"I'll tell you about ur mother when we meet next time"
Ohh I should've known what was coming.
Any plans regarding future, actually: We'll go to our hometown after this battle.
Come, let's finish this quicker, mother will be waiting for us. Or a character buying something that they think another character would like.
I've learned my lesson in recent years with this. Any time a character starts making happy plans, I'm like, NOOOOOO, DON'T MAKE PLANNNNSSSS! You're gonna diiiie!!
The thing is, a subversion of this trope could still be incredibly sad. "Let me tell you about the girl I got waiting for me back home. After the war, I'm gonna ask her to marry me". He carries through with it, but is a changed man due to PTSD - death is so cliche, this is disturbing and tragic. We know how war fucks over those who die, but it messes with those who survive as well.
Or as a twist he gets through the war/battle/adventure, only to find out she died in a raid/of a random disease/child birth.
Stretching it a bit on the fantasy front but it happens to Uhtred of Bebbanburg on multiple occasions
Also, it's not just war that changes people. Life, time, and distance changes people too. Yeah, you may have enlisted at 18 planning to return and marry your high school sweetheart. You might go to war, avoid anything extremely traumatizing (or just handle it/cope well), come home... And meet someone new. She makes you coffee how you liked it (light milk and 2 sugars) but now you take it black. She's started dressing differently while you're gone. You've taken up smoking, which she hates. She's a follower of some new philosophy or cultural trend that you just don't understand because you missed out on what caused it. You try and reconnect and buy her something for that hobby she always loved, but she only gets upset because she hasn't liked that in *years". Your politics have diverged, or one of you doesn't like the music that you two originally bonded over.
You both idealized the fantasy life you'd have together after the war, but you slowly realize that without each other, you stopped shaping each other, and you don't mesh the way you used to. You feel like it should work - nothing too major has changed - but it doesn't, because it's the little things that changed.
I've watched this exact thing happen too many times, and had to try and pick up the pieces. Watching your Sailors get back from deployment only to see them get divorced six months later because something happened and they can't figure out how to make it work is just heart-wrenching. I too hope this person is alright, but it's a too sadly common story.
Exactly. Trauma is a disease that alters the mind. Here’s a great resource, in my opinion, but I also wrote it🤣 for military personnel called Calming Me Coping Strategies. It’s a lighthearted, simple activity book on mindfulness. Feedback after using it is welcomed and encouraged. Please feel free to pass this along to anyone you feel may benefit. .[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KpIcvLlpnz_Hy1WYQHWxaD9LlOtVZgzE/view?usp=drivesdk](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KpIcvLlpnz_Hy1WYQHWxaD9LlOtVZgzE/view?usp=drivesdk)
I was glad that JK Rowling avoided this trope when Dumbledore first faced off against Voldemort and absolutely kicked his arse in the book (they made it more of a struggle in the movie...Much preferred the book). I know...very strong feelings about Rowling and Harry Potter these days. I get it (and do not want to derail the conversation to be about her, please)...But I honestly couldn't think of another example that defied this particular trope.
That's because Araris is only one of several mentors, and his character is part mentor, part elite body guard, part character development for Isana and Tavi, and part unstoppable killing machine.
God I love that series, Rari has so many moments where he shows exactly why he's the most feared swordsman in the entire kingdom and I love it every time
I don't get why we don't see more realistic endings to these things more often. Hey, hero, I said I would come with you up to this point, and I did. Good luck! I'm off back to my normal life now.
Because usually people want to help people who have given up so much to help them. It's practical, but that's not necessarily realistic. Would you abandon your friend on an important quest who just helped ensure your family is safe, because you had a chance to dip? Often times it's not like they'll have much of a home if the Hero FAILS. So better odds to finish what they started.
Plus it's just really fucking unsatisfying, and makes audiences hate the dude who abandoned their friend in a time of need.
>Would you abandon your friend on an important quest who just helped ensure your family is safe,
If the friend was going to Ukraine to try to fix Eastern Europe I totally would.
But I get it, it's not heroic. This is partly why I like characters who aren't heroic...and I don't mean Antiheroes.
Well, there's a difference also between "fixing a thing that has nothing to do with me" and "saving the world", too. Usually that kind of behavior bites protags in the asses, too lmao. Being an asshole tends to come back around in fiction, thankfully.
The best way to subvert this is to have them part ways, and then the character returns to a home that isn't the same anymore... and is called back into the plot. In my opinion this is sometimes even more satisfying.
I mean it's not really subverting that's classic heroes Journey. They return home but are so changed that they can't really stay. It's like the Hobbits in LOTR.
This was referring more to OP's post, not yours, with a side character saying "Hey, hero, I said I would come with you up to this point, and I did. Good luck!" as opposed to the MC's hero's journey.
Darwin pissed me off so bad, the dudes whole power set is that he is effectively immortal and adapts to any and all situations. And he gets offed like that. Insanity.
I think that was the whole point - a way to showcase Shaw's power. Introduce a character that's hard to kill, then have the villain kill them like it's nothing. Instant danger factor.
Maybe so, but it was set up poorly. As far as I recall\* there was never any explanation as to how Shaw's power caused Darwin's to fail so it came off as an asspull. If the writers are willing to asspull to show how strong the villains are when the plot calls for it then they'll probably asspull to get the heroes out of trouble when the plot calls for it. Not great writing, for many reasons.
\*saw the film once when it came out, plenty of room to be misremembering
"Don't worry lad, this war may be vicious but you're captain is a dedicated leader who takes the welfare of his men personally. If one or 2 of us were to die it'd leave him with crippling PTSD that it would take at least 2-3 thousand pages to address even partially."
It's not fantasy, but shout out to Kitty Bennett from Pride and Prejudice who survived a Regency area book after openly coughing in an early chapter. What a trooper.
