the five deaths meme, in no particular order
Bart Allen (DC comics)
It's because I'm still relatively new to the comics fandom, but I've always been good at reading the context, and I do like to do things such as spoil myself by reading wiki entries and reviews and so forth. Bart's assumption of the Flash costume and responsibilities came in the wake of having lost his powers battling Superboy Prime (that part is probably my favorite part of the entire stupid Crisis); he's always had such a strong sense of family, even when Wally didn't like him, and he was pretty much alone. To me it's so awful when a speedster is disabled, much moreso than any other power. It's about autonomy. It's about time. Their abilities permeate their entire life. You are what you do, and what they do is run. They're faster than anything: you can't perceive them, you can't catch them, they can't be pinned down. Except, of course, they can, and they are, and it feels very wrong to me.
Julian (Night)
Toward the end of the book, the narrator and the rest of the camp are sent to one farther from the encroaching front line. They are forced to run on foot the entire way. When they stop for the night, the narrator ends up in a small shack with many others, and eventually comes across Julian, a Polish violinist with whom he'd been friendly in the past. Somehow, Julian has managed to bring his violin with him, and he plays (possibly a hallucination on the narrator's part) to the shack of dead and dying. In the morning, the narrator finds him dead, and the violin smashed. Julian was not even mentioned earlier in the account, so this encounter seems to come out of nowhere, surreal and awful.
Kai (Lexx)
Hahahaha, shut up. I used to watch this show late at night on sci-fi, giggling like a retard at the endlessly, unashamedly un-subtle innuendo, and oddly stilted conversational exchanges. The reoccurring characters. The abrupt cast changes. Kai was a dead man, you see! A stoic hero, who was tragically murdered and then reanimated as an assassin by his greatest enemy. He has no feelings. "The dead do not _____". Somehow, it was all so endearing. When he finally is granted life, he immediately has to go sacrifice himself and die. Again. Late at night this was damn poignant, okay. I also liked that song.
Dan (Jo's Boys)
It was precisely at that moment when I realized that Louisa May Alcott was full of bullshit. Not because I thought Dan should've survived and come back and married what's-her-face. The nigh surreal moralizing. The rhapsodizing about what's-her-face's hair and impossibly sweet nature, everything good and pure and virginal. Oh, everyone comes around to the path of the righteous, but always too late! Suck it, losers!
Alfred (?) Borden (The Prestige)
In a way, it's about the entire movie and not so much just his death, but it's horrible and twisted and it didn't have to happen, and it's kind of beautiful too, the way it all winds together. This is not the Sixth Sense. By a certain point in the movie, you probably have some idea of what's really happening, but the way it's executed is awful and perfect. The sacrifices Alfred was willing to make ...
It's because I'm still relatively new to the comics fandom, but I've always been good at reading the context, and I do like to do things such as spoil myself by reading wiki entries and reviews and so forth. Bart's assumption of the Flash costume and responsibilities came in the wake of having lost his powers battling Superboy Prime (that part is probably my favorite part of the entire stupid Crisis); he's always had such a strong sense of family, even when Wally didn't like him, and he was pretty much alone. To me it's so awful when a speedster is disabled, much moreso than any other power. It's about autonomy. It's about time. Their abilities permeate their entire life. You are what you do, and what they do is run. They're faster than anything: you can't perceive them, you can't catch them, they can't be pinned down. Except, of course, they can, and they are, and it feels very wrong to me.
Julian (Night)
Toward the end of the book, the narrator and the rest of the camp are sent to one farther from the encroaching front line. They are forced to run on foot the entire way. When they stop for the night, the narrator ends up in a small shack with many others, and eventually comes across Julian, a Polish violinist with whom he'd been friendly in the past. Somehow, Julian has managed to bring his violin with him, and he plays (possibly a hallucination on the narrator's part) to the shack of dead and dying. In the morning, the narrator finds him dead, and the violin smashed. Julian was not even mentioned earlier in the account, so this encounter seems to come out of nowhere, surreal and awful.
Kai (Lexx)
Hahahaha, shut up. I used to watch this show late at night on sci-fi, giggling like a retard at the endlessly, unashamedly un-subtle innuendo, and oddly stilted conversational exchanges. The reoccurring characters. The abrupt cast changes. Kai was a dead man, you see! A stoic hero, who was tragically murdered and then reanimated as an assassin by his greatest enemy. He has no feelings. "The dead do not _____". Somehow, it was all so endearing. When he finally is granted life, he immediately has to go sacrifice himself and die. Again. Late at night this was damn poignant, okay. I also liked that song.
Dan (Jo's Boys)
It was precisely at that moment when I realized that Louisa May Alcott was full of bullshit. Not because I thought Dan should've survived and come back and married what's-her-face. The nigh surreal moralizing. The rhapsodizing about what's-her-face's hair and impossibly sweet nature, everything good and pure and virginal. Oh, everyone comes around to the path of the righteous, but always too late! Suck it, losers!
Alfred (?) Borden (The Prestige)
In a way, it's about the entire movie and not so much just his death, but it's horrible and twisted and it didn't have to happen, and it's kind of beautiful too, the way it all winds together. This is not the Sixth Sense. By a certain point in the movie, you probably have some idea of what's really happening, but the way it's executed is awful and perfect. The sacrifices Alfred was willing to make ...