...is often done for dramatic effect. But does it cheapen the death if the character is brought back to life? Some background: Two of the main characters in my current project die. One comes back to life on her own because she's immortal. The other, the main character, is brought back to life by an outside influence. The immortal character doesn't know she is, and neither does anyone else, so naturally people mourn. The main character is not, and were it not for said outside influence, she would have stayed dead. Both scenes are emotionally upsetting for the others involved. In one instance, someone loses a mother; in the other, a wife. In both, someone loses a dear friend. My question is this: Would/could the impact these characters' deaths have on their loved ones be cheapened or lessened somehow by them being brought back?
Some advice I've heard: Don't do it in the first chapter. This frustrates the reader and they assume they've wasted the investment and they'll have to turn their attention to a completely different person the rest of the book. That said, if you kill the character and bring them back in the same chapter, or wait until you're a few chapters in, I think it's feasible. Doctor Who kills its main character off periodically, so, in the words of Chancellor Palpatine... Dew it. I kill off a character in my book, but the next book the villain turns back time, so he comes back because of that. However, things get messed up. And I don't mean time paradoxes. My brand of time travel is non-paradoxical. It's literally impossible to have time paradoxes the way I write time travel. (And I only use it once.) Even though the villain takes everything back to square one, everyone who made it through the time jump retains their knowledge of the previous timeline, and the villain uses it to turn the protagonists' objective (and the story) away from the original target in the first book. So it's not a rehash of the first book.
Gotta say yeah. Especially since it's both of them. But I think that it's something that, with sufficient context, could be made to work. The character who doesn't know she's immortal is an interesting angle, and I do think that the first 'death' of a character who can't ultimately die should probably be dramatic and treated like any other serious character death. I'm more concerned about the other one, because that's the point where I'd start to wonder if death is just a very cheap and ineffectual thing in this story. Can this outside influence affect anyone? Is anyone ever in any real danger if they can just be brought back to life willy-nilly? My first thought is that there need to be consequences. In one of my wips there's a relatively easy way to bring people back from the dead, but they always come back 'wrong', so it's hardly a fix-all - most of the time the people who come back aren't too happy about it. You still don't want to die because you'll lose a part of yourself / gain something you didn't want, and the people with the power to resurrect you might not want to do it at all in case you come back dangerous. There still has to be some penalty or hardship, or death means nothing. Second thought, I could definitely see a compelling story in the immortal character becoming sort of obsessed with her own immortality, and the dead character's lack thereof, and going to some kind of extreme, possibly one-time measures to bring her back. If it's that kind of thing, where the story is about the resurrection, I could definitely get into it. I'd still want there to be some sort of repercussion, but a setting where death can be circumvented but it takes a whole story to do so is a step above one where it's just a subplot, in my opinion. (Sorry for any typos, haven't slept.)
It's definitely not in the first chapter. The first one is halfway through, during a skirmish. They bury her and move on, and she comes back a couple chapters later after they've already mourned her. The main character is killed by the Big Bad during the final battle, toward the end. Again, she's brought back a couple chapters later, and the intervening ones focus on the other characters' reaction and the effect it has. Izzy: The main character suffers post-traumatic stress because of her death. To the point where she considers resigning from the military. She might develop a mental disorder, I'm not sure. I guess it could happen regularly. The outside influence is another character who has that ability. It's an interesting situation though, because death in war is a given, and this other character knows that, but at the same time (wanting to spare someone else from going through similar emotional torment).
Resurrection does generally cheapen death in the story, and knowing it's possible weakens tension. You can get some of it back by introducing costs and consequences to resurrection. Martin did this well in A Song of Ice and Fire, with Beric Dondarrion, who dies some six times before choosing to truly die. Each time, he's a little lesser for it: "Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?"
But he was sneaky about it. He gave the readers no inkling that it would be a possibility. And he made sure to do it after the readers were SUPER invested in the character. So when Gandalf came back, we, along with the other characters, experienced all the natural emotions of shock, confusion, mistrust, and eventually, rejoicing. The trick is to not make it gimmicky, but to make it serve the plot in a powerful and important way. And also to make the readers heavily invested in the character so that a) we're devastated when s/he dies, b) when s/he comes back, we don't want to believe it at first because we're so afraid of being let down, and b) we can forgive what might appear to be slightly 'convenient' because we're so happy they're back.
I use time travel to bring back the villain. It's a complicated process and he can only do it once. But it also brings back everyone who was alive at the time he traveled back to, so a protagonist comes back to life with no memory of the previous timeline before the jump.
I'm not saying it can't be done, and I'm not saying that it can't be good, but twice in the same book would probably irritate me. I'm usually a fan of dead people staying dead. Bringing one person back will make the next persons death less serious. When the next person gets up from death, well we won't care if anyone else dies. It can feel like a cheap trick. Like you wanted your readers to FEEL this pain, but -haha- no, you're not ready to let the character go. If it is needed for your plot, do it. Just make sure to make the readers happy - not irritated - about it.
I'd have the immortal person come back, if it's important to the story. Keep the other one dead, or simply don't kill them if you don't have to and don't want to lose them yet. You can also have people think someone is dead, but have them survive somehow without actually dying. I would do that with the immortal character the first time, make it seem like they survived by sheer luck, then kill them again for real and then it becomes obvious why this person is surviving...they're immortal. Kill other people around them too, non-essentials if you want, so it seems more realistic and not just like anyone can potentially be immortal. Make it known they are special.
I don't think that killing a character, especially the main one, in the first chapter would be beneficial. It mostly depends on how long the first chapter is, but i doubt that a person can make a good bond with the character in a single chapter to affect them with their death. So i completely agree.
