40 Fictional Characters Whose Deaths Were So Devastating, People Can’t Get Over Them
As readers and viewers, we often become deeply invested in the lives of fictional characters. We follow their stories, rooting for their success, and feeling their pain. So it's no surprise that we're sobbing over their death, too.
In a recent Reddit thread, users were asked to share the saddest fictional character death they had experienced, and the responses are like a testament to one of the biggest signs of being human — empathy. So grab a tissue and continue scrolling to relive some powerful emotions.
Also, don't miss the conversation we had on the topic with game writer and published author from Seattle, WA, Pierre Demery. You'll find it in between the entries.
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Ellie from UP gets me everytime
cycloptian_tit replied:
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.
To better understand this literary device, Pierre Demery suggests looking at it from two angles.
"From a narrative perspective, I would define a sad character death as an event that emotionally alters how the affected characters (usually the protagonist) view and navigate the world in which the narrative takes place in," he told Bored Panda.
"From an audience perspective, a sad character death is exactly what it is: a heart-breaking, tear-jerking, tragic ending for a (usually beloved or fan-favorite) character."
John Coffey in the Green Mile.
There's a passage in the book (around the time Paul and Brutal and Harry take John to see Melinda Moores) when they pass through the room that houses the electric chair and John remarks about Old Sparky and how he can hear voices coming from it, screaming.
colddeaddrummer replied:
After religiously watching the film and reading the book a handful of times, it hurts so much to know John has to ride the lightning in that same chair, despite being a being of pure light and magic. He's one of King's all-time great characters: a simple, unassuming creature of mythical power, tender wisdom, and infinite generosity.
I love that little speech Paul gives about how he doesn't want to stand before God one day and tell him that "I killed one of his greatest miracles", and John gently tells him he's okay with dying because he's so tired of roaming the country all alone, "but most of all I'm tired of people bein' ugly to each other".
The dog in I Am Legend.
We asked Demery how he would answer the post's question himself, and the writer said that, again, two losses come to mind. Executed differently, but both are very poignant.
"One is the death of Mufasa from The Lion King. Those of us who've seen the movie as kids will forever be scarred by it (pun intended)," he recalled. "Mufasa, Simba's father and the king of Pride Rock, is portrayed as a kind, nurturing, strong, and loving figure in his son Simba's life, and only wanted him to feel safe and prepared for when he becomes the new king. Unfortunately, his jealous and sadistic brother Scar pushes Mufasa off a cliff into a stampeding herd of wildebeest, then places the blame on Simba."
"But that's not the end. We have to watch Simba confront his father's body, trying to wake him up. Absolutely devastating to have the protected find the protector in this way."
Fry’s dog Seymour from Futurama.
xfalinex replied:
“I will wait for you, ‘till you’re back beside me.”
rocks back and forth in a pool of tears
The episode was originally going to centre around Fry's mother, but for some reason they decided that would be too sad and went with the dog instead because... that's LESS sad?! What the Sam Hill were they smoking??
"These examples stand out to me because, in the first one, you have the loss of someone who represents a compass or a guiding light taken from a character who needs them but is instead left with an emptiness inside them and no one to give them direction," Demery explained. "The second example shows that you can lose someone and be the person wishing you could have done more for them by being better or different in some way."
The writer believes we empathize with certain characters more than others because "we attach ourselves to them, treat them like mirrors of ourselves, or see qualities of ourselves in them."
"Sometimes these characters remind us of other people in our lives who we have a close connection with. When we see these characters die or they lose someone important to them, our empathy feels real because in some capacity we've experienced it too and it brings up those emotions," he added.
Tadashi Hamada from Big Hero 6. Dude was working on a robot to help others and died in an attempt to help others. What a guy
Sirius Black from Harry Potter. He was my favorite character.
John Skelton, Emeritus Professor at the University of Birmingham, had been working with applied linguistics, and in his paper Death and dying in literature, he said that one of the central tasks of literature is to impose a structure on life and death, giving meaning to both. According to him, literature as a discipline aims just as certainly as science does to understand the world in which we live and to interpret our own role as participants in the human condition.
He too thinks we can approach the topic from two sides. "At one end of the scale is one of the most common types of death in all fiction, the discovery of the body in the 'whodunnit' or murder mystery," Skelton wrote. The other is often called a 'whydunnit', in which the identity of the killer is not as important as his or her motivation.
"Bear in mind here that the greatest of all constraints on the writers of whodunnits is that they cannot describe the motivations of their characters well, or it will be at once clear who is the killer," Skelton pointed out. "The complete blandness of Agatha Christie's characters is necessary, in this respect, to fulfill the genre's requirements – or at least it is a happy accident. Contrast this with Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which is, among other things, a whodunnit. Famously, Dickens died before revealing the identity of the killer, but it can be determined with near certainty from the imagery and symbolism with which Dickens surrounds him throughout the book."
Brooks, Shawshank Redemption.
It was just so damn sad to see someone so heavily institutionalized. And honestly, I didn’t even realize what was happening in that scene until after he had already carved “Brooks was here” into the beam. It gets me every time. Poor Jake :(
Another Stephen King masterpiece. It was a short story originally, not a novel-length piece, and the movie adaptation was beautiful. James Whitmore was a phenomenal actor. His slightly daffy but truly loving interactions with Jake made us fall in love with Brooks as a character. I love this movie.
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.
I really wanted him to live but happy that Forest gave his family his share.
But why bother going through all of this emotional distress? Well, as Skelton beautifully put it, "literature, if we trust its strength and accept that to become its student is to undertake something always rich and often difficult, is a way of understanding what it is to be human." And I think that applies to other forms of storytelling, too.
