Two lovers — often teenagers — destined to be kept apart no matter how hard they struggle to be together. It may be Fate, or fatally-Feuding Families, or it may be something as mundane as a few hundred miles' separation, but something will always be in their way. Often, the two can only be Together in Death. William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is the most famous example (and the Trope Namer), but the archetype dates at least as far back as Mesopotamian Mythology and Egyptian Mythology, making it Older Than Dirt.
In modern times, often the term "star crossed" is unknowingly misused to mean lovers who are meant to be together. It means just the opposite — the stars (i.e., destiny, or the heavens) have ruled against them, or crossed their plan - get it? Compare the word "disaster", which has the etymology "away; without" ('dis') + "star; planet" ('aster'). (Then again, if the stars rule that much, they probably did decree the love as well as the impossibility.)
One common version of this trope, Love Above One's Station (i.e., being in love with someone from a different social class), is at least discredited if not actually dead and buried in contemporary settings, but was very much true in the past, and it can still work when applied to historical settings. While it's difficult even today to have a relationship with someone from a very different background, in the old days, it was all but impossible: if you were from the lower class and courted your "better," you'd be treated with the vilest contempt and risk arrest and/or violence (possibly even death); meanwhile, a "better" who reciprocated would be disowned and possibly shut off in a nunnery, a monastery — or even an "asylum," an ironic name for a place which until a century or two ago was usually even worse than prison. (Then, see Suddenly Suitable Suitor.)
Hence all those tragic "servant/slave/peasant loves the lord/lady/king/queen" stories.
Compare Dating Catwoman, where the relationship is forbidden but doesn't usually end tragically. Notice the overlaps with Interspecies Romance and Maligned Mixed Marriage. See also Bury Your Gays. Often the case for a Vampire Werewolf Love Triangle. May be used as a Pretext For War.
Contrast Love Transcends Spacetime. Compare Nobody Thinks It Will Work and Uptown Girl.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen from Rose of Versailles. Oscar/Andre are another pair from the series (they do manage to get together, but die immediately afterwards), and Oscar/Fersen is another possibility.
Kazuya and Erika in Daimos. Kazuya is the pilot of Daimos, defender of Earth from the Balm invaders. While Erika is the little sister of Richter, Prince of Balm and leader of the invasion. They get their happy ending, but not before much heartbreak.
Mazinger Z: Shiro Kabuto and Lorelei. He was the little brother of Kouji Kabuto, The Hero and pilot and from Mazinger-Z. She was the daughter of a foreign Mad Scientist, or better said — a Robot Girl built by that Madscientist, who wanted to prove he was better than Dr. Kabuto, builder of Mazinger-Z and Shiro's grandfather. What happened? He built a Humongous Mecha, Rhine X1, and a Robot Girl, Lorelei, that was meant to fuse with it to make it work. When the scientist got a fatal wound, he confessed the truth to her and pleaded her to defeat Mazinger; determined to fulfill her father's last will, Lorelei merged with Rhine and challenged Mazinger to a death match, so Kouji was forced to fight and kill her.Poor Shiro was devastated after that.
Minerva-X and Mazinger-Z itself also are an example. Minerva-X was a Fem Bot designed by Dr. Kabuto specifically to be Mazinger-Z's Battle Couple. Unlike Mazinger, though, she was a robot capable of thinking and feeling emotions like an human being, and she was in love with Mazinger-Z. However, Dr. Kabuto never got around to build it. Unfortunately, Dr. Hell got his hands on the plans and built her to destroy Mazinger-Z. However, Minerva-X freed herself from his control and refused to fight Mazinger-Z, so he decided to destroy her. Their condition of Star-Crossed Lovers not only comes from this but also it comes from Mazinger-Z IS a machine and it simply can not reciprocate her feelings.
UFO Robo Grendizer: Duke Fleed and Hikaru Makiba. Hikaru's father refused accepting their relationship, since Danbei was an Overprotective Dad was perfectly willing to killing any male came near from his daughter), but that was not the real obstacle (or an obstacle for that matter). The real obstacle was that Duke wanted to return his Doomed Hometown of a planet to rebuild it if he managed surviving the war, whereas Hikaru did not want to leave Earth. Not matter what their feelings are, a separation is inevitable.
That same logic also works for Kouji and Maria.
Also, Duke and his fiancče Rubina. Duke is Crown Prince of planet Fleed, a world was invaded and scorched by the troops of King Vega, and he now is fighting the Vegans to prevent them from conquering Earth. Rubina is King Vega's daughter, and the closest to a loved one that Vega had. They got engaged before the Fleed's invasion, but King Vega -who never agreed the engagement in first place-, refuses seeing his daughter getting married with Duke. Of course,it ended up in tears.
In Tower Of God, any Zahardian princess who ever loved a man. To stop the spread of Zahards blood, they are forbidden to have relationships or children, a rule that is enforced with the death penalty. This applies especially to the parents of Anak Zahard, who got assassinated, kicking of her journey to get revenge.
Sakura and Syaoran in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. At first, even though they are physically together, Sakura is never allowed to remember she is in love with him (that is, from the looks of it, until all her feathers are found). Then it gets much, much more complicated, with all the complications putting more distance between them, metaphorically. That clones of both are involved is only the the beginning.
Yuuko and Clow may count too.
In the Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch manga, Rina and Hanon both fall in love with humans, knowing full well that they will eventually have to leave them to rule over their kingdoms. (Hamasaki actually has a mermaid ancestor, but this seems inconsequential.) They tell Lucia this too, but her guy turns out to be the prince of an ancient powerful race that can breathe underwater, so she's safe.
Arguably averted in Blue Submarine No. 6. Hayate and Muteo part ways at the end because she has to look after a emotionally-devastated Verg and he has to help in the rebuilding effort of what remains of humanity. However, it's implied by the final episode ending credits, that they will eventually get back together again once things finally settle down.
Wolf's Rain has not one but four sets of lovers, all of whom could be considered "star-crossed" in various ways.
Much of Lord Darcia's motivation for becoming the series' villain involves his lover Hamona falling into a coma and subsequently dying, which he blames on the wolves.
Hubb Leboski spends most of the series trying to get back together with his ex-wife Cher Degré, which indirectly leads to his getting involved with the wolves.
Kiba's main love interest is Cheza, the girl made of Lunar Flowers. Unfortunately, her status as a MacGuffin Girl keeps her trapped by many Nobles, forcing Kiba to fight his way back to her.
The wolf Hige, who's always dreamed of finding a hot babe, eventually gets together with the wolf-dog Blue.
Of course, with everything else that's going on nobody gets much time for romance, and they all die in the OVA episodes. At the very end Hige is apparently reincarnated as a human, along with the other wolves, but we don't see Blue.
The Chinese daughter of a crime lord, Li-En, and her Mamodo partner, Wonrei, from Gash Bell. No matter what the outcome of the battle between the Mamodo is, Wonrei will have to eventually return to the Mamodo world.
Chrono of Chrono Crusade has the worst luck when it comes to relationships. First, he meets Mary Magdalene, who informs him after he's known her for months that she has had prophetic dreams since she was a child that he would be the one to take her life. He does, although not in the way either one expects. He's so guilt-ridden over her death that he sleeps for 50 years in her tomb, waiting for his energy to deplete to join her in death. But Rosette Christopher comes and wakes him up from his years of slumber, and things start to be going good for him...until her brother Joshua is kidnapped by Aion and he's forced to make a contract with her, slowly draining away at her life. In the anime they die together, Rosette as a result of the contract and Chrono from his wounds in the final battle, but in the manga they spend six years apart, and Chrono arrives back to her side just in time for her to die in his arms. It's implied that he lives on for decades afterwards.
Subverted in Princess Tutu. Ahiru is forced to give up the pendant she uses to transform into a girl to save Mytho, but Fakir still promises to stay by her side, even though she's now just a duck. Played straight with Tutu and the Prince in the fairytale, since the former is cursed to turn into a speck of light and vanish when she confesses her love. Almost played straight with Rue and Mytho, due to her being Princess Kraehe and him being cursed into a Raven... but Rue's Heroic Sacrifice earns their happy ending.
The Berserk universe has made it its personal mission to ensure that Guts and Casca never find happiness. That moment of love the two of them shared near the waterfall in the Golden Age arc was the closest they came to it before the Eclipse went down and everything went completely to hell.
Magic Knight Rayearth: Emeraude and Zagato. They are together at the end, but in the afterlife.
Subverted in the Vampire Princess Miyu OAVs. Kei Yuzuki is a very handsome human who is horribly bored with his life but does his best to hide it, so at first he only wants eternal youth and beauty and consults the Uncanny Valley Girl from his school, Ranka. Turns out she's a Shinma and she promises to give him what he wants yet planning to make him her prey... but later, the guy ends up falling in love with her despite knowing who she is, and much to her own shock Ranka finds herself returning these feelings. They reach an agreement and Ranka transforms Kei into a Shinma, so Miyu (who had her eyes set on him too, thus she was horribly humiliated when she found out) had to send them both to the Dark. The last time we see them, they happily and peacefully walk together towards the Darkness.
Takaki and Akari in 5 Centimeters per Second are an interesting example in that they have marginally more of a chance at a happy ending than most examples, but it doesn't stop their movie from being a huge Tear Jerker.
Newtype romances, in any Gundam series that includes Newtypes, generally do not end well. This goes double if Yoshiyuki Tomino, Mister Kill Em All himself, is actively involved in the series. Note that newtype analogs, like the Coordinators from SEED, don't really count (they tend to survive, and have stable relationships).
Unless you see Stellar and Shinn's bond as romantic. Then, they get the raw-est part of the deal. Not helped by how Stellar's Famous Last Words are "Shinn... I love you". If they don't count, is there a sort-of trope that is an equal of "Star Crossed Lovers", but with friends and family?
Also, while Kira and Lacusdo get their happy ending, Kira and his first girlfriend Fllay count as this. She started out as a Yandere who pretended to love him to get revenge since he didn't save her father from a really messy death, then truly fell for him when he showed her genuine kindness... but she could only sort-of tell him her true feelings after she was murdered by the Big Bad.
