# Characters authors kill, why? (Spoilers!)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 30, 2002, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888 "2002-03-30T07:06:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/1 "2002-03-30T07:06:52Z")
I read a lot and I am tired of authors killing off my favorite characters. A list of my favorite dead characters follows, with the author listed.
Stephen King,
The Stand. Nick Andros.
Man, I loved Nick. Why did you have to kill him off?
Dreamcatcher. Duditts
Steve, oh steve, Duttits was the man. You killed him with cancer, you bastard.
It. Stan the Man.
Stan would have been a great character in IT.
King-Straub,
The Tailsman. Wolf
Wolf is the ultimate friend, and you killed him.
Black House. Henry.
Henry had all my love and you killed him you bastards.
More to come.
Anyone else hate it when an author kills your favorite characters?
Slee
---
### Author:  [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/2 "2002-03-30T12:45:52Z")
yeah.
othello. and desdemona.
and cordelia.
and juliet.
(but not romeo. he was a useless whinger.)
dude, tragedy sucks.
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/3 "2002-03-30T12:51:29Z")
**Moderators notes**
Changed the thread title to reflect spoilers.
I was just starting to read _Black House_ myself.
Ya bastid. š
---
### Author:  [@fitandhappy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fitandhappy)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/4 "2002-03-30T12:59:28Z")
at least thoughs are only individual charictors, dougas adams managed to kill off the entire cast of hitchikers and all their alturnate versions in the final book (after already haveing done away with mavin in the book before). the bastard, miss him though.
mind you having written a few things myself it is very tempting to kill of your own charictors, though i canāt really expain this feeling.
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/5 "2002-03-30T14:24:22Z")
See, I feel just the opposite. I have a hard time with the idea of killing off characters. I especially think Iād have trouble if it were for a TV show with an actual personās job riding on it. Maybe thatās why I suck at writing fiction.
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/6 "2002-03-30T17:01:22Z")
Speaking from my own limited authorship experience, I killed off main, favorite characters because it heightened the drama. Oh, the tragedy when [Sick Sword](http://www.netcom.com/~rogermw/ADnD/) died in the sequel to _IUDC_ !
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### Author:  [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/7 "2002-03-30T19:43:09Z")
Well, Bean, from **Enderās Shadow** (and the following sequels) is dying because of his genes. Itāll be sad when he does die.
But I thought the saddest death I have ever read was in Stephen Kingās **Cujo** , with the death of four-year-old Tad Trenton. When his mom finally gathers up the courage and rage to go out there and kill Cujo, Tad dies at the same moment the dog dies. She was so close! If only she had gone out a few minutes earlier or something.
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### Author:  [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/8 "2002-03-30T20:33:41Z")
Oh, and along those lines: Ender.
Also in the series āA song of ice and fireā wellā¦umā¦
ok, Iām not going to spoil it. Them. Heh.
But the question was āwhy?ā The answer is because it works. I admire George RR Martin to have the strength to make the choices he does in his novels. At certain deaths I was heartbroken, but, continuing on with the story, I realized that he made the story stronger in a way it never could have been if he had taken the easy way out and kept everyone alive.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/9 "2002-03-30T21:14:19Z")
Thereās a difference between killing off a character in a single book and killing off a series character.
I mean, if you go back to ancient times, Homer has Hector killed off in the Iliad, by that egotistical bastard Achilles, who is himself killed by an arrow to the foot.
Dickens made his reputation by killing off Little Nell.
Authors kill beloved characters in a book because that creates a moving and emotional situation for the reader and for the other characters.
Itās often different when an author kills off a series character, such as Conan Doyle throwing Sherlock Holmes off the waterfallā¦ of couse, Doyle eventually repented and brought Holmes back to life.
Iāll never forgive the folks at UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS for sending Lady Margery to American on the Titanic.
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### Author:  [@Yersinia\_Pestis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yersinia_Pestis)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/10 "2002-03-30T21:26:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Enderw24 \*
> \*\*Oh, and along those lines: Ender.
>
> Also in the series āA song of ice and fireā wellā¦umā¦
> ok, Iām not going to spoil it. Them. Heh.
