When an author says a character will die way before they do, thus spoiling an important part of the plot. Mostly used for emotional buildup.
Subtrope of
Foregone Conclusion.
Examples:
- The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
- A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
- There is a book titled My Brother Sam Is Dead. The narrator has a brother named Sam. Guess what happens in the final chapter? Yeah, Sam dies.
- And then there's John Dies At The End. Guess what happens to John? He dies... at the beginning.
- Inverted in The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, where, before a dramatic and dangerous scene, we are informed (supposedly to relieve the painful suspense) that all the characters survive the scene, and that the worst any of them suffers is a bruise on the elbow. It preserves tension by not specifying who receives the bruise.
- Death Of A Salesman.
- The Death Of Superman.
- The Princess Bride (the book, not the movie).
- Granted, The Green Mile is set on death row, but Stephen King still makes free and easy with various details of characters' deaths long before they happen. Somehow, he manages to do it in such a way that it only intensifies your urge to read more.
- Done in the crappy Uwe Boll movie House Of The Dead, which Spoony gets annoyed at because it ruins the suspense.
- In Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos, if a character will die soon, there will be an asterisk by their name.
- Inverted in Dan Brown's Angels And Demons where he says how a character will survive.
- Amplified from single characters to main story by the opening voice over for Babylon 5. "...last best chance for peace...it failed..."
- Well, the Opening Narration for Babylon Five changed every season; they didn't add the "it failed" until after it failed. (As I recall. I could be wrong.)
- Older Than Steam: the prologue to Romeo And Juliet:
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.
- The BRIEF Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
- American Beauty opens with the protagonist and narrator saying he'll be dead in less than a year.
- Played straight and then subverted in the film Stranger Than Fiction.
- Doctor Who episode "Army of Ghosts:"
Rose (VO): This is the story of how I died. Subverted in that she didn't actually die, but people assume she did at the end of the story, because so many people died she was probably one of them.
- Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman.
- A flashforward in LOST reveals in advance that Jin never makes it off the island and even shows his gravestone. However, he survives the explosion that you're meant to think killed him.
- Stephen Kings The Stand
- Grave Of The Fireflies
- The narrator of the MST-ed turd The Dead Talk Back simply will not shut up about the upcoming murder in Act 1. Crow even points out that it won't be all that suspenseful once it happens, and whaddaya know; he's right.
