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So Happy Together

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"The sun setting on a sweet summer's day. The smell of freshly mowed lawns, the sounds of children playing. A house across the river on the Jersey side. A beautiful wife and a baby girl. The American Dream come true. But dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking."
— Max Payne

Those whom the gods destroy, they first make happy.

In every doomed relationship, there is always one serenely happy moment (possibly a Last Kiss) that signals the beginning of the end. She's not just going to dump his ass after that lingering stroll down the beach. She's about to turn into a traitor and sacrifice herself for their love. He's going to end up a conman drug dealer who was just keeping an eye on her. She's seconds from being unmasked as the Femme Fatale, or his heretobefore-unknown half-sister, or the wife of a jealous weightlifter. Hell, maybe he's about to turn into a dragon and eat her. Generally speaking, if you suddenly hear the Turtles' "Happy Together", refrain in your head while your favorite ship is on-screen - or they propose marriage - odds are that your ship is going down. After being hit by an orbital railgun. In shark-infested waters. During a category 5 hurricane.

It's not so fatal as Retirony, but just as tragic.

Subtrope of Hope Spot. See also Too Happy to Live and Planning for the Future Before the End.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • While not a romantic example, the commercial for the original Super Smash Bros. engaged in this as Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Pikachu happily skipped through a field before violence ensued. Bonus points for the fact that the Trope Namer song was used for that commercial.

    Anime and Manga 
  • In Umineko: When They Cry, George and Shannon are particularly prone to this. In every scenario, the murders begin the night George proposes to Shannon (Although the scene itself is only shown in two arcs, it's implied or stated to have occurred in all the others as well). And you can bet that if one or the other isn't one of the ones killed in the murders immediately after that scene, they're going to die right after having done a pledge of love to each other that seems designed to try to make the audience burst into tears. Particularly brutal in the third arc, where Shannon dies immediately after the proposal, George resurrects her using the Power of Love, only for them both to be killed right next to each other not even ten seconds later. But it's subverted, as, not only is Shannon not really dead in Episode 1 and 3, she is the main culprit of the murders. To makes things worse, George's marriage proposal is probably one of the things that solidify Shannon's resolve to blow up the island ("Even after death, we will always be together"). The "resurrection-redeath" scene in Episode 3 is open to interpretation though. And with the alternative culprit theory, George is one of the culprits, although that one was jossed by the manga.
  • In Basara, Shuri and Sasara end up consummating their relationship the night before Sasara, in her public persona of Tatara, will lead the rebellion to finally bring down the Red King. Who is actually Shuri. It sets up the Internal Reveal, leading to much drama and heartbreak.
  • In Deadman Wonderland, Shiro and Ganta.
  • The ending of the first season of Tower of God. Just as Bam saves himself and Rachel, the girl he has been looking for the entire season, and reaffirms his desire to be with her, she seems to reciprocate… before she pushes him off the vehicle they're on and watches him fall into deathly depths. Turns out she had a deal with the Tower's Guardians to sacrifice him for her own benefit.
  • Macross Frontier toys with it some between Sheryl and Alto in the last couple of episodes. Note that the fleet ecology can only sustain the fleet for another few months due to significant war damage; Sheryl's days are numbered and they know it.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion, By the time Kaworu appears, all Shinji's friends have either left or are too deep in their own problems. He's a Nice Guy who is unashamedly open and heaps praise and care on Shinji and the two bond quickly. However, he's secretly an Angel trying to destroy the world and his death pushes Shinji over the Despair Event Horizon
    • Rebuild of Evangelion loves this trope and combines it with Dramatic Irony and Yank the Dog's Chain. There's Rei planning a reconciliation dinner for Gendo and Shinji right before the doomed Unit-03 test run. Shinji rescuing Rei and the two hugging before the next movie reveals he never saved her and destroyed the world. Shinji bonding with Kaworu before he sacrifices himself to save Shinji and the world. Poor boy never gets a break.
  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Yoko and Kamina get a Relationship Upgrade right before a major battle. They share a kiss and Kamina gives a when I get back line. So that of course means that Kamina dies in battle the next day

