Can we talk about POINTLESS CHARACTER DEATHS?! (Potential Spoilers head!)

[DuctTapeKatar]

Has anyone else ever looked at a minor character from a book, movie, etc. and thought, "Wow, I really wish they played a larger part," only for them to get killed off almost instantly? Or even worse, they are only there to show that the bad guy is eeeeeeeeevuuuuuul?

Here's the example which comes to mind right away:

In the third manga for Akame ga Kill, we are introduced to Supia, who was introduced as a girl capable of wielding a magical spear, meaning that she was strong, and that she's single, though its not because that she's a bit feisty. And what happens next? What shall she contribute to the dark tale which is Akame ga Kill? Dies of shock as her face is peeled off by the eeeeeeeeevuuuuul boy/girl-thing Nyau for his/her/its collection of peeled-off faces. I mean, this lady, supposedly able to wield a magic weapon which is a feat of its own, is killed panels after her introduction (Heck, the fight scene isn't even that good: You see three bad guys, some guards, and then the guards disappear into big bloody chunks, then they talk for a bit).

Now, this is the biggest thing that irks me: What did we gain from having this character introduced? Proof that the bad-guys are bad guys? Heck, I can almost say ANY scene in Akame ga Kill which involves torture, since we have plenty of that lying around, and even then, its mostly used for shock value than actual story!

Are there any other deaths in shows that get on your nerves? I want to dig through examples, see what to avoid and what to lean toward for some stories I'm working on. Of course, I want to look at pointless deaths, and not those which contribute to anything to the story.

[Razade]

Having finished the first book of the Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne I feel that

Both Ha Lin and Pater were kind of pointless. I get they were meant to be serious but Pater's death especially felt just like "oh and he's dead."

[digiman619]

Two leap to mind:
Lian Harper (Arsenal's 6ish year old) in Cry For Justice, especially because it was done off panel for cheap drama and to get her father into a 'darker and edgier' gimmick.
Atremis in The Culling. Not only do they introduce the Young Justice version of her (i.e., based of the cartoon, but not in its continuity), only to kill her in the same issue! All to prove how "powerful" and "mighty" Harvest is, despite him supposed to be a good guy!

[BiblioRook]

Character death is a pretty touchy thing with me, even with minor characters more then once it alone was enough to make me abandon/avoid entire series just because one character died unnecessarily. (That can be taken different ways, I'm not saying that characters shouldn't die period, but often deaths are made to be unnecessarily over the top, brutal, and sadistic just to up the shock value or rub it in the reader/viewers face.)

Some examples that come to mind.

Now I never actually finished the Harry Potter series for different reasons as I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder growing up and only got to about half-way through (about the time I graduated high school), but being older and mellowing out a little I thought maybe I could revisit it some day, who knows? But then I read about the end and all immediately lost all interest. I'm not talking about the big climatic end, I mean more the wrap-up part of the end. Granted like I said I never read this personally so I might have parts of it wrong, but from the sounds of it the series ends along the lines of "Congratulations, you defeated the Big Bad! Now here's a list of major characters who just happened to die off-screen.". THe likes of Tonks and Lupin especially irritated me because I (as well as quite a few others) actually really rather liked them but seem to be killed off just as an excuse to further show off how such a nice guy Harry Potter was by adopting their newly orphaned child despite being right out of High School. Actually did he even graduate?

I also probably can never willfully watch Jurassic World just for the knowledge of the one secretary's death scene. You know, the one where the pterodactyls gleefully play with her still living body in brutal ways before putting her out of her misery? Ugh.

[Lurkmoar]

That one in Serenity. What was the point of that beyond just tormenting the cast and the audience?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Actually did he even graduate?

No. But somehow he still got the job without having his high school diploma.

[Darth Tom]

I also probably can never willfully watch Jurassic World just for the knowledge of the one secretary's death scene. You know, the one where the pterodactyls gleefully play with her still living body in brutal ways before putting her out of her misery? Ugh.

Same. Not going to happen.

[Fawkes]

No. But somehow he still got the job without having his high school diploma.

To be fair, giving the kids who fought in a war a free pass on that last year when their school was run by wizard nazis is pretty much the least stupid thing to happen in Harry Potter.

Back to the OT, Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones has a big reputation for being ruthless with its main characters, but it also throws heaping spoonfuls of minor characters through the grinder. A lot of this comes from the way the books are written - since we're seeing the story through character perspectives, everyone they know the name of, we know the name of, so a LOT of named characters show up only in the chapter where they bite the dust. (RIP Sir Vardis Egen, too good for this world.) The books also play with this in the prologues, where we get the POV of a character who we know isn't going to survive the chapter. Generally, these characters don't impact the world or the plot, but instead offer a glimpse of something coming.

To me at least, this doesn't actually become a problem until we get to book 4 and those one-off POV chapters start to bleed into the main chapters...
...and we end up getting one pointless chapter of Arys Oakheart before he gets an axe to the face and a whole book of Quentyn running around doing nothing important before he gets roasted.

[druid91]

No. But somehow he still got the job without having his high school diploma.

Actually, he did graduate his O.W.L.S.

Then instead of doing N.E.W.T.S. He killed a Dark Lord.

Seems like a valid prior experience to me.

[Metahuman1]

Attack on Titan. The manage is worse by a noticeable margin on this front as you are NEVER spared any of the details, and being that it's further along, we've had a lot more time for it to do nothing but keep escalating the same crap.

The most telling early example of how much they had to tone it down for the still awful anime is when the mother dies (Chapter 2 in the manga. Ep 1 in the anime.). We get most of her with her legs trapped and seriously injured from the wall getting kicked in, and telling her kids and yelling at the soldier to just get out of there and save themselves.

We see the Titan show up and grab her and we know what's coming.

We see the Soldier taking Eren away, holding him facing back in the direction cause he wouldn't abandon her, and Mikasa running along with them.




And in the anime that's it. Sound effect, cut to the next bit.



In the manga, we are treated to agonizing over every though going through the mothers mind about how desperately she doesn't want to die now, like this, how much she has to live for, and her having to clamp her own hands over her mouth during her death because she let it out once that she didn't want them to leave her even thought she knew they had to. and we see. Ever. Single. Gore. Soaked. Detail. Of. Her. Being. Eaten. Alive. As. Her. Means. Of. Dyeing.

And people wonder why I have a beef with that franchise and don't buy that it doesn't run and live and die by blood guts and gore and shock value and mindless girmdarkness for it's own sake.



RWBY. Volume 3 was the show getting a lot darker by the end. And, alright, some of it was inexpertly written but it made sense. It hurt. But by and large it was tolerable. Till the last ep of the volume.

Phyrra's death came at a point were it was no longer necessary. We had, by all appearance's, killed off the head master, 2 of the last bastions of humanity had for all practical intentions and purposes fallen with the other 2 set to be at one another's throats leaving them easy pickings, a Title character had been brutally beaten with sexual assault overtones from what was heavily implied to be her abusive creepy rapey stalker Ex, who then when another title character leapt to the first one's defense lopped THAT title characters arm off. (I should mention this was after that second one was publically framed and disgraced, which was NEVER corrected incidentally.)

We'd killed the easily most likeable bad guy and probably the only one with even a prayer for redemption. Unceremoniously, cause that happens in war.

The Villianess had ascended to if not god-hood then Demi-god hood at a minimum.

The ancient pseudo lovecraftian evil beings were on the move.

The robot Army that was gonna be the saviors of humanity had been turned on them.

And we'd tricked poor Phyrra into murdering another well liked character brutally. It wasn't her fault but still. And on top of that, we'd had Phyrra sitting there thinking that it was her fault all this happened cause she was hesitant about giving up her humanity at the drop of a hat with little to know consideration.

