Lead
characters dying in movies has been a fad in TV series the past couple
decades. Some credit Breaking Bad as
what broke that new ground, others credit the Sopranos... It really dates back
to V in the 1980s, which would kill off main characters in the blink of a laser
blast.
While
this is shocking and certainly makes things unpredictable, the wise show runner
is going to realize that killing off characters is not what makes your story
worth watching. In fact, it can work
against you if you don't do it right.
The
perfect example of these two extremes is The
Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.
Walking Dead seemed to fall
more in love with the concept of killing off its characters than it was with
the characters themselves. By season
five, the writers had clearly run out of ideas on how to continue the series
without repeating themselves, so they started killing off main characters
arbitrarily. They would introduce new
story-lines only to cut them off by killing off the characters in that
story-line. This was a pity because,
despite zombies seeming like they'd be a redundant antagonist, the idea of an
apocalypse brings with it many concepts that could be explored in very
interesting and entertaining ways. It's
a pity the producers decided not to do that.
The
final straw for most viewers, me included, was the death of Glenn. This may seem odd, because in a show where no
one should be safe from being killed off, why should we turn on the show when
it kills a beloved character like that?
For me, part of the reason was because the lead villain who killed him
was so annoying. Neegan was interesting
when he was just a name that everyone rallied behind; an idea. When we learned he was just a preachy cliché
whose bat stood in for any real character depth, the show already dipped. When he killed Glenn, we found that we would
be losing characters that interested us and they'd be replaced with characters
that annoyed us.
But
in re-watching Game of Thrones I'm
realizing there's more to it than that.
In this series, characters were killed off in such shocking ways, we
were all taken by surprise and thought it was almost random who died. But when you pay attention to the flow of the
overall story, you can see that it's all carefully crafted. Everyone who enters the story has a role to
play, and when they fulfill that role, they can be dropped from the story
either from death or from banishment.
But NO ONE leaves without their own journey, and their purpose in the
story, being fulfilled.
For
instance, when the Red Wedding happened, I actually wasn't surprised. There was no way that the Starks could defeat
the Lannisters at this point in the story.
It would be over then, and there were at least four more seasons to
do. The war they were waging would have
to end with one or the other winning, and they couldn't keep the war going for
that many years; it would be redundant.
So, they cut off the two heads of the family (pun slightly intended) and
it becomes a revenge story. In fact, if
you look at it from the point of view of a classic novel, it would begin just
after the Red Wedding. The other Stark
family members are scattered, and they've sworn revenge on the ones who
murdered their parents and brother. THAT
is classic story-telling.
At
the Battle of Winterfell I was so afraid they were going to kill off Aria, not
because I like the character so much, (though I do,) but because doing so would
have had the same effect as when Glenn was killed. She has a character arc that has been developed. We all spent hours, years even, watching her
go through this journey. We want to see
that journey pay off. Even though she's
killed bad guys, she hadn't actually used what she had spent so much time
training and learning. Until she
fulfills that arc, we will be waiting for it; and if they kill her off before
she's able to, we will feel unsatisfied.
When
a writer kills off a character, it's not just a surprise, it closes off
potential story-lines. Marvel became
famous for not killing off characters, and as such they left doors open they
were able to explore. Breaking Bad killed off major
characters, but in retrospect, one can see they no longer had anything important
to contribute to the overall story-line.
They were sometimes in the middle of something,
but they never had yet to fulfill their part of the story.
Walking Dead revels in
killing off characters arbitrarily, citing that in real life, people die who
had more to contribute to life. That may
be true, but if I wanted strictly real life, I'd watch security camera
footage. Something can be realistic
while still having meaning.
The
lack of the producers at Walking Dead
understanding this, and the fact that those at Game of Thrones do is the reason the former is doing so poorly in
the ratings, and the latter is doing so well.
#GameofThrones #GoT #WalkingDead #TheWalkingDead #HBO #AMC #Killingcharacters
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