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Most surprising deaths in fiction

darz1

darz1

Member
Dec 18, 2017
7,104
The Lion King

Mufasa, I wasn't ready for that. I was thinking "he's gonna make it"

Boys N The Hood
wasn't at all thinking Ricky would die, and then Doughboy dies 2 weeks later.

Menace 2 Society
thought Cain was gonna make it out

Jackie Brown
Chris Tucker, Robert DeNiro, Bridget Fonda
 
SchrodingerC

SchrodingerC

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,865
Definitely what happened during the Eclipse from Berserk. The worst part is how I was told to skip the first arc and start by reading the Golden Age arc. The Eclipse and the deaths were even more of a surprise for me.
 
KingFox

KingFox

Member
May 17, 2018
999
Colony season 3:

I don't think anyone expected to see

12 year old Charlie getting gunned down in front of his family during a raid on the resistance camp. Especially since he was only just reunited with them in the previous season. At least he died a heroic death taking out some soldiers and saving his sister.

https://streamable.com/m706e


maks said:
When I was 10 and watched Transformers the movie.
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Palette Swap said:
Saw this in a theater when I was really young. This bothered me a lot, like I don't remember the rest of the movie, but I distinctly remember this hit me very hard.
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Violence Jack said:
And to think, what we saw were the toned down deaths of major characters. They were originally scripted to be much more brutal. 7 year old me was in utter shock the first 10 minutes of that film.
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FaceHugger said:
Another vote for Optimus Prime and Sturm Brightblade. Talk about some shit coming out of left field to traumatize a kid.
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The Goldbergs did an episode about this that perfectly encapsulates these very reactions. Excuse the poor quality of the video of someone recording this from his tv for some reason lol.

 
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Blade30

Blade30

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,618
Can't think of anyone right now but Legend of Galactic Heroes sticks to me.
Yang Wen-li
 
Temp_User

Temp_User

Member
Oct 30, 2017
4,707
Wash and Book in Serenity.

Also, I had the misfortune of watching bootleg VHS copies of Transformers The Movie and the S3 'Dark Awakening' episode all in the same day . . . . needless to say my Optimus Prime-loving kid self was bawling like a baby afterwards.
 
Shahed

Shahed

Member
Oct 27, 2017
841
UK, Newcastle
The thing with GoT/AsoiaF, it's not the deaths that are that surprising, but the manner of them. The brutality or sudden shock of the deaths were more surprising than the fact said character died.

Take Ned. He was always dead man walking, or at best sidelined to stay in Night's Watch forever. If you look a the ages of the characters, of the younger ones you have Robb, Jon and Dany as the oldest at 17-18 (13-14 in book). These characters were going to be shown coming into their own, but as long as Ned was alive or in prominence, that was never gonna happen. Being beheaded was a shock, but not his death

Jon has some disguises, but he's still very much the archetypical fantasy hero. He also can't really fulfill that role well and come to the fore as long as Robb was still alive. Sansa's story also kind of came to a standstill. Robb and Catelyn needed to be removed in order for her to grow ane become a future Lady in power. Red Wedding was shocking in it's execution and brutality, but those deaths were coming.

Jon dying. Well he refused Stannis offer saying he made an vow to serve for life. He needed to die and be revived so he could leave the Night's Watch and then do something.


The deaths that shocked me were Oberyn and Myrcella, especially the latter. Oberyn was fighting the Mountain after all, but Myrcella was just there
 
Rand a. Thor

Rand a. Thor

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
10,213
Greece
I'm still on book 11, so I dunno if there is anything shocking later on, but so far there is one that sticks out for me in WoT.
Moraine. Her death was surprising because not only did she show her true resolve in how she died, but also because despite his reluctance to listening to her, Rand spiralled out of control because somewhere deep down he knew in a world of backstabbing and conspiracies she was the only person that he could trust and he completely fucked up in keeping her close. So yeah, it was surprising because in a series that doesn't really do character deaths, the author made the rare exception to really drive home an important message.
 

Deleted member 2226

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,846
Linkark07 said:
I'd say the death of that important character in Harry Potter 5. Many people were in denial even when Rowling admitted he died.

Also, the first Red Dead Redemption. Personally, I was traumatized enough that after ending the epilogue, never played the game again.
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I think it's a great death in part because it doesn't really feel like a death. It's sudden and it's this weird magical artifact you don't understand so you understand Harry's disbelief.

And then it gets compounded by the fact Harry finds the mirror and realizes he basically got him killed because he didn't check his mail.
 

Deleted member 5028

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,724
Timbuktu said:
Not if you watched Infernal Affairs.

film-quizzes-non-hollywood-gangsters-film-4.jpg


I think the ending makes more sense here with all the Buddhist musings and the movie title.
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The third movie went off the rails a bit but hey, definitely something worth checking out I agree.

Gai Daigoji in Nadesico stood out as someone who took an early bow

images


I did not see that coming only a few episodes in.
 
FaceHugger

FaceHugger

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
13,949
USA
Shahed said:
The thing with GoT/AsoiaF, it's not the deaths that are that surprising, but the manner of them. The brutality or sudden shock of the deaths were more surprising than the fact said character died.

Take Ned. He was always dead man walking, or at best sidelined to stay in Night's Watch forever. If you look a the ages of the characters, of the younger ones you have Robb, Jon and Dany as the oldest at 17-18 (13-14 in book). These characters were going to be shown coming into their own, but as long as Ned was alive or in prominence, that was never gonna happen. Being beheaded was a shock, but not his death

Jon has some disguises, but he's still very much the archetypical fantasy hero. He also can't really fulfill that role well and come to the fore as long as Robb was still alive. Sansa's story also kind of came to a standstill. Robb and Catelyn needed to be removed in order for her to grow ane become a future Lady in power. Red Wedding was shocking in it's execution and brutality, but those deaths were coming.

Jon dying. Well he refused Stannis offer saying he made an vow to serve for life. He needed to die and be revived so he could leave the Night's Watch and then do something.


The deaths that shocked me were Oberyn and Myrcella, especially the latter. Oberyn was fighting the Mountain after all, but Myrcella was just there
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The most shocking thing I read in ASoIaF was

Jaime losing his hand

I was like wow. What now for him?
 
SupremeWu

SupremeWu

Banned
Dec 19, 2017
2,856
Salty Catfish said:
The Departed is up there for sure.
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This one always comes to mind, it was stunned silence in the theater. Although the trailers for this movie spoiled another death, the last one, they kept showing a killer dressed in his 'I'm here to kill someone' outfit and the scene didn't ever appear until a few minutes left and by then it was all obvious anyway.
 
sooperkool

sooperkool

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,159
Horp said:
Not to comic book readers perhaps, but to everyone else, which is like 99% of the people that saw the movie
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Yeah, sure. The only people that went to see those movies and wasn't a toddler was familiar wit her death. Anyone even passingly familiar with Spider-man is aware of her death since it's been iconic for over 50 years.
 
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