The term, frequently applied to television, film, video game, literature, anime, manga and chronological series, often denotes an untimely or unexpected death motivated by factors beyond the storyline.
"The Final Problem", an 1893 story by Arthur Conan Doyle, ends with Sherlock Holmes plunging to his death at the Reichenbach Falls, in struggle with his arch enemy Professor Moriarty.
Doyle did permanently kill off Mary Morstan, who happily married Doctor Watson at the end of The Sign of Four, but who apparently became inconvenient for later Sherlock Holmes stories.
In 1956, Ian Fleming was becoming disenchanted with his James Bond books[1] and wrote to his friend, the American author Raymond Chandler: "My muse is in a very bad way ...
When actor Will Lee died on December 7, 1982, the staff of Children's Television Workshop were thinking of recasting Mr. Hooper, or quietly having the character retire from the show.
After the program received criticism from some government ministers in both Palestine and Israel, as well as from the Disney family, for espousing anti-Israeli and antisemitic sentiments, the Farfur character was killed off.
[7] Planters killed off its century-old mascot Mr. Peanut in an advertising campaign leading up to Super Bowl LIV, only to resurrect him as a baby during a commercial during that game.
[15] Filmation killed off The Wicked Queen in the Snow White sequel Happily Ever After due to avoiding resemblance from the 1937 movie after facing legal issues with The Walt Disney Company from the previous film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night.
[16] The gusty image of the deceased Queen's face is briefly seen when the Magic Mirror (with a more comical design) show her evil brother, Lord Maliss (who would take the role as the main antagonist), her whereabouts then got freaked out by it.
Some characters after the deaths of their actors are not killed off, but are forced to be phased out, like Anne-Marie from All Dogs Go to Heaven who could not be recast in subsequent films after the murder of Judith Barsi in 1988.
That can happen either as a depiction of their literal resurrection or by retcon, a revision that changes earlier continuity and establishes the character not to have died in the first place.
Killing off a main character such as Superman, Batman or Captain America can often lead to an uptick in publicity for a comic book and high sales for the story in which they are inevitably brought back to life.
[23] The subsequent tendency for the wives and girlfriends of male superheroes to meet grim fates was referred to as "The Gwen Stacy Syndrome" by the Comics Buyer's Guide.
[24] Charlotte Braun, a character in the comic strip Peanuts, was killed off less than a year after being introduced after Charles Schulz received negative feedback about her.
[26][27] In recent years, some LGBT showrunners and writers have made steps to avert this, such as ND Stevenson with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.