Saddest Fictional Character Deaths

[RetroFan]

We know we're watching or reading about fictional characters, we know given the type of movie/TV show we're watching or which book we're reading and know that its not going to be all sunshine and roses, yet when they die it makes us feel really sad. But other times you can watch/read a horror, crime or disaster movie/show/book with a high death toll, or a work involving people dying of cancer or some other incurable illness, and it really doesn't affect you.

So which character deaths in fictional media made you feel saddest, and really hit you where you feel it?

For me, it was Mrs Rosen in 'The Poseidon Adventure'; the twin sister Juliet in the early scenes of 'Haunted' in 1995; Marge and Eddie the two teenagers who are killed by the shark in the climax of Jaws II; Michael's kindly father in Click (although his death wasn't seen on-screen); the Rogue One crew even though I knew what was going to happen; and more recently in disaster movie Twisters Addie, who is one of the girls in the initial college field research team who dies when they are tracking an F1 tornado only for it to escalate in less than a minute to an F5 category storm.

Alternately, have you ever not really been emotionally affected by the sad scenes in a particular movie, TV show or book, but everyone else was? For example you may have seen Titanic back in the day and sat in the cinema not overly moved by Jack's death while around you everyone else was reaching for the tissues; or didn't feel anything watching a movie like 'The Fault In Our Stars'?

 

[THBGato]

Fred Weasley, obvs!

 

[StillStunned]

I couldn't finish The Travelling Cat Chronicles, so I can't say I was upset by a fictional character death. But definitely by their impending death.

 

[THBGato]

Oh, and Boxer's death in Animal Farm. I was crying angry tears.

On another level, I remember being so pissed off with my classmates that they were more upset by the death of Candy's dog than that of Curley's wife. Now, being older, I recognise that this was of course Steinbeck's intention (he wants us to share the men's prejudices so we can't judge them), but at the time I was so angry with their callous sexism. Some of the boys - the same ones who had cried out in despair when Candy's dog was led away - actually laughed when she was killed, then totally bought into Candy's victim blaming. Clearly, I'm still pissed off about it now!

 

[Erozetta]

Ones that got to me:
Fred on the show Angel. (I'm still mad about it.)
Wash in Serenity.
Charlie on Supernatural
Tara on Buffy (This was probably the most realistic portrayal of unexpected loss I've ever seen.)

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Charlotte in Charlotte's Web, Boxer in Animal Farm, Matthew in Anne of Green Gables. All when I was about eight - put me off reading for quite a while. I still detest the trope of "let's kill off a beloved character about 3/4 of the way through the book so that this light novel looks more like Serious Literature".

Where it's a more integral part of ongoing plot, I'm less annoyed. Apart from Jude the Obscure's kids, I've not been too upset by books since, though losing Aral Vorkosigan was very sad. Ditto Curtain by Agatha Christie.

I saw Serenity before Firefly, which made Wash's death more of a long sad preshadowing when watching Firefly.

Joyce in Buffy was the one that really got me, even more than Tara (I kinda expected the lesbian to be fridged). Also I'd just been dumped so my new ex tried to cheer me up by watching Buffy with me. The Body. It did not work.

Conversely, the last Harry Potter book was so bad I ended up not caring about any of the deaths. Ditto deaths in Scarpetta novels eventually - especially when some magically came back to life having faked their deaths...

King Lear gets me crying every time, though.

 

[StillStunned]

 

[RetroFan]

Oh, and Boxer's death in Animal Farm. I was crying angry tears.

On another level, I remember being so pissed off with my classmates that they were more upset by the death of Candy's dog than that of Curley's wife. Now, being older, I recognise that this was of course Steinbeck's intention (he wants us to share the men's prejudices so we can't judge them), but at the time I was so angry with their callous sexism. Some of the boys - the same ones who had cried out in despair when Candy's dog was led away - actually laughed when she was killed, then totally bought into Candy's victim blaming. Clearly, I'm still pissed off about it now!

But Napoleon sent Boxer to the vets to get better and it just happened that the vet had purchased a cart from the knacker's yard but not painted out the old name yet - Squealer said so.

In all seriousness though I remember when reading 'Of Mice and Men' and feeling so bad that George had to shoot Lenny at the end of the book, and wished he had shot dead that asshole Curley instead. But of course this wouldn't have worked for the story.

I myself get upset by animal deaths in movies or on TV and in books, depending on how it is played of course. For example, in National Lampoon's Vacation the bumbling Clark Griswold kills the elderly aunt's dog by tying it to the car bumper, forgetting it was there and driving off, and the first he knows about it is when the police pull him over, order him to step out of the vehicle by saying 'Get out of the car, you sick son of a bitch' and threatening to charge him with several serious felony offences pertaining to animal cruelty. I laughed at the black humour in this scene, because Mr Griswold had no ill intent, and the dog wasn't very nice and nor was the aunt (who also dies a few scenes later).

