Sometimes life gets us down. Hell, sometimes it downright sucks. It is too much for us to handle, especially if one's dealing with too much hardship all too soon. Things don't go our way and we may be reaching the end of our rope.
However, this trope may come into play to set the wheels in motion to things getting better. It could be along the lines of a life affirmation, a hopeful comment, telling someone "I love you," or even an apology. Whatever it is, it ultimately helps a person heal or even saves either the despairing person's life or the life of the one making the statement.
This differs from Talking Down the Suicidal as the person may not necessarily be suicidal or even seeking death (though the two may overlap). It's more along the lines of an always positive or happy version of the Armor-Piercing Question, Armor-Piercing Response, or Wham Line.
This may overlap with Meaningful Echo, if the statement is later repeated at a key moment. Compare Hope Springs Eternal, You Are Better Than You Think You Are, and You Are Not Alone. If the life-saving goes beyond kind words to a physical rescue, that may be Big Damn Heroes, The Cavalry, or Come with Me If You Want to Live. Can also overlap with But for Me, It Was Tuesday, if the one giving encouragement doesn't know how significant their actions are (at least at first).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Call of the Night: Kiyosumi Shirakawa's work life is less than ideal, but she always puts on a brave face and carries on... until she suffers an emotional breakdown in front of Yamori and screams that she hates her co-workers (who sexually harass her during their drinking parties) and that she doesn't want to go back to the office. When Yamori can't convince her to quit her job, he instead offers to turn her into a vampire if it should ever become unbearable. When they meet again a few days later, Shirakawa admits that the offer has given her new strength and thanks Yamori for the encouragement.
- Moriarty the Patriot plays with this a bit, as Louis declares outright that William's acknowledgment of the value of Louis's life inspired him to live, and he hopes Sherlock can do the same for William.
- A well-known example comes from the Enies Lobby arc of One Piece. Nico Robin is not someone that would qualify as suicidal, but at that moment she has given up hope of living, mostly due to her believing that, just as every other party she's associated herself with in the past 20 years, the Straw Hats will abandon her as soon as she becomes too big a burden to protect. Luffy, accompanied by his nakama, burns a World Government flag (essentially declaring war against the entire world) and tells her the famous line "Say you wanna live!". Realizing how far her friends are willing to go for her sake, Robin tearfully screams that she wants to live and begs them to take her to the sea with them. Having heard the magic words, the Straw Hats proceed to go on a Roaring Rampage of Rescue and successfully extract Robin from the island. From this point onwards Robin develops an unyielding faith that her friends will protect her no matter who or what comes for her.
Comic Books
- Fantastic Four: While trying to reconstitute his body, Doctor Doom inadvertently summons the Beyonder. The Beyonder recognizes Doom, and is poised to obliterate him for stealing his godlike powers during the Secret Wars (1984). Reed Richards interjects that the Beyonder mustn't destroy Doom, because doing so will create a temporal paradox: Doom must exist at some point in the future in order for the Beyonder to pluck him into the Secret Wars on Battle World. "Could you, mighty Beyonder, survive the absolute destruction of time itself?" Relenting, the Beyonder restores Doom to his rightful body, then propels him into the future, creating the Stable Time Loop.
Films — Live-Action
- City Lights: When Charlie Chaplin's character meets a drunk, suicidal man, he manages to make him no longer suicidal simply by saying that "Tomorrow the birds will sing".
- Supergirl (1984): Kara and her mentor Zaltar are attempting to escape from the Phantom Zone, and find themselves climbing along a narrow ledge over a huge, swirling vortex. At one point, Kara starts to falter, and yells out, "I can't do it!" to which Zaltar responds with, "You can!" And they continue.
Literature
- In Les Misérables when Mr. Thénardier reveals to Marius information about Valjean's past, he unwittingly informs him that he was the one who saved his life at the barricades. It motivates Marius to bring Cosette with him to see Valjean before his death.
- Lord Brocktree: Ripfang gets sent out with 150 soldiers from Ungatt Trunn's Blue Hordes to deal with the heroes and is the only one to return. Trunn (who's been suffering from nightmares about fighting a badger) threatens to kill him slowly unless he tells the truth. Ripfang simply says "I saw the badger", and Trunn immediately orders everyone out so he can hear what Ripfang has to say.
- The Wolf Den Trilogy: In the final book, Amara and some of her close friends flee the erupting Vesuvius. Amara is almost overwhelmed by exhaustion and despair, but is encouraged to keep going by Britannica's courage and Philos' Anguished Declaration of Love.
Live-Action TV
- Degrassi: In the "Time Stands Still" episode, after Rick brings a gun to school and decides that he will shoot Paige, before he can pull out his gun, she expresses genuine remorse for a cruel paint and feathers prank that some of the other kids pulled on him. This stops him and he then apologizes for previously hurting his ex-girlfriend and her close friend Terri.
- The Sopranos: A few episodes after being shot, a comatose Tony is about to enter a big mansion (implied to be Heaven) when he suddenly hears the voices of his loved ones begging him to come back, including the voice of a younger Meadow saying to him "Please don't go."
- Jane the Virgin: Luisa reveals part of the reason for her devotion to Rose is that she was about to commit suicide when Rose, by sheer luck, called her out of the blue to see how she was doing and said that she still cared about her and hoped she was doing okay. Knowing Rose still cared for her helped her hang onto her will to live, which in turn led to her turning a blind eye to her increasingly worse transgressions as the series went on.