I think the death of the immortal character is interesting. The other one may be a problem, especially because you already had one resurrection. What if, instead of dying, you leave the character severely injured and about to die? People would experience fear and denial and maybe that could work for your story. Just thinking out loud =)
I would say as long as there is CONSEQUENCE to the death, then it's alright. Technically speaking, death is just a 'change' in the book. It's no different from a character going to another country, or going into outer space. The important part is that it has a dramatic impact on the character's personal view of his surroundings, that the character is CHANGED for it, and that his outlook on the story is not the same. If a character is the same before change as he is afterwards, no matter what that change is, the reader is disappointed.
I am gonna play the Deus Ex Machina Card against thee. If they are immortal, then who cares if they 'die", as they really won't. Mortality has more of an impact, because they are not going to bounce back from death. Immortal characters are just a plot demand, so they don't have to die. Or is that a a plot-hole or a Deus Ex Machina? Want to have some fun, then you might actually kill them off, otherwise it won't mean much. Or are they demigods, in which you have an outlet for their 'immortal' status to some degree. But it is still kinda contrived so you don't have to face the music.
Twice in one book does seem rather gimmicky. I would think very carefully about whether this is strictly necessary. If so, it needs to be a core part of the story and the rules for it need to be made explicitly clear or no one will ever fear danger in your stories. I like this idea a lot. Notice that Dr.Meow has made the immortality a core part of the story. It's almost a plot twist; your reader has passed off multiple near deaths as luck or skill but you've revealed it as something larger and more surprising. Have the character's memories and personality reflect the idea that this may have happened before, when they were a child. That childhood trauma they have, they actually died. That's got some oomph.
My opinion would be yes, it does cheapen the grief. However, if done well, it could be pulled off - look at Aslan in Narnia, and it's a British children's classic and by far C.S. Lewis' most famous fiction works. But doing it well is the trick, and I'm afraid I have no clue how to do it well. If the character is well-loved enough, readers may not care that it cheapens the death. I know I felt that way in Death Note - if you've seen the anime/manga, you'll know who I'm referring to. That episode was a masterpiece man. In the anime Sailor Moon, everyone also comes back to life but loses all their memories. As a child I thought that was such a clever ending. As an adult, I do still enjoy that ending. It's about the only one that was good in the entire series (it has many more seasons afterwards and reused the same resurrection gimmick throughout). But both this one and Death Note's examples are Japanese and done in an entirely different medium, so things likely do not translate into European narrative. If no one knows your immortal character is immortal, and the character herself doesn't know either, and then she comes back to life, quite honestly this could just feel like an ass pull. You need to be very careful about foreshadowing it.
Thanks for all your input. As for the immortal character: I rewrote a couple chapters so that it's a sort of Gandalf thing, where no one expects it. Neither one of their deaths (or whatever) are foreshadowed; it happens abruptly. Neither is their coming back. I think I might go with the close to death idea for the main character. The way I have it written now, the big bad actually kills her, which sets up the sequence of events leading to his death. Right now the outline looks like this. The more I look at it, the more I want to make Ghost (the main) only close to death, but only if Valisilwyn and Nassiil's reaction is the same, and genuine.
I am not a fan of the dead coming back to life again in a story, unless it's clearly a myth (like happens in fairy tales, on occasion.) It really kills any jeopardy you introduce later on. Even if my favourite character gets killed they won't REALLY be dead, so I'm not bothered.... I'm not saying it can't be done well (as in Gandalf) but it's a dangerous game to play with the reader. There is another way to do this, though. Have the character not actually die. People think he or she has died, but they are mistaken. Again, you don't want to pull this one off too frequently, but it's more believable. The omigod, I thought you were DEAD moment is easier to believe than I died, but now I'm back.
Now that I think on it some more, I think the impact would actually be greater with the "I thought you were dead" route. Plus with the immortal character already doing it, I don't want to cheapen death. I think I'll change that part. Thanks again.
Resurrection is a very shaky territory. In my view, the key to doing it right is consequence, there should an underlining sense of hardship to gain that resurrection. Them getting axed off in one chapter, only for them to be brought back 'by the POWA OF WOVE! does cheapening the concept of death in the context of their world. For the story I'm planning, I want to have my MC's death to end the book, then have the sequel have many chapters dedicated to one of the character's finding the way to bring him back by exploiting a loop hole (Which was heavily foreshadowed much earlier in the story) in the manner in which the MC was killed. He doesn't get his life back because the plot demands he does, he gets it back because of his best friend's unshakeable determination to fight through hell to get him back.
The way I did it, the villain used a time reset to bring himself back. He was a ghost, which only certain dragons return as (the Rishnaran determines who.) A living dragon constructs the portal and Zarakharn performs the spell and goes through. The main characters from the previous book and their families also make it through the portal before it closes and resets time to the point Zarakharn intended. As a side effect, one of the characters Zarakharn killed comes back, since Zarakharn reset the past to a point before that happened. Since he died and thus didn't go through the portal, he has no knowledge of the previous timeline, unlike those who went through the portal before the reset. Since this ability a) can only be used once, Zarakharn can't do it again. b) is considered dark magic, the protagonists won't use it. c) messes things up a lot if you go way back, because there's no going forward. d) disrupts the entire time continuum, irreversibly erasing the events between the point of the reset and the event of the reset itself, so it is an absolute last resort, which the other antagonists' leader Fiandarsh has had a bad experience with in the past, the other antagonists won't use it against Zarakharn or the protagonists. (Fiandarsh attempted a time reset but his brother prevented him from going through the portal. This caused the universe to play the events out exactly as before since nobody came through to introduce new knowledge to the timeline. When Fiandarsh failed again as a result of this, he attempted to use the time reset, not knowing he had wasted his opportunity already. To his anger, his brother relayed information from the Rishnaran of what happened and why Fiandarsh could not remedy his mistakes.)
