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So you've got a character who's dying. He's had a good run, and now that he's being let go you want a way to give him that one, perfect send-off that will cement him in the viewers' minds for the rest of the series to come. Not just a few words will do, but something defining to his character that can only be done by his character.
What would be more fitting that to have him do the habit he's been doing all series long, but give this one the most flair? Usually the object in question will be just out of reach, leaving a nearby comrade to hand them the item of importance as a dramatic good bye. If no such comrade is nearby, it's Bittersweet Ending. If he's not mortally wounded and can still stand, there'll probably be a One Liner involved or even a smile.
The object itself can manifest as many things: a book he was always reading, picture of a loved one, or some kind of music player with a simple tune to encourage the mood of the scene.
Most often though, it's a cigarette, because Smoking Is Cool. This comes with the bonus of being able to see the character's final breath, and the added symbolism of the cigarette dying out.
Clever heroes will often use this as a diversion by taking advantage of the villain's vain pity to escape certain doom. Naturally, this is listed on item 14 of The Evil Overlord List.
Under most cases, the character must be Killed Off For Real for the trope to be played straight. Examples involving the character's survival are a subversion. Compare with the much more time-friendly The Last Dance. See also Last Request.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- In Ai No Kusabi Star Crossed Lovers Iason Mink and Riki share a Last Kiss in the form of touching their cigarettes together before dying.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, Takamichi's master Gatō asked his student for one last cigarette before he passed away from a still unexplained injury. Before Asuna's eyes.
- Cowboy Bebop: In "Black Dog Serenade", Jet's former partner asks for a cigarette before his death. His last words are, "I couldn't quit smoking after all."
- Asuma in Naruto.
- Sanji of One Piece when he was defeated by Ghin. But it was actually a deliberate subversion, because he spat the glowing cigarette back into Ghin's face to distract him and evaded his final blow, continuing the fight.
- Occurs in the Trigun anime, Wolfwood prepares one last cigarette as he's dying, inhales once, and then drops it when he remembers Milly scolding him for smoking.
- Subverted in Darker Than Black as he's dying following a Heroic Sacrifice, November 11 lights up as per his usual Power At A Price. However, given that he hates smoking, he decides that he can forgo this just once and throws the cigarette away, and it is put out by his blood
Fairy Tales
- The Tinder Box by Hans Christian Andersen has the solder escape death by asking for One Last Smoke - the titular magic tinder box is able to make three dogs appear and save him.
- A similar ending happens in The Brothers Grimm tale The Blue Flame.
- One Jewish folktale involves a kabaalist who had captured Satan and had him in chains. The devil asked for some snuff, and the hero took pity on him and agreed. The devil proceded to light the snuff on fire and use it to break his chains. Nice Job Breaking It Hero.
Film
- In Fantômas se déchaîne, commissioner Juve managed to kill three guards and escape by asking for one last cigar, and offering some to two of said guards: Those cigars hid single-shot guns...
- In Independence Day before Hiller (Will Smith) and Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) blow up the Alien mothership, they both smoke cigars because they think they're going to die anyways.
- Lightly averted at the end of Lethal Weapon II: Riggs asks Murtaugh for a cigarette, only to spit it out and pledge that he's giving up smoking.
- Sophie, her brother, and their friend share a last smoke before they're all beheaded in Sophie Scholl – The Final Days.
- The Good The Bad And The Ugly. Blondie a.k.a. the Good gives some random dying young man a drag from his cigar. It is not some special request, though; merely something nice you can easily do for a dying person you do not know personally.
- This used in The Core, with the guy who'd been taping his observations the whole time. He started to smoke and use the recorder, then realized that nobody was ever going to get the recorder (duh), laughed and threw it away. He died cool.
- When Two-Face falls to his death in Batman Forever, he still holds out his hand for his silver dollar to fall into.
- In Heathers, JD lights up right before he goes boom.
- The Usual Suspects starts with a heavily wounded Dean Keaton approached by Keyser Soze, who, despite being a Complete Monster, patiently waits for Keaton to enjoy his last drags before shooting him dead.
- The recent BBC remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps played with this: The hero looks like he's about to get shot, and asks if he can have a smoke. The German spies holding him captive say no. He then eyes up the cigarette smoking in the ashtray, looking like he's going to do something with it. He doesn't.
- In the James Bond film You Only Live Twice Bond requests a last cigarette:
Blofeld: The firing power inside my crater is enough to annihilate a small army. You can watch it all on TV. It's the last program you're likely to see.
Bond: Well, if I'm gonna be forced to watch television, may I smoke?
Blofeld: Yes. Give him his cigarettes. It won't be the nicotine that kills you, Mr. Bond.
- Of course, the cigarettes are Q gadgets containing a small rocket Bond uses to take out his guards and save the day.
- Actually, they were made by Tanaka, not Q.
- In the comedy Casino Royale Woody Allen as Jimmy Bond has a last cigarette in front of a Latin American firing squad ("I'm gonna give it up any day now") - it's an impact bomb he throws at the squad. He climbs the wall laughing in triumph - and lands on the other side, in another country, in front of another firing squad.
