WARNING POSSIBLE STEPHEN KING DARK TOWER SPOILERS
WARNING POSSIBLE STEPHEN KING DARK TOWER SPOILERS
In the end of the fourth book, after Roland has come back from his “exile”, he goes into his room and thinks he sees something behind the curtains, and shoots at it. He ends up killing his mother, after she had come to apologize to him and with a belt she made as a gift.
Heh…yeah, something like that.
While we’re on the subject of Hugo, I’d like to put in a word for pretty much the entire cast of Les Miserables (the book – not that I don’t love the musical). Particularly Enjolras and Grantaire – that scene just kills me. Erm, no pun intended.
I can think of a whole bunch of great Shakespearean deaths but one of my favorites isn’t even seen onstage – it’s Mistress Quickly’s report of the death of Falstaff in Henry V. (Judi Dench did it beautifully in the Branagh film.)
In one of Harry Turtledove’s Great War novels (Walk In Hell, I think), one of my favourite characters (US Sergent Paul Mantarkis) is shot in the leg in Mexico. Not a bad wound, right? Wrong. Severed an artery and Paul bled to death before anyone could find him. Lousy way to die. Stuck in my head. Don’t wanna go that way AT ALL. 
Also the sergent that replaced Mantarkis (can’t remember his name) had a spectacular death. Bible-thumping religious type. Last line about him is that he’s about to find out if he’s been right, as a bright light is the last thing he sees. (This would have been in Breakthroughs, just before the war ended.)
TV show, but what the heck? Roy Fokker in Robotech. Wounded, but he seems to be alright, so he goes to visit his girlfriend, Claudia. She goes to fix him something to eat, and he promptly keels over, on her couch. First saw it as a kid. ;_; Hells…saw it, and read the scene in the novelizations several dozen times before it stopped making me tear up.
I second everything Baldwin said!
Ya beat me to it!
Only I don’t consider Frollo to be evil.
:b
I also second about half of what was mentioned here! 
And thanks for reminding me of “A Taste of Blackberries”. I read that in the fifth grade in class and I had to hold back my sobs…
So sad…
Animal Farm, when the horse was sent to the knackers yard. Well, the whole book really. Everyone (including me) seems to feel worse on reading that that hearing the truth about the USSR.
Nothing else has touched me that much, but Piggy in The Lord of the Flies was bad too.
Isn’t anyone going to mention Cedric in HP? Everyone says they can see it coming but it was quite moving.
Baldwin - So sorry. My memory was that he dies, just because it upset me that much.
Thanks for the correction 
- The death of Ali McGraw in “LOVE STORY”-it was so beautiful! As I recall, she was supposed to be dying from cancer-but she looked radiant! I remember people cracking up and laughing in the theatre!
- “THELMA and LOUISE”-holding hands as they crash their car over the guardrail, into the Grnd Canyon! Musta been a hell of a ride down!
- OK, I Lied! The death sceen in BONNY and CLYDE-Clyde is riddled with bullets, and does a neat dance while the bullets tear into him!
HUGE Cold Mountain Spoiler!
I didn’t see Inman’s death coming at all! When he was shot, I put the book down and said “Aw, damn!” out loud.
Already mentioned:
Spock in Wrath of Khan
Roy Batty in Blade Runner
The one that touches me most:
Sonny in GodFather
Notr the actual death which is bloody and violent even punctuated with the kick to the head but Vito’s reaction in the Undertakers house. Brando’s best scene
When he says “Look how they massacred my boy,” I lose it. As a father myself I could never think of anything worse than to see your child lying there like that.
Vito up to then showed little emotion but there it was at that moment. His face looked so pained as he said that line that I forgot I was watching a movie.
Fredo’s death in Godfather II also affected me only because I didn’t think he deserved it and Michael was so cold about it.
Same here.
Lane’s death in the movie 8 Seconds
Oh my God, I bawl every time I see that movie! It's just so sad that he and his wife are almost on the verge of divorce, and they finally make up, then he gets killed riding Red Rock, while she watches!
