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Doomed by Canon
From the beginning, you know the end...
— from
A story or series of stories have established a core group of heroes, villains, and a supporting cast. In order to add more depth to one or more of these things, the creator(s) put(s) out fully-developed back stories and , or even . While such efforts may produce many great things, they also doom characters and plots to inevitable failure or success. Why? Because the first story or stories established de facto canonicity.
Does the prequel involve a dastardly plot to kill one of the heroes of the original story? Too bad for the one doing the plotting —
Does the back story have a villain from the original story facing certain death in the face of failure? Great for him, he gets to stick around to at least make an appearance later on in the original.
When it comes to prequels and back stories, most readers familiar with the original plot will already know what the outcome will be. They are not so much tempted to participate in the story to see how it ends, but how it gets there. And as the Ancient Greeks discovered, if the audience already knows the ending, there is a huge potential for .
On the other side of the coin, though, the trope can induce some audience apathy towards the prequel, especially if the story is centered around a character who has been
further down the timeline. Some would argue, that the prequel won't really matter much in such a case, since there already is a very definite ending to the character's story. If the character on the other hand had still been alive, the prequel could still have some potential to change things, either with a reference here or there or lingering effects on the .
If the prequel or back story involves a character who had hitherto not been mentioned and this character is killed in the course of the prequel or back story, it is usually not really this trope at work, as in most cases it would possible to account for the character not having been mentioned in the interim in other ways. If the character survives, on the other hand, it gives the author a new character to tie into a new installment of the main work. See the Comic Books folder for examples. However, sometimes the prequel includes a character whose death has already been mentioned in the original.
A subtrope of
and . Compare . Related to , which relates to prequel plots instead of characters. Contrast
and . Unrelated, despite similar-sounding names, to . Different from .
someone who met his or her demise by cannon (regular ), you want
Needless to say, this page is loaded with unmarked spoilers.
&&&&open/close all folders&
&&&&Anime & Manga&
At some point in
the protagonists have to face
three former resurrected Number ones. We are given a flashback of the common backstory of two of them. But given that these soldiers are well...resurrected it is no surprise how this ends.
Any of the
manga and games are doomed to suffer from this. Because the continuity has been set in stone for thirty-some years, it's a
that, for example, Zeon will lose the One Year War in , or that the Titans will form in , and that the major characters in whatever story will either die or fade into obscurity and whatever superweapon the enemy have will be destroyed.
Sometimes this gets toyed with by having the characters (typically from video games) survive and go on to participate in later conflicts. For example, Jack Bayard from Gundam the Ride: A Baoa Qu becomes an
pilot in the IMAX movie Green Divers and . Yuu Kajima from Blue Destiny and Robin Bradshaw and Kurt Roswell from Dual Stars of Carnage fight for their respective sides in .
The Mazinger-Z versus Great General of Darkness is an alternate version of the final episode. So that watchers knew that
would be defeated and
would be destroyed by the Mykene, but
and crush the Mykene .
of the original series. So what readers knew what, even though Kouji defeated Dr. Hell for good, the Mykene Empire would rise afterwards. And when a foreteller tried to warn Kouji about it, everyone knew that he was his father Kenzo disguised. And everyone knew what would happen when Kouji fought the Mykene War Beasts.
plays with this trope in Shippuden. Firstly, it is a filler so it isn't canonical to begin with. Orochimaru needs to absorb the energy of a girl named Yukimi in order to have enough energy to escape the Leaf Village. We know that he gets away so he has to catch her... and he does and absorbs her energy. He did the same to the rest her her clan (who can turn to smoke) but she was special. After her absorbs her energy, she turns to smoke and begins to blow away. Yamato attempts to keep her smoke together, but he just can't keep up. However, Yukimi's clan turned out to
and use their remaining energy to bring her back to life.
: Shin Getter Robo is an
that narrates the events between Getter Robo G and Getter Robo Go. So readers know that Ryoma and Hayato will survive but Benkei will die, the
will be destroyed and abandoned, Ryoma will quit and leave... and
Gaiden OAVs fall neatly under here. Instead of , you get "that character there who doesn't appear in the main series will almost certainly die."
is about the adventure of the first girl to be sucked into the Universe of the Four Gods, Takiko who becomes the Priestess of Genbu. Miaka reveals in
how Takiko summoned Genbu, but was killed in a murder-suicide by her father, because he couldn't bear to see the pain she was in, as Genbu devoured her. While Genbu Kaiden itself alters a few details and makes it first seem like Takiko will die from
before she can fully summon Genbu, it still retains the fact that .
