The best way to 'out' a character?

Finally finished reading the last Harry Potter (don't worry- this isn't a spoiler forum) and was suprised at some of the deaths and how some were and weren't justified in any way

What do you think is a good reason to 'out' a character out of a story via death?

See, alot of people cried over Maes Hugh's death (Fullmetal Alchemist), but in a writer's veiw- it was perfect cause he had so much to lose and it hit our hearts more

Anyone have examples of good reasons to kill off a character?

Don't forgot Asuma Saruboti (Naruto). They are a much too long list of characters that fans think shouldn't have died.

At least Meas comes back in the movie. I didn't see it. I don't wanna see it. I hear is all different and serious. It would broke my heart. ._.

I read a book years ago in which the hero had to save a child empress from her corrupt father.  Yet, by doing so he went against his oath to never do harm to the royal family (he had to slay the emporer)  So when all was said and done and the young girl became Empress he offered himself to be executed.  And in order to keep the peace for his...sorta...inserection he was executed as the law and his oath demanded.  Even though he'd basically saved the empire.  First book that I actually cried over. 

I've killed a hero by letting him freeze to death.  Yup, slow and a bit painful.  He didn't just fall asleep like humans do cause his species is particularly sensitive to cold it was more like burning and painful then going in to shock. 

I've killed a few other characters by beating them to death; classic sword battles; being torn apart by beasts.  The worst was a murder/rape.  Sooooo....there you have my evil ways of killing off characters.

My reasons?  Mostly to shock the reader.  I've used most of those before mentioned death scenes to bring a certain story arc to it's climax.  It's normally a turning point for the heroes companions or the story itself dramatically changes.

I recently finished this book where the main character had to follow a bunch of different clues to make sure a mass murder was stopped before it happened. And along the way he exlpains how his girlfriend was the only one thing that he knew was forever and that they'd be together because that was their fate. In the end he was only able to stop a portion of the mass murder (there was more than one killer) and his girlfriend ended up being shot because he couldn't stop the last killer. Very sad stuff made me cry like a baby.

As for killing my characters...I'm very cruel to them. I've hung one of the main characters, shot them full of holes, throat slitting . The list goes on a TON of my characters die. As for good reasons of killing a character I think giving them so much to live for is a very good reason. It's more emotional that way and hits the reader harder. Close family or friends of the main character dying is a good reason too because it gives your main character more motivation and makes the reader want to cheer them on. Well that's my two cents.

Maes Hugh.   And don'tcha think it's kinda weird Asuma dies after he gets Kurenai pregnant?  Anyways, I think the best reason would be that

1. The author realized,"Hey! Why don't I spice my boring chapter up by killing one of the un-important characters!?! *hack*"

2. That or, the author thinks he/she will get more sales by "outing" a character.

On Jul 30, 2007 4:12 pm, Diabolique said:

I'm not that far ahead enough fr that in Naruto ^^; New Zealand has to wait AGES for everything T.T

Do you think this a good reason to out a character? Or what you think author's think is a good reason?

I'm not much for destroying my characters for shock value. That doesn't seem to follow the set story very well. I'm not trying to get a rise out of anyone via a violent death. (Course I think that's because I am a little too attatched to my creations.) When I do plot out the death, I have to mull  on it forever to see if it's really that important to the plot. Killing somone to earn a sob point or to get them out of the way seems kind of odd to me.

On Jul 30, 2007 4:12 pm, Diabolique said:

You need to spoiler alert...

The characters that get killed aren't considered unimportant to us. They were VERY helpfully side characters and it really sucks to see a good character go down. Meas ,and Asuma are always alive in my roleplays. Great characters like that most live on.

On Jul 31, 2007 12:05 pm, rumdiculous said:

It's the same with me. I' haven't killed anyone off in my manga yet (lol, because I've only got nine pages so far) but I have looots of stuff planned for future pages and am constantly wondering who will be good where, and why, and what value they'll have for other characters and for the strength of the storyline. So yeah. When I kill a character off, I really, REALLY think on it super hard and long to see if it makes sense to the story.

well, J.R.R. Tolkien killed off Gandalf at one point in the LOTR series, but Gandalf did resurface later on. Turns out he managed to secape. I was very upset. Same deal with Han Solo, and Capitan Jack Sparrow. Both had seemingly terminal situations, but escaped anyway. Anyone else seeing a pattern. Its all to keep the viewer/reader interested.

I haven't kill a lot of people in my stories... (except for those non-descript background people who died in the wars). Killing someone to wrench at the readers' heart would technically be a good thing for the writer. Although sometimes, I guess writers could just kill their characters for fun... I mean, to "out" them.

My non-spoilery thoughts on the last Harry Potter: I think Rowling was going for 'senseless and horrible' in her almost random knocking-off of characters, but it just came across as gratuitous.

A fictional death that I think achieved 'senseless' very well (and I'll talk about it here because I think the whole show has aired pretty much everywhere) was Tara's in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She started out very shy and stifled, and her personality bloomed when she fell in love with Willow. Then she had a falling-out with Willow and they ended up as not-a-couple for most of a season. Finally the thing that had separated them was resolved and they got back together, and it looked like happily-ever-after for them -- and Joss Whedon was so good at making people really, really want these characters to be happy -- and then Tara was killed, in a way that nobody expected or could have prevented.

Of course, from a plot perspective her death was not 'meaningless', as it set off a whole chain of events that lasted for the rest of the show, due to Willow's anger and grief. But in context, it was the worst way to go -- she didn't die saving someone's life or doing anything else important, and she was killed by a guy with a gun, of all things (instead of something supernatural, which our heroes understand and know how to fight).

It seems to be hard to express 'senseless' death in fiction. In real life there's a certain feeling of meaninglessness when someone dies in a way that was preventable, or if someone dies while doing something that they never would have thought of as dangerous. But in fiction you have to set it up more, and I think it's okay to use some poetic license to create a situation where, for example, you think this character is going to have a happy ending -- and then you kill them.

Also: keep in mind that you don't want to draw too much attention to the character by setting them up to die, because readers will predict what's coming. Just do your best to make the readers feel for all of the characters what you want them to feel. If you do a particularly good job of making people love the character who is going to die, it won't stick out like a big neon arrow, and the audience will feel it more when it happens.

I write a lot about death in my original stories and how different people deal with the death of their loved ones, basically because I lost a lot of people I loved in the last 8 years. It's also a way for me to deal with those deaths and I wanted to lift  a taboo by showing what mourning people go through and what you can do to help them.

I don't know what would be a good reason to kill a character off. Shock value doesn't always work. I hate the Marvel comics for example. They kill lots of characters, but they always come back to life later on, so death has no meaning there.

Sometimes I create characters who have the sole purpose to die. *giggles* In my D&D games I've had two characters die. One was killed by a friend and the other one was sacrificed to the spider goddess Lolth. That was a lot of fun actually.