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The killing off of a character is a device in fiction, whereby a character dies, but the story continues. The term, frequently applied to television, film, video game, anime, manga and chronological series, often denotes an untimely or unexpected death motivated by factors beyond the storyline.
In productions featuring actors, the unwillingness or inability of an actor to continue with the production for financial or other reasons (including illness, death, or producers' unwillingness to retain an actor) may lead to that character being "killed off" or phased out from the storyline in another way.
"The Final Problem", an 1893 story by Arthur Conan Doyle, ends with Sherlock Holmes plunging to his death at the Reichenbach Falls, in struggle with his arch enemy Professor Moriarty. There is ample evidence that Doyle fully intended this to be Holmes' definite and final end. Doyle wanted to write no more Sherlock Holmes stories, feeling that they were distracting him from more serious literary efforts and that "killing off" Holmes was the only way of getting his career back on track. "I must save my mind for better things," he wrote to his mother, "even if it means I must bury my pocketbook with him." Conan Doyle sought to sweeten the pill by letting Holmes go in a blaze of glory, having him rid the world of a criminal so powerful and dangerous that any further task would be trivial in comparison; indeed, Holmes says as much in the story. However, the Holmes fans refused to be mollified, continually protesting and pressuring Doyle until he brought their hero back to life.
Doyle did permanently kill off Mary Morstan, who happily married Doctor Watson at the end of The Sign of Four, but who apparently became inconvenient for later Sherlock Holmes stories. Her death – never described directly, but only mentioned in passing in The Adventure of the Norwood Builder – allowed Watson to resume living with Holmes on Baker Street and set off with him for a new adventure at a moment's notice. Fans did not protest her end, and Doyle never brought her back.
Alexander Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers which proved highly successful, and added several sequels. However, the final one, The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later , ends with the death of all the Musketeers, one by one – making clear to readers that he would write no more of them.
In 1956, Ian Fleming was becoming disenchanted with his James Bond books [1] and wrote to his friend, the American author Raymond Chandler: "My muse is in a very bad way ... I am getting fed up with Bond and it has been very difficult to make him go through his tawdry tricks." [2] In April 1956, Fleming re-wrote the final chapter of From Russia, with Love , to make the book end with Rosa Klebb poisoning Bond and him falling unconscious to the floor - which allowed Fleming, had he wanted to, to announce that that was Bond's end and that there would be no further Bond books. However, Fleming later changed his mind; in the beginning of Dr. No it is recounted that Bond recovered from the poisoning, and he went on to many more adventures.
Science fiction writer Harry Turtledove has produced many series of Alternative History depicting alternate versions of various wars (the American Civil War, The First and Second World Wars, the Korean War etc.). Such Turtledove books typically include a large cast of alternating point of view characters, drawn from both sides of the conflict, whose lives continually interweave with each other in the book's plot. In such books, Turtledove is in the frequent habit of suddenly killing off one or more of his characters, often a sympathetic one to whom readers were attracted. In some of these cases, a soldier character is depicted as getting unscathed through very heavy fighting and then getting killed in a trivial skirmish or incident – which does happen in real war but rarely in fictional depictions.
Because of the episodic format of television shows, audience feedback and approval is often a factor in whether or not a character is killed off. Damon Lindelof, executive producer of Lost , has been quoted as saying that despite the widespread hate for Nikki and Paulo, "We had a plan when we introduced them, and we didn't get to fully execute that plan. But when the plan is executed, [they] will be iconic characters on the show." [3] In an example of a character being killed off as a result of an actor leaving the show, Raymond Cruz's character Tuco Salamanca on Breaking Bad was killed off because he found the part too difficult to play. [4] Characters may be killed off when the actors die, while in some cases the death of an actor results in a new actor being selected to take over the role. John Ritter's character in 8 Simple Rules was written to have died off screen after Ritter himself died during taping of the show. [5]
Mr. Hooper of the PBS Kids show, Sesame Street , is another example of a character "killed off." When actor Will Lee died on December 7, 1982, the staff of Children's Television Workshop were thinking of recasting Mr. Hooper, or quietly having the character retire from the show. Instead, they made a special tribute episode where humans explained to Big Bird that Mr. Hooper had died and told Big Bird about the irreversibility of death. The episode aired on November 24, 1983.
