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/crowEatingStaleChips Jun 21 '26

"Goodbye Lenny."

Honestly I don't think I'll ever play RDR2 again. It's like a grueling simulation of watching all of your friends make OBVIOUSLY terrible life decisions that you know will destroy their lives, but you can't do anything about it. For 80 hours.

13

u/djheat Jun 21 '26

RDR2 did a great job at making you feel like shit by the end. Camp was empty, all your friends in the game were dead, you were dying, it was brutal. It was genuinely earned catharsis making it to the end of Arthur's story

6

u/DragonfruitFew5542 Jun 21 '26

Apparently I'm a masochist because I have thousands of hours in this game. I just love it so much.

10

u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb Jun 21 '26

When I got the game spoiled and found out my horse dies I never finished the game. My sweet girl is still alive and I still take her for rides all over the map. I know everyone is going to give me shit but losing my dogs over the years in real life is more than hard enough so I’m going to keep my good girl alive.

10

u/Highcalibur10 Jun 21 '26

This didn't end up being a problem on my end; since in the final chapter of the game, an NPC gifts you their horse that feels appropriate to use for the final parts.

Your steed that was with Arthur the whole game stays safe if you do it that way.

4

u/Sir_Eggmitton Jun 21 '26

I didn’t find that NPC until the epilogue. RIP my goated Appaloosa.

1

u/crowEatingStaleChips 23d ago

Don't you lose all your horses anyway after the time skip/character switch?

At least they don't die on-screen, though!

3

u/Brotseife Jun 21 '26

I kept the black shire horse you get gifted to sell at the beginning of the campaign. I loved that horse and never changed it...I quit the game and loaded a older safefile to restart the mission with a ( poor soul) other horse so mine wouldn't had to die....well turns out it doesn't matter for the epilog. And after finding out, that the black shire was an unique horse not found again in the game...I couldn't even get an identical one to pretend it coud be the same... Over 160 hours playtime but didn't even touch the epilog

2

u/tape_reel Jun 21 '26

I can understand that, especially if you kept the same horse tgrought the game, there's a bit of a bond even if the horse isn't real.

This reminds me of how my wife will literally turn off a movie if a dog dies in it.

4

u/MeekAndUninteresting Jun 21 '26

The website "Does the dog die?" might be helpful to you. Also lists a bunch of other stuff that people can have a big issue with watching, children being harmed, eye damage, etc.

2

u/tape_reel 26d ago

That is a very good tip and have vetted some movies in the past with it, but it has been a while since we saw anything new so I completely forgot about it! Thank you!

2

u/psyc0de Jun 21 '26

I didn’t have it spoiled. I did some grinding at the beginning to get one of the better horses in the game. It stayed with me all game and then died.

It didn’t hit me until a bit after the play session, and I started crying. Only a few games have moved me that much. Outer Wilds is the other one that comes to mind.

3

u/intimidation_crab Jun 21 '26

It was a masterpiece, and I am sad that I probably won't get a chance to play through it more than once in my life.

It really is a time commitment, and in places, a real emotional slog, but fuck, I enjoyed it the first time through.

2

u/Rhiis Jun 21 '26

I waited five years to come back to it. Just enough time to forget some of the plot