You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart, and my heart will go on and on
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart, and my heart will go on and on
A (usually male) Love Interest (temporary or otherwise) is killed off to show the (usually) female survivor's strength, perhaps as a Heartbroken Badass.
Note that the dead party doesn't have to be completely disposable: they often become The Lost Lenore, and continue to have an impact on the heroine. There may also be Someone to Remember Him By.
The surviving character is also a likely recipient of Romancing the Widow, although in other cases she'll choose to remain loyal to her deceased love's memory. For lovers who exist solely for this trope, see Disposable Woman. Compare and contrast The Mourning After and Excessive Mourning.
To anyone who finally got that Céline Dion song out of their heads only for it to creep back in, Trope Co. sincerely apologizes.
As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- In Aquarion Evol, Yunoha gets this when Jin dies. Her heart almost doesn't go on, but she gets over her depression after a few episodes.
- The ending of Attack on Titan confirms that Mikasa loved Eren and that Eren loved her too, however his death at her hands due to his Thanatos Gambit prevents anything from happening. Chapter 139.5, that serves as the series epilogue, shows that Mikasa married and started a family with another man, but it also shows that she still kept the scarf Eren gave her, showing she still holds him close.
- Black Clover: When the body of Lumiere is about to crumble away after the battle against Zagred, Nero tells him that she'll go with him. Lumiere asks her not to, telling Nero that she should move on and not close off her potential by dying with him because she has so much left to accomplish with her life. Nero finds companionship without him in the Black Bulls, remembering Lumiere's words when they save her and Asta from the Magic Parliament.
- In Cardcaptor Sakura, Maki runs a toy shop called Twin Bells, because that's what her late fiancé always dreamed of doing. Although she isn't shown to be seeing anyone else, she is shown to be cheerful, content, and hard-working, and her love for her fiancé is what motivates her to keep the store running.
- The manga adaptation of the spinoff game to the original CLANNAD, Tomoyo After. After Tomoya tells Tomoyo to be strong despite his imminent death, he dies, and Tomoyo lives on.
- Final Fantasy VII's continuity, Advent Children, has a subplot involves Cloud Strife having a self-pity toward Aerith's death. It takes a good portion of the movie for him to get over it, and so the girl can finally move on to the next world with her also-dead first-love/boyfriend, Zack (who was also Doomed by Canon). Ironically, Cloud did a platonic version of this trope towards Zack in the original FF7 itself, as Zack was Cloud's Big Brother Mentor, who sacrificed his life to save a teenage Cloud in the prequel Crisis Core.
- Played with in Fruits Basket. After her husband dies, Kyoko Honda goes insane from grief and nearly kills herself to reunite with him in the afterlife. While she does pull through and continue strongly on, she is motivated to do so by her love for her daughter (though she does still remember and love her husband).
- The manga of Gakuen Alice, with Yuka and Yukihara-sensei. He goes and dies the morning after they have sex the first (and obviously only) time. If it wasn't for Mikan flubbing with time traveling, Yukihara-sensei never would have known he had a daughter at all.
- Glass Fleet: One night of romance and all Michel gets out of it is her lover's psychotic brother for a friend after her lover decides to sacrifice himself. There may be a baby involved too.
- Gundam:
- Played straight by Murrue Ramius in the OVA epilogue of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, sans child; she's depicted as coping well with the Heroic Sacrifice of her love interest Mu La Flaga... until sequel series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny turns it into a subversion halfway through the series: Mu returns as Criminal Amnesiac Neo Roanoke, and suddenly Murrue isn't coping as well as she'd seemed to be up to that point.
- This happens to Marvette Fingerhut and Elischa Clansky in Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, after Marvette's New Old Flame Oliver commits an Heroic Sacrifice first, and later Elischa's boyfriend Odelo perishes in the Grand Finale. The first of the girls is pregnant in the end of the story, too.
- Invoked in Hal. Hal was killed in a plane crash, and a robot called Q01 was given his appearance and personality to help his girlfriend Kurumi come to terms with his death. Though the end of the movie reveals that it's actually the other way around. Q01 was copying Kurumi to help Hal, and Hal had deluded himself into thinking he was the robot as a coping mechanism.