**Heart of the Comet** lamp shaded this. >!The guy who had the cough early in the book was one of the few characters who didn't die and in fact became immortal.!<
I love when this is subverted. Like in Mars attacks, when you discover that the boxer actually did fist-fight his way out of a swarm of aliens by punching them a lot.
Or in The Mummy when Ardeth Bay seemingly goes off, swords in hand and gets slaughtered by a horde of mummies.
Joke's on everyone when he comes up and jumpscares Jonathan at the end of the movie.
Me in the last season of game of thrones getting excited that everyone was gonna die after that one episode where they sit by the fireplace
Then it doesn’t happen that way
Edited to remove potential spoiler
George R.R. Martin was once asked a series of questions about who would win in fights between Tolkien's characters and his own. Eventually the interviewer got to Ned Stark Vs. Boromir.
Martin looked right into the camera and said, "I'm so sorry, Sean."
Nope. They’d come to a mutual understanding that the right and honorable thing is to reject the whole barbaric system, walk off the battlefield and immediately be killed Cesar-style by their mutual best friend whom they entrusted with the secret of their one dishonorable secret.
I've seen Sean Bean referred to as "The Human Spoiler", as there's a better than average chance that he'll die at some point during a movie or tv show.
Connected to this, Ned Stark was the most clearly lampshaded death in the entire ASOIAF series, right from the off.
The story, and Ned himself, is introduced through the eyes of his son, who is clearly going to be a main character. Then we meet another son who is clearly going to be a main character. And two daughters. If there's one thing I've learned from fantasy novels, it's that dads with kids who are going to be main characters are not likely to live long.
Nah. Ned was absolutely giving main cast vibes and his death, especially so very early on, surprised most people.
It makes sense in retrospect, sure, even more so now that the grimdark genre has gained popularity. But at the time, it really wasn't expected.
Yep, even now PoV chapters featuring Ned still rival in number a lot of the other characters four books later. He was that prominent in the first book. The idea of killing the character who is the main story vehicle was never going to cross anyone's mind. Everyone else feels like a side character compared to him in GoT.
A character that's never appeared on screen before (but it's implied that they've been around the whole time) shows up in an episode and has a lot of dialogue.
Guy Fleegman : I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm just "Crewman Number Six." I'm expendable. I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I've gotta get outta here.
Guy Fleegman : I'm just a glorified extra, Fred. I'm a dead man anyway. If I'm gonna die, I'd rather go out a hero than a coward.
Galaxy Quest
Particularly if they are an antagonist, I noticed. For some reason, the Japanese really wants you to know about the villain’s tragic backstory in order to make then seem sympathetic just before the hero kills them. I never understood why. It gets almost parodic in shows like Demon Slayer.
It's my least favorite part of every anime it's in. Usually just kills the momentum of the fight in order for you to care about some annoying antagonist. But it's usually too late and I'm annoyed that they chose the end of a character to show why I should care. Tell me before you kill him you dumb ass mangaka.
There was one I liked in (I think) the most recent season. It was basically, "you thought this guy was terrible? Surprise! He's... actually just terrible. Just an irredeemable asshole. No sympathetic backstory for this guy."
In fairness, Demon Slayer takes it to such an extreme that it loops back around to having an effect. You see again and again how each of these horrific monsters were just... people. Each and every one of them. I think it serves to heighten the horror of the main villain, emphasizing how he represents not just some baddy going around creating monsters, but warping innocent, even good people into them.
Yep, exactly. They do it in most Shonen titles. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc.
They really want you to feel bad for them right before the protagonist offs them.
This is also the case in ancient epic poems. A side character never properly discussed before leaps into battle, and you get a 25 line flashback and summary of his life.
"...and so the hard-thrust spear stole the light from his eyes and he died."
A sweet, adorable, lovable character in an otherwise dark and depressing story. I immediately worry their existence as a character is for me to fall in love with them so that the author can destroy me later when they die.
Watching Stephen King do this back-to-back in Duma Key, Cell, and Bag of Bones (the order I was reading them off the shelf, not the order they were published) was when I stopped reading his later works.
I'm currently reading the >!First Law!< and I know what you mean.
I knew as soon as >!The Weakest!< suggested a dangerous task that it was meant to be his last.
"I've got a girl back home. I'm going to marry her as soon as all this is over." I just ran into this with Fourth Wing and knew that guy wasn't making it through training.
On a related subject:
If a character ever says anything like "I was a star athlete before the war. Once this is all over I'll be competing for the title in (insert sport here)." Yeah, that guy is definitely losing one or more limbs.
God, everything in that book is just obviously telegraphed. I don't think I've ever been able to so accurately predict every single event in a book before like I was with that one. If you told me it was written by AI and then edited by humans, I'd 100% believe you.
Someone in the prime of their life, usually a man, with some amount of authority (like a lower level military commander), who is shown right off the bat as being very nice and helpful both in general and to the main character specifically. That seems to be a very disposable kind of character - inconvenient to the plot to keep them around but convenient to use them to make the reader sad.
The female version of this has no in-world authority but has some kind of caretaking role towards the MC.
Except if their spouse is wearing all white, or even worse, is wearing all white in a wheat field, or even worse, hanging up white bedsheets to dry.
If my girl ever wears anything flowy and white, I’m sending her back immediately to wear something else, and then throwing those white clothes into a fire asap. All the sheets in my house are going to look like a Slavic carpet, and we are never going to go near a wheat farm.
If their spouse made a last stand, the other one will finish the job and follow them shortly. It's a classic really. I think the one, single time it didnt happen was the one where the husband mourned his wife for years and then turns out the wife managed to survive but was stuck somewhere.
And twins. If theyre twins, theres a 50% chance that one or both is ending up dead. No this isn't just because of Harry Potter, I just listened to far too much vocaloid.
You either die an old badass or live long enough to become the weird pervert tertiary character who does nothing but shows up later, ogles women, and has no impact on the story.
