[ SECRET POST #3546 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3546 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 41 secrets from Secret Submission Post #507.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

09. https://66.media.tumblr.com/8807a20c0d60074a37b5279985cd892c/tumblr_odneejGqgk1sivacmo1_1280.png

[(Anonymous)]

Never be a scientist or science teacher in a small town. You will die first.

Seriously, I think it was Gremlins and The Faculty that I watched fairly soon after each other and noticed the science teacher bites it in both (I think?) and wondered, did these screenwriters really hate high school science that much? It's weird, because it doesn't fit the "teens who have sex will die" trope or the "people who were mean to the main characters will die" trope or the "people who don't believe anything bad is happening will die" trope, since if they're not an evil scientist villain, the scientist characters are usually trying to help.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, think about it. The smartest characters have to die, or else they'd just solve the problem without panicking and causing drama.

[feotakahari]

Reminds me of that Dungeons and Dragons movie that killed the cleric first, because magical healing would have solved a lot of problems. I guess when you're in a horror movie, being intelligent is a magical power all of its own.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, exactly. All the scientists and doctors and medics and whatnot dying, with regard to plot, are part of the disaster that the main characters are in. If people who would help solve the problem were still around, then it's not as drastic a problem.

[sarillia]

I don't see what intelligence has to do with not panicking. I'm both smart and an easily startled coward.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're both smart and an easily startled coward who can't calm down to think through a life threatening problem I wouldn't call you the smartest character. Not trying to insult you. I would call you "a smart character" but not "the smartest" in any applicable sense to resolving the disaster situation. My point was that in order for disasters to continue and be dire, the people who can solve the problem have to have plot deaths.

[sarillia]

I think we're looking at intelligence differently. I don't think "the smartest characters" and "the people who can solve the problem" are always the same.

I agree with your main point though that people who would be able to solve the problem too quickly need to be taken out of the plot.

[(Anonymous)]

In evidence: the Healing Cock. (There's probably a smart one out there, but that's the exception to the rule.)

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Plus, street smarts are a thing. As is cunning. Emotional intelligence. Spacial reasoning and theory. It's not only standard "intelligence" and book knowledge I'm talking about when I say smart.

[sarillia]

I'm including those things in various kinds of intelligence because there's no good noun form of "smart".

[(Anonymous)]

...I would think "smarts" is a good noun form, which has a lot more to do with practical effectiveness than "intelligence" which is far more academic? I didn't use "most intelligent" for a reason since often the smartest characters in horror movies aren't necessarily the most intelligent ones.

This is a pedantic argument I don't particularly want to continue though.

[(Anonymous)]

This thread is giving me deja vu.I could swear I've read this exact exchange on FS before.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's also a sense in which a lot of these movies have a... complex relationship to science and rationality. Even if they're not explicitly about Things Wot Man Was Not Meant To Meddle With, there's still often a sense of a gap between the kind of knowledge or expertise provided by science and rationality on the one hand, and the reality of horror + the things necessary to defeat evil on the other. So given that tension, and the ambiguous attitude these movies often have towards science, it makes sense for those characters to die early.

[kallanda_lee]

Yeah, I believe you're right about that. It falls flat once you analyze it too much.

[(Anonymous)]

It would fall apart if they had the ability to analyze it too much. But it's not just that they don't fit into the narrative. They also die because, like, they're the most immediate representations of science and rationality. So there's a story telling logic for the threat to seek them out first you know?

[kallanda_lee]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, I recognize Fuchs, but who's the other person?

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Ogilvy from The War of the Worlds.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Above anon: Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, depending on the story it does make sense for the characters, since the combination of scientific inquisitiveness and moral naivety means that these characters are often both the first to try to analyse/poke the strange new thing and the last to expect active malice from it. In a set-up where the strange new thing IS going to be evil ...

That said, though, I almost always adore them too, and wish they didn't die quite so often.

[(Anonymous)]

+1, sadly I'd be the first to die because I'd be out there poking the mysterious goo with a stick to see what happened. So when I see someone do this, I'm all, MY PEOPLE!!! and then they die.

[crossy_woad]

I know what you mean. I always seem to like & root for any available awkward side characters who are clever or nerdy or in some other way not "hero material" quote unquote.

[(Anonymous)]

Newt from Pacific Rim could be considered an example of this character type who doesn't die - he's not a conventional hero, isn't really action-y, and puts himself in danger from his curiosity. He's also a very well-liked character in the PR fandom, IIRC.

[(Anonymous)]

I always felt bad for Fuchs, too. Granted, pretty much everyone in that movie died horribly (and given that it's suggested he killed himself rather than get absorbed by the Thing it can be argued Fuchs avoided a worse fate than some of the other characters).

Still, being trapped in a situation where setting yourself on fire is legitimately the best available option is not a nice way to go.