Lyle Dylandy and Anew Returner. It doesn't end well for them, since she turns out to be an Innovator Manchurian Agent and betrays Celestial Being when her "trigger" (her Innovator twin Revive Revival) appears and "resets" her. When Lyle offers her a Last-Second Chance she almost takes it, only to be mind controlled by Ribbons Almark into fighting him anyway and she eventually has to be killed by Setsuna to keep her from killing Lyle.
The Gundam Wing novel Frozen Teardrop give us Treize's parents, Ein Yuy and Angelina Khushrenada. They tried to run away to escape the Parental Marriage Veto coming from her family, but her Smug Snake father Cinquante kidnapped Angelina back into the clan and got Ein killed. She was so broken that she went insane with grief. Also, Trowa Phobos and Kathy Winner may end up as this too.
And now we have Flit Asuno and Yurin L'Ciel from Gundam AGE. Yurin dies in the Wham Episode, and while Flit marries his childhood friend Emily and they're still together after the Time Skip, Yurin's death was also his Start of Darknessand Emily simply can't fill the void she left.
From the Third Generation Kio Asuno and Lu Anon. It's bad enough that Kio's from Earth and Lu's from Vagan, but Lualso suffers from an incurable disease due to Mars Ray exposure. While Kio eventually got her medicine (which only relieves the symptoms and doesn't actually cure the illness), she dies in Episode 38, leaving Kio heartbroken as he escapes Vagan with his father.
In Arashi No Yoru Ni: Averted. Mei and Gabu seem doomed to part ways because their Interspecies Romance is frowned upon by both their kin, but they find one another again in the end.
Basilisk, which is essentially a Japanese Tokugawa-era send up of "Romeo and Juliet", has its star crossed lovers: Gennosuke from the Kouga and Oboro from the Iga. They even make reference to the old belief that star-crossed lovers will be reborn as twin siblings.
Also, the beginning of the show shows another pair of star crossed lovers: Koga Danjou and Iga Ogen, Gennosuke's grandpa and Oboro's grandma respectively.
Two of Adachi Mitsuru's manga series feature romances forbidden by feuding parents. In Rough, the parents run rival confectionery businesses. In Katsu!, the fathers are former boxing rivals. In both cases, the girl's father is more rabid than the boy's father.
In the manhwa The Bride Of The Water God, the couple Habaek and Nakbin who, according to Su Wang Mo were destined only as passing friends fell deeply in love with each other amidts the deceit and controversy which resulted to Nakbin's death just to protect Habaek. That after her death, both made drastic decisions in order to meet again. With Habaek requiring human girls as sacrifice, and Nakbin escaping the world of the dead by deceiving the god governing it. In the end, their efforts are futile as circumstances always lead to Nakbin choosing death instead of forsaking Habaek along with the fact that he is already connected by the red string to Soah. And even though Habaek admitted that he can never let go of his longing for his first bride, just like the leaves and the flowers of the Spider Lily, the two of them can only long for each other but will never be reunited. Though currently, Nakbin is reincarnated as a human without a memory as conditioned by Hoo-ye to Su Wang Mo.
In the village of Hinamizawa, there were Satoshi Houjou and Shion Sonozaki.
Not really. While Satoshi's disappearance causes Shion to snap and go insane, eventually resulting in her own death, the whole 'go insane' part only happens in 2 chapters, and not in the actual ending. Additionally, it's revealed that Satoshi is actually alive(though comatose) in the finale, and Shion will wait every day for him to recover. Also, the grudge against the Houjou family is dismissed, and upon his return, it's not unlikely that the Sonozakis would support a relationship between the two.
Code Geass has two couples like this: Ougi and Viletta, then Lelouch and Shirley (at least in Shirley's mind). The first ones subvert the trope and get their happy ending, even if YMMV on that.... the second couple plays it depressingly straight.
Euphemia and Suzaku are another pair. Although they were on the same sides, Suzaku was still considered inferior. And Euphemia still died.
Yoko and Kamina too. Right after aknowledging their feelings and sharing their first kiss? Kamina gets killed off. And even with the whole Last Kiss deal with Kittan, it's pretty much spelled that Yoko never loved anyone else the way she loved Kamina.
Bleach: There's a long-running joke in the fandom that a sign a pairing is official is if one (or both) of the pair has been killed off. Every confirmed romance has ended tragically with none being allowed to remain together for a lifetime.
Isshin and Masaki Kurosaki. Masaki died at a time when Isshin didn't have the power to save her. Masaki's death is a driving force behind the entire manga as it's one of Ichigo's major motives for being The Hero and turns out to be of major importance in the final arc for both Ichigo and Uryuu.
Ryuuken Ishida and Kanae Katagiri. Kanae and Ryuuken overcame considerable odds to wind up together (like Ryuuken's Arranged Marriage to Masaki) but their love story still ended tragically. Kanae collapsed suddenly one day and languished in a coma for three months before she finally died. The final arc reveals that Masaki and Kanae's deaths were caused by the same incident that occurred on the same day but Kanae died slowly whereas Masaki died quickly. Her death is not only a major factor in Ryuuken and Uryuu's dispute over Uryuu's desire to become a Quincy, but also of major importance in the final arc for both Uryuu and Ichigo.
Byakuya and Hisana Kuchiki. A nobleman marrying a commoner broke the Kuchiki Clan rules, but that didn't stop Byakuya. Nevertheless, despite him winning that war to claim the right to marry her, he was only able to stay married to her for five years before she fell sick and died.
Kaien and Miyako Shiba also weren't married for long before tragedy struck. Miyako was killed by a strange hollow that had been created by Aizen's experiments. When Kaien tried to avenge her death, the hollow destroyed him from the inside, forcing Rukia (who was in love with him and considered Miyako as her Onee-sama) to kill him. His death was as much a driving force behind Rukia's actions in the manga as Masaki's death was for Ichigo.
Sankt Kaiser Olivie Segbrecht and Hegemon Klaus Ingvalt from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. Long before they were crowned rulers of their respective countries, the two had grown up together to become very close. Alas, the Ancient Belka War happened, and they found themselves leading opposing sides, and in the end, Hegemon Ingvalt failed to stop Sankt Kaiser Olivie from performing the Heroic Sacrificethat she would eventually be famed for. He would carry this regret all the way to his grave and beyond, with Heidi Ingvalt, his descendant and sort-ofReincarnation, still carrying the sadness of his failure as she meets the clone of Olivie, the Magical Girl Vivio Takamachi...
In Uzumaki, a girl from Kirie's class is in love with a neighbor boy, while their families absolutely hate each other. The two sneak out together a few times (and of course, get caught and separated again), until they see two snakes making love. This inspires them to...well, this being Uzumaki, the two lovers spiral their bodies tightly around each other to form a human rope, telling their families that they will now be together forever, before throwing themselves into the sea to drown.
In volume one of Bizenghast, two spirits needing to be released are those of a young pair of lovers. They had wanted to marry, but the man's mother refused to let him marry a girl of slightly-lower status. So one night, during a ball, the man stabbed his lover in the back as they danced before killing himself. As Dina frees their souls, the young woman's ghost whispers to her lover "I forgive you..."
In the backstory, Shinobu's grandmother and Benio's grandfather, who were in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage but were torn apart by political/social standings (One family was pro-Shogunate, another supported the Meiji Restoration.) The reason why the leads were betrothed was a sort-of promise made to them: if their kids or grandkids have a chance to marry, they'd be engaged to do so as a sort-of solace.
And there's more! Shinobu's own parents were an example, too. His father was a member of the Iijyuin clan, but his mother/Colonel Iijyuin's mistress was a German woman. They couldn't marry due to social standing and her heritage, so after Shinobu's birth she was forced to leave her child in the care of his paternal family and leave Japan.
Krory, an Exorcist and Eliade, an Akuma in D Gray Man. It was his nature to destroy Akuma and it was her nature to kill Exorcists. He ends up killing her before he joins the Black Order.
Also, any person who tried to make a deal with the Earl to bring back their loved one, which would only end badly for both parties.
Taken further with Kanda and Alma, who were lovers in a previous life, only to be brought back to life by the Black Order as part of the failed super Exorcist program. Then Alma was driven mad into a massive killing spree and Kanda was forced to kill him. Only for Alma to not be dead and fought Kanda to the death again when he was revived. But this time, thanks to Allen, Kanda is able to send Alma to the afterlife in more or less peace, and later come back.
In Fushigi Yuugi, we have Tatara and Suzuno, the Byakko no Miko. They fell in love, and Suzuno summoned Byakko and asked him to keep her and Tatara together forever. Byakko said he couldn't do that, and sent her back to her own world in Tokyo. She eventually married someone from our world and raised a family more or less happily, while he asked his Time Master fellow Seishi to stop time for him so he could guard the Shinzaho better — but they never forgot each other. When the now-widowed Suzuno died in her grandson Toki's home of old age, Tatara died in a battle in the book, and in the meantime Miaka's brother Keisuke read to the dying Suzuno about her lover's destiny. Their souls are reunited across space and timeto spend the afterlife together.
Actually, all possible Seishi/Miko pairings are fated to have conflicts like this. This is why Tokaki and Subaru didn't support Tamahome and Miaka's love, since they knew it very well. Both of them were Suzuno's Byakko Seishi, and Subaru was the Time Master who stopped time for Tatara. And currently, in Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden, Uruki and Takiko are more or less together, but we all know what happened to her in the end. If you don't, well, here it is: Takiko was being devoured from the inside by Genbu as a side-effect of having been a Miko; everyone else thought she had fallen victim to a Soap Opera Disease but her father knew the truth, so he Mercy Killed her and commited suicide afterwards. In Genbu Kaiden she's still alive but has tuberculosis, so it's just a thing of time for her to kick it.