- Isabelle Of Paris: By the end of the anime, both of Isabelle's love interests, the much older Oblivious to Love Captain Victor Langlois and the Unlucky Childhood Friend Jean, along all her friends and remaining family, have been decimated by the French army. Thus, Isabelle is forced to flee and start a new life elsewhere, but not before staring at the rubble of the city that she used to call home and uttering the following.
Isabelle: "I...live."
- The first part of the manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure uses a variant of this by making the dying lover be the main character.
- Occurs in the anime movie Like the Clouds, Like the Wind, with a rather effeminate prince in the role of doomed love interest.
- Lindy Harlaown from Lyrical Nanoha lost her husband about eleven years before the events of the first season. She went on to have a successful military career (she's an admiral by the time she was introduced) while raising their son Chrono, and it's clear that she's long since come to terms with his death. It also fits with her role as Precia Testarossa's Good Counterpart, since one of Precia's primary flaws was her inability to cope with the death of her daughter Alicia.
- At the end of Maison Ikkoku, Kyoko Otonashi finally marries Yusaku Godai, and they even have a child together, though Kyoko still fondly rembers her late first-husband, Soichiro, as her first love.
- In a very early chapter of the manga/episode of the anime, when Kyoko, her parents and Soichiro's father, Mr. Otonashi, go to the cementary to pay omage to Soichiro, Mr. Otonashi has a very frank discussion with Kyoko, where he bluntly tells her to move on. Mr. Otonashi implores her not to forget Soichiro and although the time she and his son were married were the happiest years of Socihiro's life, he also tells her that if she falls in love with someone else, then she has his blessings to be with that someone, since it's not healthy to be so obsessed with a dead man.
- In Monster, though Martin dies almost immediately after he and Eva realize they're in love, he does leave a permanent impression on her character: After hearing of his death, the long-time alcoholic walks immediately into the nearest bar and, against all odds, orders coffee because she knew how much Martin detested liquor. She ends up quitting her ten-year habit altogether by the epilogue.
- Naruto:
- After Tsunade lost her boyfriend, Dan, decades ago, she developed a fear of blood, started to lead a hedonistic lifestyle, and came to view the position of Hokage as a fool's job. But then she meets the titular character. After a series of events, she decides to accept the mantle of the Fifth Hokage, partly as an honor to Dan, partly so she can protect everyone she holds dear. Her newfound perseverance is strong enough that when Jiraiya dies a few years later, she is devastated, but recovers much quicker than she did with Dan.
- Asuma's death serves as this for Kurenai, who lives on to give birth to their daughter.
- Referenced in Negima! Magister Negi Magi where Chisame suggests that Negi re-enact this trope with his older form by pretending to die in the Magic World's arena after he confesses his love for Ako and wins the last bout so that Ako won't get too heartbroken in regards to the truth.
Chisame: And so, Nagi is "dead" and their love lives on forever in Izumi's heart. It's beautiful...
Natsumi: No! No way!
Akira: That's not a "Happy End" at all! - In The Rose of Versailles, Oscar and André become a couple and consummate their love. Then André bites it the next day, leaving Oscar alone to apparently singlehandedly win the day at the Storming of the Bastille, and dramatically die the day after André does.
- In the first season of The '90s Sailor Moon anime, Moon says her tearful goodbyes to the fallen Mamoru and walks with dignity to fight Beryl. In the manga... not so much.
- Happens in Silent Möbius, wherein Katsumi finally recovers from her bout of insanity after Roy’s murder by Ganossa, and decides to move on.
