History Main / LetThemDieHappy

* ''Series/Fallout2024''; in Episode 4, Lucy and the Ghoul come across another ghoul named Roger who's on the verge of going feral. The Ghoul talks to Roger and reminds him of Pre-War food like ice cream and apple pie, and as Roger is happily reminiscing to Lucy about his mom's cooking the Ghoul put a bullet through his head, killing him instantly.

* ''ComicBook/ShadeTheChangingMan'': ''Vertigo Jam'', a one-shot anthology of various DC titles that were printed under the Vertigo imprint at the time, featured a story by Creator/PeterMilligan where Shade, Lenny and Kathy encountered a dying priest who wished to face infernal retaliation for his sins. Shade obliges by making it so that the last thing the priest sees before dying is a vision of The Devil, while Lenny complains that she feels the hypocritical man of the cloth got off easy for his transgressions and brings up that she regrets not having the nerve to inform her dying grandmother about her doubts that the hereafter exists.

* ''ComicBook/ShadeTheChangingMan'': The ''Vertigo Jam'' one-shot featured a story by Creator/PeterMilligan where Shade, Lenny and Kathy encountered a dying priest who wished to face infernal retaliation for his sins. Shade obliges by making it so that the last thing the priest sees before dying is a vision of The Devil, while Lenny complains that she feels the hypocritical man of the cloth got off easy for his transgressions and brings up that she regrets not having the nerve to inform her dying grandmother about her doubts that the hereafter exists.

** In the movie ''[[Anime/BleachMemoriesOfNobody Memories of Nobody]]'', as Senna is dying, she instructs Ichigo to take her to the graveyard in which she was buried to prove that she is actually a real person who was alive, and not just a collection of memories. Unable to see, she asks Ichigo to tell her if her name is written on the tombstone. The tombstone is so weathered the name can no longer be read, but Ichigo assures Senna that it's her name.

** Near the end of ''Manga/StoneOcean'', [[CrazyJealousGuy Anasui]], having come up with a desperate plan to beat [[BigBad Enrico Pucci]] at the cost of his own life, says that if he survives, he'll ask Jolyne to marry him. Despite having acted oblivious to his advances for the entire part, she says that if he survives, she will. They both know Anasui isn't going to survive and that it's unlikely that Jolyne will either (she doesn't).

* In ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun'', Diego Brando is cut in half after he mortally wounded [[PresidentEvil Funny Valentine]]. Knowing that he hit the killing blow before being run over by the train, Diego dies believing that he took Valentine down, too. However, unknown to Diego, Valentine had managed to break away to a parallel universe using Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, [[BodyBackupDrive passing on his Stand ability and motivations to a new Valentine before that body died]]. As such, Diego's dying attack failed, and Valentine, in his new body, comes back to the main universe to continue his plan.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': After the driver of [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1958 SCP-1958]] realizes he won't get to Alpha Centauri on time, having looked outside to see that they're not even past ''the moon'' yet (since their spaceship is a VW bus that goes no faster than a typical automobile, and their destination is ''4.3 light years'' away), he closes the curtains because he doesn't want his last remaining passenger and friend, who is almost dead, to know. He tells that friend that they'll make it to Alpha Centauri tomorrow morning just before he dies.

* In ''ComicBook/BatmanAndTheOutsiders'' #20, Halo tells the dying Sam and Margaret Harper that she does remember them and apologized for not remembering sooner. In truth, she has no memory of her life as their daughter, Violet Harper [[spoiler: a sociopathic thief killed by Syonide]] and only told them that so that they died happy. [[spoiler: she is actually an alien Aurakle inhabiting Violet’s body]] They both died smiling.

* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk1968'': Happens when Jim Wilson dies of complications from [=AIDs=]. He asks the Hulk to give him a blood transfusion, but Hulk refuses given the high possibility of something going wrong (either BodyHorror or just creating another Hulk). He claims otherwise to give Jim hope, but Jim sees through it simply by realizing one way or another, ''something'' should've happened to him, but pretends he hasn't so as not to upset the Hulk. Hulk catches on once Jim dies.

