Title Drop Chapter

Sometimes, a chapter in a book, or an episode in a TV series, or a part in another type of work, shares its title with the work itself.

This often happens with the last chapter, episode or part. One of the reasons is that the title works as indication that the road is now complete, for example, if an essay's title refers to the main idea it's trying to prove, the last chapter would have the same title because all the arguments have been presented and now the conclusion represents the whole book, similarly to a fractal, where a part is identical to the whole.

Quite as often, as well, it's the first episode or part which bears the same title as the whole work. This is because the segment serves as introduction to the main character, setting, or idea of the work. In the case of TV shows, the reason may be that the first episode was originally made as the pilot for the whole series, so it's natural that it bears the same name.

Another reason to use this may be that the title of the work as a whole is part of a phrase, song lyric, poem, etc. that is divided among the chapter titles (i.e., a Compound Title). In this case, the partial titles are also Arc Words.

Subtrope of Title Drop. Sometimes related to Compound Title and Arc Words. Overlaps with Named After First Installment if it's the first chapter, and Finale Title Drop, if it's the last.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan: It doesn't quite work in English, but the Japanese version has a direct example. Chapter 88 is called Shingeki no Kyojin, or The Attack Titan in English. It refers to the name of Eren Yeager's titan itself, who the series is named after. This chapter also features the reveal of the titan's name, which is said by Eren as he's recalling his father's memories.
• The first episode of Banana Fish is titled "A Perfect Day for Banana Fish." All the episode titles are American literary fiction from the 20th century.
• Darker than Black: The final episode of the first season is entitled '"Does the Reaper Dream of Darkness Darker than Black?"
• The final chapter of Delicious in Dungeon is "Dungeon Food", which is the name of the manga's Japanese title (more specifically, Dungeon Meshi).
• In The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All, Chapters 1, 2 and 18 all share the title of the series. The first two are a two-part introductory chapter, and the latter is a Wham Episode in which Aya learns that the record store clerk she liked is actually her female classmate Mitsuki.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The final arc of Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable, is an odd example as both Part 4 's title and it's chapters names were retroactively changed later when published as tankobon. Part 4 went from being called simply 'Josuke Higashikata' to 'Diamond is Unbreakable', and the final arc is collected as 'Crazy Diamond is Unbreakable'
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
  • The final chapter of "The First Kiss Never Ends" arc shares its name.
  • Chapter 261 uses the series' Japanese title "Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to" to mark Shirogane asking out Kaguya to restart their relationship.
• Naruto: Both the first chapter and the last chapter are simply named 'Uzumaki Naruto' with the second having two exclamation points instead of one.
• Sound! Euphonium: "Sound! Euphonium" is the title of book 3's final chapter (not including the epilogue), and of season 2 episode 9.
• The Tower of God anime's first season's last episode is called "Tower of God". It's based more on the logic of first episodes being called that than last ones, since more than anything being completed here, the first season just set up the stage for the long, long story from the comic.
• The final episode of Akudama Drive is named, well, "Akudama Drive". The other 11 episodes are named after various movies.
• The final chapter of A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow shares the same title as the work, and forgoes the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming.

Comic Books

• The fifth and final issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is titled "The Last Ronin".

Fan Works

Danganronpa

• Danganronpa: Memento Mori: Chapter 6 is titled "Remember, You Will Die" — the English equivalent of the Latin idiom "memento mori".
• Danganronpa: Komm Susser Tod: Chapter 6 is titled "Come, Sweet Death", which when translated into German becomes... "Komm Susser Tod".

Total Drama

• Legacy (Total Drama): The final chapter is titled "Legacy". This chapter elaborates on the titular legacy, revealed in the previous chapter's closing Wham Line.
• The last chapter of Queen of Diamonds shares its title with the story.