So sob away folks, you should come out stronger.
Daisy, John Wick's dog.
bro the RIGHTEOUS ANGER I felt in the theater when this happened. I was FURIOUS. I was right there emotionally with John! Vengeance for Daisy!
Dobby the house elf. I sobbed reading it and watching it.
primeprover replied:
"Such a beautiful place, to be with friends. Dobby is happy to be with his friend, Harry Potter."
Hedwig. Such a small death, but it really helped to show the pointlessness of war
So cliché, but Severus Snape
RIP Alan Rickman. One of my favorite actors ever. From Hans Gruber to the Sherriff of Nottingham to Marvin the Paranoid Android, he brought life to so many characters.
Thomas J. Sennett in My Girl.
“He can’t see without his glasses”
BCouto replied:
I totally forgot about that movie. That was traumatic for a child.
Seeing this as a young child (before I had experienced any real loss of family/friends) really made me realize "oh wow, MY friends could die too!" I was 9. It was rough. But it was such a good, well-made movie that really presented Vada's point of view and her emotions and reactions, that I think it actually helped me accept that sometimes death DOES happen to children, even your friends or family members.
Artax. Time has not healed that wound yet.
Every time. I'm 40 and I still ugly cry when I re-watch Neverending Story.
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Omgggggg I just read it and heard Atreyu screaming his name. Ugh
Just made me mad. What was the point? If it was to rip my heart out, then, job done.
I memorized how the mud looked right before he gets stuck and I'd skip that whole part
Oh my goodness! I watched this with my three young children, and we all ended up hugging each other and sobbing over that horse. Painful to watch.
Gosh darn you, who is chopping onions?! It will never heal. Why did they do it to us?! The stripper statues did not make up for it.
YES! I wondered why no one would mention Never Ending Story. For this reason, I won't let my 10 year old watch it. I know it'd ruin her.
Eddie in Stranger Things
I was sobbing into my emotional support sandwich after that
Boromir! My brother, my captain, my king.
TheLonelySnail replied:
They took the little ones!
I can hear this. Imma go cry in a dark recording studio across the hall.
Tony Stark
lostmymainprof replied:
Tony Stark had the best goddamn character development through the entire phase 1/ infinity war saga, I will die on this hill.
RDJ is the best embodiment of Tony Stark I will EVER see. I grew up reading comic books, so these characters were long beloved by me long before people made actual real movies about them. RDJ was the PERFECT Tony Stark, as he's gone through some of the same "bad boy to actual good human being" stuff that Stark does. I am SO SAD that Pepper and Morgan have to go on without him, and they're FICTIONAL CHARACTERS XD
Fred Weasley.
someone replied:
Tonks and Lupin in the same scene too. Brutal
Lupin hit so hard, he was one of my favorite characters, really everyone in that scene was one of my favorites.
Yondu, gardians of the galaxy
Salami_sub said:
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
GaussfaceKilla added:
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.
I watched M*A*S*H a lot as a little kid because my mom watched it. I remember watching this episode and just breaking down in tears. I didn't understand war, and I didn't understand why the people were fighting in Korea - I didn't even know where Korea WAS - but I was destroyed when Radar told everyone that Blake's plane had been shot down.
Cedric Diggory, not his death per say, but his fathers reaction holding his son screaming “My boy! My boy!” F***s me up every time.
Charlotte.
Drakaena added:
"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."
😭😭😭
Glen from the walking dead. Him looking over at Maggie as he was dying, destroyed me.
Wash, pilot of the firefly class serenity. He's a leaf on the wind.
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.
ThePurpleMister replied:
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.
Leslie Burke, Bridge to Terabithia
I didn't expect it at all, It said Family/Fantasy and was made by Disney.
I wish I could have liked that movie. And I probably would have if the brazenly dishonest marketing campaign hadn't gotten me so annoyed. I was expecting a Narnia like fantasy adventure, not a serious and sad coming of age story. >:(
Honestly I was really invested in GoT (up to a point) and Hodor's whole story and death were so depressing. Just one of those characters that deserved so much better
Spock, in “Wrath of Khan”.
MadMacs77 replied:
"'I have been, and always shall be, your friend'.”
bozoconnors replied:
Arguably, Shatner's finest moment imo. That tremoring 'no...' after he sinks down. F**king devastates me. Every time. Start tearing up again on "Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... human."
I cried at this, and I cried when I learned that Leonard Nimoy died. What a masterful actor.
Little-foot’s mother’s death
isurfnude4foods replied:
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.
fiofo replied:
The music plus the quote "Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely". It's so beautiful and tragic.
I remember when I was about six years old and asked if we could rent The Land Before Time on VHS again my mother said "but why? That movie always makes you cry!". But dammit I loved it anyway, and didn't mind that it made me cry. It was the start of a lifelong appreciation for sad stories. In fact now I'm an author I sometimes have to be talked out of making my own stories just a bit *too* tragic and depressing.
The Iron Giant will ALWAYS have me ugly crying when he goes up to stop the missle
Wolverine in Logan, that was such a great ending to his story but damn if it wasn't sad
I've read X-Men comics since I was a little girl in the early 90s. Wolvie has always been one of my favorites (I named one of my pet lizards after him in childhood.) It was rough to watch him die, especially since Hugh Jackman is about as close to the 90s comic-book Wolverine as a living human can get!
