(no subject)

[skygiants]

This is a tribute post for posthumous characters.

By posthumous characters, I mean characters who were dead before the story began -- and whose death is probably somehow pivotal to the story as it stands -- and who then get enough attention in flashbacks/ghostly appearances/reminiscences from contemporary characters that they become your actual favorite character, which is REALLY UNFAIR because THEY WERE DEAD TO BEGIN WITH.

Some posthumous characters I personally would like to honor today:


1. Donkey from 20th Century Boys

This is really the character who inspired this post. Donkey's mysterious "suicide" is one of the events that kicks off the mystery of this manga, and I remember getting really angry when he showed up in flashbacks and turned out to be my favorite of the kids. HE DIDN'T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS! HE LOVED SCIENCE! HE GREW UP TO BE A TEACHER WHO WANTED TO HELP KIDS! Five million characters in this manga, and my favorite was dead by like page two. ;___;


2. Lilly Kane from Veronica Mars

She walks the dreams of the people she left behind until her murder is solved . . . and as a side project, she also dispenses fashion advice! Lilly was fabulous, and she knew it, and we all knew it, and I'm still kind of sad that Veronica Mars dd not end up as a show about a teenaged PI and her ghost buddy who fought crime with her.


3. Teresa from Claymore

I just had a conversation with a friend who had seen the anime of Claymore - which is shonen about angsty half-demon ladies who fight demons - but not read the manga. "You should read it!" I said. "IS THERE MORE TERESA?" he said. ". . . no," I said, "uh, Teresa is a flashback character? She's dead . . .? Her death is the heroine's character-forming moment and motivation, remember . . .?" "Yeah," he said, sadly, "but I keep hoping, because she was THE MOST AWESOME CHARACTER."


Honorable mention: Arang from Arang and the Magistrate

I'm not really sure this actually counts, because a.) I haven't yet finished the kdrama Arang and the Magistrate and b.) it's true that Arang is a posthumous character but she is also . . . the main character . . . which does not quite create the same dynamic of bitter frustration that I feel about, say, Donkey. But she's such an AMAZING ghost that I have to include her anyway.


And now I throw this open to the floor! Which posthumous characters would you like to honor today?

Comments

[inkstone]

Fuwa Aika from Zetsuen no Tempest! Initially introduced a fridged lady character, we discover that NO, ACTUALLY, SHE IS THE ONE WHO CONTROLLED EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE!

[skygiants]

MASTERMINDS FROM BEYOND THE GRAAAAAVE! I kind of love that trope, I don't see it often enough.

[innerbrat]

Elliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Up, I'm still disappointed in you.

[innerbrat]

Additional mentions for Avatar Kyoshi, and my favorite TV-canon Slayer: Nikki Wood.

[damselfish]

So happy to see a Claymore mention.

[skygiants]

Hee, our household is full of VERY SERIOUS Claymore fans.

[dorothean]

That guy in that Canadian show about theater, in which every TV season was a different Shakespeare play. I cannot remember the name of the show, but I am sure someone will know what I'm talking about. [I remembered! It's Slings and Arrows.] He was a huge pain in the ass to the main character while he was alive, and then (pretty early on in the series) he got hit by a truck and killed, and then he reappeared as a ghost and continued to be a pain in the ass to the main character. That was pretty splendid.

Then there's Beloved in Beloved, who mustn't go unmentioned in this thread (because think of the havoc she might wreak otherwise), but I think Denver's really my favorite character in that novel.

[ladymondegreen]

Oliver Wells. Yes, he's a terrific posthumous character, though he is alive for the entire first episode, so he gets a tiny prequel of being alive.

[rymenhild]

1. Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

I guess he isn't my favorite character, but his deadness is kind of hilarious.

2. Also not my favorite, but his deadness is even more hilarious: Once upon a time, there was a man who died. Drosselmeyer is the most active and important dead character in any story I've ever read or seen.

3. The empress whose funeral Ivan and Miles attend in Cetaganda. Ivan and Miles start out assuming that she must have led a boring life in her women's cloister and her floating bubble chair. Check your assumptions at the wormhole, boys, because the Empress died in the process of staging a private Cetaganda-wide coup that would affect the entire empire's future... and nobody except her inner circle would ever have known.