- In From Russia With Love Bond, at gunpoint and about to be shot by Red Grant, asks for a last cigarette, offering to pay for it - to get Grant to open up his booby-trapped attache case
- The Crow—Officer Albrecht is badly wounded, and Eric helps him light a cigarette, repeating the same line ("Those things'll kill you") he said when he first saw Albrecht smoke. Subverted—it's a near thing, but Albrecht survives.
- Played with, subverted, and double subverted in a complicated way in the 1998 film Fallen. The main character, played by Denzel Washington, is cornered in a remote cabin by the villain, a body-hopping demon possessing the body of his best friend. Denzel shoots him and in the process dooms himself, since as soon as the guy dies the demon will be free to possess the protagonist himself. Denzel takes a last smoke as the villain dies in front of him (first subversion)... only to reveal that he has poisoned the cigarettes, leaving the demon nowhere to run since there are no other humans close enough for him to possess. Death by One Last Smoke! (Second subversion.) Except the villain gets away and the hero doesn't. So it really was his last smoke. Third subversion?
- Constantine played with the trope by having John try for a smoke after his death, but being unable to light the cigarette because he'd hit the tendons while slitting his wrists.
- Played straight in a surprisingly touching moment at the end of Shaun Of The Dead, when Shaun leaves Ed to be eaten by zombies, placing a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it for him. Played with a moment later with a fart joke.
- Appears in The Mask, of all movies. And it's done between the Big Bad and one of his henchmen..
- In the Resident Evil Live Action Movies, Carlos' Heroic Sacrifice finishes with him finding a cigarette and lighting up while the camera pans out, showing his vehicle surrounded by zombies.
Literature
- In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Mitty is leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette, then enters a Dream Sequence where a firing squad is ready to execute him.
- At the end of Ai No Kusabi, Iason and Riki share a poisoned cigarette and a Last Kiss before everything explodes around them.
- In Discworld, executions have been referred to as something along the lines of "a short cigarette in the sunlight". They give you a nice white wall to stand up against, to.
- The scene in Matthew Reilly's Ice Station where the British soldiers are about to kill Schofield by lowering him headfirst into a pool of killer whales. The commander gives him a last request- "A blindfold? Cigarette? Shot of brandy?" and Schofield makes a last minute plan, opts for the cigarette, and uses it to set fire to the detonator cord entwined in his handcuffs, and then he escapes, kills them all and becomes a legend for killing all the bad guys and blowing everything up, classic Scarecrow style..
Live Action TV
- In the second season of Life On Mars, Sam Tyler escapes death by asking for one last cigarette.
- On Star Trek Deep Space Nine Bashir and Garak are strapped to a giant laser while trapped in a James Bond spoof. Bashir's last request is for Dr. Honey Bare (Jadzia Dax's body) to let her hair down. The holodeck has turned her into a mousy scientist, so she's very shy, but she does it. This is enough seduction for her to slip him the key. Quoth Garak: "Kiss the girl; get the key. They never taught me that in the Obsidian Order."
- On Highlander The Series, when Hugh Fitzcairn is captured by The Hunters, he asks if he gets a last request prior to his beheading. When the lead Hunter gruffly demands to know what it is, Hugh asks for "a last smoke of my pipe." The Hunter considers it for a moment before denying him, though this buys Duncan the last few momemnts he needs to get to the scene and rescue his friend.
- Appears on Battlestar Galactica at the end of the Mutiny arc. After the mutiny fails, Felix Gaeta is seen smoking a cigar and having a friendly conversation with Gaius Baltar, talking about the aspirations he had while growing up. In the next shot, he is facing a firing squad.
Video Games
- Both subverted, double subverted and played straight in Metal Gear Solid 4: Snake is about to kill himself, so he has a last smoke, however, it then turns out that he doesn't need to. However, he quits smoking afterwards, so it was technically still his last. Played straight with Big Boss during the ending, however.
- Played completely straight in Metal Gear Solid, however: When Sniper Wolf lies dying in the snow after the second fight with her, she asks Otacon to hand her her sniper rifle, and she dies holding it against her chest.
- Variation with subversion: In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the apparently dying Bobbery wants one last sip of his prized Chuckola Cola vintage. (And yes, it really IS soda. In the Japanese version too.) You trek all over the island to fetch it for him. When you finally bring him the bottle, he takes one sip, and promptly... falls asleep. At which point, your partner gets annoyed that he put you through all that trouble, and orders you to conk him awake.
- Subverted in two ways in the flash game Armed With Wings 2
 . After his defeat, Smoking Martillo requests to finish his final cigarette, and is consequently executed by the main character. Probably a wise decision, considering he fights with smoke from his cigarettes. He is later resurrected, along with the other generals you killed.
Western Animation
Real Life
- Truth In Television: Men were usually given cigarettes before being executed by firing squad.
- In Incredible Victory, Walter Lord tells of some Japanese Officers who actually did this at the Battle of Midway. Some survived.
- During World War II, Kamikaze pilots drank sake before a mission.
- They were not the only ones: Reds With Rockets had an official regulation to give each soldier a 100 ml glass of vodka before each attack. When you think back about the Soviet casualties during the Second World War...
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