One pet peeve I have is when the main character answers the phone and another character says: "I have found the missing clue, but I can't tell you over the phone. Meet me at Death-Stab Alley in 40 minutes".
Exactly! If you can’t say something on the phone cause someone might be listening, why would you say where you’re going (and why would you go somewhere dangerous)? It makes no sense at all.
Now I want to see a story where the villain has a last minute Star-Wars-esque redemption and tries to sacrifice himself to save the day, only to end up unexpectedly surviving the ordeal. And then he’s all like “Ah shit, now I have to actually still face the consequences for all the terrible shit I’ve done”
Proceeds to be put in front of a tribunal in the Hague and say "well I'm not a bad guy anymore, I saved all those people remember?". "Yes, but you also previously personally ordered the massacre of four villages"
This is why I spare a villainous character in Dragon Age: Origins and make him survive the game. I find it so interesting. I want more stories about the difficulty of true redemption and the struggle to truly change yourself while living in a world that remembers you as a villain.
For me, Darth Vader's "redemption" has always rung particularly hollow. Billions of deaths, tortures, the massacre of youngling Jedis, but it's all ok because he saved his own son.
As someone who drowned at three among.... many other things.... I can reassure you dying and coming back is problematic and your resurrected character probably needs some therapy. My only take on resurrections, if you're going to do it don't make them wake up smiling and shit. Walk us through how they cope with being dead for x amount of time.
It is said in the tradition of the Orthodox Church that St. Lazarus, after he was raised from the dead, never again laughed save for one time, seeing a thief steal a clay pot. He chuckled and said, "Look. Dust is stealing dust."
A wise man once said “Men shit themselves when they die.” But yeah- this goes along with the fate worse than death thing, but having a character ultimately succeed but be left to deal with the emotional/mental consequences of their journey will always be more of a gut punch to me than them dying. I’m also a fan of the good old fashioned happily ever after… just to mix it up a bit haha.
One thing to consider: terminating characters upon completion of their arcs treats them as disposable commodities that are trashed as soon as they are no longer useful. This is dishonest and breaks suspension of disbelief because it doesn't treat them as people, but rather as convenient storytelling vectors. It also makes the stories predictable because you can anticipate deaths after their presence no longer serves the purpose of fulfilling their personal arc.
I think ASOIAF (spoilers) gets character resurrections right. In the case of Catelyn it was previously established with Beric, and even though she’s brought back, she’s so different as Lady Stoneheart that it still feels we’ve lost Catelyn as a character, and because of that it doesn’t cheapen her death. And Lady stoneheart goes along with the themes of vengeance in the series and also further establishes and foreshadows Jon’s eventual resurrection (if GRRM ever writes it)
I agree. And the cost is very well established. It costs a life to bring someone back and when they are brought back they have very little left of what they originally were
Regarding that last one about killing off the comic relief: that's what Shakespeare did in Romeo and Juliet. The first part of the play is raunchy, comically violent, and over the top with sex. The violence becomes less comical as the stakes increase. It comes to the climax when the loud, clowning best friend Mercutio is fatally wounded through the Capulet-Montague feud and curses the families in his dying breath. That curse turns the play from action-comedy to drama. Everything goes downhill from there (situationally, not the quality of the work). Definitely try killing off your comic relief and explore how devastating it might be to the survivors.
I pretty liked this kind of video. Would like to see more of this. Plus I noticed that I`m watching your videos for over 2 months now whitout being subscribed and finally changed it.
Yup, I have recently discovered that I kinda hate "redemption equals death" for villains, unless it is very well set up. I have encountered it A LOT recently in fiction, and it's really annoying because every character I can think of would have been SOOOO interesting if left alive to deal with the consequences of their choices. Most of them either had completed or were in the middle of a redemption arc anyway, so WHY????? Why not actually have them complete the arc rather than dying?