[rymenhild]

Oh! Nada from Sandman, the original black woman in the original prehistoric refrigerator -- a refrigerator, note, where Dream of the Endless put her. When Dream finally realizes, five or ten thousand years later, that sending Nada to hell for turning him down was a bad idea, his attempt to get her out of there triggers Dream's tragedy. But Nada is awesome and badass and deserves much, much better than she gets. (And death is, er, relative. Er.)

[ghost_lingering]

Lily Evans. And I was also going to mention Ellie from Up (STILL SO SAD) and Nikki Woods!!! Ellie was definitely who came to mind first. SHE IS SO GREAT.

This shouldn't really count, because he's one of the main characters and he's alive in the first episode, but I will always have a fondness for Oliver from Slings & Arrows who dies and then sticks around as a ghost. (oh, the skull thing will never not be my favorite request from a character for when they are dead)

[dorothean]

... I had forgotten about Oliver's skull. Oh dear. Heh. I need to watch that show again.

[nny]

Margot and Rory from The Crow Road by Iain Banks.

[skygiants]

I've never read any Iain Banks! My sci-fi education needs expanding.

[luzula]

Bob Fraser in due South! I love him so much. ♥

[brownbetty]

Oh my, yes.

[agonistes]

Laura Palmer.

[darchildre]

I was going to post this once I got to the bottom of the comments - I'm glad someone's already done it for me. 8)

[minkhollow]

I have to bring my Warehouse 13 OTP into this, as when they are first mentioned, Jack Secord is 47 years dead. (Rebecca isn't quite in this category, as she gets two episodes of awesomeness while alive. BUT STILL.)

I also really, really want to know what happened to Gus, which isn't bad for someone who's been mentioned all of three times (the first of which suggested inaction on Mrs. F's part contributed to his death).

[skygiants]

Hee, two episodes of awesomeness while alive is pretty good by some of the standards here! I'll allow 47 years dead, though . . .

[ceitfianna]

I love these lists and so many of my favorites have been mentioned already.

Lilly Evans, Oliver Wells-favorite ghost, Sergeant Bothari and General Piotr in Vorkosigan, they're alive in early books but for the majority of the story dead with a presence. I know there are other characters that I love who are dead but I can't seem to think of them. I might be back later.

[skygiants]

I'm not sure Bothari and Piotr count, since they're very much alive in the first books in the series! I'm mostly thinking of characters who we get to know for the most part after they die. Oliver Wells I think counts though, because most of what we know about him we learn posthumously . . and Lily Evans, totally.

[kd7sov]

I'm going to have to mention Anwatan and also Quilliam Mye. (Did you know that if you type the latter's name into Google without its "u", Google thinks you want Bill Nye?)

Anwatan is from Widdershins, one of Charles de Lint's more recent novels. She's a cerva, a deer-woman-spirit (it's complicated) whose first appearance is as dripping meat that a gang of bogans (goblinoids, sort of) dumps in the trunk of New Protagonist Lizzie. Lizzie buries her respectfully, which helps to set off about three different chains of events and almost leads to war and does lead to a romance fans were awaiting since the first book in the series. (Well, okay, some of that had more to do with the death than with the burial.) Also she shows up as a ghost a couple of times and helps a guy who's been killed unfairly find his way back so the crow girls can heal him.

Quilliam I believe you know, but for the benefit of those who don't: he's the father of main character Mosca Mye in Fly By Night and Fly Trap. He taught her to read, and then he died and his books were burned. And he turns out to have had some very interesting opinions, and occasionally Mosca is able to imagine him up to tell her things she already knows.

[skygiants]

QUILLIAM MYE. As far as the annals of dead parents go, he's definitely one of the most interesting!

(And now he's forever going to be incarnated as Bill Nye in my head, thanks.)

[cordialcount]

MAL. Mal from Inception, my favorite mental parasite despite her not being alive at all in the present timeline of the film, and one of my favorite characters ever. (Unless the whole thing takes place in her head: I tend to prefer the thought that if Mal can project that much presence while not-there, she would be too much amazing for tiny easily awed me while alive.)

[ghost_lingering]

OH MY GOSH YES. How did I not think of Mal!!! Mal is really my favorite character in the film.

[musesfool]

Mary Winchester from Supernatural. She gets fridged in the teaser of the pilot, but they did eventually give her a personality and backstory that's pretty cool.

and I totally second (third?) Avatar Kyoshi from Avatar.

