This article discusses character death and suicide.
Writers of ongoing storylines face a difficult task when it comes to killing off characters. Their deaths have to be worthy and make sense in the story, otherwise fans will be angry. And unfortunately, they do sometimes misjudge and kill off the wrong person.
Sometimes a mob of angry fans descend on the writer; other times, the writer simply has regrets. Maybe the character could have gone on to greater heights or even become a film or television icon if they hadn’t been killed off. Sometimes, the writer who made the mistake shares their misstep with the world and even sends an apology.
10Ryan Coogler Would Have Kept Klaue Alive
Movie: Black Panther
The villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe often meet bad ends, and Andy Serkis’s Klaue was no exception. He was shot and killed by Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) and his corpse was taken to Wakanda. Although Klaue was a bad person, Ryan Coogler enjoyed writing him to the point he wished he’d kept him alive.
Coogler told the Toronto Sun, “I like Klaue. I was bugged by having to do that. It’s tough when you have to kill characters off and I really did love that character.” He added, “I love Andy, he’s a lovely person. But again, it’s one of those things where when you’ve got so many people in a movie, some of them have to go.”
9Robert Kirkman Wishes Tyreese Was Still Around
Show: The Walking Dead
Tyreese (Chad Coleman) died in the comics The Walking Dead was based on, so he was always going to die in the show. He died of blood loss after being bitten and having his arm cut off, and fans were devastated. Coleman was happy with his death, though, and the show went on.
But Tyreese is still remembered even years later. At Comic-Con in 2022, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman was asked if he regretted killing any characters off. He answered:
I mean, all of them and none of them, you know? I wish I was still writing Tyreese. Yeah, that’s a character I really enjoyed. You know, I wish I was still writing Tyreese on the show. But, it didn’t keep him alive.
8Sally Wainwright Regretted Killing off a Lesbian Character
Show: Last Tango in Halifax
The British show Last Tango in Halifax, written by Sally Wainwright, was very popular among older lesbian women. Sarah Lancashire played the character of Caroline, and she received an overwhelming response from gay women who were afraid to come out later in life.
But things took a slight downward turn for the show when Caroline’s wife Kate (Nina Sosanya) was killed off in a car crash. The Guardian called the show “the latest victim of the dead lesbian cliche” and Wainwright came to regret it. She told the Hays Festival in 2015, “I was very sad to do it. I wrote another ending but it didn’t work. At the time, I thought it was the right choice, but I do actually regret it now.”
7Sylvester Stallone Felt He Shouldn’t Have Killed Apollo Creed
Movie: Rocky IV
In the fourth Rocky film, Apollo (Carl Weathers) is killed in the ring by Drago (Dolph Lundgren). This devastates Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) and Apollo is not forgotten, being mentioned many times in later films. Without Apollo’s death, the hugely popular Creed movies might never have happened… but Stallone nonetheless regrets it.
In a 2021 documentary about Rocky, Stallone stated that killing off Apollo was “foolish.” He said that if he had survived, “We would have seen a different side of Apollo. He could have opened up to all these other things that we didn’t even know about, because he’s now in a wheelchair. And he would have kind of been a father figure, mentor, brother. It would have been really great.” But, of course, it didn’t happen.
6Eric Kripke Wouldn’t Kill Lamplighter Now
Show: The Boys
There are a lot of horrible deaths in The Boys, but Lamplighter’s was particularly painful — he takes his own life by setting himself on fire. Showrunner Eric Kripke came to realize that maybe Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore) would have served the story better by remaining alive.
Kripke told TV Guide, “We, the writers, were sure that Lamplighter needed to die for what he did. You know, he burned a bunch of children alive. It’s not awesome behavior. But once we cast Shawn and once I was watching his dailies I have to admit I regret [killing Lamplighter].” It was thanks to Ashmore’s nuanced performance that he came to appreciate him.
5John Carpenter Regretted One Violent Death
Movie: Assault on Precinct 13
One horrific scene in Assault on Precinct 13 sees the death by shooting of a little girl, Kathy (Kim Richards). The scene would have given the movie an X rating had John Carpenter not tricked the MPAA and distributed the uncut version of the movie. But now, the director thinks that scene was a mistake.
“We had a scene where a little girl gets killed with a gun, and it was pretty horrible at the time – explicit,” he told the website Review Graveyard in 2008. “I don’t think I’d do it again but I was young and stupid.”
4Killing Off Mako Mori Infuriated Fans
Movie: Pacific Rim Uprising
The Pacific Rim franchise can certainly kill characters in a meaningful way — take the death of Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost in the first film, for example. However, the death of Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) was just plain awful. It was a pure and simple fridging: killing off a female character to enhance the story of a male one, in this case, Mako’s brother Jake (John Boyega).
Director Steven S. DeKnight later admitted mistakes were made, telling Screen Rant, “For me, it was a great regret because I loved that character. I loved Rinko and I don’t think, ultimately, [Mako’s] death had the weight that it deserved, through various creative decisions, some my own, some outside my control.”
3Jason Rothenberg Had to Apologize for Killing Lexa
When Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) was killed off in The 100, fans thought it was a clear-cut example of the “Bury Your Gays” trope — the one where gay characters end up killed for shock value instead of being allowed to live on and be happy. Fans were furious, and writer Jason Rotherberg eventually issued an apology.
2Jon Kasdan Felt He Made a Mistake Killing Val
Movie: Solo: A Star Wars Story
When Thandiwe Newton’s Val was killed off in the otherwise pretty good Solo: A Star Wars Story, fans weren’t pleased. At that point, Val was one of the very few Black women in the Star Wars franchise, and people thought she had been completely wasted. And before long, writer Jon Kasdan came to agree.
In a now-deleted Twitter post, Kasdan wrote, “In retrospect, Thandie Newton may actually have been too good and too interesting as Val… Thandie is so compelling to watch that the death of her character feels a little like a cheat. It’s an odd and unexpected problem that comes with working with such amazing, compelling actors in the Star Wars universe. You just want more of them.”
1Killing off Tara Unleashed a Storm
Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Few character deaths in history have been talked about as much as Tara’s. Tara (Amber Benson) was the girlfriend of Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and they were one of the few lesbian couples on TV at the point where Tara was killed off. She was shot in her own bedroom, right in front of Willow. The backlash for that decision persists to this day.
In 2018, Marti Noxon spoke about the death — and the general darkness of Buffy season 6 – with Vulture. Noxon said, “There were parts of season six where I feel we went too far… We pushed into some categories that almost felt sadistic… And I think that killing Tara was — in retrospect, of all the people, did she have to die?” Now, Tara is frequently held up as the ultimate example of “Bury Your Gays.”