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
The dogs in Where the Red Fern Grows
such_sweet_nothing replied:
Came here to say this. This book destroyed me in grade five but also really demonstrated grief in such a profound way.
snarky_spice replied:
Teacher read it to the class in fourth grade. Everyone sitting on the floor crying together, including the teacher, is a core memory for me.
Old Dan and Little Ann. Let me tell you than I will be 41 years old in a month, and I read this book when I was 10, and I STILL cry when I think about their deaths.
Uncle Iroh singing to his dead son, dam now that was sad.
Pops from Regular Show
He was the literal embodiment of good and he died saving the universe from and with his brother. He was such an innocent and friendly guy who was kind to everyone he met. I still tear up seeing the finale to this day.
Edit: His last words to Mordecai and Rigby especially hurt.
"I know you're sad, but I promise this is a good ending. Take care of each other. Goodbye."
Primrose in the hunger games trilogy
As a 12 year-old did not see that coming
That whole series was sad , books and movies. Especially, when Finn dies . I hate that scene.
Bruce Willis at the end of “Armageddon” when he’s telling his daughter goodbye. I ugly cry every damn time. Hell, the last “Thor” movie tore me up too at the end.
Those little shoes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
it didn't do anything, it was rubbing up to Doom like a little kitten, it was just brutally murdered
Brandon Fraser’s characters in Scrubs
Matthew Cuthbert - Anne of Green Gables
And when he said to Anne before dying: "I would not have exchanged you for all the boys in the world. You are my daughter." 😭😭😭
Finnick.
kokobunnie828 replied:
Honestly, Finnick’s entire character broke me. Not only was his death just so quick and brutal but it was the obvious PTSD and him watching Katniss fall into the same broken person he had been and trying to warn her against it. The things all of those characters through were horrifying, but Finnick really just hit me too hard.
I had to read that a few times to really understand what happened. I really thought he'd have his happy ending with Annie.
Arnold in Terminator 2
Every. Single. Time.
I will ugly-cry my eyes out every time I see this movie. And I'm old enough to have seen it in theatres when it first came out.
Ned Stark from Game of thrones
Buffy at the end of season 5 of BTVS
John Krazinksi’s character in “A Quiet Place”
Grave of the fireflies.. both siblings
Poussey from Orange is the New Black
Johnny on "The Outsiders". Stay gold, Johnnycakes..Johnny cakes... oops, he's dead.
Roy in Blade Runner
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion...
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain...
Time to die."
George Omalley from Grey's Anatomy. I had to stop watching after that my heart literally broke
**SPOILERS** Having them not even recognize him was such a masterful stroke.
Bailey from a dog's journey. The first movie death I cried to
What was the name of the movie where the dog would live out his dog life, die, and then come back as another dog until he eventually made it back to his original owner? You would watch him be a new dog for like 15 minutes, love him, become emotionally attached and then he would die. I remember he was a regular pup at first who I think just died at old age, then he was a dog who died in a fire after he rescued his owner, then at somepoint he was a dog that got abused, and then he was a police dog. That was a good, but sad movie.
Everyone in All Quiet On the Western Front. It’s so tragic to think that was the real fate of millions of young men fooled into fighting a completely pointless war.
And it still happens in pointless wars to this day. We need to learn. We need to stop.
Every time Jude law crawls into the goddam oven and f*****g sets himself on fire f*****g kills me (gattaca 1997), but dam I love that movie it's a masterpiece.
We watched that one in highschool when we were learning about genetics!
Ash in that Pokémon movie.. that scene where Pikachu goes up to him and starts crying
HOW THE F**K WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW IF PIKACHU UNDERSTOOD THE CONCEPT OF DEATH F**K IM CRYING AGAIN
This was super hard for me. My first wife and I took her younger brothers to watch the movie. We played Pokemon together as a fam. So here I am an older 20-something adult in a dark movie theater trying my hardest not to cry as to make it worse for the kiddos. But a few tears decided to break loose and run away anyway. Every time I describe the scene to someone who's unaware, chokes me up. It's just a cartoon man! (yeah, that's what I keep telling myself)
Shireen Baratheon from Game of Thrones
Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist/Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. His funeral always hits me so damn hard.
Maes Hughes was the only major character in the entire series who only motive was “I need to help and protect the people I love”, which made his death just that much more tragic. As if that wasn’t sad enough, at the funeral when Elicia starts yelling “Daddy said he has a lot of work to do and if they bury him he can’t do it when he wakes up…”
Fives.
He was so close to stopping order 66, but nobody would believe him.
Opie from Sons of Anarchy
F*****g Oy cuts fresh and deep every time I reread the Dark Tower.
Edit: As many of you have pointed out, Jake and Eddie are equally sob-inducing, and I bawl like a baby every time I go round the Tower again (which has been many and many-a times, Roland would say *delah* and twiddle his fingers at the horizon).
Also, I wish I hadn’t posted this because every time someone responds, I get melancholy af all over again.
Long days and pleasant nights to all of you.
Oy seriously deserved better. He *stayed*. He stayed with Roland. He should have somehow been shown as a puppy or something in that other universe. I hated Eddie's death, but Oy was the second blow that destroyed me. He was nothing but pure Good Boy.
The guy is the Fault in our stars. I cried my eyes out. Like whole box of tissues.
Spoiler for Better Call Saul.
>!Howard Hamlin from Better Call Saul.!<
>!The guy just doesn't catch any break despite being the kindest yet the most professional guy in the world of BCS.!<
>!And what does he get for not just tolerating but also being empathetic and helpful to the worst bunch of people. He does not even get to complete the only nervous breakdown he had. He get killed in the middle of nervous breakdown by the person who just blows his brains out for absolutely no reason.!<
Arthur Morgan.