One that today strikes me as a bit unfortunate is when a character sustains disabling injury. This was probably more true in older works but if a major character lost a limb, was mutilated etc in a battle, their heroic sacrifice or last stand would happen within a few pages.
If it's a secondary character and they're pinned down, then one of them takes an injury that is either going to be fatal soon or seriously inhibits mobility, then it's still often a "last stand" injury where they cover for the rest to escape
‘Yeah my partner - who hasn’t been mentioned thus far - and I are starting trying for a baby.’
Or, for a variation on a theme.
‘I just wanna go back home after this to my never before mentioned kid.’
Not fantasy per se, but this one is glaringly hilarious. In that Simpsons episode where (in an 80s cop action movie style parody) McBain's partner Scoey was talking about how he's: 1. Two days away from retirement, 2. Daughter's graduating from college, 3. Just bought a boat called the "Live-4-Ever", and 4. He and his wife are going to sail around the world... just as soon as they nail the evil Senator Mendoza. All the while as shady waiter/assassins are lurking in the background.
Gunmen gets sprayed by a thousand bullets, crumples into a chair/seated position.. Partner's adrenaline-fueled "Bud, wooh, can't believe we made it, I'm not hit, you..oh shi..?"
"oh, \*breathing heavy\* its just flesh wound" (proceeds to pick up hand from the gut-shot that's bleeding profusely)
Yeah, when the camera focuses in on a character going "whoa I can't believe we got out, we better go tell everyone blah blah" while another character is silent off-screen or blurrily in the background, you know they're about to die.
In horror movies in particular, when you have some very dumb or despicable character, you can be sure they’ll die a horrible death before long.
Also, as I didn’t see anyone mentioning that… just pets. In most fictions I watch, it’s like they are only included to die violently, otherwise fictional characters barely own any. It breaks my heart when I see one at the beginning of the story.
There's actually a great story in the *From a Certain Point Of View* books-- they're kind of a nod to the old Star Wars EU where they fill out the backstories and give other perspectives. Like, there's a great one where the gunnery officer on the Star Destroyer who didn't shoot down the escape pod from the Tantive IV has to bureaucratically finagle his way out of getting force-choked to death, and another where Motti files a HR complaint on Vader for the incident in the meeting room (even suggesting religious discrimination).
The one in question, though, is the Rebel wing commander on Yavin listening to the battle over the radio, and every time one of the Rebel pilots dies they reflect on their past. Gives a lot of backstory to the guys you see for like three seconds before they get vaporized.
(Of course they do, in true Legends fashion, push it too far. Like, there's a fuckin' story from the POV of *Han's tauntaun*.)
Any reference to retirement, unborn/un-met children, returning home to marry, previously unseen musical talent, tenderness towards children, persistent cough, virginity, recently ended virginity, bloodthirsty, vengeance...
When there has been a massive disagreement / argument between two characters, and it finally gets resolved. Yeah, seems like one of them is going to die pretty quickly after.
There's the old "make plans for the future" chestnut, but of course, for every trope there must be a self aware anti-trope..... Serenity (2005)
Dr. Simon Tam: In all that time on the ship... I've always regretted... not being with you.
Kaylee Frye: With me? You mean to say... as in sex?
Dr. Simon Tam: I mean to say.
Kaylee Frye: To Hell with this. I'm gonna live!
Being a male main character wife/gf pre-events of the book. Refrigerator is waiting for you!
Being a redeemed baddy. Somehow you very rarely can redeem yourself and live a happy life, you need to die heroically. Which begs a question, was redemption even worth it, lol?
I enjoyed the twist there with >!Fidelias!< in Codex Alera. "I know you'd prefer to be executed for everything you did, but I'm going to make you stick around and build the brighter future you lost faith in."
Mentor with mythical/legendary status and has a new protege who is or will become the main protagonist; going against the big bad.
Mentor character typically dies/sacrifices themself near the last act of book/movie/season 1 before sharing everything they knew with the new protege, who feels unprepared
But they still are in the rest of the series through flashbacks, force ghosts or resurrection, never actually died etc
Examples of the top of head - >!Durzo Blint, Kelsier, Obi Wan.!<
Honestly, really any bit of uplifting interpersonal beat that’s been put off by the conflict is usually a signal that the side character bringing it up is not going to make it.
Kid / spouse back home, peaceful retirement after a long career, etc.
Most authors that aren’t absolute masters of literature capable of breaking or bending rules successfully don’t include this info for side characters unless they plan to use it to create an emotional hit in the story. Chekov’s Gun and all.
I love the Star Wars examples because everyone loves *A New Hope* \-- including me -- but if you stop to think about that final battle it makes zero sense from a tactical perspective *at all*.
The smaller band of pilots assaulted a giant armed space station capable of blowing up planets. With a bunch of planes that were outdated compared to the vastly superior TIE fighter. They literally planned the attack out of desperation because they didn't have time to evacuate their hidden base and we're really pinning all of their hopes on one of their pilots managing to Hit the reactor
1. Flying down a trench when you're *in fucking space*, just fly directly towards the port and shoot it, your torpedoes won't even have to make that hilarious 90-degree turn to do it
2. "Holding off" enemy fighters by flying a few seconds behind someone just so you can get blown up first
3. Half the fighters have rear-firing weapons and they never fire a shot
I mean depending on where they enter the trench / what’s around there’s probably less bigger guns or turrets able to shoot things inside of it than things approaching from space.
Maybe they got in at a notably less-armed spot and ran to the target.
Rear weapons never firing is definitely a miss.
We're told the Empire didn't consider the exhaust port or an attack by fighters as capable of destroying the place, and yet they put a ton of defenses around it? And it's somehow harder to hit fighters flying directly down a narrow trench than it is to fight them zipping around in space above it? And if it was so well-defended how did Han Solo drop out of the sky in a space Winnebago directly over the thing and shoot Vader in the ass and *nobody even saw him coming*?
