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FamousLastWords versus DeathIsCheap

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Tharkun140 The Arch-Douchebag Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
The Arch-Douchebag
#1: Dec 7th 2018 at 4:32:23 AM

So, how final do Famous Last Words have to be exactly? Does Disney Death disqualify them? If so, then there are some illegitimate examples for me to remove. What abbout a case of resurrection later on in the story? Or a character getting to exist in the afterlife? Or a timeline getting rebooted with other version of the character alive?

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.
crazysamaritan NaNo 4328 / 50,000 from Lupin III Since: Apr, 2010
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
#2: Dec 7th 2018 at 8:18:50 AM

how final do Famous Last Words have to be exactly?
I see more misuse from people forgetting the "famous" part. The work is expected to give some substantial gravitas/focus to these last words. Simply "last words character spoke before they died" applies to several different tropes. This character must be somehow dying before it counts.

Disney Death would disqualify the death because the character is clearly not dead within the same work. Resurrection wouldn't disqualify the character, so long as there was a significant gap between their death and resurrection (or death and reappearance). Having an afterlife is fairly rare, so I'd count it if that was a change in the premise of the story (a story that starts with ghosts would be able to have "dead" characters stick around). A timeline rebooting to restore another version of the character shouldn't disqualify the previous characters deathbed words.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#3: Dec 7th 2018 at 8:39:35 AM

The third paragraph of Famous Last Words mentions the subversion of characters actually surviving. I am more concerned about the useless qualifier "famous" because the trope does not require the last words to go down in history.

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