Okay, everybody loves the "Dramatic Self Sacrifice For Your Loved One/s" trope, right? It's talked about pretty regularly, alongside the whole "We Can Both Survive This/Make It Out Together."
A twist of both these tropes that I am *increasingly* fond of is "Person Who Loves Life Sacrificing Themself So The Person Who Hates It Can Live."
It's just incredible no matter how you make it.
Romantically? The person who hates life will have to grapple with the loss of their better half and driving force. They could become a better person after losing their lover, finding peace and building their own meaning out of life, finally learning to be free and happy and maybe falling in love again. They could become a *worse* person (and corruption arcs are ALWAYS fun to watch) because the *one thread* tying them to their humanity is now dead and gone and, once they've avenged their lover... they have nothing else; they can't (or won't) find meaning in the life that they were given because they lost the *one thing* that would have made their life worthwhile.
Friendships? That's very nearly what we get with Hawkeye and Black Widow.
Mentor/Mentored? It's tragic either way. The Mentored usually survives this (the dead parents/sensei figure is usually a driving force in the narrative), but usually the Mentor is willingly sacrificing themself and both want to live. But, this? The older person taking in, loving, caring for, *protecting* this broken younger person? Teaching them everything they could, despite the lack of care the younger person actually had? Trying to show them where to find meaning and joy and *peace* and slowly building a happy relationship with them, before something happens, and (in one fell swoop) the Mentored is left dealing with the loss of most of that? All they have left is a desire for vengeance and the handful of things their Mentor left behind. Or, worse, what we nearly had *twice* with Joel from the Last of Us. Older, grizzled person, going through the motions, takes this moronic little idiot under their wing and teaches them everything they can, before something... happens. And now they're left picking up the pieces, all over again, and having to bury this child.
Idk man, I don't think this trope is talked about enough lol
