Noble Sacrifices

[Sapheron]

Personally, I'm a sucker for these. Gladiator would have had a fraction of its impact without the death of Maximus at the end. Boromir would have died a villain, if he had not been overcome attempting to protect Merry and Pippin. If Leonidas and company had fought all morning and then gone home safe and sound, would Thermopylae be remembered in the same light? As Gandalf falls with the Balrog, is that not one of the greatest scenes in The Lord of the Rings?

There's just something about the idea of the hero biting the bullet to save whatever it is he's saving that connects to something deep down in me. What greater emotional hook can a story have, I ask you, than to tear away the very target of your emotional attachement in some suitably tragic and heroic manner?

Several of my stories include such endings. Yet, I have spoken to many who have said that 'they don't like sad endings'. While some watch the final charge of The Last Samurai with the very essense of awesome tingling through them, others break down and cry at the plight of the poor folks involved. Indeed, it must be noted that some who find such things terribly sad enjoy them for that very fact, but there are still those who do not appreciate the sad ending.

Personally, I can't see how people couldn't enjoy such a thing. Through this post I've listed some of the moments, some of the stories, which have had the most impact on me as I have read books and watched films through my life.

What does anyone else think? Love them? Hate them? Anything really, discuss!

 

[Culhwch]

I don't know if I'd use the term 'enjoy'. These kinds of plot points resonate with me and have an emotional impact - and that's what I want from a book or a film, an emotional connection. When a book or film makes me feel these emotions - a sadness and regret that is checked by the selfless or honourable or heroic actions of the character, then it has succeeded.

I'm with you, I'm a sucker for those moments too.

 

[Droflet]

And let's not forget Spock's death in Star Trek 2. Yes, I know they resurrected him but still... I absolutely agree with the nobel death for your mc.

 

[R M Tobias]

I suppose it's enjoyable until you're the one that's asked to make the sacrafice

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I think the noble sacrifice has gone by the wayside with the advent of the sequel. Nobody wants to sacrifice a character that could feed six more plots and garner that much more revenue.

The only noble sacrifice we get these days is in a story based on real events, in which the actual character bit the dust. Everybody already knows how it came out, and there isn't going to be a sequel, so off he goes. Or, as Telford mentioned, the fictional character that can somehow be resurrected for the sequel after being killed off.

 

[Mouse]

I'm all about the tragic stories. My novel(s) I'm working on all have pretty tragic endings.

 

[Glitch]

I like the noble sarcrife where the baddie turns and sacrifes himself to save the hero.

In a movie a good peice of music can enhance the mood of a scene ten fold - You know what's coming when you hear Adagio for Strings.

 

[Rebell L]

I enjoy a good heroic sacrifice, I get a sense of awe from some of the ones you mentioned, and even though I haven't read LOTR for a long time, I still think of Gandalf and Boromir. I came to appreciate this young, and I love the emotion that comes from reading/watching them.

I think The heroic sacrifice runs the risk of getting silly though, when the hero has a severe case of martyr syndrome, or the writers want to kill off a character and make it look good (when it doesn't make sense). I think that's running into stupid sacrifice though. Also, bringing a character back can cheapen it, or seem miraculous, depending on who's handling the story.

 

[Mouse]

Boromir is definitely one of the best. I was trying to think of another, but all I can come up with is Charlie in Lost. Definitely tragic, even though I was yelling 'nooooo, you eeeeejit!'

Proper full on heroes sacrificing themselves isn't as good. I think they have to be slightly dodgy for it to work.

 

[Xelah]

The sacrifice has to fit the situation, it can't just be the author murdering characters.

 

[GreenKidx]

I have almost always hated when a book/movie ends with the sacrifice of the one main character. I prefer it when one f multiple main characters sacrifice themselves to aid in the success of the others (IE-the Day The Earth Stood Still). That way there is some sadness and pain however and am not left with a sense of emptiness and dread. The one tike I enjoyed a sacrifice of a books only main character was is Ian Graham's Monument. It was such an appropriate death for that particular character. Maybe I enjoyed it be aide he trying to be selfless or noble. He simply had no other options open to him.

 

[Boneman]

I love a good tragedy, but I'm a sucker for happy endings... contradiction in terms? In fact, now I think about it, I hate unhappy endings more than I love tragedy- but in any company of heroes, some have got to die, surely? - whether needlessly, courageously, inspiringly, (?) cowardly, senselessly is up to us, to really engage the hearts/emotions of our readers (and of course, us who wrote it) and more deeply engage the sharing process of the story. Nobody ever died in the Famous Five, did they? Can you remember a single story line in the whole series?