Considering the main
stars the reincarnations of the Saiyuki Gaiden characters... yeah.
Also certain characters in the prequel Saiyuki Ibun which details how Houmei becomes Koumyou Sanzo. Who dies before the beginning of the series. We know from the Burial chapters that his friend Toudai (the future Goudai Sanzo) will hold the Muten sutra, but will be killed by his pupil. Their youkai friend Tenkai will hold the Maten sutra but will die and Koumyou will inherit it in addition to his Seiten sutra.
prequel Sifr features a whole cast of main characters (Lena, Sifr, Bruce) who you know, as part of the back story for the main series, will survive the current events but become corpsicles in 15 years.
It's almost impossible to spoil
because you know from history that, say, the Axis Powers lose and America won the Revolution. On the other hand, plot points relating specifically to
interactions aren't .
, anyone who doesn't die in the OVA dies in the first episode
Legends of the Dark King, a prequel spinoff to , centers around Raoh's quest to achieve supremacy as the conqueror of the post-apocalyptic world. One of Raoh's rivals in the spinoff is the Holy Emperor of Nanto himself, Souther. Since Souther ends up being defeated by Kenshiro, and not Raoh, in the original manga and anime, Raoh does not get to defeat Souther in his own series, as their battle ends in a stalemate instead.
Lelouch and Suzaku show up in , which takes place between seasons 1 and 2 of the original . Not only will they both survive, you also know they're
not going to fix their relationship before season 2... though they get
gave us two TV specials, Bardock: Father of Goku and History of Trunks. Anyone who knows the storyline of
will know these specials do not have happy endings. Although, they do fall on the bittersweet side since they do end with a note of hope.
Bardock gets retconned in 2011 to somehow survive Freeza's finishing blow and somehow ends up doing something completely different in the past. However, since the setting - Planet Plant - is the prehistoric Planet Vegeta, it's quite apparent that those cute and lovable Plantians will eventually go extinct when the humanoid Tuffles and Saiyans populate the planet.
The prequel to Dragon Ball, , reaches its climax when Jaco saves the people of East City. However, during the Saiyajin Saga in Dragon Ball, East City is destroyed by Nappa and all of its inhabitants are killed. It is also not revealed whether they are revived by the Dragon Balls or not.
The first episode appearance of Beyond The Grave is no spoiler to anyone who played . But the show isn't about how Brandon Heat is doomed — it's about how his friendship is doomed, his romance, his career and his relationship with his father figure boss are all doomed.
the entire Shinsengumi is Doomed By History. Particularly heartbreaking in the case of
who historically dies of tuberculosis. So when he began coughing...
Similarly,
invokes this in regards to the historical figures that get roles there. Particularly: Souzou Sagara fails in his rebellion and dies, with
from , prequel to . This is in contrast to
as thick as wall of concrete.
does this immediately and extremely, establishing a full cast of characters not present in the original manga, then killing them all off in the first episode. Then it rewinds back in time to tell the prequel story, leaving no doubts as to who is and isn't Doomed.
Messed around with in , which takes place before . Well, kind of. It's an
that's part of the anime's , occurring before the anime's main timeline. Madoka's death is a , but it's
for Mami, Kyouko, and Sayaka, all of whom survive - and Sayaka doesn't even contract. Yuma might also be a subversion
It's inverted with Kazuko, who survives in the anime, but actually dies in this timeline. Her death is , too.
Several chapters of
depict Mikoto's attempt to stop the . The reader already knows the program is only stopped by the grace of , and that
Mikoto will be
as to be ready to give up her life to end the
Season 2 of Railgun also shows the horrificness of the project, and Mikoto's vain attempts to stop it. After seeing this, her rant to Touma in the Sister's arc of the first season of
becomes much more powerful.
. You know from the beginning that , but when you finally hear their backstory, you get attached to them anyway.
: It's a safe assumption any character not Plot Armored by appearance in
this is especially certain with any Servant other than Saber or Gilgamesh. This makes Waver Velvet's
, as he seems the least likely to have come out of the War alive. It turns out that Waver was Plot Armored by appearance in ....
