Kill your MC at the end

botulism at the victory feast!

Or, more dramatically, maybe he falls into the same bottomless pit as the Evil Overlord.

Or do the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon thing; slow poison.

Darzian said:

Specific to fantasy:

How would you like to kill your MC at the end- after he defeats the Evil Overlord- and he DOESN'T return to life? Would you be able to do this? Have you done this? I am so tired of the MC surviving against all odds, so tired of the all powerful evil lord die after facing a teenage wizard, so tired of dead heroes returning to life, than I am going to kill my MC at the end. I'm intending to make it such that he has to die to kill the Evil Overlord.

Not many stories like this but would like your opinions.

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As long as you build it to the point where it has to be--and your hero chooses to do it, I think this would be a great ending.

These kinds of endings only suck dirty duck butt if it's NOT set up properly within the course of the story.

No. I hate when they kill off the MC at the end. And I refuse to read any more books by an author that gives me this fantastic MC that I've come to identify with and then they kill him. There was one series by Weis and Hickman, forget which (and prior to this book I loved most of what they wrote), but they killed off the MC in the end of the first book of this trilogy. I have never read anything by them again, not even the next book in that trilogy.

I mean, feel free to kill off your MC, but I won't be reading anything else by you.

Her life blood is what made him invincible; her death blood will be what kills him.

It's hard to say, with this... among my friends I am famous for loathing tragic endings, but really, some of my favorite stories ever end with the hero's death: Watership Down, Paradise Lost (not exactly DEATH, but...yeah, death), The Great Gatsby, any version of Arthurian legend... hell, the hero dies in the new testament.

I think (for me) the key to making this work is to make the death worthwhile. If you have stoked up this individual, and made h/er a hero in the truest sense of the word, then to have them die needlessly or stupidly would be a symbolic slap in the face to all the greatness you gave h/er.

And when I say "worthwhile" I don't just mean "oh he had to set off the bomb while it was still strapped to him cause otherwise all the fairies in fairyland would've gotten measles." Yes, that's worthwhile in terms of the material facts of the plot, but it's not symbolically worthwhile. A hero, to me, is someone whose victory (whether he dies or not) is not just the physical victory itself, but also the symbolic victory: what he represents has beaten the evil forces that (usually) symbolize his opposite.

If the fairies in fairyland don't become heroic themselves (or maybe the villain becomes heroic?), thanks to Hero's accomplishment, then h/er death just becomes a way for the writer to: 1) trick us into thinking the story is very literary and pensive or 2) "be different" because the writer is sick of the good guys always surviving.

Arbitrarily killing your hero is silly, to me. If you kill the hero for either of THOSE reasons, then that is a much worse cop-out than having h/er survive. Most of the time, I think the good guys SHOULD survive, because what they have done should survive.

Then again, I'm always a sucker for symbolism/metaphor/meaning, sooo.... I guess some realists would disagree with me

Personally, I hate bad endings. Reminds me of 70's movies, many of which I hated. I'd hate to get to the end of the book and have the hero die. That's just me. Sounds like some of you would go for that, though. More power to you.

When I pick up a book, I fully expect the hero to live, know they are going to, and just wonder how they will get there. Enjoy the ride, so to speak. I'll never be bored enough with reading to go for something that is such a bummer.

I read a book to be entertained and to have a happy ending. Period.

However, I wish you the best of luck with it.

Feidb

I killed my MC at the end of my first book...an alienated a fair part of my fanbase in the process. (I tried, however, to make it obvious that...if not that she was going to come back, then at least that something unusual was up).

I'm bringing her back in the second - but it's not easy or quick (I'm 30-something-thousand words in and she's still a corpse), because the way she died and the way she's being brought back is circumventing the usual way in which it's done (which is, for you WoW players, basically a metaphysical corpse run, which you only get one shot at).

And yes, I know it's strange to have your MC essentially as a prop for the first half of the book, but it lets the ensemble cast shine, and shows that the world really does move on if you die.

(And yusyus, it would probably be better if they were one book...but it would have been a monster-size novel, and that doesn't appeal to me. >_>).

Personally, I feel the need to make my work as marketable as possible. Happy endings sell better. Maybe after I've sold a few and can afford to alienate a large part of my potential readership, I'll branch a little into less than positive endings, but that remains to be seen.
A perfectly fine and oft used comprimise is killing off important secondary characters. A good example would be Trinity in 'The Matrix'. (I know, it was a movie, not a book...but the concept holds). The reader still feels the angst, but the MC lives on to honor the memory of the lost character in some way. Acceptable carnage.

