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It Always Rains at Funerals

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"Edward Morgan Blake. Born 1924. Forty-five years as a comedian, died 1985, buried in the rain."
"Everyone at the funeral felt a terrible sorrow at the loss of the Abbot, and the heavens, too, wept tears of grief."

As if funerals weren't depressing enough, it's gotta rain, too.

Weather has always been used symbolically when it comes to death. When characters die it's often overcast. Even when all the characters are doing is visiting someone's grave, the sky will be cloudy and the colors will seem to be washed out. But quite often, when there's an actual funeral, it's always raining (though sometimes it'll be snowing). Or precisely at sunset. Or at night. Anything but in the bright, shiny daylight. It makes you wonder why nobody thought to check a weather forecast before scheduling the funeral.

This trope is a natural consequence of Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death, Grave Clouds, and Snow Means Death. Helps explain why characters think they can get away with invoking Sand In My Eyes: it's just raindrops.

Subtrope of Gray Rain of Depression. This trope is the sister and direct opposite of It's Always Sunny at Funerals, and is usually part of a Meaningful Funeral scene.

As a Death Trope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Naruto:
    • It rained during the Third Hokage's funeral.
    • It rains when Asuma dies.
  • Shirley's dad's funeral in the first season of Code Geass. Which probably doubles as a Shower of Angst of sorts for Shirley herself.
  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, it starts raining immediately when Kamina dies, and the rain keeps going for some time afterward. The skies eventually clear as soon as Nia enters the cast.
  • The nice instrumental work for the funeral in Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit is titled Drizzle
  • Episode 25 of Death Note has L and Light talking for a bit on the rooftop of the investigation headquarters. It's raining particularly hard outside, leading to the infamous foot-washing scene when they go back inside. Sometime later, Ominous Latin Chanting rears its head AGAIN as Rem kills both L and Watari. Cue an uncomfortable silence shortly filled by church bells.
  • In Chrono Crusade, when Rosette takes a Journey to the Center of the Mind in Azmaria's head, she's shown at a graveyard in the rain under a battered umbrella — but it's possible this is just a symbolic Shower of Angst and isn't meant to depict an actual funeral. In the manga, a flashback to the funeral of Rosette and Joshua's parents is shown — it's snowing.
  • In the anime One Piece, during Zoro's flashback, it rains at Kuina's funeral.
  • In the SHUFFLE! anime it rains during the funeral for Kaede's mother.
  • In the manga Dengeki Daisy, it is stated in Chapter 11 by Kurosaki that it rained the day Teru's brother died and that it continued to rain until his funeral was over.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, when Sayaka's body is recovered and she is given a proper funeral in episode 11, it immediately starts raining.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, it starts raining just before Grodek Ainoa gets stabbed to death by Arabel Zoi.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist Maes Hughes' funeral is accompanied by sunny weather... but not for Roy Mustang. The significance can be mentioned further, as it's been made clear before that Mustang's fire-based alchemy is useless in the rain.
    Roy: Terrible day for rain.
    Riza: But the sky is clear.
    Roy: [covering his face with his cap as he begins to cry] It's raining.
    Riza: Oh. So it is.
  • Bleach anime ''Zanpakuto: The Alternate Tale" arc. In episode 255, after Muramasa's death, it starts to rain.
  • Erza's imaginary funeral in Fairy Tail.
  • In Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, rain was part of the symbolism used to imply the death of the Stoutland that Litten was taking care of. Ash and Professor Kukui showed up with umbrellas as well, along with Meowth separately nearby, adding to the atmosphere of a funeral.
  • During the epilogue of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency, Joseph Joestar's funeral takes place in the rain. Overlaps with Attending Your Own Funeral when Joseph learns his caretaker (and new wife) forgot to send a telegram telling his friends and family what happened to him in the past month.
  • The episode after Gin dies in Washio Sumi Is a Hero begins on a rainy day. It's also rainy during her funeral.
  • Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl: Mai's funeral is held under rain that had been falling since early afternoon.
  • In a flashback in Chobits, we see that it was raining during Yumi's funeral.
  • I Want to Eat Your Pancreas: In the prologue, Sakura's funeral is shown to take place during a rainy day, with the protagonist lampshading that she wouldn't have liked it that way.

