Okay, I've just realized something that could end up becoming a bit of a problem for my WIP series. I have a character that was three death scares, two in the first act, one in the third, but she never dies and she isn't supposed to. The problem arises with the fact that, if she was allowed to die, then I could kill her off, but she just can't. If she dies at any point in the story, the MCs lose. Now, this isn't because she's some OP monster of a character, it's that she needs to be with another MC at the end of Act 2, and, if she isn't, that MC dies and a major villain is left alive, which would screw over the rest of the MCs. On to the death scares. The first is when she gets poisoned and her heart stops. Another MC uses electricity to restart it and save her, which is needed to show the rest of the MCs that they can restart someones heart with electricity, or else the third death scare kills the subject of this thread. The second scare is when her boat gets destroyed by a sea monster. This is necessary or else she never learns how to properly fight (it's a bit of a story, too long to get into in this thread). The third happens when she risks death to save another MC, and it looks like she's gonna stay dead this time. This happens because she is completely outmatched by her enemy and there really is no way she was gonna win, but the person she's saving can win. Okay, defending the threat of death's prevalence in my story now. There is an MC that dies in the first act, and that death mirrors the scare that happens in Act 2. I'll be honest here, this MC dies because he has no place in the rest of the story. If he were to stay around, the story would get much harder for me to write. Another named character that dies is the person who took care of the girl when she was separated from the other MCs, his name is Raul (I guess that doesn't really matter to the thread, huh?). There's also a civil war in Act 2 that doesn't really go well for the good guys. So... I guess a lot of death there? Yeah, as you can see, I'm really worried about the threat of my MCs dying is going to disappear, taking almost all of the dramatic stakes with it. So, I am here asking for either a way to fix the problem, or an assurance that this won't be a problem in the first place. The Point: I have a character that isn't allowed to die, but has three necessary death scares. Is there a way to circumvent this problem, or should I stick with it and hope that the threat of death for my MCs doesn't become meaningless to my readers? Disclaimer: I really want to believe that this isn't a problem, so forgive me if my bias shows during this, I'll try to keep it in check.
Why do any of these need to be death scares rather than just tense, high-stakes scenes? It's the fake-out, I think, that's the problem. She can be in peril a bunch of times without it looking like she's for sure toast, but surprise, she's really not. When you have a lot of characters who die, and this one keeps almost biting it but not quite, that just makes it seems more and more like they have plot armor, imo. It definitely does diminish the effect. Let her be in danger and get fucked up, but don't push it so close to "and then she died" and then hastily roll it back, especially multiple times for one character. Maybe the poisoning could happen to some other character. Her boat can be destroyed but let her just have a fight scene with a sea beast or whatever, not appear to've died over it. The third one would probably be the one to keep as a death scare, if you have to keep any of them, but you could also just let her get injured without teasing the death -- or, let her actually die.
I personally don't like fake out deaths. It diminishes the purpose of high stakes and overall presents one's MC as a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Why are the fake deaths necessary? Makes the point of the character not allowed to die moot. Even if it was to scare other characters, it seems pointless. My two cents.
Personally, I have some trouble by buying fake death scenes. After the second, for some instinctive reason I start to wish that the death, somehow, actually happens. Maybe it's just envy of that someone can survive so many death attempts unscathed, but for whatever reason it is, I sense it as uncomfortable. Even more, I associate to some sort of "plot tantrum" in order to grab forceful attention, rather than a relevant point for the plot. I would rather empathize with a character that survives in real bad shape maximum two events of death, and even on that, expect that the consequences are catastrophic for his wellbeing. Maybe can be handled successfully on the execution, but at first impulse I don't like it. Unrelated, but pertinent to the overall theme of faking death as a way of tantrum, couldn't avoid to remember this passage from Seneca, on "On the Shortness of Life" Spoiler: Seneca - On the Shortness of Life (Turannius' death) I can't pass over one example that occurs to me. Gaius Turannius was an old man of proven diligence who was past ninety when, on the emperor's initiative, he was granted retirement from his administrative post by Gaius Caesar; he gave instructions for himself to be laid out on his bed and to be mourned by his as- sembled household as if he were dead. The house lamented its elderly master's unemployment and didn't cease their mourning until his job was restored to him. Is it really such a pleasure to die preoccupied? https://archive.org/stream/SenecaOnTheShortnessOfLife/Seneca+on+the+Shortness+of+Life_djvu.txt
If your character isn't allowed to die then you're not in control of the story. Show that character whose boss, make them wish they were dead. False deaths weaken reader faith, the laws in your world, and any dramatic tension.
I gave it some thought, and I realized that the fake deaths weren't necessary, it was the things that happen as a result of them, which could easily be fixed with a few tweaks. I mean, there is another person who the poison could get to for completely plausible reasons. Hell, I just thought of one while writing this. Could the second one be worked around by immediately showing the reader that she isn't actually dead? Like, what if the next chapter opens with her being alive and feeling the consequences of her boat being destroyed? That way, only the characters in the story think she's dead (Except for one, but those people are par for the coarse in this scenario.). (I should've said earlier that she does, in fact, fight the monster prior to her boat being destroyed. That one's on me.) The last one is unavoidable, in my opinion. It's there to snap another MC out of a fear of the enemy. Actually, now that I think about it, the fake death isn't needed for that, huh? Could it just be that the other MC can't stand seeing their friend go through so much pain for them? would that work? I wanted to address this one specifically because I haven't yet covered it yet, like I could with the broad strokes of my other answers. If it looks like keeping around one of the MCs, including the subject of this thread, will only hinder the story, then I would gladly through them off of a cliff. However, I haven't yet found that to be true. It is true that I am subject to hyperbole, so maybe I shouldn't have said that the subject of this thread isn't allowed to die when it's far more accurate to say that I really enjoy her current role in the story and don't see it necessary to change it at this point. So that one's on me. If I do see that her role needs changing, then I would gladly do it. Thanks for the responses! They were quite helpful.
