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This compilation explores the bittersweet triumphs of television's most compelling characters. Witness their arduous journeys, their hard-won victories, and the cruel irony of their fates. Prepare for a rollercoaster of emotions as we reveal how some of your favorite characters met their demise after achieving their goals.
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00:00You hate to see it? A character we've grown to love fights through no end of torture, losing friends, minds,
00:06and sometimes even limbs to finally claim bitter victory, only to end up offed, often off-screen, to no fanfare
00:13an episode later.
00:14And we really mean it when we say you hate to see it, to the extent that a lot of
00:18viewers never make it to the end of acclaimed shows such as Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad because of
00:23sheer frustration with the constant stream of near-misses and brutal deaths which rain down on the ostensible heroes.
00:30These are the characters whose stories we followed, desperate for a little light at the end of the tunnel, only
00:35to find that after their eventual success, their only thanks was an ignoble death thrown in for sheer shock value.
00:41So I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with TV characters who went through hell to win and died anyway.
00:47Mike in Breaking Bad
00:49Okay, so including Breaking Bad on this list is a move so obvious it feels like cheating.
00:54The show made a twisted point of ensuring viewers were invested in characters both heroic and villainous, only to off
01:00them in underwhelming circumstances every other week,
01:03as if attempting to prove that subversions can be as frustrating as they are sometimes fun.
01:08However, no character got it in the neck figuratively or literally as badly as Mike in Breaking Bad.
01:15After three seasons of fraught collaboration with Jesse and Walt, it seemed as if Mike would finally be able to
01:20sell his shares in the pair's meth production operation,
01:23give the proceeds to his granddaughter and escape the whole mess unscathed.
01:27Until Walt intercepted said cash and pulled a gun on Mike, threatening to off him unless he named his in
01:34-prison associates so Walt could tie up loose ends.
01:37Of course, this being Breaking Bad, it was only after firing that Walt remembered he could have just quizzed their
01:42mutual acquaintance,
01:44leaving Mike to plead that the murderous sad sack leave him to die in peace.
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02:05Rickon in Game of Thrones.
02:08Ah, Rickon.
02:09Everyone's least favourite Stark may be the best example in the entire Game of Thrones universe of a truly pointless
02:14death,
02:15and for a show as long-running and unforgiving as the HBO mega-hit, that's quite an achievement.
02:20At various points in the show's first six seasons, Rickon graduated from oblivious kid to inept but caring protector of
02:27his older brother Bran,
02:28and then he spends an entire two seasons attempting to reach the Umbers, a house who are theoretically loyal to
02:34his late father.
02:35He lays low for a while, remaining unseen for quite some time, before reappearing in the penultimate episode of season
02:41six.
02:42It appears the long journey to the Umbers was all for naught, as it merely drove Rickon into the hands
02:47of Ramsay Bolton, the show's worst psycho.
02:50Ramsay drags the younger Stark out onto the battlefield for an explosive start to the long-awaited Battle of the
02:56Bastards,
02:57and sends an arrow straight through the poor blighter a few seconds before he would have reached his older half
03:02-brother Jon Snow.
03:04Unlike Jon, his kid brother doesn't warrant a resurrection,
03:06and so his long journey ends with a PSA teaching all of us the importance of zigzagging when avoiding projectiles.
03:14Bill in True Blood
03:15True Blood was the R-rated HBO response to mega-franchise Twilight, which reveled in both explicit sex and gruesome
03:21gore,
03:22but at its core was a romantic love story as sweet as anything from the tween-age phenomenon.
03:27When the series debuted in 2008, we were introduced to smooth-talking, good-hearted vampire Bill Compton,
03:34and also his love interest, the telepathic fairy, Miss Stackhouse.
03:39With an intense chemistry between its leads, surely the show would end with the pair together despite the endless obstacles,
03:45human, vampire, demon, fairy and otherwise, which came between them.
03:49Right? Sure.
03:50Or, Bill could end up becoming the Vampire King, his greatest ambition,
03:54and still eventually become infected by an awkward AIDS metaphor prompting his eventual suicide.
04:00Yeah, this was a weird show.
04:02Carl in The Walking Dead
04:03Famously optimistic and cheery, The Walking Dead is not.