    Comic Books 
  • X-Men:
    • The Dark Phoenix Saga featured a deepening of Cyclops and Phoenix's relationship, with several memorable romantic scenes, before she is consumed by power, goes insane, destroys a solar system, and ultimately commits suicide as a Heroic Sacrifice. Making the intrusion of one Emma Frost down the road that much worse.
    • Colossus and Shadowcat got all those bedroom scenes before Giant-Size Astonishing... DARN YOU, WHEDON!
  • In the Silver Age run of The Flash, after a long period of marital conflict between Barry and Iris, issue #275 saw them reconciled and seriously discussing children. Iris was dead by the end of the issue. (Much, much later this was reversed, and Barry and Iris walked off happily into the sunset...just in time for Barry's death in Crisis.)
  • In the opening of Identity Crisis, Sue Dibney is preparing to surprise her husband Ralph with the news that he's going to be a daddy. Minutes later, she's brutally murdered.
  • The "Dead Wrong" arc of Runaways ends with Karolina and Xavin sharing their first (and only) on-panel kiss... and then Xavin clocks Karolina, impersonates her, and surrenders to the Light Brigade, saving Karolina and her teammates from the Light Brigade's vengeance at the possible cost of their own life.
  • In Runaways (2015), ex-girlfriends Jubilee and Pixie have a moment that demonstrates that they still care about each other, just before Pixie is horribly killed during the final exam.

    Fan Fiction 
  • In the Katawa Shoujo fic, Reconciliation, after Hanako's bad ending, Lilly and Hisao get together shortly before graduation, and are quite happy together, enough so that Hanako recognizes that Lilly's feelings for Hisao were deeper than her own. They go out for five years and are married for three years before Hisao dies of a heart attack.
  • A particularly brutal one happens in Buffy fanfic Heart and Eye after Harmony finally recovers both her soul and her humanity. She and Xander have less than a week together, having lots of sex, enjoying yogurt and planning to take up surfing... before she is killed by a knife to the throat, ironically something she would have survived had she remained a vampire.
  • Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts gives so much character and depth to Martha and Thomas Wayne, you just get why young Bruce was so utterly destroyed by their murder.
  • In the Good Omens fic series Pray for Us, Icarus, Aziraphale's past encounters with Crowley's human reincarnations all ended tragically, but the one that truly broke his heart and caused him to try cutting off all contact with Crowley's future reincarnations was the one where he got to have a happy relationship with Crowley in the 19th century that lasted for over five years only to have it cruelly ripped away from him when Gabriel, viewing their relationship as a sign that Aziraphale was becoming too complacent in his angelic duties, sent him on a mission far away from Crowley and Crowley died of influenza before he could come back.
    • Aziraphale's relationship with Crowley's latest reincarnation in the 21st century is also chock-full of this trope. They move in together, get married, and have a peaceful, loving life together for ten years, but any happiness that Aziraphale feels with Crowley is tainted by the specter of the impending Armageddon hanging over their heads that he can't even tell Crowley about.

