Main Character Dies in the End: OK?

[Philip Overby]

I just got finished watching a kind of silly movie. It doesn't matter what it is, but basically the main character dies in the end. I want to pose a question: is this a truly acceptable way to end a story?

I wonder the same thing in fantasy fiction. I'm not sure how often this happens as I don't think I've read any where the main character died for sure. What are your opinions about this?

My thoughts are what is really the point of the story if the main character just dies in the end? It makes sense if he is sacrificing himself for some great good or something, but this type of ending just seems like a lazy way to end a story (for the most part). I'm sure there are really awesome stories that end with the main character dying. Maybe none are coming to mind for me at the moment.

 

[Sparkie]

BIG TIME SPOILERS HERE!!!

Spoiler: undefined

Cowboy Bebop.

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman.

While neither one of these stories are presented in prose, both of these stories show something noteworthy. Both of these tales feature main protagonists that die in the end, and I would argue that these deaths are not frivolous, nonsensical, or meaningless. In both cases the characters essentially choose death because their own nature compels it. It's a matter of character, not just melodramatic tragedy.

Here's another example: Rorschach from Watchmen. His refusal to compromise leads to his demise. (Is the rhyme too much? Whatever.) Alan Moore has stated that he didn't know Rorschach was going to die until he was halfway done writing the story. Then it hit him: If Rorschach would not budge, his death would be the only option.

If a given protagonist's personality traits concievably lead him to to die, I can accept it. When a main character is killed needlessly, however, it cheapens the story as a whole.

Just my opinion.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

When a main character is killed needlessly, however, it cheapens the story as a whole.

I would say: if ANY character is killed needlessly, it cheapens the story as a whole.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Let me give a story that I think does this well:

The protagonist is a former political prisoner who's arguably been driven mad by the torture he's undergone. He wants to destroy the government, and to do so he's more than willing to kill and torture anyone who gets in his way. He dies fighting, but his actions lead to the creation of a new society. It's strongly implied that he has to die, because his violent methods have rendered him incapable of living in the utopia he wishes to create.

And a story that does this badly:

The protagonist is a monster with razor-sharp claws, living alone in the sewers. "Rats were her only friends." *Slash* *Gulp* "Rats were her only food." One day, she finds a badly wounded boy unconscious in the sewers, and nurses him back to health. When he wakes up, he sees that she's a monster, and he tries to run away. She tries to grab him and stop him, and her claws tear him to pieces. In shock and horror, she claws herself apart.

To my view, the reason the first story succeeds and the second story fails is that in the first, something actually changes. In the second, no one will know or remember this monster that tried to be human. In the first, the rebel is similarly not remembered--his real name has long since been lost--but his actions make a difference.

(There's an alternate lens to this--tragedy is typically considered meaningful if the protagonist's failure springs from his own flaws. This also applies to the first example more than the second, since the second story's protagonist doesn't have an obvious "flaw." However, I'm not fond of tragedy, so I don't look at it like that.)

 

[Sparkie]

To my view, the reason the first story succeeds and the second story fails is that in the first, something actually changes. In the second, no one will know or remember this monster that tried to be human. In the first, the rebel is similarly not remembered--his real name has long since been lost--but his actions make a difference.

Change has something to do with it.

MORE SPOILERS!!!

Spoiler: undefined

In The Sandman, for instance, Morpheus begins to feel himself beginning to change after his experiences in the beginning of the story. He doesn't care for it. In fact, he dislikes the notion to the point of engaging in a course of action that he knows can only lead to his death as a consequence.

 

[Rob P]

IMO the need for a main character or protagonist to die has to serve not just any old purpose but a central element of the story. Would the story be altered at an intrinsic level if he/she didn't die? If the answer to that is no or not really then their death is not suitable.

One of my main characters gets killed off about halfway through my story. He was a really strong character but the need to drive another's character towards betrayal was even stronger and so he had to go. That betrayal was the catalyst for a pivotal moment in the story.

 

[wordwalker]

I think the theme we're seeing here is theme, that is, a character's purpose. Someone sacrificing himself for a cause is good, if the story makes any effort to make the cause interesting. (It doesn't even have to be the main cause in the story; one of Sparkie's examples is of someone who'd rather destroy world peace than let it be built on a lie, so the reader's partly relieved when the guy's shut down.)

Or the classic tragedy does the same thing with a negative: by clearly showing MacBeth causes all that carnage through ambition (or Oedipus by believing he could have a life when the oracles were out to get him, sigh), you make the statement that if people would control their (whichever) more the world would be a better place.

