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What do you think of this character's death?

MadMadys

Troubadour
Maybe I should invent a term for this kind of death, like Gray Death or something like that??

There are lots of possibilities here...

Perhaps your character met their... Ice age?

Or maybe they got their ice kicked?

Even better! Cool party!

I got a whole movie full of ideas!

0c1c1914_mr-freeze.jpeg
 
Sounds like you're trying to get into the head of a suicide-- in a case where she happens to be right, a universe where it's plain truth that she does reach an afterlife with her friend. Walking off like that simply is suicide, as all the other posts have said, but you're also trying to take a longer view than that.

That's an intriguing and romantic tale, but it's also going to be hard for readers to swallow what's still suicide. And I'd have to agree with them.

Some things that might help:

  • is she doing any good by her death? eg searching for lost children and staying out too long in the cold?
  • how much does the story continue with her afterlife? if she soon finds out that suicide cuts her off from her ancestors and she still has to go through the Hells to reach her friend...
  • is she not the MC? if she's someone the MC can watch and think "she's so dedicated, but I know I'm needed here," you've put it in a different context.
 

Amanita

Maester
If I remember correctly what you've posted some time earlier, the main character in this story is reaching a kind of parallel world through her death. Do you think you could establish this possibility earlier? Something like only the character's body is dying from things like cold but her mind/soul is able to wander somewhere else? This would move it away from earthly concepts of suicide. As I understand it, she's not really ending up in the afterlife or is she?
To me, the idea of a person's suicide actually leading her to meet the people she's lost is problematic to say the least, but it's your story and you don't have to worry about that.
Maybe you could have her go out into the cold for a reason other than wanting to die if she really has to die in the way we understand it. Something like worldwaker suggested or even the character being drunk/having taken drugs/having hallucinations and going out into the cold without realising it.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
@Wordwalker: The Mage girl is not the main character, that story is totally about her friend =)

She really had to travel to the Afterlife worlds to go and find her, because otherwise, her friend would have been locked forever in her own world without any chance to escape or even to communicate with anyone... That's what being a frozen ghost means, usually caused by suffering a particularly dramatic, tragic and unexpected death.

The Mage girl was unable to immediately find her dead friend, because her own dramatic death in the mountains turned her into a frozen ghost as well- However, she was able to break out of her own locked world and eventually she rescued the other girl, so the ending to all of this is happy after all =)

All this Afterlife stuff is actually the end of the story, but I feel that it's the most beautiful and meaningful part and I always cry a lot when I re-read it...

Thanks for thinking that this is an intriguing and romantic tale!!

@Amanita: Sorry, you are confusing this story with a different one that I have told you about before.

In the world and the species that these characters belong too, things like having a soul, an Afterlife and being visited in dreams by your dead loved ones are all pretty normal and accepted. That's why the Mages wanted the girl not only dead, but turned into a frozen ghost as well and locked away forever in a different reality...

There was a consequence for the Mage girl's death in the cold: She became a frozen ghost too (not to mention that she was thrown into a very dark, lonely and scary world) but being a Mage she was able to break out of it, and then she came back to the living world, traveling between both universes until she finally managed to contact, visit and release her friend.

What do you think of this??
 

Amanita

Maester
I think I did mean the same one, but never mind. ;) Maybe my post was worded in a confusing way.
I shall try again. If the mage girl knows what's going to happen after her death and knows that she's still able to act and actively help her friend, I wouldn't call the entire thing "death" but it's more like a way of moving from one world to the other. If it's described as such, the entire "suicide" issue shouldn't really be a problem. If she's able to return to the living world (not as a ghost, is she?) she's not really dead in my opinion.
But maybe I should stop posting now, such matters are almost difficult to discuss across the internet.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
The Mage girl thought that finding and helping her dead friend was perhaps within her powers, but she had no way to be sure that it would work and she was really venturing into the danger and the unknown...

She did that because all she cared about was to go and find her no matter the costs, not caring anymore about her life in the normal world, her future as a Mage and the new world order that was drawing closer.

For that species and that world, the definition of what Death means and what it means to be dead are different to Earth's definitions, so it's even more difficult to say what exactly was the Mage girl's unusual death in the cold.

Thanks for your opinion!! =)
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Then, if there is a good and noble purpose behind your actions then it's not suicide anymore... even if you intentionally set course towards your own death, knowing what you are doing??

That's exactly what happened in Harry Potter, and it could explain why Rowling got away with that without anyone saying that it was a clear suicide act. I am not going to say exactly what happened because it could be a spoiler, but the situation of my Mage girl is very similar to that.

I think that the real definition of suicide is when death is caused by your own direct actions, while in the other hand, simply letting something else take your life would have to be considered separately...
 

Shockley

Maester
In the same way that I'd define exposing an infant as murder, I'd define exposing oneself to the elements as suicide.
 
There are gray actions that aren't openly suicidal but daring the fates (eg battlefield recklessness), but most readers would agree that you can only march into so much cold before it counts as suicide. And she's not trying to leave it to luck, she needs to die.

Then again, with such a clear other purpose to her action, this is the kind of "suicide" that's impolite to use the s-word when "act of sacrifice" comes closer to the whole picture. Don't worry about the word.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Thanks a lot, everyone =)

I wanted to tell you that this story in particular is one of my most private and secret works, and the chances that I'll ever want to publish it are very low...

Anyway, I wanted to know what would be the view of possible readers about the taken away by the cold thing, and this thread has helped me to understand some important key points.
 
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