Thread idea was inspired by a gaming thread about characters not reacting to their situations appropriately. I thought it would add to the discussion to include all forms of media.
Bad stuff can happen to characters in stories. Sometimes it's gruesome, sometimes it's cathardic, but usually it's done with a narrative purpose: a likeable character meets a gruesome end, everyone feels bad. An unrepentant villain meets a karmic end, the audience cheers. A victim in a horror movie gets a lawnmower to the face, the audience recoils (but still keeps one eye open). Things like that.
But there have also been examples of bad things happening to a character seemingly out of random and/or not given the full acknowledgement from other characters. I'm talking about those moments that feel tonally different from the rest of the material, leaving you to question why it happened and why no one seems particularly bothered by it.
I feel the most recent and most familiar example to most people comes from Jurassic World:
https://youtu.be/OcTnyPMDcIo
I remember watching this in the theater, and everyone in my group was united with the same thoughts: it was an unusually brutal and perverse death scene, and it happened to a character who didn't even deserve it. Usually in the Jurassic films you get that one awesome dino kill that's usually reserved for that specific movie's biggest jerkass. In Jurassic World, the lady in question was not a jerkass. She was, at worst, neutral, if not annoyed at having to babysit two asshole kids who ditched her at a moment's notice. Still, she remained a responsible adult and stayed by their sides even during all the chaos, rather than running to hide at the nearest port-a-potty. Her minutes-long suffering was uncomfortable, and it's never acknowledged by anyone in the movie. Pretty much nobody cared that she died, and it remained the most sour moment in an otherwise enjoyable film (in my opinion).
Runner-up goes to Fate/Grand Order, an ongoing mobile game that also had a promotional anime that served as the backdrop for the main story:
https://youtu.be/mzIwVi0kdfo
The character in question is Olga, who served as the Rin-type authority character with a tsundere attitude. Despite her personality, she was shown as dependable and willing to risk her life to protect her comrades. In the anime's climax, the main villain reveals himself, who was previously a man that Olga admired and loved (romantically?). As if his shocking betrayal wasn't bad enough, he proceeds to entrap Olga inside the glowy Mcguffin, where she will "experience the moment of her death in an infinte loop for all eternity".
Wait, what? That's pretty fucked up.
It only gets even more fucked up as she's screaming and crying for help as she's being slowly dragged toward her Fate (I'd make a pun but this is seriously a bummer). While the main characters do take a moment (as in, a second) to regret what happened, it's never brought up again. In fact, based on what I've read, fans have pestered the writers of the mobile game to create a scenario where Olga can be freed, but they have more or less responded with "She doesn't matter, shut the fuck up already."
When it comes to bad writing in fiction, this is probably my single biggest pet peeve. If you're going to introduce a gruesome moment like this but don't have the characters react accordingly, then you've pretty much shown the cracks in your storytelling.
Bad stuff can happen to characters in stories. Sometimes it's gruesome, sometimes it's cathardic, but usually it's done with a narrative purpose: a likeable character meets a gruesome end, everyone feels bad. An unrepentant villain meets a karmic end, the audience cheers. A victim in a horror movie gets a lawnmower to the face, the audience recoils (but still keeps one eye open). Things like that.
But there have also been examples of bad things happening to a character seemingly out of random and/or not given the full acknowledgement from other characters. I'm talking about those moments that feel tonally different from the rest of the material, leaving you to question why it happened and why no one seems particularly bothered by it.
I feel the most recent and most familiar example to most people comes from Jurassic World:
https://youtu.be/OcTnyPMDcIo
I remember watching this in the theater, and everyone in my group was united with the same thoughts: it was an unusually brutal and perverse death scene, and it happened to a character who didn't even deserve it. Usually in the Jurassic films you get that one awesome dino kill that's usually reserved for that specific movie's biggest jerkass. In Jurassic World, the lady in question was not a jerkass. She was, at worst, neutral, if not annoyed at having to babysit two asshole kids who ditched her at a moment's notice. Still, she remained a responsible adult and stayed by their sides even during all the chaos, rather than running to hide at the nearest port-a-potty. Her minutes-long suffering was uncomfortable, and it's never acknowledged by anyone in the movie. Pretty much nobody cared that she died, and it remained the most sour moment in an otherwise enjoyable film (in my opinion).
Runner-up goes to Fate/Grand Order, an ongoing mobile game that also had a promotional anime that served as the backdrop for the main story:
https://youtu.be/mzIwVi0kdfo
The character in question is Olga, who served as the Rin-type authority character with a tsundere attitude. Despite her personality, she was shown as dependable and willing to risk her life to protect her comrades. In the anime's climax, the main villain reveals himself, who was previously a man that Olga admired and loved (romantically?). As if his shocking betrayal wasn't bad enough, he proceeds to entrap Olga inside the glowy Mcguffin, where she will "experience the moment of her death in an infinte loop for all eternity".
Wait, what? That's pretty fucked up.
It only gets even more fucked up as she's screaming and crying for help as she's being slowly dragged toward her Fate (I'd make a pun but this is seriously a bummer). While the main characters do take a moment (as in, a second) to regret what happened, it's never brought up again. In fact, based on what I've read, fans have pestered the writers of the mobile game to create a scenario where Olga can be freed, but they have more or less responded with "She doesn't matter, shut the fuck up already."
When it comes to bad writing in fiction, this is probably my single biggest pet peeve. If you're going to introduce a gruesome moment like this but don't have the characters react accordingly, then you've pretty much shown the cracks in your storytelling.