Shockingly, I'm occassionally a fan of a dead or failed MC. One of my current stories has all five major characters die before it's all over. Of course, this fits with certain themes and is necessary to the plot as well. I really don't see the issue. I've read books where the MC dies, and while it's a bit upsetting, I don't hate the writer for it. I fact, I'm ager to read further books. I wish people would explore themes of failure and death more often.

You could have the MC kill the bad guy, but a chain of events had been started right before bad guy's death so now MC must kill self to stop the events.

There is also the 'MC goes into shock from killing bad dude and accidently kills self' but MC had a mental problem so it fit.

I thought of something evil - but I do not think I would do it. I can imagine my readers would hate me. It would make a funny flash movie though. MC goes through so much to save mystical creature or some other creature important to character. Then after saves the creature - the creature turns and munches hero. *Giggle*

I'll just say that I would have felt very cheated, if, when I got to the end of Lord of the Rings, the lava flowed out of Mount Doom, and buried Frodo and Sam.

RainyDayNinja said:

I'll just say that I would have felt very cheated, if, when I got to the end of Lord of the Rings, the lava flowed out of Mount Doom, and buried Frodo and Sam.

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Ouch. After those three books and they die like that. That would be wrong - just wrong. The world would be saved I suppose - as long as they had the Ring with them. It wouldn't be a total loss. LOL

I think that shorter stories - not ones of a series are easier to pull off killing the MC in the end. It is do-able with a series but harder.

Spoiler of Harry Potter Series for those who haven't read the last book.

I expected Harry to die, and that would have been fine with me. The whole story led up to it - especially with the prophecy sounding like both Harry and Voldemort would die. I am glad how the book turned out though. It was still awesome.

I'd say killing the MC is fairly common as far as alternatives to the almost annoyingly standard, lived happily ever after plot, but if it comes as a total shock I doubt many people would think it a good choice.

Couldn't you say that in a metaphoric kind of way Frodo did die, since he had to leave middle earth.

Killing the MC at the end can work well if written well.

However, I find that, too often, authors kill off the MC at the end so they don't have to deal with the "after the big battle" scenes. Sheer lazyness in my view.

I like a sad ending. I was one of those people who thought the ending of Harry Potter book 7 was a total cop-out. I have seldom been so disappointed.

That doesn't mean the MC always has to die though. Take the ending in Lord of the Flies. One of my favorite books, and one of my favorite endings. And what's perhaps so tragic about it is the fact that Ralph, and the rest, they live. The vast majority of people survive.

Ender's Game is another example of a book that has a sad ending without killing off the main character.

Tragic/bitter sweet endings have the chance to be poetic, moving, and powerful, whereas the typical good guy kills bad guy and lives happily ever after ending is so overdone that I'm beginning to feel its a cliche.

I don't mean to call anyone out. Everyone has their own preferences and whatnot. But if you honestly only read happy-go-lucky books that end on a happy-go-lucky note, then you're missing out on some of the best literature out there, fantasy, sci fi, or otherwise.

Darzian, remember one thing please. This is YOUR story. Not anyone elses. Tell it the way you have envisioned it. Don't kill your MC off just for the sake of it. But don't change your mind just because a few people have told you that they don't like that. There will always be people who don't like something in your work. Its one of the most elementary facts of a writer's life.

My MC's live on for sequel opportunities.
Hey Hollywood!

Maybe the MC can win but the cost of doing so might be something extremely difficult for him / her to accept at the end.

In Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books, the MC always wins at the end but always loses more than he wins. For example, saving his race but accidently killing his wife in the process. These are not "happy ever after" endings.

Darzian said:

The story is still in the planning stages so there's plenty of room for development.

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Since you're still in the planning stage, and haven't even begun to write the story, you don't have to decide now. You have months of writing ahead of you, in which you'll flesh out your characters and enrich your plotlines. Sometimes outlines change from start to finish, so your protag's fate may change a dozen times in your head before you ever need to write that scene.

I echo Perle_Rare's last post. If you decide not to kill off the MC, but want it to not be the traditional happy-happy ending, then make the victory come at a very high cost. The MC doesn't have to die, but a part of them can die inside. Often I find that a lot more painful/tragic than the MC being killed, because the MC having to live with such pain is very difficult. If the MC is dead at least they (probably) aren't suffering. If they're alive, but have lost something of value to them, especially if it's something they value more than their life...that's a very sad ending.

I'm of the "I don't want to kill my MC because I lurves her" camp, myself. And yes, characters of mine tend to come back to life or return in some other way, though there's usually some sort of price attached. I prefer if the MC in stories lives, but killing them off can work, if it fits the tone of the story and serves a purpose. *shrug*