History Main / SwanSong

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} 8'' was the swan song for its developer, Sir-Tech Canada, who closed its doors soon after its release, ending the twenty years-old series with a bang--unlike [[VideoGame/{{Ultima}} many other]] [[VideoGame/MightAndMagic classic series]] of the the GoldenAge of {{Western RPG}}s. ''W8'' can also be considered a swan song of the Golden Age itself, as it was the last great game to exemplify the design paradigms and virtues typical for this period of the genre's history.

* Although the last piece Creator/LudwigVanBeethoven completed before his death was the shorter finale that replaced the Grosse Fuge in his String Quartet No.13 in B-flat (the Grosse Fuge is now more usually performed as a standalone work), the last full-length work he completed was his String Quartet No.16 in F. The finale is subtitled "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß" ("The difficult decision") and features a slow motif marked "Muß es sein?" ("Must it be?") and a contrasting faster motif marked "Es muß sein!" ("It must be!"); while the meaning of these questions is the subject of much debate, the theory that Beethoven was reflecting on his mortality is one of the more popular.

* Music/{{Queen}}'s last song, "The Show Must Go On", is about Freddie Mercury [[FaceDeathWithDignity facing death with dignity]]. When Brian May presented the demo to Freddie, he had doubts that the latter would be able to sing due to his illness at the time. When the time came to record the vocals, Mercury drank a measure of vodka and said [[{{Determinator}} "I'll fucking do it, darling!"]], then recorded it in one take.

* Music/DavidBowie's final album, ''Music/Blackstar'', was written and recorded while he was suffering from liver cancer.

* Although the last piece Music/LudwigVanBeethoven completed before his death was the shorter finale that replaced the Grosse Fuge in his String Quartet No.13 in B-flat (the Grosse Fuge is now more usually performed as a standalone work), the last full-length work he completed was his String Quartet No.16 in F. The finale is subtitled "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß" ("The difficult decision") and features a slow motif marked "Muß es sein?" ("Must it be?") and a contrasting faster motif marked "Es muß sein!" ("It must be!"); while the meaning of these questions is the subject of much debate, the theory that Beethoven was reflecting on his mortality is one of the more popular.

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* Beethoven's 9th Symphony, created 3 years before his death, but proved to be so awesome and complex that it's generally assumed that Creator/LudwigVanBeethoven knew his time was running out and decided to finish with a MagnumOpus.

-->''The show must go on''\\
''The show must go on, yeah''\\
''Oooh inside my heart is breaking''\\
''My make-up may be flaking''\\
''[[GoOutWithASmile But my smile still stays on]]"''

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} 8'' was the swan song for its developer, Sir-Tech, who closed its doors soon after its release, ending the twenty years-old series with a bang--unlike [[VideoGame/{{Ultima}} many other]] [[VideoGame/MightAndMagic classic series]] of the the GoldenAge of {{Western RPG}}s. ''W8'' can also be considered a swan song of the Golden Age itself, as it was the last great game to exemplify the design paradigms and virtues typical for this period of the genre's history.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} 8'' was the swan song for its developer, Sir-Tech, who closed its doors soon after its release, ending the twenty years-old series on a very high note--unlike [[VideoGame/{{Ultima}} many other]] [[VideoGame/MightAndMagic classic series]] of the the GoldenAge of {{Western RPG}}s. ''W8'' can also be viewed as the swan song to the Golden Age itself, being the last great game to exemplify the design paradigms and virtues of this period in the genre's history.

NOTE: Trivia Trope, also launching this under this title necessitates the moving of the disambiguation page.
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*
Note that this ''must'' be one purpose. [[PeopleSitOnChairs people die after making works all the time,]] but few of them have the foresight to know what their last act would be.

[[folder: ComicBooks]]
* ''Tintin and the Picaros'' from 1976 would become [[Creator/{{Herge}} Hergé's]] last finished Franchise/{{Tintin}} album, but he still worked on the ultimately unfinished ''Tintin and the Alph Art'' until his death in 1983. Hergé was in poor health though, so he always knew that even if he managed to finish that album, it would be the last one.