So noble sacrifice (greater love hath no man than this...) always stirs the emotions, and a good thing too...

 

[Toby Frost]

It's a difficult balance. Although killing characters dramatically can work very well, I'm wary of characters who clearly have Tragic Ending written all over them (older knights tend to suffer from this, as well as anyone whose time has clearly passed). On the other hand, you can't spring it from nowhere...

One of the best such endings like that I've seen is The Wild Bunch, which probably works because although clearly too old, the characters are such low-lifes it's hard to imagine them doing anything noble at all (in fact, they arguably only make the sacrifice because they're so angry they can't avoid shooting).

 

[Jake Reynolds]

I was trying to think of another, but all I can come up with is Charlie in Lost.

Made especially tragic given that he could have simply left the door open and then just left with Desmond. It's not like the chamber needed to be sealed to protect Desmond from drowning, since presumably he had to swim out anyway. That 'finale' was the last episode I ever watched, because to me it just seemed so obvious that the writers wanted to kill someone off to give it more punch.

 

[HareBrain]

Made especially tragic given that he could have simply left the door open and then just left with Desmond. It's not like the chamber needed to be sealed to protect Desmond from drowning, since presumably he had to swim out anyway. That 'finale' was the last episode I ever watched, because to me it just seemed so obvious that the writers wanted to kill someone off to give it more punch.

I couldn't remember it well enough to know what it was about his death that annoyed me so much, but you're right.

So if you're going to have a noble sacrifice, at least make it necessary and not just for effect.

 

[Mouse]

Made especially tragic given that he could have simply left the door open and then just left with Desmond.

Yup. Which was why I was yelling noooo, you eeeeejit! He could've just scarpered.

 

[AngryReader]

I love heroic self sacrifice, reminds me of me

I think heroic self sacrifice is more popular than it was, and to that extent has been cheapened by over use and worse poor use. I like Dicken’s employ of the heroic self sacrifice in A Tale of Two Cities. Those famous last lines that ends with “it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.” I like this because we don’t actually see him die, in fact he doesn’t die in the story in the book, because it ends before his death. But it makes me think about the sacrifice instead of the death.

I like it when the hero has to sacrifice something other than their life. In the film, never read the book, Fail Safe, the protagonist kills his wife to avert a nuclear war. That sounds lame if you don’t know the story, but I don’t want to give away the end of a movie I think you would enjoy if you like self-sacrifice. The Dark Knight had a similar ending of self-sacrifice where the hero survives. Batman doesn’t die, but he does allow himself to be vilified to protect the people’s image of Harvey Dent, their White Knight.

I hold the controversial position among gamers of liking Knights of the Republic II better than the first Knights of the Republic . One of the biggest reasons for this is how the villain of the first game is explained in terms of self-sacrifice in a way I don’t recall ever seeing before in a story. In the first game you have your classic Star Wars light versus dark, which your character is just entering the tail end of a devastating war against the dark side. The war, like the conflict in the Star Wars movies, started when one of the valiant and pure Knights of the Jedi order fell to the dark side.

In the second game it is explained that the jedi fell to the dark side not accidently through corruption by anger or the lust for power, but on purpose. He discovered that there was a great threat to humanity in the galactic civilization of the Republic, and resolved to unite the known galaxy against it. Viewing the Republic as too weak, he allowed himself to fall to the dark side to create a force strong enough to fight off this threat. If he won, the galaxy would be prepared to fight this great threat with his military. If he lost, the Republic would have built up a military strong enough to have beaten his, and be strong enough to fight this greater threat. Either way, the right thing for him to, to save the known galaxy and all within it, was to fall to the dark side, to become corrupted and soulless and cruel, and to kill billions without pity. He didn’t sacrifice his life, he sacrificed his humanity.

I think good endings make people sad, but they also make people happy. I disliked the last scene, the funeral scene, in the movie Last of the Mohicans. But what the scene was trying to express was the tragedy you had just witnessed at the death of the sympathetic Uncas and Alice and Duncan’s awesome self-sacrifice, with the triumph of the defeat of the villain Magua and Hawkeye rescuing Cora (Alice in the book I believe). Good victories come with high costs, or the triumph over the challenge was meaningless. I agree that sacrifice at the end is a good way to do this, even sacrifice of the main character. But, like I said, I prefer it when the sacrifice is something other than their life, something personal and emotional.