- Girls' Love version: In Symphogear, when Kanade was alive, she was Tsubasa's sole source of strength. After Kanade's Heroic Sacrifice, Tsubasa become an Ice Queen to be able to continue fighting the Noise. When Hibiki comes into the scene inheriting (a shard of) Kanade's power, Tsubasa doesn't take it well (read:at all). It is a subversion because it shows that Tsubasa is still pretty hung up on Kanade's death and it ended up holding her true potential back. Once she started accepting Hibiki, and truly got over Kanade's death, that is when her heart truly went on and she became even more powerful than her Ice Queen days.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- For such an otherwise uplifting show, it is pretty brutal about this. Not just one, but two of Yoko's potential lovers end up killed within 24 hours of only getting to first base. And it even works the other way: Nia experiences a Critical Existence Failure immediately after being officially married to Simon (as in, right there at the altar, not after the honeymoon). It's no wonder that both of them seem to be avoiding contact with other adults in the epilogue...
- A minor character, Makken, performs a Heroic Sacrifice in one of the final episodes. His wife Leyte gives herself no more than three seconds before setting aside her grief and contributing for the remaining battle to her fullest.
- In Trigun, Wolfwood finally seals the deal with the girl (Milly), who he's been flirting with for a while... and bites it the very freaking next day. She, of course, is more of a main character, and stoically toughs it out with her pal, who's much luckier in the guy department.
- In the manga, this relationship doesn't exist, and an incredible amount of Ho Yay with two other male characters (Vash and Midvalley) did, and his death could have had more meaning as this - instead he was given the What Happened to the Mouse? treatment so much by the surviving one of those so much that it made most of the slash fanbase hate Nightow for what seemed an obvious Writer Cop Out paired with Bury Your Gays.
Comic Books
- The relationship between Ninjara and Mokoshan from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (see Disposable Woman for additional details) fits this trope perfectly. Including the child.
Fan Works
- In the first story of Bequeathed from Pale Estates, a main plot point is Oberyn Martell struggling to accept his Arranged Marriage to Lyarra Stark, while he's still mourning for his paramour Ellaria. He ultimately comes to realise that even if his relationship for Ellaria was special and a big part of his life, he still has place in his heart for loving Lyarra.
- In A Different Lesson, Xiulan the cow reveals that first husband was one of the victims of Tai Lung's rampage, and she eventually loses her second husband, Zhuang, who ends up becoming collateral in the Big Bad's Evil Plan to frame Tai Lung for taking an innocent life. The first loss led to her hatred of Tai Lung, and the second only worsened it, leaving her more and more vulnerable to the villain's manipulations. However, the sequel vignette "Love Goes On And On" in Different Tales, Different Lessons has her eventually come to terms with Zhuang's death, thanks to his ghost visiting her to offer consolation, advice, and a final farewell. This is at least partly motivated by the fact that she already had a child with him, rather than being pregnant with one, but also because he tells her that the future happiness of herself and their daughter Yi depends on letting go of her hatred towards Tai Lung. This is why in the end of the original fic, she finally allows Yi to be Tai Lung's god-daughter and eventually train in kung fu with him, since making peace with Tai Lung would have been crucial in bringing about the peace and forgiveness that he would have (and had already) wanted.
- This happens in Hecate's Orphanage to Cadence, with the death of Thesis. However, this doesn't stop her from remaining a badass, though she never really has another love interest.
- The Total Drama story, Legacy does a gender flip with the bereaved Trent. He starts out in deep mourning after the death of his first love and continues to make annual gestures of remembrance, but he otherwise goes on to live a normal life.
- The Night Unfurls: As per her introductory narration in the remastered version below, Grace is a straight example, though the pain of losing her husband never really faded away.
"Grace sighed as, for a moment, she felt every part of three hundred years catch up to her. No one, not even Annie who was twenty years her senior, would ever know what travails she had seen through in her three hundred years. Grace had come here from the North, having lost her home a hundred years ago when the war between the Goddess Reborn and the Queen of the Jagged Crown began. She had seen terrible things during that journey, which included the loss of her dearest husband.Considering the fact that Grace was possibly the only Dark Elf in Baskerville, those travails would stay with her till the end of her days. Grace walked out, putting a cheery smile on her face. Still, life could be worse. She made people smile, laugh and forget that the world still needed to turn without anyone capable of stopping it."