* A storyarc in the ''ComicStrip/ModestyBlaise'' comic strip has a rich, elderly associate of Blaise and her longtime companion Willie Garvin strand the two on a tropical island. Believing that the world is on the brink of destruction, he chooses them as the perfect Adam and Eve for a new world after the disaster. By the time Blaise and Garvin make it off the island, the old man is at deaths door, and Blaise decides to keep their return from him, letting him die with the belief that he has saved humanity.
* ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'': In an early issue of ''ComicBook/NewTeenTitans'', ComicBook/{{Raven}} does this for the villain, Grant Wilson; as he lies dying she shows him a false vision of the Titans' lifeless bodies, letting him think he'd fulfilled his mission to kill them.
* In ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'' story ''Portrait of the Hero as a Young Duck'', after Grrodon's foiled attempt on the hero's life, the former, painfully aware that not only he's the LastOfHisKind but also that three centuries of preparing a vengeance were for nothing, [[DrivenToSuicide steals a flying car and heads for space, to his death]]. When PK tries to stop him, Eidolon's voice tells him to let him go.

* In ''ComicBook/TheQuestForTheTimeBird'', Bragon lies to console a dying Bodias who cannot see that his homeland has burned down.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'', Morpheus enlists [[ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}} John Constantine]] in his quest to find his pouch of Dream Sand. They find out it is in the hands of one of John's ex-girlfriends, Rachel, who has been using it as a way to escape her worries -- with dire consequences. Her metabolism has been nearly destroyed by her use of the sand, and she's well on her way into a slow, ugly death. John furiously states that Morpheus cannot just leave her to suffer and die in pain. Morpheus complies, and uses the Sand to give the dying Rachel one last sweet dream: being reunited with John, whom she never stopped loving. She passes away in her sleep.

* One of the characters attempts this in ''ComicBook/TransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye''. He's on what has turned out to be a suicide mission with an alternate universe version of Rewind. As he's about to die, Rewind asks if, in this universe, he and his conjunx endura (roughly, spouse) Chromedome are still together, because Chromedome died in his universe; he's told that they're "inseparable". Ultimately, he survives, and discovers that that was a lie; in this universe, ''Rewind'' died. (On the bright side, their silent reunion is one of the most touching scenes in the comic.)

* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', various artists have been taken to an island in secret [[spoiler: to unwittingly create a monster for Adrian's scheme to end the Cold War]]. As they board a ship to leave the island, two of them, Max Shea and Hira Manish, have a tryst in the engine room. As they're settling in, Max finds a strange box covered in a tarp and when he examines it finds a time bomb with seconds remaining. Rather than tell Hira they're about to die, Max holds her and tells her everything is fine.
* At the end of the Marvel miniseries ''Wisdom'', Pete Wisdom's girlfriend has been turned into a living portal, bringing the Martians from ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' into modern-day London. Pete and his girlfriend try to find a way out of this that doesn't result in her death. Pete finally comes up with the idea that there may be something in the archives that helps them... and as Pete's girlfriend runs for the stairwell, happy that there might be a way out of this that doesn't involve anyone dying, Pete puts a bullet in the back of her head, closing the gate.

* In an early issue of ''[[ComicBook/TeenTitans New Teen Titans]]'', ComicBook/{{Raven}} does this for the villain, Grant Wilson; as he lies dying she shows him a false vision of the Titans' lifeless bodies, letting him think he'd fulfilled his mission to kill them.

