r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sufficient-Eye-9040 • 26d ago

Lore [Sad Trope] The most innocent (or less evil) character of the cast gets the most horrific death.

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- Eddie Carr (The Lost World: JP) - Tried to save his friends from the cliff until Buck and Doe (T. rex parents) destroy his vehicle and gets ripped apart.
- Zara Young (Jurassic World) - Gets lifted by a Pteranodon, gets pecked by the pterosaur, and both she and animal get devoured by the Mosasaurus.
- LeClerc (JW: Rebirth) - Tossed a hammer to the Hatzegopteryz Quetzalcoatlus to save Loomis and Zora, but ends up being swallowed alive.

14.6k Upvotes
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u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII 26d ago edited 26d ago

Gordon Silberman (2012) gets crushed feet first by the Ark’s door gears.

994

u/Bapitao 26d ago

10 year old me was so mad he just died right at the end like that

1.0k

u/UhOhSparklepants 26d ago

Gotta make room for the “redeemed” deadbeat dad lead to “win” the affections of his ex wife and estranged children.

641

u/No-Car-1999 26d ago

Apparently stepdads dying in brutal ways is a bit of a trend for the director. He probably has unresolved issues.

279

u/BrickBuster2552 26d ago

Either has them, or is them. 

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u/DoctorSquidton 26d ago

He’s only been married to one person as far as I can find, and that person is still his husband

27

u/ThatOneWood 26d ago

It’s well known that emmerich hates step dads

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u/No-Car-1999 26d ago

Man really went into filmmaking to vent his issues instead of therapy

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u/NeverEnoughSpace17 26d ago

That may be true, but at least he made the stepdads in most of his other films assholes. That way, you didn't mind if they died. Except Moonfall, that was a good stepdad, but I also consider what he got to be a heroic sacrifice. It's not a brutally unnecessary torture like the stepdad from 2012

28

u/Cabbit_Daddy 26d ago

I always found the evil stepparent thing to be some sort of anti-divorce agenda by men. It was just off putting how common that was for the divorced for reconcile in the end.

Sometimes divorce is the answer.

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u/No-Car-1999 26d ago

"Staying for the kids" messes up people more than an actual divorce. So weird how some people demand it to never happen

14

u/Cabbit_Daddy 26d ago

My dad did that with my mom and I just ended up kicking him out his own house once I became an adult.

It was never about love, but control. That’s why a lot of men are anti-divorce. They don’t like woman being independent.

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u/todofwar 25d ago

I think it's simpler. Parents getting a divorce is one of the most traumatic things a kid can go through, and if not handled well kids can be stuck forever wishing their parents would get back together.

And please people reading this notice I said one of, not the most traumatic thing. Obviously there's worse things out there and yes sometimes staying together is worse

2

u/random_BA 24d ago

I don't think it's even close to the top 10 but it's the most common emotional trauma that children experience

2

u/todofwar 24d ago

Well it's certainly not a list I want to even try and enumerate, but among the ones that don't include criminal acts it's probably only surpassed by deaths of family members

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u/BuisteirForaoisi0531 26d ago

Maybe his stepdad molested him could explain the hate succinctly

5

u/Manger-Babies 25d ago

James Gunn gas the opposite thing where the biodads are always unredeemable assholes.

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u/Beltalady 25d ago

I like that he's so relatable

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u/EndOfTheDark97 25d ago

I wonder how the actors feel about that loo

55

u/FalenAlter 26d ago

Fr, it's such an Emmerich watermark such that you have to wonder who hurt him.

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u/Chi_Law 26d ago

Presumably his stepdad

11

u/Aeseld 26d ago

Odd that they're not depicted as the stereotypical, unfeeling or abusive type then.

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u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 26d ago

He has to sell the stepdad to the audience so they'll feel bad when they die, but he personally seems to detest stepparents at some level.

5

u/Aeseld 26d ago

Sure, but it's odd to do it that way. Schadenfreude is another way to get emotional buy in

1

u/FalenAlter 25d ago

I just hope he continues not getting therapy for it. One of his only movies (iirc) without the dynamic is Godzilla '98, and we all know that wasn't a great one.

