So, I know there's a recently closed repair shop thread about this, but I still think this trope is really unclear and inconsistent about which deaths it actually includes. The trope page says that it's when the cast is mostly straight or when the characters are killed because they're queer, but the analysis says that it's if queer characters are killed off disproportionately to straight characters or without narrative justification, and then the last paragraph on the trope page kind of hand-waves everything by saying that people are going to be upset about any dead queer character regardless of whether the death is technically well executed and doesn't make it clear whether those deaths count or not (and also doesn't make it clear whether the death being technically well executed has anything to do with whether it fits the trope). I came to this page trying to figure out what the actual criteria for the trope are, and after reading the trope page and the analysis page, I still can't figure it out.
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That was added later by another troper unilaterally without going throught those threads, you are right it contradicts everything else, I'm restoring the previous version.
Hi! I was curious to find a specific one here in the web original sections- but in the Netflix Show, letter for the king one of the teen squires, a bard, in one of the last few episodes shares a kiss with another squire all the sudden. He's killed not long much after that. It was a long time ago I watched this. But it does feel like a brownie point, then we bury the gayest looking of the two kinda moment, which is what I experience as bury your gays the moment a guy initiates romantic feelings towards another guy, He's going to die not much later. It just feels unnecessary, If I remember well he's the only squire that actually dies.
Has anyone else watched this show? (I really recommend reading the book, the show changed a lot and was kind of a disappointment after all.)
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Needs Help
, started by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Apr 1st 2017 at 6:03:55 AM
Hey, up to like Season 4 of Supernatural every character even hinted to be non-straight was killed off. Maybe Supernatural should have its examples listed?
“Can be seen as Truth in Television in some cases, as gay and lesbian people are at a substantially higher risk for suicide and assault — see the tropes Gayngst-Induced Suicide and Homophobic Hate Crime. The fact that AIDS hit the gay male community most prominently provided potent fresh fuel for this long running trope (which, like many things about the eighties, still has an effect on more recent works). There may also be a higher prevalence of this trope in Period Fiction because of its supposed realism since historically there was lots of homophobic persecution — though undoubtedly plenty of acceptance, too.“
Can I ask how this can be Truth in Television when this trope is listed under No Real Life Examples, Please! as a narrative trope?
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread! Hide / Show Replies
That means it can be the case LGBT die more often, they just don't want examples.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick
Is Luke from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina an example? I mean, not a lot of named characters die and there are other queer characters (Ambrose, Dorian Gray and Theo), but he is an extremely secondary character and is offed in a pretty unclimatic manner. Though it could also be because the fanbase hated him anyway.
I'm a new editor, so I don't know how to add it, but Sorbet and Gelato were literally the only gay characters shown so far in the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure anime and they were killed off before they even got a line.
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Have you read Jojo? Anyone not named Joestar, and even then Johnthan dies in Part 1, can and will die.
- Its not bury your gays you dingleberry*
The caption joke about either the authors or the queers going to hell feels like it's in really poor taste. It's only a few steps away from punching-down and kinda trivializes a lot of the justified backlash against the trope.
If anyone is actively looking for books that use the trope, Goodreads now has it as a genre.
I had to delete a number of examples because they were filled with too much natter/complaining that they couldn't be reworded.
Also, I feel like a lot of people are misunderstanding this trope to mean "an LGBT character dies". Perhaps something should be done to make it more clear that this trope is when a character dies simply because they're LGBT?
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I find it rather hard to believe that gay/lesbian/bi/trans characters really die that more often than straight ones. I feel this is more of a perception problem, because (in a reflection of Real Life) straight characters simply outnumber non-straights by a large margin, therefore people notice it more when a non-straight character dies. Are there studies that prove that non-straights really die that more often when adjusted to the amount of straight ones? Because if not, then this trope is one big pile of complaining and it's really a case of "You want complete equality? Here you have it." going on.
Frankly I'm suprised there's much coherency at all with this trope's article, most of it reads like an out-of-control tumblr post written by some moo-cow who feels attacked by any concept remotely related to sexuality.
It is an actual trope but some seem to be taking it into their advantage to express some kind of narrative which isn't there.
