Redditor Iridescent126 asked:
"What was the saddest fictional character death for you?"
Spock
"Spock, in Wrath of Khan."
- Lisa_Anns_Ass
"'I have been, and always shall be, your friend'.”
- MadMacs77
"'Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... human'."
- bozoconnors
GiphyStoick the Vast
"Stoick the Vast How to train your dragon"
"Dude literally just reunited with his wife after over 15 years of being gone and spends a total of about 15 minutes with her. Cause of death: basically took a bullet in the chest to protect his son."
- 24Nitro-gamer
"I saw it in theatres and a bunch of kids started to cry. Not like sniffing but out loud wailing. It added to the atmosphere."
- ThePurpleMister
"I cried, 20-something y.o. dude just ugly crying"
- leotushex
The Iron Giant
"The Iron Giant will ALWAYS have me ugly crying when he goes up to stop the missle"
- muhfckinuhhh
GiphyWhere The Red Fern Grows
"The dogs in 'Where the Red Fern Grows'."
- johnny*mseed
"Came here to say this. This book destroyed me in grade five but also really demonstrated grief in such a profound way."
- such_sweet_nothing
Bubba
"Bubba in Forrest Gump. That whole scene had me wrecked."
"From Bubba's weak, 'I wanna go home,' to Forrest's narration saying he died by that river in Vietnam while showing him holding Bubba....."
"God damn, I'm crying just thinking about it."
- ChuckZombie
GiphySaving Private Ryan
"Saving Private Ryan has two of the saddest, most brutally gut wrenching deaths I’ve ever seen on screen in Wade and Mellish."
"Wade trying to talk the guys through his injury that goes from panic and terror to acceptance of his own death as he cries out for his mother and says 'I want to go home'? Jesus Christ."
"Mellish is brutal for all the more uncomfortable and raw reasons you’d imagine. War is horrific. Young men are sent off to die, and their lives are cut short for no reason."
"It’s tragic and heartbreaking, and this is one of the only movies to really nail that feeling"
- Tuna-No-Crust
Ellie From Up
"Ellie from 'UP' gets me everytime"
- MaterialScientist420
"Sometimes I wonder how movies ever took off when the first ones were short with no sound."
"Then I remember the time a 10 minute animation with no dialogue absolutely wrecked me. It's a god-damned masterpiece and I hate it."
- cycloptian_tit
GiphyM*A*S*H Had A Few
"Henry Blake. MAS*H. The scene in the operating room. The actors weren’t told about it, just called back for one last scene shoot and Radar walks in and tells them. The silence is amplified by the sounds of instruments still working. Haunting"
- Salami_sub
"Piggy backing off this, the guy they tried to keep alive so his kids wouldn't remember Christmas as the day their dad died. That one gets me just thinking about it."
- GaussfaceKilla
"I just saw that one like a month ago! That was totally heartbreaking. Hawkeye spins the clock forward to twelve o five December twenty sixth and they all conspire to forge his death certificate"
- The_Dynasty_Group
My Girl
"'He can’t see without his glasses'"
- peesherman42
"What made this especially shocking/sad is that the entire movie was a huge bait-and-switch, but in a really effective way."
"At the time, 11-year old me thought -- based on the trailers and the marketing -- that I was about to watch a lighthearted coming-of-age movie."
"And while it does have some of that, boy did it have a macabre edge to it."
- Geekboxing
Littlefoot's Mom
"Littlefoot’s mother’s death"
- 2-DMan
"My son fell in love with this movie when he was 3 or 4, and every time that part would come on I would have to leave the room because no matter what age I am, I will always get emotional. Something about the music and the overall vibe that really just punches me in the gut."
- isurfnude4foods
"The music plus the quote 'Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely'. It's so beautiful and tragic."
- fiofo
GiphyThe sign of a great story is how it can touch our hearts and sometimes break it.
So what was the saddest character death for you?
Fan theories generally arise to fill in the gaps or resolve unanswered questions from the original work.
Sometimes those lines blur.
Redditor redhead_in_red asked:
"What unofficial fan theory makes so much sense you consider it canon?"
Diversion, Just a Diversion
"James Bond is the loud distraction that lets the real spies do their work undetected."
"As soon as he rocks up to a new location he says 'BOND. JAMES BOND IS HERE. THE SPY. I'M HERE'."
- Legitimate-Suspect-3
GiphyTwo Sides, One Coin
"Mary Poppins is the same species as Pennywise (It), except she feeds off children's joy instead of their fear."