    Film 
  • Emphasized in Carrie (1976), as it's Carrie's first date ever. Having been shunned by everyone for her whole life, Carrie finally breaks out from her abusive mother's torment and goes to prom with Tommy Ross, everyone is very nice to Carrie, and they kiss. Then they're made prom king and queen. And then Chris dumps a bucket of blood on Carrie.
  • The beach scene in Casino Royale (2006), and the arrival in Venice following it. James Bond, genuinely and sincerely in love and willing to walk away from his career as Her Majesty's hitman for it. Obviously, this can't work out.
  • Serenity had hints of this for Zoe and Wash but no real stand-out moment. This was fixed in a comic series that takes place before the movie, just to twist the knife.
  • In The Punisher (2004), Frank Castle and his darling wife Maria share a lovely scene on the beach at night. Come on, tell me you know what happens next.
    • Hell, this is always the way it is for Frank Castle. Comics, he's in the park with his family on a picnic, he's finally decided to stop reenlisting to fight in Vietnam, and then, well, you know what happens.
  • My Name is Khan. We were so happy together, until 9 11 happened, you lost your customers, our sister-in-law got assaulted, our best friend died, our son got killed, you went off the wall, kicked me out, and told me to tell the president I wasn't a terrorist.
  • In Don Juan DeMarco, the title character and the beauteous Dona Ana are blissfully happy together, until he tells he something he should've kept to himself: he had over a thousand lovers before her. She promptly dumps him. "Truth is a terrible habit."
  • In Starship Troopers, after a long time of being Just Friends, Dizzy finally beds Johnny. She dies in a Bug ambush the next day.
  • The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Katniss Everdeen and Peeta play up this trope before the Quarter Quell.
  • Star Wars
    • A platonic version in Revenge of the Sith. Before Obi-wan leaves for Utapau, he and Anakin have a talk where Anakin apologizes for all the trouble he's caused him and Obi-wan replies that he's proud of Anakin (the first and last So Proud of You we ever hear from him). That final smile they share is the last happy moment either of them will know before Anakin becomes Darth Vader.
    • Padmé and Anakin initially have quite a few moments as a happy couple in Revenge of the Sith, though one that stands out in particular is their happy reunion after the Battle of Coruscant, where Padmé tells Anakin she's pregnant and then discusses her baby plans with him. In the very next scene, Anakin has a nightmare about her dying in childbirth, which is essentially the beginning of the end as Anakin goes on to join the Dark Side to try and avert the prophecy.
    • The Force Awakens, Han and Leia are estranged and Han is implied to have spent a good few years avoiding Leia. Near the end of the movie they meet and have a sweet moment where they confirm they still love each other despite everything. Han dies by his son's hand soon afterward.
    • Near the end of The Rise of Skywalker, the bad guy's been defeated, Ben and Rey acknowledge their connection and share a kiss, Ben smiles... and then he immediately dies, because he gave her his life force to save her.
  • Spider-Man 2: Otto and Rosie Octavius have a very sweet and happy relationship and have enjoyed many years of marriage. Peter meets them both and they have a cute bonding scene where they talk about science and give him romantic advice. The next day, Otto prepares to unveil his life's work...and if you know anything about the franchise, you know this won't end well for him. Sure enough, Rosie is tragically killed, Otto has his Start of Darkness, and the next time he and Peter meet they're enemies.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe: The MCU seems to really like this trope.
    • In Iron Man 3, Tony and Pepper have a host of sweet moments that end with him destroying his suits and retiring from being Iron Man to focus on his relationship. By Captain America: Civil War, the strain of becoming Iron Man again and creating Ultron has led to an Offscreen Breakup.
    • Tony and Pepper get hit with this twice. They patch up their relationship in Spider-Man: Homecoming and even get a Relationship Upgrade. By Avengers: Endgame, Tony is retired, married to Pepper, and an excellent parent to their daughter Morgan. So naturally, he's Killed Off for Real in the climax of the movie.
    • Peter Quill and Gamora. In the Guardians movies, the two are clearly attracted to each other and flirting but don't go any further. By Avengers: Infinity War, the two have undergone an offscreen Relationship Upgrade (enough that Quill calls himself a "long term Titan-killing booty call") complete with heartfelt conversations and a sweet kiss. Gamora dies halfway through the movie, killed by her abusive father and worst enemy Thanos. Furthermore, she's one of the characters not brought back in Avengers: Endgame and is instead replaced by an alternate timeline counterpart causing a Relationship Reset.
    • Wanda and Vision. In Civil War, the two are mildly flirting but nothing really comes of it since they end up on opposite sides and Wanda is forced on the run. In Infinity War, the two are shown to have gotten together in the time skip and they have a sweet close relationship. This is also notable in that Wanda's life is one big Break the Cutie and this is one of the few good things to happen to her. Vision is killed twice in front of her, once by her hand and once by Thanos and like Gamora he isn't brought back to life
  • Another platonic version in Logan when our heroes spend the night with a kindly family, showing there's a world other than hiding and killing. Later while lying in bed, Xavier tells Logan that tonight was the most perfect night he's had in a very long time. It's not Logan he's talking to, but his X-24 clone who kills Xavier on the spot.
  • Frozen (2013) has another platonic version that starts at the beginning of the movie where the movie initially opens with the sisters Anna and Elsa playing with the latter's ice powers having fun together at night, until Elsa struck Anna in the head, causing Anna's memory of her sister's ice powers to be wiped and the parents ordered the gates closed and sisters separated with Elsa shutting her sister out, beginning the gradual rift of their once-close relationship until by Elsa's coronation 13 years later, they're all but sisters In Name Only now.

