Do you think death or torture of characters in literature should always push the story further? Is using character death for shock a cheap trick? Is using a character's death for a cliche sad moment a cheap trick?
bump
>>8450335
It doesn't necessarily have to progress the plot but it should be thematically or aesthetically relevant to the broader text.
Gore pr0n sort of requires it.
Beyond this, if it can do something more to highlight aspects of the story, of themes, of characters, or give useful (for the reader) vent to an author's parenthetic obsessions, then sure.
>>8450335
Are cheap tricks even bad if they work?
A character should never be written just to die. Either the death itself should have an impact to the story or min character, or the character who died should have done something during their time in the story and is now made irrelevant so no longer needed, possibly dying trying to do the thing they were meant to do.
>>8450608
Nah, it's fine if they're meant to die from the start too. That kind of character just has to be handled differently.
it doesn't matter if it advances the plot or not, it just has to fit the tone of the story and it has to be properly written and not be shit
mainstream shit that kills characters because game of thrones is cool is shit because it's mainstream shit, not because they kill characters
now resurrecting characters is pretty much always shit, either kill and commit so that it has a point or don't try to hide the fact that your characters live in lollipop world by making them take a dirt nap for a few pages
>>8450641
Resurrection is fine too so long as it's consistent with the tone and only happens in an overtly supernatural setting to one or two characters at most.
>>8450641
>now resurrecting characters is pretty much always shit, either kill and commit
Agreed, things almost always devolve whenever characters come back to life.
Unless they're a lich or something. That's kind of bad but much less of an asspull than some kind of phoenix feather garbage. Some sort of illness/curse serves the exact same purpose of temporarily removing a character from meaningful significance, without having the same problems present in revival wank.
>>8450641
I thought the first couple of seasons were pretty cool, but it got really shitty
>>8450663
example of non-shit resurrections? I don't remember any that I didn't think made the story worse.
I mean i can accept it in kid stories, like dragon ball, because it fits the tone and you want to be sort of positive
or for mythological shit where it has symbolic value
but for anything that is supposed to be serious it just cheapens the story for me, even if it's supernatural theme, it just takes away the weight of the surrounding decisions and tone
Everyone dies.
Shocking, isn't it.
>>8450683
Mythology/religious texts were pretty much what I was thinking of as examples. Really though, I don't think most fantasy is "fantastical" enough because its writers and readers are too limited in their thinking. If you're already going beyond the bounds of common sense and reality, clinging to any sort of verisimilitude is holding yourself back.
>>8450719
it's not so much about verisimilitude, i just feel resurrection is cheap in a "having the cake and eating it too" way. As in they allow you to turn the atmosphere darker by killing the character, but you don't really pay the price as you get it back a bit later.
in religious/mythological texts it's different because the point is usually illustrating a world-view or theme through the characters that are usually just vehicles for ideas without much vitality of themselves. But for character driven stories where you relate to the characters is where i think it's cheap
>>8450732
The idea of "relating" to characters in that sense is a type of verisimilitude.
The title character of the novel I'm writing at the moment is born, lives four or five years, and is then killed all without the perspective character seeing or knowing about her, but it will still be the most impactful.
>>8450684
posts like these is the reason why I come here, to laugh at all you pseud faggots