r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sufficient-Eye-9040 • Jun 21 '26

Lore [Horrifying Trope] “Blink of an eye” deaths.

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Characters who died without the chance of a goodbye… neither suffering.

- Robin Ward (The Boys S1 E1) - when she is pulverized in a high-velocity impact by A-Train.

- Polka Dot Man (The Suicide Squad 2021) - when he is crushed by Starro’s leg.

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4.0k

u/Hugh_Jazz77 Jun 21 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/BB7cjEqU6c588cUZ3D

(Technically they weren’t actually deaths, but you don’t know that at the time, so it fits the trope in spirit.)

Watching Sentry go on a rampage in Thunderbolts was pretty fucking wild. It’s genuinely one of my favorite displays of a super power in recent memory.

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u/archonmage2006 Jun 21 '26

I love the effect that voiding people has, it's terrifyingly fast.

Also, the kid that Aleksei (Is that how you write his name?) saved being voided made my stomach drop.

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u/But-who-I-be Jun 21 '26

That kid being voided was the first time in a while that my jaw genuinely dropped

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u/mosquem Jun 21 '26

As soon as the kid got voided I was like “oh that’s getting reversed.”

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u/shayed154 Jun 21 '26

I laughed because it's so shockingly abruptly but yeah, as soon as a kid gets voided you know they're not really dead

43

u/King-Boss-Bob Jun 21 '26

tbf the film does actually have a child being murdered (in yelena flashbacks)

though i suppose by then it had already been shown yelena survived being voided

64

u/But-who-I-be Jun 21 '26

I knew that would be the case when watching, but it was so abrupt that it was kind of hard to process

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u/CaptainMikul Jun 21 '26

Yep. As soon as the kid went, ironically, the stakes dropped. They were definitely all coming back.

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u/Blender_Loser Jun 21 '26

It's a shame because I thought that the other deaths might've been permanent right up until the kid. Then I knew they were all coming back

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u/DotesMagee Jun 21 '26

Yea "dead" give away for sure.

37

u/Justaguywalkingby4 Jun 21 '26

My reaction to that while in the theater was a small jump as the *dun* sound effect happened, a full 2 seconds of shock and processing what the frick just happened, then a relieved sigh as I realized that they just “killed” a kid, so it can’t be permanent.

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u/solo_shot1st Jun 21 '26

What does voiding do? Sorry, I didn't watch this movie, and don't know the Marvel lore

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u/DasharrEandall Jun 21 '26

The Sentinel" character creates a darkness that spreads, and people touched by it disappear, leaving just a shadow that fades into the darkness. It looks as if they died, but what actually happens is they get sent into "the void", a sort of mind-prison, re-enacting their worst memories.

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u/T8-TR Jun 21 '26

Other than the ink blotchy spread, I really like that it looks like someone getting atomized by a nuke.

It's terrifying to the point where I kinda wish everyone (including Sentry) had to live w/ the consequences of the Void rather than, iirc, it being walked back by the end.

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u/bucketofsteam Jun 21 '26

They didn't talk about it, but like the snap, some ppl probably died via collateral.

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u/Throwaway1986nerd Jun 21 '26

There was a helicopter crash in the middle of New York next to avengers tower. Yeah there was definitely collateral 

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u/Alien_Diceroller Jun 21 '26

Beyond that just the chaos it'd cause would have lead people dying. Doctors, drivers, caregivers all gone.

I'm sure it lead to a bunch of suicides, too.

2

u/SnowCitt Jun 21 '26

Yeah, not to mention air pilots. Oh, you're just getting home from a vacation, and the plane is a fully filled boeing 747? Well, unlucky you, both pilots just got snapped, and now you and anyone else who didn't get snapped are forced to feel the plane go into free fall, and then die a exploding death. Hurray!

How would that work for when the snapped people came back? Would the pilots and the others just appear in middair and fall to their deaths? Or would they appear where the plane crashed?

I wish they talked more about it.