: Sukeroku dies, Sukeroku will eventually have Konatsu (which is quite shocking considering his ), Miyokichi will not become a proper , Yakumo the 7th dies. All this is in the canon, since the first cour is spent in a continuous flashback of Yakumo the 8th's life and it becomes integral to the second cour (where Yotaro
- having become the next Sukeroku - tries to grow out of the shadow of his predecessors).
: As the Despair Arc is a prequel to the rest of the series, we already know who's going to die and who's going to
become Remnants of Despair. It just serves to fill us in on all the details.
The prequel light novel to , Washio Sumi Is a Hero, features three Heroes: the titular Sumi Washio, Sonoko Nogi and Gin Minowa. Sumi and Sonoko both appear in the anime and have significant roles in the story. Gin, on the other hand, never appears in the series and is only referenced in passing by Sonoko, and not even by name. It doesn't take a lot on the part of the reader to work out that Gin's not going to make it to the end of the novel.
&&&&Audio Plays&
audio drama series I, Davros tells you how Davros, the Daleks and their home planet Skaro get to the point seen in "". Whilst not subverted, per se, this fact is utilised by the dramas to achieve great effect. Similarly the Davros audio makes it clear that Davros is not going to do a successful
thought it was likely) since it's set between the TV stories "" and "".
audio Spare Parts. The Fifth Doctor tries to mellow out the Cyberman threat before it rises, as we've already seen the Cybermen attack Earth on several occasions.
&&&&Comic Books&
There was an Emma Frost solo series that took place prior to the character's turn to villainy, and one of the supporting characters was her boyfriend Troy. Since Troy was never seen in any of the prior
books, nobody was surprised when the poor lad caught a bullet to the head. Indeed, this served as a
moment for Emma. However, this is not a true example, since the story could also have evolved with Emma breaking up with Troy and then forgetting about him. This is exactly what happened when Uncanny X-Men #161 introduced Charles Xavier's former lover Gabrielle Haller in a story where Xavier remembers things that happened about two decades earlier. A couple of years later
not only showed that Gaby Haller was still alive and well, but that she had given birth to Xavier's son David aka Legion. On the other hand, another character introduced in the same story, Xavier's friend Daniel Shomron, who was still alive at the end of the flashback, was then revealed to have been killed in a terrorist attack in the course of the intervening years.
Another example that shows that you can't generally apply this trope to new characters is the first appearance of the Shadow King (Amahl Farouk) in Uncanny X-Men #117. In a flashback set at a time before Storm's puberty, Charles Xavier fights against the evil Amahl Farouk and in the end kills him. However, years later it was revealed that Farouk had survived in discorporated form as the Shadow King and would return again and again to attack his old nemesis and his friends.
There is a series called Testament about a young man named Max. He is a likable Jewish child in Nazi Germany. Since it is published by Marvel, we all know that his entire family will be killed in concentration camps, and his mutant powers will later manifest, and he will become , always caught in the
because although sometimes he'd like to live in peaceful coexistence with humans, he doesn't think it can happen.
Before Mr. Magnus had Magneto's testament, a certain Latvarian Doctor had the title "Books of Doom" which told his story from the start. Whilst most of the story follows the general history of Victor von Doom with some extra padding on the sides which hadn't been explored, and some implications are made that the machine he built didn't even malfunction, it was... ahem, "the Demon" who blew it up, the part where he takes over Latvaria by forceful military conquest totally goes against the way he explained it in Fantastic Four Annual #2, where he wined and dined Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl. Given that the story is told by a
who thinks he's the real thing, however,
may apply.
Marvel seems to enjoy this trope. Case in point: Born.
has a family in Born.
There have been a number of stories about Jor-El and Lara, the parents of , some of which chronicle their attempts to save Krypton from its inevitable destruction. Unfortunately, anyone with a passing knowledge of Superman knows their efforts will all be for nothing in the end, as Krypton is destroyed and their son ends up being sent to Earth.
Similarly, the Silver/Bronze Age
series sees a similar fate for supporting characters Ma and Pa Kent, who're destined to die shortly after Clark's high school graduation (most Superboy stories were set during Clark's high school years).
