Basic Trope: Someone tells a dying character something that would satisfy them but isn't actually true.
- Straight: Alice is mortally wounded while she and Bob try to thwart Emperor Evulz' latest scheme. After the battle, Bob tells her they defeated Evulz, killed him, and stopped his plans. Evulz actually succeeded in his plans and escaped.
- Exaggerated: After Alice is mortally wounded fighting Emperor Evulz, Bob tells her that they defeated his scheme and killed him, he's getting back with Carol, they're planning to have children, and he will commission a memorial for her. What actually happened was that Evulz succeeded, Bob is mortally wounded himself, Carol wants nothing to do with him, and the people never liked Alice. Not that any of that matters because Evulz' scheme brings about The End of the World as We Know It.
- Downplayed: After Alice is mortally wounded trying to defeat Emperor Evulz' latest scheme, Bob tells her that they succeeded in defeating him and killed him. They were successful in defeating Evulz, but he escaped alive.
- Justified: The trauma of losing Alice is hard enough on Bob. It brings him a small degree of comfort to set her mind at ease before she passes.
- Inverted:
- When Alice is born, Bob tells her a lie about the world she's been born into hoping that she never realizes the awful truth.
- Alice and Bob have an antagonistic relationship. When she's mortally wounded during a successful attempt to defeat Emperor Evulz' latest scheme, he tells her they failed as one last screw you.
- As Alice lays dying, she lies to Bob about something so he'll have some comfort about her death.
- Subverted:
- Bob tells Alice they defeated Emperor Evulz as she's dying, but she doesn't believe him...
- Bob tells Alice they defeated Emperor Evulz, only for her to recover...
- Double Subverted:
- ...but she lasts long enough for Bob to spin a more plausible lie. Alice believes this one.
- ...so Bob maintains the lie for the rest of Alice's life, trying to keep her from finding out the truth.
- Parodied: As Alice lays dying, Bob tells her he left Emperor Evulz on a pirate ship in a cave as it collapsed around him, but he was able to rescue some of the treasure on board and cash it in to save their neighborhood. Also, their muscular but hideously-deformed ally survived the cave's collapse and will live with him now. When he finishes, Alice asks him "Why did you just tell me the ending to The Goonies?"
- Zig-Zagged: As Alice lays dying, Bob tells her they succeeded in defeating Emperor Evulz when they actually failed. Alice asks about other things and Bob alternately lies or tells the truth about them. Additionally, his lies alternate between saying something to make her feel better or worse.
- Averted:
- As Alice lays dying, Bob tells her truthfully what happened.
- Alice dies before Bob can tell her anything, true or false.
- Alice lives.
- Enforced: The producers are afraid of spoilers, so they had Bob lie to Alice as a misdirect.
- Lampshaded: "We did it. We killed Evulz and stopped his mad scheme." (Alice dies) "Yeah, that didn't happen."
- Invoked: When Bob goes to Alice as she lays dying, she asks if they succeeded and tells him to lie if it's bad.
- Exploited: There's a secret Alice never told Bob and he knows she wouldn't tell him if they were about to lose, so he tells her they won so she'll divulge her secret.
- Defied: After Bob fails to stop Emperor Evulz, he goes to Alice with the intention to lie to her. However, Evulz injects him with a truth serum rendering him incapable of lying.
- Discussed: "Bob, if I don't survive this battle, tell me we won afterwards." "What if we lose?" "Still tell me we won."
- Conversed: "Bob is the kind of guy who will tell you we won the battle as you lay dying even if we lost. He knows how to spare your feelings."
- Implied: After the group is defeated by Emperor Evulz and Alice is mortally wounded, Bob goes off to talk to her but we don't hear what he says. He then comes back and announces that Alice has died. When asked what he said to her, he says he told her what she needed to hear.
- Played for Laughs: As Bob tells Alice lies to make her happy as she dies, things happen around him that immediately contradict what he says.
- Played for Drama:
- Alice may have died happy, but Bob will still forever regret that his last words to her were a bunch of lies.
- The lie is a sign of absolute desperation: Bob is a lousy liar and Alice is too far gone to correct him.
- Bob tries. Jacoby arrives and tells Alice the truth out of spite or a misguided sense of honesty. Alice dies looking at Bob with a "why did you lie to me?" look on her face.
- Played for Horror: After Alice dies, she rises from the grave as a vengeful creature, discovers Bob lied to her, and puts him on her list of targets.
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