> Barely anyone dies (no Red Weddings here)

Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore.

In fact, even that is just the bare minimum. To really make an impact, we need some mass casualties like the Red Wedding or Thanos' "snap" in the Avenger movies.

Can we go back on all of that?

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vintagedave a day ago | parent | next [-]

I found the essay quote,

> We have been so desensitized by a hundred and fifty years of ceaselessly expanding technical prowess that we think nothing less complex and showy than a computer or a jet bomber deserves to be called “technology” at all.

remarkable given the similarity in your comment yet that it was about something completely different: violence vs technology.

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psunavy03 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's to the point where grimdark fiction, for me anyway, is gauche and a cliche. At this point it's countercultural and transgressive for characters to go through hell and high water, but then have a happy ending.

Too many modern writers would have ended The Shawshank Redemption by having Andy Dufresne get shot by a prison sniper the minute he got free.

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analog31 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Contracts are shorter now. ;-)

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watwut 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is backslash against years and years of shows where you are 100% certain characters will be unharmed. Cumulatively, shows lost tension for many of us - there were no stakes whatsoever. You have massive fight, but there is no excitement about the fight, because it is basically just an elaborate dance part. There are good and bad and good must always win and if bad thing happening is always punishment for moral failure forced formula got overfed.

Game of Thrones broke the spell, bad things suddenly could happen, substories could be ended badly. Writers learned there are two possible formulas not just one. Suddenly there was a tension and drama.

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xorcist 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> years and years of shows where you are 100% certain characters will be unharmed

Unless your culture sphere consists solely of children's books and Disney movies, that is just a bizarre thing to say. Heroic deaths and tragedys has been a staple of storytelling since the dawn of time. Greeks even had a word for it. Any random book (for adults) during the past several centuries is likely to include the subject, with a hundful exceptions of course. But a classic way to build tension in storytellin is with a tragedy.

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xg15 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, that was basically the Disney/Spielberg formula, which got overdone.

> There are good and bad and good must always win and if bad thing happening is always punishment for moral failure forced formula got overfed.

I mean, maybe there are different moral horizons behind this. I would expect some basic "doing good is in the end more successful than doing evil" morality in shows.

The alternate message seems to be an uncaring universe where it plays absolutely no role if you're an asshole or try to help people, because deaths happen randomly anyway.

Which would be an omen of how our world developed in the following years for real...

(GoT never went completely nihilist though, which I appreciate. Even the most random deaths had at least long-term consequences for the rest of the story, and a lot of characters kept their morality through all the carnage)

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watwut a day ago | parent [-]

> I would expect some basic "doing good is in the end more successful than doing evil" morality in shows.

I dont and find it annoying when it is there all the time. It removes the tension too. Good people end up poor or die of cancer, attempts to save climate or prevent wars failed, those who fight fascism find themselves maligned and out of power.

> The alternate message seems to be an uncaring universe where it plays absolutely no role if you're an asshole or try to help people, because deaths happen randomly anyway.

That is how the real universe works, why should we insist on repetitive message that is not true?

On the positive side, real people dont help people just to get something in exchange. Real people dont avoid being asshole only for transactional reasons. They do that, because of who you want to be and because of being able to resist the temptation.

And the danger is that when people believe the above, they make the opposite implication - if you had success you must have been good. That is not true. In fact, being willing to lie or take advantage of people makes you more likely to be successful - you have more options at your disposal then honest people.

> It is not about message.

I do not really think shows were that influential. But, large part of harm is from people simply assuming that once someone is a winner and billionaire, they must have been good and moral and right the whole time. I dont believe in prosperity gospel.

	▲	psunavy03 a day ago \| parent [-]
		I don't need art that reminds me of how shit the real world can be. I see that every day. Why would I need to have my face rubbed in it? No, there are people who can aspire to greater things and people who think nothing can ever get better, and their art reflects it. Nihilists who call themselves "sophisticated."

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ModernMech 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think that all started with The Walking Dead

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NeutralCrane a day ago | parent | next [-]

I could be misremembering but the Walking Dead season 1 and Game of Thrones season 1 came out around the same time, but didn’t really kill of any major characters until after the first season.

Both are based on pre-existing material but GoT source material predates the Walking Dead by 7 years.

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GolfPopper 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Glen Cook was killing off major characters back in the 1980s.

	▲	TheOtherHobbes a day ago \| parent [-]
		JG Ballard, John Brunner (and others) were writing miserabilist dystopias back in the 70s. Also, Dune, which is certainly not a "The good guys win" story. And movies like Soylent Green. The Disney trope turns out not to be a trope at all. The good guys win/hero's journey is much older than Disney, and it's popular because we'd like to be believe it's how the world works. But GoT didn't do anything really new, except wrap some porn around the various murder plots.

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quuxplusone a day ago | parent | prev [-]

... which started with "Night of the Living Dead"... :)

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protocolture a day ago | parent | prev [-]

>Can I make a side-rant how since Game of Thrones, it seems to have become an expectation that characters must be killed off? Apparently readers are (expected to) be so desensitized that nothing below "the main party that is the main reason you're reading this story can die at any moment" registers anymore.

The opposing view is weirder, why should characters be preserved for consumption by the audience? Death is something that can happen, let it happen. I quite like KJ Parkers 2 of Swords, where most PoV characters are dead by the end of the trilogy. Theres a real bittersweet note where, 2 of the remaining characters, one is basically trying to get killed and the other keeps bending the law and releasing him, unable to stomach even one more, no matter how deserved.

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xg15 a day ago | parent [-]

> The opposing view is weirder, why should characters be preserved for consumption by the audience?

I don't see how characters are "consumed" by the audience, unless the audience is vampires.

But my answer would be: Because the entire story exists for the audience. There isn't actually a separate universe that lives on independently of the people watching or reading the story.

	▲	protocolture 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>But my answer would be: Because the entire story exists for the audience. Fan service maximalism? Authors should avoid treading on favourite characters, erring on the side of making them immortal?