By the time we got to that final fight, we knew things were desperately bad. There was zero need to kill her. And, for shock value and sake of darkness and as a source of development for her male love interest, we did it anyway.

Show's on probation far as I'm concerned right now. If this crap keeps up I'll be gone from it soon enough.


Ok, let me think.

Star Wars expanded universe: Before it left Canon, Chewy, Anakin Solo, Mara Jade Skywalker and Jacen Solo all freaking HURT. and while Anakin's squeeze didn't die in as far as I recall off the top of my head, that was a brutal case of character assassination.

Hell I maintain Han's death in Episode 7 was a bit too soon.

Let the man go out in a blaze of Glory in episode 8 after getting to get in some time with him and Luke and Leia and Chewy all on screen together one, last, time.



I recall, because I read the books way longer then I really should have, one of the later Anita Blake Books. One of her WereLions who was long established as a weaker Lycan who was basially just a college kid going into a mostly academic career path and trying to keep the supernatural side of his life minimized got murdered pretty bad.

The male Dominant for her Werelion pride decided to beat the $(!% out of him for reasons I don't recall well. She put him under her protection, along with 2 of the other werelionesses. And 1 of her Wererat body guards that she has for diplomatic reasons and because that character was one of the coolest ideas introduced but never capitalize on.

So, Anita herself is barely a Lycan (it's weird, go with it.) and is 5'3ft 120lbs or so. With a pair of knives cause guns aren't allowed in these kinds of fights for dominance.

1 Woman is about the same size. Both of these women have martial arts experience.

The third woman is 5'8ft and her weight is never specified, but she's not specified as having like a weight lifter or martial artists build, and has no training and little fighting experience.

The male Lycan in question is 6ft tall or so, built like a weight lifter, and a professional mob enforcer, thug and 2nd rate hit man for his whole career. And a powerful Lycan.

Naturally this fight is stacked until the body guard declares she's in on it.

The body guard is a woman. She is also a VERY serious weight lifter, a VERY powerful Lycan in her own right, and is 6'6ft and while of an unspecified weight, it's implied she likely outweighs the dude by a significant margin, and is a former Special Forces and Black Ops Spook for quite a few years before becoming a Lycan.

And sure enough once she get's into said fight, she dominates, she'd taking this jerk apart piece by piece. And then he cheats, and shoots her with a .357 magnum that he hid from her cause the writer doesn't know what she's doing as well as she'd like you to think.

Anyway, having Worfed her best character (again.) at a moment when there should have been no way, we not have special snow flake Anita get rescued by the guy he was gonna protect who get's his brains literally blown out of his skull for his trouble, and then makes with guns herself and straight up executes the bad guy Werelion.

Needless shock death and Worfing. (The way things were set up, the author could easily have either let of the spec ops spook kill the jerk in the dominance fight and that could have been that. Or, if Anita MUST kill him self, let him loose properly, go for his gun in a fit of rage, and THEN let Anita and/or The Speck Ops Spook be faster on the draw and put him down then on the grounds he was too much of an immediate threat not to. Hell, if he must cheat, content it to him wounding the speck ops chick before he get's killed. Snub Nose .357's in rapid fire when your concussed and badly wounded, super powers or no, are NOT known for pin point accuracy. Tagging an arm or the like cause his aim was bad wouldn't be beyond plausibility at all. )

[Maryring]

I was gonna mention the Harry Potter deaths in the final book, but they've already been mentioned so...

Pretty much every death in the game is ridiculously pointless. Sure, there are the deaths you cause as sacrifice to the feather. Fair enough that they die. But then there's all the other deaths that happen, just cause. There are so many stages of "save X from the enemies" only for them to die at the end of the stage anyway. But special mention goes to Lieselotte and Rosea, who end up pointlessly killing each other off on all the paths.

[AvatarVecna]

No. But somehow he still got the job without having his high school diploma.

1) He took his OWLs, he just didn't take his NEWTs. He passed several of his exams, a few with flying colors, and was the best in his year in Defense Against The Dark Arts (IIRC) with a greater than 100% equivalent.

2) The subject he aced was one where three of his five teachers had been, objectively, horrifically terrible, and only one of them was deliberately doing so.

3) In the same year that he took these tests, the current DADA teacher was so deliberately incompetent, that it got Harry to voluntarily spend most of his free time teaching other students in that subject himself, to help pick up the slack.

So we're talking about somebody who's basically a prodigy in this particular subject, was able to excel even when most of his education in the subject was self-taught, super-intense in-classroom learning (Lupin/Moody/Snape), and actually having his life put in danger. Beyond that, while it's true he didn't take his NEWTs during the course of the books, it time-skips after the big battle at the end, and it's entirely reasonable (even probable) that he either took the tests, or was declared competent enough to not take them.

Final point with mentioning: the NEWTs are intended as the final formal test of a wizard's magical abilities; Harry Potter did not take these tests, sure, but that's because he was too busy using his magical abilities to win a war. It'd be like if I never finished high school because I was too busy using my leet calculus skills to defeat Captain Communist, and afterwards somebody decided it was fine for me to teach math despite my lack of diploma; sure, under normal circumstances I wouldn't have the job, but when you consider that the diploma is required because it proves I can math good, and my defeat of Captain Communist acts as proof that I can math good, they wouldn't really need a high school diploma for proof of my mathiness.

[AvatarVecna]

Han's death in Episode 7 was a bit too soon.

Let the man go out in a blaze of Glory in episode 8 after getting to get in some time with him and Luke and Leia and Chewy all on screen together one, last, time.

*shrug*

...but that doesn't change that I knew Han was gonna die if he was in this movie. When I heard there was gonna be SW7, I thought "if Han Solo is in here, he's gonna die". When I saw Han Solo in the trailer, I thought "Yep, he's gonna die". When I saw Rey, I thought "Ah, so he's gonna be the wise old mentor who dies in the climax, I was wondering how they'd kill him off". When I saw her forming a mentor-student bond with Han, I thought "Somebody pick up the phone, 'cause I called it!". When Kylo Ren is revealed to be Solo's son, I thought "Wow, they'll be killing off Han Solo, killing off the wise old mentor, and squeezing familicide in, all with just one scene! What efficiency!". When I saw his overly heartfelt goodbye scene with Leia, I could practically hear her saying "I'll bring nice flowers to your funeral". And finally, when Han Solo sees his son, after having promisd Leia he'll try and talk to him, his son is standing in the middle of a three foot wide bridge over a bottomless hole with a diameter of at least a hundred feet. I'd bet all the money in the world that the pit was a requirement for getting Harrison Ford on board: "None of this pussyfooting around; I'm not gonna die by a blaster shot in some hallway and get left behind, where there's a possibility that I survived. No, I'm gonna get sneak-attack-stabbed by a lightsaber before getting tossed into a bottomless pit, with no chance that I caught some ledge further down along the wall." Not that me seeing this coming is particularly impressive on my part. The number of people I converse with at least once a week barely numbers in the double digits, including family members, coworkers, and roommates, and not a single one of them had any illusions about Han's fate in this movie prior to seeing it; few of them were as certain as I was, but they all had a bad feeling about this.

This movie is as much a continuation of the original trilogy's story as the original trilogy was a continuation of the prequels...that is to say, barely at all. Han Solo was a main character in the part of the Star Wars story that he was important to, and in this trilogy, in this part of the Star Wars story, he's a supporting character whose purpose is to die to help motivate the primary protagonists. And that's fine. Han had a big role in four movies; the number of characters that are relevant to more films can be counted on one hand with fingers left over: Palpatine (the Biggest Bad of the six movies), Yoda (the ultimate Wise Old Mentor of the six movies), and Anakin Skywalker (the most important character to both the original trilogy and the prequels). Han Solo dying off is expected...and considering what movie we're talking about, perfectly acceptable. It was his time to die, just as it'll be Luke's time to die at some point in the next two movies.

