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Living on Borrowed Time: Difference between revisions

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Living on Borrowed Time (view source)

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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* {{spoiler|Yuko Ichihara}} of ''[[XXX HolicXxxHolic]]'' technically died several hundred years ago, but a [[Reality Warper|reality warp]] put that on "hold" for a while. She undid the warp that was keeping her alive as payment to let two [[Cloning Blues|clones]] into the cycle of reincarnation, and all was as if her death had occurred originally, except for a few people with [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory]].
* The entirety of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' is part of what [[The Hero|Spike]] considers borrowed time: Due to an undisclosed event in his back-story he believes he's already dead and only living out a [[Dying Dream]] he has yet to wake from.
* {{spoiler|Zest}} in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S (Anime)StrikerS|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S]]'' is revealed to be a former TSAB agent resurrected by Scaglietti with his cyborg project. Even after resurrection, his body is constantly degenerating, and he believes that he's running on borrowed time in order to finish some business with the TSAB.
* In ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'', every single character has an appointed time to die. You can see it with a Shinigami's eyes, but you have to trade half your life to get those eyes.
** In addition, you can't read the lifespan of a Shinigami or someone who owns a Death Note. And you still can't see your own. And it's not really guaranteed that people survive until their appointed time...
* In chapter 311 of ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'', {{spoiler|Meryem is doomed to die in a matter of hours thanks to the Rose bomb's poison.}}
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[DOA (Film)|D.O.A.]]'' is the [[Trope Codifier]], with a protagonist who's been poisoned in a manner that has no antidote.
{{quote| '''Detective:''' Who was murdered? <br />
'''Frank Bigelow:''' I was. }}
* This is the driving premise for action in ''[[Crank (Film)|Crank]]''. {{spoiler|At the very end of the first movie, Chev literally tapes a life support machine to himself.}}
** In ''Crank 2'', Chev has his heart replaced by a machine, which technically qualifies him as a [[Cyborg]].
* ''[[Joe Versus the Volcano]]''. Joe agrees to kill himself by jumping into a volcano because he's dying of a brain cloud. {{spoiler|He isn't. It was a failed [[Batman Gambit]] to get him to jump.}}
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* In ''[[Star Wars]]'', Darth Vader lives in a life-support suit.
** The [[Expanded Universe]] has Palpatine [[Came Back Strong|get better. Much better.]] But [[The Dark Side]] corrupts his clone bodies, so he has to keep using new ones, and each new body is corrupted more quickly. Then his clone bodies are killed by [[The Starscream|his apprentices]]. There's a mild double subversion: He tries to possess Han and Leia's son, but fails.
* The ''[[Final Destination (Film)|Final Destination]]'' films run on this; all the protagonists have somehow cheated death, and Fate is trying to redress the balance.
* The [[Artificial Human|Replicants]] in ''[[Blade Runner (Film)|Blade Runner]]'' have a four year lifespan. In both the movie and the tie-in game the antagonist Replicants attack their creator {{spoiler|who is already dead and has been replaced by a Replicant, possibly more than once}} so that he will extend their lifespans. Sadly, according to their creator the limited lifespan is not a design choice -- it is ''impossible'' to give the Replicants more time than that. Time that they have wasted on violence and revenge.
* In ''[[L Change the World (Film)|L: Change the World]]'', L gives himself 23 days to live in order to beat Light, sealing his death from the moment he writes his own name down in the Death Note. The rest of the movie he spends trying to solve one last case before he dies.
* Literal example: In [[In Time]], lifespan has become a currency. Naturally, a number of poor people are in debt, and thus literally living on borrowed time.
 
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* ''[[The New Avengers]]'' had an episode about an enemy agent who had a bullet working its way toward his brain, and was desperate to kill Steed before that happened.
* Burai of ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger]]''. His days were numbered- literally. He already died once before the events of the series when his sleep chamber collapsed while he was still inside during his suspended animation, but Clotho, the Spirit of Life, revived him to assist the Zyurangers, but only for a limited period. Burai's remaining time was represented by a flickering green candle that would gradually melt down with each passing hour and the only way Burai could preserve his limited lifespan was by staying inside a "lapseless room". Because of this, Burai would only get out of his room to assist the Zyurangers whenever they seriously needed him. The longer Burai would stay outside his room, the less time he had left to live.
** When he came back, Tommy, the [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|American equivalent]], knew he had only a few morphs before he would [[Never Say "Die"|lose his powers]]. ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue]]'' gave us another [[Sixth Ranger]] who was ''actually'' [[Living Onon Borrowed Time]], cursed with a snake marking that would move higher on his body with each morph. If it reaches his neck, it's adios. Of course, given the nature of the trope...
* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', captain John Sheridan was killed but later revived with an infusion of life energy. He is later told that he only has a maximum of twenty years left before this energy burns out.
 