Maybe you could comment on the discussion, you know...
It's super effective.
- Some Torchwood fans feel Ianto's death in the "Children of Earth" mini-series qualifies for this trope. However Torchwood is notoriously a show where Anyone Can Die and Everyone Is Bi. Ianto was in fact the third principal cast member to be killed off in a very short period of time.
- It is notable that the only non-immortal original regular (Gwen) to survive S2 and both mini-series was also the one whose on-screen sexual activities were limited to heterosexuality and a female-female kiss under alien mind control. All three mortal bisexual characters were dead by the end of "Children of Earth".
- Torchwood somewhat subverts this trope with Captain Jack Harkness, the bisexual (or "omnisexual") main character, who is immortal. Which is to say, he does get killed every so often, but he gets better.
As Torchwood's an Anyone Can Die show, does this really count? The bit about Gwen comes across as nothing more than editorialising. I'm pretty sure Gwen's reasons for surviving aren't to do with being heterosexual when Russell T Davies absolutely smothers his works with gay themes.
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If so many queer people die, it has to be taken in consideration that they were allowed to be queer because it is a Anyone Can Die show and if it wasn't and there was a chance they would live, they probably wouldn't have allowed to be queer.
Do we really need to point out subversions and aversions? A lot of entries are nothing more than "Subverted in X, where there's a gay character who didn't die."
It seems like, using that logic, we could list every single piece of media with a queer character in it on this page, either as an example or a subversion.
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Subversions? Yes. Those are notable. Aversions, however, are not. And that example you mentioned is a (mislabeled) aversion, so it'd get cut.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Should the quote featured on top of the Main article be changed from:
Bon Clay: "Nonsense, Queers never die."
to:
or:
The present quote is a subversion while the two quotes I propose as replacement are this trope played straight.
Has there been any other gay/lesbian characters in futurama? Oddly absent, and the only I can think of was Private Enis from "Roswell that ends well". Frackken nuked for laughs. Don't want to add it since I haven't finished the series though, but if anyone can confirm, pop it on.
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Are there still none, even after they've left Fox?
If you do drugs... Don't to roshnah!!
If Black Dude Dies First and other similar tropes relating to real violence don't get Real Life examples, then why should this? There is no reason for this. We should put it on the No Real Life Examples Please list.
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You can ask here.
Sorcerer in training
- Played as a Gay Aesop in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Sam Clay's too-good-to-be-true boyfriend Tracy is killed in action in World War II. Soon after, Sam marries fellow comic book writer Rosa Saks. Sam and Tracy were arrested in a raid, where the arresting officer basically raped Sam before letting him and Tracy go. Tracy wanted to know what happened, but Sam breaks off the relationship and never tells Tracy why. Rosa becomes The Beard because she'd gotten pregnant before her fiancée Joe (also Sam's cousin and writing partner) ran off to join the Navy. After Joe comes back and is Easily Forgiven, Sam is pretty much outed for the multiple affairs he's had with other men and regrets having treated Tracy so poorly. Sam is forced to renounce his Jerkass Gayngst and move on with his own life. As for Tracy, being an able-bodied American male on the eve of World War II, he might have wanted to join the Air Force regardless of his relationship status. No news on if Tracy ever found love in the barracks.
Pulling this. Could someone familiar with the work please remove whatever is natter, or at least condense it down a bit?
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A lot of the summary is actually taken out of context, to the point that I was surprised to see this example listed under this trope. For starters, the author himself is bisexual, and the events that transpired that resulted in Sam's getting outed was due to the very brutal investigation on the portrayal of violence in comic books meant for young audiences, his sexuality being outed as a casualty of said investigation (which happened during a court proceeding that was publicly broadcasted to the nation at the time), no doubt done so to fan the flames of parental concern (as another aside, Sam was investigated largely because he was one of the major writers of comic books, having co-created the in-story popular superhero the Escapist, and contributing to a multitude of other works in the industry afterward). The entire investigation would eventually see the Comics Code Authority (or just the Comics Code) being founded, which would later plague comic books for over half a century as no comic book would see publication if the content was deemed "inappropriate" by the CCA (thankfully defunct as of 2011 when the last major publishers ditched the CCA entirely). This tidbit is important as the novel is largely a big love note to the Golden Age Of Comicbooks, more than anything else.