- perishingtardis
GiphyRebel Scuma
"Admiral Ozzel in the Empire Strikes Back is a rebel spy. He does everything possible to deflect suspicion from Hoth, first by trying to prevent Piett from reporting the finding to Vader, and then by trying to deflect suspicion to smugglers once Vader overhears."
"Then, once Vader has made up his mind to attack the rebel base, Ozzel "goofs up" the hyperspace jump, alerting the rebels to the Imperial fleet and giving them time they otherwise would not have had to evacuate the base."
"Everything he does is either hilariously incompetent, even by imperial standards, or perfectly designed to give the rebels the best possible chance to survive."
"'Clumsy as he is stupid' or an agent who sacrificed his life to give the rebellion a chance? You decide."
- JustafanIV
Animated GIFGiphySee an Optometrist
"Dora the Explorer is visually impaired."
- Shatterphim
"This one is true. I get so sick and tired of showing her where sh*t is on the map like how tf do you not see it bruh??"
- Alm8360NoScoPro
Giphy*pew-pew*
"Storm Troopers are actually very accurate, but in both New Hope and Empire, they were under orders to not shoot to kill."
"In New Hope, Vader knew Obi-Wan was on board. He wanted to face him personally."
"In Empire, it's because they needed them to escape on the Falcon in order to follow the tracer they installed on it, and thus find the new rebel base."
- ArcadianDelSol
GiphyWhich Witch Is Which?
"Nothing supernatural happened in the original Blair Witch project. It was just two friends conspiring to murder another friend, and terrorizing her before doing it."
- SnooChipmunks126
blair witch horror GIF by LionsgateGiphyDoes Michael know?
"KITT (Knight Rider) was built from a crashed Cylon (original Battlestar Galactica)."
- MadMacs77
Kid Smoking GIF by YK Animation StudioGiphyAn Eye Open
"King Of The Hill: Dale is in fact under surveillance."
"In the final episode, we learn that Boomhauer is a Texas Ranger. There is a theory that Dale was just wacko enough for the feds to notice, and they looked for, and found, a ranger who had known him from boyhood."
"It is more or less his job to monitor Dale. Since Dale isn't really dangerous, Boomhauers job is very easy."
"It's why we never really see him work, he just drinks beer with Dale, files reports weekly, and has plenty of time to chase women."
- Elendilmir
GiphyHoungry
"Palpatine siphoned Padme’s life force to keep Vader alive. That was his Sith secret to eternal life - draining the life of others."
- DJZbad93
GiphyMeta Morty
"Rick in Rick and Morty knows that they are in a TV show and actively makes an effort to keep the show entertaining because he knows that cancellation would be the true end to his existence."
- Yoctatrine
GiphyAndy's Dad
"In Toy Story, Andy's dad got Woody from a special promotion in cereal boxes that was stopped early because the show was canceled. That's why he's so rare and doesn't know his own backstory."
"Woody doesn't remember Andy's dad as a past owner because his name is also Andy and his kid looks a lot like him."
- Haterade_ONON
GiphyBetter Failsafe Than Sorry
"That Batman's plans to take out all the Justice League members in case they 'go rogue' isn't just about in case we get yet another Superman goes fascist story."
"It's a long term failsafe for future generations in case the Speedster or Kryptonian 5 generations down the line when the original leaguers are all dead isn't as nice as the original."
- Nayko214
GiphyR.R. You George?
"George R.R. Martin died after the last book release. He’s been impersonated by mall Santas in the off season so people would keep watching the show. All they had to do was switch hats."
‐ Pancake_Guardian
"What if the George R R Martin we know isn’t the writer, just the public face, and the ghost writer actually doing the books died and so he’s just stalling pretending he’s still writing them?"
- Thebogusgasman
GiphyNeverland
"Peter Pan is actually a villainous demon who murders children to prevent them from growing up while Captain Hook is the one who got away."
- ChampionshipRemote94
"He's a changeling so aside from the murder, yeah. It's Tinkerbell that originally stole him cos faeries are messed up."
"I totally think Captain Hook was a stolen child that came back to try and free the other kids."
- ghostofmyhecks
GiphySpongeBob Mutated Pants
"Bikini Bottom was the sight of atombomb testing, that's why everybody is so weird. They are mutated fish."
- MonoDilemma
Giphy
"An aging covert operative brought out of a kind of forced retirement to infiltrate an island and prevent a group of mercenaries from killing millions with experimental missile-based military technology."
- AdvocateSaint
Giphy"Yeah, my brother and I decided that Connery's character in The Rock is an aged 007 and Eastwood's character in Unforgiven is a Man with No Name who survived into late middle age and tried to put down his pistols."