Played with in the
arc, "Emerald Knights", in which then-current GL Kyle Rayner meets a younger Hal Jordan. When Parallax shows up and confronts the younger Hal Jordan, Kyle realizes that the younger Hal has to become Parallax in order for The Final Night to happen.
informs the Pre-Crisis Supergirl -Kara Zor-El- that she has to return to her own timeline for the events of
to happen (namely, her ). Then-current Supergirl, Linda Danvers, tried to switch places with Kara, but it failed.
subverted it right at the end. In Convergence: Adventures of Superman, Silver Age Supergirl finds out -and accepts- that she is fated to fight the Anti-Monitor and die to save . However, post-Flashpoint Superman -and his family- and Parallax Hal Jordan join the battle and save her and Barry Allen's lives.
had monthly comics published between movies. No matter what happened in the comics, all characters end up pretty much where they were at the end of the previous film and/or where they need to be for the start of the next. The Star Wars cast were never going to rescue Han Solo between
and . Likewise the comics had Spock completely restored between III & IV. A storyline was created to wipe his mind and make the main cast fugitives and back on Vulcan.
series takes place during the first few years of original
comic. Thus any characters and status quo from comic has to be kept during Untold Tales. For example, in one issue where Peter reveals that he's the one who takes Spider-Man photos for the Daily Bugle, an impressed Flash Thompson actually drops his dislike of Peter and actually wants to become friends with him. But since Peter and Flash didn't really become friends until after high school, you know this new relationship between the two isn't going to last long, and indeed by the end of the issue let's just say Flash goes back to disliking Peter.
A saying in the Hong Kong comic The
goes, "Those who are fated to die, will die. Those who are fated to live, will live." That is to say, every character is going to die at the time that they did in , even if the circumstances vary quite widely, while at least two original characters were created/centered around specific story arcs and thus were doomed to go when that arc was upnote&.
being a prequel to the main series, th So,
who never got any mention in the main series where he already is in a relationship with ? Yep, she most likely won't make it until the end of the book.
plans to overthrow the
who we already know made it in the main series? Yeah, not gonna work. Even bigger case with the arcs that already got a mention in the main series (we all know very well Jadina will not marry ).
: Minutemen focuses heavily on the
vigilante Silhouette - who is long dead in the original . The miniseries does throw a nifty curveball regarding the supposedly disappeared Hooded Justice, though: turns out that Hollis Mason accidentally killed Justice, having been led by the Comedian into believing that Justice was the "Friend of the Children" serial killer. All that speculating that Mason does in his book about Justice's disappearance was his way of covering up his actions.
#1 ends with the
colliding with the
Universe, and both worlds being destroyed as a result. The rest of the crossover deals with the surviving heroes on Battleworld, a patchwork planet created from bits of the various
worlds that were destroyed. Despite this, Marvel launched a series of tie-ins branded Last Days, which feature the various Marvel heroes in the final hours before the fateful collision from Secret Wars #1. A few of the tie-ins (such as
and ) feature characters trying to avert the crisis by stopping the Earths from colliding, or at least saving themselves (like in ) by severing their dimension from the doomed Earth, despite the fact that the readers all know the heroes are destined to fail no matter what.
comics are limited in what they can do by the canon of the sequel series, . Katara, Zuko, and Toph can't die because they are still alive in Korra; Aang and Sokka can't die either, because their deaths are set by Korra's timeline as taking place over half a century later. We also know that Aang and Katara will remain a couple and that the Earth Kingdom will remai that industrialization will take off big-time... there's rather limited room for suspense in a story with so many constraints. That isn't to say there's no room though, as not everything was spelled out in Korra. Azula is a major example. She does not appear nor is she mentioned in Legend of Korra, but it's also never stated that she's dead, meaning that the writers can do what they want with her without worrying about canonicity. Likewise, we know that Zuko eventually has a daughter (who will eventually become Firelord), but it's never stated who her mother is.
is a prequel to the , any characters who show up only in the comic are all but certain to be killed off.
&&&&Fan Works&
Happens a lot in fan works due to writers' opportunity to focus on side characters or off screen adventures.
Especially notable is the
fics, because so many side characters are killed off screen - including fan favorites like Lupin.