I kind of what a villain to dramatically redeem themselves with a sacrifice and have a monologue about how maybe in their last moments they can do some good, then have the heroes look at their corpse and go, "well, that was a freebie"
I personally irreversibly hurt way more characters than I kill. Thaaat has probably a lot to do with the fact that I'm disabled and have multiple illnesses, so I'm kind of in a way trauma dumping my stories, lol
1:18 I keep hoping for this to happen. Every time a character dies off-screen, I believe it, because I desperately want it to be true. Then my hopes and dreams just get shattered when they walk back into the story.
I know I’m in the minority, but I hate it when any characters I like die! It’s ok for a book to be unrealistic, and I don’t mind the resurrection trope! 😜😁
14:42 "That's actually... I'd read that." 😂 Don't tempt me. I'd write a short story just for the meme. lol... or a five-book Fantasy saga. Definitely one of those.
Death can be cheap stakes. Give me actual consequences and character struggles. Like quote unquote "serious fiction" where the stories aren't these grand battles.
"I will write a book where all the characters die in the first 15 minutes." Okay, but now I want a story about the afterlife having to deal with the consequences of omnicide. Like, what kind of accomidations do they have to make up in Heaven? The angels would probably be pretty overworked. What would it be like for your average joe to just suddenly wake up and realize that he's dead, but so is everybody he's ever loved, hated, and lost connection with? I can see serious potential in this premise...
@@Thatguyy100 I love ASOIAF and tried First Law but it was boring. I enjoyed Glokta’s chapters but whenever it was someone else, especially Jezal (is that his name?) I got bored and put it down. I got over 100 pages in but like nothing was happening. It seemed like I was just following the characters daily routines. I’ll probably try it again some day though
@@Lezzyboy87 I find the Standalone books are less good then the original triliogy but still worth a read. The second trilogy is simply amazing and better or the same quality as the first.
Star Wars was 100% what I had in mind when I wrote that comment. In terms of resurrections (actual resurrections, not fakeouts) I feel like if they're handled well than they can serve the story (for instance: exploring the psychological effects of literally dying and being brought back). The trouble is that most stories rely too much on resurrection to specifically *avoid* the consequences of death.
As someone who is currently reading through Malazan: Book of the Fallen for the first time I'm really loving Erikson's way of dealing with character death - wouldn't be surprised if its controversial though
Imo, death just being "on the table" is a lot more important than any death *actually happening.* Whenever a story gets to a point where you know for sure nobody is going to die anymore, it's much harder to get invested in the conflict, and even on the off-chance that someone does die past the point you stopped caring, it's too little too late, you already stopped caring. Which is the problem One Piece faces in many people's eyes. However, even if nobody ends up dying by the end, if there is an understanding that they CAN die, that creates tension. Of course, having too much death runs into a similar problem, where the audience stops caring if anyone dies or not. Which is the problem GoT had. So not too much and not too little.
One show that really did this right was Transformers: Prime. (I’m serious, stop laughing). The show kills off one of its characters in the first five minutes. As in, one of the good guys gets fucking stabbed and turned into an eldritch horror they have to throw into a pit. It constantly gives a feeling of suspense, and I was genuinely worried they were gonna kill off another character throughout the entire thing.
Not only that, but the consequences of the deaths of important characters are always appropriately massive. Like we are, in book 5 basically still seeing the consequences of a certain main characters death.
ASoI&F became kinda predictable after a while. It's usually the PoV characters that are boned. E.g. notice how Cersei wasn't a PoV character early on and things went well for her. But then she became a PoV character in A Feast for Crows and uh-oh, Spaghetti-O's!
Chainsaw Man is one of my favorite pieces of media in how it deals with character death. Because it happens a lot, but I feel like it handles it very well. We see the impact that those deaths have on the rest of the characters, and every death has a ton of weight.
Star wars is interesting... Darth Vaders death didn't redeem him to the universe, it reconciled him to Luke. Kylo ren however.... oh boy. He didn't even need to die, felt like the studio just realised 'oh, yeah, he's a bad guy, better pull that lever'
I like the trope of ‘imperfect resurrection’. like they’re brought back but different. Like it lets the character come back but keeps all of the issues that their death brought.
