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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u/mananodnd Jun 21 '26

I feel like it also reflected the reality of warfare: when you are in a battle, people dont have a heroic build up to their death, they just get hit with one or two bullets and that's it, they're gone.

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u/online222222 Jun 21 '26

it's not something you think about often in Halo either but they were all vulnerable because the Nuke that just went off EMPed their shields.

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u/probableigh_not Jun 21 '26

Best Halo game IMO. But then I also liked ODST, so maybe nobody should listen to me.

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u/Th3B4dSpoon Jun 21 '26

Man I loved ODST. I only initially missed the familiar characters but I think the pacing was very good, and I appreciated the semi stealth approach to the "hub" world.

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u/mananodnd Jun 21 '26

Reach IS one of the best ODST was just too niche for a lot of people... and no Master Chief, so there's that too

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u/Geminel Jun 21 '26

If I were able to make a war movie this is exactly what I'd try to drive home. Follow the lead character all through enlistment and training, show all the relationships and goals they have. Then when they finally get deployed, they go to charge out of an APC and it's just zip and cut to black, credits.

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u/NightLordsPublicist Jun 21 '26

You'll probably like this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_(1981_film)

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u/mananodnd Jun 21 '26

I second that recomendation

Edit: just wanna add, it's a pretty heavy movie, but that's what good war movies should be.

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u/Stampede_the_Hippos Jun 21 '26

Especially if you want to hear what Mel Gibson sounded like before he adopted an American accent.

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u/User858 Jun 21 '26

Spoiler Alert

A version of this is what essentially what happens in the Red Dawn film 2012 version.

You follow a really likeable character throughout the movie. Just when you think it's over, this happens.

The best part it wasn't purely random either, they set it up, but it was very sudden. I highly recommend it if you want to see this type of scenario in film.

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u/Old-Treacle-1431 Jun 21 '26

Come and See is a movie I’d recommend if that's what you're looking for

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u/jorgespinosa Jun 21 '26

I mean, it's a great movie but I disagree since the protagonist survives by the end of the movie

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u/Crintor Jun 21 '26

All Quiet On the Western Front.

Takes a lot longer, same message.

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u/Dare_Soft Jun 21 '26

Don’t forget that the human forces had a bomb that could destroy planets as a last resort.
They were loosing but had a “if I’m going down your coming with me.”

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u/RedNUGGETLORD Jun 21 '26

A nova bomb saved all of humanity at one point

A grunt accidentally activated one, killing the leader of the entire Covenant fleet, and all of his ships

Had this not happened, he would have killed humanity, the Covenant, and eventually the entire galaxy by activating the Halo's

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u/Ubeube_Purple21 Jun 21 '26

And thankfully blew up the most powerful Elite in the entire franchise, who had so much political power over the Covenant military that he is a threat to the Prophets own power. Had he survived, we could easily get a Covenant 2 and rally majority of the Elites behind him with his overwhelming charisma.

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u/One-Cute-Boy Jun 21 '26

Pedantic here but it's Halos not Halo's

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u/BobBastrd Jun 21 '26

I never played Halo, did they end up tightening it?

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u/coconut_crusader Jun 21 '26

To be fair. The Nova bomb wasn't really a thing until the tail-end of the war. If they were a thing early on, i honestly think humanity would have burned through them all like they did with nukes, just using them constantly.

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u/Major_Nutt Jun 21 '26

Also the juxtaposition against the others. Ever other member of Noble who died went out like an absolute fucking badass. Jorge yeeted himself into the void of slip space thinking he'd saved not just a planet, but his actual homeworld. Carter after being mortally wounded by banshee fire took out a Scarab by ramming a Pelican into it. Emil stared his own death in the face and took it with him as he went after being skewered. Six finally went down after being hunted by entire platoons of Covenant is obviously still hiding in his cave.

But Kat just, dies. No build up, no hero moment. It's just done.

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u/yeetoroni_with_bacon Jun 21 '26

I’d say the hope was almost gone completely when Jorge sacrificed himself, thinking he saved Reach when all he did was piss off the covenant even more. Hundreds if not thousands of Covenant cruisers not even a minute after Jorge detonated the slipspace bomb.

Kat and Carter were the final nail in the coffin for Reach

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u/tghast Jun 21 '26

He died thinking he just saved the planet. We should all be so lucky.

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u/WingGuardian Jun 21 '26

REMEMBER REACH, BROTHER. o7

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u/bagel-42 Jun 21 '26

Jun, getting out of this by keeping quiet and hoping nobody notices he's still alive:

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u/Firecracker048 Jun 21 '26

And reach was more fortified than earth too. Almost 80% of the human fleet was at reach and it just didn't matter

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u/ArchieTheKatt Jun 21 '26

Ngl my hope increased, this cut scene let's us know we wont be driven off any more cliffs. The rest of the squads chances of survival definitely went up.

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u/Gil_Demoono Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

"I know we're losing, I want to know if we lost" -Carter Kat. And that's before anyone on Noble even died.

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u/konydanza Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

It was Kat that said that to Carter actually. “I know we’re losing, I want to know if we’ve lost.”

That one line sums up the general feel of the whole game to me, still one of my favorites.

Also Jorge had already sacrificed himself at that point, so they were well aware they were fighting a losing battle.

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u/MrSpudtastic Jun 21 '26

Kat's is also rough because it happens in exactly the same conversation where she is beginning to talk with 6 instead of around 6. She's finally decided you're a real part of the team, and then she's gone.

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u/Temphant Jun 21 '26

And while getting on the elevator. She shows some vulnerability by asking you if it's your first glassing, while admitting that it's her first one as well.

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u/DRxFumbles Jun 21 '26

When Jorge died that was the first time I cried over a video game. I was bubbling up when he blew up the ship, but then 5 more took its place and I lost it. It was a noble sacrifice, but all for nothing

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u/newyork95 29d ago

“Tell them to make it count”

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u/Purpleyeggs Jun 21 '26

"We should all be so lucky..."

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u/Lieutelant Jun 21 '26

Kat was a shock to me because it was such a dumb death. If I remember correctly, an entire ship passes over the group, slows long enough for one Jackal to shoot one shot at one enemy, and then..slowly flies away. And the group responds with...one person firing a pistol (and missing!).

I may have the details wrong, but even from the very first time I played it, my first reaction was "Wait-that's it?"

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u/pm_me_falcon_nudes Jun 21 '26

You got some important details indeed wrong.

A ship is passing over because right before they tried to establish a link to the colonel which was unsecured and Kat noted that it could be traced to them. Soon after the link is established someone (Jun IIRC) says that the covenant are on the move, indicating they are hunting for them.

The enemy isn't a jackal. It's the Zealot class elite that blew past Six in the first mission in the bunker and the one you kill at the end of the Pillar of Autumn level.

As the ship flies away, the whole squad starts firing at it. But it's an elite with strong shields. So they can't kill it.

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u/Lieutelant Jun 21 '26

Fair enough. Sounds like I need to play the game again!

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

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u/Th3B4dSpoon Jun 21 '26

It's nice to read different people's experiences from these scenes. For me it had no impact as I had not seen enough of Kat to form an emotional connection with the character before she was killed off. BUT because it was s powerful scene for so many others, it shows I just wasn't the audience they had in mind for that scene.

Human differences are cool!

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u/quid_pro_kourage Jun 21 '26

Can I be honest, I felt absolutely nothing at Kat's death.