Pop_Smoke replied:
I just got to that part about an hour ago. Even though I knew it was coming, it was still a gut punch. What I was completely unready for was his horse dying, and Arthur saying “Thank you”. I bawled.
Marshall's dad and how I met your mother
Surprised no one's mentioned Mike Ehrmantraut yet.
Every character from train to busan
The arsehole closing doors and pushing others into the zombies excluded, right?
Hank from Breaking Bad
Ji-Yeong in Squid Game.
In the episode Gaanbu the players were in teams of two, given some marbles, and had to play a game (any game). Whoever had all the marbles when the timer ran out was the winner. Ji-Yeong and Kang Sae-byeok spent their time telling each other their stories, investing us in them emotionally.
Harry Potter's walk to death for me, all his character development throughout the series is shown there and all his thoughts made my throat so dry and my eyes so teary.
His loved ones surrounding him and supporting him is what kills me. That only he can see and hear them. I sobbed reading that
SPOILERS FOR ONE PIECE!
You've been warned.
The Going Merry. It would have been Ace, but I had his death spoiled for me.
I HATED the new ship forever. Really. Still not a fan, I loved the Merry so much I named one of my old cars after it. RIP both, now.
Rita from Dexter.
Sorry if this is spoiling anything for anybody but Dexter’s also been out for a long a*s time, so that’s on you.
I think I was the only person who hated Rita and I wasn't sad when she died. Plus is was truly shocking because she was a major character and it was really surprising they'd kill her off. It was one of the best seasons of the show on top of it.
John Marston. Red Dead Redemption. Worked hard to escape a life of crime, atone for his sins, become a good man, even worked to bring those who he helped do harm to justice, but in the end, he never could escape his past. His fate was sealed no matter how hard he tried. Just heartbreaking and made me sob when I played the game
Sarah Lynn bojack horseman
Can’t choose one, but for what’s fresh in my mind, David from Edgerunners. Not particularly emotional in the moment but jarring, and seeing the other characters dead around him built it up. What really got me was Lucy on the moon afterwards. Hit me like a truck then.
Teft from the Stormlight Archive is just an absolute punch to the gut. The series as a whole already has so many scenes that can bring tears to anyone and this death was just painful.
Country Mac.
He was not the kind of guy who could score a point in a black belt tournament.
BT, Titanfall. Legit tears
This got me so bad, every time I play it! "Trust me!". Also E3N from Modern Warfare Advance Warfare around the same time. Ouch, hits me hard man.
Leonard Church in Red vs. Blue, who was my favorite character in the show. For runner-ups, I'd say Kareem Saïd in Oz and Randall P. MacMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Shelby in Steel Magnolia's - well actually her Mother's reaction following the burial. Gets me every time.
Also the girl in the red coat from Schindler's lost. Also also the boys from The Boy in The Striped Pajamas. I saw where it was headed while watching it with my grandmother. I said I wanted a banana and to keep it going-- i don't like bananas. I walked upstairs to the kitchen and cried as I ate a banana. Like to my knees crying. The movie had been in the inspirational section, I expected it to have a happy ending so i was fully not prepared for the ending. Also also hooch from Turner and Hooch-- my dad pick for movie rentals when I was like 7-- NO ONE TOLD ME THE DOG WOULD DIE AT THE END!! I was inconsolable and cried myself to sleep. He was taken off of the blockbuster rotation by my mum for like a year.
I also expected a "happy" ending in "Schindler's List" and "The boy ...". I remember a sense if relief when the little girl finds a place to hide, and I thought the German boy would somehow manage to help the Jewish boy to escape. When I realised the kids were dead I just couldn't stop crying. Terrible cruelty for millions people, and there are still people who glorify Nazi ideology!
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We ALL cried when Old Yeller died, okay?? I was, like, 5 or 6 and it messed me up. But, yeah, how is Old Yeller not on this list?
Chris Chambers in Stand By Me when we are told how he died trying to stop an argument.
Pay It Forward-- died trying to stand up to the bullies.
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Sophie's daughter being carried away by the Nazi guard never fails to have me blubbering. Although you don't see her die, you know that's what is going to happen. The terrified screams of the little girl and the look of pure heartbreak and guilt on Sophie's face because she's been forced to pick a child to be murdered.
The boy was also taken, so she had to choose to save one but she couldn't save any of them. She kills herself at the end of the film. I honestly think no person could ever get over the guilt and pain of something like this.
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I wanted to reach through the telly and b***h slap her father,!!
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I'll back this play. Granny always had a special place in my heart, and you could always tell she was one of Pratchett's favorites as well. I ate'nt dead yet :(
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The whole movie Titanic left me cold like a fish. Except the scene where this old couple lies on the bed, him holding her in his arms while the water rushes in... That scene has me in tears just thinking about it
Hi, I’m here to make it worse! Those two were real people, Ida and Isidor Strauss. Ida refused to get in a lifeboat without her husband and when Isidor was offered a place he refused to go before the other men, so they stayed behind and died together.
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Artax in Neverending Story... noone? Oh and also Godric in True Blood
For me, it's every animal death in every movie ever, and also Gu Seung-Jun in Crash Landing On You. I never cry in movies but I kind of fell for him and his death hit me pretty hard.
John Ritter - 8 simple rules for dating my daughter. He actually died and the characters in the show, you can tell, are devastated
Someone mentioned this, but Setsuko's death gets me everytime! I was crying!