* In season 2 of ''Series/TheWestWing,'' "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," Donna asks Sam to help her friend Stephanie posthumously pardon her grandfather Daniel Gault, which is the friend's father's dying wish. Sam goes to first Special Agent Casper, then Dr. Nancy [=McNally=], in the hopes of getting justice for an innocent victim of [=McCarthyism=]. [[spoiler: Then he's hit with the truth: Daniel Gault was in fact the Soviet agent Blackwater, and translator Shaba Demsky was [[HeKnowsTooMuch murdered to protect his identity]].]] Sam, who has been sleeping over in the West Wing in response to learning [[BrokenPedestal his father had been cheating on his mother for 28 years,]] and is in a negative headspace already, [[spoiler: angrily resolves to rip the Band-Aid off, giving an impassioned speech about treason against the U.S. being a crime both against the living and the dead who died defending it.]] But after asking if [[spoiler: Stephanie has heard of Shaba Demsky, he decides at the last minute to say he'll "try [to pardon Gault] again in 3 months," allowing her father to die with false hope.]]

* In season 2 of ''Series/TheWestWing,'' "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," Donna asks Sam to help her friend Stephanie posthumously pardon her grandfather Daniel Gault, which is the friend's father's dying wish. Sam goes to first Special Agent Casper, then Dr. Nancy [=McNally=], in the hopes of getting justice for an innocent victim of [=McCarthyism=]. [[spoiler: Then he's hit with the truth: Daniel Gault was in fact the Soviet agent Blackwater, and translator Shaba Demsky was [[HeKnowsTooMuch murdered to protect his identity]].]] Sam, who has been sleeping over in the West Wing in response to learning [[BrokenPedestal his father had been cheating on his mother for 28 years,]] and is in a negative headspace already, angrily resolves to rip the Band-Aid off, giving an impassioned speech about treason against the U.S. being a crime both against the living and the dead who died defending it. But after asking if [[spoiler: Stephanie has heard of Shaba Demsky, he decides at the last minute to say he'll "try [to pardon Gault] again in 3 months," allowing her father to die with false hope.]]

* In season 2 of ''Series/TheWestWing,'' "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," Donna asks Sam to help her friend Stephanie posthumously pardon her grandfather Daniel Gault, which is the friend's father's dying wish. Sam goes to first Special Agent Casper, then Dr. Nancy [=McNally=], in the hopes of getting justice for an innocent victim of [=McCarthyism=]. [[spoiler: Then he's hit with the truth: Daniel Gault was in fact the Soviet agent Blackwater, and translator Shaba Demsky was [[HeKnowsTooMuch murdered to protect his identity]].]] Sam, who has been sleeping over in the West Wing in response to learning [[BrokenPedestal his father had been cheating on his mother for 28 years,]] resolves to rip the Band-Aid off, giving an impassioned speech about treason against the U.S. being a crime both against the living and the dead who died defending it. But after asking if [[spoiler: Stephanie has heard of Shaba Demsky, he decides at the last minute to say he'll "try [to pardon Gault] again in 3 months," allowing her father to die with false hope.]]

* In season 2 of ''Series/TheWestWing,'' "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," Donna asks Sam to help her friend Stephanie posthumously pardon her grandfather Daniel Gault, which is the friend's father's dying wish. Sam goes to first Special Agent Casper, then Dr. Nancy McNally, in the hopes of getting justice for an innocent victim of McCarthyism. [[spoiler: Then he's hit with the truth: Daniel Gault was in fact the Soviet agent Blackwater, and translator Shaba Demsky was [[HeKnowsTooMuch murdered to protect his identity]].]] Sam, who has been sleeping over in the West Wing in response to learning [[BrokenPedestal his father had been cheating on his mother for 28 years,]] resolves to rip the Band-Aid off, giving an impassioned speech about treason against the U.S. being a crime both against the living and the dead who died defending it. But after asking if [[spoiler: Stephanie has heard of Shaba Demsky, he decides at the last minute to say he'll "try [to pardon Gault] again in 3 months," allowing her father to die with false hope.]]

Subtrope of ComfortTheDying. Compare GoOutWithASmile, for when the dying character smiles for the sake of their surviving loved one, and ThePowerOfLegacy, where the lie is being told by another on behalf of the dead for the sake of the living. Not to be confused with DiedHappilyEverAfter, when a character is "released" and finally at peace after his death. Compare LyingToProtectYourFeelings. Often overlaps with DiedInIgnorance, as the lie prevents the dead from finding out the painful truth.