    Literature 
  • And now a poem by W. H. Auden:
    He was my North, my South, my East and West,
    My working week and my Sunday rest,
    My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
    I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

    The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
    Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
    Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
    For nothing now can ever come to any good.
  • The main character in The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar marries his beloved Nino halfway in, and they are very happy for all of their time together. Then he dies.
  • In Animorphs, Marco's dad confided that he and Marco's mom had a brief period of ideal, perfect love before she disappeared and was presumed dead. Of course, this period of perfect love occurred only because she was under the control of a parasitic alien.
  • The Hunger Games: In-universe in "Catching Fire". The majority of the citizens of Panem seem to feel this way about Katniss and Peeta, aka the star-crossed lovers of District Twelve, having to go back into the arena. Peeta plays it up even further during his pre-game interview where he reveals that he and Katniss got married in secret and are expecting a baby. It's actually a lie but the intention is to gain sympathy through this trope.
    • Played straight with Finnick and Annie in Mockingjay.
  • Daja and Rizu in Circle of Magic get about a month or two together, and then Sandry gets kidnapped, leading the Circle to decide that they must go back to Emelan. Both Daja and Rizu assumed that the other would stay with them; unfortunately, they were both very wrong. Neither takes it well.
  • In Carrie, Carrie goes to the prom, Tommy falls in Love at First Sight with her, as this is the first time he's really seen her, they're voted prom king and queen... and, even worse, it's a Foregone Conclusion, as the first part of the book already warned that a massacre would break out at the prom. This is also later invoked, as Carrie suspects, during her madness, that Sue and Tommy set her up to be happy, so they could laugh at her. (They didn't.)
  • Rose and Dimitri before the climax of Shadow Kiss. They finally consummate their relationship, bask in the afterglow, and make plans for the future. Strigoi promptly launch a massive attack on the school and Dimitri is turned into one of them.
  • Commander Sam Vimes in the Discworld series is terrified that his married life is going to turn into one of these. (Given the gods in the series, he's not wrong to be concerned.) Threatening to be the abrupt end to his relationship is a good way to be abruptly ended yourself.
  • Dresden and Susan in The Dresden Files move up from Friends with Benefits into a proper relationship with Dresden struggling to tell her "I love you". He resolves to do so just as Susan is kidnapped and (partially) turned into a vampire.
    • Dresden cannot get a break from this. After books of Unresolved Sexual Tension, he and Murphy acknowledge their feelings and decide to hook up. Then he's shot and killed the moment he's alone.
  • In the Warrior Cats book Sunrise, the young couple Berrynose and Honeyfern are having a sweet moment together, watching the Clans' kits play and talking about how one day they'll have kits like that. Then Honeyfern sees a poisonous snake creeping up behind one of the kits and knocks the kit out of the way, only to receive a fatal bite herself.