The Black Rabbit of Inlé... That whole book/movie is an emotional experience. I feel like there's a divide in my generation, (X,) between who was exposed to Watership Down as a child and who wasn't. It's actually really weird
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Catherine in Beauty and the Beast the TV show. Linda Hamilton wanted out so they just killed her character and did a third season with a new love interest for Vincent. Just like that. Well, it resulted in the canceling of the show... and a lot of very good "she never died" fanfiction.
I cant do What Dreams May Come, I am sobbing after the first couple mins and I have to turn it off. I don't think I have ever made more than an hour or so in, something about that movie just gets me. Even beyond the deaths, just the depiction of heaven makes me cry.
I have two that I haven't seen here, so far. Bel Ria by Sheila Burnford, and The Snowman (original). My then four year old son absolutely dissolved when the snowman melted.
Alvin Olinski in Chicago P D. Still have issues., keep looking for him .
When Ennis found the shirt I was bawling like a baby.
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Two that nobody has mentioned : 1) Bill Nighy in About Time. That film destroys me every time. 2) Michael Keaton in My Life. A film that is apparently a fever dream as nobody I've ever met online has heard of it, much less seen it.
Absolutely about time was a great movie. I would also add Henry from The Time Traveller's Wife. Also now that I think about it-- Rachel McAdams is very into marrying time travellers.
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I always feel lists like this should include Del Griffith's (John Candy) wife in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It just instantly makes everything about his character suddenly make sense and it's sad af. Steve Martin plays it exceptionally well in the end. Also, Optimus Prime in the transformers movie from the 80s (90s?). - that was ice cold and scarred a whole generation. Also, Piggy in the Lord of the Flies movie looked like my brother, and him getting his head smashed by a rock left me inconsolable for a week. We watched it in 7/8 grade social studies.
Yes, Piggy's death was a shock. I read that in high school many years back.
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The two boys at the end of "the boy in the stripped pyjamas". And the little girl in the red coat in "Schindler's list". Made me feel really sad for weeks.
I can't believe no one said anything about Newt from The Maze Runner!!!! "Please, Tommy, please!" gets me every single time.
Dean Winchester & Castiel on Supernatural. Loved both these characters. Hated when they eventually died their last time for good.
I am on season 14, so my answer would be Sam and Dean Winchester but that you get used to it. Might still cry though.
Load More Replies... Kamina from Gurren Lagann hit very hard. As well as every major death in the final couple of episodes of Iron Blooded Orphans (except for Iok, that coward had it coming). And this one is also pretty obscure, but Bernie's death from War In The Pocket. Gundam really knows how to make emotional deaths.
I didn't see it in the list, but Soichiro's death in Death Note got me crying!
I cried so hard during ET's death while watching the movie in a dark theater that I lost a contact lens.
You could remove half of Harry Potter characters from list and add Wash from firefly...
Why didn't they made the whole Friends characters die? Like a good plane crash and then boom! Downvote me maybe but that show was so lame
Soap McTavish in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Now that was just messed up.
Mary (Emily Watson) in Equilibrium. Claudia and Madeline from Interview with the Vampire.
Ali in Squid Game. The moment he realizes that Sang-woo betrayed him and he's about to die and he'll never see his wife and child again. Then the tear that runs down his face right before the camera pans to show the guard raising his gun to shoot him...
-I had to read a story in elementary school called Stone Fox. When W i l l y carries his dog across the finish line after her heart bursts. That was the first time I ever read a story that made me cry. I didn't realize I could connect emotionally with a book character before. -When Alphonse sacrifices himself at the end of Full Metal Alchemist (Brotherhood and the manga) to allow Edward to fight. -the book Two Towers when Sam thinks Frodo is dead.
Bobby Simone on NYPD Blue. Decades ago. I had to work, so I had recorded it. ON VHS TAPE. I was watching it while a maintenance guy was in my apartment. He said, "Oh, that was hard to watch.". I said, "Pffft. It's TV.". Then I had the big blubbering ugly cry in front of the same maintenance guy.
I was gonna say Philip Hamilton, but then I realised that he was a real person... KENRIC FROM KOTLC
Rengoku needs to be way higher up on this list. Edit to add: I also don't think I'll ever recover from Junpei's death in Jujutsu Kaisen.
im not sure if this was on the list but i dont see Rubin the pig from MIncraft Story Mode. sure it was a choose yourself but when he died i burst out in tears
OH MY GOD AND SAKURA, CHIHIRO, AND TAKA 😭 (All from DR1) I mean, I like Celeste but damn she should have just killed Hifumi or even someone else, just not Taka 😢
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Chuck and Newt from Maze Runner. I can’t watch it without sobbing into a pillow and contemplating my life choices. 😭
Heather in Highlander. Jack in Titanic. Silas in Glory. Neil in Dead Poet's Society. Gabriel and Thomas in The Patriot. Esmail in House of Sand and Fog. Murron in Braveheart. Damn. There are just too many.
Neil in Dead Poet's Society never stops getting me...
Load More Replies... Not the death of Debra Winger's character in Shadowlands per se so much as seeing Anthony Hopkins *cry* with her son. Oh, that tore me to shreds.
The show on Netflix: Human Resources, Episode 9, the Grandma, Yara I never thought this hilariously gross perverted show would twist my heart strings like it did. Maybe it hit too close to home reminding me of my grandma's declining health years prior, but my wife and I both wept so hard at that.
Willam Kawambas Dog Khamba in the book It had me and My freinds Crying and talking about other dogs that died and got me emotinal.