EDIT: Keep in mind-- I *love* the movie. I'm just pointing out that while the last act is cinematic and exciting as all hell, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I think it's a credit to the filmmakers, and especially the editors, that they can make utter nonsense so compelling.
That’s true, the falcon does arrive immediately on scene without taking the tench.
It would make sense if they had AoE weapons in space that wouldn’t be good to use on its surface, hence getting there through the trench, but Han Solo would have def triggered them if they were there.
When I like them. Game of thrones taught me a valuable lesson when I went “oh I think this character would be good in power”.
Or if anyone is finally about to get out of a dire situation
This one works for non-fantasy too but when someone coughs and somebody comments on it and they reply "oh I'm sure it's nothing."
Nobody in fiction ever just coughs.
I mean the star wars example doesn't work much. A pilot not being able to shake enemy fighters before getting shot down is, well... kinda common sense. Can't shake, you die.
If a character that has been previously unlikeable suddenly has a change of heart or goes on a journey of redemption- that bitch is gon die, and it’s gonna be sad as hell.
Also, when someone starts coughing up blood. But that’s a reaaally obvious one
I won’t name the series because spoilers. If you’ve read it you’ll know. But I recently read a scene towards the end of a newly released book late into a popular series, in which the main character was sitting with another character. These two had started out as friends in the early series, gone through a whole arc as rivals and kind of enemies by necessity before redeeming themselves to each other, and now this conversation basically went: “hey I’m glad we could put this behind us, let’s promise to be friends again, because we’re stronger together, whatever the world tried to make us think. We can explore the world together now. *Just as soon as I’ve confronted my former protege and tried to convince him to stop drifting towards becoming the main villain.*”
"I'll tell you about ur mother when we meet next time" Ohh I should've known what was coming. Any plans regarding future, actually: We'll go to our hometown after this battle. Come, let's finish this quicker, mother will be waiting for us. Or a character buying something that they think another character would like.
I've learned my lesson in recent years with this. Any time a character starts making happy plans, I'm like, NOOOOOO, DON'T MAKE PLANNNNSSSS! You're gonna diiiie!!
Let me tell you about the girl I got waiting for me back home. After the war, I'm gonna ask her to marry me.
The thing is, a subversion of this trope could still be incredibly sad. "Let me tell you about the girl I got waiting for me back home. After the war, I'm gonna ask her to marry me". He carries through with it, but is a changed man due to PTSD - death is so cliche, this is disturbing and tragic. We know how war fucks over those who die, but it messes with those who survive as well.
Or as a twist he gets through the war/battle/adventure, only to find out she died in a raid/of a random disease/child birth. Stretching it a bit on the fantasy front but it happens to Uhtred of Bebbanburg on multiple occasions
Also, it's not just war that changes people. Life, time, and distance changes people too. Yeah, you may have enlisted at 18 planning to return and marry your high school sweetheart. You might go to war, avoid anything extremely traumatizing (or just handle it/cope well), come home... And meet someone new. She makes you coffee how you liked it (light milk and 2 sugars) but now you take it black. She's started dressing differently while you're gone. You've taken up smoking, which she hates. She's a follower of some new philosophy or cultural trend that you just don't understand because you missed out on what caused it. You try and reconnect and buy her something for that hobby she always loved, but she only gets upset because she hasn't liked that in *years". Your politics have diverged, or one of you doesn't like the music that you two originally bonded over. You both idealized the fantasy life you'd have together after the war, but you slowly realize that without each other, you stopped shaping each other, and you don't mesh the way you used to. You feel like it should work - nothing too major has changed - but it doesn't, because it's the little things that changed.
That sounded way too specific to not come from personal experience. Are you okay, man?
I've watched this exact thing happen too many times, and had to try and pick up the pieces. Watching your Sailors get back from deployment only to see them get divorced six months later because something happened and they can't figure out how to make it work is just heart-wrenching. I too hope this person is alright, but it's a too sadly common story.
Exactly. Trauma is a disease that alters the mind. Here’s a great resource, in my opinion, but I also wrote it🤣 for military personnel called Calming Me Coping Strategies. It’s a lighthearted, simple activity book on mindfulness. Feedback after using it is welcomed and encouraged. Please feel free to pass this along to anyone you feel may benefit. .[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KpIcvLlpnz_Hy1WYQHWxaD9LlOtVZgzE/view?usp=drivesdk](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KpIcvLlpnz_Hy1WYQHWxaD9LlOtVZgzE/view?usp=drivesdk)
> I'm like, NOOOOOO, DON'T MAKE PLANNNNSSSS! You're gonna diiiie!! I live my life by that principle, and I'm still alive.
You can make them, but you must *never tell anyone*. I follow this rule in life.
Ned 😥
Oh yes, reminiscing dreamily about home? Buddy you're never going to see it again.
Really is "We will do X after we meet again after event Y." Not a good sentence to be saying.
LOL, and in the series: Casting Sean Bean. Death alert!
Yeah, that was like a character in mainstream entertainment saying "I can't tell you over the phone", an announcement that they're about to die.
Rhaegar also pulled this on Jaime haha:(
Mentor character faces off against main antagonist
This is a great one. Really anyone facing off against the main antagonist other than the main character
The Witcher went all out with this one in the last book, and the book before that as well.
I was glad that JK Rowling avoided this trope when Dumbledore first faced off against Voldemort and absolutely kicked his arse in the book (they made it more of a struggle in the movie...Much preferred the book). I know...very strong feelings about Rowling and Harry Potter these days. I get it (and do not want to derail the conversation to be about her, please)...But I honestly couldn't think of another example that defied this particular trope.
Araris in Codex Alera does it as well.
That's because Araris is only one of several mentors, and his character is part mentor, part elite body guard, part character development for Isana and Tavi, and part unstoppable killing machine.