Loving Wives isn't really the place you would expect people to get upset by animal deaths, but it happened earlier this year in my Titanic story. The main antagonist Simon - who is up there with Roger Simmonds from The Towering Inferno in terms of disaster works bad guys - survives the Titanic sinking because he is a coward who gets into the first lifeboat to be launched leaving everyone else behind, but is deserving of a nasty death afterwards. This occurs in the early 1920s when he is attacked and severely mauled by a chimpanzee at a vaudeville show, dying of his injuries the next day. The chimpanzee death idea I got from several incidents in the 2000s with these primates that had been kept as pets. I mention that the chimpanzee was shot dead in my story, and upset quite a few readers in the process.

 

[THBGato]

Tara on Buffy (This was probably the most realistic portrayal of unexpected loss I've ever seen.)

Oh God yes! Why remind me?!
I'm going to be upset for the rest of the day now.

 

[RetroFan]

Fred Weasley, obvs!

I must be a rare example of a person who has started a number of Harry Potter related works (two books, three movies), but never actually finished any of them. Even on a flight from Darwin back to Melbourne one afternoon when Wifi wasn't working a Harry Potter movie was screened, but even then on a relatively long flight I couldn't get into it and just stared into space all the way home.

 

[Deadfreak]

Walter "Radar" O'Reilly

 

[StillStunned]

How about deaths we've written ourselves? The main character in Life and Death of the She-Wolf is a ghost, so obviously she dies. And I know how, because I wrote it. But still, it gets to me every time I reread it.

A strange one is in my series The Dome. Ollie is dead before the story even begins, but his mother thinks he's still alive. That's one reason why I'm struggling to write the next chapter.

 

[AlinaX]

I must be a rare example of a person who has started a number of Harry Potter related works (two books, three movies), but never actually finished any of them. Even on a flight from Darwin back to Melbourne one afternoon when Wifi wasn't working a Harry Potter movie was screened, but even then on a relatively long flight I couldn't get into it and just stared into space all the way home.

A friend gave me the first three HP books for my birthday, so I ended up reading them. The first two were fairly standard kids books with an obvious over-reliance on word play and caricature, but with some interesting ideas to them. Platform 9¾ was clever, although to me as someone who at the time was regularly in and out of King's Cross and St Pancras, it was obviously a bizarre error. The third book... was actually good, but already there was an obvious problem. When you take something from the realm of caricature and try to rework it as serious fiction, it leads to lazy stereotypes.

Rowling's problem (as an author, specifically) is that she likes word-play and caricature too much. They make her feel clever and superior about the world. Becoming mega-successful meant also that she never needed to listen to anyone who might criticise her self-indulgence.

 

[RetroFan]

How about deaths we've written ourselves? The main character in Life and Death of the She-Wolf is a ghost, so obviously she dies. And I know how, because I wrote it. But still, it gets to me every time I reread it.

A strange one is in my series The Dome. Ollie is dead before the story even begins, but his mother thinks he's still alive. That's one reason why I'm struggling to write the next chapter.

I can't re-read my story 'Learning to Love Louise' without getting choked up. With 'April Leads Julie Astray' although nobody dies, I feel so bad for the two titular girls and their terrible childhood experiences that I have to stop and remind myself they are fictional characters I created.

 

[SimonDoom]

Charlotte in Charlotte's Web would be one.

In the 1970s as a kid I recall watching an animated ABC Afterschool Special called Last of the Curlews. It was about an Eskimo Curlew, a bird that is probably extinct. It spends most of the TV show looking for a mate, and he finally finds her, and they're happy, until she is shot by a farmer and killed. At that point, he was the last one. I almost never cry but I cried a little at that.

 

[Erozetta]

How about deaths we've written ourselves? The main character in Life and Death of the She-Wolf is a ghost, so obviously she dies. And I know how, because I wrote it. But still, it gets to me every time I reread it.

A strange one is in my series The Dome. Ollie is dead before the story even begins, but his mother thinks he's still alive. That's one reason why I'm struggling to write the next chapter.

Oh, definitely Mickie and Marty in "How Villains are Made" for me.

 

[SimonDoom]

A few others.

Old Yeller, of course.

Old Dan and Little Ann, the redbone coonhounds, from Where the Red Fern Grows.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Walter "Radar" O'Reilly

Umm ... he didn't? Radar just went home.

Colonel Blake though. Yeah, that was a sad one.

But, rather than rattle off a list, there's one that tops the list for me. I can still remember being the inconsolable fourteen year old boy whom my father walked out of a theater in 1982. I was crushed. To this day, I get choked up watching it.

"I am, and always shall be ... your friend. Live long ... and prosper."

 

[jaF0]

I guess nobody saw The Virgin Suicides.

 

[jaF0]

Walter "Radar" O'Reilly

Umm ... he didn't? Radar just went home.

Colonel Blake though. Yeah, that was a sad one.

" I have a message: Lt. Col... Henry Blake's plane...was shot down... over the Sea of Japan. It spun in . . . there were no survivors. "

 

[Rob_Royale]

I guess nobody saw The Virgin Suicides.

Never even heard of it.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Okay, Neil Perry's death in Dead Poet's Society was another soul crusher. A poor movie choice on my part for a first date.

 

[Bramblethorn]

View attachment 2416651

 

[jaF0]

The final scene of Cooley High in the cemetery will get to some people.

 

[DuchessOfDutch]

The ending of the movie adaptation of The Mist...

Haven't been okay since....