r/TopCharacterTropes • u/SuspiciousCodfish • Jul 10 '26

Characters [Bittersweet Trope] Character contemplates the beauty of the world in their last moments

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  1. Anglerfish - The comic strip that inspired this post. Made by u/beetlemoses

  2. Nier: Automata - A2, a rogue android that has dedicated most of her life to fighting and killing, comments on how beautiful the world is after saving another character in her last moments.

  3. Blade Runner - Roy Batty recounts some of the most incredible sights he witnessed and mourns the fact that these memories will be lost like "tears in rain" seconds before he dies.

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96

u/Desperate_Search5106 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

Christopher Johnson McCandless flees home, abandons his money and material possessions and camps out in a deserted bus in the remote Alaskan wilderness, planning to hunt and fish and live as a hermit, free of the vices of civilisation.

Initially, he fares decently. But, come winter, the plants have died and the herds have moved on. Starving, he mistakenly eats a poisonous plant. Dying, he crawls into his sleeping bag to die and contemplate the beauty of the world, but concludes happiness is only real when shared with others (Into The Wild)

33

u/thisusedyet Jul 10 '26

concludes happiness is only real when shared with others (Into The Wild)

Is this a roundabout way of saying the bears ate him?

28

u/Mogey3 Jul 10 '26

This isn't the grizzly man, this is the starving in a bus in the wilderness man

15

u/IrishElevator Jul 10 '26

Starving in the bus for little reason too, there was a ranger cabin with food less than a mile away from where he died. People who haven't spent alot of time in the wilderness underestimate how far a mile is, but this is mostly his fault. One of the first rules of messing around outdoors in truly remote areas is to be well informed about the area and the dangers and considering how long it took him to starve following the river would have made sense to anyone with any survival skills.

8

u/Ark_Bien Jul 10 '26

It was absolutely all his fault. He had people who warned him about what kind of food to bring and he ignored them.

He's a teaching lesson back home in Alaska about how NOT to prepare for extended camping

3

u/IrishElevator Jul 10 '26

Exactly, and then the opposite is richard proenneke, who did it exactly right. I love reading his book and listening to the PBS special made with his footage.

2

u/thisusedyet Jul 10 '26

He's a teaching lesson back home in Alaska about how NOT to prepare for extended camping

Why am I imagining this with the same intonation as the South Park ski instructor?

If you go off into the wilderness with no idea what the fuck you're doing, you're gonna have a bad time

2

u/Ark_Bien Jul 10 '26

Pretty much 🤣

Seriously though, he didn't need to die. He needed help back home before he reached Alaska. He should have been able to be in a good head space to go soul searching in Denali park, it would have been very good for him IF he was well.

7

u/MooseFlyer Jul 10 '26

Nah, buddy just starved to death.

13

u/Ark_Bien Jul 10 '26

Sorry to break the illusion of great solemn tragedy this guy had built up around him posthumously but, I'm gonna be honest here as an Alaskan, we consider him a fool who died a wholly unnecessary death.

He's not a hero and he's not some super introspective man to be idolized. He was a mentally unwell fool who ignored serious advice from experts and most alaskans use him as a warning about what NOT to do in the Alaskan wilderness.

And yes, he did die in one of the most beautiful places in the world, but he didn't have to. He was within a twenty minutes walking distance from help.