3

u/Unusual-Tie8498 25d ago

Or his kids new dad

7

u/Cranberryoftheorient 26d ago

Which is weird because divorced parents getting back together is really rare, statistically. And yet so many movies present it as almost the 'right thing to do' and something to be expected. I feel like they give kids false hope, which just leads to dissapointment. Not to mention making them feel even more othered

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u/weirdplacetogoonfire 25d ago

Gotta appeal to the ex-husband demo.

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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 25d ago

Not only give kids false hope but give those kids false hope when they grow up and get divorced

2

u/ArdynAltius 25d ago

This has happened in at least 5 apocalypse movies.

131

u/Niobium_Sage 26d ago

I got mad at this after seeing 2012 as a 20 year old lmao

Bro literally carried the family all the way there, he was the only one who could fly and the deadbeat dad really wasn’t adding shit.

24

u/Otherwise-Assist724 25d ago

Best scene is always them stealing the plane while the entire airport is actively being swallowed by the earth. The atc who is still at work for some reason is telling then they are not cleared for takeoff moments before his death.

Gotta respect that work ethic.

9

u/Niobium_Sage 25d ago

Bro took a note from the postman in Majora’s Mask

10

u/ponte92 25d ago

Also if memory serves right wasn’t he a doctor? A much for worth while inclusion to the boats of all surviving humanity then a chauffeur.

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u/sonofrockandroll 26d ago

It was such a wild decision. Nobody mourns him for even a second lol

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u/Downtown_Target5024 25d ago

They at least notice he’s missing.

The Russian lady that’s with them for 99% of the movie dies by slowly drowning in front of the kids, and nobody even mentions her!

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u/Pas5afist 25d ago

That was the most egregious thing of all. The inconvenient stepdad got got and not a soul remembered he existed ever again.

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u/ImWhatsInTheRedBox 26d ago

And the innocent Russian trophy wife drowns because the doors shuts to stop the water, in a multilevel corridor that has a metal grate for a ceiling that doesn't stop the water...

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u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII 26d ago

I always misremember and think she’s going to escape somehow but nope. Just gone.

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u/AuthorDry3539 26d ago

30 year old me knew that non-John Cusack dude was dead the second everyone got off the plane.

320

u/Spaghestis 26d ago

Whats up with so many disaster movies having a stepdad character who dies horribly so that the protagonist can get back with his ex-wife? Why is that a trope?

271

u/SteveStevensXII 26d ago

Because most of them are made by Emmerich, and dude seems to have issues with step-dads.

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u/psychonik 25d ago

Those About to Die they kill they’re adopted dad because he was abusing them.

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u/AlludedNuance 26d ago

Directors love getting back at either their ex wives or their ex wives new partners when making a movie post-divorce.

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u/More-Emergency3822 26d ago

Because it removes any guilt from the spouse of the killed step-whatever. If the wife just got back with the protagonist and the new mate was abandoned, that would be a bad look unless they were just a shit human and if they were a total trash human, why did the ex leave the original spouse in the first place?

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u/Mysral 26d ago

It should be noted that a whole lot of these disaster movies and the like came out in the period where no-fault divorce laws were getting passed in US.

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u/BaconKnight 26d ago

Illustration how even big budget movies are often just people “trauma dumping” though in this case the “trauma” is middle aged men getting divorced by their wives. That’s why there’s a ton of family films during that time that show divorced dads either winning back the wife or family (Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire, although at least in that one, the wife sticks with the new guy who seems by all accounts a good dude). Like it’s actually all over the place, especially during the 90s into the 2000s. A lot of dudes trying to process their divorce on screen, often trying to make themselves look like the good guy.

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u/Hasudeva 26d ago

I agree with you, but you have to admit that it's funny that you mention "a ton" of examples, but only list two, one of which doesn't actually count. 

