A writing sin that makes me quite angry even though I've only ever actually seen it done twice and that is, killing off characters just as their character arc concludes, the two examples I have of this are Hollyleaf's death in warrior cats/omen of the stars and Sharlemange/Hugo's death in Kipo and the age of wonder beasts, now it should be obvious why this trope? Cliche? Thing? Idk. Is bad generally. you write this whole character arc, building up to a new shiny version of the character, and then you not only don't let us spend any time with them or the satisfaction of seeing them get a happy ending, all set-up no pay-off. Now what makes these specific deaths even worse is that in both cases the narrative plays them like "oH LoOk tHeY DiEd pRoTeCtInG ThE HeRo! hOw nObLe! tHeY'vE BeEn rEdEemEd oF AlL ThEiR SiNs!" When that's not how that fucking works! The heroic sacrifice is the laziest way to "redeem" a villain, you're completely skipping the 'arc' part of the redemption arc. Except these characters DID have arcs, making their deaths all the more unsatisfying. For Sharlemange, seeing his friendship with Wolf and the other main characters within the context of the happy ending that Kipo created for everyone else. For Hollyleaf, I'd argue that her character arc actually WASN'T finished because she allowed Brambleclaw to lie about seeing her kill Ashfur, but it’s clear that the writers didn't see it that way because of how her death was treated by the narrative, but either way it would have been much more satisfying to see her living while being content not being important/chosen by Starclan














