it's not at all a new thing. it goes back to "M*A*S*H" with Colonel Blake, and Joss Whedon made it a trope of his shows like "Buffy" and "Angel".

Incidentally, I think LOST being bad was Karma for them not following thru with the cool idea of making Micheal Keaton appear to be the star and killing him off in the pilot.



Oz kinda sorta did that in their pilot and it was great.

I don't really think that is true. That's what made GoT so different.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Well, I mean, you can "don't really think" facts are true all you want, but it doesn't change them being facts.

The Wire, Dexter, Lost, 24, and Buffy all had major, unexpected character deaths before Game of Thrones.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I haven't watched Buffy or Dexter or 24 but LOST didn't kill off any main characters. Look at who survived until the very last season. It was virtually the whole major cast from the beginning. The Wire killed off Stringer but even he wasn't the main guy of that gang.

Nothing before it has come close to what GoT did in terms of killing off main characters.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Apparently this dumb shit Millennial Boilermaker Rick never heard of me.

_________________
Like my daddy always said, if you can't get in the front door just go around to the back.

Um, didn't JR live?

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think they brought me back in a special years later under the premise that I planned my own death as an elaborate ruse to fuck Cliff Barnes. I'm not 100% sure though since I was dead for two years.

_________________
Like my daddy always said, if you can't get in the front door just go around to the back.

John Locke
Charlie Pace
Stringer Bell was more of a main character than Avon Barksdale. Screen time alone wasn't even close.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Lock was in 101 of 121 episodes.
Charlie was arguably not a main character even though he was there from the start.
Stringer was a a pretty big character but it was nothing comparable to what happened multiple times on GoT.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Main characters dying has always been a thing.

The GoT difference is that they do it over and over (most shows stick with just one shocker) and GRR Martin goes out of his way to shock with the death because he read Lord of the Rings as a kid and couldn't believe they killed off Gandalf (they actually didnt but whatever)

Can't really compare GoT to those shows though, because most of those main characters had died off in the source material that was mostly written in the 90s. So it's not really shocking for them to kill off Ned when it is essential to the story they knew so much more about at the time.

And although the show and first book focused on Ned Stark a lot (He had the most POV chapters in the first book and Sean Bean being the biggest star in the first season), Ned is actually not a main character. From the get-go, the biggest people in GoT have always been Jon, Dany, Arya, Sansa, Bran, and Tyrion. Cersei has been elevated on the show compared to the books. And if you notice, none of those characters is dead.

_________________

At the time of his death, Stringer was the main character and star of the show.

It really hasn't though. Look at the list IMU had. One of them was on 101 episodes of 121.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

As far as the show is concerned, that's only true with the benefit of hindsight and having read all the books.

In season 1, the time of his death, Ned was the number 1 main character on the show.


It would be like saying Shane wasn't a big character on Walking Dead because they've had 5 terrible seasons since his death.


These things have to be judged in the time they occur.

I'll let W_Z handle this but it absolutely has always been a thing.

Hell, the entire Soap Opera industry is based around it.


Pick out the top 25 dramas of the last 30 years and you will find major character deaths in most.

No he wasn't. McNulty was for sure.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Go ahead and do it.

The soap opera industry?

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

NCIS killed off one of it's stars in the second season.
ER killed off a bunch of major players.
Like someone said M*A*S*H* killed Col. Blake.
24 constantly killed main characters
chas knows about Buffy and Angel killing main guys and girls.
West Wing killed Mrs. Landingham in the second season.
Sopranos whacked Adriana.
LA Law had a main character walk into an empty elevator shaft.
Simpsons killed Maude.
Even Seinfeld killed Susan.

_________________

I don't think there was a star. Unless it was Baltimore. It was a true ensemble. There were entire episodes without McNulty.

_________________
His mind is not for rent to any God or government.

The show needed a white guy to appeal to white guys starting to watch the show at the beginning, but it was an ensemble cast. McNulty wasn'ta "lead" in my eyes except for Season 1.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Bell was just as important if not moreso in season 3 and probably had more screentime.


They were the two biggest stars without question. Go watch preview for Season 4 and see how people treated that death.

We're talking about TV shows right?

Are we only talking about certain tv?

You're still wrong.

NYPD Blue
Sons of Anarchy
The Walking Dead
Boardwalk Empire
The Wire
Dexter
Breaking Bad
Night Court
Grey's Anatomy
Hill Street Blues

Might be easier to list the shows that DONT kill off a major character.

Wait, so now you're only talking early in the show deaths?

i'd just make this point: if you're arguing "great" characters, like BRick initially said, that's too subjective. footnote: BRick hates reading, so GoT only exists to him 2011 to present.

if you're arguing "major" or "central" characters, it isn't a new thing. that can't be argued...rationally.

You gotta add character names ..

_________________

Dexter went to shit after Dokes was killed.

I agree with Rick.. Ned getting killed was shocking, seems very rare for a major character to get clipped so early.

_________________

Law & Order killed off a detective in Season 2 and an ADA in the later seasons.

He didn't say early. It was a response to my saying final.seasons often suffer because great characters have been killed off.

So were talking anything before the last season,