Trope Talk: Doomed Heroes
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Published 2022-11-04
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All Comments (21)
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"This story does not have a happy ending. It does not have a happy beginning. And there are precious few happy things in the middle" -The first page of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
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Red really pulled a certified "therapy session Speedrun any% in between a tropetalk" moment
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The doomed protagonist is common. But what changes them into a doomed HERO is when they say, "I can't change my story. I've seen the ending. But I can change yours."
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“Trying to predict all future stuff to protect yourself from it, is an anxiety disorder.” I felt that
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"We can always choose to be kind, and that will always matter." Without question one of Red's best quotes period.
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Tangled is a surprisingly sincere "story of how i died" story with a kid friendly twist. Who'd have thought
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Hadestown did this SO brilliantly. The musical basically tells us on the first song, "This is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, it's gonna end how it always ends, but that doesn't matter, we're gonna tell it again." And, the first time I listened to the musical, by the time "doubt comes in" starts playing I was hoping beyond hope that the story would be different this time, even if they told me it wouldn't. It hurt my heart when the inevitable happened.
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"It didn't take long for Reach to fall; our enemy was ruthless, efficient. But they weren't nearly fast enough, for you had already passed the torch, and because of you we found Halo, unlocked its secrets, shattered our enemies' resolve. Our victory - your victory - was so close. I wish you could have lived to see it. "But you belong to Reach. Your body, your armour, all burned and turned to glass. Everything. Except your courage. That, you gave to us, and with it we can rebuild."
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Greek Heroes: Hubris is such a swell quality, nothing will ever go wrong!!!!
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"try to predict all future bad stuff to protect yourself from it is an anxiety disordder" that's a great line
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Matthew Stover summed it up perfectly imo in his first lines of the Revenge of the Sith novelisation: "This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it. [...] It is the story of the end of an age. A strange thing about stories- Though all this happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here. It is happening as you read these words. [...] The end starts now."
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The "this is the story of how I died trope" being subverted so often really makes it its own trope. My immediate thought when this was brought up was the movie Megamind, and they did it pretty well.
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Red's voice softening a bit after saying "we can always choose to be kind, and it will always matter" got to me, theres a genuine beauty in the fact that good can always have an impact, even if it seems hopeless.
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"This taps into an unfortunate truth of being alive, which is that we can't predict when bad things are going to happen to us. Trying to predict all future bad stuff to protect yourself from it is an anxiety disorder." Quote of the day.
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I hate to think about it, but Grave of the Fireflies is easily the best "How I Died" story I've ever had the extreme displeasure of witnessing. It's an utterly beautiful masterpiece. I wept.
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I think the best/worst part about the case of Halo Reach is the objective of the last mission: "Survive". It's implicitely telling you that you can't win, you can only try to last as long as possible and take as many covenant with you as you can. It's an amazing end to the game both narratively and as a test of the skills you've accumulated throughout the game. You knew it was comming and inevitable but with this title the game is telling you: "This is the moment it all falls, show us how it ends". Perfect.
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Fun fact: I get more anxiety watching comedies (from second hand embarrassment) than I do from Doomed Hero stories…. I need a therapist to unpack all that…
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I think Hector from Pixar's Coco is written almost like a doomed hero. He sacrifices his chance of seeing his daughter in the afterlife to save Miguel. He willingly lets himself be forgotten not knowing that Coco had his photo all along. This makes his sacrifice genuine and wholesome and it makes my eyes cry.
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Red talking about the apocalypse log version of the story of how i died version of this trope: Me, a tolkien nerd: Ah yes, the Book of Mazarbul (that's the journal thing they found in Balin's tomb in Moria) Red, later: Ah yes, the Book of Mazarbul
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"My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light!" - Edna St. Vincent Millay