[Murk]

I don't often mind characters (especially side characters) being eliminated.

I do agree with OP, however, that these characters need to have some purpose for the story. If I spend a few minutes or a few hours reading about a character before it is killed, I want all that invested time to have some purpose. I want the character to have achieved something, or I don't want to read about it. If the death of the character is the only important part of the character, don't give me chapters from its point of view. Make it a minor side character that I hear about, but don't actually have to read about.

Most of the time, writers do this pretty well. They do not give you entire chapters about the random peasant mook that gets killed in battle together with thousand other random peasant mooks. There's a few exceptions, though (I believe ASoIaF was mentioned?)

[BiblioRook]

I honestly wish I didn't add the point about Potter graduating high school or not. The point wasn't to question his qualifications as a magician but rather draw attention to his age and the absurdity that he (rather then anyone else older and more capable. Like off the top of my head, oh, the Weasly's?) should be placed with taking in and raising a newly orphaned child and how the deaths of the kid's parents had about as much impact as saying "20 points for Gryffindor!".

[Rogar Demonblud]

It isn't even that good. Lily Potter, like most females in the series, dies without leaving so much as a ripple. The only deaths that are shown to have narrative weight are all men. One of the main reasons why the late series revelation that Snape was in love with Lily was held by a fairly large and very vocal section of the fanbase as a retcon to try and make at least one dead woman matter.

[Hopeless]

If it wasn't for JJ claiming he persuaded Disney not to kill off Poe Dameron in TFA he would have qualified for this thread!
Personally he should have been kept involved but I guess that's just my opinion!

[An Enemy Spy]

It isn't even that good. Lily Potter, like most females in the series, dies without leaving so much as a ripple. The only deaths that are shown to have narrative weight are all men. One of the main reasons why the late series revelation that Snape was in love with Lily was held by a fairly large and very vocal section of the fanbase as a retcon to try and make at least one dead woman matter.

Lily didn't leave a ripple. She left a wave. How anyone could think she didn't matter to the story is way beyond me.

[Rysto]

I honestly wish I didn't add the point about Potter graduating high school or not. The point wasn't to question his qualifications as a magician but rather draw attention to his age and the absurdity that he (rather then anyone else older and more capable. Like off the top of my head, oh, the Weasly's?) should be placed with taking in and raising a newly orphaned child and how the deaths of the kid's parents had about as much impact as saying "20 points for Gryffindor!".

Harry didn't take in Teddy Lupin. The epilogue is very specific on his point.

[Scowling Dragon]

*Chm Chm*

......
Superhero Comics!

*Standing Ovation*

Thank you, , Thank you!
Im here all week!

[Kitten Champion]

I'm going to say Tasha Yar. The "point" of her death was Denise Crosby wanted out of her role, true, but her actual demise was handled as poorly as everything else was in TNG season 1-2. It was essentially a normal TOS pointless red-shirt fatality meant to drum up tension only this time with a few minutes of respect paid to her role near the conclusion.

While her death would have some meaning for Data and she would go on to have some cameos later in the series as to not just erase her from existence like Doctor Polaski, she never got to that season 3 point where they started making the characters actually interesting. That wasted potential is just sad, particularly when... well, we were stuck with Crusher and Troi as the remaining female main cast members. While Crusher was certainly better off than Troi, she was still stuck mostly with the sorts of medical plots you'd expect from Star Trek.

[TeChameleon]

It isn't even that good. Lily Potter, like most females in the series, dies without leaving so much as a ripple. The only deaths that are shown to have narrative weight are all men. One of the main reasons why the late series revelation that Snape was in love with Lily was held by a fairly large and very vocal section of the fanbase as a retcon to try and make at least one dead woman matter.

... wait, what?

Lily's death and the circumstances thereof were the primary driving force for both Harry and Voldemort for (at bare minimum) the first four books, Snape in the later books (retcon or otherwise), and remained, if not the prime motivator, still one of the biggest motivations for Harry throughout.

Forcing the main villain to delay his plans for four years (and books) while he fought to overcome the protection Lily placed on her son, and forcing him to go to elaborate and frankly slightly ridiculous lengths to even manage to so much as bypass those protections, and managing to posthumously help her son escape even after Voldemort managed to get through her protection, hardly seems like 'lacking in narrative weight' to me.

*shrug*

A quick glance through a listing of deaths in the series to refresh my memory shows that yes, a number of women were fridged, but so were a lot of male characters as well- far more than female characters, if we're being honest. I wasn't terribly thrilled with a lot of the deaths that happened in the final book, but at the same time, things happen in war. I get what J.K. Rowling was going for, even if I'm not sure I entirely agree with the method.

It just strikes me as a rather silly thing to accuse a female author of, especially one who has no particular track record of problems in that area.

Er, anyhow...

More on-topic... agreed entirely on the Serenity deaths; they actually managed to kill my two favourite members of the main cast, one of them off screen! Really, Whedon? I mean... really? :smallfrown:

And they still didn't give any resolution to Shepherd Book's mysterious past. Bloody hell, Whedon! Don't just kill the guy off-screen and then expect us to forget one of the main mysteries of the show!

... Granted, I sorta-kinda get why they killed Wash, even if I wanna scream for a while because they killed my other favourite character; River needed a new role on the ship once she got herself a bit more together and was no longer the scary broken maybe-psychic super-soldier; either Wash or Jayne was gonna die so that she would get the role of (co-?)pilot or tough-guy/gal. Kaylee and Simon were safe, since their deaths would be more likely to re-break her than end up with her in their role, Mal was safe by virtue of being the quasi-main character, Inara was safe since she was Mal's love-interest and there was no way River would be taking her position anyhow, and Zoe dying would probably take Wash out of things whether he survived or not. *sigh*

Aaaand then there's the ever-wonderful rounds of 'kill the wise old mentor' that Star Wars perpetually indulges in. I knew Han was going to die, but... bleah. Be nice if there was an experienced older character in a series who had value to the plot beyond motivating a lead character by dying in some horrible fashion.

And, of course, then there's Marvel Comics' Ultimate line of comics. Ultimatum. Just... Ultimatum :smalleek: :smallfrown: :smallfurious:

[AvatarVecna]

And they still didn't give any resolution to Shepherd Book's mysterious past. Bloody hell, Whedon! Don't just kill the guy off-screen and then expect us to forget one of the main mysteries of the show!

They made a short comic book showing off what his life was like pre-Firefly. It seems to focus on the major turning points, but even having read it, I think I'd still prefer to see it in action on the screen, just because having Book narrate his own life while a TV/Movie budge brings it to life would be awesome.

[lord_khaine]

Must confess Han's death really put me off on the serie as well. Perhaps because i felt he had earned a happier ending.

[Legato Endless]

I agree with the gist that sometimes death is badly executed for cheap drama. However...


I do agree with OP, however, that these characters need to have some purpose for the story. If I spend a few minutes or a few hours reading about a character before it is killed, I want all that invested time to have some purpose. I want the character to have achieved something, or I don't want to read about it. If the death of the character is the only important part of the character, don't give me chapters from its point of view. Make it a minor side character that I hear about, but don't actually have to read about.

Why? This is not true in real life. Why must fiction always conform against it? How is that a good rule of writing?


Most of the time, writers do this pretty well. They do not give you entire chapters about the random peasant mook that gets killed in battle together with thousand other random peasant mooks. There's a few exceptions, though (I believe ASoIaF was mentioned?)