The Palestinian children's character Farfur (a Mickey Mouse lookalike) is an example of a character "killed off" for political reasons in 2007. After the program received criticism from some government ministers in both Palestine and Israel, as well as from the Disney family, for espousing anti-Israeli and antisemitic sentiments, the Farfur character was killed off. Even his death, at the hands of an "Israeli agent", making Farfur a "martyr", was similarly politicised. [6]
The Simpsons , a show which often does not abide by continuity, has killed off two characters for different reasons: Maude Flanders was killed on-screen, due to a contract dispute with her voice actor, Maggie Roswell. Edna Krabappel died off-screen after the death of her late voice artist Marcia Wallace on October 25, 2013. [7]
Planters killed off its century-old mascot Mr. Peanut in an advertising campaign leading up to Super Bowl LIV, only to resurrect him as a baby during a commercial during that game. [8]
When racing driver Perry McCarthy left the television show Top Gear , his character, The Stig, was 'killed off' in a stunt involving driving a Jaguar off an aircraft carrier; he was replaced with a similar but white-suited version of the same character. [9]
After the death of Dan Blocker in 1972, [10] Bonanza ended after its 14th season in 1973 without his character Hoss Cartwright. The result of having his character killed off did not occur until the TV film adaptation Bonanza: The Next Generation in 1988.
In the Dinosaurs' infamous finale "Changing Nature", all the dinosaur characters are killed off by the coming of Ice age, surprising the audience. Michael Jacobs stated that "We certainly wanted to make the episode to be educational to the audience", and as people knew dinosaurs were no longer alive, "The show would end by completing the metaphor and showing that extinction." [11]
Doc Hudson, from the 2006 Pixar film Cars , is killed off from the subsequent Cars series due to his actor, Paul Newman, dying of lung cancer in 2008. [12] John Lasseter included the tribute to the character in Cars 3 .
In the 1998 sequel Blues Brothers 2000 , John Belushi's character, Jake Blues, is killed off before the event of this film, as Belushi had died of combined drug intoxication in 1982. [13] Jim Belushi was originally set to replace his brother's character as Brother Zee Blues, but was cut due to being under the contract with ABC while casting for the TV series Total Security . Prior to the sequel, an animated series based on the 1980 film was in the works and was scheduled to air in 1997. Peter Aykroyd and Jim Belushi were going to replace the original actors. [14] Unfortunately, it was canceled due to the original actors for The Blues Brothers are deemed irreplaceable. John Landis, the director of the 1980 film and its sequel, stated that further reappearance of Jake Blues was denied. [15]
Filmation killed off The Wicked Queen in the Snow White sequel Happily Ever After due to avoiding resemblance from the 1937 movie after facing legal issues with The Walt Disney Company from the previous film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night . [16] The gusty image of the deceased Queen's face is briefly seen when the Magic Mirror (with a more comical design) show her evil brother, Lord Maliss (who would take the role as the main antagonist), her whereabouts then got freaked out by it.
Some characters after the deaths of their actors are not killed off, but are forced to be phased out, like Anne-Marie from All Dogs Go to Heaven who could not be recast in subsequent films after the murder of Judith Barsi in 1988. [17] Her character is replaced by David afterwards, as well as pushing the timeline further in the present day.
