Killing off your main OC meaningfully without making him a Marty Stu

I remember back then when I was young, I wrote a crossover story with my OC at helm, taking care of stuffs. But bottom line, my OC is being the main character and all.

... Then I killed him off at the end of the fic via Heroic Sacrifice.

The other crossover characters were obviously crushed at that revelation that the main character martyred himself. He was not always the best or the mood maker and all, so the relationship with other characters are just, like, cordial, the typical stuffs. However, once all is said and done... I got a criticism that 'Your story has been good and all, but the ending ruined it, making him an unbearable Marty Stu by having those other characters suddenly mourn for him'.

It makes me wonder... what should we do if that is the case? What if we want to make an Original Generation character in a crossover as a main character, fully intending to kill him in the end, but wanted to make the death have a meaning (just be overall meaningful) without him looking like a Marty Stu that way? I'd like to know the pitfalls and how it can be done.

Thanks for any advices!

I don't think that criticism was a valid one.

I mean, realistically speaking, if someone died for you, you better be mourning.

While that's true, it still depends on how well they know about him and what their relationship is. You wouldn't cry as hard when your wife die as when a random friend die, right?

Depends on the person. Some people would get broken really hard, some others would just get sad, some would get impassive, some would put on a façade of everything being fine but you'd be able to see that it's just a façade if you knew what to look for, and some (as strange as it might sound to some) wouldn't care at all.

Thing is, outside of people who have issues, and I don't mean it in a good way, it's very rare to see the first category happen, or the last one. So if the characters mourned as it was, but all of them got terribly broken by it, then yes, it's that that had caused them not to like it; on the other hand though, if the characters in the story mourned the way it normally does happen (basically, everyone in whatever category that is neither the first nor the last one), then their criticism is just pretending that they are "harder than that" and as such isn't really valid.

It wasn't so much about "A lot of the established character mourned by having a mental breakdown." it's more "A lot of the established character just cried and was like 'Why did this have to happen to you'." So they mourn, but in a way that they'd get over it quick.

However, the story involved OC villains and it was up to my OC to take care of things as they are linked with him the most (it would be improper for the established character to just swoop in and save the day, rendering it useless to create an OC in the first place). As stated, in the beginning he might be made like a Marty Stu, having the focus on him and him solving stuffs helped with the established character. However, I was planning him to die on a Heroic Sacrifice. And apparently, it seems enough to call him a Marty Stu and the mourning made it worse... So in the end, I retconned the ending so it's like my main character is given a Ret-Gone treatment so everyone forgets about him.

Like I said, I was young back then.

edited 17th Dec '15 10:44:05 PM by ChrisX

Yeah, I don't want to be rude but the way you described it now still falls under the first category. Oops.

Because by getting broken I did not mean a complete mental breakdown and subsequent inability to live their life; that's a whole different issue altogether (the "people who have issues" bit). What I mean was ... yeah, what you wrote, basically. Look at how people behave at the funerals: nary a person behaves like that.

edited 18th Dec '15 3:11:02 AM by Kazeto

If anything, it justifies that I was right to consider it Old Shame, so there's nothing rude about it. (Also it's not that they're in a funeral or sorts, and I think I was overreacting when I said they cried. I think they were just lamenting and be like 'Why does this have to happen')

Now what I'm asking for is how to make such scenario without falling to such pitfalls. I mean, I want to make the death meaningful after all those build ups, but sometimes I thought a Ret-Gone would sweep those things into the realm of meaninglessness. But of course, I could be wrong.

This discussion is to discuss how to avoid pitfalls like that.

Hmm ... well, continuing with what I already wrote, my advice for avoiding that particular problem would be to simply avoid the first and the last category when you write about other characters' reactions unless you have a really good reason for the given character to be like that. And if you genuinely don't know how a character would behave, then find someone who is close enough to them in personality and ask what they'd do; might be a bit tedious but getting more viewpoints on stuff like that tends to help.