Like Feo says about his "accidental clawing" monster: her death doesn't change anything, except the wasted lives of her and the boy. People have written stories like that and called them tragedies, but they don't lead to anything more than "sometimes life is that awful, and so people suffer." Now if she'd been made a monster by her own evil experiments and this was her final comeuppance, or she survived and her victim's brother learned to forgive her, that would mean something.

But without that purpose, or meaning, or change, it doesn't feel like a complete story. Just life.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Since this thread is inspired by you watching a movie, I'll just come right out and say it: the main character dying seems to be a norm in Asian film. I think all of the films I have in mind fall under the You've-Seen-It or You'll-Never-See-It categories, so the spoiler tags are purely for decorum.

Spoiler: Lust.Caution

Ang Lee's Lust.Caution is probably an example of an ending where the hero dies because that's the "realistic" outcome. No good comes out of her death, so you just walk away with this empty feeling that she was a fool to fall in love with China's Benedict Arnold and that Ang Lee tricked you into taking your wife to a pornographic film.

Spoiler: Akira

My brother just started art school (1990s) and was told that anime was awesome. I knew nothing about anime other than Golgo 13 thanks to the NES game. (I'm 40.) So we watched and this Akira eventually swallowed his girlfriend, crushing her in what I consider to this day to be one of the most disturbing animations I've ever seen, but he spared his other friends before destroying the rest of Japan. Thanks to Akira, I hated anime until I found out they're not all like that.

The raised question that can never be satisfactorily answered: why the hell did I waste two hours of my life watching an unstoppable protagonist not be stopped? Sparing his friends was no consolation since they were unrelatable idiots. The girlfriend who died horribly (and maybe naked) was the only endearing character. Sorry... I don't know if Akira is still famous, but it pissed me off.

Spoiler: Cowboy Bebop

Ths is the tragic hero-dies ending that did it for me. Spike didn't have to die to shut down the Red Dragon syndicate. He just didn't care about living now that Julia was dead. He went out in a blaze of glory, and after watching that last episode for the first time, I restarted the second half so I could see that battle again. Cowboy Bebop has, by far, the best ending of any anime that I know of!

Spoiler: Watchmen

The rare American film in which the hero (it's Rorschach--no arguing!) and 15 million or so innocent people die. And Rorschach's secret does not die with him thanks to the journal, so Earth is doomed. But, dammit, Rorschach stuck to his principles, and if Dr. Manhattan wasn't running around naked being "lawful neutral," everything would have been fine.

I liked this story though I suppose Rorschach and several major cities not getting blown to bits would have been happier.

So on film, I think I can enjoy any tragic ending as long as I get satisfaction out of what the hero died for or died doing. I think that's the key, there has to be something satisfying and true to the character.

I can't think of a novel that ended with a hero death--not the main character anyway, but I think the same rule applies. If I'm going to spend several hours--or days*--with a main character, I better get some satisfaction out of the ending if s/he dies! Short Stories, you can "make me think" about the horrible tragedy I just read. Novels, I demand satisfaction!

[SUB]*Of course, days! I have three kids, so the days of finishing novels in one sitting are limited, MAYBE, to those I spend on a plane.[/SUB]

 

[Chilari]

I agree that a character death which results in nothing changing is empty. There's a bleakness to it which is depressing, which I think is why we don't like reading it. But I don't think change resulting from the death - be it in the direction the plot is heading or in the characters left to pick up the pieces - is the be all and end all. If the character's death is right at the end, we won't see the changes that follow, necessarily, so there needs to be something else to it to prevent it being unsatisfying. If what precedes it in the story makes the death inevitable, then it works even if nothing changes. By which I mean, the character arc or plotline needs to be such that there can be no option but death by the end, whether through the character's flaws or the inescapability of their fate.

For example, if Frodo and Sam had died on Mount Doom as the volcano erupted at the end of Lord of the Rings, I don't think that would have been a bad ending, because really, they shouldn't have a way out. They both sort of know they won't be coming back. And they physically wouldn't have been able to escape if it weren't for Gandalf and those blasted eagles Tolkein likes to much (worst part of Middle Earth, those eagles - to the point where, since the Hobbit movie, my fiance has been refering to incidents of Deus Ex Machina as Eagles instead).

 

[Steerpike]

Sometimes, the meaningless of death, and ultimately the death of the main character, is a significant and powerful point of the story.

I can't even mention the title of the work without making the prior statement a spoiler for it. It's a classic - click below and take your chances

Spoiler: unnamed

Anyone read All Quiet on the Western Front? Great book.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

It happens with reasonable frequency in non-genre books & movies (e.g. Leaving Las Vegas, Sunset Boulevard) so it seems like it should be okay in genre as well if done right.