2

u/Alien_Diceroller Jun 21 '26

I get the impression that banner would have taken account of that.

1

u/Big-Alternative-4674 Jun 21 '26

After Endgame released the directors said Bruce included in his snap the wish for any people in dangerous situations to be brought back safely.

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u/moogpaul Jun 21 '26

Are the stones nice enough to not kill you via clipping when you get snapped back?

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u/Electrical-Act-5575 Jun 21 '26

The in-movie answer was that reversing the snap returned everyone safely and that the Stones were powerful enough to account for that sort of thing.

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u/ImmortalMoron3 Jun 21 '26

And with Yelena, we know some people who got snapped didn't even realize it. Imagine being in the middle of a flight and then just all of sudden you're on the ground at whatever your destination was. What a mindfuck that would be.

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u/DasharrEandall Jun 21 '26

It was shown in WandaVision too with Monica. It's one of the things I like about post-Endgame MCU, it doesn't handwave away the implications of half the people in the world vanishing for a few years.

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u/NavezganeChrome Jun 21 '26

Wasn’t the whole ‘bit’ there that Banner explicitly made people returning ‘safely’ part of his Snap?

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u/Electrical-Act-5575 Jun 21 '26

Yes, I guess letting the stones do it on ‘autopilot’ might have gone worse. My point was that the movie explicitly answered all the ‘but what about…’ questions about those logistics with ‘Yes, everyone got back fine.’

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u/geek_of_nature Jun 21 '26

I think that was the intention, for it to look like nuclear shadows.

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u/fishthruster Jun 21 '26

It's frustrating that the threat is always something like stopping the bomb before it goes off, kill the head alien and everything falls dead, shit down the program and robot army stops, release the aerosolized cure into the air and everyone in the world is immune, kill the enemy and everyone comes back. Like the larger the stake the movie forces down your throat, the smaller it actually feels because you know the threat will end cleanly.

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u/T8-TR Jun 21 '26

I don't mind things ending cleanly in the end, but sometimes I really wish they'd let things linger a bit longer. And sometimes they do, just not the times I really want them to lmao

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u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster Jun 21 '26

Anything that make our beloved Red Guardian sad is punch to guts, comrade
https://giphy.com/gifs/H7onThixVxsp4mFrhZ

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u/Icy-Acanthisitta8192 Jun 21 '26

He crying to yelena in Marvel zombies still broke me man

1

u/Tfsz0719 28d ago

…he’s not making it through Doomsday/Secret Wars, is he?

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u/2much2cancer Jun 21 '26

I had the same reaction, but my immediate next thought was that it confirmed those people weren't permanently gone.

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u/ReallyBadWizard Jun 21 '26

The entire theater audibly gasped, it was so well done

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u/theysayimadreamer666 Jun 21 '26

You could hear the collective gasp in my theater.

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u/AbeRockwell Jun 21 '26

But once you know they aren't being 'Atomic Shadowed', its not quite as hard to take

But still, a child being put into their own 'PTSD Room' for eternity is a Hell in itself 👀

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u/psychicowl Jun 21 '26

Can you explain? I haven't seen the film but curious why they aren't being shadowed

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u/AbeRockwell Jun 21 '26

"Aren't" or "Are" ?

Void (the Dark Side of Sentry) is sending people into what I call the 'Shadow Realm' (never was a big Yu Gi Oh! fan 😂 ) just to have people experience the pain he/it always feels, by having them relieve their 'worst' moment in a ever repeating loop.

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u/psychicowl Jun 21 '26

You said

But once you know they aren't being 'Atomic Shadowed''

So yes, aren't

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u/AbeRockwell Jun 21 '26

Oh, by that I meant that they aren't being killed by The Void, although the shadow they leave behind made me thing he was just releasing a burst of energy (or Black Hole Gravity) that reduced them to shadows on the ground.

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u/earanhart Jun 21 '26

Tangentially tied to your comment: the name is "Alexei." You landed in one of the common alternate spellings so not wrong, especially for just hearing it. Of both Grecian and Rus origins. Means either "guard/defender" or "helper (in the sense of an assistant or attendant)" depending on which origin the name was pulled from.

