A Last Request where the "MacGuffin" in I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin happens to be human. Someone dying asks someone to please take care of their kids/family. Often implies a strong level of trust and respect between the two parties.
Precedes Children Raise You, Promotion to Parent, and Parental Substitute. Often an Ending Trope but not always. It also works well simply at the end of a Story Arc or in a Back Story.
As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Ao no Fuuin Takao entrusts the entire Kimon family to Soko just before he dies by Akira's hands.
- In Ashita no Nadja, this trope is why Rita Rossi, Cream and Chocolate are members of the Dandelion Troupe. Rita's parents owned another circus, which burned down one night; before they tried to save the rest of their animals, they went up to the Troupe, handed them little Rita and the baby lions, and asked them to take care of the little girl and the cubs. Few minutes after this, the circus tent collapsed and the Rossis died, so the Troupe fulfilled the Rossis' Last Request and took the three in as a part of the crew.
- In Assassination Classroom, Aguri Yukimura's last request to Koro-sensei before dying is for him to devote the last year of his life to taking care of her students. Despite his insistence that he could never care for someone else as much as he does her, in his year as Class 3-E's teacher he grows to genuinely love his students.
- Buddy Daddies: Miri's mother, Misaki, entrusts Kazuki to take care of her daughter as she slowly dies in his arms after being shot by one of the assassins hired by Kazuki's boss.
- Subverted in Full Metal Panic! when Sousuke's mother hands him off to Kalinin to raise... who then sends him off (albeit inadvertently) to the KGB. To be trained as a child assassin.
- A flashback towards the end of Fruits Basket reveals that this was the intent of Kyoko Honda's last words to Kyo Sohma. Upon seeing the now-teenage boy she'd befriended when he was a child, she attempted to remind him of the promise he'd made to her as a child to look after her daughter, Tohru. Unfortunately, because of her injuries, her words didn't all come out, causing Kyo to mistake her words for a Dying Declaration of Hate for his failure to save her. This causes trouble for his relationship with Tohru later on, but he keeps the promise nevertheless.
- As revealed in a flashback, this was the dying request of Roy's alchemy teacher/Riza's father in Fullmetal Alchemist. Granted, "take care of my daughter" probably didn't mean "make her your personal assistant and bodyguard," but hey, the woman is damn good at what she does.
- Played With in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood. It ends with Dio massacring Jonathan and everyone else on a ship, leaving Erina and a baby girl as the Sole Survivors. Erina wanted to stay and die with Jonathan, but he noted how the baby's mother died protecting her, and urged Erina to take the child and escape. The episode/storyline ends with Erina floating with the baby alone in the wreckage, with the narrator informing us that Erina was pregnant herself. The baby girl, Lisa Lisa, was raised by their companion Straizo, marries Erina's son George, and becomes the mother of the next protagonist, Joseph Joestar.
- Lyrical Nanoha:
- In Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, this is both the main plot and back story: when the Second Queen of Yogo suspects that her husband is trying to kill their son Chagum, she tasks Balsa, a warrior-woman who happened to stop the most recent assassination attempt, to run away with him and keep him safe. As the series progresses, we learn that Balsa herself was once the "kid" in this trope, being taken in by a warrior named Jigoro on her dying father's request. A Whole Episode Flashback later fills in the details.
- In Noir, in a Flash Back, Mireille Bouquet's mother's request to a five-year-old Kirika, who just killed Mireille's father and is about to kill her, is to take care of Mireille.
- In One Piece, Gol D. Roger allowed himself to be captured by the Marines since he was dying of a terminal illness and wanted to go out in a more spectacular fashion. The night before his execution he confided in Monkey D. Garp, his most persistent foe among the Marines, that he had a pregnant lover. He told Garp that due to their frequent battles against each other, he knew and trusted Garp as well as he did any of his crew. He thus knew he could trust Garp to take care of his unborn child. And Garp does.
- The Quintessential Quintuplets: During the Scrambled Eggs arc, Fuutarou tries to get the Nakanos' grandfather to teach him how to tell them apart. Eventually, the old man seems to jugde Fuutarou is trustworthy enough and asks him to take care of his granddaughters, since he's ill and doesn't have much time to live.
