When an author kills characters...

[evildmguy]

That pretty much sums it up. If I think "why did [author] kill him?" instead of "sniff, oh cruel world, why did he have to die?" it means I am taken out of the story. What I find interesting is some people seem to say "I find the story more engaging when [author] will kill people."

Ah, and that could be a difference.

I don't like reading a story that kills main characters **unless it is part of the story.** For example if a character has to die so another character can grow or has a choice to make, that's fine with me.

Even if it is "random", as the author still did it, it can still serve a purpose. In those cases, that's fine with me. However, telling me about a death of someone who has no bearing on the main characters won't work for me. This is a story and it should be focused on the main characters.

That's just my opinion, though.

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I guess why I can't grasp is how a character dying is destroying the Illusion that there is a reality behind it all. People die in reality all the time and most of the time isn't not in a heroic fashion or at the "right time" so to speak.

the other thing about this point specificly - its not their story. Look at the begining of saving private ryan. People are dying everywhere for something or for nothing, with heroism behind it or just because they were in the wrong spot. And the deaths obviously lend a little drama and the illusion of danger to the scene. But reality aside, Tom Hanks is not gonna get hit and die on the beach, no matter how "realistic" it is, because his name was on top of the poster and its his story we're here to watch. If he does die in the movie, it will be towards the end, it will be meaningful and possibly heroic, because its his story. People who die non heroicly or at the wrong time don't get stories written about them, they appear in the background of other people's story. Or at least their pointless death is the end of the story. (Alls Quiet on the Western Front)

Put another way, to have a realistic story, there has to be a balance between the reality part and the story part. Where different readers place that balance point will differ, which opens up the market to writers of many styles. But, for me at least, there's a part where a "realistic" death of someone whose story was being told just screams to me "hey, look how edgy and realistic a writer I am! Wow, taste the realism and be amazed! Now the story will continue on for a few hundred more pages on some other stuff...." At which point, as "realistic" as such a death might be, the hand of the author has been waved in my face and given me the finger, and the story has been so disrupted that I am overaware of it.

Heh, anyone read Mostly Harmless? There was a very dull planet with very realistic books - which all ended at exactly 200 pages regardless of where the 'story' was at that point.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Robb's love and marraige of the Random Chick Who Shows Up In The Prior Chapter could have been actually shown to us, to make the setup more natural (the one time a sex scene would have contributed and he skipped it! )

Kahuna Burger, some of our thoughts on this book are so similar that it's scary. When Robb married the random chick because his honor demanded it after he slept with her, I thought "Wow, this is perhaps the only time in the entire trilogy that a sex scene contributed the story, and it happened off-camera."

 

[Henry]

A character death invests me in the story, rather than takes me out of it. Too often, an author, TV Executive, or storyteller is so afraid to change the formula that they will go to amazing lengths to keep a character alive, and ruin suspension of disbelief. Just as in D&D, where is the thrill of adventure if there is no threat of harm or death?

When wash died, or when Tara died in Buffy, or when Fred dies in Angel, those deaths felt "realer" to me than any heroic stand, or last ditch effort, because in real life, that's the way it happens. One minute, you're walking under the hoisted piano, and BOOM, you aren't here anymore. One minute, you're throwing yourself headlong into a fight, and BAM, you aren't there anymore. I enjoy novels and TV series that aren't afraid to introduce major change, and work repercussions around it.

Contrast this to something like Smallville, where Chloe, Johnathan, Martha, Clark, Pete, Lana, Lex, Lionel, etc. have had the pure HECK beaten out of them (heck, Martha had a house fall down on her, and Chloe had her house BLOW UP!) only to return week after week, better than ever just in time for next week's show. I still enjoy the series, but I don't have nearly the emotional investment in it that I did Buffy, or Angel, or even Firefly, as short as it ran.

One thought just popped in: I consider one of the best comic book concepts ever to be Strikeforce: Morituri, if that gives people an idea of where I'm coming from.

