is killing off characters always necessary in a story?

[IceBrand]

I've seen mixed views on this subject. Some people say there is no tension in a story if all the characters live and never die(Fairy Tail for example). Others say if characters die all the time it feels forced and leaves little impression for those characters( attack on Titan and Akame ga kil). I want to know if there is a happy medium so where?

[ZoesMad]

There has to be a happy balance where the theoretical deaths have meaning in the story and are either foreshadowed or give development to other characters. It also depends on the message your story wants to send. You can definitely write a story where everyone lives (I think original Naruto as an example did a decent job of this since most protagonists lived and the reccyrring themes always led back the the power of friendship), or stories where not everyone can get the happy ending even if there's no true evil (Think Fate/Zero barring Kirei or Game Of Thrones)

[Alex95]

It certainly adds a dramatic flair or some "encouragement" to get the player and story going. Just ask Lord but Roy.

[Rapier]

I suppose you're talking about the deaths of important characters and not just random NPCs/bad guys and their minions, so I'll address that.

I think it isn't necessary, but a cool addition. A war setting where comrades might die in the battlefield has the potential to be more interesting than a war setting where everyone lives (save maybe the obvious villains and their minions), as if they were playing on casual mode. Because characters can die, it fuels the viewer's interest on what will happen to the story next. Will their favorite character die? Well, let's hope it never happens, but... If so, when will the villain pay for killing them? Or was it a character you like that killed your favorite, showing that they were The Mole in disguise? What about the rest of the cast that you like, how will they survive this setting? Will they attain a good ending?

Because the viewer cares, the experience is better. But here's the caveat: Kill too many and the viewer will simply lose interest. The characters they liked died, so they don't feel interested in what happens next because there is no good ending for them, no one to cheer or care for, save for desiring payback on whoever killed them (if they hadn't received already). It's very hard to use this well, for that reason. I don't think I'd like Game of Thrones if all the characters I like were to die like flies, but it is my interest on seeing how the rest of the characters I like strive and survive, as well as how the plot unfolds, that makes me care about the series.

As good examples of this, I'd point to Game of Thrones and, in anime/manga/eastern video games, Dangan Ronpa, 999, maybe Corpse Party (haven't finished it), Fate/Stay Night (well, the Unlimited Blade Works anime also counts) and Fate/Zero. And hey, I really liked Akame ga Kill for this, but I see how it wasn't enjoyable to some people because characters die like every 3 episodes.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Rapier

[Topaz Light]

I would say it depends very much on the kind of story you're trying to tell. If there's a focus on concepts that call death to mind- themes of war, loss, etc.- then it could definitely be used to further develop those themes and drive the plot forward. However, you shouldn't throw in character deaths just because you can, or just for the sake of them happening, because then the audience will be able to tell it was just for shock value and didn't really bring anything meaningful to the story.

In short, if it brings something important to the story and drives it forward, then go for it, but if that's not the kind of story you're telling, then don't shoehorn character death into the plot where it doesn't really fit just to make it "realistic" and so edgy.

[twice]

Depends on the story honestly. Also, I think it should at least have one dramatic death or something of the sort, so it isn't just happy go lucky (unless that's what you want to convey, then I say go for it lol).

Edited October 6, 2015 by ♡黒猫~

[Shadowflare]

I mean... it depends really. Death can add depth to your story, but it can also seem superficial and wasteful. For instance, take GOT. I'm not going to go into too many specifics, but...

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know about the all the murder that happens, so there's that. The thing is, Martin does the death stuff really well. It's not mindless bloodshed, there's a reason to the death of every single character.

For instance...

The Red Wedding. Why is this a good example? Well, it sets a message that's already clear. Plot armor is bullshit. The Freys are willing to do something like this. This is a world where people actively assassinate, poison and otherwise kill to gain power. That's the mood and theme Martin wants to set. Also, it's something that is prevalent, because that's the way the story works. Would you read A Song Of Ice and Fire or watch GOT if the murder wasn't there. It wouldn't feel like the same story.