- one day at a time (Nyame) and its sequel the superhero game reveal that Donna Troy (Wonder Woman II) fell in love with Jason Todd-Wayne (Batman III) after the death of her First Love Roy Harper, who was Jason's best friend. In a strange variation of this trope, Roy's ghost was a barely a stumbling block in their relationship because by the time they had gotten together he had been dead for decades.
- In RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse, anypony looking for a serious relationship with Cadence gets "The Talk". Not the one about biology, that's generally already been covered before the relationship gets to this point, but The Talk about what it means to love an immortal. Cadence has loved in the past. She has wed some of her lovers, and though she was faithful to each of them while they lived, and mourned each of them after their death, each time the mourning ended and she found new love. And this will happen again. She cannot and will not hide that, and if the pony she gives the talk to cannot accept that, then they must leave, for she cannot change what she is.
- Redemption (KHR) is the tale about how not only did Sawada Tsunayoshi redeemed the sins of the Vongola, but also how he learns to move on with his life after the death of his First Love. This is emphasized in the penultimate chapter during the celebration for the end of the Scolgio war, where Tsuna sees Chrome, hesitates briefly before asking her for a dance, at the urging of Kyoko's spirit. The epilogue reveals that he and Chrome would eventually marry and by all accounts have a happy life together, even though they couldn't have kids.
Films — Live-Action
- In Becoming Jane, Jane breaks off her elopement plans with Tom so he can take care of his family, but she ends up with some priceless writing material.
- In The Dark Knight, this happens to a positive, strengthening effect with Bruce and Rachel, though it doesn't work out so well for Mr. Dent.
- The Last Unicorn has a slight variation. Lir isn't dead yet, but his mortal life is nothing compared to the immortal unicorn who will forever remember him and the love it had for him.
- More Than Ever: Invoked, then defied. Hélène asks Matthieu to leave her because she thinks that he would be better off without a wife who isn't waiting around to die — he can start over and have a new family. He retorts that this way of thinking is incredibly hurtful to him.
- Grief for her boyfriend Glen helps turn Nancy from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) into an Action Girl, and this revealed inner strength lets her cope with chronic nightmares until the third film. She goes on to become a professional dream therapist, kicking Freddy's ass once herself and becoming The Mentor to the third film's characters.
- In Ophelia, a Perspective Flip of Hamlet, Ophelia outlives Hamlet and though she is grieved by the loss of him, she is resolved to keep living a fulfilling life and not give in to despair and vengeance. It's also implied he is the father of her daughter.
- Subverted (kinda-sorta) in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End because Will becomes the Captain of the Flying Dutchman, which means he must serve for 10 years at sea and Elizabeth can't join him during that time. They get one day together on the beach before he leaves and The Stinger after the credits shows Lizzie with a child, so you do the math. As Lizzie and the kid stand there, the Dutchman appears, with Will standing on the rigging. Word of God says that since Will fulfilled his obligation of ferrying souls to the afterlife and his love would be waiting for him by the time he's allowed to go ashore (a detail cut out of the movie), he will be coming back for good. He finally does come back for good as his curse is lifted in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
- Planet Terror kills off almost all the male characters (and the fate of the one who isn't killed off on screen is never resolved), and only one female character, although she gets her brain eaten soon enough in the film that she barely qualifies as a character at all.
- In Premonition the main character manages to reconnect with her husband and does try to save his life before ending up pregnant with their third child.
- Somewhere in Time reverses this trope as the story is told from the man's perspective and he can't go on living without her.
- Sarah Connor at the end of The Terminator, providing a popularizing template for the "left with child" version. It's actually a Foregone Conclusion; before she cuts him off, Kyle Reese tells her that the father of her son and future Rebel Leader John Connor dies, but that she goes on to train John to fight back against the machines. It later turns out that Kyle is John's father; he and Sarah were only together briefly before he's killed protecting her, but she obviously cares deeply for him and she swiftly avenges him by destroying the Terminator herself. The movie ends with a pregnant Sarah debating whether to tell John that Kyle is his father; she knows the future is going to be rough for humanity but also that she can guarantee their victory over Skynet.
