Fannish five: Death

[akk]

Fannish 5, taken from k_julia and solo____: What five character deaths affected you the most?

Problem with this: I tend not to get affected by CDs and I become seriously annoyed if I have the feeling that not killing the character would have done the plot-at-hand more good than killing him did, hence a list of these would be rather short. On the other hand, Death as a character can be a very fascinating, multi-facetted topic if done right. Hence, my list includes examples of both.


Bruce D. Arthurs: Death and the ugly woman
A shortstory about an ugly woman, who killed Death when he had her daughter die painfully from fever, and is forced to replace him, published in Sword and Sorceress IV.

C.J. Cherryh: Land ohne Schatten
A shortstory about the Egyption goddess Sekhmet in the land of the forgotten gods, published in Sword and Sorceress II.

Giovannino Guareschi: Don Camillo und seine Herde (Mondo Piccolo: 'Don Camillo e il suo gregge')
The chapter "Die Geister" is about a young German girl who followed an Italian prisoner of war back to Italy and, after having a child with him, killed herself. The quiet comment about the girl's soul having returned to the bombed out house in Bremen is one of the few death scenes that truly touched me.

Astrid Lindgren: Die Brüder Löwenherz (The Brothers Lionheart)
dramatically justified: yes (the whole story is about dying and courage in its face)
more intersting alive: no (without their deaths, the story wouldn't exist!)

Jennifer Roberson: Tal des Schattens
A shortstory about Death coming for an assassin in the form of a deadly beautiful woman, taking him to her bed and his death, published in Sword and Sorceress III.

Comments

[vehemence.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of those books but the name Astrid Lindgren caught my eye. When I was a child I would read her The Children of Noisy Village over and over and over. I'll have to try to find The Brothers Lionheart right away.

[akk]

Well, it is a children book. And it deals with some pretty serious stuff in a frank and not circumvent manner. It is that style that makes her such a good author for children books, she manages to get her points across without drowning everything in sugarcoated teletubbies. I loved her books as a child.