Death is a frequently used dramatic device in comic book fiction, and in particular superhero fiction. Unlike stories in television or film, character deaths are rarely by unforeseen behind-the-scenes events, as there is no analogous situation to having actors portraying characters. Instead, characters are typically killed off as part of the story or occasionally by editorial mandate to generate publicity for a title. Teasers may hint at characters' deaths for an extended period. [18] A number of factors often mean that the changes are not permanent. [19]
Extremely long print runs make the popularity of characters (with writers and fans) and occasionally rights issues for using the character in licensed adaptations often make characters often be brought back to life by later writers. That can happen either as a depiction of their literal resurrection or by retcon, a revision that changes earlier continuity and establishes the character not to have died in the first place. This phenomenon is known as the comic book death. Killing off a main character such as Superman, Batman or Captain America can often lead to an uptick in publicity for a comic book and high sales for the story in which they are inevitably brought back to life. [20]
Some writers have also criticized the trend for killing off supporting characters, particularly when female characters are killed off brutally to elicit a strong reaction in the male protagonist. This is known as the Women in Refrigerators trope. [21] Specifically, the Death of Gwen Stacy, long-time girlfriend of Spider-Man, caused great shock and long-lasting controversy among fans, deeply shocking the American comic book community. [22] Previously, it had been unthinkable to kill off such an important character—the girlfriend of a protagonist with a large fanbase. Generally, a superhero did not fail so disastrously unless it was part of their origin story. This story arc has been proposed as a marker of beginning of the end of the Silver Age of Comic Books, and the beginning of the darker, grittier Bronze Age. [23] The subsequent tendency for the wives and girlfriends of male superheroes to meet grim fates was referred to as "The Gwen Stacy Syndrome" by the Comics Buyer's Guide . [24]
Charlotte Braun, a character in the comic strip Peanuts , was killed off less than a year after being introduced after Charles Schulz received negative feedback about her. A letter to one of the child critics who had called for Braun's removal included a warning that the critics would bear the responsibility for the "death of an innocent child" and depicted Braun with an axe in her head. [25] Braun's death was never explicitly addressed in officially published Peanuts media.[ citation needed ]
LGBT activists and fans have long criticized the tendency in U.S. media for LGBT characters, especially queer women, to be killed off or otherwise meet an unhappy fate more often than straight characters. This trope is known colloquially as "bury your gays" or "dead lesbian syndrome". [26] [27] In recent years, some LGBT showrunners and writers have made steps to avert this, such as ND Stevenson with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power . [28]
John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician. He was one of the seven original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). Throughout his career, Belushi had a personal and artistic partnership with his fellow SNL star Dan Aykroyd, whom he met while they were both working at Chicago's Second City comedy club.
Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in which facts in the world of a fictional work that have been established through the narrative itself are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work that recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former.
Daniel Edward Aykroyd is a Canadian and American actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and musician.
Timothy Leonard Dalton Leggett is a British actor. He gained international prominence as the fourth actor to portray fictional secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, starring in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).
Blues Brothers 2000 is a 1998 American musical action comedy film directed by John Landis from a screenplay written by Landis and Dan Aykroyd, both of whom were also producers, and starring Aykroyd and John Goodman. The film serves as a sequel to the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. It also includes cameo appearances by various musicians.
M is a codename held by a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond book and film series; the character is the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service for the agency known as MI6. Fleming based the character on a number of people he knew who commanded sections of British intelligence. M has appeared in the novels by Fleming and seven continuation authors, as well as appearing in twenty-four films. In the Eon Productions series of films, M has been portrayed by four actors: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes, the incumbent; in the two independent productions, M was played by John Huston, David Niven and Edward Fox.
George Edward Challenger is a fictional character in a series of fantasy and science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unlike Doyle's self-controlled, analytical character, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger is an aggressive, hot-tempered, dominating figure.