Wormtail should also be mentioned. If you write a story set during the Marauders' Era, you have to portray Wormtail being BFFs with the others when everyone reading it knows he will grow up to join Lord Voldemort and betray everyone. This has led to the much reviled clich& of portraying Marauders' Era Wormtail as an
Similarly, any OCs paired with Sirius or Remus in Marauder-era fics usually end up dead by the end of the story in order to explain why they don't show up in canonicity.
In , which is about , Ginny has to eventually succumb completely to the diary, since she's totally under its spell (and unconscious because it was draining her energy to make Tom Riddle more real) in the climax of the original book. This does at least give a
a happy epilogue, since
that Harry's going to destroy the book with a basilisk fang and save her.
Subverted in , where Nihlus survives due to timely intervention on Shepard' thanks to GDI's jetpack technology, she's able to get to him faster and shoot Saren before he can kill Nihlus.
Played straight in
by King Endrin Aeducan, Duncan and King Cailan Theirin, although the latter two get a
and an arguable , respectively. Nevertheless, it is subverted more often than not. Not only do all potential player characters survive to become wardens, but rian Aeducan lives and actually turns into a
to Yuyuko since it takes place in her past while she was still alive.
Go ahead and find a fanfic about the first generation characters in ... there's a .
details what Garrus and his vigilante group did between Shepard's death and resurrection in . As we know from the game, they're betrayed by one of their own, and he and Garrus are the only survivors.
twice in . Jenkins, the , survives and becomes promoted to a . Secondly,
herself is successfully assassinated on the Citadel.
Averted then Double-Subverted in
(This happens a lot in
crossovers, doesn't it?). Jenkins survives, as does another minor , due to the toughness of Cyclones. Then the second character ends up dying in a later mission.
So, so many fics teaming up the original G1 Transformers and the characters of
prior to the reveal at the end of Season Two. Many a fic writers had to scramble around and revise or retcon stories involving interaction, fights and especially romances between the two factions, when it was revealed the Beast Wars characters were merely a quarter of the size of their G1 counterparts. A fic that had Arcee cooing over Cheetor after it's revealed he only comes to her knee is especially .
centers around Iroh's son, Lu Ten. You know he's not going to make it home from war, or be able to protect his cousins from
Subverted in the - universe when it comes to Spider-Man. The vast majority of adaptations follow the comics' formula of having Peter Parker's Uncle Ben being killed by the burglar,
either being killed or otherwise replaced by Mary Jane Watson as Peter's love interest. In this version, however, Aunt May is the one who was killed by the burglar while Uncle Ben lives, Gwen Stacy is alive and well and still Peter's girlfriend, and Mary Jane is Peter's
with the two of them being more
rather than romantically interested in each other.
The former
story 'Red' had a subplot of Sara Lance being in love with the protagonist Thea Queen. However since it was later in the show
Sara was killed by a brainwashed Thea, the story became highly inappropriate.
details Lulu's adventures before ... starting off with her pilgrimage as guardian of Lady Ginnem, who appears in the game as an Unsent. Later we see her burgeoning romance with Chappu, who is visited on the Farplane during the game.
tells an expanded and heavily re-imagined version of the backstory of
Juan Corrida, victim of the Farewell, My Turnabout, the fourth case of Justice For All. He does not actually die during the course of the fic, but the story leaves off the night before the events of the game are set to happen, so it's a fair assumption that he dies soon after. Similarly, Celeste Inpax dies about halfway through the story, as her death in the backstory of Farewell, My Turnabout was one of the keys to the entire case.
&&&&Film — Animated&
In , the curse must still be in place (though interestingly, it's a story being told by the characters themselves, long after the curse has been lifted).
: Tarzan doesn't have to find out that he's a human, and has to come back with the gorilla band at the end.
&&&&Film — Live-Action&
In , Ben Cross has to survive.
reboots the series by putting Gwen Stacy as Peter's love interest. The sequel makes sure
remains intact.
In , the family has to die, and the spirits in the house have to remain active.
At the end of
and its sequel , the Weyland-Yutani Company has to exist, and the public at large has to remain unaware of the existence of the Xenomorphs.
features Doomsday.
In the Tsui Hark movie
III: Love and Death in Saigon, the prequel to the first two movies by , Mark Gor has to survive and have no love interest.
In Butch and Sundance: The Early Years,
have to survive.
In the prequel for , , Carlito Brigante has to survive.
