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TV Series Philosophical Question


ShadowDog
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The whole "is the main character dead or not" intrigue going on in Game of Thrones right now brought to mind a larger question.

 

If a show is good, why does it need this kind of gimmick? If a show is bad, no amount of gimmicks are going to save it no matter what.

 

I'll give you an example. Let's say a show called "Ninja Kitties" is having it's season finale. One of the popular main characters Meowriffic has his belly sliced open by Baron Von Bark and tossed over a bridge into the river.

 

"Meowriffic is dead!" The show runners insist! The actor has shaved all his fur off and is all over social media talking about he's never coming back, by gum. NEVER!

 

Nine months later, 30 seconds into the season premiere, Meowriffic climbs out of the river and makes it to his girlfriend's house ... she's a nurse ... and she patches him up. He's gonna live.

 

So what, narratively speaking, was actually accomplished here? In the very next episode you find out he survives so what was the point of all the lies and deception? What does the show actually accomplish with all that? I'm honestly asking because I can't figure out why this is so common.

 

I could understand if you supposedly kill off a character and there's a mysterious Big Bad and nobody can figure out who the bad guy is and you'd think it might be Meowriffic but he's dead and the actor shaved off all his fur so it can't possibly be him but then he pulls his mask off and ZOHMYGOD it is him! That makes sense. But lying just to keep the audience in suspense for the break and then they find out in the season premiere, like you always see happen, just seems pointless to me. What are your thoughts?

 

PS. Not to be confused with times when the show runners killed off a character for real and then regretted it and brought them back to life through some kind of ass pull. Such as on Stargate Atlantis and 24.

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I'd say it depends on their future plans. There's nothing worse than a cast member of a show that no one knows what to do with. We all have favorite shows where one character had some storyline that was total idiocy or wheel-spinny. If you can get drama out of it, and their death impacts the stories of everyone else, kill them. If you're doing it to get a ratings spike and plan to undo it all-- you're out of ideas.

 

There's also no shortage of behind the scenes reasons. The actor and producers could not get a long, the actor might want more money, the actor might just be tired of the show. In the case of GOT, I think they've constantly been hitting up against a wall of what happens in the books, unlike say, Walking Dead that was clear from the start about going its own direction. What GOT did could cement the idea they are doing their own thing.

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Game of Thrones is a fantasy which takes stuff from tons of different classic stories. We've seen stuff already based on Robin Hood and his Merry Men and Frankenstein, among others. The idea of a "chosen one" dying and then coming back to save everyone is a pretty classic idea. You may have seen it done before.

 

But I'd agree, if Jon comes back a week or two into the next season/book and is like "hey, Im the same Jon Snow", then yeah it was totally unneeded. But like most things in Thrones it's not the shocking event that matters, it's the fall out. We know the reason Jon was killed, for making peace with the wildlings. Now Im guessing that whoever takes charge of the Night's Watch now will end that arrangement. Which will likely have disasteruous consequences which perhaps a reborn Jon and other characters will have to deal with.

 

Plus there are many other things that play into it. The whole prophecy that there will be a hero who is "Azor Ahai reborn." Which seemingly just meant that Jon (or whoever) was the reincarnation of Azor Ahai, but perhaps it literally means that the new chosen one has to actually be reborn.

 

Then you get into the whole "only death can pay for life" aspect. Maybe some character will offer up his or her life to bring Jon back?

 

Like I said if he is easily and quickly brought back and his death was just a way to climax out a season/book then it is a gimmick. But if it plays out where his (perhaps temporary) death has interesting/major impact on characters and events between now and when he comes back then it's not really a gimmick at all.

 

It's too soon to tell, but my faith is pretty strong that it will play out in an interesting and satisfying way.

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Yeah good point I forgot about Starbuck. LOL

 

Choc everything you say makes sense but what about the lying to the fans aspect? What purpose does that serve? The BSG parallel fits that too because the show runners lied to fans there too. To what purpose?

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Like I said, if they say "hey, you just have to wait and see..." everyone will go form 95% sure he is coming back to 100%. Even a "no comment" would generate that same response.

