Discussion Main / PrematurelyMarkedGrave

I am taking out a few examples where it seems the trope is wrongly applied. It seems examples involving Time Travel, i.e. a person seeing their own grave in the future, is something different (at least it is not covered by the trope description). The same goes for undeads who just live outside their graves.

• In A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come takes Ebenezer Scrooge to a vision of a future Christmas, where Scrooge witnesses the funeral of a rich man who is mourned by nobody. Finally the ghost shows Scrooge the man's tombstone; it is Scrooge's own.

[Since Scrooge is having a vision of a future where he has actually died, the grave is not premature.]

• In the Discworld, Reg Shoe has his own grave in the cemetery at Small Gods. Only, as Reg died and came back a Zombie, he's not yet ready to occupy it: he overnights once a year on the anniversary of his death, though. The existance of zombies seriously annoys the sexton at Small Gods, as it really messes up the paperwork when dead people won't bloody well stay dead and keep insisting on resurrecting themselves.

[Reg died, so the grave was not made prematurely. That he came back to life as an undead does not change that.]

• In the Doctor Who episode "Revelation of the Daleks", the Doctor visits a graveyard planet and comes across a memorial with his face carved on it. He assumes it is genuine and means he's going to die, in the past, quite soon in his own timeline; it is actually part of a trap set by Davros.

[The Doctor is visiting the future where he could be dead, so the grave is not obviously premature (even if it was a fake).]

• Dungeons & Dragons: In the Points of Light setting, the Shadowfell is a dark and creepy undead-filled mirror of the real world. Where towns are found in the real world, the Shadowfell often has graveyards instead, with the living citizens' names on the tombstones.

[As the graves are found within a mirror reality, it is not apparent if they are premature.]

Edited by LordGro Let's just say and leave it at that. Hide / Show Replies

Yet another pull, but for different reasons. These graves are "premature" but they are ordered by the people who intend to occupy them. This case is specifically excluded by the trope description, which makes clear this is about graves for people "who most certainly did not order [them] made".

• In Dwarf Fortress:
  • Because Dwarves get annoyed if their loves ones are without proper burial, it is common to pre-build coffins in case several Dwarves die at once. To control who is buried in a coffin, it can be assigned to only house a specific individual.
  • High-ranking nobles will actually insist that they be given a tomb once they move to your fort, even if they are young and at no risk of dying. If they prove annoying enough, they may get to make use of that tomb in short order.

Let's just say and leave it at that.