Do your favorites die a lot?

[Frozen Lotus]

Can be in anything really. Do your favorite characters tend to be killed off commonly? How badly does it impact your opinion of the show/movie/game/etc they're part of?

Unfortunately I seem to be borderline cursed. My favorites have almost always died off in anything where death is a common (and some cases even uncommon) factor. Just this year I started up an anime that seemed interesting. I went in KNOWING a ton of major characters die out of nowhere and nobody is safe, but the VERY first death of a main character in the entire show was not only my favorite character, but the most brutal death in the series... it was also completely unnecessary and extremely avoidable.

Most recently, though, I found out a spoiler about a show I -use- to love (which I'm a bit behind in) that my favorite character dies... in a very "out of nowhere", "completely unnecessary" kind of way. Granted the show's quality has kind of dropped the last season or so, it might be what gets me to quit the show. I can deal with my favorites dying if it's meaningful or at least well done, but... a lot of the time it's not.

Please, mark spoilers if you name any specific characters. Preferably with the name of what it happens in BEFORE the character's name so we can look and see if it's something we're caught up with/have any interest in.

 

[myystogan]

Can be in anything really. Do your favorite characters tend to be killed off commonly? How badly does it impact your opinion of the show/movie/game/etc they're part of?

Unfortunately I seem to be borderline cursed. My favorites have almost always died off in anything where death is a common (and some cases even uncommon) factor.

Same here. My friends have said I'm cursed too, lmao.
A good portion of my favorite characters are dead.

Although, since it's happened so much, I've come to somewhat expect it. As a result, I'm not that affected by it anymore. I'm still going to be a bit salty, because it always sucks that your favorite character is gone, but I eventually got used to it. So character death doesn't majorly impact my opinion of the show/movie/game.
I'd have problems if the death was handled horribly, but I'd get over it and continue enjoying the show/movie/game (that is, if the plot is still good, and the characters left are bearable).

 

[Nolafus]

To be fair, the writers do tend to know which characters will be the favorites, so whenever they want to get some emotion out of the audience, it's off to the chopping block.

That being said, I will stop playing a game for a week when one of my favorite characters die. I get way too invested in good characters, and when it's paired with a good story, I really struggle to move past some deaths. And thanks to the aforementioned tactic, it happens quite a lot when going through a more emotional story.

 

[Frozen Lotus]

To be fair, the writers do tend to know which characters will be the favorites, so whenever they want to get some emotion out of the audience, it's off to the chopping block.

That being said, I will stop playing a game for a week when one of my favorite characters die. I get way too invested in good characters, and when it's paired with a good story, I really struggle to move past some deaths. And thanks to the aforementioned tactic, it happens quite a lot when going through a more emotional story.

The weird part is a lot of the time my favorites aren't actually the fan favorites, and quite a few fan favorites don't appeal very much to me. This is ESPECIALLY true in anime; reasonably true in video games.

 

[Nolafus]

The weird part is a lot of the time my favorites aren't actually the fan favorites, and quite a few fan favorites don't appeal very much to me. This is ESPECIALLY true in anime; reasonably true in video games.

Which is why a lot more of the niche-favorite characters tend to die off a lot more than the most popular fan favorites.

Let's take a look at Mass Effect to see what I mean. I'm putting the rest in spoilers, since I'm going to be talking about character deaths, and how they die.

Spoiler:

There's the absolute, everyone loves this guy, etc. fan favorite, Garrus. Garrus is with the player in all three games. He's one of the first party members you encounter in each game, and can go on just about every mission. Despite this, there's only one mission where he can actually die. He's the fan favorite, the writers know that for certain after the release of the first game, and instead of killing him off to create emotional tension, they keep him. The trick is why he's the fan favorite. As you're going through saving the galaxy from almost certain doom, Garrus is always there as the emotional wall. You can tell him all of your worries, and he'll pick you up if you ever start to get down. He's there to cheer you on every step on the way, and by the end, he's practically your right hand man (alien?). If the writers kill this character off, then there goes your partner. The game would lose a huge chunk of your personal investment, since there isn't anyone else who can fill that emotional wall like Garrus can. Now, not every player goes through the game with Garrus, but an overwhelming majority do, and it's not hard to see why.

Now we take a look at some of the other partners that add a lot of character, but don't necessarily support you like Garrus does. Characters like Mordin, Tali, Legion, and Grunt all add a lot to the story. They each have their own personal growth times, and can prove to be invaluable allies. However, they're niche teammates. I personally took Mordin and Garrus with me on each and every mission I could. I have friends that took Tali instead of Mordin, and others that took Legion or Grunt. There are a few others, but we'll stick with these for now.

Garrus was my favorite, with Mordin falling at a close second. I liked his fast paced humor, and passion for science. Others liked Tali for her invaluable tech smarts, and the possible romance. Each character had their quirks that made them stand out, but they weren't crucial to the plot, and the writers knew this. Garrus has one mission where if you screw up once, he's dead. All of the other characters have at least two. And in the case of Mordin and Legion, their deaths are near-unavoidable.

There's a reason I mentioned the love interest with Tali, and it actually plays a big role. If you do start that romance and get to know her on a deeper level, your emotional attachment to her character will grow. There comes a point where you have to choose between two species. On one hand, you lose Legion and keep Tali. On the other, you still lose Legion, but lose Tali as well, but you have a slightly stronger ally to make up for it. The decision is one of the hardest in the game, but it's also the second and last mission Tali can die. If you build that romance and the emotional connection with Tali , then Tali can replace Garrus as that emotional wall you rely on to get through the game. Garrus loses that spot to Tali, and if you do have that relationship, then it's much harder to choose that slight advantage, and once you keep Tali, she's there to stay. The other characters, however, don't get that lucky break, and are therefore more expendable for emotional conflict.

