The most tragic main character death in a game (Spoilers)

[Erttheking]

Sometimes there's no getting around it. Sometimes reality takes its toll, someones life is cruel. Sometimes the hero dies. It can really be heartbreaking because more often than not the main character is the one we've come to know the most in a game, the one we know the best and have come to relate too. This raises the question, which main character death in a game did you find to be the most tragic?

This may be reaching for the low fruit a little, but I'm going to say Lee from the Walking Dead. Partially because the game had done a pretty good job of making it clear that anyone had die, partially because Lee was very well characterized and likable despite the fact that he might have been a killer in the past, a good part of it being his relationship with Clementine, but I think the part the makes it hit the hardest is this. It doesn't trick you, it makes it very clear that Lee is going to die. From the moment he gets bit, you know his days are numbered. That's what makes it hurt, you know he's going to die and you know there's nothing you can do about it.

As an honorable mention I'd also like to mention Noble 6 of Halo Reach. Just about all of the other main characters are dead, the last ship off of the planet left without you, and Covenant forces are closing in on you from all sides. The only objective of the mission is survive. It's an objective you cannot complete. There's something depressing about fighting to survive as long as you can, knowing that it's only a matter of time before you're overwhelmed and in the end a few more dozen dead enemy soldiers really doesn't make much of a difference. The one bright side is that you didn't die in vain, and may have even saved the Human race in the progress...but at a heavy cost.

So...what about you? Which character death made you tear up the most?

 

[Tom_green_day]

Well, since I answer Fallout 3 for just about every single thread on this website, I'll say that again.
'But it was not until the end of this long road that the Lone Wanderer learned the true meaning of that greatest of virtues ? sacrifice. Stepping into the irradiated control chamber of Project Purity, the child followed the example of the father sacrificing life itself for the greater good of mankind'
The death actually stood for something, reinforcing the main theme of the game- Sacrifice. It wasn't just a sudden 'let's kill the protagonist to make it seem sad!'
John Marston's was interesting though. You think the story has finished and it all ends happily, until he jumps in the way of all the bullets instead of running or having another gunfight. He was killing himself to save us from more shootings.

 

[Fractral]

Persona 3:

Spoiler

It's perhaps not so tragic, just sad and depressing. He's on the roof of the school building, his head in Aigis's lap (a robot weapon who found herself a soul and came to love him) as she tells him that she loves him, and never wants to leave him. At this point the party, who has just remembered everything that happened, comes up to join them on the roof, but before they arrive, the MC has one final conversation choice- 'close your eyes'. The screen fades and the credits roll. Then the last scene shows Aigis turning to face her friends, her face joyful, but you know that it's temporary, because the MC has just died in her lap.
What makes it worse even is that he died for nothing, really. His death prevented Nyx from destroying the world, but the only reason she wanted to destroy the world was because she thought that it would help humanity; that they truly wanted to die, because humanities collective will to die created the beast Erebus, which Nyx is attracted to. Even then, Erebus is defeated- the party kills one in the answer but they keep on being resurrected. Elizabeth, who also loves the MC, takes it upon herself to kill them as they come, but still lacks a way to save his soul from being trapped.

Still, fairly happy as Megami Tensei games go.

 

[Erttheking]

Well, since I answer Fallout 3 for just about every single thread on this website, I'll say that again.
'But it was not until the end of this long road that the Lone Wanderer learned the true meaning of that greatest of virtues ? sacrifice. Stepping into the irradiated control chamber of Project Purity, the child followed the example of the father sacrificing life itself for the greater good of mankind'
The death actually stood for something, reinforcing the main theme of the game- Sacrifice. It wasn't just a sudden 'let's kill the protagonist to make it seem sad!'
John Marston's was interesting though. You think the story has finished and it all ends happily, until he jumps in the way of all the bullets instead of running or having another gunfight. He was killing himself to save us from more shootings.

I agree with the RDR one, mainly because, in hindsight, that was a freaking depressing game. Every sidequest ended with you either doing nothing to help, or actually making things worse, the happiest one being were you let a man fuck his horse. That with the long treks John needs to take to complete his quest, with the countless people who died all around him, it actually seemed fitting that his life would end with tragedy.

 

[TheScottishMexican42]

While I think I'm one of the few who didn't cry at the end of the Walking Dead, I felt something from the ending. I felt slightly down because of it. Not depressed, but saddened. I just wish he could have lived somehow.

Back on topic, I was slightly shaken by the death of Noble 4 (Jorge) from Halo Reach. He was my favorite of the 6 Spartans. His last words of "Tell 'em to make it count" were especially tragic, all things considered.

 

[Glaice]

I know he is not a main character but a strong supporting character, but Hammond from Dead Space.

 

[skywolfblue]

The most *Tragic Death would definitely be John Marston from Red Dead Redemption.