Good resurrection storyline that comes to mind is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We expirience the death, feel the emotions of it, watch the characters deal with it. And when Buffy is brought back we expirience the fallout of her experiences being dead and brought to life. She is a fundamentally different character after.
I really liked that they went into the conflict she felt about having been in Heaven before being pulled back into the endless fight. Was so well done.
I mean when I was younger, I had this whole interconnected universe of stories I created which ended when all the characters died in a climatic final battle. So I guess I am a true writer.
I hate having my heart ripped out by well done character deaths, (looking at you, His Dark Materials book series). But one thing I thought about during this, that would be interesting is having a character death done properly, then bringing that character back, and now everyone who grieved that character and moved on has to deal with the consequences of having that character back in their lives. Would they actually be happy to have them back? Would they resent them, openly or covertly? Would there even be room for that character in their lives? Would they keep it a secret or not? Would the once dead character need to move on as well and "find new pastures" as it were? Would they wish they’d stayed dead? Not to mention the legal side of things if this is like a modern society - like, citizenship, passport etc. "Oh, I see here it says you used to be dead. Excuse me while I go and find the correct form to fill out." And also the government wanting the secret to bringing people back.
I agree with you here. Nothing pisses me off more than character resurrections, especially if the death was really well done. So if you're going to bring someone back, take the time to examine how difficult it would be to reintegrate, and how difficult it might be for their loved ones to have them back. I won't get into specifics, but that's something that hugely bugged me with the most recent season of Stranger Things. Right at the end of the last episode, a character that has been assumed dead for months finally reunites with several members of the cast. And they're just? Really underwhelmed? They're acting like they just haven't seen him for months, rather than like they've just learned that he's actually been alive the whole time.
Kind of random, but your comment makes me think of a French comic book series called Les légendaires, made for teenagers. One of the main characters is killed dramatically in book 12...and three pages later, he is resurrected by a very mysterious woman with unknown intentions. In book 17, he finally reveals that he's alive to his friends, and as you might expect, they aren't exactly thrilled at first. He quickly manages to win their trust and affection back(unfortunately...).
My favourite character deaths are in Twin Peaks. While the main character's death is a serious thing and investigated thoroughly, every other character that dies does so very violently and pointlessly.
Offscreen deaths are legit so suspicious, I never realised how prevalent that trope is. I guess it just feels less satisfying to have major offscreen deaths
We were once discussing predictions for the 5th Stormlight book and someone told me Kaladin was gonna die for sure cause his arc was now complete and he had reached catharsis and it made me SO DAMN ANGRY!! If Bondo Sandman killed off Kaladin it would really piss me off and I'd be really disappointed cause that would go against all that Kaladin stands for. P.s. happy early birthday to us!
My own theory is that Kaladin would complete his arc and live through Book 5. Then he'd get reintroduced in the second Stormlight arc as a happy hermit or whatnot, AND THEN they'd kill him off.
My two cents on character death and resurrections: -Deaths are -often- more impactful to me when they just happen out of the blue. When there's this big dramatic lead-up it gets me to prep for it, and it feels like I get to start processing their death before it happens. When it's done in a snap, I get to be more in the shoes of the still living characters, and get shocked *with* them, rather than just reading about how they were surprised. Plus it feels more realistic. -I don't like having characters constantly getting killed off. Take game of thrones; it was a great twist to have the just protagonists actually die. But by book three, it was suddenly like "oh a nice person. Bet they'll get skinned soon." Eugh, I guess I'm saying breaking tropes is a great way to create surprise and tension, but if you ALWAYS break the trope, it's just as predictable as before. But yeah, some death is great, it just needs to feel impactful. -Resurrection sucks. unless it's made very clear that it can only happen to certain people, or under certain scenarios, it is bad and will forever ruin the stakes. Look at the MCU. Who gives a shit about what happens, they'll just rewind time, or grab someone from another universe or something. I don't *care* about any of it, because ANYTHING can just be undone. Obviously there's exceptions to all of these. If it's a good enough writer or a good enough story, just about anything can be explained away. But still.