 

[Dingleberry]

One thought just popped in: I consider one of the best comic book concepts ever to be Strikeforce: Morituri, if that gives people an idea of where I'm coming from.

Wow - it's been a long time since I thought about that title. Good one.

 

[Thanee]

The thing for me is that if I feel that "the author" has killed a character (as I did in ASoIaF) I completely lose nterest in the rest of the story.

The story in ASoIaF, even though it is told through the eyes of the characters, is not truely about these characters' fates. They are just pawns. The story is about the seven kingdoms and the rise of godly powers and their confrontation, that is what Martin tells, the characters are just tools to get the story across.

Of course, if the characters I really like to read about in ASoIaF would die, I probably wouldn't really like to read on, but that's, gladly, not very likely to happen anytime soon, there's too much on the horizon for them.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Rykion]

I find that character death tends to work better in single volume books and movies than in TV, book, or movie series. A single book or movie is enough to make someone care enough about a character to be emotional about his or her death. That way, no one has the years of emotional attachment that series bring. Character death in a series is more likely to leave fans disappointed and annoyed. The old serials and episodic TV are built on the comforting idea that main characters will escape death and always win out in the end.

I believe many people enjoy ASoIaF because it turns the normal series paradigms on their heads. Main characters die, and the reader doesn't know who will come out the victor. It reads more like historical fiction than a typical fantasy novel. I agree that the Red Wedding needed more of a set up than it received. I think one of the main weaknesses of ASoIaF as a series was that it introduced too many main characters and Martin needed to remove some to keep the story going.

 

[Elf Witch]

When it comes to character death in a story it depends on how it is handled as to how it effects me.

Tara's death made me cry at the unfairness of it all and what it did to Willow broke my heart. In other words it worked Joss touched my emotions the same as he did with Fred and Wash's death.

But Martin's books do not do that to me. The deaths after awhile stopped having any effect on me. It is like watching a bad slasher film after awhile you just bedome numb and a little bored with all the death scenes.

My favorite series by Katherine Kurtz has a lot of death in it but I never become jaded or bored even when she kills a character you already know is going to die it still shocks you.

 

[Nellisir]

I have disagree with nellsir on Sleeping dragon. The rest of cast never died and stated dead. Of course I quit reading Joel after the 4 th book.
If I was writing Star Trek. Nimoy would have been out a job after the second movie.

I don't expect every book I like to be a universal favorite, so your opinion is A-OK with me.

But do consider this. By the end of the Sleeping Dragon, they've given up

Spoiler

pretty much their only chance of going home (and as of the last book, they're all still there)

, and

Spoiler

the Aristobulus aspect of Lou Riccetti is permanently gone

.

In later books

Spoiler

Doria loses her status as a priest of the Hand and all her magic

;

Spoiler

Karl Cullinane dies

(yes, really, and apparently for good); and

Spoiler

most other supporting characters that see battle regularly

(I don't have all the books handy, so forgive me for not listing names).

The Heros of the Flame series takes place over a much longer span of time than most fantasy series; that's another cool thing. The young adults of the first book are in their 50's now (though it doesn't make a difference to Ahira), and largely been replaced by a younger generation.

Still, everyone's cup of tea is different.
Cheers
Nell.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Addressing only the SoIaF issue...

The Red Wedding was simply, to me, further proof that in Westeros it is not enough to be "good" or "noble." Anyone, anywhere, can be killed and all it takes is some petty reason, some wounded pride. Westeros is a place where almost no one has the luxury of marrying for love, of living a comfortable life free of strife. I wouldn't want to live there -- what a nightmare that would be! "Adventure" -- bah! Most "adventures" involve minor scrapes and hurt feelings. SoIaF is a brutal life and death struggle and there is no knowing who will come out on top. What a thrill to witness it!

Quoted for truth.

GRRM kills off characters to lend tension to the tale and a certain truth to the story.

Contrast a campaign where you KNOW the DM won't kill a character with one where death always lurked and choices were important. You know which campaign had more tension - more of an air of reality - and which was more fun.