- This trope takes its name from the love theme and ending song of Titanic (1997) (performed by Céline Dion), where Rose keeps her promise that she'll survive. In Jack's honor, she makes a new life for herself, spending several years having adventures that she never would have wanted or dared as a socialite, marries for love instead of money, and has a family.
- Winnie in Tuck Everlasting learns through Jesse's love that it's better to live a limited life to the fullest then be stuck like a rock in a stream.
- An after-the-fact example in The Whales of August with Sarah, who still mourns the husband who was killed in World War I some forty years ago. On their anniversary she sets a table with two roses and his portrait, pours a glass of wine, and reminisces about how he undressed her on their honeymoon.
- Wonder Woman (2017): Diana will keep fighting for justice even though Steve died, sacrificing himself to save others.
Literature
- Referenced in American Gods. Jacquel mentions how the widower of the dead old lady he and Shadow are carting off to the morgue will soon be dead himself, since women are much better at surviving their men than the other way around. Considering he's actually a death god, he presumably knows what he's talking about.
- Subverted in the Apprentice Adept series. Stile discovers a prophecy promising him a child, so he puts off romancing the Lady Blue until after the big battle to ensure his own safety.
- Happens to a character in Maggie Furey's Aurian books. Complete with kid, and coming back as a ghost. Multiple times, until Death gets cheesed off and puts a stop to it.
- Happens in the Black Magician series by Trudi Canavan. In the last book Sonea falls in love with the Good All Along Akkarin and he sacrifices himself to help her defeat their enemies.
- In Suzanne Collins's Catching Fire, Peeta tries to persuade Katniss that this trope will come into play if he dies. It only makes her more determined to save him at her own expense.
- At the end of the first book of Anthony Trollope's The Chronicles of Barsetshire, the elderly hero's daughter marries the secondary hero. At the beginning of the second book, he's died and left her with a baby-and enough money to be pursued by multiple suitors.
- This is partly because Trollope hated John Bold, but also because he originally envisioned the second book to be more Slope vs. Arabin than it eventually turned out to be. If you read the book carefully, it changes form and direction at the end of Chapter Eight, which is where Trollope put it away for almost a year. When he returned to it, he'd found he'd written himself into a corner but didn't want to expend the energy to rewrite the first eight chapters.
- Totally subverted in The Dead Room by Heather Graham. Leslie is still mourning the death of her fiancé Matt, and then she meets his cousin... who she does NOT get together with. She also gets murdered by the killer, and happily reunites with Matt in the afterlife.
- In Robin Jarvis' Deptford Mice trilogy, Audrey manages to move on after her true love Piccadilly is killed. Also there is Ysabelle in the prequel book, The Oaken Throne, who accepts the office of Starwife after the death of Vesper and rules for nearly three hundred years.
- Dreamblood Duology: In that case, his heart. Ehiru, having become a Reaper, inevitably has to be sent to Ina-Karekh by Nijiri, who is in love with Ehiru. Nijiri's only option is to face that they could never have been together because Ehiru's loyalty and love lay solely with their goddess Hananja. It is also the first Gathering Nijiri performs, making him Ehiru's successor, and is a turning point for Nijiri's development towards a calm, responsible young man and Gatherer.
- The Dresden Files:
- It happens again in Battle Ground, this time with Harry having to deal with the death of Karen, and so shortly after the two of them finally decided to act on their feelings for each other.
- Played for horror in Fly by Night Series, where the girl in question happily informs her father that it doesn't matter that he killed the beast, because she's about to bear its spawn.
- Cho Chang from Harry Potter. In the fourth and fifth books she still grieves for Cedric's death, but by the end of the story she was able to move on and get married. The same could be said with Harry, as by the seventh book she become friendly with him once more.
- In At All Costs from Honor Harrington, Admiral Javier Giscard, de facto husband of President Eloise Pritchart of the Republic of Haven, is killed in battle, which quite simply breaks her heart. Never one to give in to grief, she eventually makes a dramatic midnight dash to the Manticore System, clears up several years' worth of misunderstandings with the Star Kingdom, and seals the deal by signing a political and military alliance with Manticore. Never will Eloise Pritchart allow the man she loved to die for nothing.