- Sagittarius Aiolos in Saint Seiya gave the baby Saori to Mitsumasa Kido. She wasn't his kid, though; he was trying to protect her from the evil Pope, who wanted to kill her because she was Athena's reincarnation, and got killed in the effort.
- This is played straight in Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas where Leo Ilias asks one of his former students, Taurus Aldebaran(Rasgado) to look after his young son, Regulus, before he dies fighting against one of the three Judges of the Underworld, Rhadamanthys.
- Rem's famous last words in Trigun are for Vash to take care of Knives. She probably didn't envision Knives to be the one who killed all her crew and tried to crash all the Seeds ships or that he would turn into a complete homicidal maniac but what can you do.
- On the other hand, maybe she did - in Japanese, her last words are "Vash, Knives wo..." "Wo" is an incredibly ambiguous word on its own, requiring other words to define it. She could be asking him anything from "Help Knives" to "Kill Knives". "Vash, take care of Knives" is an attempt to capture that ambiguity in English ("Take care of him" often meaning "Kill him").
- Unico: In "The Tale of the Fangs of Athens", Unico encounters a mother sphinx named "Sphinx" who's taken to a small cave after failing to solve her riddles. The titular unicorn befriends Piro (Sphinx's son) after learning that he refuses to eat Unico and decides to give him a bowl of soup. After leaving the cave, he witnesses Sphinx dying after getting attacked by Oedipus. While dying, the mother sphinx pleads Unico to take good care of her son and make sure he becomes "A strong and sturdy sphinx". After her death, he becomes a new parental figure to Piro and helps her son become braver and the importance of self-defense.
- Part of Crow's Back Story in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: His father figure Robert Pearson, while trapped in a burning building, told Crow to escape, take his bike and deck, and watch over the rest of the kids he'd taken in.
- After their Duel, a dying Bommer asked Crow to look after his younger siblings before crumbling to dust. However Crow didn't have to since Bommer was resurrected at the end of that story arc.
- Gunslinger Girl. Triela is something of a Team Mom to the cyborg girls. When she's wounded (eventually fatally) during the Turin attack, she tells Rico to look after the others.
Comic Books
- Identity Crisis (2004): Jack Drake's last words are to ask for Bruce to take care of Tim.
- Fury (MAX): As he's dying, one of Fury's men asks him to take care of his son Wendel, which Fury agrees to. Unfortunately, Wendel turns out to be an utter dorkwad, The Friend Nobody Likes and a Manchild, who Fury actively fantasizes about leaving to die. After Wendell gives himself a hernia trying to lift a weight obviously too heavy for him, he ends up in the hospital so Fury's rid of him for a while... and then at the end (to add to the utter mess that Fury's life has become) he's going to go live with Fury and a leaky colostomy bag.
Fan Works
- This is part of Donna Troy's original Super Hero Origin in the Teen Titans Our Own League stories. When Donna was five years old, she and her father were on a plane that crashed into the sea. Mr. Troy paddled Donna to the shores of Themyscira on a raft, and begged the Amazons to take care of his daughter before dying of exhaustion. Queen Hippolyta adopted Donna and she became Wonder Woman's sister.
- Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron: Asks Kallen to take care of Nunnally if he dies during Across the Universe.
- A variant is found in All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird (a Dragon Age: Inquisition AU), when Hawke writes to Varric while on her way to Weisshaupt. She knows that she might not be coming back from the trip, so she pleads with him to go to Starkhaven at the first opportunity, collect her sister Bethany, and take her home to Kirkwall and look after her. It's a variant because Bethany is around thirty years old at this point; however, she's also the only family Hawke has left. Hawke also knows that she and Bethany are pretty much all Varric has left too, and the request is implied to be as much for his benefit as for either of theirs.
- A Diplomatic Visit: Preemptively in chapter 9 of the third story, Diplomacy Through Schooling. When Swift-Pad and Maxilla ask Twilight to be the godmother for their future pups (who haven't even been conceived yet), they note that this is among the responsibilities that come with the position if something happens to them; Twilight promises to do so.
- In the first chapter of The Spectacular Spider-Man: Lost in Gotham, Spider-Man allows himself to be sucked into a portal to save Gwen Stacy. In an inverted example, he (after unmasking and revealing his secret to Gwen) asks her to take care of Aunt May for him.
