Characters you wish hadn’t been killed off [Spoilers warning added by MNHQ]

[Sarahandduck18]

Betty in Mad Men - just no need, it was the end of the series and unrealistic for a young woman to die of lung cancer

Cordelia in Angel - think they did this to get back at the actress for getting pregnant, the death was so senseless and ruined the long term story arc

Mark in ER - could he not have had a happy ending on that beach? Also it was such a rare condition.

Meg in Home and Away - this made teenage death seem so real

Chris in Stand By Me - a bad boy made good surely he was due good karma and a long life?

Luke and Han in Star Wars - just done for shock value

No one ever dies of dementia in films or tv!

Nigel in The Archers - awful decision by the then editor Vanessa Whitburn - I will never forgive her, NEVER!
Dr. Mark Greene, ER - I cried buckets
Billy Lloyd Foxe in Mount by Jilly Cooper
Sirius Black in Harry Potter, why oh why did he have to die?
Sybil and Matthew in Downton Abbey

I didn’t know about Peter Quinn as I’d given up on Homeland
This thread has reminded me of all the tears I’ve shed in ER The Wire, Spooks, Breaking Bad, Friday Night Dinner! 😢

Lady Marjorie Bellamy in the original Upstairs, Downstairs (even though it was done superbly and left ripples that carried on through three more brilliant series)

Morethanthisprovincallife

I read that she was killed off and lost interest

shame as this series had started really well then went downhill with Cole finding himself and Helen's lesbian experience

Nick from Fear of The Walking Dead 😭

Bill from Big Love

Maybe there should be a parallel thread on 'characters I wish they'd kill off or glad they killed off'?

I agree with Ianto in Torchwood, he was the best character of all of them IMO

It took me ages to get over Kate being shot in NCIS, it took me ages to warm to Ziva just because she was Kate's replacement. It was only when I got into Rizzoli and Isles that I forgave the actress for leaving NCIS.

I had to stop watching Bones after Sweets was killed. I found the character a bit annoying at first, but I really grew to like him a lot and the ending was just so abrupt, hardly even related to the plot and completely out of the blue. Then they replaced the character with an inferior 'Sweets' type and that was it. I haven't watched it since.

I cannot resist temptation. I need to get off this thread. These are old series’s so noones fault but my own. At least I know to emotionally detach from certain characters before long. I’m going to through Beth from Little Women into the mix though. My first realisation that young people dies.

To be fair, a lot of these shows have really high death rates. Not sure it's wise to get too attached to any character in GoT, SoA, Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, etc.

I was sad about Oberyn in GoT because he's such a great actor and I loved his scenes so much. The scene with Tyrion in the jail was brilliant.

I really hope Tyrion lives. I'm a bit doubtful though.

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

YES! I also had to get into Rizzoli and Isles to forgive her.

Derick Greys Anatomy
Alison- The affair

Definitely Lucy in ER for me, she was supposed to get together with Carter!!

On the other hand Doug Ross definitely SHOULD have died, the fact that the great love of his life gave birth to his twins (and he was supposedly great with kids) without him ever taking any interest turned him into a giant arsehole..... should have died instead.

Nigel

Another vote for Nigel!

Didn't know Jim Kirk had died in Star Trek

Definitely Will in The Good Wife. Not just because I loved the character, but because he just brought something to the show that none of the other characters did. He was focused on the law firm in a way none of the other characters ever really were, so without him all the great office politics and scheming lost a lot of its edge, and the show became more about the characters home lives.

Hank in Breaking Bad

Ginger in Black Beauty

Topthorn in War Horse

Alison in The Affair- didn’t like her but surely that must be the end?

Ianto and Jacks grandson in Torchwood. Gut wrenching.

Sloane and Lexy in Greys

I know Emma Caulfield asked to be killed off but I cried so hard when Anya died

Emma Caulfield didn't ask to be killed off. She told Joss Whedon (before she knew the series was ending) that she did not want to return for season 8. Even if there had been a season 8 - he didn't have to kill her ... as it was, season 7 turned out to be the last ever season and killing her was a simple act of spite. Especially such a quick and pointless death - the viewers are not given time to react and the characters don't grieve for her. Dreadful. But then he has form...

RE Cordelia - the actress didn’t tell Whedon for months, he had to rapidly rewrite the last third of S4 due to this, ruined the story line and tbh S4 was horrendous due to it.

Charisma Carpenter had suffered a miscarriage the season before (hence why she is not in a few episodes towards the end of the season) I don't think anyone can blame her, therefore, for keeping quiet until the new pregnancy felt more secure. HOWEVER she was not pregnant at the time they had her ascend to being a higher being - that was their plan. They had no plan in place to bring her back (I mean - they were planning to bring her back - they just hadn't though how).
Original ideas included having Cordelia be the big bad herself - now come back from the higher planes and determined to spread world peace (the way Jasmine does). This would have been a much worse character assassination as it has fuck all in common with actual Cordy - and wouldn't have had the 'possessed' fig leaf which they hid behind.
Another plan was to have Cordelia come back infected by the spirit of Doyle (who was evil now for ... reasons) (you will occasionally hear that they had plans to bring Glenn Quinn back - but he died before it could happen. This is untrue. Doyle would never be seen - he was inside Cordelia). This would have been ridiculous (and even more unpopular than what we got) because a) Doyle wasn't evil and b) the last thing we needed on Angel was more bad Irish accents. (Also - as an idea it's just gross and wrong ... and would have made the CAngel bits really weird!)
So, actually, whilst the pregnancy story line is terrible - it is better than anything we could have got, had she not happened to be pregnant. It is incredibly bad story telling being blamed on the real life pregnancy of the actress - which is a shitty thing to do anyway. But especially shitty when it's you who hasn't bothered to do your job properly and plan how you're going to get you're female lead back from the higher planes before you send her there.

Tara and Fred are fridged - that makes me so angry.
I really don't understand how it took for Joss Whedon's wife to out him as a cheater before people realised how awful he was. It's right there in his work. The treatment of women in the Buffyverse is massively problematic throughout. As is his treatment of some of the actresses. (CC got off light - I don't think she was one of the ones who had to sleep with him

Carl - TWD
Abraham -TWD
Nick - FTWD
Madison - FTWD
Poussey- OITNB

Bobby in Dallas only to be bought straight back after a series

Here to mourn Ianto Jones (still!)

Another vote for both Nigel and John from 'The Archers' - I remember John's death with Tony finding him, so sad. Nigel's death was totally unnecessary - he was such a good character.

For those just reading Nigel, it's not Monty's dog who is still going strong and was seen last night admiring a topiary of himself.
Continuing canine matters - a vote for Sykes from Midsomer Murders, he was a much better actor than the rest of teh cast.

As tragic as Dobby's death was (and it really was) the two that really get me from Harry Potter are Sirius Black and Fred Weasley.

And hedwig. So unnecessary. Poor owl.