Memorial for the Antagonist

An evil born in fire, laid to rest via pyre.

Huey: Colonel Stinkmeaner had no family, and no friends. He lived a life without love, or companionship, or even pets. He was a horrible, awful human being, and in truth, the world was better off with him dead. Still... he was a brother.
Granddad: [to God] ...Please forgive us for taking this man's life.
Riley: Why you sayin' "us"? You killed him!
Granddad: Shut your ass and pray, boy.

— The Boondocks, "Granddad's Fight"

At the end of a journey, The Hero manages to kill the Big Bad or Arch-Enemy. Though we as the audience are conditioned to forget about the antagonist's remains afterwards, sometimes we will see a memorial service being held where the hero ends up paying their respects to their deceased foe anyway. There are several reasons for this.

The first and most understandable reason is that the villain has familial or mutual relationships with either the hero themselves or the hero's party. Even if they wanted to unleash The Plague or blow up the world, the villain was their best friend, father, mother, sibling, comrade in arms, or other kin. You just hoped it wouldn't have to end in the hero taking the villain's life and severing their bonds in the process.

The second reason is mostly out of respect, given the fact that they had to go the extra distance to foil the evildoer's plans. Because of all of their efforts, the hero respects the villain for giving them the fight of their lives, making them a Worthy Opponent in their eyes so the hero returns the favor by offering their slain nemesis a memorial in their honor.

The third reason could be because, now that the villain cannot do any more evil deeds, they can try to remember the positive aspects of the villain prior to their Face–Heel Turn. In some cases, it may involve Redemption Equals Death.

The final reason is simply that the heroes themselves just have really big hearts and don't want the person to be forgotten or go unloved.

It may involve Due to the Dead, but because most fictional media don't incorporate this or believe that the villain shouldn't be focused on after their demise, usually the villain's remains are forgotten and their fate is unknown. This is also generally done as a means of closing a story-line and ensuring that everything is finished.

Sub-trope of Alas, Poor Villain. Contrast And There Was Much Rejoicing for when character deaths (which commonly include villains) are met with praise than sorrow, often denying them a proper memorial. Also contrast Villain Respect where the villain will offer sincere praise to the hero they're up against.

No inverted examples, please! There's already a trope that covers villains paying their respects to the deceased heroes: Antagonist in Mourning, so any inversions should go there instead.

WARNING: Since this is a Death Trope, spoilers will be unmarked.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Banished from the Hero's Party: After the defeat and death of Ares, the man who expelled Red from the Hero's part at the start of the series and whose attempts to force Ruti into being the Hero against her will, he receives this from the protagonists who show sympathy for how his Blessing had corrupted him into a Tragic Villain. This is inspite of Ares, prior to this point, being a total Hate Sink character who didn't show any remotely good or redeeming qualities when he was still alive.
• Dragon Ball Z: Vegeta, mortally wounded, pleads with Goku to finish off Frieza, with the tyrant himself killing Vegeta off mid-speech. Goku takes a moment to make a grave for Vegeta and bury him, recognizing that Vegeta wasn't born a monster, but made into one by Frieza. Not that Vegeta's death, or any other, really sticks, but the event is a key moment in Goku's Character Development.
• Inuyasha: Kanna, in her last moments, refuses to march towards Inuyasha's gang to destroy them, as Naraku wants. He explodes her to smithereens, but a tiny shard of Kanna enters Kagome's eye; through that link, Kanna tells her that light can kill Naraku, taking revenge on him for killing her and Kagura. Inuyasha puts Kanna's mirror standing up with some rocks, as a memorial for her.

Comic Books

• AXIS: When Carnage — who'd had his morality inverted — seemingly sacrifices himself to smother the X-Men's gene-bomb, Cletus Kasady makes Spider-Man promise to build a rhinestone-encrusted statue of him in the middle of New York City, draped in the Confederate battle flag and blaring Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird". The final issue shows Peter keeping his promise and building the statue.

