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Even if It's decided not to fit Saw, the first main character to die is K2-SO, he's a Droid, making him a member of a minority servant class in the galactic community, and he's painted black, so I'd say the trope at least applies for him. Saw is about as important as that nameless informant that Cassian shoots, so Saw didn't die first.[[/spoiler
((Repeating my reply here. A mod may want to lock the other one.))
Edited by nombretomado Ye who would Tope Meaninglessness. Ye who ignore All We Have. I say to you You Shall Not Pass!
K2SO seems like a massive shoehorn to me. Droids may be servants, but are they really portrayed as an oppressed minority in Star Wars? Are they subject to racism or speciesism? To take another prominent example from the same universe, C3PO is portrayed as servile, but much more as an English butler than a stereotypical African-American servant. And does the colour of the paint job really serve as a placeholder for human race?
Edited by GnomeTitan
Suspended Ohio 9 for edit warring.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
^^Are droids an oppressed minority?
"We don't serve droids here."
"The droids will have to wait outside."
And there's that whole sequence in the first movie where C3-P0 and R2-D2 are stolen by the Jaws, and Rey Rescuing BB-8 from the scavenger who wanted him for scrap.
Edited by sailing101 Ye who would Tope Meaninglessness. Ye who ignore All We Have. I say to you You Shall Not Pass!
Fuck spoiler tagging, apparently.
Saw is not part of the main group and K2-SO is a robot, so the trope doesn't apply.
Edited by Karxrida If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Does not apply JUST because he's a robot? Tropes Are Flexible.
Ye who would Tope Meaninglessness. Ye who ignore All We Have. I say to you You Shall Not Pass!
Could we get some spoiler tags here?
It's not like these threads aren't by default open when everyone is browsing through here...
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Added some spoiler tags.
Listing a robot with black paint as an example of Black Dude Dies First strikes me as a horrendous shoehorn. And the treatment of droids in Star Wars isn't really relevant, since the trope is more about tokenism than anything else.
Yes, even if we accept that droids in the Star Wars universe are an oppressed minority, which is sometimes treated as African-Americans too-often are or were treated in our world, I don't think Black Dude Dies First applies, because that trope is about real-world racism - that is, the person who dies first has to belong to a minority in the real world, not in the fictional universe. That's my real reason for calling it shoehorning (I just hadn't thought it through completely when posting above). Also, do we really have any evidence that the black paintjob of the droid is to be interpreted as analogous to skin colour in our world? I'm not convinced of that - if nothing else, why aren't all droids black in that case?
Edited by GnomeTitan
Mentioning K2's paint gob was simply a humorous anecdote to cap off the example, like icing on a cake.
If your going to be so hung upon limiting Black Dude Dies First to purely be about only those of African decent, then I have to say that's far to narrow to trope. I repeat, Tropes Are Flexible. Droids are an established minority in the Star Wars universe. I wouldn't axe an entry where the character to die was Latino instead of black, why would a Droid not apply?
Ye who would Tope Meaninglessness. Ye who ignore All We Have. I say to you You Shall Not Pass!
^ Because he's not the only Token Minority in the group I guess? He's not even the only non-human in the group during the time of his death.
The idea of that trope applying in a cast as diverse as that of Rogue One is pointless.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
^^ That is by far a better reason than saying he's simply 'not of african decent.' I'll concede the debate. I'd also like to thank you. You are the one of the few people to have proven me wrong.
^I guess we can lock this now.
Ye who would Tope Meaninglessness. Ye who ignore All We Have. I say to you You Shall Not Pass!
Before it's locked: I'm not sure if sailing101 was referring to me when they wrote about being hung-up on limiting Black Dude Dies First to persons of African descent, but if that's so, it's a misunderstanding. I think the trope applies to all kinds of minorities, but they should be minorities in the Real World, not minorities that only exist in the work. To me, the essence of the trope is "movies are racist" (or tokenist, or whatever), not "movies depict racism". And moviemakers can't be racist towards a minority that doesn't exist in the real world.
But that aside, the argument put forward by Adept and Fighteer really settles it. When all the main characters belong to one or more minorities, it doesn't make sense to apply the trope, because regardless of who dies first, it's some kind of "black dude".
Edited by GnomeTitan
droid hate falls under Fantastic Racism (at this moment in time, although it may not in the future) and does not fit with Black Dude Dies First, which is about the Token Minority character being killed. Bury Your Gays is the trope for if it's a gay person dying before the end of the movie, so these tropes are specific to those groups.
Keeper of The Celestial Flame
Edit war on Rogue one.
Black Dude Dies First was first added by Ohio9 on Dec 22, deleted on the 23rd by StFan, added again on the same day by Ohio9, deleted again on the 25th by moviepyr0, re-added on the same day by DRCEQ, re-deleted on the 30th by ChaoticNovelist, and finally added again today by Ohio9.
Edited by Chytus