Film

• While the first film in the Star Wars franchise was later retroactively titled A New Hope in order to distinguish it from the name of the franchise itself, it was originally released and marketed as, and is still often colloquially referred to as, simply Star Wars.
• Silent film The Ace of Hearts is divided into ten chapters. Chapter 3 is called "The Ace of Hearts", and is the one where the terrorists draw cards. Forrest winds up drawing the ace of hearts and thus is tasked with the assassination.
• The Call of the Cumberlands: In this silent film, a hillbilly named Samson leaves Appalachia to go to New York to study art. The scene where he gets a letter telling him that war has broken out between the Feuding Families back home is proceeded by a title card that says "The Call of the Cumberlands".

Literature

• The seventh and final (not counting an interquel that came out later) book in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is titled The Dark Tower.
• Chapter 11 of The Shining, book 3 of The Stand, part 11 of Firestarter, chapter 51 of ChrisTine and part 2 of Misery are the same as their book's title.
• Moby-Dick. When Moby Dick, the legendary whale, finally appears in chapter 41 of the eponymous book after much anticipation, the chapter pays service to this fact by bearing the title "Moby-Dick".
• The second and last part of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's The Gospel According To Pilate is titled "The Gospel according to Pilate".
• All Harry Potter books except for the first and the third have one chapter that bears the same title as the book itself.
  • "The Chamber of Secrets" (chapter 16) sees Harry and Ron enter the Chamber and end up separated before Harry learns the identity of the Heir of Slytherin and the chapter ends.
  • "The Goblet of Fire" (chapter 16) unveils the titular cup and describes the excitement over who it will choose to enter the Triwizard Tournament. Three champions are chosen before an unprecedented fourth emerges from the malfunctioning Goblet: Harry Potter.
  • "The Order of the Phoenix" (chapter 5) provides Harry and the audience a hefty amount of exposition on the Order and its role in resisting Voldemort.
  • "The Half-Blood Prince" (chapter 9) starts immediately after the first Title Drop and begins Harry's obsession with the Prince.
  • "The Deathly Hallows" (chapter 22) occurs two chapters after the Hallows are introduced, and hardly includes any of them. It is instead named as such because the chapter sees the height of Harry's obsession with them. This obsession makes him careless and gets him captured, which snowballs into the death of the innocent, downtrodden Dobby.
• Isaac Asimov:
  • In the novel The Gods Themselves, the second of the three parts is titled "The Gods Themselves". The three titles form a quotation that is the epigraph of the whole book.
  • Foundation (1951): The first Novella was initially published as "Foundation". When publishing this Novel, Dr Asimov renamed the chapter to "The Encyclopedists" and deliberately avoided sharing a chapter title with the book's title.
• Italo Calvino's If on a winter’s night a traveler. The first chapter is titled "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" and the other chapters continue the sequence, forming a coherent text.
• When Jules Verne wrote Michael Strogoff, he decided to use the name of the protagonist as the title for both the first chapter and the book as a whole.
• Mystery novels by Michael Connelly:
  • The last part of The Fifth Witness, which includes the climax in which Mickey Haller gets his client off and then figures out who was the murderer, is called "The Fifth Witness".
  • The last part of Echo Park, in which Bosch sets up a sting to nab the real killer of Marie Gesto, is called "Echo Park".
  • The last chapter of The Scarecrow, a brief epilogue that recounts Carver's grim And I Must Scream fate, is titled "The Scarecrow".
  • The last part of The Gods of Guilt, which is basically an epilogue tying up the loose ends after the story has been resolved, is called "The Gods of Guilt".
• Discworld Tiffany Aching novels:
  • Chapter 4 of The Wee Free Men, where the Feegles make their first full appearance, is called "The Wee Free Men".
  • Chapter 15 of A Hat Full of Sky, which reiterates the metaphor, is called "A Hat Full of Sky".
  • Chapter 18 of The Shepherd's Crown, which is the big climax where Tiffany reasserts her connection to the land, is called "The Shepherd's Crown".
• Nonfiction example: Life Is with People, a work of sociology about the culture of the Jewish shtetls, has a chapter in the middle called "Life Is with People."
• Ella Minnow Pea is divided into sections headed by the ever-diminishing list of alphabet letters still legal to use. Considering the titular protagonist's Punny Name, it's not hard to foresee the arrival of a chapter headed by ***LMNOP***, those being the very last letters remaining after the rest are banned.
• The third to last chapter of The Sight is called "The Sight".
• The Beast Player: The series has the same title as the last chapter of the original duology and the last episode of the anime.
• Vainqueur The Dragon: Which is Named After First Installment, since they're Protagonist Titles.
• Normal Accidents: The last chapter is called "Living with High-Risk Technologies", which is the subtitle of the book.

