(t5!)AVQ&A: Memorable Character Deaths

Where I answer questions and pretend to be part of The A.V. Club staff. In true (t5!) fashion, I’ll try to provide the best five answers I can think of. The best things always come in fives.

I’d like to hear about a death of a fictional character (any medium) that really got to you Thanks and regards!


#01: The Godfather

I intend to arrange this list chronologically, but it’s tremendously appropriate to start this off with a movie death from one of the biggest movies of all-time. Few fictional character deaths are greater than the assassination of Sonny Corleone, and it certainly made a huge impact on me. The death wasn’t tremendously shocking. Most viewers probably predicted it, supposing that it’s only a matter of time before the hothead—played brilliantly by James Caan—was going to meet his demise. The way he died, however, was so affecting: protecting his little sister from her abusive husband, turning a deaf ear to the consigliere Tom Hagen’s advice to simmerdown, bombarded by bullets at a tollbooth, not getting an opportunity to fight back. After that scene, I, too, wanted to kick Carlo Rizzi's ass all over Hell’s Kitchen.

#02: The Neverending Story

It’s one of my favorite films as a kid, and one that made me realize at a very young age that the death of a fictional character can make me cry. When Atreyu’s quest to put an end to The Nothing brought him to the Swamps of Sadness to seek advice from the venerable Morla, little did he know that his noble steed, Artax, was incapable of handling the bog’s depth and viscosity. "Fight against the sadness, Artax!" If it wasn’t for the luckdragon Falkor, saving Atreyu’s ass from the strenuous swamp, The Neverending Story would’ve probably ended right there.

#03: The Lion King

Disney’s pretty harsh on parents—Bambi’s mom, Littlefoot’s mom on The Land Before Time, Kerchak in Tarzan. They figure that in order to obtain the maximum amount of melancholy from children, they’re going to have to kill off the person that is most important to them. Evil! The saddest death of them all is Lion King's Mufasa being trampled by stampeding wildebeests trying to rescue his son Simba (also betrayed by his brother Scar). At age eleven, I was too old to actually shed some tears when the animators decided to stop drawing the regal lion. However, you had to be inhuman to not feel sympathy for the orphan cub (“Dad, c’mon…you gotta get up…Dad…we gotta go home”)

#04: Executive Decision

I don’t know what the reason was, but my dad loved Steven Segal movies when I was growing up. Of course, it’s pretty much a mandate as a son to be a fan of whatever your dad is a fan of. So, Steven Segal movies were a regular Blockbuster rental in our household, from Above The Law to Hard to Kill to two-parter Under Seige. I was so excited for Executive Decision, anticipating the action sequences from the tag-team of Segal and Kurt Russell as they drop some Aikido knowledge on some 747 hi-jackers. However, the pivotal mid-air transfer was failing and in order for the mission to proceed, the heroic Segal sacrificed himself for the good of America! Not even a quarter in the movie, and my dad’s hero gets killed. What a gyp!

#05: The Departed

Obviously, it’d be pointless to name a movie The Departed if it isn’t going to have a few memorable loss of life in it. The death in this Scorsese film is more shocking than it is sad. Just when you think everything is resolved, good rat DiCaprio finally had incriminating evidence against bad rat Damon, then BOOM artificial blood all over the elevator wall. And then BOOM the black dude that needs fat-free water flops to the ground. And then BOOM Damon executes the guy that helped him live; how do you like them apples???!!! And then when Damon heads home after all the chaos, Marky Mark Wahlberg looking like a Guido ninja from North End Boston kills him. And then there’s a rat looking out a window for some reason. Talk about overkill, huh?