 

The whole thing is funny, I mean who asks storytellers to give away the next part of their story anyway? People go nuts trying to avoid spoilers, then are like "hey, lets just ask what is going to happen".

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What if I argued there's a difference between plot details and actors staying on the show. Actors are ingredients ... vital reasons people watch a show. Not telling people if an actor is coning back is sorta like saying "Here, eat this. No I won't tell you what is in it JUST EAT IT!"

 

Or is there a difference? Obviously if a character lives or dies IS a plot point. But think about this ... characters dying are the ONLY plot points I can think of that literally drive fans away. Nobody is like "Wait ... 24 had the terrorists win by blowing up LA with nukes? I'M QUITTING THE SHOW FOREVER!!!"

 

But I did quit Stargate Atlantis because I was sick of them killing off characters I liked.

 

Given that truism should character deaths be the exception or no?

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Okay, finally to a computer, to finish my (now off-topic) thought from above-

 

Choc is right about everything as it relates specifically to GoT. One of GRRM's complaint's about Tolkein/LotR is that he thought Gandalf should have stayed dead - or at the very least there should have been some consequence for him coming back. A character dying and then popping back up as if nothing happened is a cop out to him. There are numerous instances of resurrections in ASOIAF but none of them are exactly without consequence.

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Unless the sandwich was designed to be killed.

 

I personally don't fault any show for killing off characters. I remember the first time 24 did it-- in fact, I want to say they were the first to really have no fear about killing off a main character to the point that it became part of the show's tension to know that anyone Jack could bite it.

 

Maybe I know too much about TV, but for example-- years of watching Star Trek was great-- but I never truly felt tension or worried. I knew all those actors had 7 year contracts. (Wellllll. except Tasha Yar). Same with any given network show that has to return to the status quo at the end of the hour. There's no real tension.

 

Knowing that scene where a hero has a gun in their face is going to go their way gets, frankly, boring. Feeling like they could go, even if you like them, excited me.

 

That said, Breaking Bad never killed a regular until the last few episodes. But what they did do, which is what I think we're really talking about here, is show consequences. Nothing was ever the same as it was the week before. Things BROKE.

 

CHANGE and the willingness to go to unexpected places is something a TV show HAS to do, and has to do well to really be worth anything in my opinion. Unfortunately, I think a lack of creativity in crafting said change leads to the easiest and often laziest way to do it-- by killing somebody off.

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What are your thoughts?

 

hooooooo boy

 

It just seems to me that a lot of this is like going on about magicians' tricks and asking questions like "Why did they kill off the bunny?" or "But where did the handkerchief go?”. Is it a gimmick? Of course it is. It’s all gimmicks. It’s all magic. It’s all story telling.

 

Is it pointless? Yes! It’d be pointless even if they did it in a way that seemed, on the face of it, to have a point. And clichéd or poorly executed suspense is still suspense; especially in the eyes of naifs.

 

Should the people who make the shows not lie about what they’re going to do? If you’re throwing a surprise party for someone and that someone asks you if you’re planning to surprise them with a party should you answer them truthfully? Should magicians make sure signs are posted during their acts which feature the words THE BUNNY WILL RETURN TO THE STAGE ONCE CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS ARE COMPLETE in large bold type? Should Warren Ellis have answered that fan’s question truthfully on the Warren Ellis Forum in 1999? My answer to all four of those questions is “no” but I get it. I understand that craving for the truth in all circumstances regardless of the appropriateness of context. I don’t watch the Game of Thrones but I understand that fans would want to know if John Snow is really going to crawl out of the Lament Configuration to retake Azeroth from the Lich King or if he’s doomed to spend an eternity in servitude on the Barge of the Dead.

 

man I don’t even know sometimes

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I personally don't fault any show for killing off characters. I remember the first time 24 did it-- in fact, I want to say they were the first to really have no fear about killing off a main character to the point that it became part of the show's tension to know that anyone Jack could bite it.

 

Maybe I know too much about TV, but for example-- years of watching Star Trek was great-- but I never truly felt tension or worried. I knew all those actors had 7 year contracts. (Wellllll. except Tasha Yar). Same with any given network show that has to return to the status quo at the end of the hour. There's no real tension.