Live-Action TV

• The pilot/first episode for Logan's Run is titled "Logan's Run".
• Babylon 5: Each season has a season name taken from an episode in that season which fundamentally alters the direction the show had been taking up to that point.
  • Season 1: Signs and Portents
  • Season 2: The Coming of Shadows
  • Season 3: Point of No Return
  • Season 4: No Surrender, No Retreat
  • Season 5: The Wheel of Fire
• Inverted in the first two series of Doctor Who. The serials didn't have titles back then, so they were retroactively titled by the first episode of the serial.
  • "An Unearthly Child" is the first episode and serves as the title for the first serial.
  • "The Edge of Destruction" consists of two episodes, "The Edge of Destruction" and "The Brink of Disaster."
  • The only official title ever given to the TV movie is "Doctor Who", although it's usually marketed as "Doctor Who: The Movie" to avoid confusion.
• Played with in How I Met Your Mother: S9E16 is named "How Your Mother Met Me".
• The first season finale of Daredevil (2015) is named "Daredevil" to mark Matt Murdock's transition from The Devil of Hell's Kitchen, a dangerous vigilante, to Daredevil, a full-on superhero. This is repeated with the finale of The Defenders (2017) to mark the main group of Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand working together to fight the Hand.

Video Games

• Battle for Wesnoth:
  • The final scenario of the original campaign Heir to the Throne is titled "The Battle for Wesnoth", where the heroes have a final battle against the queen which decides the fate of Wesnoth.
  • Descent Into Darkness has its second-to-last scenario "Descent Into Darkness", where the protagonist completes his Protagonist Journey to Villain and becomes a lich.
  • The last scenario of The Rise of Wesnoth is titled "The Rise of Wesnoth".
• Janos's chapter of The Black Heart, the last chapter of the story, is of course titled "The Black Heart".
• In BlazBlue, each game will have one of the characters' individual stories being titled after the game's subtitles (Calamity Trigger, Continuum Shift, Chronophantasma). The final chapter of the last game is named 'BLAZBLUE'.
• Downplayed in Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon: the normal final stage is titled "Curse the Moon".
• Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls has its final chapter titled "Absolute Despair Girls", an accurate translation of the game's original title, "Zettai Zetsubou Shoujo".
• Dead Space. The final chapter is named Dead Space (which ironically takes place in a planet).
• Doom: A number of megawads have their last level named after the megawad's title itself. Examples include Hell Revealed, Hellcore, Hadephobia and No End in Sight.
• Eternal Senia: Hydrangea After The Rain: The subtitle, "Hydragea After The Rain", is the title of the last chapter, before the epilogue, seen in the "The Story So Far" menu.
• Etrian Odyssey Nexus has one that's Lost in Translation. The final main story Labyrinth is called Yggdrasil Labyrinth, referring to the Japanese title, Sekaiju no Meikyuu.
• Fate/stay night has chapters named after each of the routes, including the one named after the game itself.
• In Final Fantasy XIV the Final quest in an expansions storyline will always be named after that expansion's title.
• Fire Emblem
  • Chapter 6 of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is named "Fire Emblem", as it's when Marth receives the titular MacGuffin.
  • Chapter 5 of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is named "Fire Emblem", as it's when Roy receives the titular MacGuffin. Wait a minute. Chapter 21 of the same game is named "The Binding Blade", wherein Roy receives the titular Infinity +1 Sword. Also strangely played with in the name of the first Sidequest chapter being "The Blazing Blade", which ended up being the subtitle of the next game in the series, a prequel.
  • Played with in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, where the final chapter is called "Sacred Stone", because by that point, only one of the 5 Sacred Stones remains.
  • Chapter 24 of Fire Emblem: Awakening is named "Awakening". But only in the English version, in the original Japanese it was called "The Exalt's Successor".
  • Chapter 1 of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is called "Three Houses". In this chapter, Byleth meets the students at the Officer's Academy and decides which of the academy's three houses they will teach.
• Grand Theft Auto III features a story mission titled "Grand Theft Auto". There is no particular significance to the content of the mission, as it simply involves delivering a few stolen cars to the player's employer.