Fan Works

• Miraculous Escalation: Echidna isn't the main villain, but she is the only one that Chat Noir is forced to Cataclysm, and her situation was a very tragic series of events happening to an otherwise ordinary teenager like him. He's impacted so strongly by this that, by the time of the epilogue, he has a physical memorial statue of her as Noelle set up at her grave in Paris, and he names one of his kids after her.
• The Negotiationsverse: In "Useless", Applejack and Rainbow Dash, now members of a terrorist cell called the Equestrian Freedom Fighters, are gunned down while preparing to make their Last Stand. Although they turned their backs on Twilight before their deaths, she buries them in a private ceremony as a token of their former friendship.
• The Seven Misfortunes of Lady Fortune: Marinette attends the funeral for Gabriel (the main villain of the Miraculous Ladybug series) after he commits suicide, and seems to be the only one actually sad about his death. This is despite the fact that at the start of the fic, Marinette forces him to quit by threatening to expose him, and he obliges but attempts to silence her later. She spent the last seven years Legally Dead after a hitman hired by Agreste put seven bullets in her.

Films — Live-Action

• The Dark Knight: Harvey Dent is given a funeral and lauded as a hero despite being driven insane by the Joker and murdering several people. In this case, it's because Batman and Commissioner Gordon agree it's for the greater good if Dent remains a hero in the public's eyes.
• The Red Baron: After the titular Red Baron was buried by the Allies, a funeral wreath was left by Captain Brown, reading "To Manfred von Richthofen, Friend and Enemy."
• Return of the Jedi: At the end of the film, Luke holds a traditional Jedi funeral for Darth Vader, burning his body on a pyre until it disappears to become one with the Force. It helps that Vader's death had been a Heroic Sacrifice that doubles as Redemption Equals Death to kill the Emperor and save Luke's life.

Literature

• In The Black Cauldron (book 2 of 5 of The Chronicles of Prydain), after King Morgant attempts to seize the evil MacGuffin for himself and is killed in the ensuing battle, Prince Gwydion orders a monument built to honor him - as he says, although Morgant did fall to temptation and evil in the end, he'd been a hero for many years, and his single act of evil did not undo all the good he'd done.
• The Day of the Jackal: In both the novel and the film, at the end, there's a brief memorial for the title character, although the only one attending is Lebel, the police detective who tracked him down and killed him.
• Elantris: At the end of the story, Sarene arranges a funeral for Hrathen, a Sinister Minister that spent the entire book trying to convert Arelon to his religion (thus subjugating it to Fjordell) and has been foiling many of her attempts to fix the kingdom. The reasoning is part as a thanks for saving her life from Fjordell genocide at the cost of his own life and part as a recognition of Hrathen as Worthy Opponent and Anti-Villain that genuinly wanted Arelon to join Fjordell and convert peacefully. Sarene even says during service that, in a way, Hrathen saved Arelon.
• Kingdom on Fire: Zigzagged in A Sorrow Fierce and Falling. After the Ancients and the Kindly Emperor are sent back through the portal to their native realm, thus ending the war, the people of the country celebrate by parading R'hlem's corpse through the country, allowing people to hurl insults and debris at it and, in general, Desecrating the Dead. Afterwards, however, the body is delivered to Henrietta, who decides to bury the body and hold a small funeral for William Howell, her father, and the man that R'hlem used to be.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Following Luke Castellan's death by suicide to defeat Kronos, Percy requested that he be given a burial shroud like the other half-bloods get. He is carried off to Elysium by the Fates and is even given a final blessing by his father Hermes — the same father he spent his life trying to overthrow.
• Perelandra: After killing the possessed body of Dr. Weston (and incinerating the corpse so that the dark eldil in it can't escape), Ransom, despite never even liking the man, carves him a grand tombstone in the cliffs of Venus, in tribute to his genuine genius.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events: After thirteen Books of relentless pursuit and misfortune, Count Olaf dies alongside Kit Snicket in The End. While the two are both given burials and memorials, the Baudelaires find themselves without words, good or bad, to say about their former tormentor.