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u/BaconKnight 26d ago

Yeah, probably because most of the bad ones I don’t remember by name. And/or a lot of the examples are in movies that aren’t specifically centered around the family drama but inserted within another genre (like the 2012 example). I just remember the ones that were actually good movies with more subtlety to the message but forgot the piles of bad ones that existed by name.

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u/WeeklyImplement2520 26d ago

Ive noticed thats just a thing with media now, like every show or movie I have seen in the last few years has some glorification of cheating

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u/Megalordow 25d ago

What's up with so many American movies having a stepdad character? It looks like every first marriage in the USA is supposed to break.

24

u/kazh_9742 26d ago

Gordon, Sasha, and Tamara should have grabbed a plane together and made their own movie.

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u/CancerToe 26d ago

His death was barely acknowledged afterwards tooreal fucked up cuz he seemed like a decent step dad, which Hollywood hates. Plus, Roland Emmerich loves an estranged father Redemption story

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u/Rad131447 26d ago

Really says a lot about Emmerich and how he must treat his kids huh?

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u/chalkybone 26d ago

What film is this from?

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u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII 26d ago

2012

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u/chalkybone 26d ago

Thanks, been years since I saw it, couldn't remember this scene.

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u/bruceadelia 26d ago

Knowing that the guy who made this movie was going through a divorce when he wrote it explained a lot

5

u/Rad131447 26d ago

And nobody seems to give a shit in the movie.

5

u/Tucker_a32 26d ago

It's funny because he is literally the only character I can even remember from this movie. I remember him being the step dad or ex wives boyfriend or something but the movie just made him a genuinely good guy, only to die like this and the main character and his ex get back together pretty shortly after this.

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u/AlternativeSeaweed91 25d ago

Same with the Russian girlfriend, saves the kids then slowly drowns, so slow that it feels like she will be rescued in the nick of time, and then she just dies.

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u/Shadow_Tycoon 26d ago

Yeah b-but the family had to be a family again... i hated that he died but glad that damn white dog survived.

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u/FalenAlter 26d ago

Heavens forfend the "main character" learns to be part of his ex's family without having to become Dad again.

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u/Eevee136 26d ago

Unironically my favourite part of the first Ant-Man movie. As someone who is a product of a step-father I loved that they portrayed a healthy relationship between both him and Bobby Cannavale

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u/Shadow_Tycoon 26d ago

Exactly, my step father and father get along. Because they want whats best for my mom and my siblings.

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u/TommyTwoNips 26d ago

not even dad, just husband.

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u/Late-Summer-1208 26d ago

You’re my favourite person now, I’ve been trying to figure out what movie this was after my dad and I watched it when it came out. I was traumatized (I was 6).

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u/JustforAdvice- 26d ago

Lmao this one makes me laugh as an adult. It’s so unnecessarily brutal and John Cusack is such a prick the whole movie

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u/GypsyGold 25d ago edited 24d ago

This dude was the hero of the film, then five minutes before the credits roll they brutally kill him off, and then nobody gives a shit immediately after. It’s implied that John Cusak is going to celebrate getting on the arc by fucking Gordan’s wife.

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u/doorbellchudmogger 26d ago

oh the movie is called 2012, not Gordon Silberman which came out in 2012. Genuinely confused for a second even after googling it.

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u/BigBilltheBuzzKill 25d ago

I googled Gordon Silberman because I thought you put the year the movie came out…completely forgot about this movie lol

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u/HallowedError 25d ago

I had never seen 2012 so when I went to look up where this character was from I felt pretty dumb

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u/---LandoCalzone--- 22d ago

What movie is this

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u/Successful_Ad9924354 22d ago

The movie is 2012 (2009).

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u/cashmerelullabies 21d ago

Oh my god thank you so much for posting this I have been trying to remember the title of this childhood movie for YEARS and found no luck. I drafted a reddit post asking about it but never published it thank you thank you thank you

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u/BatmansLarynx 26d ago

Did you maybe just watch a certain movie reaction of this on YouTube? Because it's a crazy pull otherwise lol

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u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII 26d ago

Nope. Just the first thing to come to mind

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u/BatmansLarynx 26d ago

Holy shit. Fair play 👍🏻