In The Secret Agreement, as if being gay lovers from very different class strata ca. 1920s-30s wasn't star-crossed enough, it turns out that if Yuuichi doesn't steal Iori's life energy he will die instead. There is really no way for them to win.
In Wild Rock, Yuni and Selim decide there's no way to overcome the fact that they're from Feuding Families and are both future chieftans, so they part and each have families of their own. It isn't until their sons fall in love and decide to unite the two tribes that they meet again, agreeing it was long overdue.
Maya and Reina from Maya's Funeral Procession, both of them expies of Resine and Simone. Not only they're half-sisters, but Maya later commits suicide.
In the Oniisama e... anime, Mariko tells Tomoko and Nanako about the legend of two lovers who died in Seiran School. They were separated by their different social class and killed themselves to not be torn apart, under the biggest elm tree in the garden. It's the same tree that Rei waited for hours underneath, under Fukiko's orders, causing her to catch a huge fever.
Nanako and Rei might qualify as well. Especially in the anime where Rei dies in an accident right when she was going to meet up with Nanako, in what's all but stated to have been this close to become their first date.
Kikuno and Shuichi Takatori from Weiss Kreuz. They were very in love, but she was forced to marry his evil older brother Reiji. Then it got worse... Specially for their off-marriage child, Mamoru Takatori... aka Omi Tsukiyono.
And later, Omi himself, when he falls for his cousin Ouka Sakaki... Reiji's illegitimate daughter and the only person he loves. And she's shot to death in his arms.
Also, Youji Kudou and Asuka Murase. So much that he ends up killing her when she's the amnesiac Dark Action Girl Neu.
Aslan and Paiva in Kaze to Ki no Uta in the backstory of the manga. Their son Serge's relationship with Gilbert dosen't fare well either, but considering that it took place in 1880's Europe, it was bound to happen.
In the 2003 anime version of Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell somewhat fit into this category. Even though these versions of them aren't canon, they are hinted to either have mutual feelings, or one of them has Unrequited Love for the other. But whatever the case, Ed's fate and decisions have kept them apart time after time. And in the movie Conqueror of Shamballa, this trope especially fits— Edward has to go back for the sake of his world's safety, leaving Winry solo. She even says with a melancholy gaze, "That's Ed. I know it. I guess this is goodbye for good..."
The main pairing of Gosick lived under a prophecy stating that this would be the case for them, hearts entwined but separated by war. Ultimately, the trope was averted: the war ended and finally the two found each other again.
Erza Scarlett and Jellal Fernandez seem to be this in Fairy Tail. Both have confessed (or been interupted while confessing) to have loved one another, spend more time thinking about one another than any other potential couple in the series (except maybe the two background characters whose whole schtick is not being able to confess their love), have displayed a telepathic ability to tell when one is in trouble or rooting for them, and every time they're about to get a chance to be together something will happen to take Jellal away, like corruption, or death, or arrest, in that order.
Windaria: Roland and Veronica, the heirs of the countries at the brink of war. It looked to be subverted as the Queen of Lunaria hoped a marriage between them would neutralize the possiblity of war but they ended up fighting.
Jeudi's parents Friederich and Helene in Honoo No Alpen Rose. Specially because they did get married and had Alicia/Jeudi, but then they had to run away from Austria to Switzerland, Helene and Jeudi went missing, and it went From Bad to Worse.
As things get worse and worse, it seems the Universe itself is conspiring to give Lundi and Jeudi trouble. Specially when Lundi disappears when the train he and Jeudi have boarded to reach Austria is caught in a bomb attack, and Jeudi has to go to Austria alone.
Hikoboshi and Orihime, the two lovers in Japanese mythology who could only see each other once a year, are referenced when Ranma and Akane go to the Weaver festival in one chapter of the Ranma ½ manga. The star crossed lovers are mentioned again later on by a somewhat-delusional-from-being-fried-by-fireworks Ranma.
Ranma: (to the Akane in his dream) I feel as if we are... we are like Hikoboshi and Orihime when they finally met each other.
The real Akane: Huh?
In the anime, two one-shot characters, Princess Ori and Kengyu, are a play on Hikoboshi and Orihime, as well.
In a one-shot from the Sailor Moon manga, there is a variant of the legend of the Weaver and the Cowherd, where the couple shirked their duties because of their love, and thus were barred from seeing one another. The Weaver was the villain of the story, because the Cowherd saw her without make-up on during one of the days, and feared that he no longer loved her now that he saw she was really very plain (and getting fat from overeating due to boredom). At the end of the story, he shows up and assures her he still loves her.
Serenity and Endymion from the Silver Millenium days. She's the Princess of the Moon and he's the Prince of Earth, so they're not allowed to even meet and thus they have to do it behind their people's backs. Then the war comes in, Endymion is killed, and Serenity either kills herself due to grief (manga) or dies alongside him as she's hit by the same blast that takes his life (anime). Then they're reincarnated into Usagi/Sailormoon and Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen, who do manage to get AND stay together.
This crops up quite often in The Tarot Cafe, seeing as most of Pamela's clients are involved in some sort of Interspecies Romance. How well they work out varies. Some end happily, like the man who pursues a lake spirit, even after he unknowingly hits her three times and thus banishes her from his home. Some end not-so-happily, like the Reincarnation Romance between a vampire and a human, in which the vampire killed the human in the past and then, to keep himself from killing her reincarnated self (who he still loved) committed suicide. Besides the clients, there's also Aaron and Nebiros (separated because of a moment of distrust between the two, though they eventually reconcile) and Pamela and Belus (unable to have a happy ending, because Belus is really the Devil, though they are implied to remain friends. The beginning of the series also has Pamela and Ashes.
And also Makie and Taki Renzaburou by the end of the Wicked City movie.
Chigusa Tsukikage and Ichiren Osaki in Glass Mask. The world also seems to be hell-bent on keeping Maya and Masumi away.
Hiromi Oka and Coach Jin Munakata from Aim for the Ace!, mainly due to the fact he was dying of leukemia by the time they met and fall in love.
Hideomi Nagato and Miyuki Hyuuga from Detective Conan. First, he and his friend Mitsuaki caused the fire that killed Miyuki's parents. Second, Hideomi had a Heel Realization, then returned and saved little Miyuki but was badly burned. Third, while he helped Miyuki out as much as he could, Hideomi throughly hated himself due to guilt. Fourth, and the most important reason: when Miyuki fell for him despite knowing what he had done and asked him to marry her... Hideomi crossed the Despair Event Horizon and commited suicide. It went From Bad to Worse later.
Anju and Souma Miki from Zenki. Later, Inugami and Sayaka — they double as Inter Species Romance since he's a powerful devil and she's a human girl.
Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss has this as his default view on human/youkai relationships. Naturally, he ends up in one such relationship with Nanami.
If you're a Member of the Zodiac in Fruits Basket, you're a Star Crossed Lover. The only question is whether you get scarred by Akito (physically, mentally, or both), or just never confess your love and languish in your misery. When Akito is defeated and has a Heel Face Turn thanks to Tohru, the curse is slowly broken and the major part of the separated/unconfessed couples get together.
Comic Books
Young Avengers: Cassie Lang (Stature) and Nate Richards (Iron Lad) seem destined to be star-crossed lovers, separated by centuries and because Nate's destined to grow up to be the evil supervillain Kang the Conqueror.
X-Men: Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey (Phoenix). Often described as destined soul mates who were meant to be yet have been through so much tragedy, including death and destruction. Scott and Jean's relationship has basically been nothing but pure doom and tragedy.
Peanuts: While it's unclear how strongly his feelings are returned, Charlie Brown's hopeless infatuation with the Little Red-Haired Girl is tragically doomed to remain star-crossed, as he lacks the nerve to speak to her.
Nikolai Dante: the title character and Jena Makarov end up in this situation because Nikolai is an illegitimate scion of the Romanov family, who eventually go to war with the Makarovs.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl. If they acknowledge their love for each other they will be killed by their reincarnating archenemy. Because Destiny Says So.
In Blackest Night #1, finally Hawkgirl admits that she's fallen in love with Hawkman. Immediately, they are killed and turned into Black Lanterns. Toldja.
In Brightest Day instead, while Hawkman and Hawkgirl get briefly resurrected by the Life Entity and freed by their curse, the same Entity, responsible for empowering and protecting every life in the universe, turns Hawkgirl into the latest air elemental, barring her from living her last life with Hawkman. He's not that happy.
Again in Brightest Day, Deadman gets the same treatment: while he's resurrected too, and starts to appreciate his new stab at life by romancing the overtly cute and lovely superheroine Dove, he gets returned to his undead state, the Entity using his life force to resurrect and empower the new iteration of the Swamp Thing. All the while with Dove still able to hear his disembodied voice, but tearfully aware of their separation.
The ice goddess Kelda and the mortal fry-cook Bill in the recent Thor series.
Spider-Man: Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were forced into this by One More Day. Stan Lee even lables them this in his afterword in the OMD Trade Paperback. Fortunately, there still very much together in the MC2 and Newspaper Strip continuities, the latter of which continues to this day.
Ms. Tree found herself in that situation when her stepson fell for the daughter of the boss of the Meurita crime family. Subverted, regardless of her opinion of this situation, she considers the matter purely the kids' affair and enjoys seeing the girl's mother's attempt to keep them apart backfire into strengthening their relationship.
Thanks to Executive Meddling, this seems to be the case for Sonic the Hedgehog and Princess Sally Acorn - whenever these two get together, something bad happens to one of them - Sonic gets launched to the other side of the galaxy, Sally falls for Monkey Khan, then she later gets turned into a robot.
Fanfic
In I Love Thee, L says this to Misa. And with good reason. They fall in love, and have a wonderfully blissful relationship... only to have L be killed. The summary of the story gives it away: "As the quote stated, the hottest love usually has the coldest end."
Aki and Heathcliffe from One Piece: Parallel Works. Although they are both from wealthy families, Heathcliffe's parents kicked Heathcliffe out of his own house and forced him to become a Street Urchin and Aki's aunt and father keep putting her in one Arranged Marriage after another so the Chung-Feng family could obtain more power and wealth.