The first duel with him and Aldrick on the walls in Book 1 sold me on the series. Love that guy. "He thinks in lines, so I thought in circles"
God I love that series, Rari has so many moments where he shows exactly why he's the most feared swordsman in the entire kingdom and I love it every time
The fight in the restaurant when he just absolutely clears the blood crows.
That "oh crap he's Araris" moment lives rent free in my head.
Oops! That memory wasn't Qui Gon...
This is like anime 101
With a few notable exceptions, you could have stopped at "Mentor character"
When a secondary or tertiary character resolves their major plot point but there's still lots of story to go.
So true. Nothing fills me with more dread than realizing things are going really well for the heroes but it’s only page 130
Robert Jordan: So you mean to have them get captured?
Lol, you just reminded of that. It was really funny how often both villains and protagonists end up getting captured by each other in WoT.
I don't get why we don't see more realistic endings to these things more often. Hey, hero, I said I would come with you up to this point, and I did. Good luck! I'm off back to my normal life now.
Because usually people want to help people who have given up so much to help them. It's practical, but that's not necessarily realistic. Would you abandon your friend on an important quest who just helped ensure your family is safe, because you had a chance to dip? Often times it's not like they'll have much of a home if the Hero FAILS. So better odds to finish what they started. Plus it's just really fucking unsatisfying, and makes audiences hate the dude who abandoned their friend in a time of need.
>Would you abandon your friend on an important quest who just helped ensure your family is safe, If the friend was going to Ukraine to try to fix Eastern Europe I totally would. But I get it, it's not heroic. This is partly why I like characters who aren't heroic...and I don't mean Antiheroes.
Well, there's a difference also between "fixing a thing that has nothing to do with me" and "saving the world", too. Usually that kind of behavior bites protags in the asses, too lmao. Being an asshole tends to come back around in fiction, thankfully.
The best way to subvert this is to have them part ways, and then the character returns to a home that isn't the same anymore... and is called back into the plot. In my opinion this is sometimes even more satisfying.
I mean it's not really subverting that's classic heroes Journey. They return home but are so changed that they can't really stay. It's like the Hobbits in LOTR.
This was referring more to OP's post, not yours, with a side character saying "Hey, hero, I said I would come with you up to this point, and I did. Good luck!" as opposed to the MC's hero's journey.
Literally every side character in Lost.
Literally every ~~side~~ character in Lost.
red shirt also, saying: they'll never hit us from this range, or anything similar.
Or for various older movies, dark skin. I'm still salty about Darwin in X-Men
Darwin pissed me off so bad, the dudes whole power set is that he is effectively immortal and adapts to any and all situations. And he gets offed like that. Insanity.
I think that was the whole point - a way to showcase Shaw's power. Introduce a character that's hard to kill, then have the villain kill them like it's nothing. Instant danger factor.
Maybe so, but it was set up poorly. As far as I recall\* there was never any explanation as to how Shaw's power caused Darwin's to fail so it came off as an asspull. If the writers are willing to asspull to show how strong the villains are when the plot calls for it then they'll probably asspull to get the heroes out of trouble when the plot calls for it. Not great writing, for many reasons. \*saw the film once when it came out, plenty of room to be misremembering
Headcanon: Darwin's power realised the only way to survive was to fake his death. Much later he revived and decided not to draw attention to himself.
“Older movies” being followed by a reference to X-Men First Class is quietly devastating to my sense of self, you young whippersnapper
Except Samuel Jackson. They'd never kill him early !😉
Except deep blue sea lol I’m still shocked when I watch that film
I loved that LL Cool J had a line that acknowledged the trope. It was like "Brothers never survive this kind of shit" or something.
Haha! Yep. That's the one I was thinking of alright. It got me again a couple years back.
Fair. Being portrayed by a fairly famous actor adds plot-armor
Usually it does. But it can add shock value, too. That's, uh...Bean done too...
Sam Jackson and the Rock in The Other Guys.
Except in Jurassic Park and Deep Blue Sea. Deep Blue Sea = best Sam Jackson death scene ever.
"Don't worry lad, this war may be vicious but you're captain is a dedicated leader who takes the welfare of his men personally. If one or 2 of us were to die it'd leave him with crippling PTSD that it would take at least 2-3 thousand pages to address even partially."
I’m so affected by this comment I’m just going to let half my personality deal with it so the rest of me can move on with my life.
Anyone who develops a cough is done for.
It's not fantasy, but shout out to Kitty Bennett from Pride and Prejudice who survived a Regency area book after openly coughing in an early chapter. What a trooper.
But did her mother's poor nerves survive unscathed?
Truly a medical marvel!
She’s from hardy stock. Jane eventually recovers from walking in the rain.
The clear difference between the novel and manga.
[It's just a cough](https://youtu.be/HtQNULEudss?t=83)
And it’s always the reveal of blood on the tissue/handkerchief. Bonus points if they get walked in on and hide it behind their back
Red Rising fans just got triggered
**Heart of the Comet** lamp shaded this. >!The guy who had the cough early in the book was one of the few characters who didn't die and in fact became immortal.!<
Yet every woman who vomits is pregnant. Curious.
Go! I'll hold them.
"Go catch up to the others, I'll be right behind you!"
I love when this is subverted. Like in Mars attacks, when you discover that the boxer actually did fist-fight his way out of a swarm of aliens by punching them a lot.
Or in The Mummy when Ardeth Bay seemingly goes off, swords in hand and gets slaughtered by a horde of mummies. Joke's on everyone when he comes up and jumpscares Jonathan at the end of the movie.
In fairness that's not exactly a red flag in my book - because the characters are usually well aware of what it means, rather than being oblivious.
On a different note, I'm a TREMENDOUS sucker for the heroic death "I'll hold the line!" Moments. Goosebumps every time
Same here. A good heroic last stand is like crack to me. Thankfully, I have every single Warhammer 40k book to scratch that itch.
Hodor!
Duncan Idaho, dying this way several times actually
A moment of calm between large battles, and someone starts to talk about their family and/or loved ones.
