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Agents of SHIELD, Blog, Carlie Bradbury, Characters, Chris Brecheen, Constance Zimmer, Felicia Day, Gotham, Inspiration, John Gardner, Killing Characters, Marvel, Movies, Sam and Dean Winchester, Styne Family, Supernatural, Television, Women in Refrigerators, Writers, Writers About Writing, Writing
Note as of posting this blog: I write many of these several months ahead of time so that I have time for someone else to edit them for grammar and so I can make regular postings. So when I wrote this it was in the middle of the television season.
I watch television, and even though John Gardner (The American version, not the Brit) would disapprove, I don’t care. Lately I’m starting to suspect some of the shows I watch kill off characters off in such an abrupt manner that it is beginning to come across as an abuse of writing to me.
Among that trend in television shows I see is Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Gotham, and Supernatural. It seems they like they are the ones that introduce interesting characters who have the potential to be prolific for the life of the series, but then are just killed off and we are done. Yes, the initial shock is there. And perhaps in that episode or even the one after they are ‘avenged’ but once that aspect is taken care of, their purpose is said and done.
I have to ask, am I the only one who feels this way? These three shows are the ones I watch almost to the fanatical level so I want to ask if they are not the only shows that kill off a lot of characters very quickly and do so with little ceremony.
If a character is introduced and they are used for one or two episodes (or if a new creative staff member takes over on a long term show), they review characters used in previous episodes and decide to use this to shock the viewing audience. I ask because if that is the current trend, I am starting to find that aspect of writing annoying and lazy.
So fellow writers (or anyone who reads this blog) who watch pop culture, does anyone else think there is a television trend in which great characters are killed off too quickly? Was that always there and I’m just noticing that now?
Is this an aspect of girl in refrigerators: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Website/WomenInRefrigerators?from=Main.WomenInRefrigerators
I only ask because, while it’s not just female characters this seems to happen to, the two characters that inspired this blog happened to be female. One was killed this television season, the other last.
So the first I’m going to discuss is a character that made semi-regular appearances in Supernatural. One more time, it was last season that she was killed, but for the sake of this blog I will use it because to me her death made me think the writers of this show are guilty of the cheap kill. Felicia Day is a red-headed goddess (can you tell I’m married to one?) named Charlene “Charlie” Bradbury; yes it was an alias. Her character assisted the main protagonists (Sam and Dean Winchester) numerous times. Actually the cheap death involving this character instantly collides with others that became involved with this story. To make a short story long, last season she was brutally killed by a group of villains called the Styne family. *Spoiler alert* Yes, they were actually descended from Dr. Frankenstein. And the pisser: these guys ended up being throw away villains. Waste, waste, and more waste. At least that is how I feel. A beloved character was killed and I felt it was cheap. A group that could be potential long term villains, dude, freakin’ Frankenstein, are wiped out in an instant as a result of the incident. All for an item that was important for the main storyline. But to reach that goal, this rich tapestry of side characters and potential nemesis for future storytelling is sacrificed. I mean, if you are even a little bit familiar with the Supernatural Universe, you could see that part of the conflict of this arc included a family member resisting being drawn into the family business. This “Styne”, was killed off unceremoniously, an afterthought just so the main characters could get their hands on a book. Meanwhile a supporting character was killed for dumb reasons and no salvation, even though in the past they could have been saved by Angels. They are gone and I’m pissed.
They could have easily saved that character and continued the story. Hell if handled correctly, the fallen son of the (Franken) Styne family could easily have become the Anti-Winchester for future seasons/stories. Who, while the Winchester brothers and their adopted sister continued their quest to stop evil, could have become what his family always expected him to become and quietly he could re-build the family legacy. All this from behind the scenes; then he could take on the Winchester family in a broad stroke several seasons later.
And this is just the past season, before the current one, I’m watching right now and complaining about. This rant is from the fall of 2015 to the spring of 2016.
So to keep current I’m going to be vocal about the 2015-2016 television season of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. If you’re familiar, you know. If not, it takes place in the Marvel movie universe, and it involves a super-secret spy organization that helped put the Avengers together and was in the background of most of the movies. This is the spinoff where we see the up and downs of the organization as they change with the times. I can’t do it justice in a few sentences, I like it and it’s a lot of fun. And yet a sticking point for me is that they seem to go through a lot of characters the same way Supernatural does.
Somehow SHIELD was infiltrated by another secret organization and decommissioned, but the main characters of the show have decided to keep it going even though they are considered rogue. The replacement spy agency was headed by fantastic character actor Constance Zimmer as Rosalind Price. Somehow she becomes involved with the head of SHIELD and they start working together, and she becomes a love interest for one of the central characters as well.
So here we have a female character who is intelligent, interesting and courageous. She is able to go toe to toe with our heroes, and add an interesting dynamic. So of course they kill her. Not only that but they kill her off at the beginning of an episode in a very unceremonious way. Done and gone.
Out of nowhere she’s killed off by the villain because he’s trying to prove a point. Up until this time she was a pivotal character contributing to the plot. The shock of her death ramps up the efforts of SHIELD to stop the bad boys. It also bores the hell out of me and pisses me off. Lately it seems more and more of these deaths to advance the plot are brought about by the death of women characters (that last statement might bite me in the ass later). Let me say when I kill off a character it’s not for shock value; it advances the plot, I hope.
These women were killed to “advance” the story, but their deaths were just cheap to me and in the end they actually seem meaningless.
I’m also disappointed because a number of other great characters in these shows were wiped out before these seasons (and remember, I’m just using these as examples, there are others out there). I just think the path the writers have been taking the last couple of years does not impress me, and I don’t want to get invested in new characters they introduce. That’s a good way to lose me. I think that’s a good way to lose many fans and in the end, leads to bad writing trends in future writing. Death, just to get cheap emotions without depth, makes me unhappy. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’m not against killing off characters unless there is purpose. Or perhaps I’m at the age where I’m just screaming at kids to get off my lawn. You tell me.
I think others feel the same way too. Another blog that brought up the same concerns was from the fantastic blogger Chris Brecheen. On his Writing About Writing site, he had this to say: http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2015/12/fridging-whos-dying-for-whom.html?spref=fb
That is how I’m feeling about this trend that I’m identifying in television.
I don’t appreciate writing where you kill off (more like throw away, and that’s the key to this, you’re just throwing them away) characters for shock value. I consider it cheap and lazy story telling. Am I right? Am I wrong? If so, why? Please let me know how you feel either way.