Saddest Fictional Character Deaths

[kathyisgr65]

Red Fern grows
When lil ann dies from a broken heart
I cry just thinking about it

 

[Plathfan]

"Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting." – Ecclesiastes 7:2

 

[Rob_Royale]

When Harry's owl Hedwig was killed.

 

[Two21B]

Ruth in "Fried Green Tomatoes." Hillary in "Beaches." Honorable mention for Macaulay Culkin's Thomas J. Buying it via bee sting in "My Girl." That wasn't traumatic at all.

 

[AG31]

Beth in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. "They all thanked God that Beth was well at last." I cried every one of the half dozen or so times I read the book.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Ground Control to Major Thom. Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong.

 

[orangecurious]

I was talking about something similar the other day...

The chauffeur in The Big Sleep, Owen Taylor. His death is the second in the book and starts the tidal wave... and his gets forgotten, Rumour is that even Chandler didn't really know how he died, there are several explanations in the book, bit then, no one cares, more important people die and he is forgotten.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Kenny!

 

[StillStunned]

I was talking about something similar the other day...

The chauffeur in The Big Sleep, Owen Taylor. His death is the second in the book and starts the tidal wave... and his gets forgotten, Rumour is that even Chandler didn't really know how he died, there are several explanations in the book, bit then, no one cares, more important people die and he is forgotten.

In H2G2, Douglas Adams wrote the whale specifically so that people would care about the death of a throw-away character. He was fed up with all the police dramas with characters getting shot and no-one even saying, "Hey, I was supposed to be playing golf with that guy!"

 

[orangecurious]

In H2G2, Douglas Adams wrote the whale specifically so that people would care about the death of a throw-away character. He was fed up with all the police dramas with characters getting shot and no-one even saying, "Hey, I was supposed to be playing golf with that guy!"

poor Petunias.

 

[StillStunned]

poor Petunias.

Oh no, not again.

 

[Otto26]

Bing Bong

 

[Bramblethorn]

In H2G2, Douglas Adams wrote the whale specifically so that people would care about the death of a throw-away character. He was fed up with all the police dramas with characters getting shot and no-one even saying, "Hey, I was supposed to be playing golf with that guy!"

That was a bit that annoyed me in the Fright Night remake of a few years ago. One of the characters is a vampire hunter motivated by the deaths of his parents, many years ago. He has a Hot Asian Girlfriend, or perhaps "PA who he sleeps with" - the exact nature of the relationship isn't spelled out, but it seems to be at least affectionate, and she gets a few good lines.

Then the vampires attack his apartment, during the fight she's seen lying dead on the floor...and for the rest of the film she's just forgotten about. I don't think anybody ever mentions her again, there's no particular grief for her, it's just about saving the protagonists and avenging his parents. It's like she was just there to establish him as the kind of guy who has a sexy PA that he's sleeping with, not an actual person. Granted he wasn't the best-adjusted person that ever lived, but he didn't seem quite that cold-blooded.

 

[RetroFan]

At the other end of the scale, have you ever seen a death scene that wasn't done well and it made you laugh?

I remember back in the very early 1990s going on a high school outing to see Hamlet (with Mel Gibson in the titular role) at the cinemas followed by dinner at Sizzler later. For some reason Polonius's death scene - the farcical nature of it given he is killed as a result of a case of mistaken identity and that it seemed a bit over-acted - set many of us laughing and it proved contagious until all of us were in fits of hysteria in the cinemas sounding like a pack of hyenas no doubt to other cinema goers who were trying to watch the film.

Our young ages at the time and subsequent immaturity no doubt were factors in this too, and we were reprimanded at school the next day for this as well as the misbehaviour of some students at Sizzler afterwards. Put all of us back together in the same cinema many years later as middle-aged adults rather than stupid teenagers and have us watch Hamlet again would we laugh at the scene the way we did back then? Probably not, but then again the boy who deliberately burped as loudly as he could to amuse his friends in Sizzler after eating seven bowls of soft serve ice-cream and got more than he bargained for when he threw up on the table wouldn't do the same as a 40-something father and possibly a grandfather in the present day. Nor would a group of girls who fat-shamed an overweight family nearby make these comments in the same situation today as middle aged mothers and possibly grandmothers, and another group of boys who ran around Sizzler chasing each other as though they had lost the 1 in the front of their ages wouldn't behave like that either as grown men. Although unlike the cinema the situation with Sizzler would be a moot point unable to be proved, as all Sizzler restaurants had closed in Victoria by about the mid 2000s, and Sizzler had completely gone from all Australian states and territories by 2020.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Artax disappearing into the swamp of sadness in the Neverending Story

Came to say this.

 

[SimonDoom]

Saving Private Ryan:

Captain Miller: "James. Earn this. Earn it."

 

[lovecraft68]

Old Yeller

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Sarah in The Last Of Us.

I could go on and on about how much I love the characters and storytelling in that game, but that 15-minute prologue is an absolute tour de force. Blew me away. It's the most moving character death to open a story that I can think of, with the possible exception of the opening montage from Up.

 

[karina_jayde]

Beak, from Reaper's Gale in the Malazan series. If you know, you know. I've never looked at a candle the same way again.

 

[12oclocktales]

Even though we know right from the get-go what's going to happen to her, when Rachel dies in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl it comes as a gut-blow. A great little movie.

 

[Dnthmn_19]

I guess I'm the only one who's read Cyrano de Bergerac.

 

[Deadfreak]

" I have a message: Lt. Col... Henry Blake's plane...was shot down... over the Sea of Japan. It spun in . . . there were no survivors. "

Of all things to be set straight by jaF0 on....... It's best that it's a trivia matter

Walter "Radar" O'Reilly

Makes sense, there couldn't be a spin off if Radar spun in
My mistake

 

[Maximsdarling]

Matthew- anne of green gables

Buffy- btvs (she does come back but end of season five was traumatizing)
Also Joyce Summers (gut wrenching)

Satine-moulin rouge

Will- me before you

 

[onehitwanda]

Bing Bong

"Take her to the moon for me."

Ellie in "Up".

Edward dying to the narration of his death by his son in "Big Fish" and the way what happens afterwards changes everything about their relationship. This was never, is not, and will *NEVER* be okay and I still cry if I think about it.

But the worst?

Nighteyes. If you know, you know. I love Robin Hobb but I will never forgive her.

 

[StillStunned]

The most upsetting moment in "A Wizard of Earthsea" is the otak's death.