 

Knowing that scene where a hero has a gun in their face is going to go their way gets, frankly, boring. Feeling like they could go, even if you like them, excited me.

 

That said, Breaking Bad never killed a regular until the last few episodes. But what they did do, which is what I think we're really talking about here, is show consequences. Nothing was ever the same as it was the week before. Things BROKE.

 

CHANGE and the willingness to go to unexpected places is something a TV show HAS to do, and has to do well to really be worth anything in my opinion. Unfortunately, I think a lack of creativity in crafting said change leads to the easiest and often laziest way to do it-- by killing somebody off.

I don't have a unilateral preference for or against character deaths either way, but this captures a lot of my thoughts, which is to say: it just depends.

 

First off, if a character's gonna die, I don't wanna know in advance from outside sources. Exhibit A for me: Downton Abbey. Most of its deaths were from slow, malingering illnesses that telegraphed their funeral services from hours away. Each time it was a slow build, with ever-mounting gravitas in that inevitable march toward their final fate. The drama was in how they faced it, and in how their loved ones handled it during and after. But when it began to feel in a later season like characters were being mowed down in a shooting gallery, that got old quickly.

 

Then there was the one death that was supposed to be a sudden, sharp shock. Too bad it was ruined for me by an EW article announcing the actor was leaving the show because his contract was up and he wanted out. Knowing exactly when he would die, the drama was sucked out of it and the episode became just a way of clinically observing the means and getting past it. The big moment bounced right off me. It didn't help that the scene was clumsily handled, too. My wife and I stuck with it out of stubbornness, but the shark jumped right about there.

 

On the other hand, there're rare occasions when you know a character's not long for this series, but you don't know the particulars, and things go down in such a way that you're still blown away.. Exhibit B: Tara on Buffy. I binged the series on DVD, made the mistake of reading the episode descriptions on the box -- plus, y'know, running into occasional articles while the show was on the air -- and so I knew when her end would come. But I didn't know how. When it did, I still jumped and my jaw still dropped because: (a) the quick brutality of it in such a non-supernatural, real-world manner that was so jarring in context; and (b) Willow's reaction was one of the scariest, most intimidating moments in the entire series. You knew their world was about to get turned upside-down real quick. Even though her death was expected, it still hurt because everything surrounding it was thoroughly unexpected.

 

Now...as for a show where the cliffhanger is that *gasp*! We think a beloved character just died! CAN. THIS. BE?

 

For me, depends on how it's handled. In the old days, when a character got backed into an impossible corner and we, the Viewers at Home, couldn't imagine an easy way out, but we were 101% sure they weren't really dead, the traditional underlying thought was, "How will Our Hero get out of this one?" The drama wasn't in whether or not they lived; it was in holding our breath, grabbing onto our armrests, and waiting to watch the unpredictable, the astonishing, the impossible about to happen right before our eyes. The best TV cliffhangers were a kind of death-defying circus act. (It can be done. In the world of comics, Mark Waid's Daredevil has regularly pulled off this rare feat multiple times over the past few years with A-plus results.)

 

Maybe we were a more patient and trusting lot back in the day, but if there was room for doubt in a character's ostensible death, our reaction wasn't all, "HOW COULD THEY LET FALSEFACE KILL BATMAN AND ROBIN! I'M QUITTING THIS SHOW FOREVER!" We held on until next time. If the resolution was terrible, we knew we were within our rights to walk away.

 

But on shows where characters can, will, and do die every other episode, I actually get bored with scenes where someone's critically wounded but the show refuses to confirm or deny if they still have a pulse. In those cases, I assume they're alive until we see the autopsy, their funeral showing, or other characters parading around with their disconnected parts as trophies. Those cases rarely feel built up in the style of a true, classic cliffhanger to me, so I tend to be all "meh" and counting down the minutes till their comeback. On megadeath shows like Walking Dead, bleeding a lot and lying still isn't dead. "Mostly dead" isn't dead. "Missing" really isn't dead. "We lost the body" totally means they're still alive and the showrunners don't want anyone searching hard enough in the right places just yet. In the meantime, those survivors had better find something else interesting to do for my TV time till the "dead" comes back.

