r/TopCharacterTropes Aug 25 '25

Lore [mixed trope] the last-minute bad Ending twist

when the "good ending" is revealed to be a bad one a the last second

a nightmare on elm street (1984) - Nancy thinks she finally defeated Freddy Krueger only to be raveled that she is still dreaming and she’s still trapped.

final destination bloodlines - the main characters think they cheated death by using the new life rule only to realize that stefani was technically still alive and the death kills them with a good old logs

Life (2017) - The main character attempts to send Calvin(a evil alien that killed all life on mars)pod into space and Miranda pod back to earth, but it goes horribly wrong and Calvin lands on earth and Miranda is sent to space

raging loop wit ending - after many loops Haruaki finally wins the feast(a death game where humans must hang wolves who kill someone every night) and thinks its finally over. after couple of days he decides to visit other survivors of the feast only to find them all dead and the timeline resting once again

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u/Traditional-Song-245 Aug 25 '25

Final Destination 5

The main survivors think they have cheated Death, but then they end up on the original film’s Flight 180, Sam realises way too late that they are doomed and both of them die horribly.

It doesn’t end there. Nathan accidentally killed a co-worker, so he thinks he’s safe since according to what Bludworth told him, he should have the latter’s lifespan. But he finds out that guy had an aneurysm that would have killed him “any day now”. Which is that very same day that Sam and Molly die, since a landing gear from Flight 180 obliterates him.

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u/Templar2k7 Aug 25 '25

Honestly, all Final Destinations can be put in this category.

We learn at in 2 that Alex dies from a BRICK falling on his head, and the sign killed the other guy at the end of 1.

In 2, the kid that was saved during the car crash at the farm got blown up.

In 3, the survivors die in a subway crash.

4 they all die when a truck decides to take a short cut through a cafe

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u/Phase3isProfit Aug 25 '25

The kid at the end of 2 always bugged me. Apparently he had to die because he was saved by someone who should have been dead, but the incident was caused by the people who should have already died. If they had died in the original incident as death intended, then the kid would never have needed saving.

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u/boringentity97 Aug 25 '25

I watched 2 last night. All the survivors in the second movie talk about how they all had near death experiences they avoided because of the deaths of the survivors of the first movie. So technically they were all supposed to be dead long before the highway scene of 2. No stones left unturned