Recently, I was watching a show in which a beloved character was in a situation where they were going to die, but they get saved by their friends.
I find this type of plot to be boring and overused. Why don’t writers let their characters die? I feel it would be more interesting to have an important character die, such as the MC, more often.
It’s an overused trope that most writers tend to use so their story can have a “happy ending”.
You should check out “The Magicians”. I won’t spoil it (though I guess even recommending it in this thread kind of does) but it does NOT follow this trope. At least mostly…
I guess it’s hard to figure out if your audience wants to see more of your character or if they are tired of them and want something new. When I watch characters in danger situations, I am mostly not in much suspense. By default, I assume the characters we follow are going to survive to the next scene. When they don’t, I am usually surprised. I guess it’s really about if you want to see stories where character find themselves in danger situations. I’m all about realism, but I kind of understand that following one characters story rather than having to reintroduce new ones all the time is probably better. If they keep dying I will probably not care about them and not be very invested.
In band of brothers allot of the characters end up surviving the war. Some didn’t. But I think the survivors were the most interesting to follow. And that is based on true stories. The survivors are the ones I remember most fondly.
I guess it’s hard to figure out if your audience wants to see more of your character or if they are tired of them and want something new.
Having a story to tell helps. This is only an issue if you’re making stuff up as you go along. Definitely feels like too many things just start with a premise hoping to find a compelling story along the way.
Would it really be a trope if it wasn’t?
Agree. And I really hate it when a character is resurrected somehow. I don’t care if it’s fantasy or science fiction, lack of perma-death is weak sauce.
(Unintentional irony that it’s Easter.)
Honestly I feel like characters die all the time, to the point that I mostly roll my eyes at it. Yeah yeah, “stakes,” “emotional impact,” whatever, now they can’t be in any more stories, which is bad if I liked them, and also means they don’t have a chance to become more interesting if I didn’t.
