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[iconmaster]

Edit: excluding children*

Dante's Divine Comedy, a towering achievement in Western literature, was at least partly (or principally) inspired by his beautiful friend Beatrice, who died at age 25.

Edgar Allen Poe lost many women over the course of his life, including his wife Virginia at age 24. In his Philosophy of Composition he concluded "the death, then, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world."

It's so powerful a theme that it recurs continually throughout history, from Sleeping Beauty to Laura Palmer. "Fridging" a young woman important to the hero has become a cliché; but it still has the desired effect.

Let me suggest that the answer is yes: the death of a beautiful woman is more tragic than any other, and this is right and good. Beauty confronts us with the transcendent -- something above and beyond the ordinary routines in life. It can be found in mountains and trees and birds, but of course it is found in certain women as well. When we lose such a woman, we lose twice: we are bereaved of the person, but we are also robbed of that reminder of something higher and better to which we ought to aspire.

What do you think? Am I sexist, or I have I touched on a profound truth?

*Several users have suggested the death of a child is the most tragic. I would absolutely agree with that -- innocence is another biggie along with beauty. I'd like to limit the issue to adults for the sake of having a discussion -- otherwise, children win and the thread ends.

 

[Antoon]

Beautiful people without instagram filters are extremely rare, so of coruse seeing them dead is extra sad.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Nice OP.

Before coming in I thought this was going to be about attractive women getting murdered vs ugly women getting murdered and how the media portrays it. I suppose that says a lot about where my head is at, really.

Anyway, yes I agree that the loss of a woman who is beautiful to you is a terrible tragedy. She may have passed, but a part of you dies as well. An innocence, a completion and an understand of all that is good. All of that is lost and is replaced by bitterness, emptiness and a sense of desperate longing.

On the bright side, some of the most beautiful songs, works of art and books have been created due to this loss. Ignoring all of the current years SJW stuff, it really puts into perspective the roll of the patriarchy on society and how it has gifted mankind with an ability to turn the sadness into an almost divine wonder.

 

[kiiltz]

Public perception of feminity in antiquity has always been seen as something precious and fragile. Compare that to men who were routinely sent off to fight wars and thus were expected to also protect and support women.

Following that, I'd argue that the death of a child is more tragic as not only are they seen as precious and fragile but also as a symbol of innocence. However, in film and literature, child deaths are infinitely more harder to pull off. There's less room to explore the relationship and authors must be capable of writing a suitable narrative or a particular prose. Also, killing a child is pretty morbid lol.

So I do agree with Mr Poe to some degree. In life though I'd say child death is the number one tragedy. A parent that has to bury their child or worse, a parent that murdered their own child.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

If I got murdered today very few people would care versus a 21 year old that killed 3 people while driving drunk cause she was hot. Fuck what a waste! What tragedy that beauty is dead!

 

[iconmaster]

If I got murdered today very few people would care versus a 21 year old that killed 3 people while driving drunk cause she was hot.

I'd care.

But yes

 

[Tesseract]

death is always tragic i think, most of all when a good mind goes with it

beauty doesn't last, admire it if you want, nature always wins that battle

 

[bitbydeath]

Is that to coincide with celebritism?
(Yes, I’m making up words now)

Just look at all the fuss over the new royal baby, same applies to death.

 

[Jesus Carbomb]

"Show me a beautiful woman and I will show you a man that is tired of her shit.” - Abraham Lincoln

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

I'm sorry but the only person that's beautiful in my eyes is a man. A creative visionary from Tokyo, Japan. If you don't know him by now, then you've lived a fruitless life.

 

[brap]

Maybe if she was a nice person. If she wasn't then who cares.

 

[iconmaster]

Let me clear up a bit of confusion here: I'm not wondering whether the death of a beautiful woman gets more press. Obviously, it does.

What I'm asking is: could that actually be the correct response? Does the death of a beautiful woman actually, truly merit more attention, a deeper grief?

 

[ipukespiders]

Being a woman is playing on "I'm too young to die" and being a beautiful woman is also typing in IDDQD.

 

[spandexmonkey]

I'd say a beautiful woman is up there, but a dead child will garner more sympathy.

 

[iconmaster]

In life though I'd say child death is the number one tragedy.

I'd say a beautiful woman is up there, but a dead child will garner more sympathy.

Yeah, you're both right. I wish I'd accounted for that in my post.

I'm going to edit in that only adults are in view here. (I'm cheating a bit.)

 

[Tesseract]

Let me clear up a bit of confusion here: I'm not wondering whether the death of a beautiful woman gets more press. Obviously, it does.