- Variant in the Kate Shugak mystery series. Kate's dead lover doesn't leave her with a baby... but she does wind up raising his teenage son from his previous marriage (the biological mother isn't dead; the kid just prefers Kate, and with good reason).
- In The Kingdom and the Crown the Greek girl Livia's Jewish husband is killed during a Roman ambush. Rather than return to her home, she opts to remain in his home village.
- In Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet novel Dreadnaught, Rione tells Desjani that if anything happens to Geary, she may have to play this trope, as a grieving widow, to the hilt to save the Alliance. In Invincible, Geary has Anxiety Dreams of Desjani's death, and Desjani tells him that this would be his duty, that she doesn't want people to look at him and think she ruined him by dying, and that she herself would soldier on.
- If it's a Death Trope, the Malazan Book of the Fallen has it. In this case Seren Pedac (pregnant) and Trull Sengar (killed almost as an afterthought) in Reaper's Gale. It serves as the moment where Seren finally decides to stop pitying herself and rolls up her metaphorical sleeves.
- When Janie of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God finally finds a man who loves and respects her after two failed marriages, she gets only about a year of happiness with him before he contracts rabies and goes crazy, forcing her to shoot him. Not to worry, though; Janie's now independent enough to stand on her own without a man to support her and she'll always have fond memories of Tea Cake.
Live-Action TV
- In Alias season 5, played with when Vaughn is "dead".
- Alta Mar: Eva's closing voiceover after the death of Nicolas in Season 3 all but states this is what will happen to her.
- Played with in Angel with the death of Wesley. Even though Illyria is not his girlfriend, it's later revealed in the comic continuation that she cared about him enough that his death made her even crazier. This is a brilliant example of the "finishing off the Big Bad by herself" subtrope, as immediately afterward Illyria is given "one free shot" by Wesley's killer, who thinks she's the powerless human Fred and not the angsty hellgod that she actually is. Her rapid transformation from one to the other as she punches the bad guy is priceless.
- In Doctor Who, both Clara Oswald and River Song serve this function for the Doctor. The memory of Clara, in particular, keeps the Doctor functioning while trapped in a torture chamber-like location for billions of years.
- At the end of Dollhouse, Echo and Paul. Worse because not only will her heart go on, a fully sentient copy of his consciousness will go on in her head, too.
- Happens multiple times in Downton Abbey:
- Tom loses Sybil to eclampsia just after she gives birth to their daughter, giving us a gender swap on the usual surviving parent and baby story. He goes on to start his own business and builds a life independent of, but not excluding, her family.
- Mary loses Mathew just after giving birth to their son. At first, Mary is completely heartbroken at Matthew's death and doesn't want to go on, but her family (especially her grandmother) convince her to continue on in Matthew's memory. She becomes a strong, independent woman, a full partner in managing the estate, and running her own life much more than was typical for women of the day. Later, she falls in love with Henry Talbot, and by the end they're married and Mary is heavily implied to be pregnant with his child.
- Edith doesn't know Gregson's fate for some time, but she is left pregnant with his child, and not only carries on her life as an independent businesswoman, but later arranges to "adopt" her own daughter (whose existence she had hidden) so she can have her back in her life.
- Touched upon a few times in Lost. A character dies in the final episode, and his long-time love goes on for years without him. But he, not she, is the main character. A closer example would be the characters Sun and Jin. After losing Jin, Sun goes on, delivers their baby and reinvents herself as a celebrity and a businesswoman. It later turns out, however, that Jin did not die after all...
- At the end of Merlin, King Arthur dies, leaving Guinevere as the sole ruler of Camelot. Although the show ends before we get a chance to see how she manages things on her own, Word of God states that she brings about the Golden Age of Camelot, and actor Bradley James went on to say that Arthur actually had to die so that the kingdom could be passed on to a ruler who was a peacemaker rather than a war hero. So presumably, she has a long and successful reign.
- It's "his heart will go on" in Smallville when Clark finally loses Lana.
Music
- The Decemberists' song "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" is about a young couple where the man has gone off to war, and is now "in the ground with the wolves and the weevils", leaving his wife alone and pregnant.