Death serves as a medium to convey theme, set mood, and otherwise enhance the story. Death can be used like adjectives, descriptions, dialogue, and all the rest. It severs a character from the plot, and the other characters now have a new variable to contend with. Sometimes even more than just one.

Stuff like FE4, GOT, and others have plots that revolve around shifting sides, and death. As Starlight said:

I would say it depends very much on the kind of story you're trying to tell. If there's a focus on concepts that call death to mind- themes of war, loss, etc.- then it could definitely be used to further develop those themes and drive the plot forward. However, you shouldn't throw in character deaths just because you can, or just for the sake of them happening, because then the audience will be able to tell it was just for shock value and didn't really bring anything meaningful to the story.

There are certain themes that death can bring that other things in a story can't. Sometimes, writers/directors do fake deaths and such to get that effect, but they also want to keep the character alive, because they will contribute to the plot. And as Starlight said, you can't just throw death as you would shovel snow. It has to be timed, and keep in the flow of the story.

TL;DR

Death can be used to convey a variety of otherwise unattainable feelings and thoughts from the reader, but must not be used in excess.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Shadowflare

[Topaz Light]

Depends on the story honestly. Also, I think it should at least have one dramatic death or something of the sort, so it isn't just happy go lucky (unless that's what you want to convey, then I say go for it lol).

It's important to remember that death isn't the only way to avoid having a story be too "happy-go-lucky". There are many, many other dark things that you can write into the story in order to make it darker (if that's what you want to do) without killing someone off. I'm not trying to say killing characters off is necessarily bad, either, I just want to express that "lightheartedness vs. darkness" and "how much character death is there" are not synonymous, however strong a correlation there may be between dark stories and characters dying, lighter stories and absence of character death, etc.

Write in plot elements according to what you feel serves your story best. Don't just throw things in because you feel that each story should have a token instance of that trope.

Edited October 7, 2015 by Starlight36

[SSbardock84]

It always depends on what kind of story it is. If its like a story of normal every day modern life than I don't really see it necessary. But in action and fighting stories it would be much more fitting. You don't always have to have it but it adds to the story and causes more drama.

[Knight]

Killing off a character is a good way to remind the audience that "yes, there is a risk of death." In a long-running series this is important, especially if you have a whole bunch of characters and none of them die, no one's going to believe they actually can die and therefore you have to find alternative ways of bringing tension to action scenes. Not that it isn't impossible to make something interesting without death, and tone has a lot to do with things, but death is a good way of keeping dramatic tension and realism.

Edited October 9, 2015 by Knight

[Augestein]

It's not necessary, but preserving everyone no matter the odds is equally ridiculous. If the characters are in dangerous situations, then there should be permanent blows dealt to the cast. If your story is a comedy and it's a drama like say something like How I Met Your Mother, death is not necessary, and in some aspects can actually HURT the show. So it just depends on the situation. Honestly, I feel that if you have to start thinking of ways to "make a person survive" a situation you put them in, it's time to let the character go.

[Jotari]

If a question is "Is _____ blank necessary in a story" then the answer will always be no. There are no hard laws about storytelling. Everything has exceptions. There are stories out there with no plots, no logic and even no characters at all.

That being said as a rule of thumb, no. Definitely not. Tension requires danger and danger does not always have to result in death. Frozen is a widely popular movie and it kills off only two characters at the very start as part of the backstory (well off screen probably hundreds of people and wildlife died due to snow storm in summer but that's fridge logic unrelated to the plot). Even the villain(s) survive. Another example is Kingdom Hearts. It's a massive mess of a story but it's a story I love nonetheless. I'm not sure if death is even a hard concept in the universe of Kingdom Hearts. Any character you see die in Kingdom Hearts (even the villains) you can easily expect to see them come back at some point. That doesn't mean there's no tension though. Because even without death people can suffer. And I mean suffer really, really bad. Many would consider death to be preferable to some of the stuff some people go through in Kingdom Hearts. People do still die in Kingdom Hearts to a certain extent though. It can be played with. Like someone mentioned 999, the sequel to that game

kills off every member of the cast half a dozen times but because it works with alternate timelines in the final true ending of the game (which is not an alternate ending, every ending where people die still happens) none of the characters presented in the story die (including the villain). Everyone lives even though death is present and a constant threat. Of course it also goes and kills off most of the population of Earth in the steadily revealed backstory of the game so how much actual death the story contains is quite subjective.

