About

"You Killed My Father, Prepare to Die" is a phrase from the popular 1987 romantic comedy The Princess Bride. Because the line is repeated so often and has such a strong meaning to one of the characters, it became common for fans to repeat it, especially mockingly before moments of conflict.

Origin

The Princess Bride was released on October 9th, 1987. The movie features a character named Inigo Montoya played by Mandy Patinkin, who is obsessed with avenging his father's death. He explains to a new acquaintance when he meets the man who killed his father he attends to say,

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

When he finally confronts his father's killer, he repeats the phrase over and over as he fights him.

Spread

The earliest clip featuring the phrase uploaded to YouTube was uploaded by YouTuber wattstopper101^[3] on July 18th, 2008. On December 30th, 2009, the Facebook community page^[4] "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die" was created, as of October 2014, the page has gained over 9,000 likes. On January 2nd, 2010, TV Tropes^[6] published an entry for My Name Is Inigo Montoya which defined it as:

"Before a duel begins, one character announces himself to his opponent without any prompting because he wants his target to know who is about to pound him."

On December 12th, Urban Dictionary^[5] user lrb323 submitted an entry for the phrase, defining it as:

"A greeting used to proclaim one's intention to kill based on past murders. More specifically, if you happen to be in the movie The Princess Bride."

On August 11th, 2011, Redditor rhm54 posted a picture of the character Inigo Montoya made out of "Hello, my name is" name tags to the /r/pics/^[7] subreddit. As of October 2014, the post has gained over 1,000 notes, and the picture was covered by several websites including Neatorama.^[8]

On January 23rd, 2013, Gothamist^[9] reported a man flying to New Zealand wearing a shirt with the phrase had upset some passengers unfamiliar with the film. The incident was also reported on by The Huffington Post^[10] and Yahoo.^[11]

As of October 2014, there are over 1,000 fan art submissions tagged "you killed my father, prepare to die" on DeviantArt.^[2]

Search Interest

External References