What I'm asking is: could that actually be the correct response? Does the death of a beautiful woman actually, truly merit more attention, a deeper grief?

absolutely not, but we'd have to define beauty here

if you mean a hot woman then no, but a selfless compassionate and caring woman is pretty tragic

princess diana was pretty goddamn tragic because she was such a beautiful person

 

[kingbean]

I'm sorry but the only person that's beautiful in my eyes is a man. A creative visionary from Tokyo, Japan. If you don't know him by now, then the life you've lived is a sham.

You missed a chance to continue rhyming.

 

[iconmaster]

if you mean a hot woman then no, but a selfless compassionate and caring woman is pretty tragic

Let's say we're only dealing with skin-deep beauty. I've offered a few examples of history granting them special regard. We could add to that some examples of beautiful villains to further drive the point -- Amanda Knox was convicted of murder (later acquitted) and received international attention. It wasn't because she was a selfless young lady.

The argument here is that it seems we do naturally regard (superficially) beautiful women as especially valuable. You could dismiss this as the result of male hormones, but here would be my response to that: if I notice an attractive woman on the street, I forget what she looked like ten minutes later. Something more seems to be required to explain the phenomenon.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

You missed a chance to continue rhyming.

 

[Tesseract]

Let's say we're only dealing with skin-deep beauty. I've offered a few examples of history granting them special regard. We could add to that some examples of beautiful villains to further drive the point -- Amanda Knox was convicted of murder (later acquitted) and received international attention. It wasn't because she was a selfless young lady.

The argument here is that it seems we do naturally regard (superficially) beautiful women as especially valuable. You could dismiss this as the result of male hormones, but here would be my response to that: if I notice an attractive woman on the street, I forget what she looked like ten minutes later. Something more seems to be required to explain the phenomenon.

you're not wrong that we establish narratives for various looks, there's a reason all of our heroes in film and television are attractive, why nixon got smoked by jfk when television became a thing

the halo effect is very real, attractive people have good genes and would appear to be inherit-ably healthier and happier people
it's not fair but it's probably not supposed to be fair, the universe doesn't give a fuck

but the question is the death of a superficially beautiful person more tragic than others, and i have to say no, because beauty does not last, it is terminable

that's a value judgement i make, the death of einstein is more tragic than the death of some hot chick

 

[Tesseract]

it's worth adding that there probably is nothing more tragic than the sudden death of a young, attractive, intelligent, kindly woman, as it's seemingly the rarest type of person on the planet

hypatia by all accounts is one of the most tragic deaths in the modern world, in my opinion

Hypatia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bitbydeath]

You want a girl that's nice, a girl that's not
Obsessed with her looks, but is insanely hot
The kind of girl that you can show to your folks
Loves the movies that you like and always laughs at your jokes
A real girl, a hot girl; a really hot girl;
A brand new, really hot, real doll
Wants to impress you, doesn't care if you notice
And only ever uses you to tickle her throat with...

Now you might think that this girl only exists in your mind
But she's real, but last week she died

 

[ComptonJapan]

I wouldn't say it's more tragic in the sense that a person died, and precious life is now gone. How is society going to deal with the loss of this individual? None of that. It's more of a feeling that good pussy is now gone. For example, if a pornstar, and yes I know, not real beauty but you get the point, commits suicide. She noticed the guy fucking her in her last movie looked like uncle Jimmy, which her single mother brought home and stayed for the past 14 years and how he abused her. You're not going to be sad about her being dead. You're just going to be upset about the fact that she's not going to star in a possible 25 man quad penetration blow-bang video. It's like damn, what a good pussy, now that shit's gone. Oh well, time to move onto some new bitch pornhub.

 

[Tesseract]

I wouldn't say it's more tragic in the sense that a person died, and precious life is now gone. How is society going to deal with the loss of this individual? None of that. It's more of a feeling that good pussy is now gone. For example, if a pornstar, and yes I know, not real beauty but you get the point, commits suicide. She noticed the guy fucking her in her last movie looked like uncle Jimmy, which her single mother brought home and stayed for the past 14 years and how he abused her. You're not going to be sad about her being dead. You're just going to be upset about the fact that she's not going to star in a possible 25 man quad penetration blow-bang video. It's like damn, what a good pussy, now that shit's gone. Oh well, time to move onto some new bitch pornhub.

 

[Insane Metal]

It shouldn't, but it is.

 

[Catphish]

Thought-provoking OP, so thank you for that.

After mulling it a bit, I think what you say is true, but with the condition that other kinds of beauty, besides apparent, be considered.

Physical beauty is a delight, and a wonder, especially at 25, but, speaking from my own perspective, I've learned to appreciate different kinds of beauty in people as I've grown older, both male and female, and I doubt I'm alone.