Song really isn't a good example of this. Beyond the memetic exaggeration of how many characters actually die, the books with few exceptions have a fairly good rationale for why. The show...is less consistent about this.

[t209]

How about Warhammer Fantasy Battles: The End Times?
Let's see
- Oh, let's kill off Thorgrim after he kills Queek Headtaker because lol.
- And entire High Elf who died after Malekith actually a true king despite having done evil stuffs and most of Phoenix Kings being much more better than in.
- Entire universe got conquered by Chaos.
CUE AGE OF SIGMAR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-MzNpMD1K8)!

[Keltest]

As far as Serenity goes, you need to keep in mind that Whedon was basically forced to compact a bunch of plot points he wanted to do into the end, because the show was canned because Fox apparently wanted to see it crash and burn.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You might want to go back and reread how often Mrs Potter is mentioned in the first three books. Other than her sister's whining (Little Whinging indeed), she's only ever mentioned as an adjunct of her husband. Heck, in the original edition of the first book, the small one before it became popular, her name is given at different places as Mary, Lilly or Rose (one of many details cleaned up once the book was actually edited--see also Dudley getting renamed from Dudleigh).

Textual analysis types swear the series swerves badly in the last couple chapters of Azkaban, which was being written about the time the series exploded in popularity, so I'm guessing a lot of things got changed. The series whiplashes again at the point in Phoenix when Sirius dies, but that seems to have been intentional (removing adult supervision from the Chosen One). See also Death of Dumbledore.

This is probably less about Rowling fridging any number of characters at this point and more about series drift, which is almost as infuriating.

[Rysto]

You might want to go back and reread how often Mrs Potter is mentioned in the first three books. Other than her sister's whining (Little Whinging indeed), she's only ever mentioned as an adjunct of her husband.

Yeah ... no.


"But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?"

"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good."

Dumbledore now became very interested in a bird out on the window-sill, which gave Harry time to dry his eyes on the sheet.

[KillianHawkeye]

they actually managed to kill my two favourite members of the main cast, one of them off screen! Really, Whedon? I mean... really? :smallfrown:

To be fair, killing off beloved characters in tragic ways is sort of a Joss Whedon trademark. :smallsigh:

[Murk]

Why? This is not true in real life. Why must fiction always conform against it? How is that a good rule of writing?.

Because I don't want to read a long book about my neighbour either. Sure, my neighbour might spend his entire life sitting on the couch watching television, and sure, that is real life, and sure, that is realistic - but it's not fun. Someone who doesn't change, or doesn't achieve anything, someone who is of no function to the story at all - that might be realistic, but it's not fun to read. If I want to spend time seeing people achieve nothing, I'd end up with reality TV.
There's a few exceptions - tragedies, for example, where the "not achieving anything" is part of some sort of life-lesson, but that's a small niche.


Song really isn't a good example of this. Beyond the memetic exaggeration of how many characters actually die, the books with few exceptions have a fairly good rationale for why. The show...is less consistent about this.

I never watched the show, because I didn't enjoy the books that much. Quentyn didn't achieve anything before he died, but I spent quite a few chapters reading about him. Why wasn't he a side character? The same goes for the Dorne fellows, and in a way, the same goes for Ned, whose only impact on the story was dying. Why couldn't he have done so as a side character?

[Metahuman1]

*shrug*

...but that doesn't change that I knew Han was gonna die if he was in this movie. When I heard there was gonna be SW7, I thought "if Han Solo is in here, he's gonna die". When I saw Han Solo in the trailer, I thought "Yep, he's gonna die". When I saw Rey, I thought "Ah, so he's gonna be the wise old mentor who dies in the climax, I was wondering how they'd kill him off". When I saw her forming a mentor-student bond with Han, I thought "Somebody pick up the phone, 'cause I called it!". When Kylo Ren is revealed to be Solo's son, I thought "Wow, they'll be killing off Han Solo, killing off the wise old mentor, and squeezing familicide in, all with just one scene! What efficiency!". When I saw his overly heartfelt goodbye scene with Leia, I could practically hear her saying "I'll bring nice flowers to your funeral". And finally, when Han Solo sees his son, after having promisd Leia he'll try and talk to him, his son is standing in the middle of a three foot wide bridge over a bottomless hole with a diameter of at least a hundred feet. I'd bet all the money in the world that the pit was a requirement for getting Harrison Ford on board: "None of this pussyfooting around; I'm not gonna die by a blaster shot in some hallway and get left behind, where there's a possibility that I survived. No, I'm gonna get sneak-attack-stabbed by a lightsaber before getting tossed into a bottomless pit, with no chance that I caught some ledge further down along the wall." Not that me seeing this coming is particularly impressive on my part. The number of people I converse with at least once a week barely numbers in the double digits, including family members, coworkers, and roommates, and not a single one of them had any illusions about Han's fate in this movie prior to seeing it; few of them were as certain as I was, but they all had a bad feeling about this.

This movie is as much a continuation of the original trilogy's story as the original trilogy was a continuation of the prequels...that is to say, barely at all. Han Solo was a main character in the part of the Star Wars story that he was important to, and in this trilogy, in this part of the Star Wars story, he's a supporting character whose purpose is to die to help motivate the primary protagonists. And that's fine. Han had a big role in four movies; the number of characters that are relevant to more films can be counted on one hand with fingers left over: Palpatine (the Biggest Bad of the six movies), Yoda (the ultimate Wise Old Mentor of the six movies), and Anakin Skywalker (the most important character to both the original trilogy and the prequels). Han Solo dying off is expected...and considering what movie we're talking about, perfectly acceptable. It was his time to die, just as it'll be Luke's time to die at some point in the next two movies.

Except at the time Episode 4: New Hope came out, we hadn't had 3 movies and decades and decades of shows, comics, books and games with Obi Wan as a major feature of them or of the lore. We got it later sure, but that was after the fact.


Han, we had that up front.



I disagree with because Obi Wan died and Yoda died that he had to die because mentor.


I would swallow him dyeing cause Harrison Ford wanted it. But I wish to high heaven they could have talked him into at least delaying till Episode 8 and doing Han, Luke and Leia together again on screen in action in one, last blaze of glory first.

[Rodin]

The one time I really got annoyed was in the Babylon 5 sequel novels, where they bring back Lou Welch (a security guard from the first couple seasons of the show) just so he can discover the evil plot and get killed before being able to reveal it. It wound up being a pretty pointless death and one they could have easily handed out to a red shirt or just a character original to the novels. But no, they had to bring back a well liked character just to kill him off.

[Legato Endless]

Because I don't want to read a long book about my neighbour either. Sure, my neighbour might spend his entire life sitting on the couch watching television, and sure, that is real life, and sure, that is realistic - but it's not fun. Someone who doesn't change, or doesn't achieve anything, someone who is of no function to the story at all - that might be realistic, but it's not fun to read. If I want to spend time seeing people achieve nothing, I'd end up with reality TV.

It is fine for what you do not want, I get you are not fond of certain literary styles. But claiming no function is overdressing something you do not like as something that is actually a mistake. It isn't. No function is mostly used to dismiss something because it did not conform to route expectation. Its also not really used in academic criticism, because its such a bizarre notion. If you take a reductive mechanistic view of storytelling it will get you far, but only by ignoring the organic side of the art, to say nothing of complex compositions that defy singular explanations.


There's a few exceptions - tragedies, for example, where the "not achieving anything" is part of some sort of life-lesson, but that's a small niche.

Ah no. Tragedy is not niche, and it as often does not give a Hallmark life lesson. Are you thinking of morality plays? A huge number of other styles such as drama, historical fiction, horror, satire tend along similar lines. The glut of postmodernism would question both function and what achievement even means, existentialist works and so on and so forth because we could be here all day. If you look at fiction as a path of grand achievement, thats only due to self selection bias in what you read.