04:07But the critically beloved first season did manage to tread carefully and maintain the balance between thrills
04:12and the grim, realistic, nihilistic streak of the source material.
04:16Later seasons? Less so, if the declining viewership and rapidly increasing gore quotient are anything to go by.
04:22Come season two, and the show became an increasingly sluggish affair,
04:26bleaker with each passing season and seemingly committed to offing anyone remotely likable.
04:30The low point for many viewers was the ultra-violent death of Glenn in the opening episode of season seven,
04:36At the Hand of Negan, a shocking spectacle which pushed the boundaries of television violence,
04:40as well as the patience of viewers.
04:42But the character who made this list is young Carl,
04:45the son of and sole source of moral redemption for protagonist Rick Grimes.
04:49After moving over the years from a cute but burdensome kid to a remorseless survivalist to a likable and relatively
04:56well-adjusted young hero,
04:58Carl is killed off via walkerbite and subsequent suicide in the eighth season of the show,
05:03proving that the show's central thesis is that there's really no point in trying, is there?
05:09Cooper in Black Mirror
05:10We're getting into the anthology episodes now, because while these may be one-off stories,
05:15the characters they feature have gone through enough misery for multiple lifetimes.
05:19The poor denizens of the Twilight Zone, and in particular the Outer Limits,
05:23are infamous for suffering ironic fates that are often far worse than whatever misdemeanor prompted the misadventure that led to
05:30them,
05:30and many were doomed to cruel hell just for the sheer fun of it.
05:33The contemporary sci-fi satire Black Mirror, penned by Charlie Brooker,
05:38may be sharper in its condemnation of society and culture than the Outer Limits,
05:41but it sure didn't blunt the edge of the show's mean sense of humour.
05:45Just look at Playtest, wherein a happy-go-lucky slacker gets more than he bargained for
05:49when he agrees to test out an experimental virtual reality game for a shadowy, uber-rich developer.
05:56What follows is a nightmarish odyssey which delves deep into his subconscious
06:00as his worst memories and fears come to life in the form of disformed spider monsters,
06:05a creaky haunted house, and a murderous version of a former lover.
06:09The episode culminates in his scraped-by survival, and ends with him reunited with his ailing mother.
06:16Psyche! He actually died before the test even began.
06:18Forgot to turn his phone off, didn't he?
06:20If you look closely, there's a very subtle anti-tech subtext there.
06:24Marty in Tales from the Crypt, another entry and another appearance from the venerable institution
06:30of endless character suffering, the Anthology series.
06:34There really is no end to the torture writers can put the one-off stars of Anthology episodes through,
06:39as the audience know they won't be appearing again, and therefore can be offed as messily
06:43as the creators feel like without sacrificing narrative momentum.
06:47To this end, an episode of Tales from the Crypt sees a pair of brothers, both surgeons,
06:51playing a long-running set of pranks on one another, which get more than a little out of hand, to
06:57say the least.
06:58First off, there's the dumb med school prank which gives one brother, Carl, a heart attack,
07:02a reaction which you would think might discourage this family from further shenanigans.
07:06But alas, shenanigans continue unabated, and Carl retaliates years later by drugging his brother, Marty,
07:12and pretending to perform an entire autopsy on him whilst he's alive and awake, but paralysed.
07:18It's a pretty savage prank by any metric, and no doubt Marty would have had some years of therapy ahead
07:23of him
07:23to undo the autopsy room 4-style ordeal he's been put through.
07:27Or at least he would have if he didn't promptly have a heart attack, leading his brother to declare him
07:32dead
07:32and go through with the real autopsy, while poor Carl is still conscious and unable to move.
07:38Peter in Hemlock Grove
07:40Poor Peter.
07:41Just like True Blood before it, Hemlock Grove made a point from its opening episodes to distinguish itself
07:46from the then-dwindling-but-once-massive Twilight franchise by showcasing an impressive amount of sex
07:52and gory, gory violence.
07:55This element was rarely better embodied than in Peter's pointless sacrifice,
07:58which made for impressive makeup effects and little else in storytelling terms.
08:03See, series protagonist Peter realises before his climactic face-off with Vargolf Christina
08:07that he's going to have to do more than fight.
