With This Character's Death

About

With This Character's Death is a copypasta taken from Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The copypasta reads, "With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created," and appears when a player kills an "Essential NPC" in the game. The on-screen card with the message has been used in parodies online when people die in real life.

Origin

In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, released May 1st, 2002,^[1] when an Essential NPC dies, a message will appear on screen reading, "With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created."

Spread

The in-game screen with the text began seeing use in jokes starting in February of 2017. On February 10th, 2017, Facebook^[2] meme page Humans of Morrowind used the text on an image of the Kennedy assassination, gaining over 347 reactions (shown below, left). On February 19th, Facebook page The Philosopher's Meme^[3] posted an example using The Death of Socrates, gaining over 1,500 reactions (shown below, right).

The format continued seeing use over the following several years, especially when connected to deaths in current events. On August 1st, 2017, Tumblr user nentindo posted a Claims to Be Pro-life, Dies Anyway image with the text, gaining over 3,000 notes (shown below, left). On August 24th, 2018, a version of the meme with Stefan Karl was posted to /r/me_irl (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References