Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}

 

Hey, that Bridge over there looks a bit unsteady. Wait, what's that? It looks like the Bridge is....falling...[[Curse Cut Short|Oh shi]] --

Guess [[Anyone Can Die]] after all. In fact, you're likely to bite it in the first few minutes if you appear in the sequel at all. And if you're a [[Final Girl]] who's in more than one installment of a slasher movie series, your life expectancy drops dramatically.

 

 

In movies, this can happen for two additional reasons: A character may die on-screen because his actor accepted to play the part, or he may die off-screen because the actor refused or [[The Character Died with Him|died themselves between films]].

 

{{examples}}

* Astonage, one of the mechanics who survives ''[[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam|Zeta Gundam]]'' and ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ|Gundam ZZ]]'' is killed off in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in ''[[Char's Counterattack]]'' by a missile that impacts the hanger bay. This is probably because he picked up a love interest sometime before the movie. You didn't honestly think that [[Kill'Em All|Kill 'em all Tomino]] would let him get away with ''that'' did you?

** And unsurprisingly his love interest dies too. [[Love Hurts|That's Tomino for you]].

* April from ''[[Darker than Black]]'' suffered a few serious injuries in the middle of the first season, but ultimately survived and appeared in the second season... only to be killed at the end of the first episode by Hei.

* JC, the main supporting character of the 1998 video game ''SiN'' dies just minutes into its anime sequel counterpart, ''SiN: The Movie''. He goes through a particularly gruesome transformation and has to be put down by his boss, John Blade. This clears the way for JC's younger, hotter sister to join Blade's police force.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Keep in mind that this is also her fate in the books.

** Mathis from ''[[Casino Royale]]'' fare a little better than the norm, making it about halfway through ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' before being gunned down and tossed into a dumpster.

* In ''[[Austin Powers]] 2'', Austin's love interest in the first movie, Vanessa, is revealed to be a fembot and is quickly destroyed. To make the revelation [[Rule of Funny|even more absurd]], Basil admits that they'd known all along. Austin mourns her death for all of three seconds before realizing he's single again, which makes him so happy it leads to a choreographed dance number.

* ''Hostel Part II'': Paxton, the [[Final Girl|Final Guy]] from the first film, is decapitated early on.

* The two final survivors in ''The House of the Dead'' film are revealed in ''The House of the Dead 2'' to have died in the interrim. This is something of an unusual example in that the ending of the first film had the guy bring the girl back to life as a semi-zombie using the [[Big Bad]]'s formula, so even back then you knew things weren't going to end well for the two of them.

* {{spoiler|Ironhide}} in ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]''.

* {{spoiler|Irene Adler}} dies within the first few minutes of ''[[Sherlock Holmes (film)|Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows]]''.

* From the first trailer, it seems this is the fate of most of the original team in ''[[G.I. Joe: Retaliation]]''.

* {{spoiler|Io}} in ''[[Clash of the Titans|Wrath of the Titans]]''. Then again, that's the least of the film's problems...

* ''[[Pitch Black]]'' survivors {{spoiler|Jack/Kyra}} and {{spoiler|:Imam}} fare much worse in the sequel ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]''.

 

== Literature ==

* Surprisingly, almost inverted in ''[[Warrior Cats]]''. Even though [[Anyone Can Die]] (big time), the majority of the characters who survived until the second series (with only five or so exceptions) are still alive 12 books later.

** ...and then played straight in the fourth series, where (so far) almost all of the deaths are those of characters who have been alive since early in the series.

** [[It Got Worse]]. For those who thought losing {{spoiler|Hedwig and Mad-Eye}} was bad enough, the fans certainly did ''not'' expect 10+ more major characters to die. Though this is probably justified since J.K. Rowling may be trying to set a dismal, almost dystopian tone for her seventh and final book.

*** [[Word of God]] confirms it. She said after book five that, since it was a war, characters ''would'' get killed, and that some characters wouldn't be protected just by being major characters.

 

 

* ''[[Ewoks the Battle For Endor]]'', the sequel to the TV movie ''The Ewok Adventure,'' has a perfect example of this trope. The original movie concerned the efforts of a teenage boy named Mace and his young sister Cindel to rescue their parents from a [[Big Bad]] monster that has kidnapped them. With the help of the Ewoks, they succeed and the first movie ends on a happy note. Barely 10 minutes into the second film, however, Mace is killed, and so are both parents. Cindel is the only human protagonist from the first film to survive the second one. Considering how the goal of the first movie was to save the parents, it's a good example of a sequel making the previous work seem like a [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]].

* Season five of ''[[24]]'' opened with the deaths of Michelle Dessler and President Palmer.

** Another example would be Curtis Manning only four episodes into season six (the fact that he was billed as a guest star, as opposed to a regular was a painfully obvious indicator that Curtis wouldn't be around for the long haul that season).

** A more climactic example is Veronica Donovan, who was killed at the end of the Season 2 premiere.

** Another example is James Whistler, who was a major character in Season 3, but. like Veronica, got a bullet between the eyes care of a Company agent in the first episode of the following season.