    Live Action TV 
  • Arrow
    • In "The Promise", Slade Wilson talks of how Oliver Queen has become his brother due to everything they've endured on Lian Yu. Then he discovers what really happened with Shado and becomes Oliver's Arch-Enemy.
    • In Season 3, Thea Queen gets back with her ex-boyfriend Roy Harper, only for Roy to surrender himself as the Arrow to take the fall for her brother, then fake his death and go on the run.
    • In the mid-Season 4 cliffhanger, Oliver Queen proposes marriage to Felicity Smoak. Their limo is then ambushed by Ghosts sent by Damien Darhk and Felicity is crippled in the attack.
  • Veronica Mars:
    • In "You Think You Know Somebody", Troy and Veronica serenely hold hands and walk down the hall right before he turns out to be a drug dealer who never told her about his shady past.
    • In "Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough", Mac and Beaver are totally cute the entire episode. The season ends with Beaver being a sociopathic mass murderer who may or may not have used Mac as The Beard to hide his molestation.
    • Throughout Season 4, Veronica and Logan fall out and pull away from each other under Logan's marriage proposal. Veronica solves the mystery, goes back to Logan, they get married...and then, moments after they've said their vows, Logan dies from a bomb that the bad guy had already planted in Veronica's car.
  • In Lost, Sayid and Shannon spend a romantic evening in the Iraqi Love Shack. Then blammo, Ana-Lucia accidentally shoots and kills Shannon the next day. Sayid doesn't get nice things. Also, same couple, in the first season. They're gone for a while on a romantic evening while Shannon's brother slowly dies. Needless to say, this throws a hitch into the relationship.
    • Sayid has a horrible time with this. As the Cartwright Curse page says, sleeping with him is an excellent way to get dead. Although the worst is probably when Nadia gets hit by a car eight months after they got married. This is the girl he was searching for YEARS and finally got to be with. But it doesn't last.
    • Also, Libby and Hurley.
  • In Lois & Clark, Clark Kent has married Lois Lane after battling the evil frog-eating clone of Lex Luthor. They have a sweet scene together, and Clark goes to the bedroom to await his bride. And then we watch Lois eating a frog, heralding how exactly this is gonna go all wrong.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Willow spends half of season six trying to get her magic under control and get Tara back. Eventually she and Tara make up. In "Seeing Red", they are really happy and have lots of make-up sex. At the end of the episode a stray bullet kills Tara.
    • At the end of "Bad Eggs" in Season 2, Buffy and Angel are shown kissing through Buffy's bedroom window. A very "awwww" moment. In "Surprise", they have sex for the first time, which reverts Angel back to the original, murderous Angelus. This trope is literally how Angel's curse operates: perfect happiness = no soul.
    • Also, in season 2. Jenny Calendar and Giles have lots of tension but Giles especially Can't Spit It Out. Just when it seems the relationship was going to go somewhere, Jenny turns out to have been descended from the tribe that cursed Angel and has been trying to keep Angel and Buffy apart. The secret ends any blooming relationship until Giles finally starts to forgive her. Immediately after Angelus kills her
    • Spike and Buffy spend all of Season 7 walking on glass around each other after Season 6's disastrous relationship. Once they've patched it up, though, they spend the last three episodes frequently cuddling together and generally being sweet. There's even a Fade to Black when she visits his room the night before the final battle. The next day Spike pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and is burned alive. By an amulet Buffy gave him. He's resurrected over on the spinoff, but has no idea how to tell Buffy.
    • In "Wild at Heart", the very last time Willow and Oz are shown together before the debacle with Veruca starts it's morning, they're in bed cuddling, kissing, and saying how much they'll miss each other the coming full moon.
  • In the Angel episode "A Hole in the World", Wesley and Fred sing "You are my sunshine" to each other. Fred collapses during the song, foreshadowing her imminent demise at the hands of Knox.
  • Dollhouse has Topher and Bennett, right before Bennett gets shot by Whiskey.
  • Doctor Who— "The Stolen Earth" has a moment between Rose and the Doctor.
  • Battlestar Galactica. Dee and Lee go on a date, both seem happy, poised to get back together, and it's a nice moment in the sea of bleakness that is the show...and then Dee goes back to her quarters and shoots herself dead.