The same goes for the Dorne fellows, and in a way, the same goes for Ned, whose only impact on the story was dying. Why couldn't he have done so as a side character?

Because book 1 of the series is The Tragedy of Eddard Stark. You don't normally sideline the character a tragedy revolves around. You have them front and center so their psychology is explored and you see why and how they succeed and fail. Because sidelining Ned misses most of the reasons he's there, thematically, structurally, the commentary on the industry, in short, dramaturgically.

If you want most of what you read to be fizzy fun and glowing exciting styles of grand errands and victories, the shimmering adventure leavened only with token acceptable margins of failure and death, balanced by a correct ratio of objectives met then go forth and have fun. That is totally your right.

But some of us like the pool wider and exploring more of the realities of what life is and can be. The idea that characters role isn't so easily nailed down is hardly worth the damning dismissal the escapist crowd gives what they don't understand.

[DomaDoma]

Now I never actually finished the Harry Potter series for different reasons as I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder growing up and only got to about half-way through (about the time I graduated high school), but being older and mellowing out a little I thought maybe I could revisit it some day, who knows? But then I read about the end and all immediately lost all interest. I'm not talking about the big climatic end, I mean more the wrap-up part of the end. Granted like I said I never read this personally so I might have parts of it wrong, but from the sounds of it the series ends along the lines of "Congratulations, you defeated the Big Bad! Now here's a list of major characters who just happened to die off-screen.". THe likes of [censored] especially irritated me because I (as well as quite a few others) actually really rather liked them but seem to be killed off just as an excuse to further show off how such a nice guy Harry Potter was by [censored] despite being right out of High School. Actually did he even graduate?

He did graduate. Hermione, however, was the only one to insist on actually completing her formal education.

One hopes Andromeda took care of the first few years, though. Just going from the finale to the epilogue, she gets an inexplicably raw deal.

But yeah, book seven is full of pointless deaths. Works with K.A. Applegate, whose primary purpose all along had been to remind us that war is brutal. But JKR was (and is, if you read Cormoran Strike) more about fishing unexpected significance from absolutely everything, no matter how trivial it seems. And that makes it very jarring.

[Lurkmoar]

CUE AGE OF SIGMAR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-MzNpMD1K8)!

I honestly think they made End Times to justify not moving the story forward on 40k.

[Sapphire Guard]

The death count in ASOIAF is way overstated. Most of the deaths aren't that far away from those that would happen in many similar novels, and of the POV characters

We have Ned, Cat (kinda) Aerys, and Quentyn -the last two are essentially side characters, so our significant POV deaths stand at a grand total of one and a half



Han didn't bother me, but Hosnian Prime did. No character had any significant reaction to an entire solar system being wiped out. Nobody seemed shocked, or even surprised,nobody switched sides. Nobody did anything as a result of that that they weren't going to do anyway.

The reason given is it destroyed the fleet...which... had no impact on anything. Nobody cared much about Alderaan, but we see shock, we see surprise, we see Leia give up a name to try to stop its destruction ( a fake one, but showing that she cared). But when Hosnian Prime is destroyed she sees her entire life's work go up in smoke... and doesn't seem to react at all?

[DomaDoma]

ASOIAF is basically a morality play where the moral is that trying for anything better than saving your own skin is a sucker's game. Don't fall in love, don't try and protect your children, don't attempt to make government more humane or lawful, NEVER EVER EVER show mercy to a random victim... just, over and over, a perpetual motion machine fueled by the fallout of previous foolish acts of justice and charity. "The realities of what life is and can be" my foot.

[Rodin]

I found ASOIAF really interesting to re-read. On the first time through, I expected certain narrative conventions to be upheld. The main protagonist of the book wouldn't get killed off suddenly. Certain core cast members would have plot armor to protect them. After a few books, you start thinking that isn't the case, and anyone can die. You start expecting a random crossbow bolt to fly in the window and go through the eye of a main character mid-sentence.

Then you re-read it, and it becomes incredibly obvious who is going to die well in advance. There's foreshadowing all over the flipping place, and every major character that dies mainly snuffs it because of their own mistakes and ignoring all the signs that they're about to go down a bad path.

Characters in ASOIAF that are actually smart and pay attention to prophecies and nudges from the gods are generally pretty safe. It's the other schmucks who bite it.

[DiscipleofBob]

Two words: Jean Grey.

When most major comic book characters die, it's just a matter of counting the issues until they're brought back to life through some means.

With Jean Grey, when she comes back to life, it's just a matter of counting the issues until she goes Dark Phoenix, blows up and dies again.

[Legato Endless]

ASOIAF is basically a morality play where the moral is that trying for anything better than saving your own skin is a sucker's game. Don't fall in love, don't try and protect your children, don't attempt to make government more humane or lawful, NEVER EVER EVER show mercy to a random victim... just, over and over, a perpetual motion machine fueled by the fallout of previous foolish acts of justice and charity. "The realities of what life is and can be" my foot.

Well my comment on Song was more meant as an aside and most of my comment was more general, but if we want to question that idea...


"Oh happy posterity, who will not experience such abbysal woe and look upon our testimony as fable." Petarch

ASOIAF is not realistic in a number of ways. Martin ignores the reality of armor in a hamfisted allegory for noble conventions in the series first duel. The numbers often don't make sense. It will freely dive into melodrama, and is rife with operatic elements. However, ignoring the outright romantic aspects of the series that don't jive with your summation, the fact is, the real world can and has been so much worse in its foolishness and brutality.

Things which at least equal if not exceed the series from regions descending into brutal sectarian warfare between warlords to large organizations doing all manner of soul crushing things. And considering there is no shortage of laments which would freely accept your above description as, at least contextually fitting, then yes, I standby that statement. A series of incredibly ill formed choices by those which seem unimaginable to us and yet continue on and on is basically a historical motif.

See also this thread. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?422689-The-world-just-isn-t-that-dark)

[DomaDoma]

Heck, I've heard college kids philosophize about how it's every man for himself and anyone who thinks otherwise is dangerously naive. If people's laments validate a worldview, then GRRM's worldview is surely valid. But even in chaotic Third World hellholes, good intentions don't have a 100% track record of making things worse. Go ahead and check an international news feed - you are guaranteed to find a bit of lasting good that Westeros absolutely would not brook.

[Dienekes]

To be fair, giving the kids who fought in a war a free pass on that last year when their school was run by wizard nazis is pretty much the least stupid thing to happen in Harry Potter.

Back to the OT, Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones has a big reputation for being ruthless with its main characters, but it also throws heaping spoonfuls of minor characters through the grinder. A lot of this comes from the way the books are written - since we're seeing the story through character perspectives, everyone they know the name of, we know the name of, so a LOT of named characters show up only in the chapter where they bite the dust. (RIP Sir Vardis Egen, too good for this world.) The books also play with this in the prologues, where we get the POV of a character who we know isn't going to survive the chapter. Generally, these characters don't impact the world or the plot, but instead offer a glimpse of something coming.

To me at least, this doesn't actually become a problem until we get to book 4 and those one-off POV chapters start to bleed into the main chapters...
...and we end up getting one pointless chapter of Arys Oakheart before he gets an axe to the face and a whole book of Quentyn running around doing nothing important before he gets roasted.

Were they pointless though?


Read the Arys chapter and there are a bunch of hints that he knew what was coming and had taken steps to protect Myrcella, including having a body double with her cousin that no one but him knew about. That along with his wearing of his white cloak when he was supposed to be in a stealthy/treasonous mission leads a lot of folk to think his death and chapters are actually important clues into what is actually happening to Myrcella.

