# With This Character's Death A game-over message from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, warning that killing an Essential NPC has broken the main quest, began appearing on Facebook in February 2017 pasted over real-world deaths. By that August, Tumblr users were slapping the Morrowind card onto photos of anti-vaxxers and shooting victims to mock irreversible real-life choices. ## Origin The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind shipped on May 1, 2002, and used the death screen as a safety net: if a player killed an NPC flagged Essential, the game paused with the warning rather than letting the quest line quietly break[4]. Fifteen years passed before the card itself was treated as a meme template[3]. The earliest documented meme use came from Facebook page Humans of Morrowind on February 10, 2017, which pasted the text over an image of the Kennedy assassination and pulled more than 347 reactions[1]. No individual creator claimed authorship of the format. - **Platform:** The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (source) / Facebook (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2017 ## Overview With This Character's Death is the on-screen message Morrowind displays whenever a player kills an Essential NPC, meaning a character scripted as load-bearing for the main story[4]. The full card 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'[3]. Online, people screenshot that card and overlay it on photographs of real deaths, famous paintings of deaths, or news images of fatal accidents, as if the subject had been an Essential NPC in a cosmic save file[1]. The joke lands on the game's stern second-person voice, since it scolds the viewer for the dead person's choices and offers an impossible fix. Variants often target people whose deaths were self-inflicted or avoidable, turning the prophecy wording into a dry commentary on irreversible decisions[2]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is With This Character's Death? It is the warning message from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind that appears when a player kills a story-critical Essential NPC, reused since 2017 as an image macro over real or painted deaths[3]. ### Where did With This Character's Death come from? The text is the in-game death screen for Essential NPCs in Morrowind, which launched on May 1, 2002[4]. Its meme life began on Facebook in February 2017[1]. ### What does With This Character's Death mean? In Morrowind, it warns that the main quest is now broken and tells the player to reload a save; as a meme, it jokes that a real-world death has permanently broken the 'thread of prophecy'[3]. ### How do you use With This Character's Death? People typically overlay the Morrowind card on a photo or painting of someone's death, letting the game's scolding voice read the scene as an unrecoverable save file[2]. ### Is With This Character's Death still popular? It is a classic Morrowind-flavored template that cycles back whenever a notable death hits the news, with its last widely cited post landing in 2018 on r/me_irl[3]. ## References 1. [https://www.facebook.com/HumansOfMorrowind/photos/a.1558314034450042/1859766467638129/?type=3&theater]() 2. [https://www.facebook.com/thephilosophersmeme/photos/a.1652774414956178/1917334561833494/?type=3&theater]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/with-this-characters-death]() 4. [https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_III:_Morrowind]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/with-this-characters-death Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library