- Devi1_May_Cry
GiphySome of these make perfect sense.
Others stretch the canon pretty thin.
So what do you think?
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Reddit user aggravated_rub_3575 asked:
"If you could choose to live in one fictional universe/world, which one would you choose and why?"
and obviously I'm not the only one to spend time daydreaming about this sort of thing. I'm also not the only one who's pretty sure they're NOT getting whatever fictional world bonuses exist.
Even we power-pessimists have some pretty dope options, though. Take a look!
The Shire
the lord of the rings party GIFGiphy"Middle Earth, so I could be in the Shire (except for during the Scourge of course). Seems so unbelievably peaceful to be a hobbit"
- novascotia3898
"Being a hobbit would be great. You live longer, only have to deal with superficial stressors, wizards roll into town like the circus"
- TheExtraMayo
"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
- Babstana
"I'd love to party with hobbits in the best years."
- DuncanDickson
"The Shire."
"You farm a little, eat seven times a day, drink ale, and smoke the Hobbits Leaf."
"Maybe have a run in with a wizard, but otherwise, life is peaceful and calm. Your house is built into a hill that's covered in soft, green grass."
- Qu33nM4ry
Statistically A Peasant
fox news GIFGiphy"Depends if I can choose my role in that world."
"The vast majority of options mean that statistically, I'd be a peasant in terrible conditions worse than my actual life lol."
- dizzlefoshizzle02
"Exactly, I'm loving the super power worlds but would suck if I'm the civilian person"
- NuttyDuckyYT
"Everyone always assumes they get to live like the hero of he story they are entering, but in reality they could get to live as a peasant."
- Hutch25
Only One Answer
Picard Role Model GIF by Star TrekGiphy"There is only one answer: the Federation in Star Trek is as utopian as it gets (I ignore JJ's Mirror Universes wherever I can)."
"There are little real threats for the federation itself. If you live in a nice place, probably a metropolitan area on Earth or someplace else nice, it is probably as good as it can ever get without becoming a god or something in some other Universe."
"Even if you go to a rural place you have locally so much advanced tech (even in your cottage!) that you're probably far better taken care of than anything we might even imagine today."
"Free time for hobbies en masse, Holodecks, nature, lots of cool people, free high-tier education of all sorts, replicators, spaceflight if you want to go somewhere, absolutely stunning medical care, teleporters connecting major places even cross-continent on a planet, nearly no serious crime, no major wars that threaten the core of it..."
"Sure, it is also not 100% perfect, but probably as perfect as it can get."
"And the important part: it is that for LITERALLY EVERYONE, not just 'Live at Universe X and if you are one of the few Chosen Ones it is awesome.' "
- Deals_With_Dragons
A Peaceful Valley
stardew valley steam GIFGiphy"Stardew Valley. You get a house and a farm and apparently no bills to pay, which is pretty nice."
"You can work as much or as little as you want. You can fish, farm, mine, or just wander around talking to people. You can even just forage or raid people's garbage cans and sell the items for cash."
"There are monsters and such, but you never die. At the worst, you get knocked out and wake up at home minus fifty coins because I guess they have socialized healthcare or something."
"There are even festivals you can go to. You can even get a pet for free."
- eddyathome
The Last Airbender
Animated GIFGiphy"Avatar: the Last Airbender. I think infrastructure would be a lot better, and being a bender would be cool in a boring dystopia."
- retinasearedliketuna
"Considering even non-benders can train to be anime character running up walls and doing all sorts of crazy sh*t, I'd still think of it as a complete upgrade."
"A setting where I can literally abandon all human interaction to learn with a sage sounds amazing."
"I wish I could do that in real life sometimes. I'm not religious, but I've seriously considered becoming a friar or someone who lives at a church and leads a very modest life of just helping people."
- Darkwoth81Dyoni
"Just don't become a cabbage merchant."
- Bamboozle_
"My cabbages!"
- Dinokkid
We're Wizards, Harry! But Do We Want To Be?
Sad Harry Potter GIFGiphy"As a kid I always thought about Harry Potter and the Wizards World it would be fantastic to be a part of it and experience the magic"
- ObjectiveSquirrel820
"Why the hell isn't this the top answer? I had to scroll down so far to find it, because this is obviously the right answer."
"Sure, others sound cool too, but we grew up watching/reading these and it's one of the most popular series in the world because people adore it so much."
