Won't Stay dead

So, I decided not to add these onto my post about the most painful deaths in movies and books.
Because this time, the characters don't die.
But the writers try to trick you into thinking that the character has died.

This isn't going to be a list of fake deaths (or it would be rather long and pointless). I just wanted to talk about some that I think are worth mentioning. Some are effective, and some aren't. Some are kind of in between.

And then there are some that I've become desensitized to. I need to try to watch old things with fresh eyes...

Needless to say, spoilers.


Here are a few I think worked well.
Chronicles of Narnia - Aslan. Well, he actually did die I guess. But he came back. And it needed to happen for the sake of the story. Aslan had to give himself up to save Edmond. And it was done well, in the book and movie. That scene in the movie always gets me. The sequels may have been lame, but I liked the first Narnia movie a lot. Maaan, what happened to the others...

In Rurouni Kenshin, Kaoru. She did not die. But Kenshin's enemies faked her death, in order to crush Kenshin. And it worked. Kenshin needed a lot of help to pull himself together after that. It was also well done. The first time I read it, I kept thinking "What? How could they kill her? She couldn't be dead! But there she is... Clearly there's no life left in her." Well, I was right, but it was different than I expected it to be, so that's good.
These are the kind of things where it's really important to be unexpected.

Sometimes movies make fun of this. Which is good.
I just watched Kung Fu Panda for the first time (after I had already started compiling notes for this post), and they made fun of faking character deaths. As the Panda cries, "don't die!" The teacher opens his eyes and says, "shut up! I'm not dead. Let me rest!"

And in Tiger and Bunny, at the very end, with Tiger. Noooo! they can't kill Tiger! He's awesome. And then he gets up and goes "are you stupid? I didn't die. I just passed out from the pain."




Moving on to some that kinda worked.

In the manga Animal Land, there was one at the end. There was a lot of other stuff going on, so the emotional impact was pretty strong. I'm not really satisfied with how they resolved it though.

In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, at the end with Balthazar. I'm kind of neutral about that one. Though honestly... is a plasma fist to teh chest really going to bring soemone back? While you're insulting him with each hit?

The end of Season 2 of Sherlock. Okay, the emotion around this was really intense. Especially when John goes to the graveyard and says "please, don't be dead." Maaaaan, that's sad. Even if you know that Sehrlock's not dead, it's sad.
But the way they tried to explain Sherlock's faked death was reaaalllly unsatisfing...



In the 4th Pokémon Movie. I liked that one a lot, when I was younger. I still like it, but it's rather sappy.

In X-Men, Wolverine almost dies a lot. He's on the list of characters I'm very protective of (Like Kenshin, who gets beat up so much TT^TT ). Either way, I always bristle, or panic when somethign happens to a charater I'm very attached to.

In the anime movie, Origin: Spirits of the Past, at the end there's a point where you think the 2 main characters can't be saved. What I liked about this is that I wasn't sure if they actually would die. And for a bit, I was covinced that they would. I couldn't tell that there was going to be some miraculous save (Maybe not the best save, admittedly).
And I think that is the most important thing about tricking the audience into thinking that a character is gone for good. The audience should not be able to tell that you're going to trick them. Don't let them see through your bluff. They should be heartbroken when they think that that charater is dying. And then when they find out that the'yre still okay, they should shed tears of joy (not necessarily literally).


And these were just plain lame:

In a digital animation about wolves, called Alpha and Omega. They wanted to make you think someone was dead at the end. And everyone gathered around and went "oooh nooo soob she's deaaaaadd. Waaaah!" And then she gets up and is perfectly fine. There was absolutely no purpose to it. They just put it there as a failed attempt to make you sad.

Bambi 2 had one like this, I believe. Also completely pointless. Especially since you already know Bambi doesn't die, or get seriously hurt.