History Main / ExcessiveMourning

** ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': Both [[Characters/MonsterVerseMarkRussell Mark]] and [[Characters/MonsterVerseEmmaRussell Emma Russell]] respectively after the PlotTriggeringDeath of their elder child Andrew during Godzilla's battle against the [=MUTOs=], leading to their marriage's collapse. Five years after Andrew's death, Mark has run away to the Colorado mountains to be as far away from anything that reminds him of the incident as possible yet he acts as if it's been only five ''months'' since Andrew died, he's nursing a bitter hatred of the Titans (Godzilla especially) over his son's death, and he repeatedly aims his anger at his former Monarch colleagues during the film even when all they're doing is trying to help him -- he gets better over the course of the film via MovingBeyondBereavement. Emma meanwhile outwardly appears to have moved on with her life and continued doing something useful with herself even if she is still haunted -- [[spoiler:this is a MaskOfSanity as it's revealed that she's actually had an even worse long-term reaction to her son's death than Mark has. Having evidently suffered some SanitySlippage, she's decided that UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans regarding her findings that the Titans are ecologically essential to the Earth's and humanity's long-term survival and regarding her valid concerns about the government shutting down Monarch and trying to exterminate the Titans, joining up with Alan Jonah's EcoTerrorist plot to set all the Titans loose on the world for a population cull and ecological restoration, under the InsaneTrollLogic that she's somehow ensuring Andrew's death wasn't in vain]]. And their surviving daughter Madison, the OnlySaneWoman of the family, is caught in the middle, being distant from one parent and emotionally manipulated by the other, although both parents come to regret not valuing the one child they still have once she's in mortal danger at the FinalBattle.

* A mental illness called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolonged_grief_disorder Prolonged Grief Disorder]] is essentially a trauma response to someone's death, occurring more than a year after the person has died. It often happens when the dead person is killed violently or is DrivenToSuicide -- one study of people with this intense form of grief had about 70% of them suffering it because of a loved one's violent death.

* Shigeki Murai, the villain of ''VideoGame/{{Insanity}}'', has a ''really'' bad case of this, to the point of being in denial anyone's died. Shigeki couldn't face going to his daughter's funeral because it would've felt too final. Six months after Emiko's death, Shigeki still can't really accept she's gone and does little but brood over it in his lab. He then became obsessed with the idea of [[spoiler:developing a potion to resurrect her]]; his wife and servants initially let it slide as a bizarre coping mechanism, but he began to delude himself he could actually [[spoiler:bring the dead back]]. It all went downhill from there. Years later, Shigeki ''still'' can't accept that his loved ones cannot be brought back.

* In 2021, a {{Website/Reddit}} user [[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/rlkpwj/aita_for_telling_my_daughter_to_get_over_herself/ posted on r/AmITheAsshole]], asking if she was in the wrong over a situation regarding her daughter, "Marnie's," wedding. Her other daughter, "Brooke," had died at the age of five, and the OP had fallen into such deep grief that she could not take care of her other two children, who had to go live with their father. She continued mourning Brooke for the next 26 years, brought pictures of her to every event she went to, asked Marnie to display a memorial table for Brooke at her wedding, and told her she was being selfish when she refused. Consensus among the commenters was that the OP would lose her relationships with her living children if she did not take steps to move past her grief.
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* In 2021, a {{Website/Reddit}} user [[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/rlkpwj/aita_for_telling_my_daughter_to_get_over_herself/ posted on r/AmITheAsshole]], asking if she was in the wrong over a situation regarding her daughter, "Marnie's," wedding. Her other daughter, "Brooke," had died at the age of five, and the OP had fallen into such deep grief that she could not take care of her other two children, who had to go live with their father. She continued mourning Brooke for the next 26 years, brought pictures of her to every event she went to, asked Marnie to display a memorial table for Brooke at her wedding, and told her she was being selfish when she refused. Consensus among the commenters was that the OP would lose her relationship with her living children if she did not take steps to move past her grief.

* The ''WebOriginal/DeadBart'' CreepyPasta suggests that after Bart's untimely demise, the entire family sat around for an entire year doing nothing but grieving, which is implied to be to the detriment of Maggie and the pets, as well as the surviving family members themselves, who become listless and skeletal from self-neglect.

* A year after losing Eurydice in ''Film/ShredderOrpheus'', Orpheus either drowns his sorrows or lays around in bed all day, with Linus having to cover for canceled gigs and Scratch, Axel, and Razoreus having to remind him to eat.

