The Walking Dead #167

[cyberghostface]

Andrea is dying after being bitten. Rick tells her he can't go on without her.







Rick can't bring himself to shoot her and instead lies down next to her. Andrea reanimates and attacks him.



Kirkman wrote the following afterword (I'll remove if this violates the rules.)

Comments

[caivu]

Killing major characters just to "keep readers on their toes" is the exact problem. If anyone can die at any time for no reason, why bother getting invested in anyone?

[leoboiko]

For me, it makes their victories a lot more emotionally rewarding. It's been a long time since I've felt actual fear of monsters, the way I feared the giants in early Attack on Titan; monsters had become just punching bags for heroes to safely show off their powers. By the same token, "heroism" felt quite pointless when I know everyone is protected by plot armor. In AoT (at the beginning, at least), since I knew everyone could die—permanently—at any moment, I sincerely cheered for their actual bravery. E.g. this speech would have done nothing for me in the Marvel or DC universes, but in AoT it moved me to tears:



In other words, it's precisely because they're facing real actual risks, that I get invested in them. If they're permanently protected by plot divine intervention, it all becomes a kind of charade. (AoT has since done a lot of plot-bending to rescue an important character from certain death, as did ASoIaF, which has significantly lessened the effect.)