    Comic Books 
  • It was raining so hard during the Comedian's funeral in Watchmen, the reader might get the impression that they were burying the man during a hurricane. Rorschach mentions that rain falls on the rich and poor alike.
  • At Michael Yee's funeral in Witchblade #6, it is neither raining nor snowing nor exactly sunset. Sara Pezzini complains about the uncooperative weather. She doesn't notice the symbolic fall colors all around her, it seems.
  • Parodied in the Radioactive Man comic book (and yes, that's the same Radioactive Man from The Simpsons). When RM heroically dies (for something like the fifteenth time) his friends gather to pay their last respects during what appears to be a gloomy, rain-drenched funeral. In the next panel, we pull back to see that it's actually a beautiful sunny day and everyone is standing under a large tarp to block the sun out, while the "rain" is really just the work of a guy holding a hose. Turns out RM's girlfriend Gloria hired a company to make the event as somber as possible. (Their slogan: "We take the 'fun' out of funerals.")
  • During Thomas Elliot's funeral in "Hush," there is at least a drizzle.
  • Played with in The Incredible Hulk: it rained at Betty Banner's funeral, but Thor showed up, swung his hammer around a bit... and stopped it raining over just the coffin.
  • It continuously rains throughout ''Kraven's Last Hunt", including the time Spider-Man is buried alive, when he claws his way out of his grave, and the time Kraven is buried. Only at the very end does the sun come out.
  • Captain America's memorial service at Arlington (following his shooting at the end of the Civil War arc) takes place in the rain.
  • Robin: While it doesn't rain at every funeral Tim attends, it did snow a bit at the funeral of Karl Ranck, a schoolmate Tim didn't exactly care for but whose death Tim felt responsible for when he was shot at school.
  • Stray: The skies are grey and it's raining at The Doberman's funeral.
  • Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen (2019): After Jimmy's decoy gets shot, the funeral takes place on a gray, rainy day.

    Fan Works 
  • Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: Lampshaded by Twilight, who wishes it was the case at the Quincy group funeral. Instead, it was a sunny day with painfully blue sky, perfect for a family picnic. She notes her mother would have loved that. It only makes her feel more depressed.
  • Played with in Loophole: at Vriska's funeral, it snows.
  • Lampshaded in The Thousand Paper Cranes, when we see the funeral of a not-yet-zombified {..} takes place during a lightning storm. This is lampshaded in the first few lines:
    It always rains at funerals.
    She looks up at the sky at the dark clouds, and wonders why that is. Kimi's brother was not well known, so angels wouldn't be crying for him? Maybe it's simply a fact of life or something: grass grows, birds chirp, it rains at the funeral of big brothers.
  • In Slice of Heaven, it rains on Nadia and Monique's funeral.
  • In The Seven Misfortunes of Lady Fortune, Gabriel's funeral takes place indoors, and the weather outside isn't mentioned. However, the epilogue has Adrien visiting his grave, and the gloomy weather is described throughout the chapter.
  • Averted in Sweet Child of Mine - it's a perfectly bright and sunny day during Drogo and Primula's funeral.