>
> But the question was āwhy?ā The answer is because it works. I admire George RR Martin to have the strength to make the choices he does in his novels. At certain deaths I was heartbroken, but, continuing on with the story, I realized that he made the story stronger in a way it never could have been if he had taken the easy way out and kept everyone alive. \*\*
Yeah, I respect Martin for not always telegraphing to the reader which characters are going to die. But I have to be in a certain kind of mood for these booksā¦narrative conventions can be so comforting sometimes.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/11 "2002-03-31T01:00:34Z")
Spoilers for _The World According to Garp_:
Every
Single
Character
In
The
Book
_ALL_ of them. After Garp is offed by the tongueless psychotic feminist, he has a little epilogue where the writer, John Irving, sums up how everyone in the book bites it. Not just the major characters, but literally, everyone who showed up in some incidental manner, just for a few pages, gets an obituary, with the exception of the narrator and the guy who got his penis bitten off. This, mind you, is after Garpās eldest son is killed in a car crash and his mother is assassinated by a psychotic misogynist.
I cried like a little girl when I finished that book.
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/12 "2002-03-31T02:27:19Z")
I got you all beat. I mourned for a year when I read that Chewbacca was killed off in _The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime_. Although they did give him a great death sceneā¦ they dropped a moon on him. One of the greatest death scenes Iāve ever read.
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/13 "2002-03-31T03:30:18Z")
Iām currently reading Harry Turtledoveās Great War series. Being set in an alternate WWI, it, unsurprisingly, has a lot of deaths.
The several that were named characters all hit me in some way, but the only one that had me yelling āDamn, you, Turtledove, how could you?ā was
s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
p
a
c
e
Paul Mantarkis. Not only was he one of my favourite characters in the bookā¦not only did his death mean the POV character in his unit became the incredibly annoying Gordon McSweeney (the ONLY POV character in the books to actually scare me)ā¦butā¦he had an embarrassingly stupid deathā¦shot in the leg! Of all thingsā¦ Sheeā¦
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### Author:  [@Vorae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vorae)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/14 "2002-03-31T05:36:38Z")
Slight hijack, but does anyone know _why_ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Holmes (in a fight w/Moriarty near a waterfall, I _believe_)?
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### Author:  [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/15 "2002-03-31T06:18:21Z")
Doyle wanted to work on āThe Lost Worldā series, I believe. But Holmes proved to be too popular to stay dead.
To be fair, the great Joss Wheadon killed Buffy Anne Summers twice.
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### Author:  [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/16 "2002-03-31T06:21:09Z")
Doyle wanted to work on āThe Lost Worldā series, I believe. But Holmes proved to be too popular to stay dead.
To be fair, the great Joss Wheadon killed Buffy Anne Summers twice. And Japanimation killed off main charaacters all the time.
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### Author:  [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/17 "2002-03-31T06:21:09Z")
Doyle wanted to work on āThe Lost Worldā series, I believe. But Holmes proved to be too popular to stay dead.
To be fair, the great Joss Wheadon killed Buffy Anne Summers twice. And Japanimation killed off main charaacters all the time.
---
### Author:  [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/18 "2002-03-31T07:25:06Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by C K Dexter Haven \*
> \*\*I mean, if you go back to ancient times, Homer has Hector killed off in the Iliad, by that egotistical bastard Achilles, who is himself killed by an arrow to the foot. \*\*
And while Iām sure **C K Dexter** knows this, for those who may not, Achilles does not die in _The Iliad_, which ends with Achilles returning Hectorās body to his parents who then have a large funeral for him while the Trojan War is put on hold for a few days.
But back to the OP -
Agatha Christie killed off Hercule Poirot, but I canāt remember the title of the book (Itās been a while). The reason behind the death, as I recall hearing it, was that Poirot was her favorite character and she didnāt want anyone else writing hiim after her own death.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/19 "2002-03-31T07:26:49Z")
I suppose it was inevitable, given the message that the author was trying to get across, but i was still pretty devastated the first time i read _All Quiet on the Western Front_ and Baumer got killed a week before the Armistice.
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### Author:  [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2002, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-authors-kill-why-spoilers/100888/20 "2002-03-31T08:15:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Crunchy Frog \*
> \*\*Agatha Christie killed off Hercule Poirot, but I canāt remember the title of the book (Itās been a while). The reason behind the death, as I recall hearing it, was that Poirot was her favorite character and she didnāt want anyone else writing hiim after her own death. \*\*
Itās called Curtain.
And actually, MY reading said that she HATED Poirot, and wanted to kill him off much sooner, but the public wouldnāt let him. According to my sources, her actual favorite hero was Jane Marple.
Can anyone confirm or refute my recollection?
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