Discussion Main / DroppedaBridgeOnHim

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Ambiguous Name, started by wrm5 on Oct 26th 2014 at 11:43:03 PM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by wrm5 on Oct 27th 2014 at 3:05:00 AM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by ShorinBJ on Oct 25th 2017 at 3:07:59 PM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by ShorinBJ on Oct 25th 2017 at 3:10:06 PM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I removed the image because by all appearances it is not an example; the page it links to does not mention the trope appearing in the webcomic in question at all.

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This trope is messy. The definition is too vague. Unless we can come up with a clearer one, I think we should make this a YMMV trope.

I mean, whether a death is sufficiently climactic or not is subjective. Look at the Buffy examples. The page says that Joyce's death is one of the exceptions, while I find it entirely mundane. Not to say that it lacks emotional impact; death tends to be fairly emotional in and of itself, but that's part of my point.

Even the trope namer, Kirk, comes from people bitching and whining that it was anticlimactic and meaningless. But the guy died saving a heavily populated planet from a madman. What more do you want?

It amounts to people bitching that it wasn't the death they envisioned for him, and I believe the trope as a whole amounts to the same thing: "This character was killed off in a way I don't like so I'm tagging it with this derisive name stemming from when another character was killed off in a way people didn't like."

Why is it "Dropped a Bridge on Him?" Would "dropped a bridge on them" not be better. Seems needlessly male.

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This is a case where I don't fee the Trope Name qualified as the trope at all. Kirk died a heroic death in Generations, doesn't matter to me that the physical weapon was a bridge rather then some Speed Force.

Even literally it's not accurate, the bridge didn't fall on him, it fell with him entangled into it.

Edited by 216.99.32.42

• In every series of the anime Pokémon, Ash's friend for the series just decides not to go with him for the next one. Considering each companion is worse than the previous, we haven't a clue why.
• In the AIR TV series, Yukito turns into a crow, reducing his role to croaking, hopping and trying to remember stuff. The makers obviously wanted to intensify the interaction between Misuzu and Haruko by making sure nobody gets in the way. They by and far succeed, but the sudden disappearance of one of the most interesting characters still feels very forced.
• In Ashita No Nadja, also not a death but anticlimactic. After feeling betrayed due to Poor Communication Kills, scamming against Nadja for some twenty episodes, humilliating her in public, stealing her fortune, her name and her mother, one would expect that the Creepy Child and Magnificent Bitch Rosemary would put up more of a fight in the finale before being defeated. But she doesn't, and simply goes into a calm "Oh well, I failed. Since I won't be punished anyway, bye bye Nadja! See you later when I'm a real princess through my own hard work". Considering how psychotic and creepy Rosemary acted after her Start of Darkness, it feels very out of character.
  • Out of character, or a Magnificent Karma Houdini? You decide.
• In Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, the character referred to as "Ojisan" simply disappears from the cast and is never mentioned anymore. He likely died due to old age, but not even that gets any attention - which is fairly egregious, considering his importance in the earlier stages of the series.

The examples are not deaths.