Tris Prior in the third Divergent book. I finished it when I had free time in class, and I was crying so hard but trying not to make any noise because my classmates were all still testing
They said fictional characters, not movie characters. So: Haurchefant, Ysaile, Moenbryda, Papalimo... even Tsuyu... - Final Fantasy 14 Mordin Solus, Admiral Hackett - Mass Effect 3 Aerith - Final Fantasy 7 2B - Nier: Automata ...
Jason Voorhees. YEAH I SAID IT! I can't even THINK about that poor little friendless boy....having a chance to be 'norma'l and have friends and enjoy his summer and those god damn slutty teenagers should have been watching him!! OF COURSE his mother had to kill them!! This is on my bedroom wall and I tear up when I look at it. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/horrormovies/images/6/6c/Jason_and_Pamela.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140509002258 Needless to say the following Friday the 13th movies just confuse and irritate me.
I recently watched a Thai drama and the mother of the main character dies, she had lung cancer from their dad smoking. I was bawling, cried so hard my eyes hurt.
Glen Carter from Blacklist. The actor, Clarke Middleton passed away and the producers of the show decided to acknowledge his death. When James Spader as RR (or not ;-)) gave a small eulogy when scattering the ashes made me howl. I believe that both the actor and his character shared the some virtues and the monologue was from the heart.
I boo 😭 when Maxwell Kane found out that (Kieran Culkin) Kevin Dillon actually died. Kevin had told Maxwell he was going to have a head transplant to fix his deteriorating body and Maxwell believed him. This was in the movie "Freak the Mighty".
I am now drowning my sorrows in a pint of Ben and Jerry's after reading this.....
So I read the thread. Many sad scenes. But I feel like "So Devastating, People Can’t Get Over Them" is a bit of an over statement. They are all fiction. My brain knows they are fiction so it does indeed "get over them". True sad for me would be stuff more like Schindler's List where the movie is fiction but it is reminding you of horrific stuff that was very real / very sad.
Vanessa was a huge shock. I was rooting for that character.
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Where the hell is Opie??? He's right up there with Glen from The Walking Dead, sobbed my heart out at both of them, and Jax Teller was never the same again after he walked out of that prison
For me it was the ending of Miss Austen Regrets with Olivia Williams. Such sadness.
Any fans of NCIS out there? Cause, yeah, to love that show requires a bit of masochism. The first 19 seasons focus on a man who lost his wife and daughter in a cartel hit. I'll list the dead characters that I can remember...Shannon, Kelly, Kate, Director Shepherd, Vance's wife, Jimmy's wife Breena, S.A. Ned Dornaget, Fornell's daughter, Ziva's Dad, MI6 agent Clayton Reeves, ex-wife Dianne....there's more, I'm sure. Deep grief is a constant plot device on that show.
"Cutie" from "It Takes Two" - it's such a horrible scene, and despite her being a plushie it's still very violent
Joy from Shadowlands. Not so much her death, but the scene with the wardrobe.
In the Star Wars extended universe, the first book in The New Jedi Order series - Vector Prime by R.A. Salvatore - killed Chewbacca by dropping a moon on him. I was like 13. It broke my heart. It was since retconned.
The Shell Seekers (Rosamunde Pilcher). Penelope Keeling. Didn't see that coming. (Yes, it is a book, and yes, they made a movie from it).
Enzo in The Art of Racing In the Rain. I had read the book and knew how it ended. I had lost my Lucy not that long ago and I don’t want to go how that ended, but I had trouble holding back audible sobs in the theatre. I mean snot crying. Everyone was crying, even the men.
Aida's husband and sons, and pretty much everyone else in Quo Vadia, Aida? It was movie about Srebrenica massacre. Nothing was shown explicitly, but ending was devastating.
Can't get through the top 10. Thanks, BP for ruining my otherwise happy day
You knew it was going to be a sad list, you chose to read it.
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In Morriz Gleitzman’s last book in the series (Always) when Jumble died. Bro that was sad
Leonard Lowe in Awakenings. I was 20 when I saw the movie in 1991 but I was crying when he felt back to his catatonic state.
Just because it's animated doesn't mean the storyline is any less emotional
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he didn't really die, tho. he was back that sunday, so...
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Also the girl in the red coat from Schindler's lost. Also also the boys from The Boy in The Striped Pajamas. I saw where it was headed while watching it with my grandmother. I said I wanted a banana and to keep it going-- i don't like bananas. I walked upstairs to the kitchen and cried as I ate a banana. Like to my knees crying. The movie had been in the inspirational section, I expected it to have a happy ending so i was fully not prepared for the ending. Also also hooch from Turner and Hooch-- my dad pick for movie rentals when I was like 7-- NO ONE TOLD ME THE DOG WOULD DIE AT THE END!! I was inconsolable and cried myself to sleep. He was taken off of the blockbuster rotation by my mum for like a year.
I also expected a "happy" ending in "Schindler's List" and "The boy ...". I remember a sense if relief when the little girl finds a place to hide, and I thought the German boy would somehow manage to help the Jewish boy to escape. When I realised the kids were dead I just couldn't stop crying. Terrible cruelty for millions people, and there are still people who glorify Nazi ideology!
Load More Replies... We ALL cried when Old Yeller died, okay?? I was, like, 5 or 6 and it messed me up. But, yeah, how is Old Yeller not on this list?
Chris Chambers in Stand By Me when we are told how he died trying to stop an argument.
Pay It Forward-- died trying to stand up to the bullies.
Load More Replies... Sophie's daughter being carried away by the Nazi guard never fails to have me blubbering. Although you don't see her die, you know that's what is going to happen. The terrified screams of the little girl and the look of pure heartbreak and guilt on Sophie's face because she's been forced to pick a child to be murdered.