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: In "Ding Dong", Holt is actually forced to arrange the memorial and give the eulogy for his bitter longtime rival Madeline Wuntch through her will, as a last Take That! on her part, and struggles to be respectful throughout. However, after Holt finally outsmarts Wuntch's final plan, Alas, Poor Villain sets in as he realizes he will miss their rivalry, giving a heartfelt speech.
• Doctor Who: Played with in "Last of the Time Lords". After the Master dies, the Doctor burns his body on a funeral pyre and holds a small service with Martha and Jack. Part of it is out of respect for the man who he once called a friend, part of it is to make sure he stays dead this time. The Master, being the Master, inevitably doesn't.
• The Golden Girls: "It's a Miserable Life" has the girls trying to save an oak tree from being cut down by the city to widen the street. They manage to convince everyone in their neighborhood to sign the petition to save it...except Mrs. Frieda Claxton, the cantankerous old woman upon whose property the tree sits. Rose tries throughout the episode to convince Mrs. Claxton to help save the tree, but when the miserable old biddy finally insults Rose one too many times, Rose finally loses her patience and yells at her to "drop dead". Which Mrs. Claxton promptly does, out of shock. Rose feels so guilty about what happened - especially after it's revealed that Mrs. Claxton had no friends or relatives to give her a proper burial - that the other girls decide to all chip in and pay for a funeral themselves. Unfortunately, Mrs. Claxton was so hated that no one but the girls (and a woman who mistakes it for a different funeral) attend. Rose is beside herself, until she finds a purpose for Mrs. Claxton's ashes - spreading them around the oak tree on her property, knowing that the city wouldn't want to disturb someone's final resting place, thereby saving the tree.
• The Last Man on Earth: The survivors always hold a funeral for those who die, even those who are dangerous to them. As said funerals are usually organised by Tandy, things usually go wrong:
  • In the season four premier, after several close calls Pat is finally dead, so the group holds a service at sea. Which is mostly sincere until Tandy attempts to cut his head off with a shovel, just to be absolutely sure this time he is dead. And they send his body parts off on two separate speedboats, that proceed to crash into each other.
  • Following Karl getting accidentally blown up, they hold a funeral for him with his remains in two separate coffins to symbolise the two different sides of him. Phil ends his eulogy by acknowledging he'll be burning in hell right now for all the people he murdered during his life.
  • Parodied. At the end of season four, after discovering the house they have been staying at used to belong to a Cartel boss full of drugs, guns, and bombs and with walls that are literally stuffed with dead bodies. Phil attempts to hold a funeral for the house in the same manner, planning to blow it to hell, only for him to somehow fail despite the sheer number of explosives inside.
• Power Rangers Wild Force: After the rangers disband, Cole visits his parents' graves…as well as the grave of Viktor Adler. He pays his last respects to the man who betrayed and murdered his parents and enabled the rebirth of Master Org, sincerely hoping he can find peace now.
• Star Trek:
  • At the conclusion of the two part Star Trek: Voyager episode "Basics" Commander Chakotay pays his respects to the Cardassian spy Seska despite all the harm she had done to the Voyager crew in general and him in particular.
  • In the Deep Space Nine episode "Tacking Into The Wind" Worf performs the Klingon death ritual after defeating Chancellor Gowron in combat. This after Gowron had dissolved the House of Mogh, seized all of the House's land and other holdings, and drove Worf's brother Kurn to the point of suicide.
• Supernatural: In the opening episode of Season 13, Dean laments all the people they have lost recently, including Mary, Kelly and Castiel, but he also includes his adversary Crowley and seems genuinely touched by his Heroic Sacrifice and appears to grieve his loss.

Music

• In the song "Ringo" popularized by Lorne Greene, a lawman once saved the villain Ringo's life, so Ringo shows him the same respect by not killing the lawman when he could have — but the lawman then makes it impossible for Ringo to escape the posse after him, thus intentionally if indirectly causing Ringo's death. The lawman then retires, leaving his "tarnished star" on Ringo's grave.

Myths & Religion

• In the Books of Samuel in The Bible, David gives a funeral to King Saul out of respect despite the latter trying to murder him multiple times throughout the legend out of jealousy of David becoming a war hero.