** Subverted in that {{spoiler|she continues to narrate the game after her "death", and is ultimately restored to her true form once the Prince defeats the Vizier.}}

* Simone Taylor was one of three characters to survive ''5 Days a Stranger'', the first game of the [[Chzo Mythos]]. (The second character would come down with a case of [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]] shortly afterward, and the third was the player.) The second game, ''7 Days a Skeptic'', is set in the distant future, and the player finds a letter that mentions, among other things, that Simone was killed very shortly after the events of ''5 Days''. The third game, ''Trilby's Notes'', goes back and actually is set very shortly after the events of ''5 Days'' and the prologue/tutorial ends with the discovery of Simone's body.

* Vic Vance is killed in a gun battle mere minutes into ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City|Grand Theft Auto: Vice City]]'', but later appears in its prequel, ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories|Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories]]'' as the protagonist. This trope only works, however, if one plays the games in chronological order.

* Bottles in ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'' serves to teach Banjo and Kazooie new moves. In the opening cutscene of ''Banjo-Tooie'', he gets killed off by Gruntilda. He comes back to life, though.

* In ''[[Killzone]] 2'', the heroes of the original ''Killzone'' all appear as [[Older and Wiser]] NPCs helping the new player character Sev, until they all end up getting killed over the course of the game.

** Rico possibly survived, but we don't know if the entirety of the ISA forces on the ground were wiped out after the surprise attack following the death of Scolar Visari.

** Both Jill Valentine and [[Nigh Invulnerable|Albert]] [[Big Bad|Wesker]] were {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|falsely presumed]]}} dead for two years in ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'', after she [[Heroic Sacrifice|tackled him over a cliff]].

* 16 possible party members from the first ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' game who make an appearance of sorts as NPCs in the sequel. Five are party-joinable members: of the rest, over half end up dead. Of particular note are Dynaheir and Khalid, who are killed off shortly before the game even begins - this being of import because the sequel assumes they were in your party at the end of the first game (which is highly likely assuming you played a Good alignment and met them early on in the main questline: the "canonical" party includes them and their respective partners Minsc and Jaheira, both party-joinable but newly single in the sequel, and Imoen who turns out to be {{spoiler|your sister}}, and makes major plot points out of all of these events.) Of the rest: Faldorn ends up as an evil sidequest boss you have to kill, Montaron and Xzar both die (one onstage, one offstage) as a result of Harper/Zhentarim factional bickering, Ajantis is killed by your own party while both of you are under an illusion spell and you don't even get to learn his identity unless you have a paladin or knight in your own party, Tiax dies in a battle in the asylum, Safana is killed by werewolves in a battle which Coran will probably also die unless the players [[Curb Stomp Battle|win the fight fast enough]]. With Viconia and Edwin also being party-joinable, only Quayle and Garrick actually survive their appearance as non-joinable NPCs

* Alice Elliot dies in the Bad Ending of ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'', opening Karin's spot in ''Shadow Hearts: Covenant''. Subverted in the Good Ending of Covenant when Yuri allows himself to die then travels back in time to beginning of Shadow Hearts, implied with his memories in tact, this time ready to save Alice.

* Naomi made it through ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' relatively intact, and was just about the only villainous character to be redeemed instead of killed or arrested. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'', she dies of spontaneous magical [[Nanomachines|nano]]cancer from nowhere [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|for no real plot reason]] other than to [[Stuffed Into the Fridge|make Otacon cry]]. Overlaps with [[Strangled by the Red String]], since Otacon had never even met her until this game.

* Irene Lew falls seemingly to her death from a cliff after being chased by Ryu Hayabusa's [[Evil Twin|evil doppelganger]] in the opening sequence of ''[[Ninja Gaiden|Ninja Gaiden III]]''. However, it later turns out that she survived her fall and was [[He's Just Hiding|really hiding]] from her adversaries.

** Irene's survival was actually a bit more obvious to Japanese players, since the manual for that version established that the third NES game took place [[Non-Linear Sequel|between the first two ones]].

* [[Chrono Cross]] introduces a computer AI, reveals it to be Robo's AI transplanted into a computer by Lucca, and then unceremoniously deletes the AI in a single text dump, accomplishing nothing except shock value.

** Most of the cast in [[Chrono Trigger]] were killed offscreen, missing in action, or retconned out of existence before its sequel [[Chrono Cross]] even begins.

* Mujari and possibly Teresa and Logan die in [[Syphon Filter]]: ''Logan's Shadow''. Since Sony has officially abandoned the series, we will never see it resolved. Alima Haddad, the chopper pilot who first appeared in ''Omega Strain'', also dies.

* In Neverwinter Nights 2, between the Original Campaign and Mask Of The Betrayer, many of the main character's companions are killed off when they seemed to be in sight of safety. All characters who weren't killed in the final battle were making their escape, but most of them are killed. The ones that survive are decided by how the player answers certain questions in the expansion.

** Inverted with Wrex, The Council, Kaidan or Ashley, all of whom were significant characters in #1. Since their deaths are optional, they're written into much smaller roles in #2.

** The third game promises to allow you to resolve all those story arcs continuing them from wherever you left them in the first, their lack of interactive progression in the second game is to keep the amount of possibilities ''in the 4 digit range''. Expect the rest of the first game as well as the returning Mass Effect 2 cast to once again be susceptible to [[Anyone Can Die]].

== Webcomics ==

* Bert was one of the few to survive the original "KITTEN" arc in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' (albeit with a mangled prostate), but is unceremoniously killed off during "KITTEN II."