Yuki-Rin (the daughter of a Tenryuubito) and Kazuma (the son of a dojo master) started out as this because of Roscoe, but it looks like their love isn't endangered anymore.
There's a Harry Potter fanfic But You Alone which is based on Tristan and Isolde, featuring a star-crossed love that destroys the lives of everyone involved. The author pulled the story from the internet, so it's now quite hard to find. Harry and Hermione are engaged, but she has doubts. A chance encounter leads to Hermione and Snape falling madly in love with each other, but he then harshly rejects her, thinking that she deserves better. She returns to her fiance. Just before the wedding, Snape realises he can't live without her and tries to rush to her side to explain, only to be attacked by a rogue Death Eater and end up in a coma until after she's already married (and she now hates him and thinks he hates her). Finally they realise their mistakes and start having an affair... the suspicion of which begins to drive Harry insane with paranoia and jealousy. Things get worse from there. If you're familiar with the story of Tristan and Isolde you can already tell how this is going to end.
A rather popular clichč in Hungary/Prussia fanfiction is to have them being separated when she becomes one half of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, but still having feelings for each other that they must hide for obvious reasons. (Bonus if her husband Austria is subjected to Die for Our Ship and Ron the Death Eater treatments to make Prussia look as a better option).
Conversely, Austria/Hungary fics set in the Cold War has them fulfilling this trope as she's a member of the Eastern Bloc while he's on the other side of it. They remain separated until the fall of communism.
The Warden and the Mistress almost become this in Extended Stay until the revelation that Mistress is pregnant is revealed, allowing her to stay and thus, allowing them to be together.
The reason this is is because of the plot, which goes something like this: Ultraprison is running low on fuel and needs to stop someplace to refuel. Conveniently, the nearest spot for them is Superjail. Once they have enough fuel to leave, this trope comes up.
Or the worst one, identical with all romances in Knights of the Old Republic: the player of both games vanish into the Unknown Regions, never to be seen again, leaving his/her loved one behind.
Jamal and Latika in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. At least until the very end of the movie.
Invoked in Heathers. Everyone in town thinks the two dead high school football players killed themselves because they were gay lovers who believed that the community would never accept them. Everyone, that is, except for the two people who murdered them and forged the suicide note that lead the town to believe that two heterosexual football players were secretly gay lovers.
The lovers in My Beautiful Laundrette are maximally star-crossed. One is from a tradition-minded Pakistani family, the other runs with National Front skinheads, and both are boys... But it's subverted in that there's no angst, there's minimal bitching about their star-crossed status, and at the end they end up together, realistically happy, without ever telling anyone about their relationship.
Ladyhawke - the title character Isabeau and her lover Captain Navarre travel together but only ever set eyes upon each other for the briefest moment because due to a curse, Isabeau turns into a hawk at dawn and Navarre turns into a wolf at sunset. The movie is all about them and Navarre's companion, Mathieu, trying to go Screw Destiny and break the curse itself. It works in the end.
Max and Elise in Suicide Kings, kept apart by the fact that Max's stepfather slept with Elise's mother and her father found out.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, this is shown in the form of three women: Hatsumomo, Mameha and Sayuri. Hatsumomo was in love with a baker but was forbidden by Mother to never see him again, because as a geisha, she mustn't give her body up to men who can't earn enough money. Mameha was hinted to have loved the Baron at one point but had long given up that emotion. And the last one is Sayuri who had loved the Chairman at first sight and from that moment on, did everything she could to meet him again. Like the others, she was doomed not to have a future with him. However, Sayuri earned her happy ending as the Chairman reciprocated her love and they remained together.
In Partition, 38-year-old Hindu Gayan Singh falls in love with 17-year-old Muslim girl Naseem Khan, set against the dramatic backdrop of the Partition of India.
The Bubble: The lovers, besides both being men, are an Israeli and a Palestinian; the Palestinian is from a conservative Muslim family and is being pressured into an arranged heterosexual marriage.
You Never Dreamed has Roma and Katya, whose families have bad blood between them and try to keep them apart.
The backstory of Underworld has Lycan slave Lucian and Sonja, the daughter of Vampire Elder Viktor, the latter of whom was executed after becoming pregnant with a hybrid. This sparks off the war between the Lycans and the Vampires that form the basis of the series.
Nate and Dana from Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam is this because they are from opposing musical camps led by two former bandmates turned rivals. Added points that Dana is the daughter of Camp Star's leader, and Nate is the nephew of Camp Rock's leader.
Upside Down (2012), in which a man falls in love with a woman from an inverted universe.
The Hunger Games. When Peeta reveals in his pre-game interview that he is in love with Katniss she thinks he is deliberately invoking this trope (and it is indeed mentioned by name by the show host). She later plays it up for all it's worth to help save her own life, never realizing that Peeta was telling the truth and honestly loves her.
German corporal Walter and Jewish prisoner Ruth in Sterne. The title of the film means Stars, and is a reference both to this trope and to the infamous yellow stars.
Pictured above: Chinese mythology speaks of the Weaver and the Cowherd, a legend of the stars Vega and Altair. Star-crossed lovers Zhi Nu and Niu Lang are separated forever across the Milky Way. They may only reunite once a year when magpies form a bridge between them. This is the basis of the Chinese cultural equivalent to Valentine's Day.
The Butterfly Lovers of Chinese folklore, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. The girl, Yingtai, convinces her father to let her disguise herself as a young man in order to attend school. She meets and becomes roommates and best friends with Shanbo, a nerd who doesn't pick up that his roommate is actually a girl. Eventually he figures it out and they fall in love. Unfortunately, Yingtai is betrothed to someone else; Shanbo becomes heartbroken and eventually dies. On her wedding day to the Romantic False Lead, Yingtai visits Shanbo's grave. The ground swallows her up and both of their spirits become beautiful butterflies.
Tanabata no Matsuri is the Japanese version, with Orihime and Hikoboshi as the star-crossed lovers.
And Chilseok as the Korean version with Jik-nyeo and Gyeonwu.
There's an...odd...Japanese belief that twins are star-crossed lovers reincarnated. Squick?
Guinevere and Lancelot from the Arthurian Legends. Some stories have Guinevere not only cheating on Arthur (and Lancelot with Elaine), but have her plotting Arthur's downfall with Mordred. Ouch.
Merlin and Nimueh may or may not count; it certainly does for him, since she winds up locking him in crystal in most incarnations of the legends.
Literature
The teen science-fiction series, Animorphs has Rachel and Tobias. She's a beautiful, smart, independent, funny and spirited suburban teenage hottie. He's a boy trapped in the body of a bird. And then The Beginning happens.
Also Elfangor and Loren, who're not only from different species but separated by time travel, a meddling Ellimist and memory erasure. The end result: he's dead and she can't remember his existence.
The ancient Sanskrit play, The Little Clay Cart, written by the Indian playwright Sudraka around the 2nd century BC. It was about a forbidden love between an impoverished young man and a wealthy courtesian.
The play later inspired the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, which features a similar tale about an impoverished young man and a wealthy courtesian. The movie also features a play resembling The Little Clay Cart.
The medieval Arabic/Persian epic, Layla and Majnun, a tragic love story written by Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi in the 12th century, based on an Arabic tale from around the late 7th or 8th century. The story is basically: boy meets girl, boy goes the Love Makes You Crazy way, boy loses girl since she gets an arranged marriage to another guy, boy loses what's left of his mind, girl soon dies of either illness or a Death By Despair, boy is found dead near girl's grave after carving his last words of love for her on a stone. Its popularity in the Middle East and Asia is comparable to (and predates) that of Romeo & Juliet in the Western world.
The tale later inspired the 1970 Eric Clapton song "Layla", about Clapton's Unrequited Love for BeatleGeorge Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd... except that it's averted since Clapton did eventually end up marrying her.
Hilariously lampshaded and (eventually) averted in David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Malloreon: A knight and a lady are in love, but she is married to another man. Various other protagonists grumble about the fact all three characters are genre-aware of their plight, play up to it, and even actively avoid possible solutions because they love the melodrama so much. Eventually, after the husband dies, the main character gets sick of the ongoing Wangst and forces the couple to get married at the point of a seven-foot-long sword.
Parodied in the Discworld novel Mort with the characters of Mellius and Gretelina "whose pure, passionate and soul-searing affair would have scorched the pages of History if they had not, by some unexplained quirk of fate, been born two hundred years apart on different continents."
Two examples from The Dresden Files: Harry and Susan are the more obvious, but also Thomas and Justine. Thomas is an incubus, while Justine is a rather disturbed hottie. Initially their relationship is mutually beneficial, with Thomas feeding on Justine's Life Energy and stabilizing her mental state in the process. Consummating their romance, however, nearly kills Justine and, since Thomas is literally Allergic to Love, makes it so that they can't touch each other without seriously injuring him. Finally averted when Justine starts having sex with a girlfriend so she can then have sex with Thomas. He heartily approves.
Though romance is not a major theme in the books, Eisenhorn and Bequin from the Warhammer 40000: Eisenhorn series. Eisenhorn is a Psyker and Bequin is a Blank (anti-psyker), thus meaning it was painful for Eisenhorn just to be near Bequin. The only time he is able to be close to her and open his heart is when Bequin is in a coma (thus canceling her 'Blankness'), after trying and failing to stop a possessed Imperial Titan. Unfortunately she doesn't wake up.
Lyra and Will from the His Dark Materials series, specifically the last book, The Amber Spyglass.
In the first book of The Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta use this trope for all it's worth to gain sympathy.
In the third book of the series the trope ends up subverted as Katniss reciprocates Peeta's feelings and marries him.
