Tybalt's death is essential to the remainder of the plot in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. His death leads to two very important events. First, the fact that Romeo killed Tybalt forces the Prince to sentence Romeo to exile. Romeo is banished to Mantua. This is crucial as Friar Lawrence's message to Romeo about Juliet faking her death is delayed when Friar John is quarantined due to a plague threat. The only message which Romeo receives is from Balthasar, who tells him that Juliet is dead. Romeo, distraught, then plots his own suicide.
Second, Tybalt's death causes Lord Capulet to devise a "day of joy" to make up for the family's loss. He agrees to marry Juliet to Count Paris, even after qualifying Paris's request in Act I. He plans to marry Juliet and Paris in just two days' time. Juliet panics and seeks advice from the Friar, who gives her the potion which will render her lifeless for almost two days. When she awakens in the tomb, Romeo has already killed himself, so she takes his dagger and stabs herself.
The theme revolving around Tybalt's death involves fate. Romeo and Juliet are destined to commit suicide. Shakespeare announces this verdict in the Prologue: "A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life." Romeo is ruled by fate. He indicates this in his aside in Act I, Scene 4, after Mercutio's Queen Mab speech:
I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
Romeo has already predicted his own death and the fight with Tybalt is simply the vehicle Shakespeare uses to fulfill this prophecy. Romeo realizes his folly immediately after Tybalt falls in Act III, Scene 1 when he says, "O, I am Fortune’s fool!" Tybalt's death puts in motion the tragic sequence which finds Romeo and Juliet dead in the Capulets' tomb at the end of the play.
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