This is sort of a follow-up to my last post but I wanted to go more in depth on what I meant when I said “theory’s usually revolve around characters dying”.
In my personal opinion, if the only way for a story to “raise the stakes” is to kill beloved or underdeveloped characters with so much potential, then that just makes it incredibly shallow. There are tons of stories (Walking Dead, Game Of Thrones, JJK, Last Of Us) that do this kind of thing and, to me, the whole “kill your darlings” way of writing is a double edged sword, because while one can argue it “takes risk” and “adds suspense”, you can also say it’s “senseless killing” of characters with so much wasted potential and “pure shock value”. I say all this cause for some reason, every new series that comes out HAS to be a Game Of Thrones or JJK like show with a high body count according to online “critics”. Gachiakuta hasn’t killed anybody? It’s generic disney slop, Fairy Tail? generic slop. One Piece, Limbus Company, Transformers, X men, tons of franchises have had some flavor of “this character NEEDS to die to create stakes and be mature”, when again, that is a very shallow and honestly immature way of looking at storytelling.
And don’t take this as me saying all this because “yOuRe jUsT mAd yOuRe fAvOrItE dIeD” or that I’m saying you’re not allowed to kill characters, I’m simply making the case that not every game, show, movie, manga, book, or anime needs to have a high body count or tons of character deaths to be considered “mature” or raise stakes.
Of course stories like this will be made and continue to be made, but if they do that and choose to kill off characters, you need to find a balance. Because, from my experience, when a show continues killing off character after character, I get numb and just think “what’s the point of caring for these people anymore? They’ll most likely die anyway.”
Now obviously all of this is just from my viewpoint and personal opinion on storytelling, if you managed to make it this far, thanks for taking the time to read and let me know your thoughts. Hope you have a great day!