Similarly, in , Thomas Ince has to die mysteriously, and the death must remain unsolved (or at least unpunished).
The movies of : Che: El Argentino and Che: Guerrilla. Che is killed by the CIA in Bolivia.
has Harvey Dent, and he's constantly tossing a coin. Him becoming Two-Face is a given, with the only surprise being that the
happens in the same movie instead of being saved for a sequel.
is about a mysterious Englishman who is hired by the OAS to assassinate French president
in 1963. Since De Gaulle died in real life in 1970 of natural causes, it's foregone that the assassination attempt will fail. The source novel even points that out in the beginning.
starts with the death of Frankenstein, the sport's biggest star, whose mantle is then reluctantly taken by 's character. Two direct-to-DVD prequels show how Frankenstein rose to the top in the first place, though the Frank who died at the beginning of the first movie isn't the star from the other two.
In , Harry and Lloyd must still remain friends, and have no love interest.
Han is killed in a car explosion in
but reemerges during the following two prequel films,
and . The trope finally gets invoked in the stinger ending of . It does however cast completely new light on his death.
This also seems to apply to Giselle, who is Han's girlfriend in the prequels but nowhere to be found in Tokyo.
She dies in Fast & Furious 6.
: This is combined with a . The film's antagonist has been killed and the three remaining characters have (at least by their interpretation of Bludworth's words) cheated death successfully. Then two of them get on a plane. .
In , Domenica Santanico has to become the evil vamp&re Santanico Pandemonium, who appears in the .
In , Hannibal Lecter has to go insane, and survive the movie. In , Hannibal has to stay in the asylum. (It's not really a prequel — the original book was written and published before The Silence of the Lambs — but most people see/read
first so the trope pretty much applies.)
film is a prequel, released after . Anyone who's seen the three LOTR films beforehand, even if they haven't read the books, may catch on that Balin will be killed by orcs between scripts, as he's the one buried in the Moria crypt from Fellowship. The same goes for Ori and &Oin.
Also, even if you have never seen , it's pretty clear that Bilbo will survive the events in
since the first film opens with his older self sitting down and writing/retelling the story of what happened.
Rather than being a case of the author writing himself into a corner, the issues are caused by the fact that Peter Jackson told the story out of order.
isn't actually a prequel.
Legolas is practically invincible due to his inclusion in the sequels, and pulls off impossible maneuvers since he's .
is set up with the audience knowing the plot to kill Hitler will fail.
In , the Bono assassination plot will not succeed, and Shook Up! will not become the most successful band of all time.
Seemed to be a major point with the
franchise, though the final film, , was edited in its theatrical release to try and avoid it. The unedited DVD release makes it more clear that the film is setting up the "humans will be wild men, apes will rule and ". The prequel-reboot
has this as well.
In , Sadako Yamamura has to die and her spirit has to remain bound to the videotape.
It doesn't really matter what good things Akkadian mercenary Mathayus does, who he falls in love with, how much ass he kicks, how many times he saves the world, or even who plays him: in the end,
is destined , fail, and sell his soul to the devil in desperation, before finally being killed by an archeologist in the early 20th century. Otherwise,
can't happen. Bonus points: all of his women are doomed as well: if they don't get killed in the movie they show up in, they will be
in the immediate sequel ala Austin Powers, if they aren't .
has gone on record stating that the Scorpion King seen in Return is the
of Mathayus.
The entire prequel trilogy (and by extension, nearly everything in the
set before ) is pretty much a foregone conclusion. Everyone that isn't in the original doesn't live through , and everyone that is does. So what does that tell us about
Apparently, it tells us that she does survive, at least to the events of . However she'd left the Jedi before the events of .
The entire main cast of , as well. These badass heroes of the Rebellion stole the plans to the Death Star and made the heroic victory in
possible, so why aren't they around to celebrate Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie's victory? Because not a single one of them made it off of Scarif. Same goes for Blue Squadron, which took part in the aerial assault on Scarif.
No matter if the war is won or lost, in , John Connor must send Kyle Reese back in time
(and have sex with her so John is conceived), Skynet must send a T-800 back in time to kill her, John must send a reprogrammed T-800 back in time , Skynet must send a T-1000 back in time to kill John's younger self, John must send another reprogrammed T-800 back in time , and Skynet must send a T-X Terminatrix to kill John's past self. The ridiculous recursions were finally addressed in , but unfortunately it only lasted two seasons.