It just is so sad, because I can't imagine how hard it would be to lose your husband/wife, and to watch them die. My boyfriend and I watched it the day after we got into a fight and we both bawled our eyes out.Two PAGES and no one’s mentioned Lenny in Of Mice and Men???
I’ll chime in on Roy Batty in Blade Runner.
Also, John Wayne had at least a couple of good death scenes, in The Cowboys and The Shootist.
(Also, the death of Charlie in The Cowboys stayed with me as a kid.)
spoke - I don’t think Lenny’s death was sad, I think his life was sad.
And I totally spaced on Elias in ** Platoon ** ! oh my lord I cried for an hour after the movie was over…of course, my weeping morphed from sorrow over a fictional character to a very real grief over the horrors of war and all the people who suffer in them. I do that alot, transfer my movie feelings to real life. Another major time I did that was after watching ** Amistad. ** First I wept for the Africans who were going home to more pain and sorrow in spite of winning the battle, then I was just weeping for all the suffering and sorrow of a couple hundred years of slavery.
Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larsen, is about the 1900 Galveston hurricane. Isaac, of the title, was the head of the US Weather Service office. Thanks to a variety of factors, such as Isaac’s miscalculation of Galveston’s hurricane risks, a stupid bureaucratic pissing contest between weather stations and the ignoring of Cuban observers’ warnings, a large-scale evacuation of the island didn’t happen. The result was over 6,000 deaths.
The book is full of tragedy, but the deaths that haunted me were 90 children and 10 nuns in an orphanage. In an effort to keep the children safe, the head nun ordered all but a few of the older children to be tied together. While the storm raged outside, they sang “The Queen of the Waves.” The ocean completely destroyed the orphanage, and the only three of 93 children survived, because they weren’t tied together.
Just in case anyone is planning to read the book, I’ll mention Doyle’s death at the end of the beautiful At Swim, Two Boys with a spoiler tag. It wasn’t a surprise, but it didn’t need to happen.
Hector’s death and funeral, in the Iliad, got me choked up. I still haven’t forgotten “And they buried Hector, tamer of horses.”
Another vote for Gus in Lonesome Dove (both the book and the miniseries). It was my first thought when I read the topic title.
The other scene that kills me, and I still have trouble thinking about it, was in the last episode of MASH when we find out what Hawkeye really experienced.
Side note: Having read Garp and sobbed my eyes out, I hesitate to read Owen Meany because I just don’t want to put myself through that again… but so many have said it is such a wonderful book, I may give it a try.
Ginger in Black Beauty. (WAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH)
Whoever the girl was in the nightmare movie (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, I don’t know) who gets strangled in the car. The most horrifying murder I never want to see again.
Yep…another vote for Gus in “Lonesome Dove”. Really tore me up
How about:
Walt the little boy in “The World According to Garp”? Makes my heart sink EVERY time I see that.
Mel Gibson’s kid in “The Patriot”. I’m talking abou the young one that gets shot in front of the family. Whew buddy.
Michael Corleone’s Italian wife in “Godfather Part II” is pretty sad.
Clean’s death in “Apocalypse Now” is tragic. To add to the horror you can hear Clean’s momma on the tape saying “…bring your butt on home” as he’s dying.
Chef’s death in “Apocalypse Now” freaked me out the first time I saw it. Brando is so casual about it too…that’s what bothered me the most.
Joe Peschi and his brother’s deaths in “Casino” really are hard to watch. Especially when they make Peschi watch his brother get whacked first.
But I got to tell you that the one death that really stayed with me (and really because you got to know her character for years) was Sharon Lawrence’s character Slyvia (Sipowitz’s wife) in “NYPD Blue”. She looked Andy in the eyes and said “Take care of the baby”. Man…that was bad. Jimmy Smits’ character, Bobby Simone died too and that too was hard to take. Hey that’s what happens when you get hooked on a show for years.
I have no memory of the last episode of MASH…can you fill me in?
And YOU MUST READ OWEN MEANY!!! Oh my god I wish I were you so I would have that delicious and perfect experience still ahead of me.
The boy (played by Haley Joel Osment) in Pay it Forward.