# Deaths in a movie or book which stuck with you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 20, 2002, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730 "2002-08-20T12:34:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/41 "2002-08-21T13:46:46Z")
I think the reason that the stabbing scene in Saving Private Ryan is so disturbing is that it is so quiet (once they actually stop struggling). The German soilder actually sort of comforts the guy as he’s killing him - saying “Ssshhhh” It is very easy to put yourself in the young man’s place, knowing for certain that you are going to die, wanting it to hurry and occur, and almost thanking the German soilder for being there so you don’t have to die alone (even if he is the one that is stabbing you). ---
**Author:** ![Mullinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@Mullinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mullinator)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/42 "2002-08-21T13:48:49Z")
I think the death that alays seems to get a guy down the most would be Jim Brown in “The Dirty Dozen”. He was just so close to making it out alive. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/43 "2002-08-21T13:56:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > \*\* > > Well, I wouldn’t say _incredibly_… Actually, I just wanted to point out that Raistlin and Caramon weren’t identical twins. You could tell by the way they didn’t look exactly like each other. > \*. \*\* I beg to disagree, they didn’t look like each other because of their history as well as their birth (sort of like Arnold and Danny Devito in “Twins”). I will concede that they might have been the other type of twins (non-identical), but they were born at the same time. Raistlin got majorly “F-ed” up doing his wizard’s test. ---
**Author:** ![moodtobestewed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@moodtobestewed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moodtobestewed)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/44 "2002-08-21T14:22:14Z")
The final paragraph of _All Quiet on the Western Front_ brought me to tears. There’s also a book simply of pictures of stuff people left at the Vietnam Memorial in DC. That one made me cry in the freakin’ library when I pulled it off the shelf. ---
**Author:** ![Orual](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orual](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orual)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/45 "2002-08-21T16:17:01Z")
Romeo and Juliet in the Baz Luhrmann movie. Cowboy Bebop:Spike Speigal at the end: “bang” And another vote for Gandalf the Grey and Boromir. _grumble_ lousy stupid jackass sean bean making me cry like a baby over a character I never even _ **liked** _ in the book… _sniffle_ stupid bastard _sniff_ ---
**Author:** ![Kaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/fbc32d/32.png) [@Kaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaf)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/46 "2002-08-21T16:22:33Z")
Spoilers! Obviously. In Infinite Jest right towards the end where his older brother is covered and then roaches are put in slowly covering his body Yeeeach! That disturbed me so much I had to give the book away, so I wouldn’t be tempted to reread it. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/47 "2002-08-21T16:23:48Z")
The already mentioned **A Prayer For Owen Meaney** and **Heavenly Creatures** were the first things to come to mind when I saw the thread title. I stil tear up when I think of Owen. **Heavenly Creatures** us the most disturbing movie I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![yanx4ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/85e7bf/32.png) [@yanx4ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanx4ever)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/48 "2002-08-21T16:32:49Z")
The most compelling screen death I’ve seen is Madeleine Palmer’s in Twin Peaks. Totally awesome sequence where the white horse appears to Sarah Palmer, then the Log Lady and Cooper are in the nightclub- the music fades and the Giant appears, repeating “It is happening…again”. Cut to the Palmer house where Leland looks in the mirror and Bob looks back- Madeleine comes down and sees Bob and screams- Leland/Bob dance with her while slowly killing her. Cut back to the nightclub, the Giant disappears and the tall bellhop tells Cooper “I’m so sorry”. David Lynch rules! ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/49 "2002-08-21T16:48:23Z")