Completely agree that a shocking death is always better. You're caught off guard with all the characters, and the death feels all the more upsetting because of the endless unresolved plot threads they had when they died. And hard agree that resurrections suck, they just kill any emotional impact on reread/rewatch. I can think of exactly one character death followed by resurrection that still gets me emotional, which is in the second season of Supernatural. One of the main characters dies out of nowhere in the penultimate episode of the series, and his brother absolutely loses it. He's been an emotional wreck all season, and his single greatest fear was losing his brother. So now his worst nightmare has happened, and it pushes him so far over the edge that he compromises his own moral standards and does something awful to bring his brother back. It's made crystal clear that resurrecting him was a reckless and selfish thing to do, the consequences of doing so form the main plot of the entire next season. (Ironically the show is famous at this point for endlessly resurrecting characters when they run out of ideas, but the first time they attempted it is the only character resurrection I actually really love).
Spoilers for Maze Runner series: Ngl, when Newt died it was such an epic moment. The build up was fascinating and even thought it was suggested he would die because he had the sickness one would have never expected it, and much less how it happened, because other characters with the illness didn't die. His death was sudden and impacted the flow and ambience of the story so significantly. You had to take a step back and reread the scene and it still hurt. Such an amazing story.
Really? I never thought he was coming back. It was just more dramatic to experience his death the way Arya did (not being there to see it, but knowing it absolutely certain)
@@TheJadedJames Yeah, I gathered that was what they were doing eventually, it just seemed to me like there was ever so slightly the chance that he was the Faceless Man and disguised himself as Jaqen H'gar on his way out of the city. Just a small chance.
@@TheJadedJames My assumption (if he had survived) was that he managed to knock out the guards with his wooden sword and then escaped to do his next task/disguise.
Unless the death makes sense I usually just get angry. For example, I recently read a 4 book series that I really enjoyed and ended on a relatively happy note for the characters. (won't include the name to avoid spoilers) There was a follow-up series set years later following the next generation. I started reading it because I loved the first series and wanted to see how the characters had lived and where they would go next. AND THEY KILLED A MAJOR CHARACTER IN CHAPTER 2 OF THE FIRST BOOK. It wasn't even earned; they just died from random street thugs in order to motivate the new main character. It was one of the most anticlimactic moments I've ever experienced in a novel. I just stopped reading and took a break for several weeks out of anger before finally going back.
The guy at 5:39 👏👏👏 My fave character dying shines the spotlight on them in a way, so I'm usually happy to see it! Fun to see the effect their absence has on other characters.
He should realize by now that I’m immortal. A little canyon means nothing to me. I also wanted to say that that’s a nice little RU-vid channel you’ve got there. Hmmm, Joshua Carrying Thing has a nice ring to it…
I like ressurections in stories when there are consequences for the one who brought them back to life, like them having to pay a big price. Also dealing with the trauma of dying for the ressurected person. They did this well in Supernatural the first two times, but than it sadly got way out of hand. Percy Jackson spoilers Another example I find interessting is Thalia from the Percy Jackson Series. She died before the start of the series and her ressurection wasn't even on purpose by the ones ressurecting her. I find it interessting seing a character acting in the story who was important for the backstories of two main characters and the villain but wasn't really active in the story before and who comes back to a changed world. Like everyone else ist older, her mother died and her best friend became a villain and the leader of a group they are at war with now
Lmao I literally just made a comment gushing about how the first death and resurrection in Supernatural season 2 is the only death fakeout that I actually like and that doesn't diminish the emotional impact on rewatch.
What about a character who fakes his death and everyone know he ain't dead but he doesn't know they know he alive..? Guess that would be on the comedy genre, but still would like to read that XD
“Mentor them, give them the advice they need, and never talk to them again.” Name of the Wind did this well. Abenthy literally and metaphorically fucked right off.
