Character Death: when to warn?
Nov. 6th, 2005 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runespoorOkay, so I was thinking about the Andromeda Table and I wondered... What does "Character Death" means, exactly? So yes, someone dies. But when do you warn for character death?... All of this is, of course, purely hypothetical.
Say it's a Blaise/Pansy fic in which Sirius falls through the veil. He's not important to the main pairing, but he matters to the reader of the books, so do you mark character death? Say the fic is Remus/Sirius - do you warn for character death or do you assumes the reader knew what he was in from?
Do you warn for death if it's canon death? If it's AU but the character died in canon anyway? For any character - disregarding his or her importance in the fic and/or the original material? Do you take the "character death" warning to means only the mains characters of the fic?
Do you warn for death if the character comes back, for instance as a ghost? Is it any different if he or she is somehow brought back to life, or if they appear as an Inferi, or as a vampire, or as a portrait, or as something like Riddle's diary?
Personally, I take "character death" to mean that I'd better not get too attached to the main characters of the piece, because one of them is going to eat it. Then again, I like a warning if the SO of the main character of the fic is already dead. And I think "character death" is not too much to ask when half the wizarding world as we know it bites it in a final battle of any sort. It's all very relative, I suppose.
Please comment, I'd love to read your input.
Say it's a Blaise/Pansy fic in which Sirius falls through the veil. He's not important to the main pairing, but he matters to the reader of the books, so do you mark character death? Say the fic is Remus/Sirius - do you warn for character death or do you assumes the reader knew what he was in from?
Do you warn for death if it's canon death? If it's AU but the character died in canon anyway? For any character - disregarding his or her importance in the fic and/or the original material? Do you take the "character death" warning to means only the mains characters of the fic?
Do you warn for death if the character comes back, for instance as a ghost? Is it any different if he or she is somehow brought back to life, or if they appear as an Inferi, or as a vampire, or as a portrait, or as something like Riddle's diary?
Personally, I take "character death" to mean that I'd better not get too attached to the main characters of the piece, because one of them is going to eat it. Then again, I like a warning if the SO of the main character of the fic is already dead. And I think "character death" is not too much to ask when half the wizarding world as we know it bites it in a final battle of any sort. It's all very relative, I suppose.
Please comment, I'd love to read your input.
As a reader I want character death warnings.
Date: 2005-11-08 08:04 pm (UTC)If a character I love is going to be killed off in your story, I'd like to know, regardless if s/he is the main character in your story or not, or if s/he were killed in canon or not. I'm not going to assume, for instance, that Sirius is going to die in your story because: 1. You could be writing about Sirius's youth, or about a small slice of time that does not lead up to his death. 2. You may be one of those wonderful authors who ignore his death.
Also, even if Blaise is the main character of your story, and Remus isn't, Remus fans are legion. It'd be nice to know he'd be killed off.
I've written fan fiction too, so I understand what you all are saying about not wanting to lose the dramatic impact of your story due to the necessity of warnings. I just think death is far too easy a way to get dramatic impact, and not the most interesting way to achieve dramatic impact.
Even in the wellspring of your current fanfiction, Harry Potter, it isn't death or torture per say that has the emotional impact, but the consequences of those deaths. James and Lily's deaths pervade the whole series, but we don't think of the moment of their deaths do we? We think of how horrible it is that Harry has to live with the Dursleys; and how horrible it is that Sirius got convicted for crimes he didn't commit, and spend 12 years in a hellish prison, and never got to grow up really, because he was always on the run, and a physical and mental wreck from that point onward. We don't think of the murder that Tom Riddle committed, and for which he had Hagrid take the fall. We think of how Hagrid lost his opportunity to be a full fledged wizard, and how he has to hide his wand in a pink umbrella, and live in a hut.
As for missing a good story because of a warning, I'd rather do that, than deeply resent not being warned for a character death. I read fan fiction with far different expectations than I do of books of original fiction and if an author varies from canon, I usually prefer my favorite characters to get a better deal from a fan fiction author than they did at their creator's hand.
Anyway, that's why I prefer to be warned. Your mileage may vary.