While Sam's relationship with Tracy contributes a lot to Sam's later development, it isn't uncommon to see a similar situation relationship-wise between a heterosexual pairing, where the surviving lover mourns What Could Have Been, regretting their choices, and the usual stuff. I'd have to re-read it again to see if Chabon may have unintentionally written it to come off as a Bury Your Gays moment. Though it should also be noted that Sam's relationship with Rosa was less for his sake and more of hers, as Joe's abandonment would have had her harshly persecuted for being a young, single mother in the 1940s. The two are amicable friends and their marriage was done largely out of responsibility and not as a lesson indicating that Sam would be happier with Rosa (and as his guilt would indicate, he is not), and Sam happily steps out so that Joe could assume his role as a father.
Again, I'd have to reread to be sure, but there's a lot of background context that makes this less of a Bury Your Gays example than it seems.
Edited by 74.14.22.144
I am not even sure how Bury Your Gays could apply to the example writeup. I would keep it off altogether.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I deleted Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She died because Anyone Can Die in that show, not because she was gay.
It's not really been mentioned in the description, but I think that a big reason for the trope in long running TV shows is this:
Mainstream shows like to show their progressiveness, by adding a gay character, but they don't want to alienate the viewers by making sufficient numbers of their characters gay for it to be a useful plot point. There aren't enough gay/bi characters in the cast for love triangles. Most of the time, even two gay characters is seen as excessive - one character is enough to cater to the homosexual demographic. Because of this, the actual gayness of the gay character ends up being an informed attribute, or else the gay character is shown to be promiscuous with random people in single-episode appearances. If a second gay character IS added, he's usually just 'the man I go home to at night' with brief appearances. Even two gay characters in the MAIN cast limits the options, because they end up being 'a perfect gay couple' and there's no relationship tension: breaking up the gays would mean that their fans would be clamouring for new love interests, forcing you to increase the gay cast even more.
In a long running show, it probably seems easier and safer to kill off your token gay, once you've realised that you can't do anything with him, than to do the amount of work needed to present a gay character in a realistic way. Ultimately, I reckon that shows ought to think more about whether they're putting a gay character into a show for PC reasons, and NOT BOTHER if they're not going to do it properly.
Obviously that doesn't apply to action/adventure series where the subject is barely mentioned, or single episode guest stars, whose sexuality is just glossed over. I'm very happy on the rare occasions that an unexpected male character off-handedly mention that they like men, in response to flirting.
(apologies for the m/m pronouns that I've slipped into occasionally - as a gay man that's a habit - the above also applies to lesbians though)
Could this trope possibly be YMMV? Since it seems like it's supposed to be less about gay people dying (objective) than it is about the implications of their deaths (subjective), and it's really impossible in most cases, particularly recent ones, to definitively state that a character died because (s)he was LGBT, and didn't just happen to die.
Just a thought.
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I don't see how it's YMMV. The trope itself sets clear distinctions between a character who happens to be gay dying in the story and a character dying in the story mostly because they were gay (or, when one character has to die, the gay one is the go-to pick).
While the line can sometimes be blurred in more modern works, it can be objectively analyzed in hindsight.
This page is riddled with examples of gays in fiction that were killed off for legitimate reasons or just plain died. The trope is about gays that died for no particular reason, or under unfortunate implications. So the page needs a clean-sweep, I think.
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Does the Wonder Woman example really count? I saw no implications that Alkyone is a lesbian other than the fact that she's an Amazon, and it was never said that she and Phinea were lovers. It also seemed like an unnecessary pot shot at Gail Simone.
Edited by Katsuhagi Face the past and you'll fly ass first into the future. - My Dad
The entry deleted was mine. It's interesting that two people can read the same thing and come to such different conclusions. To me, scenes in Wonder Woman 38 blatantly implicated that Alkyone and Phinea were lovers. I thought the entire point was to make the later killing of Phinea even more despicable. The entry wasn't a swipe at Simone whom I like as writer but honest bafflement that such a constantly good writer would break out such a hateful cliche. That said, THE GAY wasn't explicitly stated so I can accept it's removal.