    • We also know, right from the end of the pilot, that Boomer is a Cylon, and we know that she's going to be found out at some point, which makes those happy moments with Tyrol all the worse.
  • Heroes Season 4, Hiro and Charlie.
  • In The Peacekeeper Wars Chiana and D'Argo have finally made up after two seasons of drama and Chiana says she wants to settle on Hyneria with him. Moments later D'Argo is fatally wounded and stays behind to cover the gang's retreat.
  • In the Torchwood miniseries Children of Earth, various characters keep bringing up the fact that Ianto and Jack are a couple and drawing a lot of attention to it. Ianto himself points out this out and seems very happy at Jack's nonchalance about the fact that they are, in fact, together. And then Ianto dies.
  • Clark and Lana of Smallville manage to pull this off more than once:
    • Clark finally reveals his secret and proposes to her in season five, which she happily accepts, right before knowledge of the secret leads to her being involved in a fatal car accident. Once the day is undone, he continues to lie to her in order to keep the accident from happening again, leading to her breaking up with him.
    • When she returns in season eight and gains superpowers, they rekindle their relationship and it seems they can finally be together as equals with no secrets or lies. Then they discover that one of her powers is Kryptonite absorption, and once she disables a Kryptonite bomb planted by Lex, they can never go near each other again.
  • The West Wing has a storyline in season three where CJ is assigned a bodyguard, Simon, due to death threats she'd been receiving. Despite an obvious mutual attraction, they're unable to pursue a relationship until the person sending the threats is caught, and when he is, Simon and CJ kiss, agree to meet later, and he is shot and killed after walking into an armed robbery in a convenience store.
  • Arthur and Guinevere finally get engaged on Merlin and the celebrations are getting underway, only for a Brainwashed Lancelot to return from the dead as a tool sent by Morgana to destroy the happy couple. Because Gwen no longer reciprocates his feelings, Morgana has Lancelot give her an enchanted bracelet that effectively Mind Rapes her into meeting with him at night. She's caught in a compromising situation, leading to her public humiliation and exile from Camelot, and Lancelot's suicide.
  • The end of season 6 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has Worf and Dax, Happily Married, trying to conceive a child, but it's made difficult by the species barrier. Near the end of the season finale, Dr. Bashir tells Dax that he found a solution, and she and Worf can get started on having a kid. Just a few scenes later, she's killed by Gul Dukat.
  • In Game of Thrones adaptation of the infamous Red Wedding, major hints that all will soon go very bad start when Robb Stark and his wife Talisa gleefully decide to name their unborn child Eddard Stark if it's a boy. This invariably led to jokes that Sean Bean was even killed before being born now.
  • In the season 10 premiere of Bones, Sweets and Daisy are revealed to be expecting a child. On the platonic front, Booth and Sweets have some special bonding moments and Brennan even asks Sweets for advice about Booth's psychological state. Sweets is dead by the end of the episode.
  • Supernatural starts with this. Sam and Jessica are at a college party celebrating Sam acing his LSA Ts and upcoming interview for Law School. Sam and Jess have some tender moments showing how much they love each other and how his life is going swimmingly. Then Jess dies in a fire and starts Sam on his revenge quest.
    • "In The Beginning" gives one to Mary Winchester. Despite objections from her family, John decides to propose to Mary. He takes her out in his new car and is just about to ask the question when her demon-possessed father kills him and then himself, after having killed her mother a few hours earlier. This causes her to make a wish to bring John back to life - a wish that would in 10 years kill her and send her family on a decades-long revenge quest.
  • The Flash (2014) Ronnie gains control over the Matrix, stabilizing his powers and allowing him to be together with Caitlin and the two end up married at the end of season 1. Of course, that means that at the beginning of Season 2, Ronnie pulls a Heroic Sacrifice
  • The Haunting of Hill House: Nell is a severely depressed baby sister who gets The Runt at the End treatment from most of her siblings, she can't sleep, she hallucinates a terrifying "bent-neck lady" following her everywhere. Then she meets Arthur, they get married, and Nell is finally happy and doesn't have bad dreams. This is noted to last six months, but the series skips over it in a matter of minutes, which makes it all the more jarring when Arthur keels over from an aneurysm in their bedroom.

