Every person seeks some kind of control. We question natural phenomena such as aging, life, and death. We wonder why tragedy strikes and why it happens to people that don’t deserve it. We wish that certain things didn’t happen or have to end, but reality often reminds us of how mortal we all are.
Living in a tough and unpredictable world, it comes as no surprise that many turn to fiction—their hands flipping through pages in search of comforting outcomes. To many, the world of fiction serves as a safe space, an escape from reality.
However, the “good guys” don’t always win even in fiction, and not everyone has a fairytale ending. There’s defeat; there’s grief. The only difference is that it doesn’t happen to us or to someone real, whom we know personally (however real the characters may feel at times).
But the question remains: why do the deaths of fictional characters still hurt? Or at times, why do they give us a sense of satisfaction?
Key events and plot points
“The character’s death is his or her last role in the narrative,” says Isaiah Garcia, who recently completed his Master of Arts degree in Literature at the University of Santo Tomas.
That role could serve as checkpoints in the story’s arc. Significant deaths in real life can seemingly create a distinction between “before death” and “after death” conditions, especially affecting those much involved with the one who passed. Similarly, a fictional death can mark a turning point in the narrative and divide the timeline into pre- and post-death phases. Tragic scenes can also cause a change in another character’s attitude and worldview, developing the depth of these characters or helping to advance the plot.
In such cases, Isaiah considers the deaths necessary, citing an example, “During the Battle of the Seven Potters, when Harry was escaping…Hedwig took the killing curse for Harry. At that point in the narrative, he already lost Sirius and Dumbledore, so Hedwig’s death [was] the symbolic death of his childhood, his innocence—na lahat ng nakasama niya growing up wala na—so he really [was] alone. And they all died for him.”
(Everyone who was with him growing up had now left him, so he really was alone.)
On investment and injustice
The author’s “technique and delivery” have much to do with how the audience perceives and responds to fictional deaths. As Isaiah explains, “Handling tragedy and death—whether as a critic, writer, or literature teacher—requires sensitivity, because it triggers a lot of things in
a person.”
Orchestrating a good death scene, one that tugs at the readers’ emotions and elicits intense reactions, requires the “pathos [to be] set right”. Pathos is something that evokes pity or sadness. Isaiah discusses that the characters must be “well-rounded…flesh and bone, like a real person” so that the audience would relate to them, feel for them, and become invested in their narratives.
Camille Angeles (II, BS-BIO) shares it was the “emotional attachment” that affected her while watching Avengers: Endgame, “After everything he (Iron Man) had done for the Avengers and [for] the world as a whole, it was still him who had to make the ultimate sacrifice. He also left behind a young daughter, [making] his death so depressing and untimely.”
However, negative feedback can also arise out of poorly written scenes—such as one inserted for “shock value” or a death that lacked sufficient build up. Isaiah notes that often, the audience is not so much concerned about the death of the character per se, but rather the “injustice done to the character’s death scene”.
“It angered me, as well as thousands of others, because of the racist connotations the writers deemed fine to overlook,” Camille said, lamenting the death of Missandei from the Game of Thrones series. The show has previously drawn criticism from its lack of non-white characters, their portrayal, and their lack of screen time.
Some tragic twists can however unfold in a satisfactory, or at least acceptable, manner. For Brian Gonzales (I, AB-ISE), one especially striking fictional death involved the titular main character of Fuuka getting killed off in a sudden road accident—with around a hundred chapters still left in the novel.
What he thought would be a “light-hearted romance” turned into a horror story. “The way they took [Fuuka] away from us readers and the other characters around her just like that…simulated how it would feel if someone you care about [died] in a real life accident,” Brian explains. “It was really cruel of the author to mislead us like that. But at the same time, I thought it was one of the most beautifully written twists I [had] ever seen in any series.”
Brian also mentions that although the tragedy “put [him] in a grieving period”, he believes the death was necessary, finding it unacceptable that the anime adaptation opted to let the character live. In certain cases, avoiding death may seem like a cop out for authors who, in Brian’s perspective, “protect their characters too much”.
Camille acknowledges Brian’s sentiments, adding, “At some point, you have to say goodbye to a character.”
Parting thoughts
Whether we like it or not, fiction frequently presents us with pockets of life that mirror our own realities. While death is not certain in every page or video clip, it is a constant and unchangeable facet of life. Perhaps tragic scenes remind us of both the severity and banality of mortal existence, and so we regard finalities and farewells, fiction or nonfiction, with a similar sense of dread and anguish.
Likening character deaths to deaths in real life, Isaiah remarks, “We often console ourselves that when someone dies, [they have] done [their] mission, and I guess that is truer in fiction.”
Regardless of the timing of the death in the entire story, fictional characters do carry out their own “missions” as they come to the end of their respective arcs. When effectively delivered, these deaths introduce ripple-like consequences not just on the rest of the narrative, but on the audience that bears witness to the imagined world.