Devdas: The book (and subsequent movie versions) is definitely of the second variation, having been written in 1917 when such rules still existed. The eponymous hero (son of a wealthy upper-class family) and Childhood Sweetheart Paro (daughter of a middle class trader family) fall in love upon adulthood, but because Devdas is too weak-willed to stand up to his father's disapproval of their getting married, the two of them spend the remainder of the book apart. He spends his days drinking and mourning her, while Paro is in an Arranged Marriage to an older aristocratic gentleman. Sensing that he's close to death because of his drinking and despair, Devdas crawls to Paro's house and dies in front of her gate, fulfilling a promise he made to her on the day of her wedding, and Paro can't even see his face because of the rules of Purdah.
Renata Remedios "Meme" Buendia del Carpio and Mauricio Babilonia play the role in One Hundred Years Of Solitude. Not only theirs is an Uptown Girl deal (Meme is from the powerful Buendia clan, Mauricio is a mere mechanic and hinted to be of Roma heritage), but there's a HUGE veto coming from her family — specially her mother Fernanda. They try to overcome said veto... and it goes From Bad to Worse.
John Grady Cole and Alejandra from All The Pretty Horses. He's a poor American ranch hand, she's the daughter of the wealthy Mexican ranch owner that employs him.
Shades Of Grey, Eddie and Jane. Jane, who is the epitome of Tsundere, would rather kill Eddie than marry him, and he's supposed to marry upwards anyway. And then when they do fall mutually in love, it turns out Jane is a Green and shouldn't even talk to eighty-six-percent-Red Eddie, much less marry him.
In Holes, we have the tragic case of Miss Katherine and Sam, though in love with each other, cannot be together because she's white and he's black. When the rest of the town found out that they had kissed (a huge crime back in their day), they burned down Miss Katherine's schoolhouse and killed Sam in front of her.
In The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Jane and Tetigistus. When she and one of his incarnations (Rooster, Peter, Puck or Rocket) got together, it ended in tragedy. M;ore for him than for her.
Occurs in The Silmarillion between King Finwë and his first wife, Míriel. She gains the distinction of being the only person to die in the Undying Lands, much to the puzzlement of the gods, who finally decide she's staying dead out of sheer stubbornness. Finwë re-marries, but his second wife outlives him. Once he dies, he asks the gods to be re-united with Míriel. They agree—and she promptly reincarnates, leaving him behind again.
Evident with Bluestar, who ends up pregnant with her lover Oakheart's kits, but due to them being in different clans, she has to leave her kits with him and not acknowledge her relationship with him or her kits for the rest of her life, up until she reveals to her kits that she is their mother just before she dies.
Ditto in the case of Leafpool and Crowfeather, except that Leafpool is also a medicine cat. Leafpool has to give her kits to her sister to raise, and has to pretend to be just an aunt when she is actually their mother. Furthermore, when the truth comes out, one of her kits turns insane and nearly murders Leafpool. Because of that, she even gives up her place as medicine cat, but still cannot be reunited with Crowfeather, as he is stuck with a mate he does not love, as well as another son, who is also a Jerk Ass.
Crowfeather and Feathertail as well. Both of them are also from separate clans, but become close in their journey for a new home. When they finally confess their love for each other, Feathertail is killed shortly afterwards in a Heroic Sacrifice.
Ryewhisker and Cloudberry in "Code of the Clans". Just as Cloudberry is pregnant with Ryewhisker's kits, he is killed defending her from his own clanmates as she is from a rival clan. This causes an even bigger wedge to be driven between the two clans.
In CS Lewis's Till We Have Faces, Orual, queen of Glome, falls in love with Barida, her captain of the guard, who is already married. At the end, it's revealed that the stress her devotion caused him lead him to an early grave.
Walter Huff and Phyllis Nirdlinger in Double Indemnity. They murder Phyllis's husband and attempt to make it look like an accident to get double indemnity on his insurance policy, but it falls through, they get found out, and subsequently commit mutual suicide by jumping from the stern of a cruise ship.
Lenina and John in Brave New World; alternately, Lenina and Bernard. She likes him, he likes her, but everyone is cruel to Bernard due to his differences.
Duncan McLain and Maryse MacArdry. Expecting to be parted over a feud between their clans, they marry in secret and Maryse conceives a son, Dhugal. Duncan later learns Maryse died of a fever the following winter, but he doesn't know the rest of the story until much later.
Rothana Nur Hallaj and Kelson Haldane. After much thought, she decides to put aside her temporary novice's vows and marry him, then he disappears down a waterfall and is thought to be dead. She is persauded to marry someone else traitorous Conall Haldane, and feels she cannot marry Kelson once they are both free to do so. She even arranges for him to marry someone else!
The original fate of Gwidion and Emily in Symphony Of Ages. While soul mates, they were born millenia and continents apart. By the time the two met in the original timeline, Emily was ancient and giving birth to their son, who could Set Right What Once Went Wrong, killed her. The changes to history averted this trope, eventually.
In Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series, Captain Bradomant and Colonel Rogero, on opposite sides of the war. Both intensely honorable and adamant against doing anything against their own sides.
Enchantress From The Stars has Elana, a girl from The Federation, an extremely advanced society, fall in love with Georyn, a young man from a planet stuck in Middle Ages. Neither of them could be happy in another world, so they part once the Federation's expedition departs.
The lead couple of Hans Christian Andersen's short story "The Shepherdess and the Chimney-sweep" are two porcelain figurines who fall in love, but a mahogany satyr figure is in talks to an also porcelained Chinaman figure (who is a sort-of Parental Substitute for the Shepherdess) to get her in an Arranged Marriage for him. So the two attempt to run away so they won't be separated. Unusually for the very angsty Andersen tales, they get their happy ending.
Everyone falls into this eventually. Jenny and Giles in season 2. Willow and Oz in season 4. Willow and Tara in season 6. Xander and Anya, Buffy and Spike in season 7. Joss Whedon is mean.
Angel and Cordelia in Angel. Also Fred and Wesley.
Farscape's Aeryn and John screw up enough to count as this. He lampshades this when he says that destiny is keeping its promise to always draw them together "but screwing us over in the fine print". Seriously - first there were her emotional issues, then he just wanted to go home, then she died, then she came back to life and realised a relationship would complicate things too much, then he split into two, then one of them died, then she had more emotional issues and ran away, then she nearly died again, then she was pregnant and didn't know who the father was, and now my hand is about to drop off.
Played for laughs in Degrassi Junior High. Snake and Melanie are hopelessly crushing on each other, but every attempt they make to date ends in a comic disaster. In one episode, they plan to meet at a Wild Teen Party. Snake and his friends are put in charge of bringing the beer, but get arrested by the cops on the way — so Melanie doesn't get to see him, and the Wild Teen Party doesn't get to be wild.
Played much straighter with Joey and Caitlin.
Also, in Degrassi: The Next Generation, this happens with just about every couple. Special mention to JT and Liberty though; JT was stabbed and killed before he could tell Liberty that he still loved her.
And then taken further as of Season 12 with Maya and Cam, the latter of whom committed suicide.
Sayid and Nadia, LOST: he searches for her for eight years, finds her, and marries her. She's killed only months later.
Played with in Battlestar Galactica. Helo and Athena are in love. The problem? He's one of the few surviving humans left and she's an agent of the Cylon race that just nuked his species to near extinction. The result is that she spends the majority of the second season locked up in a holding cell and the two of them have to deal with people who want to abort their unborn child Hera and rape her for information. Ultimately, this trope is subverted as Athena has won acceptance, been freed from prison and married to the man she loves after the timeskip in between seasons.
Played straight with Starbuck and Apollo. It's love at first sight for them.....only she happens to be dating, and eventually gets engaged to, his younger brother - who dies partly as a result of a mistake she makes. They become best friends, teammates and quasi-family to each other, but the guilt keeps them apart for years afterwards, to the point where they find it easier to hook up with - and eventually marry - other people, than face their feelings for each other. They rekindle their romance, but being married makes it impossible.And then she dies, comes back for just long enough to lead the Fleet to Earth, and just when there seem to be no more obstacles left to them being together, she tells him she isn't coming back and vanishes into thin air.
Any Cylon/Human couple, where the Cylon actually develops genuine feeling for the human could be considered this as the humans don't react well when they inevitably find out their lovers aren't human.
The Doctor and Rose in Doctor Who. At least that's how we're intended to perceive their literally here-and-gone-again relationship over seasons 1-4 of the new series.
The Doctor and River are also this, considering that the audience and the doctor know, not only that River will die but also the last time he will see her before her death.
Oddly enough the Ultraman series has this with Ultraman Ace's hosts Seiji and Yuuko (yes two people become him at least at first). At first it seems like a standard blooming romance between hero and heroine but then a Wham Episode hits. Yuuko is a kind of energy being from the moon, and having accomplished her task on Earth must leave. Seiji is heart broken but swears to keep her in his heart as he becomes the sole host of Ace. However in the Grand Finale Seiji must merge with Ace permanently and he too has to leave Earth, as Ace has duties on the Ultraman homeworld. Decades later (both in series and in real life) Seiji and Yuuko would finally meet again during the Anniversary series Ultraman Mebius, and sort of confess their feelings to each other. Since both are energy beings now its implied that they could potentially get together.
The Office's Michael Scott and Holly Flax. The dorkiest, most adorable pair of soulmates you ever did see, cruelly separated by Dunder-Mifflin corporate for business reasons (he's the Scranton office manager, she's in HR.) Michael fully intends on waiting for her as long as it takes. Awwwww.
Hugh Laurie sings a song to his love in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, about how strange his devotion is given that they've never met and she has in fact been dead for almost 16 years.
The underlying premise of the Beauty and the Beast TV series; she can't live in his world without giving up her job and her life, and he can't live in hers at all.
Two examples from Babylon 5: Susan Ivanova and Marcus Cole and Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters.
Pushing Daisies: Chuck and Ned - this is essentially the whole point of the show. Kind of, anyway. They're together, but they can never be together.
Downton Abbey: Lady Sybil and Branson. She is an Earl's daughter and he is the family chauffeur. Mrs Hughes warns him that he stands to lose his job and gain a broken heart when she finds them holding hands.
As of the end of series 2, they are married with a baby on the way, although Lord Gratham isn't pleased.
