Article: The 10 most dramatic deaths in fiction (spoilers herein)

Do deaths that turn out to not really be deaths count? If so, I vote Gandalf.

Interesting post. There have been lots of deaths that shocked me in the books I've read, but I can hardly recall any now. Christian Cameron loves to kill off main or big supporting characters in his novels, so I can't really say it's a surprise anymore, but when he killed Kineas in the second tyrant novel it did make my jaw drop a bit - the entire 2 novels he'd been predicting his death via a recurring dream, which revealed a bit more of the circumstances each time he had it. So by the time we know how it happens, I'm thinking 'yeah, so now he can avoid it, coz who'd be dumb enough to do everything exactly as it happens in the dream knowing you're gonna die?' But nope. He still did exactly the same thing as in the dream, and still died. Gutted.

Also, Bertha Mason wasn't so much a shock death as a convenient fridging of inconvenient impediment to the HEA

With all the deaths in A Song of Ice and Fire, at least one of them must qualify.

Not sure about dramatic, but one death that definitely didn't make me tear up because I'm far too manly was Nighteyes from the Farseer books.

So, Ahab and Sydney Carton didn't make the list. One wonders.

JimmyB27 said:

With all the deaths in A Song of Ice and Fire, at least one of them must qualify.

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Oh yeah! I haven't got to the red wedding in the books yet, but i saw it in the series - even though i knew it was coming, yeah, it was a little tiny bit of a shocker

But by far the most annoying death was Khal Drogo. Dammit, what a crappy way for a warrior to die!

Manuel Royal said:

So, Ahab and Sydney Carton didn't make the list. One wonders.

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No Dickens at all! After all... Dickens has his own death chart.

Also... No Stephen King?...

AnneMarble said:

Also... No Stephen King?...

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Well, no. Stephen King survived, thanks to Jake.

I was shocked as all get-out when Michael Connelly killed Eleanor Wish in 9 Dragons. It came in the middle of the book, and you just weren't ready for it at all. And I think I teared up more when Snape and Fred died than Dumbledore.

AnneMarble said:

No Dickens at all! After all... Dickens has his own death chart.

Also... No Stephen King?...

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Mmm, I would guess that King's character deaths are significantly less shocking than the deaths of characters in something other than horror. I go into those knowing anyone and EVERYone could wind up dead eventually. Seriously, everyone. With drama/fantasy/what-have-you, you don't always go in with that expectation.

Yorkist said:

Oh, and everything by Thomas Hardy with a female main character. The article did get one.

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Well, he didn't kill Bathsheba Everdine, although I wish he had because that whiny cow was too dumb to live.

The one from GRRM that still gets me is Ned Stark...

thothguard51 said:

The one from GRRM that still gets me is Ned Stark...

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Yeah, that one shocked me too, but I first saw it in the series, which if you ask me was far more powerful than the way it was portrayed in the book. Maybe that's just because I saw it first, but the TV series showed it up close, whereas I felt the book kept it at a distance, and therefore it didn't have such an emotional impact.

But I really didn't expect him to do it - right up until the last minute, I kept thinking something would happen to save him. That's when I realised that in GoT, anyone can die.

Boxer, obviously. The BETRAYAL, the INNOCENCE... I'm tearing up just thinking about it!

Manuel Royal said:

So, Ahab and Sydney Carton didn't make the list. One wonders.

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This. SRSLY. Both of them.

Charlotte Haze? Really?

[GRRM derail] Yeah, I did think that was a spectacularly stupid move on Ned's part, but I was still expecting a miracle

And Sansa is one of my favourite characters too. She started off whiny and annoying, but she's probably had the most dramatic character arc of all the cast. No one else has changed a great deal, with the possible exception of Jaime, but Sansa is proving to be quite interesting and I want to see where he takes her story next (I'm only on book 3, part 1.) [/GRRM derail]

In other expected death news, Tanus from River God. I did not see that coming, and I still haven't forgiven Wilbur Smith for it. He likes to kill off major characters tho - he did it in Warlock too. That's why I haven't yet plucked up the courage to read The Quest, because I'm still slightly shell shocked, even 10 years later...

When Ahab went out, I literally missed it and had to backtrack, it happened in such an abrupt manner to me. Everything else about Ahab was dramatic, however

Emma Bovary was pretty overwrought as well, but it was only rat poison, so pehraps that's why it didn't rate?

Mrs. Danvers (one presumes she died when Manderley went up) and Rebecca herself.

Though I can't remember the last time I was outright shocked by a death in a book. I've gotten to thick a skin, perhaps? (perhaps from reading GRRM )

Yorkist said:

Might we add to this list every dog death in fiction ever. I do not truck with that. I wish authors would stop doing it.

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Can I also add horse death? I read a lot of ancient historical fiction, and horses are always dying in battle. I think authors should just stop it. Really. Horses must all survive to old age, I don't care how unrealistic that is

Yorkist said:

Might we add to this list every dog death in fiction ever. I do not truck with that. I wish authors would stop doing it.

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Useful site: http://www.doesthedogdie.com/

(I've definitely used it pre-viewing... sometimes you can sense the Doggie Snuff just by watching the preview)