* In ''Anime/AnohanaTheFlowerWeSawThatDay'', Meiko "Menma" Honda's mother Irene was so [[OutlivingOnesOffspring traumatized by Menma's death]] that she locked herself in the Honma household and refuses to see anyone, plus neglects her remaining child Satoshi. Fortunately, towards the end she's working on getting better.

* Tobi [[spoiler: aka Obito]] from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', totally lost his marbles after [[spoiler:his beloved Rin]] died, to the point that it becomes the catalyst for his StartOfDarkness. His villainous motivations are ultimately so that [[spoiler:he can meet Rin again, even if it is only an illusion.]]

* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'': Louise Rault does this over the death of her little brother Leon Rault which happened a decade prior. It's her FreudianExcuse for bullying Noelle and Lelia, and part of what alienated her adoptive brother Serge from her family. Noelle eventually realizing her motivation, mocks Louise for it, leading to a CatFight. Leon Bartfort being an IdenticalStranger to the dead brother makes her treat him as her brother's ReplacementGoldFish.

* In ''Anime/WeissKreuz'', Ran Fujimiya is so obsessed with his comatose sister, Aya, that he changes his name to 'Aya', despite this being mainly a woman's name.
* Kuro, a twin-tailed cait sith in ''Manga/BlueExorcist'', flies into a blind rage after hearing of his best friend's death. He only calms down after Rin [[UseYourHead headbutts him]] and calmly explains the situation.
* In the finale of ''Manga/FutureDiary'', Yuki is so devastated by the death of his beloved Yuno that he spends ''10,000 years'' [[AndIMustScream floating amongst the ruined remains of the world]], [[TearJerker staring mournfully at the final entry of his cell phone diary stating that she died]]. [[spoiler:Thankfully the GainaxEnding turns this around into a happy ending.]]

** ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': Both Mark and Emma Russell respectively after the PlotTriggeringDeath of their elder child Andrew during Godzilla's battle against the [=MUTOs=], leading to their marriage's collapse. Five years after Andrew's death, Mark has run away to the Colorado mountains to be as far away from anything that reminds him of the incident as possible yet he acts as if it's been only five ''months'' since Andrew died, he's nursing a bitter hatred of the Titans (Godzilla especially) over his son's death, and he repeatedly aims his anger at his former Monarch colleagues during the film even when all they're doing is trying to help him -- he gets better over the course of the film via MovingBeyondBereavement. Emma meanwhile outwardly appears to have moved on with her life and continued doing something useful with herself even if she is still haunted -- [[spoiler:this is a MaskOfSanity as it's revealed that she's actually had an even worse long-term reaction to her son's death than Mark has. Having evidently suffered some SanitySlippage, she's decided that UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans regarding her findings that the Titans are ecologically essential to the Earth's and humanity's long-term survival and regarding her valid concerns about the government shutting down Monarch and trying to exterminate the Titans, joining up with Alan Jonah's EcoTerrorist plot to set all the Titans loose on the world for a population cull and ecological restoration, under the InsaneTrollLogic that she's somehow ensuring Andrew's death wasn't in vain]]. And their surviving daughter Madison, the OnlySaneWoman of the family, is caught in the middle, being distant from one parent and emotionally manipulated by the other, although both parents come to regret not valuing the one child they still have once she's in mortal danger at the FinalBattle.

** The (presumed) extinction of the Marags caused their god Mara to spend centuries in insane grief.

* * In ''Anime/HellGirl'', Kazuko, a mother of two, becomes a wreck after her son Tatsuya dies in an accident, which leads her to neglect her daughter, Emi. [[spoiler:Emi later sends her mother to Hell in retaliation for her neglect.]]

* {{Creator/TamoraPierce}}’s ''TortallUniverse'':

* ''QueenAnnesLegacy'': King Henry VIII continues to mourn his wife Anne Boleyn until the day he dies, always putting her first in his heart since [[DeathByChildbirth she gave him the son he wanted at the cost of her life]]. This eventually kills his marriage with Jane Seymour, because Jane genuinely loves him and finds herself constantly having to compete with Anne's ghost. By contrast, his mistress Catherine Parr ''isn't'' in love with Henry at all and doesn't mind being second to Anne, so she's able to keep his favor.

* The ''ComicBook/TalesFromTheDarkMultiverse'' version of ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'' features ComicBook/LoisLane giving into this after she percieves that the world and Clark's fellow superheroes didn't care about Clark's death, willingly undergoing a FusionDance with the Eradicator and becoming a KnightTemplar, directly causing the deaths of many people including Lex Luthor, the Joker, and (after he called her out on it) Batman, as well as [[spoiler:indirectly leading to the deaths of Superboy, Steel, and the real Superman once he returns.]]

