Character Deaths

[Moonface]

After getting to a certain cutscene in Halo: Reach last night I haven't been able to get it out of my head yet, mainly because I did not expect what happened nor for it to have the emotional weight that it had on me. Since we don't have a thread to talk about character deaths in games, now seems like a good time for me to make one.

Halo Reach

Kat's death at the end of the New Alexandria chapter really caught me off guard and it was done so incredibly well. She isn't the first squad member to die in the game and I was expecting more character deaths after Jorge sacrifices himself, but just the way you're running alongside her while she's talking and then in an instant her dialogue is stopped and she collapses to the floor as a bullet goes through her helmet. Just the way it happens so suddenly and the game mutes all of the sound when she takes the bullet just put so much weight into the moment.

The Last of Us Part 1

Holy shit where do I even start with this game? Out of every allied character death in the game the only one that never did anything for me was Tess's for some reason, but the rest of them are all so heartbreaking for me. When I first played the game I knew Joel's daughter was going to die because I knew she isn't part of the game post-outbreak, but when she died I had to get up and step away for a good five minutes even though her death happens like less than 20 minutes after she gets introduced. Even when I've replayed the game the cutscene where she dies still cuts deep.

The other stand out deaths to me are Sam and Henry at the end of the Summer chapter. You know that Sam is doomed when you see the bite on his leg, but seeing that didn't really get to me. What got me is when Sam has turned the following morning, and after a few chaotic moments it's his older brother Henry who shoots him dead. Henry immediately questions what he's just done and before Joel can talk him down he turns the gun on himself and pulls the trigger, the cutscene cuts to black, Ellie exclaims "Oh my god!" and before I even began to fully process what had just transpired the words FALL appear on screen to a somber tune and you're just straight into gameplay of the next chapter. There is no time to stop and think about what just happened, and Ellie even questions Joel about moving on from it so quickly to which he responds with "Things happen, and we move on. That's just how it is.". It is an incredible display of conveying that mindset to the player by forcing you to immediately move on as soon as Henry pulls that trigger and it still stands as my favourite overall death scene of a character, or rather characters, in any game or probably even any form of media in general.

[Maniakkid25]

I have already discussed one death that I love with my heart and soul, so I will just link it here.

Instead, I will discuss another death of a character that I think is done really well for not obvious reasons.

Legend of Dragoon

Near the end of disc 1, you have to save Prince Albert. After fending off the prison warden, Albert is assaulted by a man in black, extracting a magic object from him. Lavitz, filled with righteous rage at seeing his king attacked, transforms into a Dragoon and rushes to take down the man in black.

The man in black has a super weapon designed to cut through Dragons and, more importantly, Dragoons.

Lavitz is killed in cold blood by the man in black, revealed in that moment to be Lloyd, a character you had fought in a tournament on the other side of the continent. Lavitz dies there, his Dragoon Spirit transferring to Albert.

Now, Lavitz's death immediately and inexorably brings up comparisons of another early perma-death of a PS1 game: Aerith in Final Fantasy 7. But there is a difference here, and I think it makes Lavitz's death more impactful. See, as the games go on, you'll see a quick divergence as to the reasons for their deaths. Aerith died because she was the last person with the power to stop Sephy's plan.

Lavitz died for no good reason at all.

We already know from the tournament that Lloyd has a seeming inhuman ability to dodge attacks, and we will find out later that Lloyd is actually inhuman; he's a Wingly: a race of beings who reigned superior over humans for thousands of years before the Dragon Campaign. Lloyd did not kill Lavitz because he had no choice, and that's what makes this so much more powerful.

In the real world, we are hard-wired to seek patterns, and that includes the interpretations of what happens in our lives. You hear it every time someone says "Everything happens for a reason." When there's meaning, there's closure. So when someone befalls a fate for the simple reason that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time? That's a far deeper wound than any other. And this is what happens to Lavitz; he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and died because of it.

[Moonface]

@Maniakkid25: That death you described reminds me of one from The Last of Us Part 2 that's a clear case of wrong time wrong place.

The Last of Us Part 2 Spoilers

At the very end of Ellie's portion of the game that takes place in Seattle, she's in an old theatre with Tommy and Jesse discussing about going back to Jackson and stopping their pursuit of Abby. The conversation ends with Tommy leaving the room they're in, followed shortly after by sounds of a struggle.

This moment is when Abby finally finds where Ellie and co. have been hiding out while hunting down her and her friends in Seattle, and she surprise attacks Tommy as he leaves the main theater room. Ellie and Jesse rush out to see what's going on and the instant they both burst through the doors Abby fires a shot at them, getting Jesse in the head and killing him.

At no point in the game does Jesse actually get involved with the pursuit of revenge. He only travels to Seattle to find Ellie, Dina and Tommy to help them stay safe, never once coming across any of the people who the other three hunt down and kill (Abby being the only one they haven't killed at this point). He doesn't die as payback for getting revenge, and he dies only because he stood where Abby fires at. If he was at any other position or came out the doors slightly later he'd have presumably lived. It's really the only death in the entire game that isn't done for any actual purpose of payback or anything else like how everyone else dies in this game.