[skygiants]

I totally hadn't thought about Avatar Kyoshi but I LOVE that everyone is bringing her up, because YES. WHAT A FORCE OF NATURE. Best dead Avatar!

[hokuton_punch]

Agent North Dakota from Red vs. Blue. :c HE WAS SUCH A SWEETIE. Does Theta count? I think Theta should also count for being the most adorable of the AI who isn't Delta. OH AND CAPTAIN BUTCH FLOWERS. We hardly knew ye, Flowers, but we all wanted more.

KUROSAKI MASAKI, and I don't know whether to curse KT or bless him for finally letting us get to meet her. SHE'S SUCH A BAMF THOUGH.

Senju Hashirama, cutest Hokage of all time. OF ALL TIME. With the most adorable baby romance with Madara. ;o;

[skygiants]

I don't know any of these people but THEY SOUND ADORABLE. *laughing*

[sdelmonte]

Do we count the Waynes, or Jor-El and Lara? They were dead before we got here, only really coming to life in flashbacks later.

[skygiants]

Depending on the canon, I think we can count both of these sets of Tragically Dead Parents!

[izilen]

NORETH!!! The real Noreth. :(

[pedanther]

Yes!

[thistleingrey]

+1-ing so many of the characters here, and observing that a ton of them are female. Whether because of viewer/reader sympathy or because of text-producer fridging tendencies....

[skygiants]

Yeah, the patterns are interesting! Lots of tragically dead parents, several tragically dead teenaged girls. But it's actually not as overwhelmingly female as I was expecting it to be either. (And then you get people like Kyoshi, who are really ancestral dead characters -- those are the most interesting to me.)

[cyphomandra]

Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII! Definitely in the "gone but not forgotten" group (for many complicated reasons!).

Of the others mentioned here, I am also very fond of Donkey and Laura Palmer.

[skygiants]

DONKEY. <333 Eventually Koizumi Kyoko came and provided me with a living favorite, but it TOOK A WHILE.

[shati]

I think Momoka is actually the closest thing I have to this! I went to the tvtropes page and still didn't find anything. I mean, if we discount Arang, and I kind of do if only because it's Arang and not her alive past self who I love, no offense to her alive past self.

[skygiants]

Momoka is a good example, though! (If she's actually dead. I mean, she basically is . . . right? WE'RE PRETTY SURE. WTF, Ikuhara.)

Yeah, I kind of discount Arang for the same reason. The person who is motivated by Arang's death is . . . Arang!

[brownbetty]

I want to mention Laura Hale, who belongs to Teen Wolf, a canon mostly good for producing hilarity and beefcake, but the fandom has really embraced her. (Dead ladies, being, perhaps, easier to like?) But as a blank slate, she has produced some wonderfully complex characterizations.

[skygiants]

I hear lots of fascinating things about Laura Hale! I hear fascinating things about the ladies of Teen Wolf generally, really, but this may be a self-selecting factor.

[allchildren]

How has nobody mentioned Rebecca de Winter!!!

[skygiants]

How did I not mention Rebecca de Winter! MY GREATEST NAMESAKE *____*

[amoama]

Ack so many of these answers are making me cry out in shared pain for the characters whose presence was so powerful and yet we didn't get to spend any proper time with.

For me, Bella in Fugitive Pieces because Jacob doesn't even know for sure that she's dead and so he can't let her go in the way he does his parents whose bodies he actually saw.

Also I always felt a bit sad about Heidi's parents. There seemed so much more to the story and it was all so heartbreaking.

[skygiants]

Right?! It's CRUEL AND UNFAIR. >:| >:| >:|

Lots of dead parents it seems like we should have gotten to know more about!

[dimestore_romeo]

Possibly Butcher Brakespeare in the Flora Segunda books? Although it gets rather complicated. I loved meeting Tiny Doom, and the very secretive story of the older generation.

And Teresa from Claymore, of course! She was not in the series enough. :/

[dimestore_romeo]

I would say Sissel from Ghost Trick, but not sure they count. :D

[alias_sqbr]

I used to feel this way about Aradia from Homestuck but then she came back to life :D

[skygiants]

RUB IT IN FOR THE REST OF US :P