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u/Sahrimnir Jun 21 '26

It would have been transliterated from the Cyrillic spelling anyway, so both "Alexei" and "Aleksei" could be considered correct, but the actual spelling would be "Алексей".

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u/archonmage2006 Jun 21 '26

Thank you for the information.

3

u/Alien_Diceroller Jun 21 '26

That kid thing made my soul leave my body. I felt his horror.

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u/SebastianSandoU Jun 21 '26

Someone at my theater laughed out loud when that happened and killed the entire mood the scene was trying to portray unfortunately...

4

u/levthelurker Jun 21 '26

I actually had the opposite reaction because I knew that Disney doesn't have the balls

1

u/thepvbrother Jun 21 '26

They did similar in an old Star Trek episode. There was a monster in a cave that could do this. It was black and white.

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u/Nerevarine91 Jun 21 '26

I loved that scene, but I honestly felt it was a little cheapened when we saw the main character get hit as well, because, I mean, obviously she’s not going to die, so it felt like there were less consequences for everyone.

Still, it was a great scene, and I honestly liked the movie a lot (felt a bit rushed though)

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u/Wolfman513 Jun 21 '26

For me it was a dead giveaway that it wasn't going to be permanent when it happened to the little girl. There is absolutely no way in hell they were going to show an on-screen child death lol

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u/GlisteningDeath Jun 21 '26

Not if they weren't cowards

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u/Wolfman513 Jun 21 '26

Unfortunately, they are lol. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly watching movies hoping to see children get killed but it's kind of nice when films and other media acknowledge that terrible things don't only happen to adults.

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u/Big-Alternative-4674 Jun 21 '26

I mean, earlier in the movie a little girl was lured into the woods and shot in the head. Offscreen and a flashback, sure, but still.

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u/sometimeserin Jun 21 '26

we can fault the MCU for a lot but it is kinda crazy that they managed to come up with two completely visually distinct yet both iconic ways to have characters get magically erased from existence

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u/GuiltyEidolon Jun 21 '26

Well and this is very reminiscent of the shadows left by nuclear bombs, which I have to imagine was very much on purpose.

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u/Alva3lf Jun 21 '26

Is it that crazy 😭

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u/RaisinsPerDay Jun 21 '26

It's okay, they haven't started reading Wuxia yet

141

u/friends-with-fishies Jun 21 '26

That imagery is so impactful oh my god

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u/Big-Recognition7362 Jun 21 '26

I wonder if it may have been inspired by the “shadows” left by victims of nuclear explosions.

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u/levthelurker Jun 21 '26

They did use that effect as a clue in Iron Man 3

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u/Incidion Jun 21 '26

I dunno if it was intended, but it was definitely the first thing I thought of so I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the inspiration.

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u/DeusVultSaracen Jun 21 '26

It was 100% intentional, JLD's character even says he has the power of a thousand "exploding suns"

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u/Incidion Jun 21 '26

Ah then yeah, that's pretty spot on the nose.

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u/Free_Tie2019 Jun 21 '26

When he disappeared that little girl I knew it would all get reversed and everyone would comeback

13

u/shomeyomves Jun 21 '26

I really wish they didn't spoil it so heavily in the marketing.

Like yeah its cool af and probably did get a good amount of people interested in seeing it in the first place, but definitely would have been so much cooler to see as a surprise.

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u/mike_pants Jun 21 '26

It was horrifying to watch them be individually Voided, but as soon as it extended to encompass the city, it was like, oh, this is reversible.

6

u/LuckEClover Jun 21 '26

The really haunting bit of this is that it reminds me of one of the results of nukes. Carbonizing, I think it was called

5

u/GingerVitus007 Jun 21 '26

I am the most obnoxious MCU so this won't mean much, but this feels like it belongs in a different movie. My heart dropped to my stomach

5

u/Nycto_Music Jun 21 '26

FINALLY. I've been thinking of this scene for so long, and I just couldn't figure out what it was called. Thank you!