The boy was also taken, so she had to choose to save one but she couldn't save any of them. She kills herself at the end of the film. I honestly think no person could ever get over the guilt and pain of something like this.
Load More Replies... I wanted to reach through the telly and b***h slap her father,!!
Load More Replies... I'll back this play. Granny always had a special place in my heart, and you could always tell she was one of Pratchett's favorites as well. I ate'nt dead yet :(
Load More Replies... The whole movie Titanic left me cold like a fish. Except the scene where this old couple lies on the bed, him holding her in his arms while the water rushes in... That scene has me in tears just thinking about it
Hi, I’m here to make it worse! Those two were real people, Ida and Isidor Strauss. Ida refused to get in a lifeboat without her husband and when Isidor was offered a place he refused to go before the other men, so they stayed behind and died together.
Load More Replies... Artax in Neverending Story... noone? Oh and also Godric in True Blood
For me, it's every animal death in every movie ever, and also Gu Seung-Jun in Crash Landing On You. I never cry in movies but I kind of fell for him and his death hit me pretty hard.
John Ritter - 8 simple rules for dating my daughter. He actually died and the characters in the show, you can tell, are devastated
Someone mentioned this, but Setsuko's death gets me everytime! I was crying!
The Black Rabbit of Inlé... That whole book/movie is an emotional experience. I feel like there's a divide in my generation, (X,) between who was exposed to Watership Down as a child and who wasn't. It's actually really weird
Load More Replies... Catherine in Beauty and the Beast the TV show. Linda Hamilton wanted out so they just killed her character and did a third season with a new love interest for Vincent. Just like that. Well, it resulted in the canceling of the show... and a lot of very good "she never died" fanfiction.
I cant do What Dreams May Come, I am sobbing after the first couple mins and I have to turn it off. I don't think I have ever made more than an hour or so in, something about that movie just gets me. Even beyond the deaths, just the depiction of heaven makes me cry.
I have two that I haven't seen here, so far. Bel Ria by Sheila Burnford, and The Snowman (original). My then four year old son absolutely dissolved when the snowman melted.
Alvin Olinski in Chicago P D. Still have issues., keep looking for him .
When Ennis found the shirt I was bawling like a baby.
Load More Replies... Two that nobody has mentioned : 1) Bill Nighy in About Time. That film destroys me every time. 2) Michael Keaton in My Life. A film that is apparently a fever dream as nobody I've ever met online has heard of it, much less seen it.
Absolutely about time was a great movie. I would also add Henry from The Time Traveller's Wife. Also now that I think about it-- Rachel McAdams is very into marrying time travellers.
Load More Replies... I always feel lists like this should include Del Griffith's (John Candy) wife in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It just instantly makes everything about his character suddenly make sense and it's sad af. Steve Martin plays it exceptionally well in the end. Also, Optimus Prime in the transformers movie from the 80s (90s?). - that was ice cold and scarred a whole generation. Also, Piggy in the Lord of the Flies movie looked like my brother, and him getting his head smashed by a rock left me inconsolable for a week. We watched it in 7/8 grade social studies.
Yes, Piggy's death was a shock. I read that in high school many years back.
Load More Replies... The two boys at the end of "the boy in the stripped pyjamas". And the little girl in the red coat in "Schindler's list". Made me feel really sad for weeks.
I can't believe no one said anything about Newt from The Maze Runner!!!! "Please, Tommy, please!" gets me every single time.
Dean Winchester & Castiel on Supernatural. Loved both these characters. Hated when they eventually died their last time for good.
I am on season 14, so my answer would be Sam and Dean Winchester but that you get used to it. Might still cry though.
Load More Replies... Kamina from Gurren Lagann hit very hard. As well as every major death in the final couple of episodes of Iron Blooded Orphans (except for Iok, that coward had it coming). And this one is also pretty obscure, but Bernie's death from War In The Pocket. Gundam really knows how to make emotional deaths.
I didn't see it in the list, but Soichiro's death in Death Note got me crying!
I cried so hard during ET's death while watching the movie in a dark theater that I lost a contact lens.
You could remove half of Harry Potter characters from list and add Wash from firefly...
Why didn't they made the whole Friends characters die? Like a good plane crash and then boom! Downvote me maybe but that show was so lame
Soap McTavish in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Now that was just messed up.
Mary (Emily Watson) in Equilibrium. Claudia and Madeline from Interview with the Vampire.
Ali in Squid Game. The moment he realizes that Sang-woo betrayed him and he's about to die and he'll never see his wife and child again. Then the tear that runs down his face right before the camera pans to show the guard raising his gun to shoot him...
-I had to read a story in elementary school called Stone Fox. When W i l l y carries his dog across the finish line after her heart bursts. That was the first time I ever read a story that made me cry. I didn't realize I could connect emotionally with a book character before. -When Alphonse sacrifices himself at the end of Full Metal Alchemist (Brotherhood and the manga) to allow Edward to fight. -the book Two Towers when Sam thinks Frodo is dead.
Bobby Simone on NYPD Blue. Decades ago. I had to work, so I had recorded it. ON VHS TAPE. I was watching it while a maintenance guy was in my apartment. He said, "Oh, that was hard to watch.". I said, "Pffft. It's TV.". Then I had the big blubbering ugly cry in front of the same maintenance guy.
