About

"So You Have Chosen Death" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Saruman from the 2001 fantasy film Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The line has since been used as part of a reaction image and a catchphrase online.

Origin

On December 19th, 2001, the film Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released in the United States.^[1] In the film, the wizard Saruman imprisons his former pupil Ganfalf (portrayed by Sir Christopher Lee and Sir Ian McKellen, respectively). He gives Gandalf an ultimatum: Join his cause or die. When Gandalf escapes, Saruman says to himself, "So you have chosen death."

On December 18th, 2013, Neil Magan uploaded the clip to YouTube, where it received more than 7,700 views in six years (shown below).

Spread

The following year, on August 7th, 2014, the line was used as the subject of a motivational poster-style image by Blogspot ^[2] user famousquotesbest (shown below, left).

Three years later, people online began using the phrase as a reaction image, placing the line not just in moments from the aforementioned scene, but other scenes featuring Saruman. On May 7th, 2017, Redditor ^[3] KekistanInfantry posted a variation of the image and captioned, "So France, you have chosen death." The post received more than 860 points (90% upvoted) in two years (shown below, center).

On July 9th, 2018, iFunny ^[4] user TheLordOfTheRings posted a version that reads "when there is a fly stuck in your room so you open the window widely for it to escape but it still can't find its way out." The post received more than 230 upvotes in one year (shown below, right).

On June 19th, 2019, Redditor^[5] Flitwick87 used the phrase as the title to a Drakeposting-styled meme about the Lord of the Rings character Arwen. The post received more than 24,000 points (94% upvoted) and 390 comments in less than one month (shown below).

The meme documentation websites memepedia^[6] and memeing.world^[7] have both covered the meme.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References