Michael Myers is a character from the slasher film series Halloween. He first appears in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) as a young boy who murders his elder sister, Judith Myers. Fifteen years later, he returns home to Haddonfield, Illinois, to murder more teenagers. In the original Halloween, the adult Michael Myers, referred to as The Shape in the closing credits, was portrayed by Nick Castle for most of the film and substituted by Tony Moran in the final scene where Michael's face is revealed. The character was created by John Carpenter and has been featured in twelve films, as well as novels, video games, and comic books.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Ian Fleming, creator of the fictional secret agent, James Bond, wrote a number of short stories featuring his creation that appeared in the collections For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and The Living Daylights. Since 1997, several more short stories featuring Bond or set within the official James Bond universe have been published by authors who continued chronicling the world of Fleming's creation. The majority of these stories have, as of 2008, never been collected in book form, unlike the Fleming works. There are five exceptions: "Blast from the Past", "Midsummer Night's Doom" and "Live at Five" by Raymond Benson, "Your Deal, Mr. Bond" by Phillip and Robert King, and "Bond Strikes Camp" by Cyril Connolly which are discussed below.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The four volumes of the Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) compiled by Ronald B. De Waal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products. They include the original writings, "together with the translations of these tales into sixty-three languages, plus Braille and shorthand, the writings about the Writings or higher criticism, writings about Sherlockians and their societies, memorials and memorabilia, games, puzzles and quizzes, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, compact discs, laser discs, ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature."
Sherlock Holmes has long been a popular character for pastiche, Holmes-related work by authors and creators other than Arthur Conan Doyle. Their works can be grouped into four broad categories:
Laurie Strode is a character from the Halloween series. She first appeared in Halloween (1978) as a high school student who becomes targeted by serial killer Michael Myers, in which she was portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis. Created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, Laurie appeared in nine of thirteen films in the series. The character has subsequently been represented in various other media, including novels, video games, and comic books.
Wired is a 1989 American biographical film of comedian and actor John Belushi, directed by Larry Peerce. It was based on the 1984 book of the same name by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, and adapted for the screen by Buckaroo Banzai creator Earl Mac Rauch. It stars Michael Chiklis in his film debut as Belushi. Wired was both a critical and a commercial failure. The film has yet to be released on DVD or Blu-ray, and the videocassette originally released by International Video Entertainment is out of print.
Many writers make references to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous literary creation, the detective Sherlock Holmes, and these often become embedded within popular culture. While Holmes exists predominantly in the context of Victorian-era London, he has been mentioned in such outre contexts as the 22nd century or hunting aliens or supernatural enemies. These references are in addition to the innumerable passing references to Sherlock Holmes made in many literary and cinematic works, such as the labeling of a person as a "Sherlock", whether in reference to their intelligence.
The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical action comedy film directed by John Landis. It stars John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as his brother Elwood, characters developed from the recurring musical sketch "The Blues Brothers" on NBC's variety series Saturday Night Live. The script is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, where it was filmed, and the screenplay is by Aykroyd and Landis. It features musical numbers by singers James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. It features non-musical supporting performances by Carrie Fisher and Henry Gibson.
2000 AD crossovers are crossover stories appearing in British comic 2000 AD, its sister title the Judge Dredd Megazine, and other related output, such as novels, audio plays, films and role-playing games.
The Lost World is a 1995 science fiction action novel written by Michael Crichton, and the sequel to his 1990 novel Jurassic Park. It is his tenth novel under his own name and his twentieth overall, and it was published by Knopf. A paperback edition (ISBN 0-345-40288-X) followed in 1996. In 1997, both novels were re-published as a single book titled Michael Crichton's Jurassic World, which is unrelated to the 2015 film of the same name.
John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887). "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" (1927) is the last work of Doyle featuring Watson and Holmes, although their last appearance in the canonical timeline is in "His Last Bow" (1917).
Avengers Arena is a comic book series published by Marvel Comics that debuted in December 2012 as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch. The series shows 16 young heroes from the Marvel Universe and pit them against each other in a kill-or-be-killed, reality-show-like scenario in Murderworld run by Arcade. The series ended with issue 18 and was followed by a sequel titled Avengers Undercover that dealt with the survivors infiltrating the Shadow Council's Masters of Evil.
[...]said Jacobs. "After the initial success of the show, they pretty much left us alone, [...]"
Paul Newman, one of the last of the great 20th-century movie stars, died Friday at his home in Westport, Conn. He was 83.