Briefly, an episode or issue that suddenly focuses on a character specifically because they're going to die at the end (or fairly close to the end.)
Usually this is a relatively minor recurring character, or someone who technically is in the main cast but never had a
Back Story or much in the way of characterization. The episode/issue may be honest about what's going to happen, or try to make it appear that the character is finally going to be promoted to a main character. Episodes about the death of a major character who already got plenty of exposure and a fairly full
Back Story don't quite fit this trope, since it's not as obviously different from the character's normal treatment.
All too often Sometimes obviously the result of the writer realizing that they need a dramatic death, can't sacrifice the main cast, and the chosen character just hasn't been given enough to do that the audience might care. In other cases, the understandable result of
Real Life Writes The Plot when the actor has to leave the series and the writer wants to give them something to be remembered by.
Related to
Back For The Dead, and can happen in the same story if the character hasn't been on screen for a while but never actually said to have left.
The big clue to many of these is
Belated Back Story suddenly popping up when normally the character gets two or three lines an episode.
A death trope, so
'ware spoilers.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Admiral Sadaako Munetake in Martian Successor Nadesico spends most of the series between Butt Monkey and Jerkass. When he gets his own episode, the effect of both roles crashes on him, and he commits suicide by Jovians.
- Asuma in Naruto had little to do until after the time skip. Even then, he didn't get much "screen time" in the manga until a chapter or so before he's killed. It was lengthy and dramatic too. In the anime it looks like they are trying to prolong his life (and defuse this trope) by dropping a filler arc smack dab in the middle of the story and giving Asuma an important role.
- Battle Royale, in which most characters die within a chapter or two of the point where the story starts to focus on them. Practically guaranteed if it starts talking about their past.
- The Trigun episode "Paradise" focuses on Wolfwood and ends with his death.
- Although L is a major character in Death Note, his death episode is the first glimpse the viewer gets of his childhood. The episode also focuses more on L's thoughts, feelings and doubts than ever, whereas before he was single-mindedly devoted to exposing Kira. You just know something bad is about to happen!
Comic Books
- Countdown to Infinite Crisis: The Ted Kord Blue Beetle, who'd undergone Flanderization to the point he was a Flat Character and then barely seen for a few years, is suddenly brought back in a story that highlights his positive character traits and strengths as a hero, specifically to make his death at the end actually mean something (as opposed to the characters who were C List Fodder for the upcoming Crisis Crossover event).
- Teen Titans #62: Wendy and Marvin, teen geniuses who came on during the One Year Later plotline to repair Cyborg and maintain the Titans Tower gear, generally treated like background characters until needed for hostages. In this issue, they discuss their dissatisfaction with their minor roles, adopt a dog, and are repeatedly assured by other characters that they're vital to the team's functioning. Then the dog turns into a monster that mauls Marvin to death and puts Wendy in a coma when none of the heroes are looking.
- Macross Frontier devoted an entire episode to Ozma Lee and deliberately drew outrageous parallels between him and Roy Focker to hint at his upcoming death/ self-sacrifice. In the end, he survives, and the other characters comment on how the drama was lost.
Live Action TV
- Lost uses this trope a lot, often killing a character during their spotlight Flashback episode. The most obvious of these was Shannon, who was killed during her only flashback episode. The limelight also killed Ana-Lucia, Eko, Nikki, and Paulo.
- Charlie subverts this trope just a little: he's told that he will die for real this time, spends the episode reviewing his favorite memories, does the thing that will kill him...and doesn't die. He dies in the next episode, when the limelight is on another character.
- Battlestar Galactica: "The Passage", with Kat, who had at least made a few appearances prior; "Razor", with Kendra Shaw, who within the span of a double-length episode is introduced, made one of the most important figures in the fleet, and killed off, never to be mentioned again; and "Sacrifice" with Billy Kekeiya, who had been an important secondary character since the beginning.
- Primeval: Episode 4 did this for Tom, to a degree.
- Doyle in Angel was an example that seemed blatant when Patsy first watched it.
- Lt. Joe Carey on Star Trek Voyager was a recurring character in the first ten or so episodes, but then he fell off the radar. Near the end, they brought him back for a spotlight episode just to provide Wangst when they killed him off.
- The extreme Belated Backstory version is also seen in Voyager: two episodes had Redshirts created just to be brought Back From The Dead in that episode. You gotta wonder why they did this instead of bringing back redshirts we'd actually seen die.
- In the Star Trek The Next Generation eponymous Lower Deck Episode "Lower Decks", one of the cadets from "The First Duty" was shown to have stayed on the straight and narrow and become an ensign on the Enterprise. She's then sent on a dangerous mission by Captain Picard...but doesn't survive.
- Reality TV does this often. If an episode is focusing on a contestant, chances are they are auf'd that episode. This is particularly true if their confessionals emphasize any of the following:
1: How much winning the competition would mean to them.
2: How much they have come to appreciate their teammate/showmance partner.
3: How much they have learned / grown / matured because of their participation.
4: How wonderful the experience has been or how many new friends they've made.
5: How much better / stronger / more skillful / better-liked / more in control of the game they are than one or more of their fellow competitors.
- Doctor Who: Father's Day.
Webcomics
- Mosp from Sluggy Freelance died almost immediately after she was given her own week-long arc detailing her backstory.
Web Original
- Survival Of The Fittest has this come up a few times (although it's not so much an episode as a limelight post) an example of this treatment is Andy McCann, who is killed in his first appearance in the game (that being because his handler left, but still). Notably, his section of the post is about three times as long as that of the character that actually killed him, detailing what he had been doing up to that point on the island and nostalgically thinking about his favourite superhero.
- Notably, due to the system that deals with inactive characters, this has a tendency to happen to them the majority of the time.
Western Animation
- Transformers Beast Wars' second season gives Dinobot a major role in two or three episodes leading up to "Code of Hero" where he's seen at his best, and then bites it at the end.