Films — Animated
- At the end of Tarzan, a dying Kerchak tells Tarzan to "take care of them," meaning the rest of their clan.
- In Toy Story, when Woody is grabbed by Sid's dog Scud, he tells Buzz to "take care of Andy for me." Buzz rescues him instead.
- In Frozen, when Hans is about to kill Elsa, Elsa just pleads with him, "Please look after my sister." Hans then tells Elsa that Anna is dead because of her (she isn't, but he thinks she is), prompting Elsa to fall into despair.
- Nod's father in Epic (2013) asks Ronin to do this.
Films — Live-Action
- In the prologue of The Amazing Spider-Man, Richard and Mary Parker leave their young son Peter under the care of his Uncle Ben and Aunt May to keep him safe from harm when it becomes clear someone dangerous is after them. They don't survive to reunite with him.
- Avengers: Endgame.
- Just before he goes to make the sacrifice for the Soul Stone, Clint tells Natasha to "look after my family for me". She's already an Honorary Aunt, so it makes perfect sense to entrust them to her. This is ultimately Averted, however, as Natasha ultimately saves Clint by making the sacrifice herself.
- Implied with the end when Tony Stark is on the verge of death after his Heroic Sacrifice. He doesn't have enough energy to speak, but is clearly struggling to remain alive. It is only after his wife Pepper Potts assures him that she and their young daughter will be okay, and that "You can rest now," that he is able to relax and peacefully passes away in Pepper's arms.
- In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, when Batman is about to kill Superman with a Kryptonite spear, Superman begs Batman to "save Martha". This throws Batman off, as it reminds him of the death of his mother, Martha Wayne. When he demands to know why Superman said that name, Lois reveals to him that Martha Kent is Superman's adoptive mother, and that Lex Luthor is holding her hostage to force Superman to attack Batman. Batman begins to realize how close he came to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
- In both Le Bossu and On Guard (both based off Paul Féval's Le Bossu), Lagardère vows to avenge his assassinated friend, the Duke Philippe de Nevers, and takes it upon himself to raise Nevers' daughter Aurore per his last will.
- Much like the example in Real Life, below, this is shown in the beginning of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Pevensie children's mother and many other London parents are shown putting their children onto trains that will take them into the English countryside, where they will hopefully escape the devastation which is the Blitz in World War II.
- In Deep Impact, when Sarah's parents realize they can't escape before the meteor-induced flood hits, they ask Sarah to take her baby brother and get to high ground with Leo. The parents die, but both teenagers and the baby survive.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: When caught in a time-stopping trap that leads to his and Holga's arrest, Edgin asks Forge (the only one to escape the trap) to take care of Edgin's daughter, Kira. Forge says he will, and actually delivers on his promise, raising her for two years and doing so well enough that Kira starts referring to him as "Uncle Forge". He later admits to Edgin that he enjoyed being a parent more than he thought he would.
- In Face/Off, a dying Sasha begs Archer (whom she still believes is Castor Troy) to not let her and Castor's son Adam grow up to be a criminal like them. At the end of the film, Archer honors Sasha's request and adopts Adam.
- At the end of Frozen River, Ray agrees to take the rap for running the smuggling operation, in exchange for Lila raising her kids while she's in jail.
- Godzilla (2014): When Joe's wife and Ford's mother Sandra is dying of radiation poisoning, she pleads with Joe through the window to be a good father for Ford before she perishes.
- In The Lone Ranger, Dan, after being fatally shot, asks his brother to take care of his family.
- In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, a mother in Rohan puts her son Eothain on a horse and sends him to Edoras, to warn King Theoden that the wildmen are attacking. She also, however, puts her young daughter Freyda on the horse with him, so that Eothain can keep Freyda safe in case their mother doesn't make it. Happily, she is shown reuniting with them later at Helm's Deep.
- The Shaw Brothers film, Mercenaries from Hong Kong, have the protagonist Luo's close friend, Lei getting mortally wounded in an ambush against the villainess' group of thugs. After every one of those mooks are taken down, Lei begs for Luo to pull a Mercy Kill on him and take care of his young daughter, Charmaine, a little girl suffering from kidney failure.
