"Your fleet is lost, and your friends on the Endor moon will not survive. There is no escape, my young apprentice. The Alliance will die... as will your friends."
The villain, who never had any intention of letting the hero (or heroes) live, has finally instituted the perfect plan that will ensure their demise (or at least, that's what the villain thinks). Of course, for some people it's not enough to
simply kill the heroes. They have to crush their hopes utterly, ensuring maximum despair and humiliation. In short, they have to tell them death is inevitable. This is never wise.
A form of
Evil Gloating; this tends to be standard for a
Smug Snake. Expect this to almost always be invoked when there's a
Death Trap. The villain can and will combine this with
"The Reason You Suck" Speech.
This would be a
Stock Phrase... although very few villains end up saying this the same way twice. The classic villain threat has several variations, some of which are:
"This is now the ultimate power in the (x). We will crush you under our feet like insects!"
"Soon you will all be dead, and I will be (lounging on a beach / on my throne / etc!)"
"Take time to collect your thoughts, for soon you will be dead!"
"Say your last goodbyes!"
"Make peace with your gods, for you will soon meet them!"
Note that this sort of threat is always telegraphed in advance. The hero may or may not be at the villain's mercy — for reasons related to
Bond Villain Stupidity. When the villain finally utters a
Pre-Mortem One-Liner prior to delivering a
beat-down of some sort, that's
Prepare to Die.
If the hero is in a position to retort, expect a
Badass Boast.
Compare
If My Calculations Are Correct and
No One Could Survive That. Contrast
I Need You Stronger,
You Will Be Spared, and
No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine.
Not to be confused with the
trope Your Days Are Numbered, which is not a threat, but a fact (despite the fact that some villains may very well use that exact phrase to mean this; if the hero's death is a foregone conclusion to
them, it counts as a threat). Inverse of
We Will Meet Again.
See also
Thanatos Gambit. Not to be confused with
Take Your Time.
Examples:
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Anime&Manga
- Played to death in shonen action series. It never ends well for the villain.
Film
- Goldfinger:
Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!
- The Wizard of Oz: The Wicked Witch hands Dorothy a large hourglass and tells her this is how much time she has left to live. It's actually how much time before the Wicked Witch gets back and kills her.
- Parodied/referenced in Flash Gordon: "You have until the sands... run up."
- Star Wars: The page quote, in response to an unusual turnabout given by Luke.
- Blade Runner: Tyrell's immortal "revel in your time" line may be this trope.
- The Matrix: Agent Smith does this repeatedly, sometimes as a form of Trash Talk.
Smith: Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.
Smith: Evolution, Morpheus. Like the dinosaur.
Smith: You must know it! You must sense it by now! Why keep fighting? Why, Mr. Anderson,
why, why, why?!
- The Architect pulls the "We won't" (meet again) line on Neo after he chooses Door #2.
(the door that "Leads Inexorably To The Extinction Of Every Last Human Being on the Planet".)
- Also in The Animatrix, once the machine intelligences have defeated all of man's armies, and man's leaders sign an unconditional surrender, the machine delegate says this:
Your flesh is a relic, a mere vessel. Hand over your flesh, and a new world awaits you—We demand it.
- Cue huge nuclear explosion
- 300: Straight from Herodotus:
Herald: By noon this day, you will be
dead men. The thousand nations of the Persian Empire descend upon you! Our arrows... will
blot out the sun! Stelios: Then we will fight in the shade.
- In Flash Gordon, Flash is due to be executed, but is given a few minutes to see his girlfriend one more time. The Dragon puts a big hourglass in the room so they know how little time they have left.
- In Alien, Ash's last words before being incinerated were "I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies."
Literature
- Darkness Visible has an unusual example because, rather than the hero being at the villain's mercy, the villain is actually chained to a prison wall. However, his Evil Plan is still in motion, leading to this variant on the threat:
'I have taken away your need to fear growing old. You will not be thirty for very long!'...'You cannot stop it, Henry! You can only fail and die, and I hope you die with the knowledge that you lost at the forefront of your mind!'
- Artemis Fowl has this when Opal captures Holly and Root, then ties an explosive to Root, giving him at most a minute to live.
- This time the evil plan actually works. Root blows up.
Live Action TV
- During an episode of Stargate SG-1, O'Neill is told that one of the Goa'uld system lords has declared that SG-1's days are numbered. O'Neill responds that's perfectly fine. So long as it's a large number.
- The Gunslinger in Doctor Who gives his waiting victims time to "Pray to [their] Gods".
Music
- Mother Maiden of The Unforgiving delivers an awesome one of these during the Within Temptation song, "Iron."
You need not fear us, unless you are a Darkheart, a vile one who preys on the innocent. I promise: you can't hide forever from the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of Hell!
Theatre
- Les Misérables:
You at the barricade listen to this! No one is coming to help you fight, you're on your own, you have no friends, Give up, your guns OR DIE! You at the barricade listen to this! The people of Paris sleep in their beds! You have NO CHANCE, NO CHANCE AT ALL! Why throw your lives away?
Video Games
- Zero Wing is but one particularly well known example:
CATS: How are you gentlemen!!
- The Zero Wing line was said word-for-word in the tie-in video game for Spider-Man 2 by Mysterio as a direct Shout Out.
- One of voicesets for Neverwinter Nights can have the PC shout out, "You will not survive!"
- Many, many bosses in World of Warcraft. C'thun is most notable, as he spends the entire time you are inside his lair (Temple of Ahn'Qiraj) taunting you with this, before you even get to him.
- The Reapers from Mass Effect love doing that:
Sovereign: We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.
Harbinger: Human, you've changed nothing. Your species has attracted the attention of those infinitely your greater; that which you know as "Reapers" will be your salvation through destruction.
Reaper: Every organic civilization must be harvested in order to bring order to the chaos. It is inevitable.
- Turns out that the Catalyst who created the Reapers is fond of this. He claims that if Shepard chooses Destroy, which will wipe out all synthetic life in the Galaxy, because their body relies on cybernetic implants to survive, Shepard will die alongside the Reapers. Shepard can respond by blasting the crap out of the Power Conduit anyway, with a look on their face that clearly says they are intent on Taking You with Me. With a high enough EMS score, Shepard is seen taking a breath in the rubble, implying that they did manage to survive after all.
- Kefka in Final Fantasy VI. "Such magnificent power! You are like insects to me!"
- Sylvia in the first No More Heroes does this by phone (Wiimote speaker, it's awesome) before every boss battle. She's supposed to be your ally.
"Give it your best shot! I am 100% certain you're returning from this battle, Travis. ...In a body bag."
- Alfred from Battle Clash does this in a pre-battle taunt:
"My calculations say the chances of you winning are...0%."
- Portal2: Wheatley: Take one last look at your precious human moon, 'cause it cannot help you now!
Western Animation