    Films — Animated 
  • Not really a funeral, but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has it raining outside the dwarfs' cottage when they're mourning Snow White, who has been put into a "sleeping death."
  • In Big Hero 6, it rains during the funeral for Tadashi and Callaghan.
  • In Shrek the Third, it is dark and cloudy the day of Harold's funeral and begins to rain during.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Amadeus, Mozart's corpse is dropped unceremoniously into a mass grave while it's raining cats and dogs. According to one Mozart scholar, the notion that it rained at Mozart's funeral is a myth. He checked out the local almanacs and found out it was actually a bright and sunny day in Vienna.
  • In The Amazing Spider-Man it rains heavily at the funeral of Captain Stacy. This contrasts with Spider-Man, where it is a bright, sunny day on the funeral of Norman Osborn. Perhaps justified in that Osborn was a villain, and Stacy was a hero.
  • A steady rain in The Barefoot Contessa as it starts with the funeral of Maria, after her tragic death. The story then plays out in a series of flashbacks as the various men in her life remember her.
  • In Batman Begins, it rains during the flashback funeral of Thomas and Martha Wayne.
  • Batman Forever: The funeral of Bruce's parents is shown to have been stormy, according to the flashbacks.
  • A Better Tomorrow: Not quite a funeral, but it starts to rain when Kit and his girlfriend visit his father's grave.
  • The Bodyguard. At the funeral of Rachel Marron's sister, it rains buckets.
  • Pouring at the funeral of Jacob's mother Joba in Character. Jacob imagines that his distant, illegitimate father Dreverhaven might reach out to him at the funeral, but he doesn't.
  • It snows at just about every version of Scrooge's funeral in A Christmas Carol, but it is also Christmas Eve, so you couldn't get away from it in this case.
  • Contact has a different take on this; when the first astronaut is killed it's not raining at his funeral, but it's raining outside when Jodie Foster's character is watching the event on television.
  • Utterly inverted inThe Crow, where it's not only raining but it's raining at night when Eric Draven pulls himself out of his own grave.
  • Daredevil (2003). Matt Murdock falls for Elektra after 'seeing' her under a Romantic Rain as his Super-Senses reveal the raindrops striking her face. After her father is murdered he tries to comfort Elektra, but it starts raining and from his point-of-view her face goes dark as she puts up her umbrella after declaring her need for revenge. It also serves as a Shower of Angst for Matt, as Bullseye used one of his own batons to murder her father so she mistakenly blames Daredevil for it.
  • In the film Déjà Vu (2006) with Denzel Washington, it rains lightly during Claire's funeral. Justified as it is set in New Orleans, and there were concerns that the shoot in which the crew simulated rain would be interrupted by a real rain. The seasonal monsoon serendipitously delayed until immediately after shooting.
  • Subverted in Firehouse Dog - at the celebrity funeral, it first appears to be raining, but when the ceremony is over, the camera pulls back to reveal that the rain is being faked by an FX crew.
  • Four Weddings and a Funeral has the funeral on a typical English weather day.
  • GI Joe The Rise Of Cobra Rex's funeral at Arlington is in the rain.
  • In the first Hellboy movie, it rains heavily during Professor Bruttenholm's funeral.
  • It pours heavily when the protagonist in The Hunt (2012) buries his dog in the yard.
  • In the movie adaption of Stephen King's It, it pours during Georgie's funeral.
  • It rains at Rudolf Smuntz's funeral in MouseHunt.
  • In Navy Seals, it rains during William Graham's funeral.
  • It is raining during Victor's Lonely Funeral in Night School (1981).
  • Return of the Fly starts off with a rainy funeral of the protagonist's mother.
  • A variation in The Rock's prologue; there's no funeral, but it's pouring when Hummel goes to visit his wife's grave, just prior to his theft of the nerve gas. He's more or less apologizing to her for what he's going to do. In that same scene though, it's played straight with the Marine Honor Guard giving a volley of gunfire for...someone.
  • It was snowing at the funeral at the end of What Lies Beneath.

    Literature 
  • Auden's poem about Mozart contains the lines "Had a pauper's funeral in the rain / The like of whom we shall not see again," but this appears to be something of an Urban Legend. Mozart was buried in a "common grave"note , but so were all non-aristocrats in 1790s Vienna. The circumstances of Mozart's burial were not especially lavish, but its austere simplicity was more to do with the social mores of the day than lack of funds; excessively elaborate arrangements were considered poor form. Accounts of the weather were also somewhat exaggerated after the fact: It was chilly and damp, but probably not storming.
  • In his book The Big Movie Glossary, Roger Ebert calls this trope "funeral weather" and notes that, when it occurs, the rain in question is rarely just a light sprinkling...rather, it's Biblical downpours.
  • When Dave Barry went to temples and cathedrals in Europe, he was surprised at all of the people buried in the floor. He postulates that it must've been raining at all of the funerals, so the mourners decided to bury the deceased inside to stay dry.
  • The Posterchildren opens with the rainy funeral of Corbin Underwood, where his son, Mal, notes that the rain either made it the worst day to have the funeral or the perfect day for it.
  • In Men at Arms, it rains at Cuddy's funeral near the end of the book.
  • Number the Stars has a variant, when it's raining the morning after the protagonist's sister dies. Her friend recalls thinking that it was like the sky was crying along with everyone else.
  • The Great Gatsby. It rains heavily at Jay Gatsby's already bleak and depressing funeral.
  • Lampshaded in Kim Newman's story "The Problem of the Final Adventure", from The Hound of the D'Urbervilles, when Moran refers to this trope. Played with in that the funeral itself is phony.
  • In Seanan McGuire's Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, the Back Story notes that it always rains at funerals because there are superheroes who ensure that it does, for effect.
  • The Book Thief: It snows heavily on little Werner's funeral. In fact, it is so cold the two gravediggers complain about having to dig through frozen ground.
  • Mary Jane: A Novel averts this at Uncle Ben's funeral, which is said to be bright and sunny, as though it didn't realize it was supposed to be sad.
  • City of Bones (2002) involves LAPD detective Harry Bosch investigating a 20-year-old cold case, the tragic murder of a 12-year-old boy. Near the end of the book, it's raining when Bosch attends the melancholy funeral along with the shattered remains of the boy's family.
  • Survivor Dogs: It's raining when Fiery dies. When his friends and mate bury him, it's still drizzling.
  • The Toymaker's Apprentice: At the start of the book, the dreariness of the weather is described. The clouds are thick and there is drizzle. It's the day of Stefan's mom's funeral.