- My Life as a Dog: The illness of Ingemar’s mother necessitates that he and Erik temporarily stay with relatives. When the kids are back home in the city and she is in the hospital, Ingemar and Erik are taken in by their Uncle Sandberg, but Sandberg’s wife voices displeasure at taking in the kids. After Ingemar’s mom passes away, he is sent back to his Uncle Gunnar in Småland.
- At the end of Pearl Harbor, as Danny is dying, Rafe encourages him stay alive, revealing that he's going to be a father. Danny replies, "No, you are." The final scene is of Rafe and Evelyn, married and happily raising 'their' son.
- The Phantom Menace: As he's dying, Qui-Gon makes Obi-Wan promise to train Anakin. An unusual example in that Anakin isn't either man's child, and won't become a padawan for a few years at least, plus he'll have the entire Jedi Order raising him.
- In Sense and Sensibility, as in the novel, John Dashwood promises his dying father that he will help his stepmother and three younger half-sisters. He explains to his wife that he plans to give them three thousand pounds, and she promptly talks him out of it.
- A tweaked example in The Towering Inferno: An explosion knocked the scenic elevator off its track. Lisolette (who had gone to great lengths to save two children, a boy and a girl, in the tower) was holding the girl. She shoves her into someone else's arms before falling from the glass elevator to her death.
- In Train to Busan, Sang-hwa's Last Request to Seok-woo is to take care of his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong and their unborn child. Seok-woo eventually gets Seong-kyeong and his own daughter Su-an to Busan at the cost of his own life.
Folklore
- In the fairy tale "Babes in the Woods," this is a dying man's last request made to his brother. Instead, he leaves them to die in the woods. And... that's it. They die. No gingerbread house, no fairy godmother, no sleeping giant, nothing.
Literature
- Adrian Mole: Played with in Cappuccino Years, in that a highly reclusive man Archie Tait dies, and leaves his house to Adrian, on condition that Adrian lives in the house, and takes care of Archie's cat Andrew, until Andrew dies.
- Brotherband: When Mikkel, Thorn's best friend, receives a fatal injury on a raid, he asks Thorn to look after his son Hal and wife Karina. Thanks to setbacks after this incident, Thorn BSODs too hard to fulfill the request at first. However, after a ferocious Get A Hold Of Yourself Man speech from Karina, he straightens himself out and becomes the mentor to Hal and the entire Heron brotherband.
- When a rescue helicopter crewman is dying in Jack Ryan's arms in Clear and Present Danger, he mentions that he has seven (soon to be eight) kids, and Jack volunteers to pay the college tuition for all of them. This brings unexpected complications in the next book, The Sum of All Fears.
- From Childe Morgan: King Donal Haldane wants Alyce de Corwyn to trigger his son Brion's Haldane potential if he dies before her son Alaric is old enough to do it, and he implants a mental compulsion in her to make certain. On her deathbed in the same book, Alyce asks this of her husband Kenneth in regards to their children, four-year-old Alaric and the newborn Bronwyn.
- Kristina says this to her own husband in The Emigrants when they think she's going to die from scurvy.
- In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fall of Gondolin, Rian asks Annael to look after the newborn Tuor before she goes to die at her husband's grave.
- Gods and Warriors: The only memory the main hero Hylas has of his Missing Mom is her telling him to take care of his little sister Issi when she left them on Mount Lykas when Hylas was five and Issi two years old. This memory is one of his biggest motivators to find Issi when they're separated for most of the series. It's revealed in Eye of the Falcon that their mother only left them to search for help, but she succumbed to illness. Her ghost appears briefly in the same book to tell Hylas that Issi's alive and beg him to find her.
- Happens no less than twice between Melly and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. The first time Melly believes she's going to die while giving birth to Beau and she asks Scarlett to raise him. The second time she really is dying and asks the same thing, saying, "I gave him to you once before, remember?"
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince reveals Voldemort's back story, which includes his mother stopping at an orphanage to give birth. She suffers Death by Childbirth an hour later after requesting that the staff name him "Tom Marvolo Riddle" after his father and maternal grandfather.
- Molly also asks this of Lupin, but it's just her over-worrying in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. To be fair, she has her reasons for concern.
- In Heralds Of Rhimn, Courtfather Snow’s request to Gildhe in his dying moments is for them to take care of the rest of the Frostbiter kids. Since Gildhe isn’t ready for that yet, the responsibility ends up falling on Charlan.
