So I’m kind of pissed at Marvel, which has left me conflicted. Even if you’re trying to avoid spoilers there’s no way you could not know that there’s a massive death toll in Avengers: Infinity War. And Loki goes first, not five minutes into the movie.
I survived that long, but then by the third or fourth death I’d had enough and walked out, wearing sunglasses so people wouldn’t notice I was crying. I had to sit at the theater waiting for my BFF and my goddaughter, so I quickly downloaded Meredith Duran’s new book, The Sins of Lord Lockwood 
to immerse myself in a love story that would have a happy ending, and she never lets me down. It’s fabulous.
But I digress. I really really hate it when characters die in movies. Oh, some of them are okay – Jack in Titanic was doomed, I don’t fret over Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet (though Hamlet’s death usually gets to me). But there was something about the new movie that made me so freaking sad and weepy, and I’ve decided to wait until the fourth one is out before I finish the third. Having my heart ripped out isn’t my kind of entertainment. (I don’t like being scared either, so I avoid horror movies). I’ll deal with something depressing and challenging like Schindler’s List if that’s what I’m going for, but if it’s comic book adventure with characters I’ve loved over 17 movies – no.
On the other hand, I’m a firm believer in artists, (and artistic entities like Marvel), changing things I adore. Writers, artists, musicians, movie makers need to be free to do something that their most devoted fans don’t particularly like. For interest, if someone like Bob Dylan suddenly starts crooning or singing about Jesus you just shrug and wait for the next stage, even if you believe he can do no wrong. There’s value in everything, just not for everyone.
If a romance writer gets sick of writing romance (I can think of one who turned to horror for a while) you let her go. If she comes back to romance she’ll be better than ever. Sometimes success brings a whole new batch of troubles, and any artistic decision you make can affect the income of hundreds or thousands of people. You still have to go for it.
So I’ll fight to the death for Marvel’s right to kill half of civilization, even Loki. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
And yes, I know most of them will be back, and that they’re only fictional characters, etc., but fictional characters are often more real to me than humans. I take this shit seriously, and I was in a funk for days after I tried to watch Infinity War. In the end I’d rather be that way – suspend my disbelief totally and become part of the universe, even if I grieve.
At least with fictional deaths you can avoid them.
I want them back, all of them, and I won’t be satisfied if these contracted actors only show up in prequels, because I’ll always know they’re coming to a tragic end.
You know, sometimes being a geeky fangirl is hard.
I re-read the sixth Harry Potter book this weekend. I was a sobbing mess when Dumbledore died, I honestly forgot that I happened in that book ( the last time I read the book was when it first came out in 2009!). My husband gently teased me about it but this was a character I had read about over the previous 5 books and I really liked! So I know what you went through 😀
Yeah. I don’t go to a superhero movie in other to watch the heroes die.
If you want to see something funny, check out “Little Evil” on Netflix. It says it’s a horror comedy, but there’s nothing horrible or gory in it. Just lots of chuckles and laughs. At least, I found it funny. I was in a sad mood and it perked me right up.
There is a long running — 20+ books over two decades — series of mysteries that I have read and reread with delight over the years, intelligent and beautifully written with a skill I can only admire from afar, with wonderfully engaging characters and world-building. And in the last book the author did something I still find hard to forgive her for, no matter why she did it: she turned the hero of a subsidiary romance that had run through the books for years into a cold-blooded murderer. It was shocking and horrifying, and it negates so much that came before it that finally I had to put that last book outside and pretend it didn’t exist. I’m rereading the earlier books for the umpteenth time, and while it is true that the tone of the series becomes darker over the years, whenever that character appears, which is often, I just keep telling myself that there’s no way in hell he ever would have acted in such a way. The funny thing is that in recent years I have become casual Facebook friends with the author, and she’s a very interesting woman, but we are not on the kind of terms that would allow me to challenge her artistic choices.
Interesting. I’d probably like that if I hadn’t developed affection with the secondary hero. Those kinds of things have to be handled carefully – you can’t build up a connection with the audience and then betray it. It’s a fine line with things like that. By turning a sympathetic character into a killer she’s negating the earlier books where readers identified with him, and it would be hard to make that acceptable. It could be done, but it wouldn’t be easy. Who is it? (Tell me in private if you don’t want to put her name out there).
First time I ran into an author changing genres (without notifying me !) a romance author I found that I liked switched to religious historical. Not inspirational (it was before the ‘inspirational” name came along)
Second time I had a subscription to Silhouette. The book turned out to be a sermon on animal rights. First book I ever threw out.
Then Patricia Cornwell killed off Kay Scarpetta’s lover and government profiler. She watched his ashes spread over the ocean. Next book he was back. Is this what happens in comics ?
Then there was Julie Garwood. I had not read Julie at that time. There was a TV movie adapted from her book Rose Hill. Imagine Julie sitting in the preview room and watching the hero killed off.
How do you feel about movies made from books ? Good , bad, ugly ?
I’m with you Krissy. Now that I know Loki dies, I will probably not watch for awhile. It took me months to watch the last Star Wars (not Solo) movie. I had heard Luke dies so I refused to watch it. Then my cousin told me he goes the way Yoda went. So I watched it. I didn’t like it, but I watched it. Took me a year to watch the Star Wars movie where Han Solo dies at the hands of his son. THAT hurt. I love Tom Hiddleston.
Over a year late for this, but Loki dying is exactly why fanfic exists. I may be…slightly obsessed with him (and Hiddles), and have written a few Loki fics (paired with Darcy, which is my favorite pairing) and read whatever I can on AO3.