(not including those named like Bambi’s mom and Old Yeller) _Kitty_ in _A Dog Named Kitty_ _Hooch_ from _Turner and Hooch_ _The Mother’s suicide and the baby being drowned_ in _The Joy Luck Club_ _Bubba_ in _Night of the Scarecrow_ _Alex_ from _Alex: The Life of A Child_ ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/50 "2002-08-21T16:50:49Z")
I forgot a few - _Charlie_ in _Flowers for Algernon_ _Piggy_ in _Lord of The Flies_ _Dickie_ in _The Talented Mr. Ripley_ ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/51 "2002-08-21T17:00:45Z")
The cop who was being tortured all throughout _Reservoir Dogs_, then gets shot like he was nothing worth caring about. When Stinky shot himself in _Hate_. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/52 "2002-08-21T17:12:24Z")
**Dr. Rieux** wrote: > [@](#): > > Princess Suldrun in Jack Vance’s _Lyonesse: The Green Pearl_. Damn, that was a good one. I don’t know how it could have slipped my mind. I must be getting old. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/53 "2002-08-21T17:32:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gopher \* > And in **Dune** (forgot which one in the series), Duncan Idaho was killed the second? or third? time. (Since he was a ghola…basically something like a clone). He said something about his fate was to die over and over in service to the Atreides. That was a _whoooa_ moment for me. \*\* Having the ability to die over and over again kind of takes the impact out of a death scene, wouldn’t you say? No one mentioned Goose from **Top Gun**? Apollo Creed from **Rocky 4**? Sgt Elias from **Platoon** missing the chopper Joker earning the “Congressional Medal of …Ugly” at the end of **Full Metal Jacket** Samuel Ludlow blinded by mustard gas and caught up in some barb wire in **Legends of the Fall** Can a death scene stay with us in a good way? Hans Gruber falling off the Nakatomi Tower in **Die Hard** (Sure hope thats not a hostage). Sargent Murtagh ‘revoking’ diplomatic immunity in **Leathal Weapon 2** Arnold ‘letting Sully go’ in **Commando** (remember when I said I’d kill you last…I lied) Some more obscure ones: **The Hitcher** - Rutger Hauer ties Jenifer Jason Leigh between two 18 wheelers and makes a wish. Charlton Heston speared by mutties in **The Omega Man** A young Mel Gibson returning with the order to cancel the assault just as his friend gets mowed down in **Galliopoli** - Really pretty moving. All you see and hear is his buddy running (which ties into the fact that he and Gibson were track stars) and then BAP-BAP BAP BAP, the frame freezes and thats it. I find it somewhat amusing that the only way a movie can get a emotional response from a guy is to have a fatally wounded Marine using his last ounce of strength to toss grenades at Krauts/Nips/Gooks or Skinnies. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/54 "2002-08-21T18:04:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Charlie in _Flowers for Algernon_ What? Charlie Gordon doesn’t die in the story – unless you mean the loss of his new-found intellect, which would be a kind of death. The knifing death in _Saving Private Ryan_ was especially hard because it was a Jewish soldier being killed by an SS man. I’ve always been moved by the death of Antoninus (played by Tony Curtis) at the end of _Spartacus_. And, of course, King Kong. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/55 "2002-08-21T19:04:25Z")
Oh, I meant to include the lovely string of deaths in _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. As you’ll recall, toward the end of the book, as Esmerelda is about to be taken to the gallows, the old woman who hates gypsies (believing that they once stole and ate her infant daughter) finds out that Esmerelda is, in fact, her long-lost daughter, not eaten but raised as a Gypsy. However, the old lady, overcome with mingled joy and hysterical sorrow, is unable to prevent Esmerelda being taken to be hanged, and falls, cracking her head open and dying. Then Esmerelda, having in the course of a few minutes 1) met her long-lost mother and then 2) seen her mother die, is unjustly hanged, having been abandoned by her noble lover. From the heights of Notre Dame, Claude Frollo, the evil, lustful priest (who had framed Esmerelda after she spurned his advances), watches the hanging; above him, Quasimodo watches him watching. When Esmerelda’s neck is broken, Frollo laughs; Quasimodo cannot hear the laugh, but he sees it, and tosses his father-figure, Frollo, over the side, and then ignores him as Frollo clings for a while before falling to his death. Later, we find that Quasimodo goes into the catacombs of Paris and starves to death cradling Esmerelda’s body in his arms. Centuries later, young Parisian dandies touring the catacombs find the two skeletons – the female one still retaining a fragment of faded ribbon – and pull them apart, whereupon the skeletons crumble into dust. Now that’s a goddamned ending for a book. From what I hear, Disney completely screwed it up. ---