- Averted in Les Misérables — M. Madeleine, once he takes the sick Fantine into his care, tries to bring her daughter Cosette to her, hoping that the joy of seeing Cosette again would restore her to full health. However, Javert intervenes, revealing that Madeleine is an ex-convict, and Fantine dies of shock. After her death, however, Valjean promises her he will raise Cosette like his own, and he does.
- In The Lunar Chronicles, this is why Levana keeps her stepdaughter Winter around—Winter's father Evret was probably the only person whom Levana ever loved, and his last words were asking her to take care of Winter.
- In Mercy Kill, Bhindi Drayson is fatally wounded on a mission, and urges her second-in-command, Piggy, to "get these kids home safe". In a subversion, Piggy realizes that this attitude contributed to Bhindi making mistakes that, ultimately, killed her; in order to survive, he has to treat the other Wraiths not as children to be protected, but allies who know the risks of their trade, and who have to be put in harm's way impartially.
- In V. C. Andrews' Midnight Whispers, Dawn apparently shouted this to her brother Philip before she burned to death with her husband. He does take Christie and her brother in, but... to say it doesn't go well would be a serious understatement.
- Sense and Sensibility: The events of the novel are set in motion by the death of Henry Dashwood, who asks his wealthy son to take care of his stepmother and half-sisters. John promises he will... and doesn't. It's implied that he initially intends to make good on the promise, but his wife talks him out of it. He does provide them with six months of room and board at the family home, but his wife makes them feel increasingly unwelcome.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events:
- The Baudelaire kids promise to raise Kit Snicket's daughter before Kit dies giving birth.
- A variation is mentioned in The Bad Beginning, when Violet remembers her parents charging her to always take care of Klaus and Sunny when each younger sibling was born, but this, of course, was years before the parents actually died. However, as they were both part of a secret organization combating vicious criminals and had already lost several comrades, they probably knew even then that there was a good chance that they might be killed and Violet would have to take over.
- In the Warrior Cats book Forest of Secrets, Silverstream suffers Death by Childbirth. As she dies, her final words are telling her mate Graystripe that she loves him, and to take care of their kits.
Live-Action TV
- In a flashback in The Almighty Johnsons, the protagonists' mother has just told her 21-year-old son Mike that their entire family are reincarnations of Norse gods. She then tells him that she is tired of her life and is leaving the care of his younger brothers to him. She is going into a forest to transform into a tree and finally have some peace and quiet.
- In Babylon 5, a former friend of Londo's, on the outs with the current Centauri regime, arranges for Londo to look after his children and make them part of Londo's family, shielding them from his political misfortune, after their father's death. Said death comes at Londo's hands, as part of a duel, which the friend arranged specifically for this purpose.
- Desperate Housewives: Despite hating each other, Nora tells Lynette to take care of her daughter, Kayla, after she got shot during a hostage situation in the supermarket.
- He wasn't planning on dying, but Dexter asked his sister Deb to take care of his son when he was getting ready to leave everything behind after Rita's death at the beginning of season five.
- Doctor Who:
- "Amy's Choice": When Rory dies in the Leadworth dream, his last words to a pregnant Amy are "Take care of our baby."
- A surprising version occurs in "The Almost People". The "real" Jimmy dies trying to save everyone else and tells his ganger to take care of "their" son for him.
- Game of Thrones:
- In the Season Six finale, Lyanna Stark's final request is for her brother to take care of her son, Jon Snow (fathered by Rhaegar Targaryen), and hide him from Robert Baratheon.
- Robert asks Ned to be Joffrey's regent and guide him until he comes of age. This does not go well for Ned.
- Merlin: Before Morgana's father died, he asked his good friend Uther to take care of Morgana. Subverted in that Morgana's "father" wasn't her real father, Uther is.
- On the same show is a non-parental example: when faced with impending death, both Arthur and Guinevere ask Merlin to look after the other if something happens to them.
- In the series finale of Monk, Trudy's killer Judge Rickover tells Monk to "take care of her!" and then kills himself. Monk discovers that he was talking about Rickover and Trudy's daughter. Rickover had had Trudy and others killed to prevent the baby from ruining his political career.
