People Sit On Electric Chairs

From Tv Tropes

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Current revision as of 02:42, 16 July 2012

Killing people is wrong. Killing people for no reason? Yeah, that's fine.

If a story wants to be particularly dark or even morbidly funny, it'll have plenty of expendable characters that the writers can freely have other character dispose of, execution style. Why, you may ask? Just because.

Possible justifications: Rule Of Cool, Rule Of Funny... but never Rule Of Drama.

Alternatively, the execution itself may serve the plot, but the method is gratuitous.

[edit] Examples

• Kick Ass: Happens often, and is done by hero and villain alike!
• Equilibrium: Live cremation. Indeed.
• South Park: Timmy's death.
  • I have the impression it started out limited to the Once An Episode death of Kenny, but then later on gratuitous random death of any character (He Got Better next episode, or possibly even next scene, of course) became possible.
• The episode of Metalocalypse where the band plays a concert while condemned criminals are tied to rockets and fired into the air definitely qualifies.
• Samuel R Delaney's Fall of the Towers trilogy isn't meant to be funny (I think) but the author does kill off the best characters with distressing regularity, until by the end there are hardly any left that were there in the beginning.
• In practically every issue of Teen Girl Squad, at least one of the girls is killed off in ludicrous ways, just for laughs. In the first issue, So and So is killed by robot lasers, The Ugly One is perforated by arrows from some guy's mouth, and What's Her Face is punted by a dinosaur.
• At the end of one episode of The Simpsons, Bob is given an impromptu death sentance by electric chair by Chief Wiggum (it doesn't stick).
• Somewhat subverted in Slaughterhouse Five. Edgar Derby is executed by the Germans for a ridiculous reason. Though it seems not to be the most pivotal death in the book, Kurt Vonnegut declares that this death is the climax of the book as a whole.

  If a story wants to be particularly dark...

  • Yes, this story is dark. At least Vonnegut is saying that war is dark and people do evil things just as Punch Clock Villains. Oh, and even though this is a novel, it is based on Vonnegut's real experiences as a POW in Dresden and Derby was executed in Real Life just like in the novel.
• At the end of Slave Fair 2, the Designated Protagonist's slaves suffer this, being strapped to a fireworks rocket for the simple reason that is seems entertaining (or maybe the rockets look entertaining with girls on them, rather than the actual effect). Fridge Logic hits that, as high as the explosion was, with so many girls on rockets, it should be raining blood. Fridge Horror tells us that being rained on by woman blood it may be just one more fucked up ritual in that future.