In Chinese Paladin 3, the mortal Chanqing and demigoddess Zixuan have two separate Reincarnation Romances which end tragically. By the third time around, Zixuan and Chanqing have both learned from their mistakes and are willing to do anything to make it work. And then they still can't be together.
John Fitzgerald Byers and Susanne Modeski in The X-Files.
Lyda and Maurice from the episode "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" were a pair of lovers who formed a Suicide Pact at Christmas in 1917 so that they could stay together for eternity. It worked, as they haunt their house and try to get other couples to re-enact their fate.
Lancelot and Guinevere from Merlin. It's Love at First Sight for Lancelot, and Gwen seems to reciprocate, only for Lancelot to be exiled from Camelot. They meet again during a Rescue Romance, but when Arthur turns up, Lancelot realizes that he's in love with Guinevere and decides not to interfere. Lancelot returns for the third time at the end of the third season and is reinstated as a Knight of Camelot, but by this point, Guinevere has fallen in love with Arthur and in a committed relationship with him.
Only for him to return once more after dying in series 4, and shaking things up again, although this is all Morgana's fault.
Pacey even compares Dawson/Joey to Romeo/Juliet in 5x05
Jen asks Dawson how he and Joey "the star-crossed lovers'' are doing in season two.
One Tree Hill: Lucas and Peyton. They were described as being star crossed lovers who were meant to be together by the series creator Mark Schwahn. They had to overcome many obstacles and issues over the course of the series.
The Vampire Diaries: Stefan and Elena. This is mostly due to Stefan and Elena being two different species (Stefan, a vampire and Elena, a human) and the struggle that comes along with being an interspecies couple. Stefan and Elena also have faced many issues and obstacles over the course of the series that have tried to tear them apart and keep the two from being together. However, as evidence from the series so far, Stefan and Elena somehow manage to overcome the tough struggles that they face and find their way back together.
In the series Smallville, Clark and Lana were often referred as star-crossed lovers.
In Lost Girl, Bo and Lauren are considored this; the main reason for this is Bo is a Fae and Lauren a human. One of the number one rules of being Fae is not to fall in love with humans. And even if they get past this and all other personal problems Bo is going to outlive Lauren hundreds of years. Plus, there's the fact that Lauren was initially being used by the Ash to spy on Bo, and Lauren's girlfriend Nadia who ends up getting killed by the Garuda
We also have Bo and Dyson, especially in Season 2, where he gave up his ability to love her in order to save her life. Kenzi gets it back for him thanks to threatening the tree-based Fae who holds it with a chainsaw
Castle and Beckett are beginning to seem this way.
While it took place during one of The Movies, Kamen Rider Fourze/Gentarou Kisaragi ends up falling in love with an alien lifeform...before a rogue member of Kamen Rider Double's Foundation X captures her, effectively kills her and turns her into an Astro Switch.
Gilmore Girls: Rory and Jess have shades of this. Word Of God states they were meant to end up together, but they suffer continual obstacles. From the start they're treated as polar opposites, (the bad boy rebel and town princess respectively) and their entire town disapproves of their feelings for each other. (Or even being friends). Despite parting and reuniting numerous times throughout the series, they're prevented from getting together happily. (First Rory is stuck dating Dean, then Jess needs to face his past, then she's dating Dean again, then he needs to sort out his life, then she needs to sort out her life and finally he's in a different city and she's dating new guy Logan). They part heartbrokenly in the penultimate season, accepting that their time is never going to come.
Kirk may have been a womaniser, but he did have two tragic loves during the series: Edith Keeler and Miramanee. Miramanee was carrying his child when she died to save his life and he had to stand back and watch Edith die to repair an altered timeline.
Bones and Nancy were never meant to be.
Nurse Chapel's fiancé, brilliant scientist Dr Korby, went missing on a mission. She spent the next five years searching for him. The outcome was not a happy one.
Poor Picard and Kamala, the look on his face during Kamala's wedding sure didn't make things easier. He kinda looked like someone who's just been kicked in the gut.
Kira and Odo. Odo spends the entire show resisting his people's request for him to rejoin them, partially because of his love for Kira (although not entirely for this reason). In the end, he comes to realise that the best chance for the future of both the Alpha Quadrant and the changeling race is for him to return to his people and teach them to tolerate humanoids. He has to sacrifice Kira to do it, but she understands.
Garak and Ziyal. From the outset, Dukat and Kira were convinced Garak would be bad for Ziyal but in the end she actually came a cropper by helping Kira's La Résistance against Dukat's oppressive regime. Word Of God states the writers created the romance because they wanted a tragic, doomed love between the woman that never lies and the man that never tells the truth.
Worf and Dax. Jadzia was killed by Dukat and Ezri would never have been able to have a formal romance with Worf because Trill law has a taboo against getting involved with the partners of previous hosts.
Sisko and Kassidy. The Prophets tried to prevent them getting married but the reason they gave was cryptic. In the end, Sisko was forced to leave the world he was used to and join the Prophets in theirs. He left behind his son Jake, his wife Kassidy, and their unborn child.
Roswell: Max and Liz get a really spectacular version of this in season two: a future version of Max showed up and announced that the fate of humanity depended on Max hooking up with Tess rather than Liz. This plot point was ignored entirely once Tess was revealed to have killed Alex, and Max and Liz did eventually get together, but still, points for effort.
Despite (so they say) just being friends, Big Pete and Ellen get this in The Adventures of Pete & Pete special, "Apocalypse Pete," where their fathers declare a prank war on each other and forbid the two from interacting. The two immediately start pining for each other (in a totally platonic way, they swear!)
Music
Bracey Everett's The Lover's Curse is about this trope.
The Decemberists' song "We Both Go Down Together" is about a common girl and a young man of rich means whose parents don't approve of his love to said common girl. They solve their problem in the classical manner, if you get my drift.
There's also also the interpretation that the rich male is actually a deluded rapist who believes that they are in love. The rape angle seems to make sense, but the leaving her for being pregnant fits in well with the theory that "We Both Go Down Together" and "Lesley Anne Levine" are interlinked. Possibly it's a bit of both.
"O Valencia", on the other hand, is spot-on for this trope; in fact, the first bit almost seems lifted from Romeo and Juliet: A young mobster (probably son of the Don/Boss/whathaveyou) falls in love with Valencia, the daughter of a rival Don; her sister rats on them; her brother confronts them; Valencia runs to her lover's side just as her brother is shooting, and gets hit instead; she dies in her lover's arms; the lover decides to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
Referenced in the Blue Öyster Cult song "Don't Fear The Reaper" as well.
The song "Barricade" by Stars is occasionally, and erroneously, taken to be about a pair of revolutionary lovers who are torn away from each other by The Man. It's actually about a pair of violent football hooligans who are only being kept apart by the fact that one of them grows up and gets a job while the other stays a shiftless thug. Members of the band are somewhat... annoyed by the first interpretation...
On the other hand it's implied fairly strongly that the narrator has feelings for the other football thug, and that both of them grew up eventually, but in different directions.
The song "Jueves" by the Spanish group La Orejade Van Gogh, is about a man and a woman who confess their love for each other in a train... just seconds before dying in the terrorist attacks of March 11th.
"Futari wa" ("The Two of Us") by Miyuki Nakajima. The song tells a modern variation on Love Above One's Station: the love between a prostitute and a client who cannot have an actual relationship with her without being rejected by his friends.
"Havana Moon" by Chuck Berry sings a tale about a man waiting at a dock for the eponymous boat, carrying a tourist he fell in love with. He dreams of them moving to the Big Applesauce, but the boat carrying her never arrives. Swigging rum, he decides her promise to come back for him was a lie, and sleeps off the alcohol... and the boat comes. The woman looks everywhere for him until dawn, where she decides to leave port, heartbroken. He wakes up as the boat sounds its last call, and reaches - just in time to see Havana Moon sail into the horizon.
"Running Bear", famously sung by Johnny Preston, is essentially a Romeo and Juliet story between two Indians from warring tribes.
"The Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las, im which the guy dies in a motorcycle accident immediately after their breakup.
The animated character and his real-world girlfriend in the video for A-ha's "Take on Me". The story is concluded at the beginning of the "The Sun Always Shines on TV" video.
Also the narrator and his ex-girlfriend in Manhattan Skyline. They refuse to get in a Long Distance Relationship, the girl leaves on a boat, the guy angsts about how he won't be able to fall again... and then decides to leave to New York.
The song "Que no destrocen tu vida" ("Don't let them tear your life apart") by Los Prisioneros is about a person whose close friend and said friend's girlfriend are in this situation, and is telling them to not give up on their relationship.
Classical Mythology has several: Hero and Leander, Troilus and Cressida, and Aphrodite and Adonis.
Adonis is based directly on Innana/Ishtar and Dumuzi, the Older Than Dirt Mesopotamian story of the vegetation god whose annual death and resurrection cause the seasons because of the misery of his bereaved love.
Aeneas and Dido, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Pyramus and Thisbe show up in Ancient Roman writings.
Geb and Nut, Egyptian god of the earth and goddess of the sky, respectively, are forever kept separated by their father Shu, god of air and light. As in, he physically holds them apart so they can't touch more than their toes and fingertips. One version has him trying to prevent the birth of the god Set.
Theater
Subverted in The Fantasticks: two neighboring fathers maintain the appearance of a virulent feud and forbid their children (a son and a daughter) to even look at each other as part of a scheme to get them to fall in love and marry.
William Shakespeare did this a lot, either because he liked it or his audiences did.
Romeo and Juliet, the Trope Namer, from the opening narration, although in practice, it's more of a Deconstruction of this trope, with Romeo and Juliet both being shown to be rather foolish and needlessly dramatic.
Pyramus and Thisbe, a Show Within a Show in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which has its own forbidden lovers in Hermia and Lysander, but since this is a comedy, they end up together.
Depending on how you look at it, Hamlet & Ophelia and Othello & Desdemona could count.