08:10As the man himself puts it, the price of this turn will be his human face.
08:15And it's a price he pays, with the Vargolf version of his murderous nemesis eating his face,
08:20after he was kind enough to coat it in bacon grease to coax her.
08:24Yes, really, that is something that happens in this show.
08:26And after having his face torn off, the heroic sacrifice pays off, right?
08:30Well, kind of.
08:31Inasmuch as Christina is eventually defeated and Peter does revert to human form,
08:36face thankfully intact, but the manoeuvre still costs him his life
08:39and it isn't actually enough to stop Christina.
08:42Instead, she's offed by Shelley, who in turn is shot by the sheriff,
08:46rendering Peter's not inconsiderable contribution of having his face mauled off
08:50pretty much irrelevant.
08:52Lieutenant Blake in MASH.
08:53This may be the most famous or infamous moment on this list, depending on your perspective,
08:58and it's one that still holds a place in the annals of television history.
09:01Where many of the entries on here fell victim to melodramatic plot machinations
09:06which aimed for tragedy but fell flat upon execution,
09:09and others aimed for dark comedy in their pointless demises,
09:12MASH had another more poignant reason to kill off a character, despite their heroic efforts.
09:17For all of its warmth, this show is ultimately an anti-war text,
09:21and one committed to highlighting the pointless brutality and inhumanity of conflict.
09:25It's a metaphor rendered more pointed by the fact that the show aired as the Vietnam War
09:30drew to a close, and this makes this death all the more understandable,
09:34if no less devastating.
09:36After years of service, Lieutenant Blake is finally granted an honourable discharge,
09:40prompting him to say his goodbyes to Hawkeye radar and the rest of the camp
09:44as he excitedly calls his wife and family at home.
09:47So Blake heads off, free at last, until the episode's iconic closing line
09:51reveals that he died when his plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan.
09:55Misty Day in American Horror Story
09:58American Horror Story could quite easily have filled this list alone,
10:01given the fact that the horror anthology show has made a habit of offing every character,
10:06major and minor, fan favourite and most hated, before each season's closing credits roll.
10:11It's difficult to pick the most egregious case,
10:13but the one which drew the most ire from the internet will suffice.
10:16Misty Day was a deeply likeable character who was utterly tortured for no discernible reason,
10:22and the ignominious end of her character arc is inexcusable,
10:26particularly in a show where characters played by Emma Roberts frequently go on to survive.
10:30First off, Misty was burned alive for the crime of being a witch.
10:33Luckily, she was, as accused, a witch, and as such survived to tell the tale,
10:37but she's nonetheless isolated from the world,
10:40only to be buried alive and die of starvation when integrated into the titular coven.
10:45But she's resurrected, and ends up in her own personal hell,
10:49dissecting a frog on an eternal loop because she can't pass some wizarding test or something.
10:55I don't know, it got a bit weird.
10:56Candice in You
10:57If ever there were a lesson in not relying on the power of sisterhood,
11:01Candice's brutal fate in You's second season has to qualify.
11:05The presumed dead ex-girlfriend of the show's psychotic protagonist,
11:09Candice is revealed to have been buried alive after a few cryptic references to her moving to Italy,
11:14once she cheated on former Gossip Girl and current Patrick Bateman wannabe, Joe.
11:19Unfortunately for him, Candice very much survived as more than just a figure haunting his troubled mind,
11:24and she's out for ambitious revenge against the psycho killer.
11:28Thus begins a season-long game of cat and mouse as Candice digs herself up,
11:32digs up the dirt necessary to prove Joe is the dangerous killer she knows him to be,
11:36integrates herself into his social circle over the course of some months,
11:39gets closer to the people he's close to,
11:42and finally has enough evidence to bring him to justice.
11:45Time to pull the trigger and end this guy, right?
11:48Right? Well, or, and hear me out here,
11:50why not bring his girlfriend down to the inescapable subterranean lair you've got him trapped in
11:55and tell her everything?
11:56After all, she can't possibly be as crazy as him, right?
11:59Well, I guess some characters are best left buried, it would appear.
12:02That's great.
12:02Okay.
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