    Theatre 
  • In Anne of the Thousand Days, Anne recalls that there was only one day when she and Henry both loved each other.
    "When I no longer hated him—he began to hate me, except for that day."
  • In Into the Woods, the second act begins with contentedly singing "So Happy." Then things come literally crashing down.

    Video Games 
  • In Final Fantasy VII, the carnival scene, if you get Aeris for the date, serves as a So Happy Together moment.
  • Because they're going on a suicide mission, this is a possibility for every romance in Mass Effect 2; however, this trope comes into full play with Thane and female Shepard—during the culmination of their romance, Thane finally admits he's afraid of death again because he's found something (and someone) to live for. There is a very real possibility of one or both of them dying very shortly thereafter, and even if they both survive, Thane has a terminal illness and six months to live. If he survives to Mass Effect 3, Thane is one of the two former party members who is guaranteed to die over the course of the game—he's mortally wounded by Kai Leng while trying to prevent him from assassinating the salarian councilor.
    • Also in Mass Effect 3: a male Shepard and Tali will plan to build a house on Rannoch, a female Shepard and Garrus will discuss adoption and retirement on a beach, and a Shepard of either gender will want to have lots of "little blue children" with Liara. There's an extremely high chance that Shepard will die at the end of the game.
  • Comes into play in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. Shulk and Fiora share a peaceful moment at Outlook Park, with Fiora enjoying the breeze and wishing such a moment could last forever. Shulk constantly flashes back to this memory as his last happy moments with her as he tries to cope with the fact that she's gone from his life. Reason being, because the day after, Colony 9 was invaded by the Mechon and Fiora brutally murdered by the giant Mechon known as Metal Face. But eventually she turns out to be Not Quite Dead.
  • Radiant Historia has an oddly hilarious example. Making the wrong choice during the Romance Sidequest leads to one of the game's many bad ends, wherein the protagonist decides to ignore saving the world in favor of running off with Raynie. They spend a whole year living together happily until he gets sick of watching the world die and travels back in time to get back to work.
  • Pretentious Game 2: Yay! The blue square has moved on from the bright pink square and he and the light pink square can live Happily Ever After! Right? WRONG! The blue square gets run over by a drunk driver—who's revealed in the third game to be the gray square, who used to be married to the light pink square—and dies, leaving the light pink square alone to mourn him.
  • In Infamous, Trish spends most of the game angry at Cole as she blames him for the death of her sister. After a mission, she finally forgives him and promises to talk to him later. The next time he sees her, she dies in his arms.
  • The opening cutscene of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time showcases the happy relationship between Bentley and Penelope as they work together on the time machine. Penelope then disappears, and by the time Bentley finds her, she's revealed to have betrayed him to Le Paradox out of greed and jealousy. The next time they interact, Bentley dumps Penelope and denounces her as a sociopath.
  • Kingdom Hearts III shows Sora and Kairi on the beach in the Destiny Islands, enjoying their victory over the Second Keyblade War. They have their moment together, smiling and holding hands... and then Sora vanishes, leaving a heartbroken Kairi on her own.

    Visual Novels 
  • Jade and Dash from Melody seem to have a strong relationship when the protagonist and title character run into them. Little do they know that their relationship will come crashing down in just a couple of weeks due to Dash's renewed drug use....

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • RWBY, after 2 seasons of being stuck in a All Love Is Un Requited love polygon, Jaune finally seems to notice and tentatively return Pyrrha's feelings. They share some sweet moments together before Pyrrha is chosen to be the next Fall Maiden, possibly resulting in her Loss of Identity. Then after Beacon is attacked, Pyrrha and Jaune share their First Kiss and Last Kiss before she dies fighting Cinder.

    Western Animation 

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