dying vs living at the end

[Mr. Smith]

Is this about Monk being killed off?

[Juggernaut]

I agree. it was a damn good ending but a lot of people are like

OH HE DIED FOR NOTHING BLAH BLAH BLAH ALL DARREN'S EFFORTS WEREN'T WORTH ANYTHING IF HE JUST DIES

that's mainly what I'm getting at.

yeah, i don't get where those people are coming from

it was the only possible ending without having to continue the books in some way

[Witchkin]

The death of any character is something I consider very closely when writing a piece. The "red shirts" or disposable folks can be killed off when it is right for the story. It's one thing to narrate how a group "sacrificed greatly", but you can pull the reader along for a much more intense ride, making them see the sacrifice for them self. Some stories are better for it, when the hero dies at the end of the story. It's the gleaming, red punctuation to everything in the story.

Hemmingway was VERY good at this. Through the breadth of his works, the ones who die at the end, exhibited grace under pressure and then followed their goals into the grave. It just worked for the story lines that he created.

I'm a fan of including enough of real life into the stories I write, to make it "real" for the reader. In real life, heroes don't always survive. The good guys don't always win. Many times, we see a heroic person suffer greatly, live in obscurity afterward and die alone. The rest of the world takes a very long time to catch up to their contributions and see the marvels that they really did while alive.

This is human nature I guess. We don't recognize people as having made a tremendous effect on the world while they are still alive. We just don't.