• The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve is titled "Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2: Naruhodou Ryuunosuke no Kakugo" in Japan. The subtitle translates to "The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo", which is also the title of the game's final episode.
• Halo 3 rounds out the trilogy with a level simply called, "Halo".
• The final chapter of the first House of the Dead is simply "The House of the Dead". The House of the Dead: OVERKILL follows suit, with its final chapter being "Overkill".
• Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy: The game's Spanish version adapts the game's subtitle for the 12th and final chapter (minus Katrielle's name). The English version averts the trope by naming the chapter "Diamonds Aren't Forever", though it does serve as both a Shout-Out to a song by Bring Me The Horizon and a pun on the phrase when referring to the diamonds that made the Seven Dragons wealthy.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC: The last of the game's Onscreen Chapter Titles drops the chapter and numbering scheme altogether, simply titled "Finale: Trails in the Sky".
• The final chapters of both The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey are titled "The Longest Journey". Dreamfall's epilogue, meanwhile, is titled "Dreamfall".
• Monster Hunter: There's a Brutal Bonus Level in both Freedom Unite and Generations Ultimate called "Monster Hunter", pitting the player's character against a Rathalos, a Tigrex, a Nargacuga and a Rajang in a secluded Monster Arena. The first three monsters are the respective Mascots of all handheld Monster Hunter games released as of Freedom Unite, while the fourth one is one of the hardest bosses. There's a similar quest in 4 Ultimate with the same title-dropping name, though it features other monsters (Tigrex, Zinogre, Brachydios, Gore Magala and Seregios).
• The eighth and final chapter of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is named "The Thousand-Year Door," since you finally open and pass through the eponymous door.
• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within includes a title for each part of the game in save files, as a way of indicating where you are. The last of these is "The Warrior Within."
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is titled "Gyakuten Saiban: Yomingaeru Gyakuten" ("Turnabout Trial: The Revived Turnabout") in Japan. The subtitle is used as the fifth case's title (however this example identifies the game as a remake in its homeland, as the fifth case was not part of the game when it was originally released on Game Boy Advance and was exclusively developed for the DS release — it isn't plot-significant to the game itself).
• Red Dead Redemption II has one of its last missions and the final one you play as Arthur Morgan simply be named "Red Dead Redemption".
• Slender: The Arrival. The final chapter is named The Arrival.
• The concluding chapter of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is called "A Thief's End", reflecting both the end of Henry Avery's story at the hands of his second-in-command; and the definitive end of Nate's affairs in illegal adventures while escaping Libertalia with Sam and their friends.
• The last level of Z, is "Z".
• The last chapter of Say No! More is titled "Say No! More". There is also an earlier chapter called "Say Yes! More".
• One of the tougher missions in Trauma Center: Under the Knife is titled "Under the Knife". The Wii remake, Second Opinion, doesn't rename this chapter but does add a new mission titled "Second Opinion".

Webcomics

• Kill Six Billion Demons: Another Named After First Installment example: The first book is called Kill Six Billion Demons.
• Lotus Cobra Is Evil: Which is Named After First Installment, has its first comic, "Lotus Cobra Is Evil"◊, about "master of evil" Lucifer, wanting to be represented by said Lotus Cobra.
• Yumi's Cells: The three chapters of Yumi's wedding are titled "Yumi's Cells".

Western Animation

• Inverted in the reference books for the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. Since all later episodes of the serial have two names, some books assign the name of the entire arc to the first episode, since they would otherwise have no name. Hence the first segment of the first arc "Jet Fuel Formula" is referred to by some sources as "Jet Fuel Formula", with the second segment called "Bullwinkle's Ride or Goodbye Dollink", the gag from the end of the first segment.

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