I was gonna say Philip Hamilton, but then I realised that he was a real person... KENRIC FROM KOTLC
Rengoku needs to be way higher up on this list. Edit to add: I also don't think I'll ever recover from Junpei's death in Jujutsu Kaisen.
im not sure if this was on the list but i dont see Rubin the pig from MIncraft Story Mode. sure it was a choose yourself but when he died i burst out in tears
OH MY GOD AND SAKURA, CHIHIRO, AND TAKA 😭 (All from DR1) I mean, I like Celeste but damn she should have just killed Hifumi or even someone else, just not Taka 😢
Load More Replies... Chuck and Newt from Maze Runner. I can’t watch it without sobbing into a pillow and contemplating my life choices. 😭
Heather in Highlander. Jack in Titanic. Silas in Glory. Neil in Dead Poet's Society. Gabriel and Thomas in The Patriot. Esmail in House of Sand and Fog. Murron in Braveheart. Damn. There are just too many.
Neil in Dead Poet's Society never stops getting me...
Load More Replies... Not the death of Debra Winger's character in Shadowlands per se so much as seeing Anthony Hopkins *cry* with her son. Oh, that tore me to shreds.
The show on Netflix: Human Resources, Episode 9, the Grandma, Yara I never thought this hilariously gross perverted show would twist my heart strings like it did. Maybe it hit too close to home reminding me of my grandma's declining health years prior, but my wife and I both wept so hard at that.
Willam Kawambas Dog Khamba in the book It had me and My freinds Crying and talking about other dogs that died and got me emotinal.
Tris Prior in the third Divergent book. I finished it when I had free time in class, and I was crying so hard but trying not to make any noise because my classmates were all still testing
They said fictional characters, not movie characters. So: Haurchefant, Ysaile, Moenbryda, Papalimo... even Tsuyu... - Final Fantasy 14 Mordin Solus, Admiral Hackett - Mass Effect 3 Aerith - Final Fantasy 7 2B - Nier: Automata ...
Jason Voorhees. YEAH I SAID IT! I can't even THINK about that poor little friendless boy....having a chance to be 'norma'l and have friends and enjoy his summer and those god damn slutty teenagers should have been watching him!! OF COURSE his mother had to kill them!! This is on my bedroom wall and I tear up when I look at it. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/horrormovies/images/6/6c/Jason_and_Pamela.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140509002258 Needless to say the following Friday the 13th movies just confuse and irritate me.
I recently watched a Thai drama and the mother of the main character dies, she had lung cancer from their dad smoking. I was bawling, cried so hard my eyes hurt.
Glen Carter from Blacklist. The actor, Clarke Middleton passed away and the producers of the show decided to acknowledge his death. When James Spader as RR (or not ;-)) gave a small eulogy when scattering the ashes made me howl. I believe that both the actor and his character shared the some virtues and the monologue was from the heart.
I boo 😭 when Maxwell Kane found out that (Kieran Culkin) Kevin Dillon actually died. Kevin had told Maxwell he was going to have a head transplant to fix his deteriorating body and Maxwell believed him. This was in the movie "Freak the Mighty".
I am now drowning my sorrows in a pint of Ben and Jerry's after reading this.....
So I read the thread. Many sad scenes. But I feel like "So Devastating, People Can’t Get Over Them" is a bit of an over statement. They are all fiction. My brain knows they are fiction so it does indeed "get over them". True sad for me would be stuff more like Schindler's List where the movie is fiction but it is reminding you of horrific stuff that was very real / very sad.
Vanessa was a huge shock. I was rooting for that character.
Load More Replies... Where the hell is Opie??? He's right up there with Glen from The Walking Dead, sobbed my heart out at both of them, and Jax Teller was never the same again after he walked out of that prison
For me it was the ending of Miss Austen Regrets with Olivia Williams. Such sadness.
Any fans of NCIS out there? Cause, yeah, to love that show requires a bit of masochism. The first 19 seasons focus on a man who lost his wife and daughter in a cartel hit. I'll list the dead characters that I can remember...Shannon, Kelly, Kate, Director Shepherd, Vance's wife, Jimmy's wife Breena, S.A. Ned Dornaget, Fornell's daughter, Ziva's Dad, MI6 agent Clayton Reeves, ex-wife Dianne....there's more, I'm sure. Deep grief is a constant plot device on that show.
"Cutie" from "It Takes Two" - it's such a horrible scene, and despite her being a plushie it's still very violent
Joy from Shadowlands. Not so much her death, but the scene with the wardrobe.
In the Star Wars extended universe, the first book in The New Jedi Order series - Vector Prime by R.A. Salvatore - killed Chewbacca by dropping a moon on him. I was like 13. It broke my heart. It was since retconned.
The Shell Seekers (Rosamunde Pilcher). Penelope Keeling. Didn't see that coming. (Yes, it is a book, and yes, they made a movie from it).
Enzo in The Art of Racing In the Rain. I had read the book and knew how it ended. I had lost my Lucy not that long ago and I don’t want to go how that ended, but I had trouble holding back audible sobs in the theatre. I mean snot crying. Everyone was crying, even the men.
Aida's husband and sons, and pretty much everyone else in Quo Vadia, Aida? It was movie about Srebrenica massacre. Nothing was shown explicitly, but ending was devastating.
Can't get through the top 10. Thanks, BP for ruining my otherwise happy day
You knew it was going to be a sad list, you chose to read it.
Load More Replies... In Morriz Gleitzman’s last book in the series (Always) when Jumble died. Bro that was sad
Leonard Lowe in Awakenings. I was 20 when I saw the movie in 1991 but I was crying when he felt back to his catatonic state.
Just because it's animated doesn't mean the storyline is any less emotional
Load More Replies... he didn't really die, tho. he was back that sunday, so...
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