Another few examples, in the second and third Harry Potter books (probably the most renowned or at least the most successful work of fiction in the modern era) nobody dies. Well Moaning Myrtle dies in the backstory and Harry also kills the Basilisk if you want to count that. But the point still stands that there' tension without relying on the death of characters. Likewise while the overall story of Doctor Who kills a lot of people on average (even the main character every now and then) there are some episodes where nobody dies (and they are digestible as a stand alone story), I can think of at least two occasions where it was even lampshaded.

The point I'm trying to make with these examples is that even the concept of death can be loose in fiction. You can have characters die without even killing them or you can technically have everyone you encounter survive but still kill a lot of people. There are more straight examples than what I mentioned. Pretty much any story with a smaller scope not dealing with world threatening events could easily let everybody live.

Check out this TV tropes page for a somewhat comprehensive list.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverybodyLives

Scanning through that tv tropes page myself brings up two other examples worth mentioning. Avatar the Last Air Bender, a fantastic cartoon if ever I saw one, is about a war but at the end of the day only about five characters (explicitly) die throughout the show's run (including villains, and I'm probably over estimating since I can only think of three, one of which was even shown to be alive in the sequel series for the sake of comedy). The show is still about war, the bad effects of it and the atrocities committed in it but the kill count is remarkably low and it doesn't feel the worse off for it. There is still tension and bad things still happen.

The other example I want to mention is the real life voyage of Ernest Shakelton who got stranded in Antarctica but managed to get every member of his crew out alive. I'm not sure how exciting that would make as a work of fiction (people probably would complain that's unrealistic, funnily enough) but from a real life perspective it's hailed as a fantastic story that shows the virtues of leadership and perseverance against all odds.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Jotari

[Xyr]

I'm all for it, actually. As has already been mentioned in the thread, nothing is a hard rule in fiction and death isn't required to create tension and danger or create a dark atmosphere. You need to now how to use death as a tool in your story, making sure it doesn't feel out of place/forced and that it serves to contribute to the plot/story. In this way you can have a story with just one or two deaths that leave a very strong impact on the viewer or gamer. I think the two examples that had the greatest effect on me were the the deaths of Zack in Crisis Core: FFVII and Dominic Santiago in Gears of War 3. Nobody else dies in those games, besides villians and side characters (I think I could be forgetting some one important in CC:FFVII), and even though you know going in that Zack will die, when it happens it still has a very strong impact on you. So I think that being able to use death effectively can add a lot of emotional impact to your story. I know most people don't want to see the characters they like and have become emotially invested with die, and if you push your luck too much as a story creator or use death senselessly you can drive your audiance away (and I include myself among those who would walk away if it was all senseless deaths), but to me there are stories that can benefit and should actually make efforts to have a few important characters die (and I mean permanently), mainly war stories and stories that use life-or-death situations constantly. It's unrealistic and a little ridiculous to me that everyone fighting on that kind of setting survives, especially when you think about how the main cast are often facing some of the strongest and most dangerous opponents in the show/game. So that's my opinion and I feel I must be in a minority in this sense, but that's what I like.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Xyr

[Willie]

I think you should only do it if it is necessary to further along the story. Don't kill them off pointlessly, kill them off when needed.

However, I believe that you should kill characters off. Everyone being invincible is annoying to me. Just don't kill a fan-favorite off just because.