- A non-fatal variant appears in Saved by the Bell after Jessie's mother remarries and she gains a stepbrother. The relationship is a little awkward, and the stepbrother makes plans to move back to New Jersey to live with his mother. His parting injunction to Slater, Jessie's boyfriend, is "Take care of my sister."
- A "friend" version in Smallville. Clark asks Oliver to take care of Chloe before he goes to face Doomsday.
- Tina Greer Last Words were "Take care of Lana" to Clark.
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Ethics", Worf asks Troi to raise Alexander if he dies during the experimental spinal surgery he's about to undergo. He pulls through, thanks to Contractual Immortality, but they do formalize the arrangement in a later episode.
- He tells her that this would make her, under Klingon law, the equivalent of his stepsister. She points out that this would make Lwaxana his stepmother. The thought almost makes him back out.
- Supernatural
- In the season 11 finale, before Dean leaves to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, he asks Castiel to take care of Sam, knowing his little brother will be a mess without him.
- Horribly subverted with John's death in season two — one of his last acts before he dies is to tell Dean that if he can't save Sam, he'll have to kill him.
- Inverted in one episode of Top Gear. Jeremy finds himself at the mercy of a pack of hunting dogs and tells his kids to take care of their mother.
- In Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's pilot episode, Dr. Quinn is asked by her friend, Charlotte, to look after the latter's children after she is fatally bitten by a rattlesnake.
Radio
- Used in The Adventures of Superman when the origin of Robin was given; in the radio version, Robin's father asked Bruce Wayne to take care of him.
Religion and Mythology
- Inverted in The Bible; when Jesus was on the cross, he saw his mother, Mary, standing with "the disciple whom he loved" and instructed him to take care of her from now on, which he did. Mary was implied to have been widowed by that point, and in ancient Judean culture would have needed a grown son for financial support. (Whether or not she had others is open for debate
.)
This may even be a twofer, as the disciple in question (John) was likely the Tagalong Kid among the Twelve (apart from being "significantly younger" than his brother James, it's unclear just how old John was at the point where he Jumped at the Call), "whom he loved" might mean Happily Adopted, and Jesus also instructs Mary to take care of John as if he were her son.
Role-Playing Games
- Used in Dino Attack RPG by Wallace Bishop. While he did not die, he knew that his self-induced lobotomy would leave him a mere shadow of the man he once was, so in his Video Will, he made it his Last Request that Frank Einstein would take care of his family, especially his young niece.
- Used in Cartesio as well, although technically not with kids. Before his execution, Franciscus asks Osomatsu to look after his Pokémon, whom he considers to be like his children.
Theatre
- In Les Misérables, Fantine (as she is dying) hallucinates that she sees her daughter playing. Depending on the writer, she might not be aware of her impending death; however, Valjean is, and he assures her before she dies that he will raise Cosette and take care of her.
Fantine: Take my hand, the night grows ever colder; take my child, I give her to your keeping... And tell Cosette I love her and I'll see her when I wake...
- The title character in The Duchess of Malfi asks her lady-in-waiting Cariola to look after her children when she's about to be murdered. Of course, Cariola and the children are themselves murdered shortly thereafter.
- This is how Quasimodo came to be in Frollo's care in the theatre production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Jehan, Quasi's father and Frollo's estranged brother, contacted Frollo so he could give him his infant son to care for. Frollo wasn't keen on the idea, as the baby was ugly and deformed; but when Jehan unceremoniously dies of his illness, Frollo believes that raising Quasimodo is the only righteous thing to do.
Video Games
- From the Final Fantasy series:
- Final Fantasy VII has two instances:
- A flashback sequence about Aerith's childhood has Elmyra finding Aerith at the train station next to her dying mother. Her mother's last request to Elmyra is to take care of Aerith.
- Dyne asks Barret to take care of his daughter, Marlene, after you defeat him.
- In Final Fantasy X, Jecht told Auron to take care of his son for him, just before he sacrificed himself to become the Final Aeon. In an odd variation, Auron couldn't find Jecht's son until he was dead himself.
- In Final Fantasy XII, Judge Gabranth, on his deathbed, asks Basch to take care of his ward, Lord Larsa Solidor, so that war may not erupt again. Being Gabranth's brother, Basch impersonates him to protect Larsa.