**Author:** ![davidw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@davidw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidw)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/56 "2002-08-21T19:58:34Z")
Fredo! Don’t get in the boat! ---
**Author:** ![Stana\_Claus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stana_claus/32/13874_2.png) [@Stana\_Claus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stana_Claus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/57 "2002-08-21T20:07:05Z")
In print: Augustus ‘Gus’ McRae and Joshua Deets in _Lonesome Dove_ Flag (the deer) in _The Yearling_ Piggy in _Lord of the Flies_ Everyone in _The Raft_ (from Stephen King’s _Skeleton Crew_) In film: The whole D-Day invasion scene from _Saving Private Ryan_ Old Yeller The big German guy getting whacked by the plane propeller while fighting Indiana Jones in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/58 "2002-08-21T23:41:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stana Claus \* > The big German guy getting whacked by the plane propeller while fighting Indiana Jones in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ \*\* Yeah propella’s are ill! There’s a scene in **Catch 22** where this guy is screwing around in a Cesna type airplane and takes out this other guy from the waste up. Some nasty shit. ---
**Author:** ![yESTERDAY\_mAN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a87d85/32.png) [@yESTERDAY\_mAN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yESTERDAY_mAN)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/59 "2002-08-22T03:44:02Z")
Although the death of the main character is never actually depicted in Stephen King’s short story “Survivor Type”, the reader realizes that he won’t survive. Stranded on a tiny, rocky islet, he survives for a while by amputating and eating pieces of his own body. The story ends with him writing, “Lady fingers. They taste just like lady fingers.” with one hand while beginning to eat the other. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730/60 "2002-08-22T05:52:49Z")
> [@](#): > > I beg to disagree, they didn’t look like each other because of their history as well as their birth (sort of like Arnold and Danny Devito in “Twins”). I will concede that they might have been the other type of twins (non-identical), but they were born at the same time. Well, yeah, of course they’re twins (“fraternal” is the term you’re looking for there). But they weren’t formed by the same zygote, but from two seperate eggs that were released at the same time. It says this, right at the beginning of _Dragons of Late August Around Nine-ish_, page 135: > [@](#): > > Raistlin turned to his brother haughtily. “You realize, of course, that we weren’t formed from the same zygote, but from two seperate eggs that were released at the same time.” > > “Durr…” replied Caramon. Seriously, though: Way before his test, Raistlin was thin and sickly, while Caramon was described as being big and straping by nature, not so much because of constant exercise. Clearly, they weren’t cooked up with from the same batch of DNA. And, just FTR, Arnold Schwartzenegger and Danny DeVito _were_ identical twins, at least according to the script. When they meet the doc who designed them, he says they took a single egg, fertilized with some hybrid uber-sperm, which then divided. Of course, this should have led to two Arnies or two Dannys, not one of each. But apparently elementary biology is beyond the grasp of Hollywood screenwriters. This is the main reason why I really hated that movie. Well, that’s not counting the acting, the writing, the plot, Arnold trying to be funny, DeVito trying to be endearing, the directing, the costuming, or the lighting. Aside from all that, the bad science was absolutely the worst part of the movie. However, it did kill the bad guy in a really cool way: They dropped about ten thousand feet of chain on his head: made a pile about five feet tall. Very satisfying villain death. (SAVED BY PREVIEW: My first sentence, as I first typed it, read: “Well, yeah, of course thier twins (“fraternal” is the term your looking for thier).” Whoah-nelly, but I’m dumb sometimes.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-in-a-movie-or-book-which-stuck-with-you/124730.md?page=4)