"I still hear adults talking about their Hogwarts house, there's a whole ass Harry Potter World, and they even recently built a huge ass multi level store in New York City that sells only Potter merchandise."
"Come on now. We know this is the real answer."
- RynnChronicles
"Oof no thank you. The Wizard world is f*cked up."
"A school, next to an evil forest, where children are regularly killed? Check."
"An inept, corrupt government thoroughly infested with dark wizards, who is the primary employer in the region, with no system of checks or balances other than regular elections? Check."
"A broken legal system with a prison that literally drains your soul, where you can be sent without a trial and without bail for any reason? Check."
"Everybody has easy access to rape drugs and it's perfectly legal to use them? Check."
"Everyone has access to polyjuice potions and can easily impersonate anyone? Check."
"A world where innovation has stagnated because magic solves so many problems, and therefore there hasn't been any real technological progress since the 1700s? Check."
"I mean shit, so many of the problems in Harry Potter could have easily been solved if they just had cell phones. Or, as the meme goes, a freaking gun."
"I could go on. Have fun in the wizarding world, I'm happy being a muggle."
- livious1
The Matrix
Keanu Reeves No GIFGiphy"This all seems hard, I'm going to stay here and be an accountant."
"Screw it, my fictional universe is The Matrix. But I don't do anything, I just go to work every day in a modern but pre-9/11 world."
- burn-babies-burn
"Lol great answer. We choose the Matrix thinking we will be the next Neo but instead it's just life as usual. I'm laughing too hard at this, thanks for that imagery."
- tykogars
"Can I just be put into the Matrix and not deal with the robots? A peaceful simulation would be nice."
- SwingSoHigh
Well... There's The Whole Dragon Thing...
time feels GIFGiphy"Skyrim."
"I know everything that's going to happen in almost every quest, I know lore tidbits and facts about Tamriel that even the most learned scholars wouldn't know."
"I've been every type of character from thief to noble warrior, I know how to talk and how to say the right things to the right characters."
"Plus if mods are allowed I have the cheat room, impossible armors, I can save Miraak, I can give myself horns and wings and the character editor would completely eliminate my body dysphoria."
"I use Skyrim as an escapism because I can control almost everything in that world but can control next to nothing in this life so yeah :) "
- SapphicsAndStilettos
Nice, Even As A Regular Citizen
elated twin peaks the return GIF by Twin Peaks on ShowtimeGiphy"Anno 2205."
"Life would be great even as a regular citizen. The only things that there really is to object to is a corporation having a private, armed navy, and this same corporation having essentially as much power and influence as a government with its ability to build entire cities and establish colonies on the moon."
"Having said that though, the reality of the situation seems to be that despite all this power and influence, the corporations of Anno 2205 have nothing but utmost respect for the environment."
"They fully embrace automation but create lots of highly skilled jobs and build enormous, aesthetically pleasing (to me anyway) and environmentally friendly cities. They have near limitless ability to abuse and exploit to create the worst cyberpunk dystopia you could ask for, but they have gone in the opposite direction by actively caring for their environment and people."
"The big unknown is what the social and healthcare services are like in these corporate cities and it could go several ways."
"Best case is there is a full social safety net paid for by taxes diligently paid by these megacorps to the remaining governing body due to lessons learned from the previous centuries."
"The worst is that its completely sink or swim. However, it can be assumed that by living in these cities you are guaranteed to have some form of job, but we'll never know for sure."
"The population seems healthy, happy, professionally fulfilled and has come off the cusp of near apocalyptic environmental disaster (from 2070). They've finally cracked Fusion power as well, so from there its only a matter of time (and in fact well within their capability) before they start building starships to build colonies on Mars and the rest of the solar system."
"The main barrier is propulsion technology, but if they can figure out some kind of working EM Drive or even FTL travel then the galaxy is theirs for the taking."
"Being a citizen in Anno 2205 is to be part of a future of incredible technological development and optimism, with plenty of work to be done and no real military threats to worry about as Orbital Watch as a terrorist organization are pretty pathetic."
- Crembels
What's Up, Aslan?
the witch narnia GIFGiphy"Narnia."
"I'm a zoologist and my job would be a Helluva lot easier if animals could talk."
"Like instead of observing them for months to figure out why they're doing something, I could just go 'Yo, why you doing that?' and they could tell me."
- Frantastic79
I'm not even about to try and lie. My answer was the Shire, but I'm 4'9" (almost 4'11" if my hair is being amazing that day) and I really like plants and food, so I'm pretty much a hobbit already.
Of COURSE I said the Shire.
What about you?
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