->''"Oh,Cedric, why’d you go into that maze?\\
Haven’t you ever seen a Hollywood movie before?\\
In which a minor character gets slain\\
To benefit the survival of the big star?\\
It’s such a cliche..."''
-->-- '''The Whomping Willows''', ''"Cedric Had It Coming"'' - talking about [[Literature/HarryPotter the former trope namer]].

->''"You can’t just kill somebody to kill somebody. It has to sting for the audience, and it has to sting for the other characters."''
-->-- '''Creator/BryanFuller''', discussing the death of Beverley Katz in ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', on why a good SacrificialLion is important.

->''"We knew even in the early concept stage that one character would have to die. But we only had three to choose from. I mean, Cloud's the main character, so you can't really kill him. And Barret... [[BlackDudeDiesFirst well, that's maybe too obvious.]] But we had to pick between Aerith and Barret. We debated this for a long time, but in the end decided to sacrifice Aerith... In the previous [[Franchise/FinalFantasy FF games]], it became almost a signature theme for one character to [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice him or herself]], and often it was a similar character type from game to game, kind of [[BolivianArmyEnding a brave, last-man-standing]], Barret-type character. So everyone expected that. And I think that death should be something sudden and unexpected, and Aerith's death seemed more natural and realistic. Now, when I reflect on VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII, the fact that [[PlayerPunch fans were so offended by her sudden death]] probably means that we were successful with her character. If fans had simply accepted her death, that would have meant she wasn't an effective character."''
-->-- '''Creator/TetsuyaNomura''' discussing [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Aerith's]] [[ItWasHisSled death]].

->'''Lorgar:''' If it is possible for us to die, you will do so with those loathsome implants buried in the meat of your mind.\\
'''Angron:''' You know we can die. Ferrus is dead.\\
'''Lorgar:''' (Beat) I keep forgetting that.
-->-- ''Butcher's Nails:'' ''Literature/HorusHeresy''

->''"The bridge was full of soldiers...and they all died. And Ferdie was there. We killed Ferdie, Professor, [[WeUsedToBeFriends he used to be our friend]]. Do you remember those days?"''
-->-- '''Dorothea''', if she is recruited and Ferdinand is not in a non-Black Eagles playthrough, resulting in the player having to kill the latter, ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses''
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