In , the Hewitts have to survive.
depicts the events that went down in the Norwegian base. Anyone who's seen the
knows that there were no survivors when MacReady arrives. Furthermore, they'll also know that the attempts by the two surviving Norwegians to stop the Thing from escaping will fail due to the actions of Garry.
movie is mostly all the stuff they spent most of the first movie finding out had happened.
In , the killers have to survive.
is Doomed By Reality. Hitler's gotta live, and therefore the operation's doomed to fail.
: As this is a prequel to , the audience already knows how some things are going to turn out. No matter how much faith Diana has in humanity, she will inevitably lose it. Also her relationship with Steve will not last
although the reason why is not predetermined.
In , Wolverine has to lose his memories and rename himself "Logan", Sabretooth has to distance himself from Wolverine to the point of giving him the silent treatment, William Stryker has to survive and so does Cyclops. Silver Fox has to either die or
(since Wolverine doesn't have a girlfriend in the original movie).
In , Charles Xavier, Magneto, Mystique, Beast, and Moira MacTaggert have to survive, and Magneto and Mystique , leave the X-Men and create the Brotherhood of Mutants. Xavier also has to become wheelchair bound (although he's also walking in Wolverine and the flashback in X-Men 3).
by . On the one hand, the time travel plot of the film allows for the film continuity to be rewritten, enabling characters to avoid this trope
e.g. Cyclops, Jean Grey, possibly Mystique. On the other hand,
despite being given a 'second chance', most of the characters end up heading towards the same fates they originally did - for example, Magneto still becomes a mutant extremist at odds with Charles. Overlaps with .
&&&&Literature&
The last book in most
series are prequels told by the heroine's mother or grandmother, fleshing out how the drama and doom said heroine endures comes about.
has to end with
and , since it was explicitly modeled on the
and the Soviet Union, which, when the novel was written during , was under
iron rule.
In the two prequels to ' , written after the series and its sequel, readers know that the duchy of Vo Wacune and (almost) the entire population of Maragor are gonna eat it at some point since Vo Wacune no longer exists in the main series and Maragor is filled with the ghosts of the dead.
novelization details the attempts of Bill McDonagh and Roland Wallace to deal with/kill Ryan and escape Rapture with his family. As we find McDonagh's corpse during the game, and hear an Audio Diary of Wallace's death, we already know that this isn't going to work.
In the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, a spinoff novel of the manga , we know from the beginning that Naomi and L will solve the case thanks to a comment made in the original series.
Pretty much any
media featuring a past Doctor is constrained by this. Lawrence Miles did attempt to change this with his book Interference, which had the Third Doctor die in a completely different way thanks to the meddling of , a -obsessed . It was Miles' hope that other writers would follow his example and no longer hold the Doctor's past sacrosanct. However the alternate timeline was never explored ( it's not known if any writers aside from Miles had intended to write books set in it).
trilogy (taking place eight decades after the ), the main conflict is between the rabid anti-technology fanatics, whose movement was started by Rayna Butler during the Jihad and continued by her successor , and the
Josef Venport, whose
Venport Holdings is striving to restore its monopoly on foldspace travel, as well as to ensure eternal technological and economic progress by eliminating any rival, including the Butlerian fanatics. Both sides are seen as extremes by Imperium at large and
and are too powerful to be eliminated by the Emperor without consequences. However, since the Imperium has neither completely abandoned all technology nor become a cyber-paradise by the time the original
takes place ten millennia later, it can be surmised that neither side emerges victorious. Indeed, both extreme factions end up crippling one another, allowing Emperor Roderick to mop up the remains.
: Adrav has to die, because it was established in the first book that Sal only has one living sister.
goes the "everyone who wasn't in the original is likely to die" route. The only surprise was an inversion Waver Velvet survived.
's Dances on the Snow takes place about 100 prior to the events of . While none of the characters from the prequel are present in the first novel (the stories are simply set in the same 'verse), the main event that defines the prequel is an attempt by a coalition of planets to take over
from within, and it appears to be succeeding rather well by brainwashing entire planetary populations. Since the Empire is alive and well in Genome, it is easy to figure out that the 's plan will fail. Additionally, the main character's childhood female friend laments that
is lethal to women who are not in a
state. This is never mentioned in Genome, which is all about genetic engineering, meaning the problem will be resolved by the end of the prequel via gene therapy.
