Write Like You're Running Out of Time Part 3: What to Buy With Your Character Deaths

Part 3: Dead Men Tell No Tales, But They Make Good Ones

Hopefully by now we have a good grasp on what it means to develop and exchange narrative capital in order to make the changes throughout our plot feel earned and interesting. As we develop narrative capital, certain elements of the story can be considered the “medium,” or the thing which carries that narrative capital as the story progresses. In our previous examples, that medium was the relationship between Chrysalis, Cosy Glow, and Tirek. By dissolving that relationship, you have made a commitment to purchase something with your narrative capital.

Never give something away for free when you can get something out of it instead. This is good advice both for business as well as writing. Perhaps one of the most infamous moments where a writer can throw away narrative capital is the character death scene. Such scenes are loaded with complexity, and yet a writer can trip and fall if they focus solely on the spectacle of a character’s death. 

Whether for expectation subversion, gruesome detail, or spectacle, if the reason for a character’s death is purely for aesthetic, tone, or shock factor, you are overpaying. And there are so many examples in the recent decade that it can be hard to know where to start. But perhaps, just perhaps, we should begin with one of the most egregious treatments of writing in recent pop culture: the death of the Night King in Game of Thrones. Though we are assuming all readers here are generally aware of the story, we will need to evaluate how much narrative capital was loaded onto the Night King wallet before it was thrown (pun: throne) away.

Though weak in personality and character dynamic, the Night King was unspeakably relevant to the plot that followed Jon Snow. As the head of the White Walkers, the Night King represented a supernatural force, death given legs to walk the earth and reap the living, which would be the end to all things if not united against. He was an antagonistic force, simple in premise but powerful in potential because it had no complicated relationship to the other characters. The Night King was the ultimate natural disaster, a problem that could bring the separated storylines of Game of Thrones together. 

In our model, the Night King’s defeat is the point transaction, and the Night King himself is a medium for narrative capital. He brings characters together where the author can purchase new relationship dynamics, but he was also an enemy who was intended to be defeated eventually. Thus, the loss of this character should purchase a new story state. The author should ask “what does a post-Night King world look like?” or “what do I add to push the story along once this primary antagonist is gone?”

And yet, the death scene was executed by a character irrelevant to the relationship built up to that point. It was Jon Snow who, through the entire show, fought the wights and the White Walkers. His character development was tied to him being able to lead people against them. So much narrative capital rests on the Night King, but specifically, that Jon’s narrative capital. 

It’s like a different currency. You can’t just exchange Jon Snow points for Arya Stark tokens. In real life, you have to go to a bank to exchange currency. In writing, you have to create some point of transaction where narrative capital for one story element can become another. This transaction does not occur in Game of Thrones. Rather, the show presents Arya Stark and her narrative importance to an entirely different plot thread and expects that to be enough to purchase the death of the Night King. It is not. 

And the story state afterwards did little to redeem this. The Night King’s role as a disaster was to bring protagonists together. The Night King’s role as Jon Snow’s enemy was to elevate him from the position of a reliable leader to an undeniable hero, the likes of whom could stand with, or against, Daenerys Targaryen come the finale. But he is not triumphant after the Night King’s death. He is not made a paragon or a legend. He barely survives the battle. 

After the death of the Night King, Jon Snow remains subordinate to Daenerys. He acknowledges her claim to the throne despite his own birthright. This might fit his personality, for Jon Snow had never had the ambition to claim the throne and crown, but it is his archetype or plot niche that suffers.

The end of Game of Thrones has Jon Snow opposing Daenerys over the throne. A good writer should recognize that story state and set up a series of transactions in order to purchase each one. But without the critical transaction of Jon killing the Night King, you lose a step in his development and you lose the tension between the two protagonists of the story. 

And Game of Thrones’ final season was rife with these mistakes, ones that could have been avoided if the writing adhered to the principle of transactions. A quick list includes: Arya Stark’s narrative capital (training to be a faceless assassin to kill Cercei) is built up and never spent. The death of one of Daenerys’s dragons is wasted because it becomes irrelevant immediately (every shot fired afterwards is conveniently dodged and doesn’t impede Daenerys at all). Daenerys goes “insane” after her close friend and advisor is killed, yet it looks more like anger rather than insanity because the writing enver purchases a new story state for her sanity. There are small hints, very small, but her character and behaviour remained far too consistent for the sudden sanity shift in the end. 

In short, a character's death is an opportunity to dramatically change the state of your story, not for spectacle. Edward Stark’s death is famous and well-remembered in pop-culture because it drove apart the story threads of his family (Arya, Sansa, and Jon), effectively purchasing three new stories with one life. That’s a bargain deal.

Never give anything away. The new story state you buy with a character death cannot be obtainable if they were alive. It is like buying exotic imported animals, or overpriced streetwear labeled “Supreme.” It has to be a unique and compelling story state.