- Early in Final Fantasy XIII Hope's mother joins Snow (along with some other rebels). She's killed (along with pretty much every other volunteer, but they're not plot relevant) and she says this just before falling to her death. Since she didn't tell him who her son is, Snow has no idea who to protect and decides to protect all the children that were to be taken on The Purge. Meanwhile, Hope witnesses this and blames him for it, follows him, and ends up as a party member. The in-game synopsis notes that in a way, Snow manages to fulfill her request to protect her son by providing Hope with a target and thus a reason to persevere despite the odds.
- Final Fantasy VII has two instances:
- In The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, Klint van Zieks's last request to Genshin Asogi was to take care of his unborn child. When Genshin found himself on death row, he passed the request along to Yujin Mikotoba. However, the mother died in childbirth, and Yujin was recalled from Britain shortly thereafter. Not allowed to take an unknown baby with him overseas, he left the child in the care of Herlock Sholmes who's raised Iris ever since.
- In Jak 3: Wastelander, the dying Damas begs Jak to find his son Mar. He tells Jak that his son can be identified by a pendant. Said pendant is identical to the amulet worn by Jak's past child self in the previous game. Tragically, Damas dies not knowing the truth.
- In World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, right before the Battle of Razor Hill, Thrall asks Vol'jin to do this for his wife and newborn son, when Thrall decides to go into Orgrimmar to find any Orcs who are against Garrosh's rule despite knowing it's a suicide to go. Vol'jin obviously isn't very happy to hear this.
- A variant in Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Baron Reinhold asks this of whoever manages to solve the mystery of the golden apple. The "golden apple" in question is his daughter, Flora; upon resolving the matter, Layton adopts her.
- In Far Cry Primal, Takkar discovers that his erstwhile enemy, Warchief Ull of the Udam tribe, has a daughter and a baby, right after lethally injuring him in their confrontation. Ull, who can't bring himself to take his baby with him, instead asks Takkar to adopt both his children into the Wenja tribe to make sure they don't die of "skull fire", like all the grown-up Udam have been. Takkar grants Ull's last request.
- Tales of...
- Tales of Xillia 2: If you refuse to let go of Fractured Milla when she is being sucked into the summoning portal, and her Relationship Values with Ludger are high enough, then she tells Ludger to let her go so he can save Elle. If Ludger continues to hold on, she lets go herself and her last words plead to him to take care of Elle.
- Tales of Berseria: Shortly before the final battle, Velvet asks Eleanor to look after Laphicet if something should happen to her. Part of this is because they're going up against a god so survival is unlikely, but Velvet has also begun to suspect that her life is tied to the Big Bad, so if he dies she might too. Velvet ends up sealing him in a duel, while Laphicet becomes a god and takes his place. Eleanor decides the best way to fulfill her promise to Velvet is to turn the Abbey into a force of good that will support their new god.
- Dragon Age:
- In the Human Noble origin of Dragon Age: Origins, Teyrn Cousland is fatally wounded, and begs Warden-Commander Duncan to take care of his wife and younger child.
- In Dragon Age II, Hawke's father has died prior to the events of the game, and it's heavily implied that he imparted such an injunction to his eldest child regarding their mother and younger siblings. Hawke certainly spends most of the game trying to do exactly that, but given that Hawke is something of a Doom Magnet, it doesn't go well.
- Inverted if Bethany dies in the Deep Roads. She contracts the Blight and Hawke is forced to kill their only surviving sibling, rather than leave the girl to a horrible and drawn-out death. Bethany's parting words to Hawke are to say, "It's just you now. Take care of Mother."
- A variant appears in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but only if Hawke survives the events of the quest "Here Lies the Abyss." They volunteer to travel to Weisshaupt, to bring news of the events to the First Warden, and before leaving ask the Inquisitor to "take care of Varric for me." Varric is Hawke's best friend - and roughly forty years old at the time - but as far as Hawke is concerned he's family, so it counts.
- In Grand Theft Auto IV, Gerald McReary tells the main protagonist Niko Bellic to watch over his family just before he gets arrested. Depending on Niko's choices, he can fail Gerald with his brothers Derrick and Kate dying on his watch.
