My vote was for Dolores Umbridge. I mean, she very nearly gets done in by the centaurs at the end of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," but then she's back like the cat who just couldn't stay away. If anyone deserved to be offed, she did. The situation was one in which her death would have been the direct result of her own fatheadedness, so it was ideal. Rowling dropped the ball there, IMHO.Anyway, it prompted me to think about which fictional characters should NOT have been killed.
My vote is for Obi-Wan Kenobi. I never really understood that whole "If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can imagine" thing. I mean, it's not as if he turned into Gandalf the White and returned from the dead with incredible powers. No, he just became a shimmery apparition that sometimes spoke to Luke. "Use the Force, Luke!" But Luke did all the work.So, it makes no sense to me. It was just a shameless dramatic ploy. Of course, according to Joseph Campbell, the hero's mentor must die, so "Off with his head!"
Whom would you not have killed?
5 comments:
I vote for Eddard Stark from Game of Thrones -- heck, I could choose plenty of characters from GRRMs series... It makes for great drama, though... you never know if your favorite character's gonna get offed.
the guy from Seven Pounds (i hated the ending). Obi Wan. Neo in the last Matrix movie. Etain - a character in a Republic Commando book you've probably never read (but her death was pointless and i hate pointless deaths). the mom fish in Finding Nemo. i'll stop now.
Yeah, what is it about Disney movies and dead mothers? Cinderella, Ariel, both Aladdin and Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Bambi, Brother Bear...
Walt Disney hated his mom, didn't you know? If he didn't, I'm starting that rumor here. ;-)
I could go on forever with the worst deaths in literature and cinema, but two just popped into my head (besides Obi, of course): Sirius in HP AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and Wash in SERENITY.
To be fair, most of the stories were fairy tales and a lot of women died young in the middle ages. All that plague and childbearing and stuff.
I am quite grateful to live in the 21st century.
My heroine's mother isn't dead, just temporarily somewhere else. It's kind of hard to be brave and adventurous with your mom looking over your shoulder.
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