 

So...I guess my overall reaction to character deaths depends on the show's body-count track record and its general treatment of death. The rarer it occurs, the more it holds any meaning or drama. When death is a cheap gimmick (cf. Marvel and DC Comics), I'm not impressed and I'm probably gone.

 

...

 

Ignorant aside: I can't imagine anyone who hates character deaths on principle sticking around for Game of Thrones for more than two minutes past Sean Bean's farewell. The whole point of that was establishing it as the kind of show that says loudly and clearly NO ONE IS SAFE, wasn't it? I mean, I don't watch it, but if there's even the slimmest chance this Know-Nothing Jon Snow guy is actually still alive, then a meltdown seems kinda premature and maybe a wee foolish.

 

But if he is dead, well...it was kind of inevitable that sooner or later they'd get to someone you did care about. And if you're watching a show with 75 characters in it but you really only like one of them enough to quit over their death, that's not much of a compliment to the show in general or the ensemble in particular.

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fuck it. My grief for John snow lasted 2 days. Along with Ned and Robb stark it's easy enough to get over. I don't quite understand why people are so upset. There will be another character to root for soon enough

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Too many words in this thread to read other ppl responses. But:

If a show is good, why does it need this kind of gimmick?

A lot of people don't think about the craft of what they are reading or watching. They don't think about how much that set cost or what percentage of a scene is CGI vs. practical or how much research went into studying the politics of Belize or some high-tech gadjet. They just put themselves in the story, and (if the story is doing its job), suspend disbelief and invest themselves emotionally.

 

In ASoIaF, if you've read the books or followed the more subtle TV clues, it would be a major twist if so-and-so doesn't come back, but I don't think keeping fans in the dark about his return is a gimmick in the sense of it being a cheap stunt, so much as catering to the non-rabid audience's desire to more deeply feel and process the stories they are invested in. Knowing he's coming back in season 6 or 7 really lessens the emotional impact of his betrayal and death. Preserving those "Holy ****!" moments for fans who didn't pick up on the clues, read the wiki, etc. (or fans who expect him to return but don't know how/when it will happen or even if it will be the same actor) is just a solid practice for better engaging with the audience.

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  • 3 months later...

It's like when your kid guesses what you got them for Xmas. They are ruining the surprise you planned for them, so you lie because you think they'll still be surprised anyway, and you put all that work into it.

 

Shows with rabid fandom have it tough. Fans want to know everything and be in on it-- but then they complain that OMG I KNEW IT when they aren't surprised.

 

I always remember Dynasty or Dallas in pre internet days. Before spoilers existed and every season cliffhanger put somebody's life in the balance.

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If he'd lied about Khan but the fan base was more pleased with the movie, he coulda gotten away with it (film got decent to good reviews, but the "rabid ones" pretty much universally hated it).

 

Regarding KH: I think we may be overestimating just how many "normals" are in the GoT audience; sure, those of us who follow the show closely and are on social media all day know to expect a return, but there are a lot of people who will be surprised -- especially with the show's history of killing off major characters. I mean, most of us already knew about The Red Wedding, or Viper vs. Mountain long before the episodes aired, but if we watched in a room of 3-4 other people and kept our mouths shut, chances are a few of them freaked the **** out during those scenes, which IMO is the kind of thing a lot of storytellers live for.

 

BTW: rewatched GoT over the summer with some "virgins" and the surprise of the wedding especially had an impact. The guy said he expected Robb to be doomed as soon as he chose the woman over his word, but was totally not expecting it to go down like that; the girl was all like "**** THIS SHOW... put on the next episode!"

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Viper v the Mountain took me sideways. I mean, I half expected something was coming cause Oberyn was super cool, and cool characters don't last long in GOT. But I didn't think it would happen the way it did. He was owning that fight, and I thought. Damn, he might pull this off the beautiful son of a bitch! But nope. Heartache. That hurt more than a Jon Snow demise ever could.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

If he'd lied about Khan but the fan base was more pleased with the movie, he coulda gotten away with it (film got decent to good reviews, but the "rabid ones" pretty much universally hated it).

"Rabid ones?" Star Trek ID sucked ass. Pure and simple. Much would have been forgiven had it not been Khan, but an original character.

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