Monday Musings

What a weekend! I achieved nothing that I needed to do, but I did a little what I wanted to do, except read.

I did watch TV though. Season/mid-season finales always put characters' lives on the line, hoping to entice you to watch on. Sometimes, they go so far as to kill off a beloved character.

That character? Well, they're usually my favorite character. It says a lot about the show if it can kill off my favorite character and I come back to watch anyway (bitter about the loss, but still holding on).

This always leads me to think about favorite characters, how fandoms mourn them, and why it's always my favorite character that is offed.

I call it a curse. Be it books, movies, or TV shows, as soon as I mark someone as my favorite character, it's a death sentence for them. Even in a video game, after going back and forth about my opinions about the character, I decided I liked him, quite a bit. Not a second after I finished the thought that an assassin took aim and fired, killing him.

Every. Time.

The same happened in a TV show. I think "oh, I like this character," and in the next scene, they're killed. Oh look, a movie, boy the older brother is a good character, well, he was.

It's a curse really. Either that or like people have noted on The Walking Dead, the "moral compass" is the one that gets killed first, and I tend to like characters with a moral compass, which still leads me to believe it's a curse.

Only once, in my memory, did my favorite character defy all odds and made it to the end of the book (well, play). Way to go, Horatio, for defying the odds of being my favorite character in a Shakespeare tragedy. *throws confetti*
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Anyway, the way people mourn over the death of characters makes me wonder, does it affect us the same way as the death of a loved one? (You know, someone we actually know in real life). I'm sure the attachment has some sort of emotional toll. There are still character deaths I get a little teary-eyed over a while after they are gone. Mostly though, I'm just bitter, especially towards the writers who thought it was ok to kill off the character.

But, life moves on. More stories, games, movies, and shows are created and I set my heart up for more pain when I see a new character I like.

Does this happen to other people? Or am I just an odd duckling? (I guess both options are possible, but in this scenario). What favorite characters are people still upset about? (I just realized this post could have been the mother of all spoilers for all things entertainment, but it wasn't. Except for your Hamlet readers, I'm sorry to tell you, but Horatio did live.)