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selenakExcluded here: deaths that would have shocked or surprised me had I not been spoiled for them. Hence no deaths from my early fandoms like Star Trek (all incarnations) or Highlander (back in the day, we were lucky in Germany if we were only two years behind, and even if the internet hardly existed, fannish gossip via zines and conventions definitely did). Also, you could do five deaths from shows like Spooks alone, or from Lost, or from Joss Whedon's shows (though there the spoiler factor existed for much of BTVS and some of AtS, before I went cold turkey on spoilers and had much more fun as a fangirl as a consequence). So I tried to get someting of a balance here. Now, onwards. Spoilery deaths await!
1. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Derek's death right at the start of Adam raised a Cain. As has been said by many a viewer, what made this so fantastically shocking and well done was that it happened without the usual set up the death of a regular or even recurring character otherwise gets - special bonding moments with the rest of the main cast, dramatic speeches, everyone later having intense mourning scenes, death happening as the climax of the episode etc. Instead, good old Derek got blasted away by a random Terminator, sans goodbyes, before the credits were even finished. Oh show, you were ever so good.
2. Lost. .... Okay, from the many, many surprising and shocking deaths, here are two that remained particularly with me: Danielle Rousseau and Alex. Karl's death I had expected (sorry, Karl, but you were really obvious toast at that point), but the bullet hitting Roussseau was a "what?!? no way! not her!" moment for me, and as for Alex, an episode later - triple, quadruple ouch. Even though, as opposed to Rousseau's death, it had been built up to. Oh Alex.
3. Serenity. I had been spoiled for Book's death, thanks to an idiot who had posted her/his fanfic with the header: "Book's Legacy: Spoilers for the movie!!!" on lj. Even if I hadn't, Book would have been my guess, because this was in all likelihood the only Firefly movie Joss would be able to make, and mentor types usually bite the dust first. Wash's death, though, came completely unexpected, and had the intended effect - after that one, I was ready to believe we might be in for a wholesale slaughter of the entire cast, that no one was safe. A leaf in the wind, indeed.
4. Astonishing X-men. Of the four volumes comprising Joss Whedon's run of AXM, Dangerous is arguably the weakest, which in context means it is merely good. It also contains a genuinenly shocking and surprising death, that of the student Wing, a Whedon-invented character, who in the previous story, Gifted, had lost his mutant ability due to involuntarily being turned into a guinea pig for the "cure". In Gifted, we meet students Wing and Hisako at the same time, Wing gets a bit more screentime, so it's by no means obvious Hisako was destined to become the survivor and make it into the team. Wing being driven to suicide by what later turns out to be the sentient Danger room who exploits post-power loss depression was one of the darkest sequences of the run, culminating in a panel simply showing his dead body on the floor of the Danger room. I felt suckerpunched and really in need of the next issue.
5. Romeo and Juliet. Brush up your Shakespeare. Such a list would not be complete without adding the very first fictional death which I totally had not seen coming and which surprised the hell out of me. (Well, okay, there were three earlier precedents, but I had been seven years old then!) My first encounter with Shakespeare happened via tv, which showed the Zeffirelli film version of Romeo and Juliet when I was nine. And while the chorus did inform me the two title characters would die right from the start, I was in no way prepared for the fact that Mercutio would. There I sat, glued on the screen, and couldn't believe the funny guy bought it. Unfair! And they all thought he was just faking it (that was a fiendishly effective way to produce that scene and make it even more hurtful, Mr. Z.!) in order to pull a prank! This Shakespeare person has a lot to answer for, thought I, and got myself the relevant volume from my aunts collected works edition the next day.
1. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Derek's death right at the start of Adam raised a Cain. As has been said by many a viewer, what made this so fantastically shocking and well done was that it happened without the usual set up the death of a regular or even recurring character otherwise gets - special bonding moments with the rest of the main cast, dramatic speeches, everyone later having intense mourning scenes, death happening as the climax of the episode etc. Instead, good old Derek got blasted away by a random Terminator, sans goodbyes, before the credits were even finished. Oh show, you were ever so good.
2. Lost. .... Okay, from the many, many surprising and shocking deaths, here are two that remained particularly with me: Danielle Rousseau and Alex. Karl's death I had expected (sorry, Karl, but you were really obvious toast at that point), but the bullet hitting Roussseau was a "what?!? no way! not her!" moment for me, and as for Alex, an episode later - triple, quadruple ouch. Even though, as opposed to Rousseau's death, it had been built up to. Oh Alex.
3. Serenity. I had been spoiled for Book's death, thanks to an idiot who had posted her/his fanfic with the header: "Book's Legacy: Spoilers for the movie!!!" on lj. Even if I hadn't, Book would have been my guess, because this was in all likelihood the only Firefly movie Joss would be able to make, and mentor types usually bite the dust first. Wash's death, though, came completely unexpected, and had the intended effect - after that one, I was ready to believe we might be in for a wholesale slaughter of the entire cast, that no one was safe. A leaf in the wind, indeed.
4. Astonishing X-men. Of the four volumes comprising Joss Whedon's run of AXM, Dangerous is arguably the weakest, which in context means it is merely good. It also contains a genuinenly shocking and surprising death, that of the student Wing, a Whedon-invented character, who in the previous story, Gifted, had lost his mutant ability due to involuntarily being turned into a guinea pig for the "cure". In Gifted, we meet students Wing and Hisako at the same time, Wing gets a bit more screentime, so it's by no means obvious Hisako was destined to become the survivor and make it into the team. Wing being driven to suicide by what later turns out to be the sentient Danger room who exploits post-power loss depression was one of the darkest sequences of the run, culminating in a panel simply showing his dead body on the floor of the Danger room. I felt suckerpunched and really in need of the next issue.
5. Romeo and Juliet. Brush up your Shakespeare. Such a list would not be complete without adding the very first fictional death which I totally had not seen coming and which surprised the hell out of me. (Well, okay, there were three earlier precedents, but I had been seven years old then!) My first encounter with Shakespeare happened via tv, which showed the Zeffirelli film version of Romeo and Juliet when I was nine. And while the chorus did inform me the two title characters would die right from the start, I was in no way prepared for the fact that Mercutio would. There I sat, glued on the screen, and couldn't believe the funny guy bought it. Unfair! And they all thought he was just faking it (that was a fiendishly effective way to produce that scene and make it even more hurtful, Mr. Z.!) in order to pull a prank! This Shakespeare person has a lot to answer for, thought I, and got myself the relevant volume from my aunts collected works edition the next day.