[Jotari]

I'm all for it, actually. As has already been mentioned in the thread, nothing is a hard rule in fiction and death isn't required to create tension and danger or create a dark atmosphere. You need to now how to use death as a tool in your story, making sure it doesn't feel out of place/forced and that it serves to contribute to the plot/story. In this way you can have a story with just one or two deaths that leave a very strong impact on the viewer or gamer. I think the two examples that had the greatest effect on me were the the deaths of Zack in Crisis Core: FFVII and Dominic Santiago in Gears of War 3. Nobody else dies in those games, besides villians and side characters (I think I could be forgetting some one important in CC:FFVII), and even though you know going in that Zack will die, when it happens it still has a very strong impact on you. So I think that being able to use death effectively can add a lot of emotional impact to your story. I know most people don't want to see the characters they like and have become emotially invested with die, and if you push your luck too much as a story creator or use death senselessly you can drive your audiance away (and I include myself among those who would walk away if it was all senseless deaths), but to me there are stories that can benefit and should actually make efforts to have a few important characters die (and I mean permanently), mainly war stories and stories that use life-or-death situations constantly. It's unrealistic and a little ridiculous to me that everyone fighting on that kind of setting survives, especially when you think about how the main cast are often facing some of the strongest and most dangerous opponents in the show/game. So that's my opinion and I feel I must be in a minority in this sense, but that's what I like.

Angeal. You're forgetting about Angeal.

[sylveonzoroark]

Wars aren't realistic if no one dies. Obviously, if everyone dies *coughAkamegaKillcough* that's not too realistic either.

[Xyr]

Angeal. You're forgetting about Angeal.

Yeah, alright. He was the one I was thinking about when I said I may have forgotten some one important.

Yeah ok, I remember how he died now, I didn't when I made that post.

Wars aren't realistic if no one dies. Obviously, if everyone dies *coughAkamegaKillcough* that's not too realistic either.

That's actually one of my favorite action shows, but I will say that I didn't like it's every-one-must-die policy. Still a great example of using death as a working mechanic of the show i think.

[Augestein]

Wars aren't realistic if no one dies. Obviously, if everyone dies *coughAkamegaKillcough* that's not too realistic either.

Sure it is. Think about a movie like 300. You go in knowing that the cast will probably mostly or all of them will die. If you mean both sides? Sure, that can still mean something, your message could be about the futility of war. The issue is that the writing needs to be sensible to what is happening in the story.

[Rxmonste]

Storytelling is an art form, there is no definitive answer to the necessity of death in a story.

Doing it can help increase the tension in your story but do it within reason. As a writer, you must be aware of your artistic vision, and know when is the perfect time to kill off a character, as well as which character it should be.

But no, it's not always necessary. I've written some stories before and I know it can be hard to let go of certain characters you wrote.

[sirmola]

Killing characters is one of several ways to create tension. It kind of makes if feel like everyone can die, but you have to do it for a really major character for it to not feel like you introduced them just to kill them off. Only some plots really work with killing a main character partway through. It also helps ht enough books do this that i can't really be sure if THIS book is going to pull it or not, which introduces a sense of danger to some degree.

[General Banzai]

if 75% of the cast isn't on or in the ground by endgame, the story sucks

there's a reason the quality of shakespeare plays is directly proportional to percentage of corpses

[Jotari]

if 75% of the cast isn't on or in the ground by endgame, the story sucks

there's a reason the quality of shakespeare plays is directly proportional to percentage of corpses

I know you're probably joking, but I feel obliged to point out Titus Andronicus is regarded as one of his worst plays and probably has one of the highest death counts while Romeo and Juliet is regarded as one of the best and only actually kills three characters in its climax (well four if you count Lady Montague but that's hardly a character and barely a death). Course Romeo and Juliet is still known almost entirely because of it's bloody end.

[ClevelandSteve]

Honestly, there are three main factors:

1. What audience you're writing for. Obviously, you're not going to turn a picture book for six-year-olds into a bloodbath (though most old fairy tales would disagree). And even a book for young teenagers probably couldn't go to Game of Thrones levels without a horde of "concerned parents" protesting.

2. The setting of your story. A story set during a war will probably have more deaths than a story about raising puppies in small town America. You can kill someone off in that second story, but it doesn't really need any deaths to be believable.

