Fannish 5: What five character deaths affected you the most?

[fajrdrako]

From: the Fannish 5: What five character deaths affected you the most?

Clearly, this needs a spoiler tag.

1. From The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett: the death of Christian Stewart.


2. From The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett: the death of Wat Scott.


3. From Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett: the death of Khaireddin.


4. From Daredevil #181 by Frank Miller (Marvel Comics): the murder of Elektra by Bullseye.


5. From Hamlet by William Shakespeare: "Good night, sweet prince."

There were other Dorothy Dunnett deaths I could and might have listed: Will Scott and Thorfinn, for example. I can't help it. I love Dorothy Dunnett's death scenes, the good ones.

Funny that there are so many death scenes in comics, but I could only think of two that have moved me or stayed in my head, perhaps because death in comics is usually a temporary state, and the story has to rise above that. Elektra, I mentioned. The other - a sort of honorary tribute to a comic book that will forever remain in my head - is the death of Gwen Stacey from The Amazing Spider-Man #121. I even remember where I bought it, and where I was, and what I was doing the day I read it.

I can't think of any deaths in movies or television that would come even close.

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I must address this theme at some point. Tonight, perhaps.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, please! I look forward to seeing it.

[chazzbanner.livejournal.com]

The death of Francis Poldark in Poldark Sob!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! Good choice. I loved those books.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Since a lot of my fandoms are real history, I needn't elaborate on those…
In fiction:

1. Prisoner of Zenda: Michael von Elphberg, Duke of Strelsau. The narrator, Rudolph Rassendyll, regards him as his bitter enemy, one of the villains of the piece: yet the author has given him a death which is, any way you look at it, heroic – saving his mistress from rape at the hands of a treacherous henchman. It makes you stop and question your previous assumptions about the character – if you haven't already begun to do so for political reasons earlier.

2. Under Two Flags: Cigarette. The sexy, cheeky, adorable French-Arab vivandière who throws herself in the way of the firing squad to save the hero, Bertie. She's probably a 19C Mary-Sue, but she is genuinely fun, and I wanted to save her, as Bertie is, frankly, not worth it. Her death also frees up Bertie to marry the aristocratic Lady Venetia. This awakened me at the age of 12 or 13 to the injustice that often prevails in 19-early 20C fiction: that unconventional female characters have to be sacrificed so that the hero can end up with the 'virtuous' upper-class heroine. See countless old Hollywood movies (Westerns especially - Destry Rides Again is a good example; also costume pieces such as If I Were King (Huguette)).

3. Flight of the Heron: Keith Windham. I dislike Dorothy Broster's over-idealised Gary-Stu Jacobite hero, Ewan Cameron (frankly, I dislike Jacobitism and the romanticisation thereof). Keith, the young army officer, is a far more interesting character, and I wanted to rescue him. (Usual problem area for me: attractive young man + sharp pointy object = h/c complex kicks in.)

4. Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Alec Stoke-d'Urberville. Wayward boy grows up into well-intentioned and generous young man; rewarded by being knifed. It's horribly unjust, and it distresses me that some professional lit-critters don't 'get' his character well enough to see this.

5. Another female archetype here: the 'glamorous villainess' along the lines of Lady Ysolinde in The Red Axe, Barbara in The Wicked Lady, Hester in The Man in Grey, Carmilla in Carmilla (filmed as The Vampire Lovers). The scheming, voluptuous 'bad girl' who plots against the insipid 'good' heroine, and ends up paying with her life. Whatever her incarnation, I tend to root for her, because she is fun and gorgeous. And again, attractive young woman + sharp objects also gets my h/c tendency going.

All of these are cases which I have tried to work my way around over the years. I can safely say that the majority are repairable to the caring and sympathetic ficcer.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Interesting choices! I'd forgotten Flight of the Heron, which I read once, long ago. And of course I have not forgotten The Prisoner of Zenda at any point - loved that book.

namaste,
Elizabeth

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten Flight of the Heron, which I read once, long ago.

I was about 15 when I first read it. Dorothy B is a dreadfully sentimental writer (especially bad when she marries off her beloved Ewan to Alison, and gives them cutesie-wootsie kiddies, whom I wished to strangle, in the sequels). She over-idealises Highland culture and society, and reserves her greatest venom for Lowland Scots (all her worst villains). I don't think – given when she was writing – she intended the vaguely slashy undertones: I suspect these are a result of her own adoration of Ewan, which she projects on to other characters. He is such an insufferable Gary-Stu. I kept wondering (hoping, frankly) she would kill off Ewan and have Keith (who had been jilted by his fiancée Lydia before the book began) end up with Alison.

PofZ - yes. None of the film versions have ever done it justice, or examined the issue of narrator-reliability.

I've sent you DVDs of The Wicked Lady, The Man in Grey & c.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I must have been about 15 when I read Flight of the Heron, too. Didn't read the sequels. I don't think I liked it much, but remember almost nothing of it or my reactions.

I agreed about the Zenda films.

Thanks for the DVDs! What fun.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I must have been about 15 when I read Flight of the Heron, too. Didn't read the sequels. I don't think I liked it much, but remember almost nothing of it or my reactions.

I invented a dreadful cliché OFC to save the day. Thinking about it now, I'd probably rather reintroduce Lydia, whom we never met properly.

The sequels annoyed me. I don't think Dorothy B wrote female characters very well. However, at least, unlike modern (mostly US) historical romance writers using 18C Scotland, she knew how to convey a Highland accent in print, and didn't make her Highlanders speak fake-Glaswegian.

However, she's nowhere near as good as Neil Munro in The New Road. But then, he was a Highlander writing about his own home-area (Argyll) and its culture, while she was a Liverpudlian based in Oxford, if I recall correctly, and a sucker for the Jaco/Episcopalian propaganda-piece, The Lyon in Mourning.

Thanks for the DVDs! What fun.

I'm sure you'll have fun with them.

[widget-alley.livejournal.com]

I've gotta say, Robin Stewart's death hit me awfully hard.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness yes, Robin Stewart's death is a contender. And - in some ways it doesn't count, but it really got to me - the death of Slata Baba.