Killing of a POV character

[Donny Bruso]

So I was merrily writing along the other day when my characters began acting out on their own again. I have a particularly willful princess on my hands who is determined to circumvent patriarchal custom and inherit the throne for herself, and she has stooped to the level of combined regicide/patricide to do it. My problem is, she's taken it upon herself to kill off one of my three POV characters, and the only one on that continent.

Now it would be a fairly simple matter to simply begin writing from her viewpoint instead of his. She is an established character from his point of view, it isn't as if she is suddenly appearing out of nowhere and taking over the story. My concern is how people would react while reading it. I have had a lot of comments that people who have reviewed the work like my King, even if he is a politically motivated utter bastard.

I also know that killing off well-liked POV characters is not unheard of. Obviously anyone who is a GRRM fan lives in mortal fear for their favorite characters each decade when he releases a new book. My quandry with it is that I'm probably less than halfway into the story. It seems to me that killing the character after three or four chapters makes him seem unnecessary to the story, even though he is.

I guess my question boils down to what your impressions would be if you encountered this in a book you were reading. Would you just go with the flow (perhaps after cursing me out for killing someone you liked) or would it confuse the hell out of you and make you put down the book? Remember there are two other POV characters maintaining continuity for the rest of the story, who are NOT going to die. Well, at lest not until the end of the book maybe.

 

[Ophiucha]

As long as there is another POV character whose been established and used before now, I wouldn't mind. I might be upset if a character I like dies, but the fact that they narrate some of the book wouldn't change that. Unless the writing styles are significantly different for each POV character and I really liked the dead one's or hated the living one's, I don't think it would do anything to my impression of the novel, or my ability to continue with it.

 

[BeigePalladin]

I don't think killing your king will be a problem, as there are some view-point characters that barely last a scene - and your princess sounds intresting

though if you're a little concerned about cheapening the character, you could write all of the scenes from the princessess point of view

 

[Chinaren]

So I was merrily writing along the other day when my characters began acting out on their own again

I hate it when that happens.

I'd say kill the bogger, unless you've plans for him further down the line of course. Maybe you can make him a ghost? A good death of a major character can be good for the story I think, as long as it's not overdone.

 

[Donny Bruso]

While I appreciate the ghost suggestion, I'm not sure I could take myself seriously if I did that. A little too Obi-wan Kenobi-ish to have ghosts running around. Plus what's the point of killing him if he's still running around? No, I'm willing to let him die off, just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be shooting myself in the foot in others' opinion by doing so.

 

[myrddin173]

I would suggest having a couple scenes from her point of view prior to the character death. That way readers can become "acclimated" to the new POV.

 

[CicadaGrrl]

If she is going to be a POV character, I would suggest one of two things. A. Getting her right there at the beginning so that we don't feel like you've just sloppily pulled the rug out from underneath us. My other suggestion is to get a little risky with it: If she wants to take over for him, then do have her do so. Put her killing him (assuming she does it personally) in his eyes right to his last gurgling breath when you simply switch to her point of view staring at a dead him.

 

[Caged Maiden]

If you cannot decide whether to kill him or not, perhaps she TRIES to kill him, but fails. Then you could explore loads of things; he has to flee, he retaliates, oh man, the possibilities are endless.....
I avoid killing my main characters, because my stories are strongly centered around a few well-built mains and then everyone else is in the periphery, but I loved Thieves' world, and as soon as the story changed points of view... anyone was game to be killed. I loved that. If it's your style to kill people, I say just make it an exciting death with a point (haha or not! in the case of Thieves' world) sometimes its fun to surprise your reader.