Agree. And I really hate it when a character is resurrected somehow. I don’t care if it’s fantasy or science fiction, lack of perma-death is weak sauce.

(Unintentional irony that it’s Easter.)

I agree. Deus Ex Machina usually just signifies lazy writing.

Honestly I feel like characters die all the time, to the point that I mostly roll my eyes at it. Yeah yeah, “stakes,” “emotional impact,” whatever, now they can’t be in any more stories, which is bad if I liked them, and also means they don’t have a chance to become more interesting if I didn’t.

Would it really be a trope if it wasn’t?

I guess it’s hard to figure out if your audience wants to see more of your character or if they are tired of them and want something new. When I watch characters in danger situations, I am mostly not in much suspense. By default, I assume the characters we follow are going to survive to the next scene. When they don’t, I am usually surprised. I guess it’s really about if you want to see stories where character find themselves in danger situations. I’m all about realism, but I kind of understand that following one characters story rather than having to reintroduce new ones all the time is probably better. If they keep dying I will probably not care about them and not be very invested.

In band of brothers allot of the characters end up surviving the war. Some didn’t. But I think the survivors were the most interesting to follow. And that is based on true stories. The survivors are the ones I remember most fondly.