Basic Trope: A Posthumous Character was a Love Interest to one of the still living characters and their death still affects their loved one in the present.
- Straight: Throughout the series, Edgar is shown to still be haunted over and grieving for the late Eliza, who was his lover prior to her death.
- Exaggerated:
- Edgar is still very fixated on her memory, to the point that it borders on obsession. Additionally, this disturbing fixation means that Edgar may not be entirely emotionally stable.
- Further expanding on this example, Edgar's grief over Eliza may be the only notable personality trait of his... or it becomes this over the course of the series.
- Literally the only thing we learn about Eliza is that she's dead and was Edgar's lover.
- Edgar is still very fixated on her memory, to the point that it borders on obsession. Additionally, this disturbing fixation means that Edgar may not be entirely emotionally stable.
- Downplayed:
- Edgar is broken up over Eliza's death, but he manages to soon move on and continue with his life quite early on.
- Eliza's death and its effect on Edgar, while occasionally mentioned and shown, isn't an integral part of the plot.
- Justified:
- The First Cut Is the Deepest and Eliza's death was that first cut.
- Edgar Desperately Craves Affection, and Eliza was the one who gave him that affection. She also may as well have been the only one who did
- Eliza died not too long before she and Edgar were to get married. So now, Edgar's only way of knowing what a life with her must've been like is just imagining it and of course, that would entail thinking about her a lot.
- Or alternatively, Eliza died not long after she accepted Edgar's Love Confession. So in this case, Edgar would be left only imagining what a relationship with her would've been like.
- Edgar feels that he's responsible for her death, so there's an extra reason for it to still haunt him
- Or in a darker take of this example, Edgar is responsible for her death.
- Edgar's attraction to Eliza is actually limerence, and his "relationship" is nothing more than a fantasy built upon obsession and intense desire to be with Eliza, even if it means ignoring anyone who might actually make him happy.
- Inverted:
- Eliza was Edgar's Arch-Enemy and even in the present day, her death has become a huge factor in Edgar's story. Edgar's constant thoughts about and bitterness over her death is because he didn't get to be the one to kill her.
- Disposable Woman.
- Subverted:
- Edgar was actually never Eliza's lover, even though he makes himself out to be as such. In truth, he was her Stalker with a Crush who in the present, still can't let go of his obsession over her.
- Sure, Edgar says he loved her and still does, but this love is for an idealised version of her. He never actually saw her for who she really was.
- Eliza gets Back from the Dead.
- Eliza's Not Quite Dead.
- Everyone just thinks that Eliza died, she actually didn't. She even reunites with Edgar.
- Edgar reminisces about his former lover and it looks like it'll go this route...but Eliza was actually The One That Got Away. She didn't die, but her relationship with Edgar did.
- Edgar and Eliza were siblings rather than lovers. They did not have Brother–Sister Incest, as their love was familial rather than romantic. They were still very close, and Edgar has a hard time coming to terms with her death.
- Double Subverted:
- (related to first example) Edgar and Eliza really were lovers, but they broke up. Edgar just couldn't let go of Eliza, so it turned into an obsession which still carries on after her death.
- (related to second example) Edgar's love for Eliza was much more genuine when she was alive. But over the years after her death, Edgar's broken heartedness has clouded his memories of her, causing him to construct this idealised version of her.
- (related to third example)...but dies again
- (related to fourth example)...but does eventually really die
- (related to fifth example)...only to actually die
- (related to sixth example)...but she does die within the series.
- Parodied: Edgar talks about Eliza as if she's dead...even though she clearly isn't or is even standing right next to him.
- Zig Zagged: Edgar and Eliza were Arch-Enemies and lovers
- Averted:
- The series has No Hugging, No Kissing
- There aren't any Posthumous Characters
- No one dies within the series' run
- Discussed:???
- Conversed:???
- Exploited:
- The Big Bad learns or knows about Eliza, so he sends a Femme Fatale who strongly resembles her to lure Edgar into a Honey Trap.
- Edgar battles a Shapeshifter, who shapeshifts into Eliza in order to either catch Edgar off guard or make him hold back.
- It's rather easy to manipulate Edgar by claiming that Eliza either wouldn't want him to do what he's doing or vice versa.
- Or he's easy to manipulate by promising him vengeance for Eliza's death.
- Implied:
- Edgar talks and thinks about his lover Eliza a lot, but we're never explicitly told whether or not she's still alive. We don't even get to see her.
- Post Humous Character Eliza had a huge part in Edgar's life and her death still affects Edgar in the present, but it's unclear as to what exactly their relationship was. The fact that the way people (or even Edgar himself) talks about the connection they had can be interpreted as either platonic or romantic makes it even more unclear.
- Deconstructed:
- Edgar's inability to move on from Eliza greatly hurts his emotional stability and even his relationships with those who are still alive.
- Edgar's relationship with Eliza is dead, but Eliza herself is still alive. Eliza is Edgar's limerent object and he's grown to despise her, doing everything he can to make her feel terrible about herself because the only things he has left of her is obsessive hatred and obsession. Even when Edgar tries to move on with other people, Eliza will always be there in the dark of his mind to torment him.
- Reconstructed: But eventually, Character Development kicks in and Edgar manages to let go of the past and learns to focus on those who are still alive.
- Played For Laughs:
- The series has Negative Continuity, so Eliza keeps dying and then having UnexplainedRecoveries the next episode. And for every death of hers, Edgar laments about her, then come her next Unexplained Recovery, he's back to being his usual happy go lucky self.
- Edgar is an Unreliable Narrator so exactly how Eliza died keeps changing... with each supposed death that Edgar gives getting more ridiculous than the last.
- Edgar misses Eliza so much that he has sex with her corpse.
- Eliza's death contains some Gallows Humor
- Played For Drama: Edgar becomes depressed from his grief over Eliza.
Back to The Lost Lenore, because it's not easy to move on.