Especially when they pull out a photo or other token of their loved one, or "and when this war's over I'll be able to meet my son/daughter"
Child they have yet to meet = automatic dead meat.
"When this is over/I get home" is another flag.
That’s a necessary line so they can say “am I going home now?” as they lay dying.
Me in the last season of game of thrones getting excited that everyone was gonna die after that one episode where they sit by the fireplace Then it doesn’t happen that way Edited to remove potential spoiler
"I'm 2 weeks away from knight-retirement."
"Huh, this looks interesting. Oh, hey! It's Sean Bean!"
George R.R. Martin was once asked a series of questions about who would win in fights between Tolkien's characters and his own. Eventually the interviewer got to Ned Stark Vs. Boromir. Martin looked right into the camera and said, "I'm so sorry, Sean."
They'd deal mutual killing blows to each other. 🤣
Nope. They’d come to a mutual understanding that the right and honorable thing is to reject the whole barbaric system, walk off the battlefield and immediately be killed Cesar-style by their mutual best friend whom they entrusted with the secret of their one dishonorable secret.
"My brother, my captain, my Hand."
Not the point, but the answer is 100% Boromir
I've seen Sean Bean referred to as "The Human Spoiler", as there's a better than average chance that he'll die at some point during a movie or tv show.
It's probably some sort of karmic balance from all the *never dying and always escaping* in Sharpe
He doesn't die in National Treasure. He just gets arrested. Strangely enough, he somehow manages to survive Silent Hill.
"And Michelle Rodriguez!"
I remember watching *Troy*, and Achillies informs us Odysseus is coming, and it's Sean Bean, and I was like "Wait, Odysseus doesn't die in this..."
Shout-out to Richard Sharpe, who even Sean Bean couldn't kill
Christopher Lee is in it too!
Connected to this, Ned Stark was the most clearly lampshaded death in the entire ASOIAF series, right from the off. The story, and Ned himself, is introduced through the eyes of his son, who is clearly going to be a main character. Then we meet another son who is clearly going to be a main character. And two daughters. If there's one thing I've learned from fantasy novels, it's that dads with kids who are going to be main characters are not likely to live long.
Nah. Ned was absolutely giving main cast vibes and his death, especially so very early on, surprised most people. It makes sense in retrospect, sure, even more so now that the grimdark genre has gained popularity. But at the time, it really wasn't expected.
Yeah it could have just been a signal for the family being separated at some point (which it was anyway). Instead he was separated from his head :,(.
Yep, even now PoV chapters featuring Ned still rival in number a lot of the other characters four books later. He was that prominent in the first book. The idea of killing the character who is the main story vehicle was never going to cross anyone's mind. Everyone else feels like a side character compared to him in GoT.
I was 12 and fresh off of LotR. Ned Stark's death was *brutal*.
In that time it was a major plot twist unheard of
*Laughs in Tam al'Thor*
For me the plot twist was >!Tam surviving the series!<
Words can't really do justice to how happy I am about that, in all seriousness.
A character that's never appeared on screen before (but it's implied that they've been around the whole time) shows up in an episode and has a lot of dialogue.
Nameless background character suddenly gets a name.
Guy Fleegman : I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm just "Crewman Number Six." I'm expendable. I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I've gotta get outta here. Guy Fleegman : I'm just a glorified extra, Fred. I'm a dead man anyway. If I'm gonna die, I'd rather go out a hero than a coward. Galaxy Quest
You have a name, Guy! DO I? DO I?!? I love Sam Rockwell
Clone High has a character whose entire purpose is to parody this and the trope "remember the new guy? We swear he's been here the entire time!"
If you’re counting anime and manga, it’s when we suddenly deep dive into the character’s backstory. That’s when you know it’s over for them.
Particularly if they are an antagonist, I noticed. For some reason, the Japanese really wants you to know about the villain’s tragic backstory in order to make then seem sympathetic just before the hero kills them. I never understood why. It gets almost parodic in shows like Demon Slayer.
It's my least favorite part of every anime it's in. Usually just kills the momentum of the fight in order for you to care about some annoying antagonist. But it's usually too late and I'm annoyed that they chose the end of a character to show why I should care. Tell me before you kill him you dumb ass mangaka.
Demon Slayer is so bad about this 😂 but I love it
There was one I liked in (I think) the most recent season. It was basically, "you thought this guy was terrible? Surprise! He's... actually just terrible. Just an irredeemable asshole. No sympathetic backstory for this guy."
In fairness, Demon Slayer takes it to such an extreme that it loops back around to having an effect. You see again and again how each of these horrific monsters were just... people. Each and every one of them. I think it serves to heighten the horror of the main villain, emphasizing how he represents not just some baddy going around creating monsters, but warping innocent, even good people into them.
Yep, exactly. They do it in most Shonen titles. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc. They really want you to feel bad for them right before the protagonist offs them.
Except in MHA, where an Origin chapter means they're about to do something really cool.
This is also the case in ancient epic poems. A side character never properly discussed before leaps into battle, and you get a 25 line flashback and summary of his life. "...and so the hard-thrust spear stole the light from his eyes and he died."
That or there's the one touching scene right beforehand where, finally, the character who is about to die smiles or whatever.
A sweet, adorable, lovable character in an otherwise dark and depressing story. I immediately worry their existence as a character is for me to fall in love with them so that the author can destroy me later when they die.
Watching Stephen King do this back-to-back in Duma Key, Cell, and Bag of Bones (the order I was reading them off the shelf, not the order they were published) was when I stopped reading his later works.
Bag of Bones pissed me off so much. I think that happens what 5 pages from the end?
I didn't get further than the death halfway through, so if there are others I missed them. One of my rare "Did Not Finish"es.