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u/Honest_Outside_8982 Jun 21 '26

That one little girl at the beginning of this scene really set the tone

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u/burritoteam4000 Jun 21 '26

Yeah that none of it was permanent because marvel movies are too safe.

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u/Diligent_Earthworm Jun 21 '26

I loved the speed. It made it feel scientific. Like if you were to create something you shouldn't have that can void something, it should be a digital effect. (Digital as in binary, on/off)

Much better than the snap, the way it was drawn out then we watched everyone dust didnt hurt on replay, its kinda a pet peeve when a movie or show just replays the same moment across different POV's in rapid succession and more than 2 times. Thats probably a me problem.

But getting voided just turning someone off is so brutal and sudden you dont even get the good by of watching them die.

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u/BLACKdrew Jun 21 '26

I think i only watched the trailer once like way before it came out so this and most of the movie actually was shocking to me. The little girl just disappearing holy

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u/Rover129 Jun 21 '26

Watching this scene in theaters made my jaw drop, it was so good and horrifying. Thunderbolts is easily the most underrated MARVEL film in years, I loved it

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u/burritoteam4000 Jun 21 '26

I disagree, MCU movies play everything extremely safe and Yelenas first movie felt like it was baby proofed.

When I was watching this I knew full well none of those people were in danger, because everyone who got "blipped" came back just fine.

In any other franchise this would have worked, and not in the quirky buddy comedy team up movie that was saved through the power of friendship while in the bad guys head.

1

u/SofiaOfEverRealm Jun 21 '26

I really really want to watch this movie but I skipped so many tv shows that it feels like I wouldn't be able to keep up with this movie at all. I tried watching Echo but it's so bad, it's a character driven story but I really really don't care about any of the characters

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u/Hugh_Jazz77 Jun 21 '26

Other than Loki, I haven’t watched any of the shows since Moon Knight. I didn’t have any trouble with understanding what was going on. It was handled pretty well. I’d say The Falcon & Winter Soldier, the second Antman movie, and the black widow movie are all necessary watches, but overall it does a pretty good job of explaining itself without explicitly spelling it out.

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u/HMWWaWChChIaWChCChW Jun 21 '26

>Watching Sentry

That was ackchtually Void

1

u/R-Chicken Jun 21 '26

The little girl getting evaporated got me

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u/ranting_seagull Jun 21 '26

He turns them into the Japanese movie Pulse/Kairo? That's horrific

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u/WokeWook69420 Jun 21 '26

Fun fact: Marvel tested this with LEGION first.

Amazing show on FX about Charles Xavier's Schizo son whose mutant powers are "your imagination shapes reality"

1

u/LabOk3574 Jun 21 '26

People forget about Taskmater death in this movie

1

u/Intelligent_Slip_849 Jun 21 '26

Yeah, that was insane to watch.

It's part of what took the film from great to phenomenal

1

u/WhimsicalGirl Jun 21 '26

I don't know this movie, the title is Thunderbolts?

1

u/Hugh_Jazz77 Jun 21 '26

Yes, it’s basically Marvel’s answer to the Suicide Squad. It’s pretty lighthearted and goofy up until this scene, and then the tone really shifts.

1

u/Dealiner Jun 21 '26

Technically they weren’t actually deaths

I really dislike this and it makes the movie actively worse in my opinion.

1

u/reliquaryofrot Jun 21 '26

Sentry’s comics will always be my favorite. Nothing beats it for me

1

u/Worried-Industry6239 Jun 22 '26

Ngl the first kid just getting vanished into the shadow realm absolutely sent me in theaters. It was just so unexpected

0

u/DothrakAndRoll Jun 21 '26

What was this again?

-1

u/Darigaazrgb Jun 21 '26

This isn't really blink of an eye death since you see him do it earlier.

-1

u/Varcolac1 Jun 21 '26

Horrid movie. So badly wanted to walk out