OT: Fictional Characters Whose Death You Still Haven't Gotten Over

Retired711

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Nov 20, 2001
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If you recall, the final Col. Blake MASH episode had ended happily, or so we thought. They went to the final commercial and returned for the one minute denouement when usually nothing happens.

Col. Blake didn't have to die. It was unnecessary to the overall plot line. And yet, it was so necessary.
Here's McLean Stevenson on how he found out his character was being killed.

 
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RW90

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Feb 2, 2002
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If you recall, the final Col. Blake MASH episode had ended happily, or so we thought. They went to the final commercial and returned for the one minute denouement when usually nothing happens.

Col. Blake didn't have to die. It was unnecessary to the overall plot line. And yet, it was so necessary.
I always thought George Lucas's two eulogies before rolling the closing credits of American Graffiti completely out of place.
 

Rhuarc

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Jul 25, 2001
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They didn't kill Duke in the GI Joe movie because of the backlash from parents about this one.
 
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SouthJerseyRU

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Jan 30, 2002
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They didn't kill Duke in the GI Joe movie because of the backlash from parents about this one.
Interesting, never knew that. IIRC, the TV shows of those 2 where on back to back at like 3 and 3:30 on one of the Philly UHF stations in the 80s.
 
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Rhuarc

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Interesting, never knew that. IIRC, the TV shows of those 2 where on back to back at like 3 and 3:30 on one of the Philly UHF stations in the 80s.
Those were the glory days! i remember rushing home to watch them each day on channel 11 out of NY.
 

DC8690

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Feb 8, 2017
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A fictional death necessitated by a real life death.

While we're in that subcategory, I'll go back in time and nominate Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street.

You produce a show for preschoolers. A key actor dies. What do you do? Sesame Street made the very controversial decision to deal with it honestly. A lot of two year olds learned about death for the first time.
Leo McGarry West Wing
 

DC8690

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Feb 8, 2017
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If you recall, the final Col. Blake MASH episode had ended happily, or so we thought. They went to the final commercial and returned for the one minute denouement when usually nothing happens.

Col. Blake didn't have to die. It was unnecessary to the overall plot line. And yet, it was so necessary.
I thought the deal was MacLean Stevenson was such a pain in the *** that they wrote him off the show, and killed him off.
 
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krup

Heisman
Feb 5, 2003
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I thought the deal was MacLean Stevenson was such a pain in the *** that they wrote him off the show, and killed him off.
I believe you are mixing up two stories.

I had always heard killing was Blake was, as Stevenson said, to keep the character from being cheapened, but also as an FU to Stevenson for leaving a good thing and chasing money . Remember, they had to make a lot of cast changes within a few years and no one could be sure the show wasn’t going to suffer in the ratings for it.

The person the rest of the cast could not stand and were happy to see leave was Gary Burghoff.
 

Retired711

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I believe you are mixing up two stories.

I had always heard killing was Blake was, as Stevenson said, to keep the character from being cheapened, but also as an FU to Stevenson for leaving a good thing and chasing money . Remember, they had to make a lot of cast changes within a few years and no one could be sure the show wasn’t going to suffer in the ratings for it.

The person the rest of the cast could not stand and were happy to see leave was Gary Burghoff.
I've never met Gary Burghoff, but I recall seeing him on game shows (e.g. Hollywood Squares and the like) and he did not strike me as someone I would want to know.

McLean Stevenson remarked before his death that leaving MASH was the biggest mistake of his career. But it was probably good for the show to bring in Henry Morgan, just as it was probably good to replace Larry Linville with David Ogden Stiers -- fresh blood was needed. Everyone I've mentioned in this paragraph is now gone.
 

Goku

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Jul 25, 2001
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Mellish in Saving Private Ryan

As brutal as that movie is at times this is the one death I can't watch. The personal nature, face to face, inches apart, sweating on each other, begging for mercy fight is too much for me.
This is the winner. I won’t watch the movie again for that scene alone. Bravo to Spielberg for knowing all of the visuals and sounds to make you in anguish as you watch that kill. Most disturbing movie scene ever IMO
 

Knight177lb

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Did anyone ever see End of Watch? Came out in 2012 and was a great movie, but nobody ever talks about it. The death of Jake Gyllenhaal's partner played by Michael Pena really got to me.
 
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Knight177lb

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Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe) in Platoon
Marcus (Willem Dafoe) in John Wick

Why do you smoke this ****? So as to escape from reality? Me, I don't need this ****. I am reality. There's the way it ought to be. And there's the way it is. Elias was full of ****. Elias was a crusader. Now, I got no fight with any man who does what he's told, but when he don't, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain't gonna allow that in any of you. Not one.
 

Mufasa94

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Jan 9, 2009
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I believe you are mixing up two stories.

I had always heard killing was Blake was, as Stevenson said, to keep the character from being cheapened, but also as an FU to Stevenson for leaving a good thing and chasing money…
That was what I had heard and always assumed was true. Not that I had any inside info/connection as a grade schooler.
 

RUGuitarMan1

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I’ve gotten over all deaths both real and fictional. Part of life unfortunately. A meaningful death was Owen Meany in John Irving’s “A Prayer For Owen Meany”.
 
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Scarlet1984

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Jan 28, 2004
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If you recall, the final Col. Blake MASH episode had ended happily, or so we thought. They went to the final commercial and returned for the one minute denouement when usually nothing happens.

Col. Blake didn't have to die. It was unnecessary to the overall plot line. And yet, it was so necessary.

I didn’t recall all of the way it flowed. Good memory.