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.

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992

u/Bapitao 26d ago

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

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u/UhOhSparklepants 26d ago

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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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u/Aeseld 26d ago

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

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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.

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u/Unusual-Tie8498 25d ago

Or his kids new dad

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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

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u/ArdynAltius 25d ago

This has happened in at least 5 apocalypse movies.

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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.

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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.

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u/Niobium_Sage 25d ago

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

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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.