For me, it was always Optimus Prime from The Transformers movie.
2B from Nier: Automata…
Athelstan from Vikings.
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
spoiler
the dog Searchlight dies in the end, and it fucking killed me as a child when I read this
Rob and Catelyn Stark in the Red Wedding. So traumatizing!
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood spoiler:
Tap for spoiler
Mayes Hughes
Bridge to Terabithia
!Leslie!<
I think, due to lack of diagnosis and medication, plus age - I was barely double digits - Aeris/Aerith in FF7.
I had no spoilers. And it wasn’t so much the death itself, it was the fact that I had fucking FARMED shit for her. She’s healer coded? I already had a history with RPGs, and healers are worth their weight in gold.
I think all that time and effort invested really solidified it.
Also, I had phoenix downs. WTF?
The ‘dead’ status is more properly ‘unconscious’ in Final Fantasy games, and is sometimes actually translated that way. FF5 even has a scene where they try using phoenix downs on a genuinely dead character and it doesn’t work.
Wash’s, in “Serenity”. It was just so unexpected and abrupt, and it served to generate a sense of unease in the viewer; after Wash’s death, no character seemed to be protected by plot armor. Granted, Shepherd Book bit it before Wash did, but the movie seemed to set him up to be separate from the rest of the crew. I loved that Whedon played with this concept of fragility in the ensuing battle, with Kaylee getting darted, Zoe getting sliced up, and Simon getting shot. And then, Mal’s battle with the agent… I thought the misdirect was masterfully done.
I’ve been affected by character deaths before and since, but Wash’s death was the only death I’ve seen in media that has made me worry for the safety of the other characters. It made a lot of sense outside of the movie, too, as “Serenity” was more or less a tribute to some IP that was never going to get resurrected. While watching the movie for the first time, I was left thinking: “what if Whedon just said ‘fuck it’?”
“I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.” are some damn fine final words.
You can’t take the sky from me.
The gut punch was Gina Torres, and Zoe not being allowed to grieve and be with Wash.
I watched Serenity again a couple years ago, and it was just as harsh and abrupt as I remember it. It’s a hard emotional jab at anyone who has ever loved a partner that’s a part of their everyday life.
For a deeper gut punch, remember that in “Heart of Gold”, Zoe tells Wash that she wants to have a baby with him, and she won’t brook any of his lame excuses, like “the universe is too dangerous for kids”. It’s possible that if there was ever a second movie or a continuation of the series, they’d say that Zoe did get pregnant just before all of the shit went down, but with it being abandoned IP, we have to guess. So what do you think? Is there a mini Wash in Zoe’s future?
There’s something people always leave out in all this. The crash right before wash dies really feels as if serenity could be totaled. So first that crash… Then all of that
Noooo, I refuse to believe that the movie is canon 😭
Ooof! I was gonna add something from my own childhood, but then I read this and now I gotta take a knee and go cuddle something soft.
“Dogmeat has died”.
Oh no he fucking has not. Reload.
Sirius Black in Harry Potter. I had to go back and reread the paragraph several times, then put the book down. Seemed just so unfair.
Put in there just as a cheap way to get emotional reactions from the audience, it’s the story telling equivalent of having the dog in the story die.
Technically, Sirius is the dog in the story.
Companion cube
You monster
I probably haven’t seen The Neverending Story in 25 years, but I still think about Artax from time to time. Fuckin’ Swamp of Sadness…
The 80s were so brutal. We had a kids movie that starts with the main character’s horse dying from sadness.
Fun fact: Artax can speak in the novel.
AAAANDD ITS SO MUCH WORSE TOOOOOO 😭
For real. That moment in that movie is basically telling you that you cannot save your best friend from crippling sadness and depression. The horse and the boy love each other but it doesn’t matter in the end.
I was allowed to watch that movie waaay too young, and I know it’s the same for others my age, but I was pissed when I learned that one of my friends let her 5 year old watch it because she’d seen it when she was 5, and apparently forgot or didn’t care that the horse dies?? Like how can you forget that?? And then the 5 year old heard us talking about the movie and the FIRST thing she says is “Remember the horse?” in this sad little voice. Way to traumatize your kid.
It was so traumatizing, death by depression. But, overall, as a little fruity kid about the same age as Bastian when it came out, TNS was the closest thing to affirmation of my own little fruity existence I could find. We easily traumatized fruity kids don’t usually get represented well in action films.
Thank you! This traumatized me as a child, my dad used to have to fast forward that part because it was so upsetting for me.
Dangit! Two people now have totally eclipsed what I was gonna add with something that just takes more wind out of my sails!
I definitely need something to cuddle now.
Well, at least your username fits.
Jesus, because no one ever shuts up about it
Joyce Summers. That episode of Buffy was a masterpiece.
I just saw this for the first time recently. It hit me so hard that I had to call my therapist for an extra session. The look on her face was identical to my father’s when he passed.
My mom died when my sister and I were approximately Buffy’s and dawn’s ages, respectively. It was an absolute gut punch to watch for me too.
Ugh…Just laying on that couch… Can’t defeat natural causes with a wooden stake.