* ''Fanfic/BequeathedFromPaleEstates'': Robert Baratheon ''and'' his wife Cersei Lannister. Robert still uselessly pines after his deceased betrothed, Lyanna Stark (who's been dead for over a ''decade'', mind you), while Cersei still mourns her two youngest children over a year after their deaths during ThePlague. This does no favors for their already toxic marriage, nor for Joffrey, who has only become even more unstable with the increase in ParentalNeglect.

* In a ''Literature/SnowWhite''-like story from the Hebrides Islands, when the queen of the sea goes up on land and gets trampled to death by a horse stampede, her husband mourns her for more than a year, to the point of neglecting everything including his daughter. When he sees her a year later (she's still mourning, too), he resolves to find a new mother-figure for her.[[note]]Apparently, spending more time with her never occurs to him.[[/note]] He marries a [=SeaWitch=], who promises him that she'll look after his daughter... though she's really just after his power and turns out to be a WickedStepmother.
* In ''Literature/{{Tattercoats}}'', the nobleman lets his granddaughter grow up neglected and abused by servants because of her mother's [[DeathByChildbirth death during childbirth]], and [[ThePromise his oath]] to never look on her face. Eventually, she marries the prince, but her grandfather goes back home to mourning and shuts himself out of the HappyEnding because [[IGaveMyWord he gave his word.]]

* This is what bring Jeff under Jigsaw's radar in ''Film/SawIII''. He's so totally consumed by the death of his son that he's neglecting his life and the rest of his family, to the point where his introduction to the audience is him scolding his daughter for taking a toy bear from his son's room. All of his games in the film are about getting him to let go of his obsession. [[spoiler: Too bad he learns the wrong lesson.]]

** One of the downsides of all the {{Perfectly Arranged Marriage}}s of which the Purpose is so fond is that whenever one of the partners in a marriage dies, the widow or widower left behind tends to fall into such deep depression that they become incapable of functioning. One of the particularly bad cases was Aravina, the mother of one of the Rivan heirs; when her husband died in a riding accident, she was too overcome with grief to take care of her son Gelane, and lacking sufficient parental guidance (normally, Polgara would have taken over, but she was away), he turned into a difficult, moody brat who briefly fell under the influence of the DarkSide.

* In the ''Literature/{{Iliad}}'', Achilles's revenge for Patrocles's death includes abusing Hector's corpse after his death. Only when Priam appeals to him for the corpse does he settle down.

* ''Literature/{{Persuasion}}'' has the late Richard Musgrove who "never deserved a name other than Dick" ([[HaveAGayOldTime a remark which became funnier later]]), who was sent into the Navy for want of being useful any other way. He happened to end up in Captain Wentworth's ship, and although he speaks kindly to Mrs. Musgrove about her son, the narrator points out that Dick wound up being loved more when dead than alive and that he ''really'' didn't deserve all the lamenting and sighing that Mrs. Musgrove is doing now.

* ''Series/TwinPeaks'' centers around the death of Laura Palmer. Naturally, many of the townsfolk are stricken with grief, however her father Leland takes it to excessive territory. Laura's death affected everyone, but Leland is reduced to a dysfunctional mess who risks causing a scene everywhere he goes, whether it's having fits of sobbing triggered by Laura's favorite music, or even ''collapsing on his daughters coffin at her funeral''. It happens so often that people can't help but laugh about it behind his back.

* ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'': At the start of season 3, Foggy and Karen are processing Matt's "death" in Midland Circle from the climax of ''Series/{{The Defenders|2017}}'' differently. It's clear Foggy has made a lot of progress to move on from what happened, since he has his family and his girlfriend Marci Stahl to provide moral support. Karen, on the other hand, is obsessively pouring over stories relating to Midland Circle at the ''Bulletin'' to the point that even Ellison notices something's up.

** In a more DueToTheDead version, the Gibeonites hanged seven sons of Saul and left their bodies on the gallows for five months. Rizpah, the mother of two of them, spent the whole time shooing away any animals that tried to eat them, until David was able to recover and bury them.

* In ''Theatre/TheRoseTattoo'', Serafina never leaves her house or gets dressed for three years after her husband's death, though she does mind her daughter. Father De Leo calls her out for her self-indulgently excessive grieving, and further scolds her for having had her husband cremated to make an "idolatrous shrine" of his ashes in her house.