As for Quentyn, they found a burned to a crisp corpse and just announced it was him. Quentyn's allies make a lot of fuss saying how good he was even after his supposed demise. That and their story just cuts off right when we're supposed to see Quentyn's death leads a lot of readers to think he might not be as dead as we are lead to believe. Also his chapters show that the minions of the Varys/Illyrio alliance are actively fighting with Doran Martell's minions which can be a clue to something even more major later on.


As to the story being morals are for suckers. Well no. We see in FFC and TWOW that because Ned and Robb were honorable they have the loyalty of their banner men in a way no other major house has. The amount of hints that everyone is just on the edge of rebelling against those they think of are actually evil is staggering. It's basically the entire purpose of the Manderly character. Honor has a great purpose it just works slower than being a Machiavellian jackass.

[LordRahl6]

I found ASOIAF really interesting to re-read. On the first time through, I expected certain narrative conventions to be upheld. The main protagonist of the book wouldn't get killed off suddenly. Certain core cast members would have plot armor to protect them. After a few books, you start thinking that isn't the case, and anyone can die. You start expecting a random crossbow bolt to fly in the window and go through the eye of a main character mid-sentence.

Then you re-read it, and it becomes incredibly obvious who is going to die well in advance. There's foreshadowing all over the flipping place, and every major character that dies mainly snuffs it because of their own mistakes and ignoring all the signs that they're about to go down a bad path.

Characters in ASOIAF that are actually smart and pay attention to prophecies and nudges from the gods are generally pretty safe. It's the other schmucks who bite it.

That's pretty much why HBO's Game of Thrones BIG REVEAL was well unsurprising. If you read between the lines (of the books) you knew the "LC" was safe. However Star Wars blantantly rips off A New Hope in the Force Awakens in a way that wasn't needed since the original storyline of Lucas's had Obi-Wan sticking around for more in a major way, but Alec Guinness wanted out after seeing where the plot was going.

[Devonix]

Two words: Jean Grey.

When most major comic book characters die, it's just a matter of counting the issues until they're brought back to life through some means.

With Jean Grey, when she comes back to life, it's just a matter of counting the issues until she goes Dark Phoenix, blows up and dies again.



You know she's only actually died twice and stayed dead the second time. She's been dead since 2004 I'd say being dead for 12 years with no sign of coming back is pretty good.

[The Fury]

I also probably can never willfully watch Jurassic World just for the knowledge of the one secretary's death scene. You know, the one where the pterodactyls gleefully play with her still living body in brutal ways before putting her out of her misery? Ugh.

That was actually a really weird scene for me. Regardless of how well a scene works, I can usually get some idea of the reaction I was supposed to have. This one though? I have no idea. Was it meant to be funny, because she's meant to keep an eye on her boss's nephews and mitigate their fun? "Ha! Take that fun police!" Was it meant to be scary because... Wow, that poor woman. "Meant to" is an important operative phrase here, it wasn't really scary and it definitely wasn't funny. I guess I was just way too confused by the scene to be offended.

[LaZodiac]

That was actually a really weird scene for me. Regardless of how well a scene works, I can usually get some idea of the reaction I was supposed to have. This one though? I have no idea. Was it meant to be funny, because she's meant to keep an eye on her boss's nephews and mitigate their fun? "Ha! Take that fun police!" Was it meant to be scary because... Wow, that poor woman. "Meant to" is an important operative phrase here, it wasn't really scary and it definitely wasn't funny. I guess I was just way too confused by the scene to be offended.

I feel it's meant to be some kind of punishment for her "abandoning the kids" but that literally wasn't even remotely her fault she was trying her best. It was just pure genuine cruelity or no reason.

[Gnoman]

As to the story being morals are for suckers. Well no. We see in FFC and TWOW that because Ned and Robb were honorable they have the loyalty of their banner men in a way no other major house has. The amount of hints that everyone is just on the edge of rebelling against those they think of are actually evil is staggering. It's basically the entire purpose of the Manderly character. Honor has a great purpose it just works slower than being a Machiavellian jackass.

Don't forget also that - with the armies of Stannis and Joffrey having fought themselves to a stalemate - Robb would probably have won had he kept his honor.

[Hopeless]

Han didn't bother me, but Hosnian Prime did. No character had any significant reaction to an entire solar system being wiped out. Nobody seemed shocked, or even surprised,nobody switched sides. Nobody did anything as a result of that that they weren't going to do anyway.

The reason given is it destroyed the fleet...which... had no impact on anything. Nobody cared much about Alderaan, but we see shock, we see surprise, we see Leia give up a name to try to stop its destruction ( a fake one, but showing that she cared). But when Hosnian Prime is destroyed she sees her entire life's work go up in smoke... and doesn't seem to react at all?

I'd expect her to show shock once she realised her assistant was killed, but given the Senate not only exiled her they also ignored her warnings to the point of lunacy that might explain her lack of reaction to that!

[The Fury]

I feel it's meant to be some kind of punishment for her "abandoning the kids" but that literally wasn't even remotely her fault she was trying her best. It was just pure genuine cruelity or no reason.

It's been a while since I've seen that movie, but didn't the kids abandon her? I also seem to remember when she finds them amid the chaos she says something to the effect of, "There you two are! I've been looking all over for you, quick let's get you back to your aunt." Then a pterodactyl snatches her up.

I could believe that her "abandoning the kids" is how you're meant to read the situation though.

[warty goblin]

I feel it's meant to be some kind of punishment for her "abandoning the kids" but that literally wasn't even remotely her fault she was trying her best. It was just pure genuine cruelity or no reason.

Really, I think it was probably supposed to read as 'person gets killed by dinosaurs in weird/cool way.' Which, let's be honest, is one of the three reasons to see a Jurassic Park movie:
1) Dinosaurs looking cool by simply being dinosaurs
2) Dinosaurs looking cool by chasing people and/or roaring.
3) Dinosaurs looking cool by killing and eating people.

I still hope the next one is Jurassic World 2: T-Rex and Velociraptor Kill Everybody Forever. The only dialog will be "AIIIEE," "MY LEG!" and "Mr. President, the Tyrannosaur has breached the White House!"

I can't say I'm generally bothered by side characters getting killed. I mean I may feel sad about it, but the fact that the author just took a hatchet to so-and-so doesn't bother me as a thing.

[huttj509]

It's been a while since I've seen that movie, but didn't the kids abandon her? I also seem to remember when she finds them amid the chaos she says something to the effect of, "There you two are! I've been looking all over for you, quick let's get you back to your aunt." Then a pterodactyl snatches her up.

I could believe that her "abandoning the kids" is how you're meant to read the situation though.

My thought during the movie was:

"Huh...um...did the actress kick the director's dog or something?" The amount the scene felt like it dwelled on it was...off. Just felt weirdly edited.

[Airea]

You know she's only actually died twice and stayed dead the second time. She's been dead since 2004 I'd say being dead for 12 years with no sign of coming back is pretty good.

Incorrect. I need to find the list again but there's a comprehensive one that lists like 200+ times. It's just two that people remember because her dying and getting up again 10 minutes later happened so often no one noticed after a time.

[Legato Endless]

Heck, I've heard college kids philosophize about how it's every man for himself and anyone who thinks otherwise is dangerously naive. If people's laments validate a worldview, then GRRM's worldview is surely valid.

"Oh happy posterity, who will not experience such abbysal woe and look upon our testimony as fable." Petrarch


But even in chaotic Third World hellholes, good intentions don't have a 100% track record of making things worse. Go ahead and check an international news feed - you are guaranteed to find a bit of lasting good that Westeros absolutely would not brook.

Oh indeed. I am sure guys like Hot Pie, after being transformed into a better individual and then exiting the narrative when he finally found a home was all just a prelude to being eaten by ogres or something when Chaos unlocks a Warpspace under his bed.