    Live Action TV 
  • The Crown (2016). A variation in "Pride and Joy" when it's raining at a ceremony to unveil a statue to commemorate George VI, who died several years previously. Queen Elizabeth II does the unveiling as the Queen Mother is too upset to do so, showing her grief is still strong.
  • In Smallville, it rains at the funeral of Whitney's father and snows at Jonathan's funeral.
  • Firefly: It snows during Tracy's funeral at the end of "The Message". Of course, he was being buried on an ice world.
  • In Fringe, a drizzly depressing funeral for Captain Lee.
  • It Takes a Thief (1968) episode "To Sing A Song of Murder". The episode starts with the funeral of Marilyn Lee, which takes place in a pouring rain.
  • Zig-Zagged in the Get Smart episode "The Mess of Adrian Listenger": while it's hardly a gloomy day (the sun is clearly shining in the scene), it is also pouring rain.
  • New Girl: Somewhat parodied in "Where The Road Goes", as the episode begins with everyone driving through the rain on the way to a funeral. It seems that a main character has died offscreen, but it was actually a Bait-and-Switch; the funeral is a headstone reveal for Ferguson (Winston's cat), who passed away between the events of seasons 6 and 7.
  • In the The X-Files episode "Beyond the Sea", Scully's father's funeral takes place in the rain.
  • Played with on NCIS in the two-part season 3 premiere "Kill Ari." During most of the episode, which takes place immediately after Kate's death, it's raining heavily, but at the end of part two when the rest of the main cast attends her actual funeral the sky is bright and sunny for the first time.
  • Hustle: In "Benny's Funeral", it starts raining as the gang step out of the crematorium at the eponymous funeral.
  • In a second-season episode of Monk ("Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man"), a grave-digger remarks on the day he buried a young hit-and-run victim:
    "The ground was frozen solid. It was like the earth didn't want him."
  • Midsomer Murders: In "Four Funerals and a Wedding", it is raining heavily at the third eponymous funeral. So heavily that the rain washes away the dirt in the grave that is concealing the body of the next victim: the woman who was supposed to be officiating at the funeral service.
  • Batwoman (2019). A variation when insane villains Alice and Mouse have a tea party under an umbrella next to the gravestone of someone they murdered in the previous episode. Given that it's cold and rainy, Mouse at least is not amused.