3. How it's done. Compare A Song of Ice and Fire the book series to Game of Thrones the TV show. In the books, you can look at a death, no matter how shocking, and say "yeah, this makes sense given the situation." There's a lot of death, but none of the deaths are tacked on just to be "edgy". Contrast that with the show, which adds lots of new deaths that are just there because "It's Game of Thrones and people need to die". And even deaths from the books are sometimes stripped of their meaning. So, basically, if you want to create a series that kills a lot of characters off, be GRRM and not D&D.

[BlueLeafeon]

While other people have already said much of what I would have said, I want to throw my 2 cents in.

I believe that killing off characters isn't necessary, but if there is fighting involved, killing off characters is a way to show that your antagonists mean business. Killing off characters is kind of like adding salt to a dish--it adds flavor to the story, but too much of it will ruin the experience, and too little leaves things a bit bland.

But my biggest nitpick about killing off characters is:

If you're going to kill off characters, leave them dead.

There could be a really well-written exception to this somewhere out there, but in my experience, killing off a character simply to revive them later completely and totally defeats the point of doing it in the first place.

I'm not talking about when people are assumed dead and the body isn't found, only for them to show up later at a really crucial moment. (Although this CAN be done poorly and make viewers want to make their own headcanons about things.) No, I'm talking about the character actually being confirmed dead, their corpse is right there, and Magic Healing revives them. When this kind of thing happens, it creates one of two things:

1: When used repeatedly, the person watching/reading the story loses all suspense because they know the writers are just going to revive the character later.

2: When used repeatedly for the main characters, but not anyone else, this becomes a horrible contradiction because if little Mary Sue and Friends can be revived 10 million times, why not Generic Joe over there?

3: Even in instances where it only happens once, Magic Healing tends to leave a very sour taste in the viewers' mouths. (See: Sonic 06.)

Two particular instances that comes to mind when I think about this topic is Pokemon movies and Sailor Moon. Pokemon: The First Movie started the trend for that series, but it was the first movie and therefore it was completely successful in upsetting the viewers. (even if Ash wasn't dead in the Japan version.) After that, however, it seemed to become a trend where SOMETHING dies or appears to die every movie, only to be revived afterward/shown to be alive. I believe there was only one or two exceptions to this where something died and remained dead.

I somewhat recently (and by that I mean a few months back) watched Sailor Moon Crystal and about half-way through the series I became very apathetic and really couldn't care any less about what was going on anymore. I finished watching the series up until the episode where they blew up a planet simply because I had nothing better to do and I was feeling masochistic. But any attempt the writers made to stir me emotionally failed because they had already showed me that if anyone dies they'll just magically be revived or handwaved as 'they didn't really receive a mortal injury because something protected them'

[spoiler=Sailor Moon Lameness]The point where I initially became apathetic was at the end of the first arc, I guess, where Tux was kidnapped by Beryl, made evil, and forced to fight Usagi. She killed him, killed herself, the four gem guys died, the sailor senshi apparently died, but by the end of the arc the only people that remained dead were the four gem guys. Usagi was handwaved, Tux was handwaved, and the sailor senshi were magically revived. Yay?

This is made all the more blaring later on when they actually did kill someone off, but apparently that same revival magic can't be used on her.

[Jotari]

While other people have already said much of what I would have said, I want to throw my 2 cents in.

I believe that killing off characters isn't necessary, but if there is fighting involved, killing off characters is a way to show that your antagonists mean business. Killing off characters is kind of like adding salt to a dish--it adds flavor to the story, but too much of it will ruin the experience, and too little leaves things a bit bland.

But my biggest nitpick about killing off characters is:

If you're going to kill off characters, leave them dead.

There could be a really well-written exception to this somewhere out there, but in my experience, killing off a character simply to revive them later completely and totally defeats the point of doing it in the first place.

I'm not talking about when people are assumed dead and the body isn't found, only for them to show up later at a really crucial moment. (Although this CAN be done poorly and make viewers want to make their own headcanons about things.) No, I'm talking about the character actually being confirmed dead, their corpse is right there, and Magic Healing revives them. When this kind of thing happens, it creates one of two things:

1: When used repeatedly, the person watching/reading the story loses all suspense because they know the writers are just going to revive the character later.

