Kill Characters with Class

[This post will have spoilers for Battlestar Galactica and Game of Thrones]

During my marathon painting sessions, I've had a few shows running on my computer to keep me company. I finally got caught up on Game of Thrones, and I'm currently looking to finish up Battlestar Galactica, a show I never thought I'd love as much as I do.

One thing the shows have in common is that the characters live in a dark reality. In GoT, 5 different people are vying for control, and they have armies to support their fight for power. In BG, the entire human race has been all but annihilated in a single attack, and those that remain are desperately fighting to survive the Cylons (robot humans), the perils of space, and one another.

In these universes, death is a real possibility. Especially in GoT, you don't get a pass for being the good guy. While stories like these aren't unfamiliar, they have had some deaths that I never expected, and those are the best kinds.

In BG, an interesting character by the name of Cally just bit the dust... er, airlock. She joined the military to pay for dental school, and always had a doe-eyed look as she dealt with life in the military. But when her ship's commander was shot by someone she thought she could trust, she lost her mind. As the would-be assassin was being escorted down a hall full of angry people, Cally just walks up and shoots her in the gut. To be fair, the assassin was a Cylon, and when she died her awareness was uploaded to another body safely aboard a Cylon ship. But still, this was the last person I would have picked to do it!

Fast forward and she's now married to her boss, the chief mechanic. They have a kid together, and she's been dealing with quite a lot. In addition to surviving a Cylon occupation, she started realizing that her husband settled with her - he has always had feelings for "Boomer," the Cylon she killed. They have been fighting a lot, and the ship doctor has her on antidepressants. One night she follows her husband, whom she suspects of cheating, and finds out that he's a Cylon. It's too much for Cally, and the episode ends with her preparing to launch herself and her child out of an airlock. Another Cylon-in-hiding intervenes and rescues the human/Cylon hybrid, only to shoot Cally out of the airlock.

Boom, just like that. This character who was no throw-away character died because she found out the truth about her husband. I was waiting for the next episode to be one of those "it was all a dream" stunts, but it really happened. Her husband, who just found out he's not really human, now has an overwhelming amount of stress to deal with. Who is he loyal to? What will he do when he finds out his wife didn't actually commit suicide, but was killed by another Cylon who just discovered they were human? If there's one thing BG does well it's character progression, and I can't imagine what this is going to mean for the ending of the series.

There are several deaths like this. No major characters actually die, but support characters who are integral any time they're on screen die and it makes me have to pause the show. Saul, a drunk XO-turned-freedom-fighter, had to kill his wife for feeding the enemy information to protect her husband. The ramifications the show has felt with his character change is profound, and while I couldn't stand his wife, she did as much for the show while she was alive as she did when she died.

In GoT... where do I start? No one is safe in this world. In BG you at least know that certain key players will make it, although like any good story you always have to wonder how they'll make it out. When I started reading, and subsequently watching, GoT, I couldn't wrap my head around how JRR Martin handled character death. Bad guys die, good guys die. There's no favoritism because someone is seen as a hero or villain, nor is there the mindless slaughter of characters for sheer shock value. People simply live and die as though the world were real.

There's a little cretin-king who shoots women with his giant, compensating crossbow for fun. There was a man named Ned Stark who was the most honorable man we'd ever met - who would carry out death sentences himself because he believed that if a king ordered a man to die, he should be the one to do the deed.

At the end of the first book/season, we see Ned being held captive by this twisted king. I'm sure he's going to get out of it - there's a whole series of these books, and Ned is very obviously the fan favorite. Sure he was being held prisoner as a traitor, and stood bound on stage with the whole kingdom watching, and we "knew" he was going to be executed. But at the same time, I knew someone would save him, or he'd make a daring escape, or at the very least he'd stab the king before being killed.

Shink goes the claymore and thud goes the head. Nothing flashy, no heroics, no drama. He was a man held captive and was sentenced to die, and so he did. I stopped reading when it happened, just like everyone else I've talked to whose read the book. And when his wife and unconquerable son, Rob, rallied the North to overthrow the king, they were both killed in the hall of a man that Rob had previously slighted by not marrying his daughter. I seriously can't fathom what the story will do without these central figures!

But that's what makes character deaths so amazing. If they're done purposefully, without any comeuppance, senselessness, or hope of resurrection, it makes the story amazing. I get mad when my characters die. I get invested in their outcomes, and I want them to make it. But when a writer knows what he's doing, he creates that love on purpose. He doesn't make them a perfect Mary Sue, but a believable human being with flaws that I want to root for because I want that person to be real. I want to feel for them, and see them overcome what they're dealing with. I hate happy endings, but I want them to have one!

So when someone like Cally dies, without dignity, or I lose someone honorable like Ned and Rob Stark... it sucks. I love it, and I want to stand up and applaud, but it's the worst thing in the world. When someone dies, whether they're a support or main character, and you ask yourself "how can the story possibly go on as it has been without this person?" ... you know the writer hooked you in and told a fantastic story.

What character deaths have rocked your world? Did it catch your by surprise, or did you just think they wouldn't die despite their circumstances?


See you tomorrow!

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