    Music 
  • Chris Isaak's "Funeral In The Rain" fits this trope perfectly, as should be expected given the song's title.
  • The video of Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" has this at the end. The final scene has Axl crouched down at his wife's open grave as the rain washes the red dye off a flower on the casket.
  • The music video of "Helena" by My Chemical Romance. This was actually a happy accident during filming: when the time came to shoot the scene where the band carries the coffin down the church steps to the hearse, it just started raining.
  • Kenny Rogers' "Reuben James": "And to your lonely pine box came / Just a preacher, me, and the rain."
  • Ylvis' "Jan Egeland": "When he's sad, he goes to funerals / in unusually heavy rain"
  • Tom T. Hall's "I Hope It Rains At My Funeral". After looking back at his depressing life, the narrator concludes:
    If I've got one wish, I hope it rains at my funeral
    For once, I'd like to be the only one dry
  • "Looking out the door/ I see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners/ parading in a wake of sad relations/ as their shoes fill up with water" in "Lover, You Should've Come Over" by Jeff Buckley from his album Grace.
  • Invoked in AC/DC's "Hells Bells", given it's a Grief Song to their recently deceased singer:
    I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain
    I'm coming on like a hurricane
    My lightning's flashing across the sky
    You're only young, but you're gonna die
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff's Etude-Tableau in C minor, Op.39 No.7 is a rare instrumental example. As their name suggests, the Etudes-Tableaux have a narrative angle, but Rachmaninoff largely shied away from specifics in the interest of allowing the performer and/or listener to write their own stories. However, when Ottorino Respighi arranged five of the pieces for orchestra, Rachmaninoff told him this etude depicts a funeral marked by "fine incident and incessant rain"; the rain begins to fall most audibly at around the halfway mark, and continues until a climax representing the pealing of church bells.

    Theater 
  • Moritz's funeral in Spring Awakening (though it isn't always shown on stage, both the original play and the musical's libretto state this).

    Video Games 
  • It rains during the Abbott's funeral in Dragon Quest VIII.
  • It rains during Beatrice's funeral in Umineko: When They Cry, though it's more of a coincidence since the funeral occurs on October 4, the same date when the typhoon traps everyone on the island.
  • Syberia begins with the funeral of Anna Voralberg (sic), conducted by clockwork robots carrying umbrellas, during a thunderstorm.
  • In Heavy Rain, if Ethan, Madison, Scott, or Shaun died during the game you'll see their grave during the epilogue. Naturally, it'll be raining.
  • It's raining during the funeral for Jackie's aunt in The Darkness 2.
  • It rains at Aisha's funeral in Saints Row 2.
  • It rains at Michael de Santa (Michael Townley) fake funeral, in Grand Theft Auto V Opening Credits.
  • The ending of PAYDAY 2 has a funeral for Bain while it's raining.

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 

    Web Video 
  • The Weather: The "Thunderstorms" episode opens with, what else, everyone attending a funeral in the rain.

    Western Animation 

    Real Life 
  • During the state funeral of Néstor Kirchner, former president of Argentina and husband to current president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, thousands of people patiently waited under the rain in the Plaza de Mayo to pay their last respects.
  • Keeping with the theme of former Argentine presidents, it also rained during Raúl Alfonsín's funeral. Not only that but on the last day of the funeral, at dawn, there was a great rainbow in Buenos Aires. Lightened the mood quite a bit.
  • Subverted with Pope John Paul`s funeral, which had Dramatic Wind instead.
  • It rained during the August 1977 funeral of Archbishop Makarios, the first president of Cyprus - a highly unusual event for the island in August. Characteristically, the two ethnic groups on Cyprus had opposite views of this - the Greeks called the rain the tears of heaven, while the Turks claimed that rain attends the burial of a sinner to wash away his sins.
  • Former Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston caught a cold during the very rainy funeral of his late opponent, General William T. Sherman, possibly because he refused to put on his hat: "If I were in his place and he were standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat." The cold developed into pneumonia, causing Johnston's own death a month later.
  • It was snowing during the funeral of Kim Jong-il. One soldier in the funeral lamented this, as he obviously wanted rain but got snow instead.
    "How could the sky not cry? The people are all crying tears of blood."
  • On the day of legendary baseball player Lou Gehrig's funeral, the team for which he had played during his entire professional career, the New York Yankees, were conveniently rained out.
  • It rained during the state funeral of former United States First Lady Nancy Reagan.
  • On the day that Satoru Iwata's funeral was held, it just so happened that a typhoon had hit Japan, causing his burial to be backdropped by downpouring rain. Strangely enough, a rainbow was famously seen over Nintendo headquarters a few days earlier, on the day of his death.
  • Inverted for non-instrument-rated pilots: they're warned constantly during training that if they try to tackle weather that's beyond their skill, the funeral will be held on a sunny day.
  • An old superstition claims that if you're mean to a cat, the cat will make it rain on your funeral. Be nice to cats!
  • After a dry summer, many parts of the UK faced relatively frequent and heavy rain during the same week that Queen Elizabeth II passed away.


 
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