Every time I've seen it in non-genre stories, the main character's death only occasionally solves a plot problem ("he sacrifices himself to save the world"); it's more common that it advances the development of another character who is also important to the story ("his death helps her realize something meaningful about herself"). In most cases the death is telegraphed from a long way off as at least a possible or plausible outcome for the character, so it fits naturally into the story the author is telling and doesn't outrage the reader as a cheap/easy out.

In terms of fantasy & sci-fi, Stephen R. Donaldson wrote a series where the MC gets killed in the end; the MC's death both resolves a plot problem and advances the development of another character. I can't think of any others except Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series (but revivification is common in Brust's world so it's not a big deal that the MC gets killed occasionally). I don't count GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire -- until he kills Tyrion, Dany or Jon Snow, I'm taking the position that he hasn't killed his main character.

There are some very good works in the apocalyptic disaster genre where everybody dies in the end. I'd say these are special cases trying to explore specific themes and not necessarily an example of "MC dies at the end" as you have framed it.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Every time I've seen it in non-genre stories, the main character's death only occasionally solves a plot problem ("he sacrifices himself to save the world"); it's more common that it advances the development of another character who is also important to the story ("his death helps her realize something meaningful about herself"). In most cases the death is telegraphed from a long way off as at least a possible or plausible outcome for the character, so it fits naturally into the story the author is telling and doesn't outrage the reader as a cheap/easy out.

I've read way too many of these stories, and I'm starting to find them kind of sickening. They keep setting it up like some kind of blood sacrifice--this person needs to die to make everyone else's lives better--and that feels way too The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas for me. (This is particularly common in Christian fiction, either to mimic Christ on the cross, or because "everything happens for a reason"--but Christ sacrificed himself so others wouldn't have to, and some things happen for no discernible reason at all.)

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I've read way too many of these stories, and I'm starting to find them kind of sickening. They keep setting it up like some kind of blood sacrifice--this person needs to die to make everyone else's lives better--and that feels way too The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas for me. (This is particularly common in Christian fiction, either to mimic Christ on the cross, or because "everything happens for a reason"--but Christ sacrificed himself so others wouldn't have to, and some things happen for no discernible reason at all.)

A fair point and I can appreciate that this kind of setup can be a cliche in itself. I will note that the "development" of the surviving character doesn't necessarily have to be positive. William Holden's death in Sunset Boulevard isn't exactly uplifting or life affirming for anyone. Leaving Las Vegas is in my mind about two losers finding a little bit of grace in each other; the MC's death is a natural part of the story progression and its impact on the other character is somewhat ambiguous (though it has hopeful notes).

I agree that clearly setting it up like a blood sacrifice can be obnoxious and if it's coming across that way it's probably been handled poorly.

 

[Filk]

I don't see why not. If it fits and if that is where your story leads you, then do it. Don't be afraid to kill your characters; if you want the reader feeling a bad taste in their mouth at the unfairness of the world, then do it. Reality is a gritty, nasty place and I do not read books to be lulled into complacency; I don't like to be cheated by a sappy ending. I like putting a book down and saying "what the f!" at some nasty hook thrown in the end. Sometimes happy endings are boring and the fact that everyone is okay bothers me. Other times it seems fitting. Take your story where it leads you.

 

[Jamber]

In the end is fine once in a while. There are some points you can't make without it.
In the middle is problematic.

 

[BWFoster78]

I think it's fine as long as you follow certain guidelines:

1. The death has to fit the story.
2. The death has to be meaningful.
3. The author needs to seriously consider the impact on the reading experience/enjoyment.

 

[Nihal]

As a reader, it doesn't bother me if the character dies a death that won't change the world, solve the plot, etc. It's tragic, yeah, sometimes s**t happens.

 

[The_Everlasting]

I think as long as the main character's death is preceded by a damn good story it's alright. There's been several books and movies I've read that the main character dies in the end- hell, there's even been books and movies I've seen where I've said "that would have been better if he/she would have died in the end." It's all about the story leading up to it. I'll openly admit it, I like it when the main character dies in the end. Even thought about ending my novel like that, but it has to fit. Timing is everything, even when you're the one creating it....

 

[Sheriff Woody]

It will work if it has a purpose and relates to the theme and tone of the story. Doing it just to do it is not advisable.

 

[Philip Overby]

I think the reason this particular movie annoyed me was because it was one of those "we've trapped ourselves like rats and now we have to just kill as many people as we can before we die." The characters weren't noble or sacrificing themselves for the greater good, they were just killing people "they didn't like." That's why the movie kind of rang hollow for me. It was just kind of like, "Oh...OK..."