Most heart wrenching death

Whose exit from RFC's books (any series) affects you most?

my top 3

3: Kostas from the prince Roger books. unlike many characters in all the various books, Kotas is a quiet, very low key person. He was no marine or naval officer who signed up to visit foreign lands and possible die there, just someone who took the time to try and make the life of his prince easier. also i think it is the fact that his exit is not to "bad guys" of whatever type, he ran afoul of the (incredibly dangerous) wildlife.

2: Alistair McKeon, a main stay character who appeared in most of the novels before his exit, (I believe scotty has actually appeared more often thanks to his stint in book 6), the scene where Honor learns of his death and the fact that about the only casualties on that ship were almost exclusively on the flag deck just breaks me every time.

and top billing goes to.

1: Rastar, last prince of Theadon. what can you say about Rastar? from the first time he appeared I wanted him to be a major part of what was to come and of course he was though it did look for a while like he was going to disappear but no he came back and made a typical Rastar entry. Rastar was just great fun, he had so much style and flair, the very epitome of panache. I was just crushed by his death, every time i read that section I cry, even though i know exactly what will happen I pray that i'm remembering it wrong and that he will cheat death again but alas I am disappointed every time and so I cry again.

Honrable mentions:

Andreas Venziouls as he buys time for Honor to eascape, Yes Honour's armsman did the same but no disrespect to them that was exactly what they swore to do. Andy was just a navy officer, in an incredibly bad situation but getting Honor off ship was more important to him then anything else.

Capitan Phanar just exuded competence and indestructibility, always in command he knew exactly what to do in any situation baring naval combatant and we can forgive a ground pounder that. Struck down by treachery, it was a great loss to the story but the fact that it put Roger absolutely in charge for the first time, finalised his transition from sulky boy to battle hardened warrior leader.

Carolyn Wolcott. I fell for her fast.

My heart will always go on.

Another heart wrenching death was Cordelia Ransom. Inasmuch as it took RFC so long to sell her the farm! Copper-plated Bitch!!!

Oops. Can I say that on forum HD?

Oh well, maybe it'll get bleeped out. lol

Deaths that I will NEVER get over. Never ever ever ever ever.

EVER!

Like... Never.

THE MUELLER SCHOOL KIDS!


Adam Gerrick was a very good man too.

those kids were an very sore point for me. I know this is fiction and no-one is safe but that there was a deliberate plot to kill kids just wounded me so much that i almost gave up the series.

Andrew LaFollet's death was the first one to bring tears out of my eyes. It just hit me that he'd been with Honor for so long and that right to the end, he had done his duty unswervingly.

And that Raoul would grow up never knowing who he was.

munroburton wrote:Andrew LaFollet's death was the first one to bring tears out of my eyes. It just hit me that he'd been with Honor for so long and that right to the end, he had done his duty unswervingly.

And that Raoul would grow up never knowing who he was.

Yea.

And the following death of his sister Miranda made it worse. They were a very loving brother and sister and both had to die. Darn. Just seemed wrong somehow.

the loss of Andrew, Miranda and Farragut was indeed sad.

I still remember that scene from ashes of victory where honour has Nitmitz and Farragut as lead performers in a shatter rock band with great fondness. next treecat short story has to have them forming a rock band and the horror of the elders at what noise they put out.

All of the above are good...indeed great choices and I remember their deaths.

But for me it was Black Rock Clan, because we never saw that coming. I mean, we know the MWW can and will kill off any characters if it is part of the overall story, and the kids in FiE were on the site, so we had a tiny bit of forshawdowing (IIRC). But this...

Black Rock Clan was one of the older treecat clans. Not as old as Bright Water Clan from whence it had originally sprung, perhaps, but certainly of respectable antiquity. It was a large clan, too—one which had been growing steadily over the last double-hand of turnings. The hunting was good, here in the western picket-wood of the mountains the two-legs called the Copper Walls. The "gardening" tricks the two-legs had taught the People helped, as well, and Black Rock had learned to look forward to the regular visits of the Forestry Service's doctors, which had kept so many of their young from dying in kittenhood.

But for all that, Black Rock Clan, like most treecat clans, kept largely to itself. There were no two-legs living in Black Rock's immediate vicinity, and so there was no one to tell the People what had happened in the black emptiness so far beyond their sky.

And perhaps that was just as well. At least none of the People realized what was about to happen.

...hit me out of nowhere and still has a powerful impact today.

Dauntless wrote:those kids were an very sore point for me. I know this is fiction and no-one is safe but that there was a deliberate plot to kill kids just wounded me so much that i almost gave up the series.

While not wanting to defend Meuller et al the plan was not specifically to kill kids but to cause an embaresing and very visible engineering failure at some indeterminate point during the dome construction. This is acknowleded in text where Meuller reflects on the perversity of god causing it to happen when the school visit is happening. All the causalties expected were the local workmen which is still evil but not "Killing kids for jollies/political advantage" levels of scumbaggery.