Would you, as a reader, going to be frustated if you read a story where the MC's life suddenly ended in the middle of an ongoing plot, and thus ended the whole story just like that? Ex. in a battle scene,a stray arrow suddenly struck the mc's head and he died. the end.
If it was a short, comical story or if the MC was hateful and had it coming, then... No. If it was a story I had invested my time, energy and emotions into, I would feel cheated and def. frustrated enuf to wish a sudden death unto the author themself.
if it a short story then i would love to read it. but if it has been more than a hundred chaps and leave with a cliff then i would love to kill the author
NO, i kind of like such end. for example in retrospective think that if ISSTH ended when MC became again a mortal and went in that boat ride with GHOST, it would be a perfect ending
As a continuation to OP's question, what if the character then reincarnated, and the story continued in a new setting?
Yes I would like to see the MC's suddenly die more often. Not taking it for granted that the MC lives till the end and can always die any moment will make all plots more real and unpredictable. But the best plots are those were the story can continue without the MC, like in Hunter × Hunter the plot can smoothly continue even with MC (Gon) gone, as there are enough characters who can take over the role of MC.
Readers are governed by expectations set by the author. If you write a wish fulfilment or power fantasy then of course it will be frustrating. But if my expectations are kept in check , then I find no issue with it. Plenty of novels end with MC dying a dogs death(outside of web novels) Most common way is giving mc a great goal and as he feels high on his success, he ends up being killed off in the simplest ways. Thus a moral lesson of no matter who we are we are all still mortals and subject to our mortality
Depends on how the author pulls it off. If all things clicked together beautifully then I would even praise the interesting turn of the plot.
No if it has either - less than 10 chapters - was a comedy or - story was continued by the Lancer ( second lead) with the death having an impact on the story ex. GOT with the death of Ned Stark Yes if it has either - numerous unresolved plot lines - long story with lots of chapters - high on drama or -no one to continue the story P.s. Write well my good friend and god speed
I would like to see something like that more often. When author cant decide anything about story plot, i would hope author just kill mc instead rather prolong it into endless shitty and meaningless progression. Welp, im also okay if its developed novel. I mean, we need an example I realize im such sadism and dangerous reader. Blame my stress.
Yeah read something like that at the end mc was done with poison. Read one about Julius Caesar he was done that way "Et tu, Brute?" Or with deus ex machina he come back to life few days before with the knowledge of it, do the thing as undead, ghost.
Ooh, thanks for your opinions! My idea is somehing along the lines of "The MC is really just a human". I've recently been hearing war stories from some veterans, and the thing that left me wih most impression is that they--these veterans--said thay they're just lucky enough to survive since bullets doesn't really picky about your background, importance, and skills. A general with a bright career path might just suddenly got shot, yet a foot soldier might just survive that encounter. Another consideration is that sometimes, death really does struck so suddenly and abruptly ended someone's path, not caring about the mahyem and the future changes that it might've caused. It might makes some people baffled at its ridiculousness, but that's Death for you. Some peeps adviced me to reconsider, and i've been thinking about it and well~~ here i am
It really depends on what kind of groundwork you have done before it gets to that point. If you've neglected other characters for the sake of developing the MC, then it's going to be a trainwreck. If you've developed the other characters, yet still given the MC most of the limelight, I think that it's still going to be a trainwreck. The only way that you could pull this off without alienating a portion (well, you're going to alienate some readers, like it or not) of your readerbase is to have a clean transition to another character as your new MC. There can be no rebuilding, no new concepts, and the 'new' MC can't really be at a different stage in life (or strength, depending on the story you write) otherwise you're just going to end up with a disjointed pile of garbage. This already makes your story unbelievable. The disconnect is too much to gloss over. It's a neat idea and I think that many people have thought about it a lot. It hasn't been done much for a reason though, because it just doesn't work. The only time this kind of thing works is when you have a deep or at least semi-deep pool or characters that people are attached to, and if you're already at that point then you can always argue that the character killed isn't even the MC to begin with, just part of the puzzle. And if you're actually just going to say 'the end' after something like that instead of writing your way out of the steaming pile of hate that you have just summoned, you should perhaps go and die in a fire.
It depends... I've once read a story where MC died in the first third of the novel... Being dead for the rest of the novel he was still MC since plot was still all around him. Still, need a lot of talent to pull this.