Again, Tristan and Isolde, but now in the opera by Richard Wagner.
In the musical adaptation of The Secret Garden, it is revealed at one point that Lily Craven's family, especially her sister, were dead set against her marrying Archibald because he was a hunchback. Her sister threatened to disown her, but she married him anyway because she loved him so much. Then she died. Archibald is still in a mess over her death when Mary arrives ten years later.
In Les Misérables, Eponine and Marius (or at least Eponine thinks they could be). Eponine sings about this in "On My Own", and unfortunately she is the hypotenuse in a love triangle involving herself, Marius and Cossette. She becomes a victim of Death of the Hypotenuse and lies dying in Marius' arms. In some stagings, they Almost Kiss, but she dies before they do. Bummer.
Elphaba and Glinda from Wicked. It's far more blatant in the musical then in the books, and fits this trope far more than said source. That greatly depends on the staging. It's more like a star-crossed friendship. In the book, Elphie and Fiyero are the star-crossed lovers.
In the original Vanities play, the three childhood friends are driven apart by their differences in the third scene, although The Musicalfixes that. Played straight with Joanne and Ted, who are divorced by the musical's finale.
Maria and Tony in West Side Story, a musical based on Romeo and Juliet
In Knickerbocker Holiday, though Brom and Tina finally get a happy ending, they spend most of the play separated by the latter's Arranged Marriage and the former's threatened hanging. They also discuss it:
Tina: We'd be figures in story, the legendary lovers of the early Dutch occupation, Brom and Tina, drinking passion and death together in one dark draught! Brom: I'd love to read about it, but that pleasure, unfortunately, would never be mine!
Aida and Radames in the musical Aida. Their lover's duet is even called "Written in the Stars".
Video Games
Mellthas and Sira in Albion. Not only Interspecies Romance, but Mellthas can't even talk! (one female gamer called it "The Little Mermaid in reverse!")
Fei and Elly in Xenogears, multiple times. They are trapped in an endless cycle of reincarnation, and every single time it ends quite badly for both of them. Until they break the cycle, of course. At least one of their doomed romances has shades of Love Above One's Station.
Arc and Elle of Terranigma find themselves in an almost identical situation, as they reincarnate endlessly to save the world... and be killed off just as their love blooms and the world is safe, each time.
Tequila and Billie, the daughter of Big Bad Mr. Wong in John Woo Presents Stranglehold.
Timpani and Blumiere of Super Paper Mario. Or, as you know them for most of the game, Tippi and Count Bleck.
The Didact and Librarian from Halo. First, the Didact gets sealed in a chamber in hibernation for a thousand years. Then, after the Librarian puts her plan in action to reunite them, he is sentenced to death. Luckily, he is reincarnated in Bornstellar as the IsoDidact, and then it turns out that the original Didact is Not Quite Dead after all. Unfortunately, the Librarian is forced to seal away the original after he goes insane, while the IsoDidact is forced to fire the titular Halo rings in order to defeat the Flood, presumably killing the Librarian in the process. The last time they speak to one another, the IsoDidact is pleading with her to return to him, even as she accepts her own fate. To top it all off, the Librarian is told right before the Halos activate that the firing of the rings will destroy the Domain, condemning the original Didact to Go Mad from the Isolation.
Abel and Est. Abel was forced to fight against Marth in Mystery of the Emblem because his wife Est was held hostage. The player can save both of them. Est's endings states that she left Abel, probably due to the guilt of being captured and her husband having to fight his lord because of her. Abel looks for her but nothing else is said.
From Seisen no Keifu, there's Sigurd and Diadora. They did marry and have a child, but then Diadora was kidnapped and brainwashed into marrying her half-brother, and said half-brother killed Sigurd. Yikes.
And then there's almost any couple coming from the first part. Ethlyn and Quan perish in the desert via Dragon Rider ambush, all the males over 15 years old except for Fin (and Lewyn, but he's actually Back from the Dead via Holsety) die in the Battle of Barhera alongside Sigurd, and the girls either are missing (Ayra, Bridget, Lachesis, Sylvia), retired (Aideen), or dead (Tiltyu, Fury) as well.
The second part gives us Trabant's adopted daughter Altenna ( or better said, his spoil of war after he kills her parents and takes her hostage) and his full-blooded son Areone. In a subversion, you can give them a happy ending - but it heavily depends on your strategies.
This happens to Priscilla, if she is paired with either the myrmidon Guy or the Dragon Rider Heath. Basically, she's a noble girl. But Guy is a tribesman from Sacae, and Heath is a deserter from Bern. So in the end, they back down. This is especially true on the Heath-Priscilla pairing, their A Support Conversation is almost on Tear Jerker level.
Priscilla herself was already plagued with a troubled past. She was born to Lycia's house Caerleon, which was destroyed by Ostia for corruption, and was given to Count Caerleon of Etruria when she was only 5 or 6. She then traveled back to Lycia with Erk, who was advised as a chaperone/mercenary/bodyguard while Priscilla searched for her long-lost brother, Raymond/Raven. She reunited with him, then either befriended Raven's vassal, Lucius, or fell in love with either Erk, Guy, Heath, or Sain. Unfortunately, only the first of the four was able to not end up in tragedy.
Legault/Isadora ( they find each other as enemies in the battlefield, years after the game events), Renault/Isadora ( he disappears, she leaves the military and becomes a cleric to find him but we never find out if she does or not) and Harken/Vaida ( reach an understanding, long for each other... then they never meet again). Also, if you don't pair up Eliwood and Ninian via supports, she has to leave with Nils to her own world behind the Dragon's Gate, and since her crush on Eliwood is pretty much canon... So yeah.
The 6th game had Miledy and Gale, which reaches near-epic levels of Tear Jerker, especially when you let Miledy talk to Gale before you kill him.
They're not the only ones either: there's also Astol and Igrene. Their supports are just as moving and sad, because it's hinted that they are already married, but lost each other several years ago... and since he's a spy of Ostia, he can't return to her no matter what.
There's a rather pleasing subversion with Dragon Rider Cormag and Princess Tana of Frelia. While he does leave after his land of Grado is reconstructed and she does spend years searching for him, they ultimately find each other and she knights him in service of her realm.
This can happen if Chrom marries a female Avatar — because in the future, after the Avatar and Chrom defeat Validar at the Dragon's Table, the Avatar becomes possessed by Grima and kills Chrom. But you can change this — especially since Chrom's daughter Lucina and the children of the other characers will join you to change the future.
This could apply to Final Fantasy X's Tidus and Yuna with Tidus being actually a dream of the Fayth. But at the good ending of Final Fantasy X 2, they are happily reunited.
In Persona 3 Portable, it's possible for this to occur between the female protagonist and Ryoji Mochizuki. He's an amnesiac Anthropomorphic Personification of Death itself. She's doomed to sacrifice herself to seal a Cosmic Horror, like the male protagonist before her. Yeah, it's not gonna end prettily for either party.
This last couple is fortunate in that this fate can be Averted in Persona3 Portable; it is possible to avert Chidori's death; she'll lose her memories of the Dark Hour, but she'll live and be happy with Junpei. All the other couples that involve the main character, however, are still doomed to tragedy.
Male Player and Bastila, Female Player and Carth, Female Exile and Atton, Male Exile and Handmaiden, heck, pretty much every player character/party member pairing in Knights of the Old Republic one and two, as canon states that both the PCs eventually left their loved ones behind and departed to the Unknown Region for good.
There is also a side quest in the first game that features and example from two feuding families.
This can happen all over the place in Dragon Age: Origins, unavoidably if a male PC romances Morrigan, and possible if any PC takes the Heroic Sacrifice at the end after pursuing any romance - or if Alistair takes it after being romanced. There are also the origins - the City Elf will have to leave their Arranged Marriage candidate (and regardless of what they may have thought of them, said potential spouse seems to have a definite attraction to them), this comes into obvious play on at least one end (the other, of course, depending on whatever the player thinks their Warden feels) for the female Dalish Elf, and mage-hating Cullen has a crush on the female mage that, needless to say, doesn't go too well for him. Not to mention Jowan and Lily, also appearing in the Mage origin. To prove how prevalent this is, the dwarf noble origin can have it too, with a female PC and her second, Gorim. This is portrayed as an established but probably ultimately doomed relationship, due to the nature of the dwarven caste system.
Yeah, all of the Origin Story "romances" are doomed to fail. Let's see...
In the Human Noble origin, you can choose to have a sexual encounter with one of two certain characters. Regardless of which one of them you choose, they will be brutally slaughtered when the castle is ambushed that same night.
In the Dwarf Noble origin, there appears to be something intimate going on between the female player and Gorim, seeing as the player has several suggestive dialogue options with him. But it is made fairly clear that they cannot marry because he is of a lesser caste. Later in the game the player can find him in Denerim, only to discover that he has already married another woman and is expecting a child with her, and he breaks off the relationship for good. A male player, on the hand, has the option of having a sexual encounter with two "noble hunting" women during the origin story; but it's quite clear that these ladies only want to sleep with him because of his status, for their own personal gain, because they want to have his child so that they can live in the palace. Gets even more star-crossed by the fact that if the player does choose to sleep with them, one of them does end up having his baby, but because he got himself exiled the day after he slept with her, and because a child inherits their status from their same-sex parent, the child is casteless and when the player encounters her again later in the game, she bitches at him and blames him for her misery and accuses him of ruining her life and all that. Go figure.
In the City Elf origin, you're being forced to get married, but then a drunken human noble lord comes and ruins your wedding and kidnaps the women. If your character is female, then your fiance ends up being murdered by the lord's men. If your character is male, your fiancee ends up rejecting you after you rescue her from being raped and likely killed, claiming that "Grey Wardens can't have wives or families."
