WHERE THE DAY EMBRACES THE NIGHT

But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him, replied:–

“Let me sleep here,–until I die.”

———————————————

are you all having a miserable barricade day(s)?

I sure am.

_{“This barricade is made neither of cobblestones, nor of timbers, nor of cold iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows. Here misery encounters the ideal. Here the day embraces the night, and says: I will die with you and you will be born again with me." [Enjolras; volume v, book i]}

A FLOWER AND A HUFFLEPUFF

A Flower and a Hufflepuff by Swedish filker Karl Johan, on the 18th of May, 2018 Karl Johan writes on the making of the lyrics: For a very long while, I have tried to write a proper filk about the redshirt. I first had my eyes on Evert Taube's "Balladen om briggen 'Bluebird' av Hull" in the Star Trek environment, but never could get a suitable scenario. Then, a few days ago, the fate of Cedric Diggory and Dan Andersson's masterpiece "En spelmans jordafärd" (Youtube, and an English translation) met each other, and this was the result. As the evening sun is shining on the tow'r of Ravenclaw see, a body cold lies on the Quidditch field Is slowly carried off the field amid shouts from voices raw with the last few rays of sun the day will yield Heavy feet are walking down over flowers as they tread heavy heads are bowing down as if to pray From what should be victory a Hufflepuff is carried dead over green that night is turning into gray He was bold and he was mighty, says the noble Gryffindor he was barely as a Hufflepuff at all He was resourceful and pure-blood, so the Slytherin implore our champion despite his house so small He was wise and studious, says the ready Ravenclaw he had a mind that could rival one of ours Slowly walk and speak with care, whispers loyal Hufflepuff so you do not tread on and wound the flowers He is gone, say the four, tell the father what has become Albus Dumbledore then tells his last adieu: Remember Cedric Diggory, remember if time should come when you have to make a choice between the two: what is right and what is easy, remember then the boy, the Hufflepuff who was good and kind and brave. But a heavy foot treads down and a flower is destroyed on the field where boots the sorrow do engrave Over grass and over huts the night whispers as it flies and pale stars are looking sadly from the sky From the moor and from the west a poor light it lonely shines, tells a song to the black water of the lake And the storm sings wild and bold and in froth around the shores sings the waves of those who wear the shirts of red Over black and angry waters the night plays up a song for a flower and a Hufflepuff is dead There are some passages that could need future polishing and are slightly tricky to sing, but I think I've hit diminishing returns right now. ETA: I found the notation for Dan Andersson's melody at a local library, and have fixed most of the scansion issues now.

HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY KILL A CHARACTER

Authors are always being advised to be mean to their characters. Often, that meanness involves killing them off. And even as we may bawl over our beloved characters’ deaths, most of us get a strange sort of fulfillment out of it. We gotta play tough and do whatever best serves the story, right?

But that, of course, begs the question: Is killing off a character really the best way to serve your story?

Before we answer that question, let’s take a look at some reasons that may justify our decision to end a character’s life—along with some not-so-good reasons.

Good Reasons to Kill a Character

We can find many good reasons for snuffing even important characters, including:

• It advances the plot. (Melanie in Gone With the Wind.)
• It fulfills the doomed character’s personal goal. (Obi-Wan in A New Hope, Oberyn Martell, anyone who has mentored Harry Potter, Baron Zeppeli in JoJo, Éponine Thénardier/the original Little Mermaid, Juliet Capulet/Hélène de Chandroz/Shirin...)
• It motivates other characters. (Sirius Black, Mercutio, Ophelia, all of the Amis sans Marius -the sole survivor-, Renly, Drogo, Ygritte...)
• It’s a fitting recompense for the character’s actions up to this point. (Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Oberyn. Cú Chulainn. Also, Éponine Thénardier/the original Little Mermaid, Juliet Capulet/Hélène de Chandroz/Shirin...)
• It emphasizes the theme. (Everybody in Flowers of War, all the dwarves in The Hobbit, and so many star-crossed lovers across cultures and historical periods.)
• It creates realism within the story world. (Everybody in Westeros)
• It removes an extraneous character. (Danny in Pearl Harbor.)

Bad Reasons to Kill a Character

Some less worthy reasons for doing our characters dirty include:

• Shocking readers just for the sake of shocking them. (Shock value isn’t without its, well, value, but not every author is Alfred Hitchcock and not every story is Psycho.)
• Making readers sad just for the sake of making them sad. (An old saw says, “If they cry, they buy.” But readers never appreciate being tortured without good reason.)
• Removing an extraneous character. (I know, I know. I just said that was a good reason. But you have to double-check this one. If the character is extraneous, then you better verify if s/he really belongs in this story in the first place.)

A Final Consideration Before You Kill a Character

Now that we have a grip on what makes a character’s death work within a story—and what’s sure to make it fail—we next have to consider what could end up being a crucial reason not to kill your character.

Every character in a story should be there for a specific reason. He’s there to enact a specific function (as we discussed in recent posts about archetypes and roles). If he doesn’t enact that function, then you have to question his purpose in the story. And if he does fill a role within your story, well, then ask yourself this: Who’s gonna fill that role if you kill him off?

Dramatica authors Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley explain:

Unless the functions represented by the discontinued player reappear in another player, however, part of the story’s argument will disappear at the point the original drops out. In the attempt to surprise an audience by killing off a major player, many an author has doomed an otherwise functional storyform.

How to Kill a Character: A Checklist

Lucky for our sadistic little souls, roles and archetypes can shift from character to character or be shared by several characters. In short: when a character dies off, his death doesn’t have to mean his role will be left vacant for the rest of the story.

With all this knowledge in mind, here’s a quickie checklist for figuring out if you can get away with murder:

• You have scrutinized the list of good reasons to kill off a character.
• You have identified one of the reasons as being present in your plot (or come up with a new good reason).
• You have identified what role and archetype your character fills in your story.
• You have created and positioned another character(s) to fill the hole left in your story by the doomed character’s death.

–or–

• Your story ends in a thematically satisfying way that doesn’t require the character’s role to be perpetuated.

Sometimes the death of a character can raise an ordinary story into something special. If you can justify a character’s death, then go for it! Special may be just around the corner.