According to the description, Our Hero Is Dead is when the hero's 'death' is used as a cliffhanger, while The Hero Dies is for when the hero actually dies. Our Hero Is Dead is seeing constant misuse for actual, non-cliffhanger hero deaths, though.
Also, Our Hero Is Dead suffers from a bad case Example As Thesis — it begins with an unnecessarily wordy example of the hero's death being a fake-out. This means you have to read a huge amount of text to get the genuine meaning of a trope that can be easily summarized in one sentence. It should have a concise summary first, to clarify that — this isn't a complicated trope; it doesn't need an example there for illustration.
Finally, this sentence is confusing:
"Except, of course, when the character dies because Real Life Writes The Plot, so that they can be The Nth Doctor'd or Jonas Quinned."
...everything else here says that this is a Disney Death trope, then suddenly that seems to be saying that no, sometimes it can be about real deaths, too. Which is it?
Our Hero Is Dead vs. The Hero Dies
According to the description, Our Hero Is Dead is when the hero's 'death' is used as a cliffhanger, while The Hero Dies is for when the hero actually dies. Our Hero Is Dead is seeing constant misuse for actual, non-cliffhanger hero deaths, though.
Also, Our Hero Is Dead suffers from a bad case Example As Thesis — it begins with an unnecessarily wordy example of the hero's death being a fake-out. This means you have to read a huge amount of text to get the genuine meaning of a trope that can be easily summarized in one sentence. It should have a concise summary first, to clarify that — this isn't a complicated trope; it doesn't need an example there for illustration.
Finally, this sentence is confusing:
"Except, of course, when the character dies because Real Life Writes The Plot, so that they can be The Nth Doctor'd or Jonas Quinned."
...everything else here says that this is a Disney Death trope, then suddenly that seems to be saying that no, sometimes it can be about real deaths, too. Which is it?
edited 8th Apr '11 9:30:49 AM by Aquillion