Basic Trope: Realizing you love someone after you can no longer be with them.
- Straight:
- Alice realizes that she's in love with Bob after he dies.
- Alice realizes that she's in love with Bob after he's already married someone else.
- Exaggerated: Alice deeply hated Bob when he was alive but desperately wishes she had married him after he dies.
- Downplayed: Alice realizes that she has feelings for Bob when she finds out that he's moving somewhere far away, but they agree to a Long-Distance Relationship.
- Justified: Alice took Bob for granted when he was around. Losing him forever forced her to think about how much he really meant to her.
- Inverted:
- Alice realizes that she hates Bob after he dies.
- Alice realizes that she loves Bob after he come Back from the Dead.
- Subverted: Alice realizes that she loves Bob after hearing about his death, but it turns out he was Not Quite Dead.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob is Not Quite Dead, however he dies for real before he can be reunited with Alice.
- Alice and Bob are reunited, but then Alice realizes that she's not actually in love with him after all.
- Parodied: Upon hearing of Bob's death, the first thing Alice says is "Dammit! I should have asked him out."
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Alice's feelings for Bob do not change after his death.
- Bob doesn't die.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "If only I had fallen in love with him while he still here!"
- Invoked: Bob is Faking the Dead in hopes that it will make Alice realize that she loves him.
- Exploited: Charlie uses Alice's regret to convince her to go out with him, lest she miss her chance with another potential partner.
- Defied: Alice insists that she doesn't miss Bob and quickly gets into a relationship with Charlie.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Alice is haunted by the fact that she never got to be with Bob and that negatively impacts all of her future romantic encounters. She jumps into relationships too quickly, often with people she's not really compatible with, simply because she's afraid of missing her chance like she did with Bob.
- Alice didn't spent enough time with Bob when he was alive to actually get to know him well. She's mourning her missed opportunities more than she's mourning Bob himself. Bob's loved ones are upset with Alice for claiming to grieve for him when she didn't really know him.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice goes to therapy to deal with her grief over Bob's death and learns to deal with the fact that they won't ever be a couple. After that, she enters a much more emotionally healthy relationship with Charlie.
- Alice acknowledges that her sadness over Bob's death isn't as deep or painful as that felt by the people who knew him very well. His loved ones decide to stop being upset with her because her sadness shows how much of an impact Bob had on people even when he wasn't close to them.
- Played For Laughs: Alice has a habit of only falling in love with men who have died or left her.
- Played For Drama: Alice has a psychological breakdown when she's forced to accept the fact that she can never be with Bob.
- Implied: At Bob's funeral, everyone is surprised by how heartbroken Alice is because she never showed any signs of particularly liking him.
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