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** Can count as [[Miles to Go Before I Sleep]], and is thus on that page too.
** In 3.5 proper, ''The Book of Exalted Deeds'' gives us the Risen Martyr [[Prestige Class]]. Someone who has died in the name of a good cause is brought back and granted special powers to fulfill that cause. When the work is finished or they have reached eleven levels after the point of resurrection (whichever comes first), the Risen Martyr is taken bodily into the Higher Planes and granted whatever reward is waiting for them.
* ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering]]'', always eager to have every applicable trope, gives us fading and vanishing. A character with fading X has X fade counters, and each of its controller's turns, that player removes one fade counter or sacrifices it. Vanishing is the same, only once the last time counter is removed, the card is sacrificed. Uses for this vary from "make a creature cheaper" to actually tying removing counters to its ability.
* In [[Ravenloft]], Gennifer Weathermay-Foxgrove is given a pocket watch literally named ''Borrowed Time'' by a Vistani, which she later returns. The watch's powers are somewhat vague in the narrative, but it's implied that using it will save the user's life at the expense of making her death inevitable at some point in the indeterminate future.
 
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** Unexpectedly with {{spoiler|Naomi}}, who had been suffering from terminal cancer for years and {{spoiler|only kept the appearance of being healthy and staying alive with nanomachines in her body. When she thinks her part in stoping Ocelot is done, she shuts the system off and dies.}}
** Also {{spoiler|Big Boss and Zero. Big Boss is still healthy, but with everyone he knows dead because of him, he also feels it's his time to go. Zero is ancient, paralyzed, and barely aware of anything, but refuses to die until Big Boss shuts off his oxygen support.}}
* ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'': It's implied that {{spoiler|the Masked Man}} died a few years before he shows up.
* This is implied to be what is happening to {{spoiler|the Main Character}} in ''[[Persona 3]]'' in the aftermath of the final battle-- [[The Determinator|kept alive only]] by the [[Heroic Willpower|strength]] of [[The Promise|a promise]] [[The Power of Friendship|to meet again]] [[Exact Time to Failure|after graduation]].
* In ''[[Nethack]]'' if you use a scroll of genocide on your normal race while polymorphed into something else, "you feel dead inside" and [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|will die should you change back]]. If you quit, the death message is "quit while already on Charon's boat".
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** The spirit is fused with her, so it doesn't have any choice in the matter any more, but its power is limited, and will fail eventually.
** ''All'' Grey Wardens fit this trope. To gain their darkspawn senses and taint immunity, they take in a cocktail of Darkspawn blood and partially transform. Unfortunately, the immunity isn't total. Eventually, the taint drives them mad with neverending prophetic dreams of Darkspawn as the taint takes over their minds. At that point, Senior Wardens retreat to the Deep Roads and choose to go out in a blaze of glory against the Darkspawn.
*** The ''Awakening'' expansion reveals that [[Blessed Withwith Suck|mages]] are immune to this particular side-effect of the taint, because their awakened connection to the Fade. Mind you, they still have all the other bad side-effects of both Wardens ''and'' Mages, which makes the extended lifespan something of a double-edged sword.
* In ''[[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight]]'', this happens to {{spoiler|Shirou}} in the normal end of the Heaven's Feel route. Running only on pure determination to stop {{spoiler|Angra Mainyu}}, he manages to {{spoiler|project Excalibur and destroy the Grail}}, even after his mind has long been destroyed and his body is constantly being destroyed by blades.
* This happens to {{spoiler|Alcatraz}} in Crysis 2. {{spoiler|He sustains fatal wounds from the Ceph gunship attack in the ''opening cutscene'', but the Nanosuit keeps him alive - even if that means ''growing into his wounds'' to keep him going.}}
 
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* This is Anevka Sturmvoraus's backstory in [[Girl Genius]]. She was fatally injured by one of her father's experiments and began to waste away before her brother Tarvek managed to build a casket-like machine to preserve her ailing body. Anevka's body was connected by pneumatic tubes to an external robot that enabled her to see, speak, and move as long as she stayed within reach of the casket, becoming a mix of [[Brain In Aa Jar]] and [[Man in Thethe Machine]]. {{spoiler|It is eventually revealed that Anevka's body gradually weakened to the point that she had virtually no influence on the robot, who had become self-aware with her personality. When the pneumatic tubes are accidentally cut off, everyone ([[What Have I Become?|Robot!Anevka included]]) is surprised to learn that her human body is dead and the robot has been acting independently for years.}}
 
 
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