So John's worked his ass off, killed a bunch of people to set things right and provide a better life for his son. He states that he doesn't want his son to grow up and have to deal with or do any of the horrible things he's done.

Then the government men show up and kill him. And what does John's son do? Rides off to take revenge on the man who killed his father. Thus the cycle of blood continues, and everything John worked for is undone.

*Tragic in the classical sense (a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion).

 

[Asclepion]

I don't know why people are saying the Fallout 3 ending was good. It was contrived and poorly done.

"Go sacrifice yourself because it's your destiny, even though you have party members that are not only immune to radiation, but HEALED by it."

Having to go through a flooded facility and drowning would have been much better; you've been working all this time to provide a source of water that will save millions of lives from the effects of radiation, so what's a better ending? Being killed by the same radiation you've been dealing with for the whole game, or being killed by the purified water itself?

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Persona 3:

Spoiler

It's perhaps not so tragic, just sad and depressing. He's on the roof of the school building, his head in Aigis's lap (a robot weapon who found herself a soul and came to love him) as she tells him that she loves him, and never wants to leave him. At this point the party, who has just remembered everything that happened, comes up to join them on the roof, but before they arrive, the MC has one final conversation choice- 'close your eyes'. The screen fades and the credits roll. Then the last scene shows Aigis turning to face her friends, her face joyful, but you know that it's temporary, because the MC has just died in her lap.
What makes it worse even is that he died for nothing, really. His death prevented Nyx from destroying the world, but the only reason she wanted to destroy the world was because she thought that it would help humanity; that they truly wanted to die, because humanities collective will to die created the beast Erebus, which Nyx is attracted to. Even then, Erebus is defeated- the party kills one in the answer but they keep on being resurrected. Elizabeth, who also loves the MC, takes it upon herself to kill them as they come, but still lacks a way to save his soul from being trapped.

Still, fairly happy as Megami Tensei games go.

What do you mean he died for nothing? If not for his seal Nyx would've brought The Fall that very day. So, for now, Erebus is actually powerless, the only way for him to break the Seal is to get Aigis or Yu or someone else who has The Wild Card.
But I agree that Protagonist's death was really powerful, mainly because initially I didn't even realize that he died! I was like "Ahh... what a nice ending". And couple days later realization just hit me. That was the strongest moment of Fridge Brilliance I experienced

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Well, since I answer Fallout 3 for just about every single thread on this website, I'll say that again.
'But it was not until the end of this long road that the Lone Wanderer learned the true meaning of that greatest of virtues ? sacrifice. Stepping into the irradiated control chamber of Project Purity, the child followed the example of the father sacrificing life itself for the greater good of mankind'
The death actually stood for something, reinforcing the main theme of the game- Sacrifice. It wasn't just a sudden 'let's kill the protagonist to make it seem sad!'
John Marston's was interesting though. You think the story has finished and it all ends happily, until he jumps in the way of all the bullets instead of running or having another gunfight. He was killing himself to save us from more shootings.

I agree with the RDR one, mainly because, in hindsight, that was a freaking depressing game. Every sidequest ended with you either doing nothing to help, or actually making things worse, the happiest one being were you let a man fuck his horse. That with the long treks John needs to take to complete his quest, with the countless people who died all around him, it actually seemed fitting that his life would end with tragedy.

There are plenty of times where a main character death in games has made me sad, but out of all the one's I've played John Marston from RDR is definitely the most tragic death for precisely that reason. The origins of tragedy as a dramatic device hinge on the conceit that the protagonists goals are hopeless, and that the protagonist him/herself is the only person who doesn't realise that truth. John spend the entirety of what is an incredibly long story even without all the side-quests and mini-games, trying to erase his criminal past so he can stop running and live a peaceful, law-abiding life with his family. However, that just ain't gonna happen, and the game itself spends every conscious moment telling you so; sometimes directly through other characters outright telling John that he'll never be able to walk away, and other times simply through showing how everything John touches seems to end in bloody failure. Yet, no matter how clearly it keeps getting spelled out to him that he'll never get what he wants, that the sun is inevitably setting on 'The Old West', and that even if he does everything that's asked of him, the new powers that be won't suffer a relic like him to keep on keepin' on in their new world, he keeps picking himself up and trying again, because his family is all he has left to fight for. That's what forces you to warm to him despite knowing deep down that there's no way his story is going to end well.

The most tragic part in particular is that even his final act achieves nothing. He goes down fighting in the hope that at the very least his family, who don't have any crimes to answer for, might know the peace that he could never have. However, the credit's don't roll until Jack kills Agent Ross, making himself an outlaw and exactly the opposite of what his father had been fighting for all that time.

 

[solemnwar]

Well, since I answer Fallout 3 for just about every single thread on this website, I'll say that again.
'But it was not until the end of this long road that the Lone Wanderer learned the true meaning of that greatest of virtues ? sacrifice. Stepping into the irradiated control chamber of Project Purity, the child followed the example of the father sacrificing life itself for the greater good of mankind'
The death actually stood for something, reinforcing the main theme of the game- Sacrifice. It wasn't just a sudden 'let's kill the protagonist to make it seem sad!'

