I am reading ACOTAR series and just finished the third book. Where they had a huge battle and not one main or side character on the good side dies.
It reminded me of twilight where they had a battle and no one dies.
Why do authors like to have big battles, speeches and thoughts about hoping not to lose their friends and loved ones, and then just let them all live? Death and lose is a part of war and live no matter how old you are or trained you are.
That is the other extreme for sure
I love character deaths in books, not everyone gets to finish their arc, people die stupid, pointless and cruel deaths every day. How those deaths change the other characters is the important thing.
That is what I like about deaths in books. How ppl react to it and grow or succumb to lose
Characters are tools and selling points. Killing a major character means permanently losing a tool and selling point.
Death and loss may be a part of war, but are the authors trying to depict a realistic war, or tell a good or satisfying story? Many people may read particular genres to experience suspense and heightened emotions while being assured that everything will be okay in the end.
I can understand that. It sometimes feels a little cheap as the authors don’t want to go into death and lose. I am always interested in how characters react to the lose of a friend and loved one.
There does usually have to be a narrative reason for the death, though. It's equally cheap just to kill off people for the shock value.
That is true. However war and having someone fall in battle wouldn’t be shock as that happens in battles
In novels that aren't painstakingly realistic, however, you have to suspend your disbelief for this and a lot of other things alongside. It's a shock to lose a character who felt like their continued existence was contributing to the plot, regardless of the circumstances of their death.
Have you seen or read ‘Misery’?
It’s dangerous.
Not yet. Will have to try it
It makes sense during a tactical fight that the good guys who are more skilled and have more power would be able to take out mooks and the like who are likely inexperienced due to just being mooks. Only the big bads are likely to get a kill and by then the heroes likely have something to win with.
Remember, if it's a fist fight bring a knife, if it's a knife fight bring a gun, if it's a gun fight don't go. It's not bad for heroes to think like this.
I've seen readers throw MASSIVE tantrums about character deaths, so that's probably one reason why.
It's just a style/story preference one way or another. Books are trying to accomplish different things, some are wish fulfillment, some explore loss, and all sorts of things in between.
I do get taken out of the story when I know that the characters are all going to be fine in the end, but I also know lots of people want that and it can be a nice escape from a world where that is definitely not the case.
Sry but if u know any good novels ( close enough to slice of life genre )were characters die and it is so tragic ,please do recommend it for me ,I adore sad books thanks xd For ur questions sry I did not read nor know why .....May be cuz of an emotional bound with those characters !
Scarlett st. Clair has some fantasy mythology novels where there is death and lose of main/side characters
It's possible that the battles are inserted after the rest of the novel is written. They might be needed for pacing, and as the futures of these characters are already set and written, it's simply easier for no one to die.
It's also possible that the battle is only there as a means of allowing the speeches/thoughts -as exposition - and the loss of a character would distract from this exposition. This may therefore be more important than the 'realistic nature' of a battle.
Never thought of it that way
I mean, ACOTAR and Twilight are wish fulfillment books. They’re completely unserious stories so of course they’re not going to portray war with realism or kill off major characters or even likable side characters. They exist to entertain, not to challenge.
Not to say that all serious stories include death or that all stories that include death are serious, but if you’re looking for realism, YA fantasy romance is probably not the place to look for it lmao
Because some writers feel like their characters are their children. Also writers depend on readers to sustain themselves, and many readers are either sentimental enough or stupid enough to think that "fiction" must in no way be like "life" and such readers see fiction as "life without tragedy or toil" somewhat like a fairy-tale.
There are also genres where the genre dictates the amount of death or tragic moment, If you're writing the romantic comedy fiction, then death of any character would be too much. If you're writing fiction with drama in it, characters do not need to die either. Only if your fiction concenrs historical or pseudo-historical narrative, or thriller, or horror, or tragedy in classical sense - you may kill off your characters as you please.
The other extremity would be to write some piece of fiction where all characters die in great numbers without any explanation other than writer's opionion - "I want them to die".
Ask my wife. She decapitated my prota!
Haven't read ACOTAR, but isn't that YA stuff? If so, I think it's pretty common for that kind of genre.
There's a ton of more adult fantasy, where main characters do die. The most infamous is probably ASoIaF. Malazan and First Law come to mind as well. Or try Nevernight, which fulfills many YA tropes (teenage girl joins a school for assassins) but is definitely for an adult audience.
