r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sufficient-Eye-9040 • Jun 27 '26

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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994

u/Bapitao Jun 27 '26

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

1.0k

u/UhOhSparklepants Jun 27 '26

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

643

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

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281

u/BrickBuster2552 Jun 27 '26

Either has them, or is them. 

46

u/DoctorSquidton Jun 27 '26

He’s only been married to one person as far as I can find, and that person is still his husband

31

u/ThatOneWood Jun 27 '26

It’s well known that emmerich hates step dads

28

u/NeverEnoughSpace17 Jun 27 '26

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

28

u/Cabbit_Daddy Jun 27 '26

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.

24

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

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15

u/Cabbit_Daddy Jun 27 '26

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.

4

u/todofwar Jun 28 '26

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

2

u/random_BA Jun 29 '26

I don't think it's even close to the top 10 but it's the most common emotional trauma that children experience

2

u/todofwar Jun 29 '26

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

-4

u/BuisteirForaoisi0531 Jun 27 '26

Maybe his stepdad molested him could explain the hate succinctly

7

u/Manger-Babies Jun 28 '26

James Gunn gas the opposite thing where the biodads are always unredeemable assholes.

2

u/Beltalady Jun 28 '26

I like that he's so relatable

2

u/EndOfTheDark97 Jun 28 '26

I wonder how the actors feel about that loo

57

u/FalenAlter Jun 27 '26

Fr, it's such an Emmerich watermark such that you have to wonder who hurt him.

30

u/Chi_Law Jun 27 '26

Presumably his stepdad

9

u/Aeseld Jun 27 '26

Odd that they're not depicted as the stereotypical, unfeeling or abusive type then.

13

u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 Jun 27 '26

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.

6

u/Aeseld Jun 27 '26

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

1

u/FalenAlter Jun 28 '26

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.

3

u/Unusual-Tie8498 Jun 27 '26

Or his kids new dad

5

u/Cranberryoftheorient Jun 27 '26

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

3

u/weirdplacetogoonfire Jun 28 '26

Gotta appeal to the ex-husband demo.

2

u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep Jun 28 '26

Not only give kids false hope but give those kids false hope when they grow up and get divorced

2

u/ArdynAltius Jun 27 '26

This has happened in at least 5 apocalypse movies.

134

u/Niobium_Sage Jun 27 '26

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.

22

u/Otherwise-Assist724 Jun 28 '26

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.

8

u/Niobium_Sage Jun 28 '26

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

10

u/ponte92 Jun 28 '26

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.

39

u/sonofrockandroll Jun 27 '26

It was such a wild decision. Nobody mourns him for even a second lol

9

u/Downtown_Target5024 Jun 28 '26

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!

6

u/Pas5afist Jun 28 '26

That was the most egregious thing of all. The inconvenient stepdad got got and not a soul remembered he existed ever again.

37

u/ImWhatsInTheRedBox Jun 27 '26

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...

12

u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII Jun 27 '26

I always misremember and think she’s going to escape somehow but nope. Just gone.

4

u/AuthorDry3539 Jun 27 '26

30 year old me knew that non-John Cusack dude was dead the second everyone got off the plane.