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[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Music]]

[[folder: Video Games]]
* Creator/SatoruIwata had a bile duct growth that prevented him from appearing at E3 2014 and using a puppet show the following year. He created ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker'', a way to make custom Mario levels, essentially allowing gamers and Nintendo fans to make their own PlatformHell games and more importantly experience the joy he felt when making the games. He died in July 15, 2015, a few months before the game's public release

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-->''The show must go on''
''The show must go on, yeah''
''Oooh inside my heart is breaking''
''My make-up may be flaking''

* ''Tintin and the Picaros'' from 1976 would become [[Creator/{{Herge}} Hergé's]] last finished Franchise/{{Tintin}} album, but he still worked on the ultimately unfinished ''Tintin and the Alph Art'' until his death in 1983. Hergé was in poor health though, so he always knew that even if he managed to finish that album, it would be the last one.

This is a disambiguation page.

* For the novel by [=Robert McCammon=], see ''Literature/SwanSong''.
* For the VisualNovel, see ''VisualNovel/SwanSong''.
* For the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode, see "[[Recap/SupernaturalS05E22SwanSong Swan Song]]".
* If you're looking for a {{trope}} about a character's last awesome thing before they die, try DyingMomentOfAwesome.

If a direct link led you here, please correct it to point to the proper namespace or trope above.

''Swan Song'' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] novel by Robert [=McCammon=], starting just prior to WorldWarIII and following a large group of people through the following seven years. There are elements of fantasy woven throughout it, with certain bits of magic proven to be real.

It opens with several of the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters just before the bombs go off--Sister Creep, later to be known as just "˜Sister", a quasi-crazy bag lady in New York City; Swan, a little girl who can make plants grow; Josh Hutchins, a retired wrestler; Roland Croninger, a boy whose parents have gone to hide out in what they believe to be a safe fortress, and Colonel Macklin, one of the people in charge of that fortress. Russia and America [[ApocalypseHow annihilate one another with nuclear weapons]], leaving the country in ruins and many of those who survived wounded or disfigured.

Sister finds a [[MacGuffin ring of glass, like a crown]] in the ruins of Tiffany's, that proves to have strange powers and which the BigBad, a demonic figure known as the Man with the Scarlet Eye, is willing to hunt down and kill everyone for. Via PropheticDreams she knows she has to get it to Swan, who can use it to bring life back to the destroyed land or humanity may never recover. It's a long, exceptionally detailed book, beautiful in places and [[{{Squick}} really squicky]] in others, and not for the weak of stomach. Often compared to Stephen King's ''TheStand'', and vice versa.