* This trope and it's inverse could be said to be at the heart of the drama in ''Theatre/NextToNormal''. Combined with her bipolar disorder, Diana is simply unable to stop grieving for [[spoiler:her dead firstborn son Gabe]], even at the cost of neglecting her daughter Natalie. It's so bad that [[spoiler:she hallucinates him as an 18 year old even when he died as a baby, though the mental illness is definitely partially to blame.]] Her husband Dan on the other hand refuses to grieve at all in favor of pretending that everything is okay, hoping that the lie will come true. Both behaviors ultimately come crashing down on their heads when [[spoiler:Diane's hallucination of Gabe convinces her to attempt suicide and later on, Dan attempts to hide Gabe's existence to [[ItMakesSenseInContext an amnesiac Diana]], causing her to leave him when her memories come back.]]

* Inverted in ''{{VideoGame/Oninaki}}''. Because of the way the cycle of reincarnation works in Oninaki's world, Kagachi's society frowns heavily upon any grieving of the dead, because it prevents spirits from moving on and being reincarnated. This is displayed very clearly in the beginning of the game, where a young Kagachi is told not to mourn for his parents. It's implied that this had a negative effect on him, turning him into the cold and aloof person he is as an adult.

* In ''WebAnimation/MarioBrothers'', Mario mourns Luigi's death for too long, which not only gives Koopa time to carry out his plan, but also causes the 1-Up used on him later to fail.

* In season 4 of ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'', we learn more about the childhood of [=BoJack=]'s mother Beatrice. Beatrice's mother, Honey, could not handle the loss of her son Crackerjack (he died in World War II), culminating in her and Beatrice getting into a car accident because she tried to let her too-young daughter drive. Justified in that Beatrice grew up in the '40s, and she and her mother were [[DeliberateValuesDissonance encouraged by everyone]] (including Beatrice's father) to [[StepfordSmiler hide their emotions]] and [[StayInTheKitchen make babies]]. [[spoiler: Beatrice's father ended up dealing with Honey by ''having her lobotomized''.]]

* The true identity of [[spoiler: The Conductor]], as revealed at the end of Book One of ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' is [[spoiler: Amelia Hughes, a widow who was scooped up by the train after her husband's death and, instead of working through her grief, has been trying to build a replica of her old life with him in it for the past ''thirty three years''.]] Her refusal to let go of her mourning is, in one way or another, the catalyst for much of the drama of the rest of the show.

* When Hephaestion, closest friend and possible lover of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat died, Alexander threw him an absolutely enormous funeral. Costing the modern equivalent of somewhere two and four billion dollars, it included funeral games with over 3,000 competitors, a funeral pyre almost 200 feet high decorated in gold, and the extinguishing of the sacred flame (something normally done only upon the death of a king/emperor). Alexander laid in bed for two days crying, declared Hepaestion's regiment would never have another leader, and insisted that he be worshiped as a divine hero alongside Alexander himself. His health also declined rapidly after Hephaestion's death, thought to be due to his extreme distress at the loss of his friend, and he himself died just a year later.
* Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln, was said to be so inconsolable after the death of their son William that she locked herself in the White House master bedroom for days after his funeral, doing nothing except laying in bed and weeping over a photo of her son. An apocryphal story on the subject says she only came out again when Abe threatened to send her to an asylum for the insane, though history ''does'' show he had to hire a nurse to look after her for months after William's death, so there might be some truth to it. Worth pointing out: Mary had severe depression, and some historians posit she was bipolar, which would no doubt be contributory, especially in a time where mental health wasn't nearly as well studied as it is now.

** ''Film/Godzilla2014'': [[Characters/MonsterVerseHumans Joe Brody]] hasn't got over the death of [[spoiler:his wife]] -- which, by the way, was a ShootTheDog on his part -- even fifteen years on. He's gone from being a respectable power plant engineer to living in a small apartment teaching English as a second language, and he's remained intensely obsessed ever since the power plant meltdown which killed [[spoiler:Sandra]] with finding out what really caused it that Monarch are covering up. This has strained Joe's relationship with his son Ford, who wishes his father could just let [[spoiler:Sandra]]'s memory rest.

* PlayedWith in ''{{VideoGame/Oninaki}}''. Because of the way the cycle of reincarnation works in Oninaki's world, Kagachi's society frowns heavily upon any grieving of the dead, because it prevents spirits from moving on and being reincarnated. This is displayed very clearly in the beginning of the game, where a young Kagachi is told not to mourn for his parents. It's implied that this had a negative effect on him, turning him into the cold and aloof person he is as an adult.