In the Mage origin, it is quite obvious that the templar Cullen is infatuated with the female player, although if the player tries to proposition him for sex he'll get incredibly nervous and run away. Later in the game, when the templars are overthrown and the tower is taken over by rebellious blood mages, the player will find that Cullen is the only templar on the upper floors who has not been slaughtered - when the female mage player finds him again, he will outright reveal his infatuation for her, but because of the psychological torture he has endured, he has developed a burning, immense hatred for all mages and pretty much rejects the player because he doesn't care for her anymore.
The Dalish Elf origin has, perhaps, the most heartbreaking conclusion. It ends with Tamlen missing and the player joining the Wardens. Later, during the Shriek attack on the camp, you find out that Tamlen has become a ghoul, someone corrupted by the darkspawn. He confesses his love to the female Dalish elf before she is forced to kill him.
Kei Odagiri and Ukyou Tachibana from Samurai Shodown straddle the line between this and Courtly Love. They're in love but Ukyou has to keep his distance because she's a high-ranked noblewoman while he's a swordsman, and an Ill Boy who will die sooner or later. She gets married to someone else, but they still hold feelings for each other in their hearts, and when Kei needs Ukyou's help he will immediately go to her aid.
In the Mass Effect series, this is the current fate of the possible romance between Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan. In the second game, Shepard is in an uneasy alliance with Cerberus while Ashley/Kaidan remain loyal to The Alliance.
It can also happen in Mass Effect 2 if your love interest dies during the suicide mission.
Or if you're romancing Thane as female Shepard, thanks to his illness and Kai Leng from 3.
Pretty much happens to all love interests who were part of your crew in the 3rd game, what with them being stranded on Gilligan's Planet, the relay system in ruins and Shepard being dead in the Sol system in most cases. One of the many reasons the ending is hated by the fans.
In the "Extended Cut" DLC, the Normandy is no longer stranded and the Mass Relays are only damaged and eventually repaired (unless the player's Effective Military Strength is too low, in which case they are still destroyed), but Shepard is still dead in all of the endings except for "Destroy" with high enough EMS.
Liu Kang and Princess Kitana of the Mortal Kombat universe, which is bound and determined in both the original series and the reboot to ensure they never find happiness.
Narrator: And so the young lovers were wed and lived happily... well, for eleven days.
In Shira Oka Second Chances, one of the routes results in the inevitable death of its focus character, Yui
Chaos and Varuna, the god of darkness and a goddess of light, will never be together in the Agarest Senki series. Heck, half of the reason why the war of the gods started was because Chaos never got Varuna.
The Joy/The Boss and The Sorrow of Metal Gear Solid 3. They were together for a while, and they even had a child ( Ocelot), but in the end, their devotion to their countries (the United States and the USSR, respectively) put them on opposite sides of the Cold War, and the Joy ended up being forced to kill the Sorrow. They're Together in Death by the end of Metal Gear Solid 3.
Chibi-Usa and Anshar from Sailor Moon: Another Story, if you have his older sister and local Big Bad Sin defeated by Chibimoon's team.
Serah and Snow in Final Fantasy XIII-2. The first game's ending was pretty good for them, then the sequel kicked in and Snow went on a quest to find Lightning. It all goes downhill from there. Except in one of the Paradox Endings, i.e. an alternate, non official ending, where they go on adventures together.
In The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, Jon Battle-Born and Olfina Gray-Mane, members of two feuding families split over the civil war, are secretly courting each other.
This is practically how the war of the gods started in the three games of Record Of Agarest War with 2 being the one that concentrates on it the most. Chaos, the god of destruction and rebirth and a dark god, and Varna, the goddess of light, were in love with each other but cannot be together because both light and darkness cannot co-exist with each other. In the end of Agarest 2 however, they finally reunite with each other.
Gabriel and Malia in 'Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers'. Tetelo, Malia's ancestor, was killed by Gunter, Gabriel's ancestor. She's the head of the Voodoo cult he's after the entire game; Tetelo possesses Malia's body during ceremonies. Reclaiming the Ritter talisman causes the entire place to erupt into flames, allowing you to try to kill or save Malia though the canon ending is saving her, as the other one kills you. But even if you try to save her, she is swallowed by the flames.
Might as well throw Saber/Shiro from Visual Novel/Fate/stay night in there. They're even worse since at least Arcueid/Shiki had a "Good Ending" and maybe a sequel to the "True Ending?"
Well, there is a Good ending with Saber... Only it's Rin's...
Also Hisao and Rin Tezuka, specially in the Neutral Ending where she leaves Yamaku to go to Tokyo, fully knowing that she'll become a great artist but at the cost of destroying herself mentally. Her last scene has her begging Hisao to forget about her, and they share a last hug under the rain before she abandons him and her former life forever.
In Hatoful Boyfriend, Anghel claims that he and Hiyoko were star-crossed lovers in a previous life. And at the end of Nageki's route, Nageki and Hiyoko. Nageki fades away, due to him realising that he loves Hiyoko, and tells her that as he loves her as he disappears.
Kat and Alistair from Gunnerkrigg Court. It was a Foregone Conclusion that Ali would leave at the end of the week, but it's made worse when the details of his departure (and the word of the narrator) ensure that Kat will never see him again.
Jeanne, one of the Founders of the Court, and an unnamed male elf from Gillite Wood.
Aaron and Lily from Demonology 101. It did not end well for them.
It's unclear just how much attraction there may be between Bob and Voluptua in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!. Unfortunately, Voluptua is a disguisedgiant bug, so nothing can come of it. Bob is going steady with Jean anyway, but the hint of a Love Triangle involving Voluptua still pops up now and again.
Lance and Silvia from Shape Quest (Silvia is a princess!)
Mom and Dad in Homestuck are brutally murdered shortly after hooking up after years.
American Dragon Jake Long features a romance between a dragon and a girl raised by a family of dragon-slayers. Think of it as Romeo and Juliet, except they don't kill themselves, they try to kill each other.
Scooby Doo And The Alien Invaders has Shaggy and Scooby seemingly meet their soul mates in a hippie photographer and her dog, only to find out that they're actually aliens.
Danny Phantom had Half-Human Hybrid ghost hero Danny and Valerie, the Ghost Hunter. They dated briefly with Valerie breaking up because of her job, unaware of Danny's ghostly alter ego, but love-lost feelings were mutual during the aftermath...until Season Three.
The original series finale of Justice League was called "Starcrossed" and had to do with the fate of the relationship of the Green Lantern and Hawkgirl. Though really, it could have been called "Planetcrossed" just as easily.
Avatar The Last Airbender has this in the story of Oma and Shu. Actual in-series example would be Sokka and Princess Yue.
Interestingly, Sequel SeriesThe Legend Of Korra includes a Firebender dating a non-Bender during a time when Benders and non-Benders are at war but never draws attention to that detail.
Finn and Flame Princess from Adventure Time are getting closer and closer to the trope.
Tree Trunks and Pig are a downplayed version. Everyone just finds them kissing in public gross, and spend a part of the episode keeping them apart.
Parodied in Drawn Together episode "The Other Cousin", when Captain Hero sees Bleh for the last time before she goes away:
Captain Hero: Maybe it wouldn't work out... I mean, we come from two different worlds. I come from the planet Zebulan and you came from a mom who drank when she was pregnant.
In Angels Friends - Poor Raf and Sulfus they aren't even allowed to touch each other.
Batman Mask Of The Phantasm has Bruce Wayne and his one-time fiancee, Andrea Beaumont. After he decides that she's worth giving up his plan of being Batman for, she has to leave Gotham and disappear thanks to the mob. When she resurfaces years later, they're still in love, but she has become the murderer Phantasm, hunting down her father's killers, and is Batman's enemy.
Moral Orel has Orel and Christina. They like each other, but their families end up hating each other over different interpretations of the lord's prayer. Christina's family ends up moving away, but Orel later goes out of his way to invite her to his school's dance and later ends up marrying her.
Real Life
This example, between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl.
Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga in Malawi. Their marriage was annulled because Tiwonge is a trans woman, they were jailed, then pardoned, then forced to move back to their respective home towns. Steven eventually married another woman.
Peter Townsend and Princess Margaret of Great Britain. Townshend was an Ace Pilot and war hero, having flown Hurricane in the Battle Of Britain, and clearly had deserved the hand of princess and half the domain. Queen Elizabeth said "no" for their marriage; Townsend was a divorcee. That broke the hearts of both. Townsend later revealed Margaret was his only true love.
Jose Rizal and Leonor Rivera who are first cousins. When Rizal traveled overseas to pursue studies, the two kept on sending letters to each other, hiding coded messeages since both their parents do not approve of their relationship (partly because Rizal is wanted by the Spanish authorities.) Leonor continued to be faithful to Rizal for six years despite not seeing him (and probably not knowing that Rizal had affair with numerous foreign women.) Rizal tried to marry her many times but their meeting is always prevented by their parents. In the end, Leonor was forced to marry an Englishman. The leading characters who are lovers in Rizal's Noli Me Tangere, Crisostomo Ibarra and Maria Clara, are inspired by the situation between him and Leonor Rivera.
The aptly nicknamed "Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo," Bosko Brkic (Serbian, Orthodox Christian) and Admira Ismic (Bosniak, Muslim), who were shot while trying to flee the city together during the infamous Siege of Sarajevo. As they attempted to cross the bridge over the Miljacka River, they were both fatally injured by snipers; Bosko died instantly, Admira crawled to his corpse and died next to him.
Dorothy Osborne and Sir William Temple faithfully obeyed the Parental Marriage Veto as long as it was in effect, but when their fathers died, and Dorothy suffered smallpox to the ruin of her looks, they were permitted to marry.
. It may be Fate, or fatally-Feuding Families, or it may be something as mundane as a few hundred miles' separation, but something will always be in their way. Often, the two can only be Together in Death. William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is the most famous example (and the Trope Namer), but the archetype dates at least as far back as Mesopotamian Mythology and Egyptian Mythology, making it Older Than Dirt.
In modern times, often the term "star crossed" is unknowingly misused to mean lovers who are meant to be together. It means just the opposite — the stars (i.e., destiny, or the heavens) have ruled against them, or crossed their plan - get it? Compare the word "disaster
