Kossara Vymezal in Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry series;
Tracy Bond in Ian Fleming's James Bond series;
Mike Havel and Astrid Loring in SM Stirling's Emberverse series.
Such a death, when it does occur, usually happens at or near the end of a volume and is a significant event for the series as a whole. Astrid's death, occurring off stage between chapters, seems to be an exception to this.
Kossara's death should have been expected. We had been told that Flandry would not get the woman that he really wanted and events so far had borne that out. Nevertheless, Kossara's death by violence while addressing the Dennitzan Parliament was devastating.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And of course Lord Bear died because of his single combat with Norman Arminger. And the irony was they both killed each other! And Mike Havel lived just long enough to appreciate.
And Kossara Vymezal's death was "expected" because Flandry feared Aycharaych's agents would stop at nothing to prevent her from dissuading the Dennitzan parliament from rebelling against the Terran Empire. They would kill her and try to seize power. Which is what happened.
Sean
Flandry had a prophecy working against him, though.
Heroic figures tend to be very skilled and very lucky, but eventually if you keep going back to the well your luck runs out.
My father-in-law was an American soldier in WW2 -- infantry private and then corporal, carrying a Browning Automatic Rifle.
He fought all the way from D-day to the German surrender, through the Battle of the Bulge.
He remembered being in his foxhole in the Ardennes and feeling the ground shake as the German Tigers ground towards him... and then turned right and, as he put it, went to grind some other poor son of a bitch to pulp.
By the time the war ended, he was one of 6 members of his original platoon not dead or incapacitated by serious wounds, an he'd gone through 3 platoon commanders, all killed in action.
As he put it, you could die of stupid, or you could just catch the one that had your number of it.
Rudi Mackenzie has a prophecy too: he's not going to live to see his hair go grey, and he'll die by steel.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
You were referring to how an angry Djana, in A CIRCUS OF HELLS, "wished" or "hexed" Flandry never to have any woman he would truly WANT. But that was not exactly prophecy because Djana had a trace of psi abilities, sufficient to "wish" people to sometimes do as she wished them to do. It seems rather thin and vague to be still affecting Flandry so many years after A CIRCUS OF HELLS.
Sean
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I'm glad your father-in-law beat the odds and survived WW II!
Yes, Mike Havel's luck eventually ran out, because he went to that proverbial well too many times.
And I remember that prophecy about Rudi!
Sean
As Mike said, "we are the Kings who die for the people". Or to quote Homer, "who put our mortal bodies between our folk and the war's desolation".
Dear Mr. Stirling,
A noble and admirable principle, I agree! We see Poul Anderson using that idea in his story "Kings Who Die."
Sean
As a matter of fact, I asked Poul's permission to use the phrase, which he very kindly granted.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
And of course someone as kindly and good natured as Poul Anderson would not object to you using that line or phrase.
Sean
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