• The Gundam franchise is well known for subverting Death Is Dramatic by having characters die from being blown up or cut in half in a blink of an eye unlike long winded Final Speech Super Robot show deaths. One death that does possibly qualify more under this trope though is the Gundam SEED Destiny death of Yuna Roma Seiran, who had a GOUF dropped on him... literally however as the character in question was never well liked many viewers didn't mind, or even liked this.
  • Another was Heine Westenfluss, ZAFT Ace Pilot and a pretty likeable guy all things considered. He got his moment of awesomeness and then got unceremoniously sliced in half from behind in his first on-screen battle.
  • Notably subverted in Gundam: The 08th MS Team when a bridge is quite literally dropped on Norris' Gouf Custom. He gets his last dance later on.* The Gundam franchise is well known for subverting Death Is Dramatic by having characters die from being blown up or cut in half in a blink of an eye unlike long winded Final Speech Super Robot show deaths. One death that does possibly qualify more under this trope though is the Gundam SEED Destiny death of Yuna Roma Seiran, who had a GOUF dropped on him... literally however as the character in question was never well liked many viewers didn't mind, or even liked this.
  • Another was Heine Westenfluss, ZAFT Ace Pilot and a pretty likeable guy all things considered. He got his moment of awesomeness and then got unceremoniously sliced in half from behind in his first on-screen battle.
  • Notably subverted in Gundam: The 08th MS Team when a bridge is quite literally dropped on Norris' Gouf Custom. He gets his last dance later on.
• Deliberately done in almost all of Harry Turtledove's work, as his way of adding some realism and keeping the audience off guard. The more egregious ones include Bobby Fiore in Worldwar and Leofsig in Darkness.
  • The sheer number of dropped bridges in the Timeline 191 series becomes so numbing that it's a shock when a main character dies of old age.
  • I think the death Ludmilla in Colonization: Down To Earth is worth mentioning, as it was less of a bridge and more of a nuke.* Mal Considine in James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere stupidly charges at the utterly insane serial killer he's tracked down while said killer is in full insane animal mode, and gets gunned down for his trouble. Notable in that both of the other main characters of the novel also die, but far more fittingly: one is very movingly Driven to Suicide by the threat of his homosexuality becoming public knowledge, and the other gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome Bolivian Army Ending in the prologue of the next book, LA Confidential. Jack Vincennes' death in that book could also count.* In the Gaunts Ghosts novels, while Anyone Can Die is in effect, most characters at least get to go down fighting. Not Caffran, who is shot by a child in The Armour of Contempt. Three times.
  • His death at this point really made me sad. One of the greatest characters dying this way.
• Joss Whedon is arguably pretty bad about this, as some fans believe that only two characters in all three of his shows (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly) had actual meaningful deaths and stayed dead, Darla and Joyce. Compare this to the characters that died in random and meaningless ways. Okay, so maybe the point was to show how death could be random and meaningless, or perhaps used to serve a larger plot reasons. Still...
  • On Buffy Tara was shot by someone aiming for Buffy, Jonathan got stabbed for a spell that didn't end up actually working, and Anya got sliced with a sword from behind.
    • Anya was an intentional case, though. Joss Whedon wanted to kill someone brutally without giving time to the other characters to grive over it to reinforce the fact that there was a war going on. He chose Anya because Emma Caufield wanted to leave the show, even if it was renewed for a eight season.
  • The pipe organ Buffy dropped on Spike in the burning church in What's My Line was originally planned to be fatal, but the fans liked him so much, Joss had Dru pull him from the wreckage.
  • The Anointed One's death at the hands of Spike (as The Starscream), was a pretty anti-climactic end for someone touted as a Chosen One.
    • The justification for this one was that the Anointed One was a child vampire, and thus should not age. The actor playing him, however, was aging very rapidly.
  • On Angel Cordelia was put into a coma by her demon baby for a half a season before finally dying, Fred inhaled cursed dust that no one could do anything about, and Wesley got stabbed by a guy who was taken out in seconds by another character right after it was too late for him.
    • Although Wesley's Dropped a Bridge on Him facilitated death is counterpinned with a fantastic and moving death scene.
    • Cordelia's demise is made even more mean-spirited by an episode that strings the audience along to a Dead All Along twist.
      • An intentional example was Lindsay in the fifth season, who is fatally shot by Lorne and dies complaining about how he was offed by "some flunky", and not his nemesis Angel.

Of the main page: "Note that when Anyone Can Die, this trope does not apply.""

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Can we readd this example as one thing instead of this nattery hellhole?

• Star Trek: Generations.
  • Kirk's death scene was actually worse in the original cut - Soran simply shot him in the back. Audiences demanded a more heroic death, so at least Kirk sacrificed his life to uncloak the missile.
  • Actually, if you watch the footage of the original death scene (without the final special effects added in, but it's enough to tell what's happening), what we ended up with was actually less heroic. Kirk disarmed Soran and beat him in a fistfight, then took his control pad to help Picard sabotage the missile. But then Soran, who Kirk thought was no longer a threat, pulled a backup pistol out of his boot and murdered him. While the death wasn't especially glorious, it was better than the bridge-drop and Kirk contributed just as much to stopping Soran in both versions. The best way to make it "more heroic" would've been to have the dying Kirk manage to take Soran down with him instead of leaving the kill to Picard.
  • Also in Generations, the Enterprise-D is basically a random victim of a lucky shot. After winning a space battle, the warp core gets a coolant leak, and when Riker asks why they can't just eject the Warp Core, Geordi says they can't but doesn't explain why. They let the main section explode, causing the saucer section to crash on a nearby planet (compare to the way the original Enterprise is destroyed in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). This is lampshaded in one of the books.
    • Namely, The Return, in which Picard actually says the words "random victim of a lucky shot."
  • This doesn't get as much attention or complaints because it involves two characters who appeared in only one episode, but the offscreen deaths in a fire of Picard's brother and nephew definitely qualifies. The sheer randomness of it, the complete lack of concern over how this would affect their surviving widow and mother Marie, and especially the way it ruined the final scene of that one episode they were all in, all just to make Picard properly sad at the start of the film.
  • In perhaps a callback to this movie/scene, William Shatner gets dropped off a bridge this time around in what could be his last Priceline commercial.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Two notes about the entry on Star Wars Episode Three. One, I believe Jackson's phrasing was he didn't want to "go out like a punk." Two, next to Windu, Kit Fisto lasted the longest in that duel.