Why wouldn't they?
It would be strange to be an author and write characters no one gets attached to
Because depending on genre, the readers aren't reading a tragedy. If you give them one when they are reading a genre that's generally positive ultimately, you might squeak past... But you also may draw intense and intense wrath.
Character death (especially main character death) is something I avoid as completely as I can. It used to be that certain genres were safe from that, but some like fantasy have been invaded by character murderers to the point where I have to look almost every new series up before I dare read it.
The thing is, it's shocking at first but then you just stop caring. GoT made me so giving a crap, for example. I just start assuming everyone's going to die and stop caring about any of them. Then I lost interest and wander off to other books. Sometimes I lie to myself and say I'll go back, but I never do.
Like ASOIAF, for example; I've never read it because I couldn't have cared less about the characters by the end of the movies. I didn't even watch the last season at all.
If I wanted realistic war and death, I'd go find it. I have had enough personal tragedy, I don't need to borrow it from books.
Death is part of life. If you have a story of war you should expect atleast some of those participating in said war to die. I find that a characters death can complete their arc. Ned stark was honorable and it costed him his life. You didn’t read ASOIAF because you didn’t like the deaths in the show, but the threat of death made the stakes more real. For example, I loved lord of the rings, but I watched the movies when I was a kid and I knew none of the main characters died, so when I read it later on the stakes were nonexistent. The characters were invincible and that was pretty boring knowing that from the start. War is tragic, and to remove tragedy from war is fantasy (lowercase f)
Yeah, I understood the opinion that war has to be real all the time, everywhere, even in fantasy and Fantasy.
I don't agree, and it has long, long, long (since, you know, Lord of the Rings) been understood that you don't kill off meaningful characters in Fantasy. Because while you read Fantasy for realism, the overwhelming majority of people read Fantasy [sic] for fantasy [sic]. It has traditionally been a safe and welcoming genre for those seeking fantasy (and Fantasy) both, not just for those who want realism while being unsafe to those who want fantasy.
You should NOT have to expect to never read any books with war in them 'because it HAS TO BE realistic.' I will never agree with you on that, and for literally over a century, the Fantasy genre has not agreed with you, either.
It’s fiction, it’s not “unsafe.” Get a grip.
If you want to read books where no main character dies, just don’t read books about war no matter what genre they are. Picking up a book about war and being shocked that major characters get killed in the story is like picking up a romance novel and being upset there’s a love story in it.
The fantasy genre doesn’t agree with me? What about Joe Abercrombie’s work? Stephen king? Brent weeks? Steven Erikson? Those are off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are plenty of others that I have yet to read.
You can say you disagree with me, but don’t say Fantasy disagrees with me. That is just ignorant. I wasn’t trying to have a win/lose argument, I was just stating my opinion on character deaths in fantasy
That does make sense. Song of ice and fire is full of death and really hard to get into any character as a lot die.
Sometime I feel that there minor characters who live through a battle, even if no one likes them, bc the author does not want to risk alienating any readers. I ACOTAR there was some minor character who are generals and assholes would could easily have died in the battle and it would have been sad but not devastating or too destructive to the plot
Yeah. Fantasy is generally a positive-in-the-end genre. Some people here apparently think horror = fantasy, but people read horror for the horror, they don't say, "I want to read a horror book today, let's head for the fantasy section", lol.
I don't mind if writers do this if they find a way to acknowledge that they're not really writing within the typical norms of the genre. The good ones use blurbs from reporters and the like which give a strong indication of the deviation from genre norms.
The rest just seem to think they're being clever or innovative by hiding it.
You're exactly right that in most books there are those who can be killed off without completely destroying the narrative. Secondary and tertiary characters who are well built can still make you cry. (I know, I've both read it and written it).
Main character deaths just aren't done in certain genres. You don't write a romance and then kill off a main character or a main character's family/ best friend/ pet/ etc. It just isn't done because people are reading romance for positivity.
People read Fantasy by and large for escapism to a heroic world where things work out.
There's plenty of horror, suspense, etc. out there. And there are even sub-genres of "dark" Fantasy, but the normal convention for over a century is that those are 'horror-fantasy' (Frankenstein's Monster), not Fantasy [ps, with lots of painful-to-the-reader deaths, lols!].
Zeshui0 t1_itgatsg wrote
Read ASOIAF, don't have to worry about whether someone will survive or not...you just have to wonder WHEN they're going to die.