Sometimes, the way a person behaves is more beautiful than anything regarding their appearance, and their deaths do, indeed, sting twice as well.

 

[Pagusas]

Yes, beautiful people have something special - Beauty. Normal and ugly people dont have that, so they need something else special to be acknowledged for.

 

[waxer]

In movies and visual sources I'd say yes. It's simply more believable. Sexuality and attractiveness wise it's you understand better the view of the man that lost The woman if she is beautiful. If she looked like a troll or weighed 400kg and he was captain America its simply less believable.

Also objectivifying a treasure or beauty is easier to convey than the personality when time is an issue.

 

[Chairman Tickles]

Hey if you work in forensics and have keys to the morgue at least you get a chance with a 10. Giggity.

 

[MetalAlien]

In a perfect world no....... but yes.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Not a big deal.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

I wouldn't say it's more tragic in the sense that a person died, and precious life is now gone. How is society going to deal with the loss of this individual? None of that. It's more of a feeling that good pussy is now gone. For example, if a pornstar, and yes I know, not real beauty but you get the point, commits suicide. She noticed the guy fucking her in her last movie looked like uncle Jimmy, which her single mother brought home and stayed for the past 14 years and how he abused her. You're not going to be sad about her being dead. You're just going to be upset about the fact that she's not going to star in a possible 25 man quad penetration blow-bang video. It's like damn, what a good pussy, now that shit's gone. Oh well, time to move onto some new bitch pornhub.

The lack of subtlety in this post is on par with 5seconds posts.

 

[mcz117chief]

Maybe if she was a nice person. If she wasn't then who cares.

Do you know the TV show Daria? Watch the 13th episode of the 1st season. It is pretty much all about what you just wrote.

 

[etp_1]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but why limit it on man/woman? Any beautiful being is worth mourning...
So, no it is not more tragic especially if that person wasn't "good"...i would not care one bit.

 

[brap]

Do you know the TV show Daria? Watch the 13th episode of the 1st season. It is pretty much all about what you just wrote.

Who? Diarrhea? Hehe. And ok.

 

[Breakage]

Naturally beautiful women are not that common, so yeah I agree. When people think of beautiful women, I suspect most are thinking of the “maybe it's Maybelline” variety.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

No. There are higher things even than beauty -- the transcendent, to use your own terminology -- and people dying for those things is more tragic.

 

[lock2k]

Being a woman is playing on "I'm too young to die" and being a beautiful woman is also typing in IDDQD.

IDKFA is when they are successful gold diggers. lol

 

[iconmaster]

No. There are higher things even than beauty -- the transcendent, to use your own terminology -- and people dying for those things is more tragic.

Interesting. Martyrs, perhaps? Martin Luther King Jr., etc.

I'm starting to view this as a "hierarchy of tragedy":

- Martyrs for a cause (possibly too high, we'll see)
- Children
- Beautiful women
- Everyone else

 

[Gamerguy84]

I personlly think the death of a young person due to something senseless is what i consider more tragic.

Especially to violence, overdose, suicide, etc..

 

[strange headache]

What do you think? Am I sexist, or I have I touched on a profound truth?

Nice topic, but there is no such thing as "the most tragic". Comparing tragedies in order to establish a superlative is inevitably trying to cheapen one event for the sake of another. As such making it a competition takes away from the gravitas of a truly tragic event.

Also I think you are misconstruing Edgar Allen Poe's quote a little bit as tragic and poetical are two very different things. The former is defined by extreme sadness, the latter expresses the intent to emotionally express oneself through creative process. Poe wishes to convey that misery makes great art and the loss of a beloved, i.e. "beautiful", person is the king of traumatizing event that leads to great poetry. I do think that you're taking his quote a bit too literally. "Beauty" in this case not only refers to external looks, but also the beauty of soul or the beauty of mind.

I also don't think he's speaking specifically of women, it's merely a way to express to loss of a beloved person given that Poe is a male writer. I wouldn't say that he is trying to imply that the loss of a beloved male person would be in any way less tragic from a female perspective.

Lastly, I would say that you can add meaningless death or suffering to the list. The loss of a beloved person certainly is tragic, but at least you've got to experience something beautiful. The pointless death in a concentration camp or a Gulag, for example, can be way worse. People can bear tragic events and losses as long as they aren't without meaning, be it the spouse mourning over the loss of a beloved one, the hero who sacrifices his life for a higher cause or the firefighter giving his life in order to save somebody else.