[HandofShadows]

Two words: Jean Grey.

When most major comic book characters die, it's just a matter of counting the issues until they're brought back to life through some means.

With Jean Grey, when she comes back to life, it's just a matter of counting the issues until she goes Dark Phoenix, blows up and dies again.

The thing is her first "death" on the Moon (later retconned) was actually ordered by Marvel Editor and Chief Jim Shooter. It's didn't come from Claremont. Heck John Byrne had the original (different) ending penciled.

[Kitten Champion]

My thought during the movie was:

"Huh...um...did the actress kick the director's dog or something?" The amount the scene felt like it dwelled on it was...off. Just felt weirdly edited.

I just assumed they had that death lined up to be something memorable mid-movie, but didn't really have the time or inclination to put any work into the character being killed but at the same time not wanting to use an extra explicitly - which leads to a problem - as Jurassic World was a very obvious and overt movie where what we were supposed to feel about a someone being killed should be immediately obvious (as it was throughout the original trilogy). Here however, with such a gruesome and highly choreographed death that I can still picture in my mind, I've no bloody clue what I was supposed to feel beyond "oh, she died" and impressiveness(?) with their CGI-work.

[Forum Explorer]

Except at the time Episode 4: New Hope came out, we hadn't had 3 movies and decades and decades of shows, comics, books and games with Obi Wan as a major feature of them or of the lore. We got it later sure, but that was after the fact.


Han, we had that up front.



I disagree with because Obi Wan died and Yoda died that he had to die because mentor.


I would swallow him dyeing cause Harrison Ford wanted it. But I wish to high heaven they could have talked him into at least delaying till Episode 8 and doing Han, Luke and Leia together again on screen in action in one, last blaze of glory first.

He could have stayed on, but it would have been a very different climax to the story. I do think his death was necessary to advance Rilo's story as well as Ren's story.

So I'd certainly wouldn't call it a pointless death.


I feel it's meant to be some kind of punishment for her "abandoning the kids" but that literally wasn't even remotely her fault she was trying her best. It was just pure genuine cruelity or no reason.

I think it's actually meant to be a 'realistic' death. Animals do stuff like that. Orcas will launch seals back and forth, Cats will catch and release prey, only to jump on them again, and African wild dogs (I can't remember the species, just that they were some kind of undomesticated canine) will literally eat their prey alive. And yeah, birds do that too.

So I think it was meant to invoke horror of 'watch as nature's brutality is turned against humanity', which is actually a really common trope for 'monster' films.

[Tyndmyr]

My thought during the movie was:

"Huh...um...did the actress kick the director's dog or something?" The amount the scene felt like it dwelled on it was...off. Just felt weirdly edited.

I believe it was intended as a parallel to the death on the crapper in the first one. Weird/funny. But it struck a seriously discordant note and didn't come off that way at all.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'd expect her to show shock once she realised her assistant was killed, but given the Senate not only exiled her they also ignored her warnings to the point of lunacy that might explain her lack of reaction to that!

Not really. Not liking the government is a whole other ballgame than not caring at all when somewhere is wiped off the map. The only reason to do that is to have an impact on the characters, but it has no impact on any of them!

[Devonix]

Incorrect. I need to find the list again but there's a comprehensive one that lists like 200+ times. It's just two that people remember because her dying and getting up again 10 minutes later happened so often no one noticed after a time.


I remember that list. It consisted almost entirely of fakeout deaths and deaths from other media like cartoons and movies. It would be the same as listing the hundreds of times Batman has " died " It even listed times where Jean Grey was considered dead for like 5 seconds. Or the time in Infinity gauntlet where Everyone was dead for an hour.

[DomaDoma]

"Oh happy posterity, who will not experience such abbysal woe and look upon our testimony as fable." Petrarch

"Posterity." Ha. That's a good one.

[Airea]

This list was comic based. A number of the deaths were reconned, but still happened. I'll try to find it.

I do have separate lists for shows and movies. But they have lists of their own.

[DiscipleofBob]

I remember that list. It consisted almost entirely of fakeout deaths and deaths from other media like cartoons and movies. It would be the same as listing the hundreds of times Batman has " died " It even listed times where Jean Grey was considered dead for like 5 seconds. Or the time in Infinity gauntlet where Everyone was dead for an hour.

Most comic book deaths are "fakeout deaths." That's why no one takes them seriously. "Oh I wasn't dead. I was just very badly hurt and needed to spend time in a top secret medical facility." "Oh I wasn't dead. That was my Life Model Decoy." "Oh I was dead. But this is a clone." "Oh I was dead. But this is me from another dimension."

Most of the time the real world consequences of these plot elements aren't explored, they're just excuses to try and justify yet another character death.

It's just another version of the magic trick of making the rabbit disappear. You can dress it up however you like, it's still the same trick.

[Devonix]

Most comic book deaths are "fakeout deaths." That's why no one takes them seriously. "Oh I wasn't dead. I was just very badly hurt and needed to spend time in a top secret medical facility." "Oh I wasn't dead. That was my Life Model Decoy." "Oh I was dead. But this is a clone." "Oh I was dead. But this is me from another dimension."

Most of the time the real world consequences of these plot elements aren't explored, they're just excuses to try and justify yet another character death.

It's just another version of the magic trick of making the rabbit disappear. You can dress it up however you like, it's still the same trick.

And that's why when I talk about character deaths I only count the " Real ones. " the ones that stick the ones where a character actually dies and is dead for more than just the one issue, and actually goes on to the afterlife, if the comic has one.

[BiblioRook]

On the topic of comic-book deaths, Quicksilver in Age of Ultron?
Thinking about it always bums me out, Quicksilver is always such a fun character and it might have been really interesting t see how he would have fared in the MCU. It mostly feels like 'Look, we can't end this movie without somebody dying and people seem to like Hawkeye way too much for him to take the bullet' (maybe bad choice of words) and Quicksilver just drew the short straw...

I don't know, maybe the idea of having to compete with Fox's Quicksilver also played a big role in that too.

[LaZodiac]

On the topic of comic-book deaths, Quicksilver in Age of Ultron?
Thinking about it always bums me out, Quicksilver is always such a fun character and it might have been really interesting t see how he would have fared in the MCU. It mostly feels like 'Look, we can't end this movie without somebody dying and people seem to like Hawkeye way too much for him to take the bullet' (maybe bad choice of words) and Quicksilver just drew the short straw...

I don't know, maybe the idea of having to compete with Fox's Quicksilver also played a big role in that too.

The Fox Quicksilver is explicitly why. They're allowed to use one sibling however they want, but the other they can only use once. That's why Scarlet Witch is an Avenger in the MCU and why Quicksilver died, and why Scarlet's a small child who does nothing in the Fox Movies and Quicksilver is a guy who could solve all of the plot.

[random11]

The one I can remember is from "The Dragon Knight" series by Gordon R. Dickson, between the second and third book.

The second ended with a tragic death.
It was of a character that was introduced almost from the beginning, and almost at the end of the book he sacrificed his life to save the others.
It was a meaningful death, and it was taken seriously even in a book that tends to be lighter, especially when it comes to magic.

Anyway, book three started with some of the characters going to the castle of the dead friend's family, and on the way they encounter the scary villain of the book in a form of ghost armor that comes back to life even if defeated.
That could have been tense and dramatic, until something ruined it (and I do not consider this a spoiler since it happened pretty much in the beginning of the book): The dead friend just came back to life.
The explanation was weak at best, and it sucked all the tension out of the story.
How can you expect the readers to be afraid if you just brought someone back to life without any known rules for this?


