"Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' Then you can tell them, 'They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the LORD's Covenant went across.' These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever."
— Joshua, Joshua 4:5-7, The Bible
This index is for tropes that relate to anything built or created to memorialize someone or something. These are typically created to honor a person — usually dead but possibly alive if the Setting is a People's Republic of Tyranny — or to celebrate a great victory.
Related to Spectacle and Victory and Defeat. See also Death Tropes (which often mark the occasion for memorials), Funeral Tropes, and Breaking and Destruction Tropes (since they often suffer this fate). For Real Life examples of famous statues and monuments, go to the Art page.
Tropes:
Related Indices:
- Alternate Landmark History: An alternate, fictional backstory is given to a famous monument or landmark and why it was built (mostly to cover up some government conspiracy).
- Celebrity Elegy: A song mourning a recently deceased celebrity.
- Dedication: A work is cited or nominated in honor of someone.
- Due to the Dead: How a deceased character is memorialized is based on their morality: good characters get a respectful, dignified funeral service, while bad characters desecrate/mutilate their dead.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: The location's most iconic landmark is featured in establishing shots.
- Embarrassing Statue: A statue or public work of art that is a source of embarrassment for its subject.
- Empty Bedroom Grieving: A missing and/or deceased person's bedroom is maintained the way they had left it by loved ones, usually as a shrine.
- Empty Chair Memorial: To honor the memory of a dead person, the chair they used to sit in is left empty.
- Fantasy Landmark Equivalent: A fictional landmark or monument is based on a famous real-life one.
- Highly Visible Landmark: Monument that helps with player and viewer orientation.
- In Memoriam: A work is dedicated to someone who died before the work was released.
- Landmark of Lore: A famous landmark is frequently the subject of lots of intrigue and mystery in fiction.
- Landmarking the Hidden Base: When landmarks contain hidden headquarters.
- Living Statue: A statue who is alive.
- Memorial Character: A character who is named after a loved one of the creator who died.
- Memorial Photo: A photo of the deceased when they were alive is used in situations where open-casket funerals are out of the question.
- Memorial Statue: A statue to honor a dead person, who have heroically died saving somebody else, dedicated their lives to the greater good, created a successful organization or something else.
- Mistaken for Granite: When something that is initially thought to be an inanimate statue is actually alive.
- Monumental Battle: A battle sequence takes place on or near some famous monument or landmark.
- Monumental Damage: A monument gets destroyed to demonstrate how serious the threat of the villains is.
- Monumental Damage Resistance: EVERYTHING gets destroyed... except the landmarks.
- Monument of Humiliation and Defeat: A conquered people are forced by their conquerors to build a monument dedicated to their defeat just to rub it in.
- Monumental Theft: A villain's plan involves stealing the world's monuments.
- Monumental View: The view outside of a location doesn't match with its surroundings, and frequently shows a landmark in the wrong place.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: A character hides by pretending to be a statue or something similar.
- Our Founder: A town has a statue of the town's founder.
- Our Gargoyles Rock: Gargoyles are living beings instead of just being sculptures of winged monsters.
- Portal Statue Pairs: Entryways into epic buildings or regions are flanked by two impressive statues.
- Posthumous Credit: A work that was released after someone who worked on it died still gives credit for the contributions of the deceased cast or crew member.
- Pygmalion Plot: A character creates a statue which comes to life and falls in love with it.
- Rushmore Refacement: A villain's scheme is to add faces to Mt. Rushmore or change the faces that are already on it.
- Shrine to the Fallen: A monument/shrine that serves to honor and memorialize those who have died.
- Taken for Granite: Getting turned to stone.
- Terrifying Tiki: Tikis are portrayed as intimidating, scary, and malevolent beings.
- Tilting Tower of Pisa: Something happens to the Leaning Tower of Pisa that either makes it stand upright or lean the other way and fall down.
- Toppled Statue: A statue/effigy representing a certain location is toppled over to represent its destruction/downfall.
- Tribute to Fido: The author's deceased pet is memorialized in some way in their work.
- War Memorial: Those who have lost their lives in a war (or a battle of some kind) are memorialized in dedication.
- Wax Museum Morgue: A wax museum where the "statues" are really the preserved corpses of people the owner has killed.
- Weaponized Landmark: A famous landmark also doubles as a deadly weapon and is used during a climactic fight scene.