Here is Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl about the devastating psychological effect of pointless suffering and death:





Despair = Suffering - Meaning

 

[Pagusas]

You know this makes me think about people in general. Some people say "everyone has something to offer, has something special about them". I dont believe that anymore. I think some people are just trash, uesless and have nothing at all special about them. They could if they wanted to, but because even there core is trash, they are unable/incapable of ever achieving anything in their lives.

 

[iconmaster]

Also I think you are misconstruing Edgar Allen Poe's quote a little bit as tragic and poetical are two very different things. The former is defined by extreme sadness, the latter expresses the intent to emotionally express oneself through creative process. Poe wishes to convey that misery makes great art and the loss of a beloved, i.e. "beautiful", person is the king of traumatizing event that leads to great poetry. I do think that you're taking his quote a bit too literally. "Beauty" in this case not only refers to external looks, but also the beauty of soul or the beauty of mind.

Poe's concept of Beauty is broad enough to encompass both. In the same essay he says, "When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect; they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul—not of intellect, or of heart—upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating 'the beautiful.'" And "Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."

So I take your point, but don't see it as contradicting my thesis. We would simply ask ourselves, "are some women physically beautiful?" and we'd have our solution.

Introducing the problem of the Holocaust or Stalin's purges is an interesting wrinkle. It seems there are several ways to one-up the beautiful woman! I wish now I'd been more precise and phrased my question as "more tragic than the death of an average individual" to exclude some of these extraordinary (but important) cases.

 

[Kamina]

It isn’t in the end, but it appears to be at first.
The death of a young person however is always more tragic.
As King Theoden said: No parent is supposed to bury their own child.

 

[entremet]

Beautiful people have life on easy mode. This is been thoroughly studied. We are extremely biased to physical beauty. This is everyone too. People of all sexual orientations and across sexes.

You know this makes me think about people in general. Some people say "everyone has something to offer, has something special about them". I dont believe that anymore. I think some people are just trash, uesless and have nothing at all special about them. They could if they wanted to, but because even there core is trash, they are unable/incapable of ever achieving anything in their lives.

I think this comes when we are confused with human dignity, which about inherent worth, no matter their virtue, talent, gifts, character, and so on.

Modern legal systems are based on human dignity, which why we cruel punishments are banned in many legal systems.

 

[strange headache]

So I take your point, but don't see it as contradicting my thesis. We would simply ask ourselves, "are some women physically beautiful?" and we'd have our solution.

But Poe speaks of beauty as an elevation of the soul which is not a physical trait. Furthermore he explains that beauty is not a property of the person that is beautiful but an affect of the beholder. As such beautiful people don't exist by themselves, they are merely a phenomenon of perception. In other words, beauty is a property bestowed upon you by others.

Introducing the problem of the Holocaust or Stalin's purges is an interesting wrinkle. It seems there are several ways to one-up the beautiful woman! I wish now I'd been more precise and phrased my question as "more tragic than the death of an average individual" to exclude some of these extraordinary (but important) cases.

Ah, but while these may be extreme cases, meaningless suffering is not extraordinary. Tell me, are the people starving in Somalia a necessity, or could their suffering be prevented and therefore meaningless? What about the homeless, the unsheltered, the downtrodden? Is their suffering meaningful or just the result of our own greed and hardheartedness. What's the purpose of their suffering? It has none. Humans bestow a lot of unnecessary suffering upon others.

If anything, I'd consider the loss of physical beauty to be a rather trivial matter as it's something ephemeral that tends to go away through the natural process of growing older anyway. I'd consider the loss of an inspiring artist, a genius scientists or a great thinker and intellectual to be a far greater loss. The passing away of Stephen Hawking is certainly more tragic than the death of a bimbo supermodel. Conversely, Hanna Arendt was by no stretch of the imagination a physically attractive person, but I'd consider her loss far more tragic than that of Marilyn Monroe.

Firm tits, asses and six-packs are abundant, great minds are not.

 

[mcz117chief]

Who? Diarrhea? Hehe. And ok.

Let me know how you liked the episode. I am genuinely interested, k?

 

[Halo is Back]

No there is an endless supply of hot babes. Just look at the butt thread

 

[haxan7]

Beauty is heavily subjective. A woman one man thinks is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen can seem plain and uninteresting to the majority of men. In that sense, if a woman who is particularly beautiful to you dies, it’s more of a personal loss.

The examples from the OP would be in line with this.

 

[brap]

Let me know how you liked the episode. I am genuinely interested, k?

Idk. It's truthful though. People for some reason always seem to feel bad when somebody dies even when it's an asshole. Also reminds me of how people on here used to post
>school shooting thread
>OMG I lived 500 miles away from that school I feel so bad
>celebrity death thread
>OMG fuck current year I saw one of this guys movies one time when I was a kid. So tragic.
It really makes you think.