So I guess my points regarding the subject would be:
1) If you use death of a character in a story, take it seriously.
Death is not the only way to create drama, if it has no impact on the character or the story, don't bother.

2) Unless you have a REALLY good reason, and a set of pre-established rules, death should not be a walk in the park. If someone is dead, he is DEAD.

3) For a similar reason, if you kill a character, do not immediately replace him with an almost identical one to serve the same role.
Replacement for the same role is accepted, but it should be a different character.

[Leewei]

Here is an inversion of this topic.

Back when I was a kid, I read The Black Cauldron. Gurgi just grated on my nerves. What a selfish, stupid, wretched, pointless character. Later, his decision to die made the story the most poignant thing I'd ever read.

[DomaDoma]

Here is an inversion of this topic.

Back when I was a kid, I read The Black Cauldron. Gurgi just grated on my nerves. What a selfish, stupid, wretched, pointless character. Later, his decision to die made the story the most poignant thing I'd ever read.

That's actually the movie, from what I hear. Gurgi does redeem himself, mind, but (as he doesn't die) it's a bit more gradual, and he's only really contemptible in The Book of Three. (However, the character who does die in The Black Cauldron absolutely fits this description. I can see why they decided a condensation of the first two books would kill off Gurgi.)

Also, I don't know about the movie, but in the book, stupid catchphrases are the default mode for sidekicks and such. So, the nerve-grating has to be put against the general backdrop.

[TeChameleon]

On the topic of comic-book deaths, Quicksilver in Age of Ultron?
Thinking about it always bums me out, Quicksilver is always such a fun character and it might have been really interesting t see how he would have fared in the MCU. It mostly feels like 'Look, we can't end this movie without somebody dying and people seem to like Hawkeye way too much for him to take the bullet' (maybe bad choice of words) and Quicksilver just drew the short straw...

I don't know, maybe the idea of having to compete with Fox's Quicksilver also played a big role in that too.
It wasn't just the abruptness of it, either- it's that he died in such a stupid way. Spends the entire movie being so much faster than bullets that a handgun bullet appeared to be moving at about the speed of a crawling fly. Then it comes his time to die, and he gets shot -_-;

And yes, I know that minigun bullets move faster than the average pistol bullet, but a quick Googling leads me to believe that it's about three times as fast- not nearly enough to make it a threat to Quicksilver. *grumble*

[Lvl45DM!]

It wasn't just the abruptness of it, either- it's that he died in such a stupid way. Spends the entire movie being so much faster than bullets that a handgun bullet appeared to be moving at about the speed of a crawling fly. Then it comes his time to die, and he gets shot -_-;

And yes, I know that minigun bullets move faster than the average pistol bullet, but a quick Googling leads me to believe that it's about three times as fast- not nearly enough to make it a threat to Quicksilver. *grumble*

Uhhh, he spend the entire movie unable to react to Bullets. Hawkeye shot from below and he didnt have time to move at all. A guy shot him in his arm. If anything he was about as fast as a handgun bullet

[Fawkes]

Yeah it was X-Men Quicksilver who was outrunning bullets like it ain't no thang.

[DuctTapeKatar]

A special mention to the poor Black-Armored Stormtrooper who was thrown into the trash-compactor of a soon-to-detonate pseudo-Death Star.

"Hello there! I have no relevance to the plot at all, and probably won't have any use other than to sell toys!"

Seriously, she would have been a fantastic foil to Finn, and even though she was offed offscreen, the chances of her managing to escape would be less likely than Abraham Lincoln giving a speech at Han's funeral wearing only whipped cream.

[Dienekes]

A special mention to the poor Black-Armored Stormtrooper who was thrown into the trash-compactor of a soon-to-detonate pseudo-Death Star.

"Hello there! I have no relevance to the plot at all, and probably won't have any use other than to sell toys!"

Seriously, she would have been a fantastic foil to Finn, and even though she was offed offscreen, the chances of her managing to escape would be less likely than Abraham Lincoln giving a speech at Han's funeral wearing only whipped cream.

The actress playing Captain Phasma has been confirmed to be in Star Wars 8 with (at this point in production) a bigger role.

That said, yeah. She was almost as embarrassing a character as Boba Fett was in the original trilogy.

[LaZodiac]

A special mention to the poor Black-Armored Stormtrooper who was thrown into the trash-compactor of a soon-to-detonate pseudo-Death Star.

"Hello there! I have no relevance to the plot at all, and probably won't have any use other than to sell toys!"

Seriously, she would have been a fantastic foil to Finn, and even though she was offed offscreen, the chances of her managing to escape would be less likely than Abraham Lincoln giving a speech at Han's funeral wearing only whipped cream.

Better get to work on that fanart buddy she lived

[Aeson]

As far as pointless character deaths go, I'll add Data's at the end of Nemesis to the pile. Not, strictly speaking, a minor character, but still, the entire setup for that sequence was stupid. Just beam over a bomb for once in your lives, Starfleet.


The actress playing Captain Phasma has been confirmed to be in Star Wars 8 with (at this point in production) a bigger role.
"A bigger role" could mean just about anything. Captain Shiny-Armor was basically a nonentity whose only purpose was to establish that not-Vader's an evil git by asking him what they're to do with the civilians and then show that Finn's a rather immature protagonist with his little display on the Death Star knockoff.

Heck, you don't even need to have Captain Shiny-Armor survive the events of TFA; if they make a big deal out of Finn's history and have, say, a three minute flashback sequence centered around his relation with Captain Shiny-Armor, that's still a bigger role than Shiny had in TFA.


That said, yeah. She was almost as embarrassing a character as Boba Fett was in the original trilogy.
Less embarrassing than Fett? At least Fett was an actual obstacle to the protagonists, for a little while, and was the chosen implement used to turn one of Han's driving motivations in A New Hope into something more than a minor background detail in The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. Shiny-Armor, by contrast, does what, exactly? I mean, I suppose acting as a trigger for Finn's little display on the Death Star knockoff and for not-Vader's order to kill off all the villagers at the start of the movie counts as being a tool used to develop the other characters, but Finn's little display adds nothing positive to either his character or the movie and not-Vader's order could as easily have been triggered by some random stormtrooper or generic officer; getting access to the shield controls could at least as sensibly been done by having some random technician captured and threatened in the control room as by having the captain of the supposedly fanatically loyal stormtroopers betray the not-Empire after offering up all the resistance of a wet piece of tissue paper.

[TeChameleon]

Uhhh, he spend the entire movie unable to react to Bullets. Hawkeye shot from below and he didnt have time to move at all. A guy shot him in his arm. If anything he was about as fast as a handgun bullet

*shrug* I parsed the 'shot from below' scene as him glancing down, kind of going "... what?" for a second, and then dropping- not that he couldn't react, just that he was confused long enough for the reaction thing to be moot. Fair point on the 'shot in the arm' bit, I'd forgotten that. Still think him getting shot was dumb.

And yeh, Captain Shiny-Pants was really kind of a pointless inclusion in Star Wars VII :smallconfused:

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't know, maybe the idea of having to compete with Fox's Quicksilver also played a big role in that too.

I am positive it did - it seems very much like that was the compromise between the rights of the characters - MCU gets Wanda (arguably more central to Avengers thn Quicksilver) and X-Men gets Pietro. May even have been in contract that Quicky had to get offed.

(But if the latest X-Men film showed anything, it was that bullets ought to be trivial to him.)

So yes, it was a stupid death, but it probably had to be and, at the bare minimum, it was stupid but not completely worthless, since he at least died doing something heroic, rather than by being, I dunno, to pick a particular egregious example, shot by a sniper rifle because a picket line of sentiels can't even stop MUNDANE humans (who should have been in a state of high alert given previous incidents), let alone super-humans...