- Played for Laughs on Lucifer. Lucifer needs information from a man about to jump off of a roof. The man thinks Lucifer is there to talk him down and tells him his entire life story. Lucifer, who couldn't care less if the man jumps or not, tells him that his life is depressing, and ironically (because he's about to fall to his death) his life has nowhere to go but up. The man actually takes this to heart and decides not to jump.
- Unforgotten: In Series 2, Jason is waiting at the train station and is secretly about to jump in front of the train, having found out that his dead father was a rapist and a pedophile and being estranged from his mother after she threw him out of her house to focus on her new family. His housemate Cath sees him (although she doesn't realize he's planning to jump, thinking he's just waiting for a train) and tells him she met a really nice guy that she wants to get to know better - then reveals that it's him. They end up leaving the station together to go on a date.
- Fantasy Island: Mandy Breem sold her soul to Mephistopheles to save the life of her dying husband. One year later, Mephistopheles has come to collect, and Mister Roarke has agreed to help Mandy wriggle out of the contract. Roarke points out that the Devil may only collect the souls of the parties involved; he cannot take the life of an innocent. Since Mandy is pregnant, her baby is exempt from this Deal with the Devil, thus Mephistopheles cannot take Mandy's soul without killing her unborn child. Even Evil Has Standards, including Mephistopheles. Viewable on YouTube here
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- The X-Files: In "One Breath" the recently returned Dana Scully is comatose in the hospital and at death's door. Her deceased father appears to her and tells her that they'll be together again "soon, but not now." It's then that she wakes up and starts recovering.
Video Games
- Near the end of Metroid Fusion, Samus is ready to sacrifice herself to stop the X virus, but the AI containing the consciousness of her friend who sacrificed himself convinces her to find another way by saying, "Clearly he chose wrong [to save you]."
- In Full Throttle, the secret to Ben surviving being drawn and quartered by Maureen and her gang is to threaten to call her names if she doesn't let him go, and when prompted, call her "Diaper Dynamo", her dad's nickname for her.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven: Early in the story mode, during the events that take place in the timespan of Battle Tendency, there's an argument between Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli while they're fighting the Pillar Men, and which in the original manga led to Caesar's Heroic Sacrifice. Cue the apparition of the Older and Wiser Part 3 version of Joseph Joestar, who defuses the argument by telling his younger self that he thinks he knows way too much for his age, and that while Caesar's intentions to honor his family are respectable and admirable, he should think twice before risking his life in order not to cause pain and guilt to his living friends and family. In the end, the argument not only is defused but the stills that roll during the credits show both of them battling the Pillar Men at the end of their Part, rather than just Joseph.
Web Original
- In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Goku tells Yamcha that's he a good friend. This prevents him from committing suicide after realizing that Bulma is pregnant with Vegeta's son.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons:
- In "Dog of Death", after encountering a Brainwashed and Crazy Santa's Little Helper as an attack dog for Mr. Burns, Bart is nearly attacked by him until he says "I love you, boy!" which triggers all the good times and love he's shown him throughout their relationship. This not only saves Bart, but his pet manages to scare away the other dogs still charging at him.
- Played with in "Burns' Heir", when Bart, now legally adopted by Mr. Burns, is ordered to pull a lever that would cause Homer to fall through a trap door and down a giant pit to his death. Bart was already reluctant to pull the lever, but when Homer empathetically says that he'll miss him if he dies, he then apologizes to him, "fires" Burns as his father, and tricks him into falling down the hole instead.
- A non-life or death example comes from Doug in an episode where he was competing in a fitness test and was attempting to do 1,001 sit-ups. Whereas he nearly gave up from exhaustion several numbers before the record, it was Patti's words of "Come on, Doug! Keep going!" that motivated him to successfully complete the task.
- The Critic: In the first episode when Jay is declaring his love for his actress girlfriend, he snatches away a policeman's megaphone and yells out "I love you!" Unbeknownst to either of them, a would-be jumper (whom the cop was trying to negotiate with) overhears the comment, says "That's all I needed to hear!", smiles, climbs back into the window of his apartment, and shuts it close.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Knock It Off", Dick Hardly orders the Powerpuff Girls Xtreme to take the Professor away. They start to do so, but the Professor gives the Powerpuff Girls (who are on the brink of death and locked in a chamber) one last goodbye, saying he loves them. This convinces the Xtreme to release the Girls and the Professor, and they proceed to turn on Dick because he's never shown them any affection.
- Rick and Morty: Morty is on trial for murder, and he uses the Death Crystal to determine that the only way to avoid the death penalty is to tell the judge "I will always remember our time in Peru." The judge believes Morty is her reincarnated loved one and releases him.
Real Life
- At one point, after the deaths of his brothers and facing his own father's impending death, Kevin Von Erich went to a gun store and stole a shotgun in the hopes of them either shooting him then and there or him going to jail. Instead, the employees and patrons were sympathetic to his plight and didn't stop him and as Kevin was leaving, the store owner said simply, "I love you, Kev." This prompted him to both return the gun immediately and engage in a group hug with the men.
- As discussed on his Behind the Music episode, Billy Idol, in the midst of his drug habit and going through a period of self-loathing, was hanging out with a friend at his home and watching Billy's young son play when the friend mentioned to him, "You know, I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't forgive you if you died". This ultimately convinced him to get clean and sober.