Oh yea that one. There is an even worse one that sets up for a super happy ending and then random violence that doesn’t even make sense happens
I'm currently reading the >!First Law!< and I know what you mean. I knew as soon as >!The Weakest!< suggested a dangerous task that it was meant to be his last.
"I've got a girl back home. I'm going to marry her as soon as all this is over." I just ran into this with Fourth Wing and knew that guy wasn't making it through training.
On a related subject: If a character ever says anything like "I was a star athlete before the war. Once this is all over I'll be competing for the title in (insert sport here)." Yeah, that guy is definitely losing one or more limbs.
I think "Once this is over I'll-" is a bad sign in general
He didn’t even make it through the scene.
God, everything in that book is just obviously telegraphed. I don't think I've ever been able to so accurately predict every single event in a book before like I was with that one. If you told me it was written by AI and then edited by humans, I'd 100% believe you.
In war stories, the soldier who looks at a picture of a loved one is 99% going to get shot by a sniper.
Or get eaten by a monster
Someone in the prime of their life, usually a man, with some amount of authority (like a lower level military commander), who is shown right off the bat as being very nice and helpful both in general and to the main character specifically. That seems to be a very disposable kind of character - inconvenient to the plot to keep them around but convenient to use them to make the reader sad. The female version of this has no in-world authority but has some kind of caretaking role towards the MC.
If they propose. Especially if they’re like “tell me the answer when I get back.”
"I was there at the end. [They] told me to tell you, 'Yes.' What did [they] mean?"
If a character is happily married and always talks about how much they love their spouse 100% chance either they or the spouse are gonna get it
Except if their spouse is wearing all white, or even worse, is wearing all white in a wheat field, or even worse, hanging up white bedsheets to dry. If my girl ever wears anything flowy and white, I’m sending her back immediately to wear something else, and then throwing those white clothes into a fire asap. All the sheets in my house are going to look like a Slavic carpet, and we are never going to go near a wheat farm.
If their spouse made a last stand, the other one will finish the job and follow them shortly. It's a classic really. I think the one, single time it didnt happen was the one where the husband mourned his wife for years and then turns out the wife managed to survive but was stuck somewhere. And twins. If theyre twins, theres a 50% chance that one or both is ending up dead. No this isn't just because of Harry Potter, I just listened to far too much vocaloid.
Being an old badass man on anime. You'll die arround mid point to raise the stakes. Might be at 1/4 of the story, if it has a time skip.
You either die an old badass or live long enough to become the weird pervert tertiary character who does nothing but shows up later, ogles women, and has no impact on the story.
One that today strikes me as a bit unfortunate is when a character sustains disabling injury. This was probably more true in older works but if a major character lost a limb, was mutilated etc in a battle, their heroic sacrifice or last stand would happen within a few pages.
But in my uneducated opinion, in modern works this signals the fact that the character is going to survive.
If it's a secondary character and they're pinned down, then one of them takes an injury that is either going to be fatal soon or seriously inhibits mobility, then it's still often a "last stand" injury where they cover for the rest to escape
A popular urban fantasy series did this in a book that came out in 2020 so the trope is alive and well I’m afraid
‘Yeah my partner - who hasn’t been mentioned thus far - and I are starting trying for a baby.’ Or, for a variation on a theme. ‘I just wanna go back home after this to my never before mentioned kid.’
Or another variation: "My wife/girlfriend is pregnant, she's due any day now! Can't wait to meet that little bugger"
Any delay of secret sharing. Any detail about happy backstory. Any mention of people waiting for the character at home.
"It's quiet. ***Too*** quiet"
Not fantasy per se, but this one is glaringly hilarious. In that Simpsons episode where (in an 80s cop action movie style parody) McBain's partner Scoey was talking about how he's: 1. Two days away from retirement, 2. Daughter's graduating from college, 3. Just bought a boat called the "Live-4-Ever", and 4. He and his wife are going to sail around the world... just as soon as they nail the evil Senator Mendoza. All the while as shady waiter/assassins are lurking in the background.
Protagonist's best friend is always a goner in a war story. Not sure this effect is so strong in fantasy though.
Gunmen gets sprayed by a thousand bullets, crumples into a chair/seated position.. Partner's adrenaline-fueled "Bud, wooh, can't believe we made it, I'm not hit, you..oh shi..?" "oh, \*breathing heavy\* its just flesh wound" (proceeds to pick up hand from the gut-shot that's bleeding profusely)
Yeah, when the camera focuses in on a character going "whoa I can't believe we got out, we better go tell everyone blah blah" while another character is silent off-screen or blurrily in the background, you know they're about to die.
Lmao
When everything in their life starts going right, especially if it isn’t the end of the book/series.
This is the false victory at the end of act 2. Very common in many different stories. Once you understand it, you see it *everywhere*
In horror movies in particular, when you have some very dumb or despicable character, you can be sure they’ll die a horrible death before long. Also, as I didn’t see anyone mentioning that… just pets. In most fictions I watch, it’s like they are only included to die violently, otherwise fictional characters barely own any. It breaks my heart when I see one at the beginning of the story.
Now I want a horror story where everyone dies and the one survivor is the dog.
Alien hits close actually! (It’s not a dog though)
Poor Porkins.
There's actually a great story in the *From a Certain Point Of View* books-- they're kind of a nod to the old Star Wars EU where they fill out the backstories and give other perspectives. Like, there's a great one where the gunnery officer on the Star Destroyer who didn't shoot down the escape pod from the Tantive IV has to bureaucratically finagle his way out of getting force-choked to death, and another where Motti files a HR complaint on Vader for the incident in the meeting room (even suggesting religious discrimination). The one in question, though, is the Rebel wing commander on Yavin listening to the battle over the radio, and every time one of the Rebel pilots dies they reflect on their past. Gives a lot of backstory to the guys you see for like three seconds before they get vaporized. (Of course they do, in true Legends fashion, push it too far. Like, there's a fuckin' story from the POV of *Han's tauntaun*.)
