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dolimir:
1) What is your favorite death scene (movies and/or tv)? Why?The death of Boromir at the end of
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Do I need to explain why? Because it always chokes me up. Because I love both Aragorn and Boromir so much. Because it is emotionally perfect.
2) Name the top three filmed death scenes of all time, in order. (The list doesn't necessarily have to include your favorite.)What on earth does "top three" mean if it doesn't include my favourite?
Since I already mentioned Boromir I'll pick three more:
1. The death of Sydney Carton at the end of
A Tale of Two Cities. Because I adore Sydney Carton. Because I adore the twisted heroism of it.
2. The death of Archie Kennedy in the Horatio Hornblower episode
Retribution.
3. The dual deaths of Uncas and Alice at the end of
The Last of the Mohicans.
My favourite death scenes ever are in books, and (except for Sydney Carton) mostly in Dunnett books at that. (Example: the death in the last chapter of
King Hereafter, which chokes me up just to remember. Or, of course, the chess scene in
Pawn in Frankincense.)
3) How many times has your favorite character died? Dream sequences can count. Who is it, and how did they die each time?Francis Crawford.... Well, there's death and there's death. Many near death experiences: shot in an Abbey, thrown down a tower, whipped at the whipping-post, withdrawal from opium, burned in a floating mill, frozen in a tower prison. But we never see his true death.
Aragorn son of Arathorn: he goes through the Paths of the Dead, and I see his visit to Mordor as another kind of symbolic death. But his true death happens only once, and in the appendices. I suppoed in "The Two Towers" movie version he dies and is resurrected again when he goes over the cliff.
Miles Vorkosigan dies in
Mirror Dance and is resurrected from the dead ina manner that leaves him with a neurological problem that takes a few books to solve.
4) How do you, as a viewer, feel if a show kills, then resurrects a character? I mean, if someone can't stay in the ground, do you feel it 'cheapens' the emotional impact of their death? Or do you now not get upset if a character dies?Oh, I get upset all right when a character I like dies. I love a good death scene. If a character I like or love dies and comes back.... all the better. I get the enjoyment of the death and then the pleasure of the revival. No, it doesn't cheapen the emotional impact of the death, unless the story is cheaply written in the first place.
It happens all the time in comic books. Generally speaking - unless it's a really bad story - I like it there, too.
5) Death stories - love 'em or hate 'em? Can you give a two sentence reason?In fanfic? Love 'em, if they're good. The only death stories I can think of offhand, I loved, because they had so much emotional impact.
If I knew a story was a death story before reading it, I probably wouldn't read it, but if I can read it unspoiled, and if it is a good, moving story - I love that. Especially if the death is a surprise twist of some sort, and not contrived. No, I don't find many stories that manage that successfully. But some writers can do it. I have found such stories, and they are among my favourites of all time.
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