Yeah i definitely agree with this. It should be a trope where for editoral reasons (maybe protests from religious groups) or solely to get a reaction from minority groups (killing off a gay character just because gay people like it), a gay character is killed. Not "this is every example of when a gay character is killed" even though most of the examples have plenty of straight people dying also or there are logical reasons for the character dying (such as being in a cop show). All this trope comes off as is pandering to minorities instead of leaning more to the unfortunate implications side of things, but i guess that comes with the "fandom" sadly.
Shouldn't there be at least some mention of the Hays Code and/or the Comics Code in the page description? If I recall correctly, those are a significant part of the reason why this trope exists - behavior then considered immoral had to be punished on-screen/on-page, and this was one way of doing it.
Does this really count in anyone could die and kill'em all stories? Just wondering.
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I don't think it's the ratio of gay/straight deaths in a particular work that matters so much as the implied subtext. A gay or lesbian character's death often comes with the implication that they died because they were gay or lesbian and should've just gone straight to avoid all that trouble. Or they're used as a token to either gain audience sympathy or make the audience sympathize with them less (depending on how they're portrayed) when they inevitably die.
It's sort of like the difference between Stuffed in the Fridge and Women In Refrigerators. Sure, male superheroes die and have awful stuff happen to them all the time, so female superheroes shouldn't expect to be treated any differently — but in practice, when a female superhero is killed off or otherwise rendered ineffectual, it often carries an uncomfortable air of female disempowerment and (sometimes sexual) humiliation. Basically, superheroes have a dangerous job and should be able to take care of themselves, while superheroines are women and should've stayed in the kitchen to begin with.
At least, that's how it comes across sometimes, too often for comfort, in both cases. So I think it's a matter of authorial intent and subtext. Which everyone will interpret differently, so it's a bit of a hard trope to pin down.
Not really. This should be easy - did the character die as a result of their sexuality? Do the gay characters have a higher chance of dying? If ten main characters died in a fight, for example, and the gay guy died too, is that really THIS trope?
Stuffed in the Fridge and Women In Refrigerators often hit this too - in a rush to correct an actual wrong in literature, the perception arises that any death of a female character or disempowerment storyline is automatically that trope. There shouldn't be the implication that women or LGBT characters can never die to avoid this.
[-SophisticatedAsHell-]
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Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
Deleted this because after all the natter, we have one dead gay guy, one dying straight woman, and three living gay people. That's not significant.
- Rent had this: gay cross dresser Angel dies of AIDS, while heterosexual AIDS victim Mimi comes close to death but survives for no clear reason. Worse, Rent was based off an opera called La Bohème, where Mimi's counterpart died of tuberculosis but no one else did.
- Then again, there is the impression given that Angel was Too Good for This Sinful Earth, so there's a good chance she would have bitten it regardless of sexual orientation or gender.
- Also, La Bohème was a typical operatic tragedy, while Rent's theme was hope.
- Also also, it's generally understood that Mimi didn't exactly survive— she got a temporary reprieve. (See cast commentary on the movie version DVD for discussion of this.) Mimi's fate will be the same as Angel's in a short time; she just got a little extra time to get her affairs in order, while Angel already had it together. This example is definitely open to interpretation.
- It should also be noted that the two other gay characters, Maureen and Joanne, are HIV-negative, don't die, and generally reconcile by the end of the show.
- Anyone order a Tom Collins? He's gay (Angel's lover), HIV-positive, and alive and in much better health than Mimi at the end of the show.
- It should also be noted that Jonathan Larson died before the show opened. It's entirely possible that the 2nd act had not been completely ironed out and that some of these issues would be edited.
- He died the day of the last dress rehearsal. I doubt he would have dropped last-minute changes on the cast like that. Then again, that's not to say that future performances couldn't have included his revisions.
Dread Sorcerer of Auchtermuchty
shouldn't Jack Chick be under comic books, or have people felt that his views are so extreme we have to separate him from the rest of the examples so he can't contaminate them?
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