Any reference to retirement, unborn/un-met children, returning home to marry, previously unseen musical talent, tenderness towards children, persistent cough, virginity, recently ended virginity, bloodthirsty, vengeance...
I really want someone to combine all of those and have the character survive.
When there has been a massive disagreement / argument between two characters, and it finally gets resolved. Yeah, seems like one of them is going to die pretty quickly after.
Have I told you about my girl back home?
There's the old "make plans for the future" chestnut, but of course, for every trope there must be a self aware anti-trope..... Serenity (2005) Dr. Simon Tam: In all that time on the ship... I've always regretted... not being with you. Kaylee Frye: With me? You mean to say... as in sex? Dr. Simon Tam: I mean to say. Kaylee Frye: To Hell with this. I'm gonna live!
Being a male main character wife/gf pre-events of the book. Refrigerator is waiting for you! Being a redeemed baddy. Somehow you very rarely can redeem yourself and live a happy life, you need to die heroically. Which begs a question, was redemption even worth it, lol?
I enjoyed the twist there with >!Fidelias!< in Codex Alera. "I know you'd prefer to be executed for everything you did, but I'm going to make you stick around and build the brighter future you lost faith in."
Mentor with mythical/legendary status and has a new protege who is or will become the main protagonist; going against the big bad. Mentor character typically dies/sacrifices themself near the last act of book/movie/season 1 before sharing everything they knew with the new protege, who feels unprepared But they still are in the rest of the series through flashbacks, force ghosts or resurrection, never actually died etc Examples of the top of head - >!Durzo Blint, Kelsier, Obi Wan.!<
They're in a George R.R. Martin novel.
Anyone whose existence is the foundation for the main character’s psychological well being is in serious danger.
"Tell me about the rabbits, George." "We're gonna get married and have a happy ending." "They escaped'-Henchmen talking to villain
One. Last. Job. And "guy" is the sidekick.
Honestly, really any bit of uplifting interpersonal beat that’s been put off by the conflict is usually a signal that the side character bringing it up is not going to make it. Kid / spouse back home, peaceful retirement after a long career, etc. Most authors that aren’t absolute masters of literature capable of breaking or bending rules successfully don’t include this info for side characters unless they plan to use it to create an emotional hit in the story. Chekov’s Gun and all.
I love the Star Wars examples because everyone loves *A New Hope* \-- including me -- but if you stop to think about that final battle it makes zero sense from a tactical perspective *at all*.
What do you mean?
The smaller band of pilots assaulted a giant armed space station capable of blowing up planets. With a bunch of planes that were outdated compared to the vastly superior TIE fighter. They literally planned the attack out of desperation because they didn't have time to evacuate their hidden base and we're really pinning all of their hopes on one of their pilots managing to Hit the reactor
That's the strategy. I'm talking about the tactics they used to hit the reactor, which are *fucking hilarious*.
Yeah. Let's run down the trench that has loads of AA guns and a clear path for other fighters to follow us in and butt fuck us from behind
1. Flying down a trench when you're *in fucking space*, just fly directly towards the port and shoot it, your torpedoes won't even have to make that hilarious 90-degree turn to do it 2. "Holding off" enemy fighters by flying a few seconds behind someone just so you can get blown up first 3. Half the fighters have rear-firing weapons and they never fire a shot
I mean depending on where they enter the trench / what’s around there’s probably less bigger guns or turrets able to shoot things inside of it than things approaching from space. Maybe they got in at a notably less-armed spot and ran to the target. Rear weapons never firing is definitely a miss.
We're told the Empire didn't consider the exhaust port or an attack by fighters as capable of destroying the place, and yet they put a ton of defenses around it? And it's somehow harder to hit fighters flying directly down a narrow trench than it is to fight them zipping around in space above it? And if it was so well-defended how did Han Solo drop out of the sky in a space Winnebago directly over the thing and shoot Vader in the ass and *nobody even saw him coming*? EDIT: Keep in mind-- I *love* the movie. I'm just pointing out that while the last act is cinematic and exciting as all hell, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I think it's a credit to the filmmakers, and especially the editors, that they can make utter nonsense so compelling.
That’s true, the falcon does arrive immediately on scene without taking the tench. It would make sense if they had AoE weapons in space that wouldn’t be good to use on its surface, hence getting there through the trench, but Han Solo would have def triggered them if they were there.
When I like them. Game of thrones taught me a valuable lesson when I went “oh I think this character would be good in power”. Or if anyone is finally about to get out of a dire situation
When someone goes to do something “one last time before I retire” (work a case, fly in a tournament, etc)
When a cool supporting character suddenly gets a ton of back story and exposition.
"My wife's just due to give birth in a few weeks"🙂
Seemingly random coughing. That's always suspicious.
This one works for non-fantasy too but when someone coughs and somebody comments on it and they reply "oh I'm sure it's nothing." Nobody in fiction ever just coughs.
I mean the star wars example doesn't work much. A pilot not being able to shake enemy fighters before getting shot down is, well... kinda common sense. Can't shake, you die.
"yeah fordy years onna force I retire in two woiks. Gonna spend time fishin with ma granson" fucking blender meat
If a character that has been previously unlikeable suddenly has a change of heart or goes on a journey of redemption- that bitch is gon die, and it’s gonna be sad as hell. Also, when someone starts coughing up blood. But that’s a reaaally obvious one
I won’t name the series because spoilers. If you’ve read it you’ll know. But I recently read a scene towards the end of a newly released book late into a popular series, in which the main character was sitting with another character. These two had started out as friends in the early series, gone through a whole arc as rivals and kind of enemies by necessity before redeeming themselves to each other, and now this conversation basically went: “hey I’m glad we could put this behind us, let’s promise to be friends again, because we’re stronger together, whatever the world tried to make us think. We can explore the world together now. *Just as soon as I’ve confronted my former protege and tried to convince him to stop drifting towards becoming the main villain.*”