There are no Real life examples due to this inherently being about how things are written. Which is why I mention that I honestly believe the account of Jason's death in Greek Mythology was probably based on a real King having died that way.

Edited by 216.99.32.42

• South Park: Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef and a member of the Church of Scientology, quit (with significant media attention) after the show had an episode making fun of said church. The show's creators responded in the first episode of the tenth season, in which Chef, speaking solely in clips from previous episodes, is revealed to have been brainwashed by the "Super Adventure Club," a pastiche of Scientology mostly focused on child molestation. The kids confront the club at their headquarters, where (to quote Newsweek): "Chef falls off a bridge into a ravine, bounces off jagged rocks, gets impaled, catches fire, gets devoured by mountain lions, then is shot multiple times by friends trying to save him." Then, to erase any thoughts of hope, craps on himself. Oh, and then the club turns him into Darth Vader. No, really. Though at least Parker and Stone wrote a legitimately heartfelt speech for Kyle, reiterating their underlying love of Chef (and, obviously, Hayes). This is this trope in its ultimate, purest form.

Is it, though? This seems like quite a dramatic death, given a lot of attention in the episode, but caused for reasons outside the show.

Edited by Shahanshah

Is it just me, or does the current page image fail to describe the trope?!?!?!?!

Edited by SamMax Hide / Show Replies

Would this go for most WWII dramas/films? In many, characters (including prominent ones) simply get shot by the enemy and die whilst the rest continue the mission.

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Deleted, if the character did not die it does not need to be here.

• Resident Evil fans are going to be furious after seeing one of the latest trailers for Resident Evil E 5. At the end, a tombstone for Jill Valentine is seen, with absolutely no explanation for her death.
  • Well, looks like we can call this one a subversion: Jill lives! And as a bonus: Becomes a blonde!

I think it's already too common a trope to change the name, but to me it seems to imply a horrible, futile, or random death caused by an epic event. Like, being stomped on by a really big Big Bad.

The trope entries here seem to essentially amount to "Complaining About Deaths I Don't Like." Doesn't matter whether or not there was any story potential or that the character was given a tragic or heroic death. Lots of Fan Dumb here. But the trope is vague enough that if I pull anything, theres going to be complaints.

The Doctor Who example regarding Romana included long-debunked rumors (specifically that the actress was pregnant). The DVD release of that actress' sole season on the program thoroughly debunks this rumor, as well as the associated one that she was obviously pregnant in the final episode, which is easily debunked by watching the episode.

• From Sluggy Freelance:
  • Alt-Zoe's death, Feng's death, Monica's death, and Bert's death, as well as that of several others
  • And now we have Riff's robot walker set ablaze and destroyed by Oasis...with Riff and Zoe inside it. While its possibile Riff survived (he's seen reaching for the eject button just before the explosion), the fact that Zoe's death has been foretold well in advance puts the odds against her. Time will tell.
  • Most of those, especially the last, were well-planned, climactic and emotional. Abrubt, yes, although often with huge buildup so not really. But not this trope.

If the last poster is sure(and reading the last example is not real reason to believe he is not) most of this examples not counts.

Real World Examples?

• Anybody want to come up with some Real Life things for this, or does it just not really fit here?

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As 24.9.144.119 noted on the main page, William Shatner's heading quote is sourced in this link. Just moving the link here for posterity, since it looks awkward in the quote itself.

"And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"