I think one of the best resurrections I’ve ever seen was in Buffy The Vampire Slayer (spoilers obviously). When Buffy is brought back from the dead in the beginning of Season 6, it’s not treated as a wholly good thing. Sure, it’s nice to have her back, but she suffers a lot of psychological torture from the ordeal. I mean, she literally has to claw her way out of her buried casket and stumbles around town for hours trying make sense of what is happening for the whole episode. And to add insult to injury, it’s revealed at the end of the episode that she actually ended up in the equivalent of heaven, and existing on earth in comparison was like hell. It’s becomes her character arc throughout the most of the season, so there are huge character consequences for such an act. Another layer is the fact that she’s not brought back by some random happenstance to bring back into the plot, the other characters actively use a spell to bring her back from the dead because they miss her. It contributes to another running theme in the season: the unexpected consequences of wielding magic without caution. So the show chooses to make a big deal out of how much hell being resurrected puts someone through, and (to my recollection) never does a revival in the same way. There are plenty of problems with Buffy the vampire slayer (especially the people behind it) but it does a lot of stuff like this really well.
Let's combine these things! Kill the villain with an act of minor sacrifice, play it off as a redemption, and then bring them BACK as a villain! Hammer the heroes with a one-two emotional gutpunch while subverting tired tropes!
I know I'm pretty late to this, but this video just gave me a thought/question that I don't know where else to take. Re: @5:58 I'd already been thinking lately about some of the classics stories from writers like Camus, Kafka, Melville, etc; about how many of the protagonists arcs inevitably lead to their death, and if it is truly inevitable. I enjoy writing, and I love the themes and ideas explored in many of these books. But I think I might be depressed enough already without constructing my own narrative that demonstrates that death is the only meaningful resolution in the absurd struggle and torment that is life. Could Bartleby, or The Stranger, cockroach Gregor have survived their stories without ruining them?
Regarding the way worse things to happen than death to a bad guy, let us reminisce about the fates of our enemies in Dishonored in a non-lethal run. I mean, some of them are really savage (but deserving nonetheless).
Also, I'm okay with the resurrection trope (using it for my own story), but make it so there is at least some kind of implication. Looking at you Snowy Jony boy.
1. Ending every arc with death just removes happy endings. 2. Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a good way to do the resurrection thing. One character is brought back which is a shock, then the method of resurrection comes into play later in a non-shocking way.
On the 'kill the comic relief' comment, I completely agree that it can really work wonders in upping the stakes and darkening the tone. Teen Wolf sort of does this in its third season, and the result was widely praised as one of the best seasons of a supernatural teen show ever. The comic relief doesn't die, but he spends most of the season as a punching bag and eventual vessel for the series villain. He cracks a couple jokes early on, but he spends most of the season either in emotional turmoil or possessed by an evil spirit, and you *feel* the absence of his usual fun presence.
Just watched Princess Bride and the grandpa actually spoils the end to lil Sav by telling him the bad guy doesn’t die. It ended up being really powerful that he doesn’t die. Spoiler? Too late?
i know this is rlly late, but i wanna praise "they both die at the end" for how it treats character death. we know that the 2 main characters die, its literally the title, but you dont expect it to actually happen because of how many times they have been in near-death scenarios throughout the story. i was wrecked by the timing despite there literally being a timer on their lives. it was great.
Sort of related, it bugs the hell out of me when two characters who may have a spark but didn't act on it at a good time do so during a pitched battle where that 20 seconds of inaction should result in maiming or death. I would love a story where a main character and their love interest take the time to kiss or whatever and one or both get run through or decapitated.
I'm poisoned from reading tie-in novels that have characters shared by authors - but I'll *always* prefer a character dying to them hanging around past their use-by date - if only so they can't be 'ruined' by something else later. Is it silly, and having them just live on off-screen would be better some of the time? sure... but if that temptation is there...
Spoils for the Newsflesh Series by Mira Grant: My least favorite character death was in this series cause her death was super emotional and impactful and helped develop the plot in the second book with her brothers struggle with grieving and carrying on… only for the third book to start with her being a clone in a lab. Ngl I was pissed and I never finished the books cause even tho I felt the idea was cool I felt it just destroyed the character development in the second book even tho they go the “ she’s a clone not the real sister “ route