- A flashback scene in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim shows this happening with Megumi's father, Nozomu. Specifically, he was an astronaut who became infected with a virus while working on the Ark Project. He was refused re-entry to the colony ship, but because the eight-year-old Megumi wasn't infected, Nozomu asks Juro to watch over her in his stead.
- Inverted in the True Pacifist ending of Undertale, where it's a newly-ressurrected Asriel asking the player to look after his parents, due to him Living on Borrowed Time and about to revert back to being his soulless Flowey self.
"Take care of Mom and Dad for me, OK?"
Western Animation
- In Arcane, Vander is fatally wounded by an explosion and asks Vi to look after Powder before dying. However, Vi immediately learns Powder was indirectly responsible for Vander's death and by extension, Mylo's and Claggor's. In a rage, Vi assaults Powder and walks away from her, which led to her getting captured and Powder being taken in by Silco.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The original Black Canary's final speech exhorts Wildcat and the Justice Society to take care of her "little angel," (who then grows up to be the next Black Canary). They train her, but also tend to act overprotective of her even when she's an adult.
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers: In "A Mine is a Terrible Thing to Waste", the team begins swapping backstories while trying to get out of the old mine Plunder used to imprison them. When it's Ma-Ti's turn, he talks about his parents participating in a protest against clear-cutting the Amazon. Ma-Ti's parents insisted that he stay with his grandfather because the upcoming confrontation with the clear-cutting advocates could be dangerous. Given that the flashback shows that his parents began crying once he was out of sight, it's clear that they knew they would probably die and were making sure their son had a home.
- Darkwing Duck:
- Inverted in the episode "Toys Czar Us". Launchpad tells Darkwing that if something were to happen to him, he'd raise Gosalyn like she was his own daughter.
- In the episode "Dead Duck", Darkwing tells Launchpad to "take care of Gosalyn" as he says a final goodbye (which didn't turn out to be so final).
- Defenders of the Earth: When Kshin's grandfather, Hai, is fatally injured towards the end of "The Adoption of Kshin", he asks Mandrake to look after Kshin. Inverted; Mandrake has been a father figure to Kshin since they met on the streets of Singapore seven years earlier, whereas Hai has only recently re-entered Kshin's life.
- Gargoyles: Right before allowing the Magus to put him under the same indefinite sleep spell as the rest of his clan, Goliath asks the Magus and Princess Catherine to protect his clan's eggs. They do.
- Implied in the Galaxy Rangers episode "Psychocrypt" when Zach decides to make his suicide run. He asks his home AI to "take care of everything." Gee-Vee doesn't quite get it, but the audience does.
- An inversion takes place in Steven Universe. In "Lion 3: Straight to Video", Rose Quartz ends her video message to Steven by telling him to take care of "them", "them" being the people she will leave behind with her sacrifice to bring Steven into existence.
- Samurai Jack: After robot assassin X9 is killed by Jack, he asks Jack to take care of his dog Lulu (who was kidnapped by Aku to threaten X9 out of retirement) before shutting down. Even Jack looks down somewhat sympathetically at the robot before walking away.
- Final Space: In Episode 6, Avocato is eventually forced to sacrifice himself to save his son and friends from a bomb. His last words to Gary are:
Avocato: Take care of my boy.
- The Dragon Prince: A few of Harrow's last words to his stepson, Callum, are "take care of your brother for me".
Real Life
- After being shot by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, considered the spark that started World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand's last words were (to his wife) "Sophie, Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!" Tragically, Sophie was already unconscious and near death at this point, if not dead already; her final words had been "For God's sake, what has happened to you?!" The children (Sophie, Maximilian, and Ernst) were deported after their kingdom was destroyed and spent some time at the Dachau concentration camp. Eventually, they would receive their family's castle back.
- During The Holocaust, many Jewish parents turned their children over to Christian orphanages, secret helpers, or even just other Jews who had a better chance of escape for one reason or another.
- The Blitz Evacuees: Many parents in London put their children on trains to more remote parts of the country during the German Blitz in World War II so that they could escape the frequent bombings in the city. The parents who didn't have relatives to send their children to had no way of knowing if they would ever see them again; they had to trust that the distant strangers who were opening their homes would take good care of them.
- For a more recent example, there were the events of September 11, 2001. As many parents trapped in the doomed towers and on the planes could contact their spouse/loved ones with cellphones, they often made this their dying request.
