The Right Amount of Death

(I discuss a few different fictions in this blog post, but give no spoilers.)

I remember being very young and stopping at the beginning of the book, thinking, “What’s the point? I know what’s going to happen. The good guy defeats the bad guy. He looks like he’s going to die but he doesn’t. He always wins.” And then I read A Series of Unfortunate Events and added, “Unless this is one of those depressing books that tries to do things differently.”

Well, of course, as I grew I learned that there was more to fiction than just good guys beating bad guys. Sometimes there were no bad guys. Sometimes the main character was the bad guy. Sometimes it was ambiguous as to just who the bad guys were. And sometimes the bad guys turned out to be the good guys. And whilst all these variations were true, the main character still survived, unless he had some heroic death at the end. It was all getting rather stale.

George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series changed all that. With no lead protagonist or clearly defined antagonist, this narrative grabbed my attention. But then, many stories have done this, too. It wasn’t too far into the series, however, before I realised that characters were dropping like flies instead of being given tragic, Shakespearian deaths. They were dying pitifully, stupidly and sometimes without having the chance to even salvage their reason for existence other than to portray the cruelties of the world.

Shortly after finishing (what’s currently written of) the series, I thought, well that’s that then, George is a genius. He’s got it right. He’s made human beings squishy sacks of killable meat. (And whilst I’m sure other authors have done this before, this was my first instance of discovering such ruthless storytelling.) He’d done what I’d longed to see in fiction; he made me fear the deaths of my favourite characters. Whenever they got into fights I thought, oh no, this is all too possible, I really do hope they scrape out of this. If they came down with an illness my heart clenched. If they entered hard climates I’d worry about their survival. In short, George R.R Martin reworked the way my mind predicted narrative, and for the better.

But despite all of my praise, A Song of Ice and Fire does not fulfill the right amount of death.

“Well then, Kristian,” I hear you say. “Just what is the right amount of death? Do you want fully fleshed out characters to have their cadavers piled high as Mount Rushmore?” Well actually, I think A Song of Ice and Fire might be the only fiction I’ve read that overdoes the amount of death. Sure, it’s shocking to begin with, but after a while you grow accustomed to it. I won’t spoil anything, but a character died in the last season of Game of Thrones that made me go, “Well that sucks,” as opposed to freaking out as I would have if this had happened earlier. It has become a running joke that if you state your preference for a character then they’ll be promptly killed off, and the series itself is known for its relentless body count, shaping expectations of those that come fresh to it, readers or watchers.

There’s a balance. There was a time when, after reading A Song of Ice and Fire through to in-completion (sorry George), I almost sneered at most other fiction for shying away from death. If a character came to the brink of death and survived, I’d tut. I wouldn’t be annoyed if death clearly didn’t suit the narrative, but whenever it was, for example, implied instead of shown, I’d be left wanting more.

A few days ago I watched a series which changed my perception on the matter. I won’t name it or hint at the series, for that would give away the game to newcomers, but it’s not something you’d expect to have a lot of tragedy in it. In the first few seasons a few deaths were implied, but never outright shown or discussed, or carried impact or significance. This didn’t put me off, per se, but the amount of danger the characters faced at this point led me to think more and more about the likelihood of death and how it just wasn’t happening.

And then they killed my favourite character. Swiftly. Brutally. Realistically. And I didn’t see it coming. And it was perfect.

So the moral here is that there’s a balance. If this character’s death was preceded by a mountain of bodies, I’d have been less affected. I’d have even seen it coming as they charged heroically into the fray. But without prior tragic events occurring, such as the deaths of minor villains and a few less minor ones, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb for shock value. With this perfect balance, that narrative instead allows you to fear for the characters whilst still being caught off-guard when they die. And that’s how you really destroy people’s emotions.

Tragedy in Comedy

Like most people of my generation, I’m typically in the middle of watching a television series on Netflix (or some other streaming service). These shows are usually dramas of some kind; I just recently got finished watching The Tudors, for example, and before that, Luther. Fantastic show. I personally prefer it to Sherlock, if you think it fit to compare the two. Perhaps I’ll write a blog post about it sometime, but it’s mostly due to plot coherence and maturity of tone (the second point being personal preference and the first being a measured criticism). But I digress.

Sometimes, when I’m in-between shows on Netflix and all feels wrong in the world, I jump over to a comedy. Most notably, I’ve rewatched all of Scrubs which is without a doubt the best comedy show of all time (more on that later). I watched a good five seasons of Community which I also thoroughly enjoyed, and right now I’m currently powering through another popular comedy series.

A quick side note, one comedy I’ve never been very invested in is Friends. I don’t know if maybe I was just barely out of their target audience or what, but I find the show highly overrated. It’s funny enough, and I’ll watch it if someone else has it on, but there was this whole culture built up around the show’s characters in which people tried to mimic them and apply their logic to real life, and it always sort of… irked me. And I’m not sure I like laughter tracks. Why should I need to be told when to laugh?

Well, anyway, what I wish to discuss is the balance of how much tragedy to put in a comedy. I believe Scrubs had the perfect balance, with your typical conflicts between friendships arising and being dealt with in a humorous or heartwarming manner, but also the larger themes of death, love, personal growth, and the stress of working as a doctor. I could watch the chronicles of John Dorian many times over (barring the season we do not speak of) and still find life lessons and reassurance. Also, seeing as this blog post is the king of unrelated side-notes, isn’t it cool how ‘John Dorian’ is so similar to ‘John Doe’?

Community was excellent as well, especially Abed. I haven’t actually seen the last season yet (it’s not on Netflix, boo) but I’ve seen the majority and whilst Community is overall more lighthearted than Scrubs, it still has its poignant moments. Most notably, for me, was Abed’s character.

The problem with comedy is that without some elements of tragedy, or continuity of plot, you leave the audience with no lingering interest. It’s why, I think, so many comedies opt to have a potential couple whom they propose to the audience through a series of will-they-won’-they events, usually only allowing this plot-line to have a conclusion when they’ve sufficiently built up lasting interest in other elements of the series. And to have plot you need conflict, and to have conflict you need some sort of tragic event. This is why death happens in comedy, even though it isn’t funny. It allows characters to develop, making you more invested in their character and increasing the vibrancy of the comedy.

Perhaps there’s something to be taken away from that.