2: When used repeatedly for the main characters, but not anyone else, this becomes a horrible contradiction because if little Mary Sue and Friends can be revived 10 million times, why not Generic Joe over there?

3: Even in instances where it only happens once, Magic Healing tends to leave a very sour taste in the viewers' mouths. (See: Sonic 06.)

Two particular instances that comes to mind when I think about this topic is Pokemon movies and Sailor Moon. Pokemon: The First Movie started the trend for that series, but it was the first movie and therefore it was completely successful in upsetting the viewers. (even if Ash wasn't dead in the Japan version.) After that, however, it seemed to become a trend where SOMETHING dies or appears to die every movie, only to be revived afterward/shown to be alive. I believe there was only one or two exceptions to this where something died and remained dead.

I somewhat recently (and by that I mean a few months back) watched Sailor Moon Crystal and about half-way through the series I became very apathetic and really couldn't care any less about what was going on anymore. I finished watching the series up until the episode where they blew up a planet simply because I had nothing better to do and I was feeling masochistic. But any attempt the writers made to stir me emotionally failed because they had already showed me that if anyone dies they'll just magically be revived or handwaved as 'they didn't really receive a mortal injury because something protected them'

[spoiler=Sailor Moon Lameness]The point where I initially became apathetic was at the end of the first arc, I guess, where Tux was kidnapped by Beryl, made evil, and forced to fight Usagi. She killed him, killed herself, the four gem guys died, the sailor senshi apparently died, but by the end of the arc the only people that remained dead were the four gem guys. Usagi was handwaved, Tux was handwaved, and the sailor senshi were magically revived. Yay?

This is made all the more blaring later on when they actually did kill someone off, but apparently that same revival magic can't be used on her.

Hmm. Let's see. Examples where it worked well

First and foremost Beric Dondarrion from A Song of Ice and Fire has a habit of come back to life. Not sure how much one would count him since he has the ability before the reader is introduced to him, though it's only revealed to the reader after he dies, like a minute after he dies, but still an example of it working and making a character seem more bad add. Likewise Lady Stoneheart's resurrection, while not really impressive or fantastic, mostly due to not being explored, is still not annoying in the way you describe (of which I'm quite familiar) because it was already established with Beric. I think George R.R. Martin gets away with resurrection because it feels diluted in the sheer number of characters that are killed off for real. The tension is very much still there. Although Jon Snow is totally coming back from the dead in his next appearance, there are no doubts about that. Mostly in order to invoke Jesus imagery I imagine, which might be a noteable exception of the annoying rule since I can think of several other times when it was done for the purpose of messiah over tones. American Gods is the first example that comes to mind.

Style is another one that has an effect on it. Even outside of comedy if a series has a loose enough feel then a resurrection can seem natural. Chrono Trigger for example kills off the main character just before the final dungeon. You can go ahead and complete the game without him, or you can go on a side quest to resurrect him (by travelling back in time and switching him with a dummy right before he's vapourized. Not really magically healing a corpse but still magically inducing what looks like a definite kill). It feels like you earn the character back and the method doesn't feel like a cop out. If the game had a more serious style though it would have felt off (even though the content of the game is already pretty dire what with it being about stopping the apocalypse).

Time Travel is another case where bringing a character back to life doesn't feel cheep. A particular series to note is the Zero Escape series where everyone gets a chance to die in some fashion but because it deals with time travel and alternate timelines everyone (or most of everyone) manages to get out of it alive. And the writing is good enough that it manages to have it's cake and eat it too since, I for one, was still quite invested in the safety of the characters. It helps that they're in a situation where they're never really safe. Stein's Gate does something similar though I've only seen the anime.

Divine beings and villains also tend to get a free pass. I don't think anyone's complaining when there's a magical ceremony to resurrect Ganon or Medeus. Although that kind of plot usually happens in video games where people are more willing to forgive as it facilitates the gameplay.

So yeah, I agree that not having the balls to keep a character dead can be really annoying and breaks immersion, but as I said earlier in this thread, there are no hard rules in writing so everything work given the right context and above average writing.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Jotari