Characters who should have lived
 

Post here, with characters who ou think went before hteir times. I'll start

Full Metal Alchemist: Maes Hughes
He should have lived, he was so awesome, and he could have lived but Envy decided to be a chaep bastard and make him shoot his wife!

Naruto: Asuma Sarutobi
This one felt like they neede a death to keep things mving so they chose a random character, and Asuma got the short straw. He was faced with an invinceable enemy, no chance.

Post who you think should have lived.

That means it's not sufficient to just put up a general spoiler warning. How are people going to know what the spoilers are for?

As this isn't your first rule transgression I'm giving you a one day ban. Please read the rules again, thoroughly, and don't hesitate to ask if something's unclear.

Beast Wars: Tigatron (if DinoBOt had lived it would have diminished the story a great deal, same with Hughs, whilst Tigatron/TigerHawk's death just seemed like it was thrown in for no apparent reason).

the only time I would argue with a character dying is when they do crap like "hmm character-X is the least popular in the series. Lets kill him off" or some other death thats just to boost ratings or something. For example
Hughs dies, we all loved Hughs. But he died for a reason. It made logical sence that he would die. Even if it didn't diminish the story he still got too close to the truth and was killed for it. Marco died for this same reason, also the slicer brothers, and Marta. Only way Hughs would have lived was if the manga-ka would have went out of her way to keep him alive. The reason we like her manga/anime is because she doesn't pull crap like that.

If a death makes logical sence then they should die, and I would be dissatisfied if they lived. Then again I am a writer so I look at it from both sides. In fact I might be a tad bias. But in short I agree with Sesshy

Anyone who says Aeris/Aerith here should be banned!

Also... i have one, but its a heavy spoiler for Bleach Fans... so if you are watching only the Dubbed version, dont even read this... its almos 90 episodes ahead of ya...

Bleach: Ichinose. On the split second were it looked like he could turn into a good guy... he dies... Zaraki kills He with ONE freaking blow... and the screen goes silent, and the espisode ends... it just made me go "Aw man...."

Blah. I loved that part, Bellsouth.

Naruto Manga (In other words, what's past the fillers): Sasori. I didn't like him or anything, but really...getting killed by Sakura and his grandmother? So much shame.

Amusingly enough, the only 'legitimate' deaths listed here are from animes/manga/whatever with rather subpar writing. Not oddly, just amusingly.

You see, when a story, regardless of medium, is well written, no characters die without an important reason. Their death is crucial to the feel of the story, or the momentum of the plot... or both. If you can look at a death in retrospect and not really understand what the author was trying to do by causing that death, chances are you can find at least twenty other problems with the writing.

Of course, an equal, and sometimes greater, offense in story telling is NOT killing someone when they really shouldn't be alive anymore, just to avoid character murderin' *coughonepiececough*.

In Cowboy Bebop, I've actually basically convinced myself that Spike actually survives at the end. Basically on no evidence other than I like it better that way.

Dunno if anyone ever saw Gantz, but basically absolutely everybody dies in Gantz. I mean there's at least a couple of those people I'd have liked to see live.

Serenity: Wash. By storytelling standards, I can understand. They needed to show the danger was real, it showed a rarely seen side of Zoe, it shook everybody up and made the stakes seem higher when they're fighting off the Reavers, but he was a gorram leaf on the gorram wind! I don't want to admit he died!

Despite the fact that Serenity wasn't remotely animated, I wholeheartedly agree with ElfLad. It was a pretty ballsy move on Joss Whedon's part, though. It's not too often you can get away with killing off the comic relief.

In manga,
PHD, Phantasy Degree: Lukan, Pannus Tyrannus, and Mordicus. I mean, give them ultimate power, and then just slaughter them. They were interesting in Volume one! Sure, it adds drama, but this is overkill! Really, in general, this manga kills TOO MANY PEOPLE.