.
  • Disgaea:
    • In Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, the gender-reversed variation happens when Flonne accepts to be killed by the Seraph in order to prevent him from punishing the entire group. Once Laharl realizes that she really is gone, he goes utterly apeshit.
      Laharl: You're going to abandon me, like my mother did? I didn't give you permission! Is this what you call love? If it is, then I'll never believe in love! Ever!
    • Disgaea 3 has something quite similar, where Mao laments the death of Almaz, claiming that he did not give his servants permission to die on him (all while trying his darnedest not to admit that he actually cares about Almaz's fate).
    • Subverted in the bad ending path, where he's painfully honest about not caring.
  • Some companion battle cries for a fallen Hawke in Dragon Age II fit this trope. A shocked Anders shouts "No! Don't you dare!", while Aveline takes it personally: "Not today Hawke. Not while I am here!" Similar for Carver ("Don't you die on me. Not after all this."), Fenris ("No! I will not allow it!"), and Isabela ("Don't you die on me!"). Some of them also have lines of this nature for other companions when they fall, depending on who it is and how they feel about them. Averted by Sebastian, Bethany, and Varric, who mostly sound panicked and distraught.
  • In Dragon's Dogma, your Pawns, while supposedly emotionless, seem pretty distressed when you die in a game over, often demanding that you "OPEN YOUR EYES!"
  • One of the lines of dialogue between raiders in Fallout 4 is "NO! Don't you die on me!" when a raider discovers the body of a comrade who got killed.
  • In Far Cry: New Dawn, Mickey, one of the Highwaymen leaders, has this reaction when her sister Lou dies from injuries dealt to her by the Captain, because Mickey feels that as the older twin, she was supposed to die first.
  • Final Fantasy V: Faris and Krile both say variants of this when Galuf is dying after his battle with Exdeath. Faris yells at him to "get up, you old bat! Quit playing around, this isn't funny!" while Krile simply begs him not to die over and over. Meanwhile, they're dousing him with every healing spell and item in the menu, but none of it works.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, at the end of the Endwalker expansion, the Warrior of Light comes to after their cataclysmic battle between the Endsinger and Zenos with the Scions trying their damnedest to revive and restore them. Thankfully it works and they're greeted with Anger Born of Worry from them.
  • From Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days we have this line:
    Roxas: Xion! Who else am I going to eat ice cream with?
  • From Odin Sphere:
    Mercedes: Ingway... is that you? You lied to me! You said we'd meet again!
  • In Sands of Destruction, Kyrie asks Naja to kill him because his Power Incontinence puts Morte (And the Rest of the world) in danger. While Morte is too stunned to react as he lies dying in her arms, she later berates him for it after he's resurrected at the Temple of Light.
    Morte: Did I ask you to die for me!?
  • Tales of Symphonia has one for five characters out of the six character-team during that point of the game. Idiot Hero Lloyd gets angry at everyone for dying at a critical point of the game. Subverted when, about 10 game minutes later, you find out that every one of them was a Disney Death.

    Visual Novels 
  • Astra's Garden: The incurably ill Cassava was pressured by his family to hide his pain and put on a happy face even when he was rotting alive and had to take a medicine with horrible side effects to delay his inevitable death. When he stopped taking his medicine and died, his family became deeply upset with him, assuming he did it because he hated them.
  • In Code:Realize this happens towards the end of Van Helsing's route. A very heartbreaking scene takes place in which the Player Character wails over his seemingly dead body, made worse as he may or may not truly be dead depending on the choices you've made.
  • Umineko: When They Cry has a particularly heartbreaking example in Episode 5 when Beatrice thinks Battler, impaled on a red sword, is dead and gives up, apologizing. When Battler understands the truth and wakes up, only her empty shell remains, crumbling when he tries to hold it.
    Battler: Even though I finally understood... why did you give up before me?!

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • In The Dreamer Bea tells a feverish and unconscious Alan "Don't you dare leave me here without you." on this page
  • In Girl Genius, Agatha flips out and, by yelling at her Love Interest dying of (essentially) a lifeforce leak manages to stabilize him. Possibly a case of The Power of Love or Compelling Voice, or as hypothesized by another character in the novelization version of the scene, the target simply enjoys a good argument. Her other love interest made an amusing threat to the same character earlier:
    Tarvek: Hang on! The system's damaged! If you die before we fix it, I'll... I'll kill you!
  • Penny and Aggie: During the "Popsicle War" arc, Penny makes an angry and impassioned plea to Michelle, forcing her friend to see what her eating disorder is doing to herself and the people who love her.
    "If I let you go now, you're gonna beam yourself right back to Planet Rationalization, and meanwhile you're dying, Shelly!"
  • In Something*Positive, Davan tries to insult his friend Scotty out of his overdose-induced coma. Scotty flatlined. At the open casket funeral, Davan is so furious that Scotty committed suicide instead of coming to his friends and family with his problems that he throttles Scotty's corpse.
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent: Onni does the "please don't leave me alone" variant to his younger sister Tuuri as he sees her leaving for the afterlife. Tuuri's death leaves a couple of cousins as Onni's only known living relatives after an eleven-year-old event resulted in the death of at least his parents, aunt, and uncle.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • In Evil Con Carne when Hector's detached stomach starts dying on him.
    Hector: You're a disgrace to the uniform! You make me sick. (sadly) I command you... to live!
  • The Family Guy episode "Life of Brian" has Stewie doing this when Brian is on his deathbed.
    Stewie: Dammit, Brian, you can't die! We were gonna do so many things together! We were gonna become windsurfers; I was gonna be a little better than you, but we were both gonna be good!
  • In Gargoyles, as Magus lays dying, Princess Katherine says "Ye can nae leave me now!"
  • Dr. Holiday does this in the Generator Rex episode "A Family Holiday", when it looks like Agent Six is dead.
    Dr. Holiday: Don't you do this to me! I will hate you forever!
  • Jackie Chan Adventures: Uncle did this to himself in "The Dog And Piggy Show" after Hak Foo knocked out Uncle with a sucker punch, as a Call-Back to a similar scene in "The Mask Of El Toro Fuerte", when Uncle appeared before a knocked-out Jackie.
    Vision!Uncle: Uncle! Uncle!
    Uncle: Yes, Uncle?
    Vision!Uncle: What happened? You got such a whooping!
    Uncle: Big mouth had big fist...
    Vision!Uncle: One more thing: there is work to do! You must acquire the pig talisman and discover the power it possesses.
    Uncle: But, I am dead...
    Vision!Uncle: Aiya! How can you be dead! You are wearing the immortality talisman!
    Uncle: Oh, right.
    Vision!Uncle: One more thing... (Vision!Uncle slaps Uncle)
    Uncle: (waking up) OW!
  • In The Ripping Friends, Rip says something like this to a dehydrated Chunk when he was attacked by The Indigestible Wad.
  • South Park:
    • When Kenny dies in the episode "Rainforest Schmainforest". Kelly tries to give him CPR saying "Breathe! Breathe! BREATHE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He survives.
    • A similar event occurs in the Imaginationland story arc when Cartman, of all people, managed to bring Kyle back from the brink of death after being injured by the portal to Imaginationland. It's hard to say whether this was a case of Antagonist in Mourning or Cartman just wanted Kyle to live long enough to fulfill his part of the bet. Or both.

    Real Life 
  • Anger is said to be one of the five stages of grief.
  • Common coping mechanism for Italian families at funerals.
  • When she read the suicide note of Kurt Cobain, widow Courtney Love went off when she got to a part where he wished normalcy for the loved ones he left behind: "Well, why didn't you fucking stay?!"

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