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls: According to lore, the Nord hero Ysgramor, after waging a bloody war against the Snow Elves and hunting them to the brink of extinction, gave their leader, the Snow Prince, a hero's funeral as a mark of respect.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy IX: Queen Brahme is given a funeral and beautiful tomb in spite of the atrocities she committed while she was alive.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: The Dragoon Level 80 quest has the Warrior of Light pay respects to Nidhogg, a major antagonist in Heavensward. Though he was driven by vengeance, the Warrior of Light learns that he was once as just as he was fearsome. The Warrior and Orn Khai lament that Nidhogg was overwhelmed with grief following the murder of his sister Ratatoskr and had no one to pull him back from the brink of madness. Thus, they honored the dragon he was, not the dragon he became.
• Genshin Impact: By the end of the Story Quest "Historia Antiqua Chapter I", Zhongli offers a tribute to his fallen foe Osial (who he defeated in the Archon War millennia ago) by offering him the relics of Havria; the Goddess of Salt, at his final resting place of Guyun Stone Forest, lamenting how the era of bygone gods is nothing but a distant memory.
  Zhongli: Osial... you and I were foes... But our ancient grudge is but a bygone memory now. May that which Havria has left behind be yours to subsume. Thus another spark of divinity departs from Liyue. My legacy shall now be left for those who come after to debate.
• The Guided Fate Paradox: After finally defeating Satanael, Renya promises to dig him a grave and asks if he wants anything for his epitaph. Satanael politely declines, stating that such a thing is unnecessary, before wishing Renya farewell and thanking Renya for allowing him to kill time in an enjoyable manner.
• The Last Story: In the final chapter (which corresponds to the game's epilogue), Zael and his friends make a memorial tribute to Dagran, who was revealed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wanted to seize the power of the Outsider to consummate his revenge against the conflicting factions. Said character redeemed himself before his death, and though his friends won't be able to ask him questions about whether or not he could have achieved his goals differently, they never forgot how important he was to them despite his evil actions, so they do the memorial and bid him an amicable farewell.
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous: Downplayed. After killing Staunton Vhane during the recapture of Drezen, the Commander is given the choice of what to do with his remains. Two of the options are to either bury him as a knight or just quietly put him in a tomb (In-Universe, it's knight's tradition to be put to rest in the Drezen Crypt). The other options are to dispose of his body with the dead demons, or, on the Lich Mythic Path, raise him as an undead servant.
• Skies of Arcadia: At the end, Vyse throws Ramirez's remains down to the lost continent as it sinks back into the Void. Despite the fact that Ramirez betrayed his people, destroyed Valua, and attempted to destroy the rest of the world after Galcian was killed by Belleza (who also died), Vyse wanted to honor Blue Pirate laws to Fina's brother.
• Somewhat common in the Trails Series:
  • At the end of the second game of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Estelle and Joshua can be seen paying their respects at a makeshift memorial honouring Loewe, one of the main antagonists and the only other survivor of Hamel.
  • Referenced in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. After Crow dies at the end of the second game in the series, the other members of Class VII reference attending a service for him in a cemetery outside of Heimdallr. You get to visit it in the third game... and a short while later, Angie secretly excavates his grave to confirm her suspicions that he's Faking the Dead.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs (1993): Played with in "Rest In Pieces". Slappy Squirrel and her nephew Skippy attend the funeral of Walter Wolf, Slappy's lifelong Arch-Enemy. While the audience learns that Walter is actually faking his death as part of his plan to trap Slappy, and so does Slappy later on, Skippy and the rest of the attendees don't know this, so Slappy's attempts to expose Walter come across to them as her making a mockery of his funeral.
• The Simpsons:
  • "Homer's Enemy" ends with the funeral of Frank Grimes, the titular enemy, after he finally snapped and electrocuted himself in a fit of insanity. As one last indignity, Homer falls asleep during the service, and Grimes' coffin is lowered into the ground to the sound of everyone present laughing at Homer's antics.
  • In "Funeral for a Fiend", the family learn of Sideshow Bob's passing and agree to attend his funeral, despite all the times Bob had tried to kill them (and particularly Bart). Subverted when it turns out the whole thing was faked as part of Bob's latest elaborate revenge plot: the moment Bart is left alone with the coffin, Bob bursts out of it brandishing a knife.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Zigzagged in the episode "SpongeBob vs the Patty Gadget", which ends with an unusual example. Having defeated the titular gadget, which was intended to take his job, SpongeBob suddenly collapses from exhaustion. Smash Cut to a funeral service, which appears at first to be SpongeBob's... until he walks into the shot and begins gleefully dancing on the grave. Turns out the Bikini Bottomites were holding a memorial for the Patty Gadget.

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