- The Trope Namer: "My Heart Will Go On
" by Céline Dion, the main theme and love theme to the aforementioned Titanic (1997).
- She also has another similarly-themed song, "Immortality" (written by and recorded with the Bee Gees), released as a single in 1998.
- She also has another similarly-themed song, "Immortality
- Decoded Feedback's "Another Loss" is a male example. "In my dreams you live forever, 'cause love will never die".
Theatre
- The ending of West Side Story implies this for Maria, in stark contrast to the aforementioned Shakespeare play it's based on.
Video Games
- Baldur's Gate:
- In Baldur's Gate II, if the PC is female (or male but chooses to romance someone else) Jaheira can be seen as an example of this.
- More clearly in Throne of Bhaal, at the very end, actually in the "epilogue", a Player Character who had been in a relationship with Viconia becomes a male version.
- The loss of her husband is a defining part of Guard-Captain Aveline's character in Dragon Age II. She gets past the loss, but it takes her a lot longer to get over her fear of failing those she cares about again, and she's only more badass for it.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy IX seems to end this way, occurring during Garnet's coronation, but without Zidane. The theme song "Melodies of Life" even resembles the Trope Namer song. Fortunately, it turns out to be a Disney Death, and Zidane even cites the song as what kept him alive.
- This is pretty much the entire point of the ending of Final Fantasy X and the beginning of Final Fantasy X-2. Said female tries to make sure Everybody Lives when she becomes the protagonist.
- This is the fate of the romance route with Shura in the Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden Kagami No Miko video game. Said love interest dies, leaving the heroine, Mariko, to return to her own world heartbroken.
- Happens in Neverwinter Nights 2: the potential romantic interest invariably dies in the ending. The PC, on the other hand, goes on to romp around the distant country side (with their new boy/girlfriend, no less) on an epic quest of personal discovery and soul-eating in the Expansion Pack. Sucks to be you, Casavir, Bishop, and Elanee.
- However, you can actually tell your new love interest, "Sorry, I'm taken."
- The second expansion pack suggests that Casavir lives, but he is a prisoner of an enemy country.
- But Neeshka does survive, and it is relatively easy to put her romance plot back into the game.
- This occurs in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. After truly losing her fiancé, Gadolt, Sharla doesn't spend a very long time mourning. It only serves as an incentive for her to keep going with Shulk's crew, because she's now fighting not only for Gadolt, but for the world itself.
Visual Novels
- Subverted in Fate/stay night "Heaven's Feel" Normal Ending, Shirou dies in the final battle. Sakura moves into his house and remains in mourning for him right up until the day she dies.
- In Piofiore: Fated Memories, notably in Yang's Good Ending, Yang is killed by Gilbert after he hesitates going for the kill when Gilbert holds Liliana hostage, buying Gilbert enough time to kill him and while Liliana survives and returns to the church, she is left heartbroken.
Western Animation
- In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) and its 2002 reboot, this is the Sorceress's backstory (with Teela as the kid).
- While the original series gives zero hint as to the identity of Teela's natural father, it should be noted that in the reboot, the father is actually still alive; however, he doesn't know about the little "gift" he left the Sorceress. The series itself hints that it's Teela's adoptive father Man-At-Arms, but Word of God states they meant it to be Fisto (who is Man-at-Arms' brother).
- Losing her beloved Kanan doesn't stop Hera Syndulla of Star Wars Rebels from becoming an accomplished general in the Rebel Alliance, even participating in the Battle of Endor. She's practically the dictionary definition of this trope, especially since she gives birth to Kanan's son Jacen after his death.
- We have the song "It's Over, Isn't It?" from Steven Universe's "Mr. Greg"; Pearl's love, Rose Quartz, is long dead, but she's still trying to get over her.
- At the end of the first season finale of Wakfu, Evangelyne says that her heart will not in fact go on, as it has been thoroughly destroyed by Idiot Hero Sadlygrove's death. And at the beginning of Season 2 Sadlygrove comes Back from the Dead and they both resume their relationship, averting this trope.
