Recently, I was watching a show in which a beloved character was in a situation where they were going to die, but they get saved by their friends.
I find this type of plot to be boring and overused. Why don’t writers let their characters die? I feel it would be more interesting to have an important character die, such as the MC, more often.
It’s an overused trope that most writers tend to use so their story can have a “happy ending”.
Agree. And I really hate it when a character is resurrected somehow. I don’t care if it’s fantasy or science fiction, lack of perma-death is weak sauce.
(Unintentional irony that it’s Easter.)
Honestly I feel like characters die all the time, to the point that I mostly roll my eyes at it. Yeah yeah, “stakes,” “emotional impact,” whatever, now they can’t be in any more stories, which is bad if I liked them, and also means they don’t have a chance to become more interesting if I didn’t.
I agree. Deus Ex Machina usually just signifies lazy writing.
Would it really be a trope if it wasn’t?
You should check out “The Magicians”. I won’t spoil it (though I guess even recommending it in this thread kind of does) but it does NOT follow this trope. At least mostly…
Isn’t the definition of “trope” that it is overdone?
Sort of. Trope doesn’t always mean bad. Tropes, like any writing device, can be used well or used poorly. We tend to notice the bad ones that annoy us. We often miss the ones that are a bit more subtle.
Sure, maybe I shouldn’t have said “overdone”
Just done a lot
Isn’t the definition of “unpopular” that most people would disagree with something?
