| rdfs:comment
| - Congratulations, hero, you've finally done it. You've defeated the Big Bad. After an epic Sword Fight, you've managed to plunge your Cool Sword right through his evil heart. The lights in his eyes dim; he staggers; blood trickles from his mouth. You, being sure of victory, turn to make sure that the nearby Damsel in Distress is unhurt, and to accept her showers of grateful kisses. Looks like everything is settled. Examples of Died Standing Up include:
|
| abstract
| - Congratulations, hero, you've finally done it. You've defeated the Big Bad. After an epic Sword Fight, you've managed to plunge your Cool Sword right through his evil heart. The lights in his eyes dim; he staggers; blood trickles from his mouth. You, being sure of victory, turn to make sure that the nearby Damsel in Distress is unhurt, and to accept her showers of grateful kisses. Looks like everything is settled. But what's this? The bad guy flinches! Is he trying to take another step? Are his fingers making a grab for the sword that even now rests in his breastplate? Is he such a Determinator that he can endure so much damage and keep fighting? No. He's dead. His body is just twitching a bit. And yet, he doesn't fall, his muscles so perfectly conditioned they can continue to function without any signals from his brain. So he just stands there like a morbid practice dummy. He's Died Standing Up. This is a device used when a character is so utterly Badass that even in death they refuse to accept utter defeat. The body continues to strive for victory even when its driving will has been extinguished. This goes hand in hand with a Badass Normal or any other absurdly strong character, especially one with a Charles Atlas Superpower. It may be mixed with Taken for Granite, when a villain's magical body has No Ontological Inertia and turns to stone at the moment of death. Despite the description above, this can happen to both heroic and villainous characters. In addition, this trope for some reason often tends to be paired with Off with His Head, and scenes where the body waves its arms around looking for the head, or walks around for a while before collapsing are common. This is technically possible in Real Life (especially with the help of rigor mortis, but see Real Life, below), though absurdly unlikely, and in any case a corpse's lack of balance control will cause it to topple sooner or later. The realms of fiction simply contrive to end the scene before this happens. In deference to gravity, falling to one's knees also counts, so long as the final plunge into a prone state doesn't follow. Taking another step forward despite being clearly dead also counts. Related to You Are Already Dead. Examples of Died Standing Up include:
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)