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* AfterTheEnd: The book opens with the End.
* AnyoneCanDie: Can, and usually do.
* ApocalypseHow: Class 1.
* AxCrazy: Macklin becomes this, Alvin Mangrim embodies it literally.
* BeautifulAllAlong: Sort of. Many survivors wind up with a condition called Job's Mask, where growths overtake their face where they were injured in the bombings. Once these growths fall off, they leave the person more attractive than they were before--if they're good people. The Job's Mask is said to bring forward the "true face", meaning the bad guys who get them wind up hideous when they fall off. Roland Croninger is so horrified by what he looks like once he loses his that he wears a mask he won't take off.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: More like goodness eventually equals beauty.
* BigApplesauce: Sister starts out here before the bombs fall.
* BigBad: The Man with the Scarlet Eye.
* BreakTheCutie: Swan. It doesn't really work, though, and she winds up breaking the BigBad.
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Played straight with Swan, most definitely averted with Roland Croninger, who even before the bombs fall shows signs of becoming a CompleteMonster.
* TheDeadliestMushroom: Lots of them, destroying the USA and Russia.
* CrapsackWorld: Even before the bombs fall, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket.
* DemotedToDragon: The Army of Excellence leadership suffers this ''en masse'' when [[spoiler: the Man with the Scarlet Eye waltzes in and takes it over]].
* DisappearedDad: Swan's mother doesn't even know who her father is. [[spoiler: It's implied that it might be some kind of god.]]
* {{Doorstopper}}: The paperback edition is 956 pages.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Assuming you live long enough to ''have'' one.
* EnfantTerrible: Roland Croninger.
* EldritchAbomination: When the the Man with the Scarlet Eye reveals what he truly looks like.
* EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Very, very much so.
* EmpathyDollShot
* EvilMakesYouUgly: Downright hideous, in fact.
* FiveBadBand: The Army of Excellence leadership.
** TheBigBad: Colonel Macklin.
** TheDragon: Roland Croninger.
** TheBrute: Judd Lawry.
** TheEvilGenius: Alvin Mangrim.
** TheDarkChick: Sheila Fontana.
* FiveManBand:
** TheHero: Swan.
** TheLancer: Sister.
** TheSmartGuy: Hugh Ryan.
** TheBigGuy: Josh Hutchins, former wrestler.
* AGodAmI: The President survives the initial holocaust and comes to think he literally ''is'' God, which becomes problematic when he decides [[spoiler:he needs to wipe out the rest of humanity, and has the weapons with which to do it]]. Fortunately, the good guys get there first, even if only barely.
* GreenThumb: Swan.
* HarsherInHindSight: A militant cult is laid siege to. Their building burns down with them in it. This happens a few years later with the Branch Davidians.
* HeelFaceTurn: Macklin, come the finish. Naturally [[RedemptionEqualsDeath he pays for it.]]
* InfantImmortality: Not. At. All. A soldier cracks a baby's skull open because it won't stop crying, and in one very gruesome sequence in a shopping mall full of escaped mental patients who hunt and kill anyone who finds them, some of the protagonists find a rotting little girl who's been posed as a mannequin. Her head falls off when they bump into her.
* LifeOrLimbDecision: Macklin has to make this at the beginning of the novel.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Not that [[AnyoneCanDie many of them survive]].
* MacGuffin: the glass crown, that allows people to "dreamwalk", see the future, speak to dead loved ones, and translate languages. Everybody and their brother wants the thing, too.
* MeaningfulName: Swan.
* MissingMom: Swan's mother dies in the bombing.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Army of Excellence--their leader even has some vintage SS uniforms.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Sister and Swan. Swan's real name is Sue Wanda; Sister is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that she no longer ''remembers'' her real name.
* OrIsIt: The world may not be entirely safe yet...[[spoiler:It's heavily implied that the Man With The Scarlet Eye is still bicycling around the country.]]
* PropheticDreams: Happen a lot, especially to people near the MacGuffin.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Macklin.
* RedsWithRockets: The nuclear exchange occurs between the USA and Russia, though we push the button first.
* {{Satan}}: The Man with the Scarlet Eye is implied to be the Devil. Swan offers him an apple and it reminds him of an incident a long time ago.
* ScavengerWorld: To the point where traveling salesmen sell old calendars for rubber bands.
* SelfMadeOrphan: In Earth House, the underground fortress, the survivors end up breaking into several gangs after the nuclear war. Roland Croninger and his parents are separated and end up in different gangs. In a battle, Roland kills his father, and his mother burns to death in a fire started in that battle. Due to the psychotic break he's suffered during the nuclear war, Roland doesn't even remember who they are, just that they're vaguely familiar.
* TraumaInducedAmnesia: The reason Sister no longer remembers her real name or much of her life before New York is that [[spoiler:her daughter died in a car accident because she had been driving drunk. Her husband left her, and she eventually [[SanitySlippage went crazy]] and became a homeless woman who endlessly preached on street corners.]] Her stability reasserts itself once the bombs have fallen, though she still can't remember her name.
* WorldWarIII: Opens the book.
* YouFailHealthPhysicsForever: Radiation will not actually produce things like two-headed cougars. As with the failure of nuclear physics below, however, at the time it was still believed that it could.
* YouFailNuclearPhysicsForever: Only in [[ScienceMarchesOn retrospect]]; at the time the book was written, it was thought that nuclear winter would play out much like it does in the story.

* DisappearedDad: Swan's mother doesn't even know who her father is.

** TheVillain: Colonel Macklin.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Army of Excellence--their leader even has some vintage SS uniforms.

* AGodAmI: The President survives the initial holocaust and comes to think he literally ''is'' God, which becomes problematic when he decides [[spoiler:he needs to wipe out the rest of humanity, and has the weapons with which to do it]]. Fortunately, the good guys get there first, even if only barely.

* CompleteMonster: Colonel Macklin, Roland Croninger, the Man with the Scarlet Eye (literally). Macklin redeems himself [[RedemptionEqualsDeath in the end]], however.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Oh so very, very much. [=McCammon=] does not pull any punches with his descriptions of anything, including hacked-apart murder victims, the effects of radiation, and [[{{Squick}} a lot of lingering]] on the smell of decay.

* {{Squick}}: So much squick, especially the descriptions about people who died in the explosion or were later murdered.