You know, when it comes to Fallout 3, there's one slide at the end in particular that gets to me EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME. The photograph of you and your father at your tenth birthday. You know that weird, aching feeling behind your eyes and in your throat when your brain is telling you to bawl like a ************? Every time I see that picture, I get that. It harkens back to the days of innocence when you didn't know about the horrible world outside or the horrible people in it, it was just you and your dad and the Vault.

And then he goes and fucks it up.

 

[AidoZonkey]

Im going to go with The Walking Dead Lee.I wanted to go back, I thought, there must be something I could do differently, something to make it better, but no. Lee was doomed and I couldn't do anything about it.

Runners up:

Spoiler

FF7- Aerith
Mass Effect 3- Mordin
Batman Arkham City- Joker
- Talia al Ghul

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

Not the main character but mordin's death mass effect 3


"Had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong"
that line brought a tear to my eyes

 

[Hero of Lime]

Sometimes there's no getting around it. Sometimes reality takes its toll, someones life is cruel. Sometimes the hero dies. It can really be heartbreaking because more often than not the main character is the one we've come to know the most in a game, the one we know the best and have come to relate too. This raises the question, which main character death in a game did you find to be the most tragic?

This may be reaching for the low fruit a little, but I'm going to say Lee from the Walking Dead. Partially because the game had done a pretty good job of making it clear that anyone had die, partially because Lee was very well characterized and likable despite the fact that he might have been a killer in the past, a good part of it being his relationship with Clementine, but I think the part the makes it hit the hardest is this. It doesn't trick you, it makes it very clear that Lee is going to die. From the moment he gets bit, you know his days are numbered. That's what makes it hurt, you know he's going to die and you know there's nothing you can do about it.

As an honorable mention I'd also like to mention Noble 6 of Halo Reach. Just about all of the other main characters are dead, the last ship off of the planet left without you, and Covenant forces are closing in on you from all sides. The only objective of the mission is survive. It's an objective you cannot complete. There's something depressing about fighting to survive as long as you can, knowing that it's only a matter of time before you're overwhelmed and in the end a few more dozen dead enemy soldiers really doesn't make much of a difference. The one bright side is that you didn't die in vain, and may have even saved the Human race in the progress...but at a heavy cost.

So...what about you? Which character death made you tear up the most?

I'll agree with both of your choices. I saw the Walking Dead via a let's play, yet I was just as invested in his character like I would've been had I played it and made the tough decisions myself. I was actually angry when he got bitten.

The ending of Halo Reach was so lonely to me, like you said everyone close to Noble Six had either left the planet, or died. Though it fit the bill of Noble Six, he was a lone wolf, and so he died like one too.

I'll give a special mention to Fi from Zelda:Skyward Sword, she is far from my favorite companion Link has had, but when she "died" one of her lines literally made me feel feels like I had rarely done before. "Let us see each other again in the next life." It's sad since other Links will use the Master Sword in the future, and Fi will be with Link again technically, just not the same one, and she or that particular Link will be unaware of that.

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

I'm gonna have to go with the majority here and say John Marston. Such a long journey, only to find out that he could never atone for his sins and live.

Second place goes to The Chosen Undead from Dark Souls. You can't help but grow close to your character after all those hours of trial and error. And then he sacrifices himself to a fire.

And An honorable mention to Gabe Weller from Dead Space: Severed. He managed to save his wife with one leg, and that's just impressive.

 

[Aerosteam]

The Kiltman. Fabio Fuego. Hans Seitwarz. Santa Claus. God damn seeing them die was painful.

[small]Along with most of my other XCOM soldiers...[/small]

You see, the special thing about these XCOM guys is that all of their deaths can be prevented, so you feel like you fucked up rather than just watching their inevitable demise within a pre-laid out story, that's why it hits you the hardest...

That person died because of YOU.

 

[Miyenne]

I'll echo everyone else. When John died in RDR I got upset, and angry cause anger's my gut reaction to sadness and fear. And then frustrated when Jack became what his father died to prevent him becoming, he made his father's death meaningless.

And of course, Mordin. I really liked him, and he sacrificed himself for a reason that he really believed in, and I did too. So I couldn't argue with him. I had to let him do it.

Lee wasn't quite as sad, because Zombie games I never dare to have hope anyways. There is no hope in a situation like that. And you knew it was coming all along.

 

[IrenIvy]

I'm probably be the only one who'd say Cole Phelps from "L.A. Noire". It was just so sudden and so fast that it added a huge weight of reality to it and yet it was so fitting to the whole story. I didn't cry but it was memorable.
Ratman's death from 'Portal 2' comic. I know, he is only a secondary character but still.