So the characters that are still favorites to a lot of people, just not as much as others, are fodder to throw into the storyline. Mordin, Legion, Grunt, and others can still be an individual player's favorites over Garrus and Tali, there's nothing stopping that, but they appeal to a much smaller audience. The death will still hit hard to every player, but to the players that are unfortunate enough to get too attached to them, it'll hit that much harder. The writers set this sort of experience up almost perfectly in Mass Effect, and that's why I included it as my example. There are often a wide variety of secondary characters in all sorts of media, and it's because of this reason. It's impossible to make everyone love the main secondary characters the most, so the secondary secondary characters are there to rope in those other individuals, and why their deaths mean so much.

TL;DR
Maybe that's exactly what the writers intended to happen.

 

[Frozen Lotus]

Which is why a lot more of the niche-favorite characters tend to die off a lot more than the most popular fan favorites.

Let's take a look at Mass Effect to see what I mean. I'm putting the rest in spoilers, since I'm going to be talking about character deaths, and how they die.

Spoiler:

There's the absolute, everyone loves this guy, etc. fan favorite, Garrus. Garrus is with the player in all three games. He's one of the first party members you encounter in each game, and can go on just about every mission. Despite this, there's only one mission where he can actually die. He's the fan favorite, the writers know that for certain after the release of the first game, and instead of killing him off to create emotional tension, they keep him. The trick is why he's the fan favorite. As you're going through saving the galaxy from almost certain doom, Garrus is always there as the emotional wall. You can tell him all of your worries, and he'll pick you up if you ever start to get down. He's there to cheer you on every step on the way, and by the end, he's practically your right hand man (alien?). If the writers kill this character off, then there goes your partner. The game would lose a huge chunk of your personal investment, since there isn't anyone else who can fill that emotional wall like Garrus can. Now, not every player goes through the game with Garrus, but an overwhelming majority do, and it's not hard to see why.

Now we take a look at some of the other partners that add a lot of character, but don't necessarily support you like Garrus does. Characters like Mordin, Tali, Legion, and Grunt all add a lot to the story. They each have their own personal growth times, and can prove to be invaluable allies. However, they're niche teammates. I personally took Mordin and Garrus with me on each and every mission I could. I have friends that took Tali instead of Mordin, and others that took Legion or Grunt. There are a few others, but we'll stick with these for now.

Garrus was my favorite, with Mordin falling at a close second. I liked his fast paced humor, and passion for science. Others liked Tali for her invaluable tech smarts, and the possible romance. Each character had their quirks that made them stand out, but they weren't crucial to the plot, and the writers knew this. Garrus has one mission where if you screw up once, he's dead. All of the other characters have at least two. And in the case of Mordin and Legion, their deaths are near-unavoidable.

There's a reason I mentioned the love interest with Tali, and it actually plays a big role. If you do start that romance and get to know her on a deeper level, your emotional attachment to her character will grow. There comes a point where you have to choose between two species. On one hand, you lose Legion and keep Tali. On the other, you still lose Legion, but lose Tali as well, but you have a slightly stronger ally to make up for it. The decision is one of the hardest in the game, but it's also the second and last mission Tali can die. If you build that romance and the emotional connection with Tali , then Tali can replace Garrus as that emotional wall you rely on to get through the game. Garrus loses that spot to Tali, and if you do have that relationship, then it's much harder to choose that slight advantage, and once you keep Tali, she's there to stay. The other characters, however, don't get that lucky break, and are therefore more expendable for emotional conflict.

So the characters that are still favorites to a lot of people, just not as much as others, are fodder to throw into the storyline. Mordin, Legion, Grunt, and others can still be an individual player's favorites over Garrus and Tali, there's nothing stopping that, but they appeal to a much smaller audience. The death will still hit hard to every player, but to the players that are unfortunate enough to get too attached to them, it'll hit that much harder. The writers set this sort of experience up almost perfectly in Mass Effect, and that's why I included it as my example. There are often a wide variety of secondary characters in all sorts of media, and it's because of this reason. It's impossible to make everyone love the main secondary characters the most, so the secondary secondary characters are there to rope in those other individuals, and why their deaths mean so much.

TL;DR
Maybe that's exactly what the writers intended to happen.

Unfortunately I know next to nothing about Mass Effect, but I think I still get your point.

What gets me is a lot of the time characters I favor are characters nobody even pays attention to. Sometimes this is because they don't get as much attention and not as many people pick up on their really likable qualities, while others just... click with me. In these cases I understand why they'd be killed off, they're essentially expendable, but... it does suck being a fan of those kind of characters.

What's worse is liking a character who gets PLENTY of attention, but for whatever reason they just don't pick up in popularity with hardly anybody, so they're easy to throw on the chopping block. I think this sort of goes along with one of your examples, though that example included characters who have SOME popularity.

 

[Ashes to Ashes]

I like villains. They die sometimes. Favorite character in the Harry Potter books wasnt a villain, but she did die.

 

[Minun172]

No, not really. No characters that I am attached to has died so far (I haven't watched TWD dead sooo...) But X, a character from Megaman that I actually care about is canonally dead after Zero 3 which sucks major Plusle.