The outcome of the novel : Edge of Destiny. The protagonists plan to take down one of the . But before the release of the books it was
(chronologically one year after the events of the book) will focus around killing the Elder Dragons, including the one they planned to attack. It leads to a .
series, the Last Herald-Mage trilogy tells the story of Herald-Mage Vanyel, and Brightly Burning tells the story of Lavan Firestorm. The deaths of both characters were first described in the very first book of the entire series, well before the books featuring them were published. (Additionally, the title "Last Herald-Mage" made the fate of all the other Herald-Mages in Vanyel's story pretty clear.)
Similarly, in the Mage Wars trilogy, we already know that the Cataclysm happens, and to a certain extent why. We know that the Kaled'a'in split off into the Shin'a'in and Tayledras. If you've read Mage Winds, you also know the fate of
is not going to work out the way Hiro wants, as anyone who has seen the end of the
episodes it's based on can tell you that Sylar kills her. A few seasons later, Hiro manages to save her from both Sylar and her blood clot, but then loses her again when a fellow time-traveler drops her off in the 40s and she decides taking
isn't for her and starts a family with a WWII vet.
The primary plot — before it goes , anyway — is
. There's several characters whose names are rather blatantly based on the real-life people of whom the characters in question are expies, especially Rob S. Pierre, who is, of course, an expy of Robespierre. Anyone who knows their history can see how the Havenite side of the plot is going to progress — up until somebody nukes Napoleon and the entire plot veers rather startlingly .
is forming around Oyster Bay, the in-universe equivalent of Pearl Harbor, despite side stories that promise the potential to stop it. All these plots fail because Oyster Bay is the catalyst for — well, basically everything that's going to happen in the remainder of the series.
novel , Davvol is given immortality and appointed as evincar of Rath. However, we know he won't survive the book because it's a prequel to , in which Rath has another ruler.
book Martin the Warrior, the titular character's love interest Rose has to die by the end because he is traveling alone in Mossflower, which takes place later.
Donna Tartt's
opens with the murder of one of the characters, then proceeds to show how they got there.
From the : The TV Series included Coridan as a member of the fledgling Coalition of Planets. However, it had previously confirmed that the United Federation of Planets which grew out of the Coalition was founded by Humans, Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites - no Coridanites. Hence, while the first novel in the relaunch has Coridan as part of the alliance, it also has them withdraw before the Coalition Compact is signed. This of course is no surprise to readers familiar with Trek lore. The Rigellians and Denobulans were also part of the initial Coalition talks, but their absence is explained as their having been frightened off by Terra Prime in the series' penultimate episode.
To underline just how doomed Coridan's membership was, the very episode that introduced the Andorians and Tellarites to Star Trek centred around a conference about admitting Coridan to the Federation, with Coridan established as underpopulated. That episode took place over a century after the events of Enterprise.
In , the Ubarrak Primacy is shown as a powerful rival to the Federation and Cardassians (at least in one particular sector). However, their lack of appearance in
means they obviously can't become the major power they're aiming to be.
novel has an
Jack Crusher discover that he is the only him in the multiverse, as he bites it in every other timeline.
Prince Xizor plots to kill Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker during his first appearance in . Little is he aware that both characters are slated to appear in Return of the Jedi, which occurs in the future. In this instance, Prince Xizor was doomed by canonicity to failure. It was inevitable.
, first epic of the original Star Wars EU and taking place five years after , established several hundred things, including that the Empire's capital planet was called Imperial Center, then got captured by the New Republic and restored to its Old Republic name, Coruscant. The first books of the , set three or four years after the movie, detail the New Republic's efforts to capture the Empire's capital world. Unexpected things certainly happen, of course, some of them very dramatic, but we know how it ends. Similarly, 's run on that series deals with the New Republic's fight against Warlord Zsinj, who dies in . And Courtship itself was largely about Han competing with
in wooing Leia, when from the Thrawn Trilogy we know that not only did Han and Leia marry, they had twins.
Similarly,
is a prequel to the Thrawn Trilogy, fleshing out events of Thrawn's first contact with the Old Republic and the future Emperor. Most people reading the novel already know the titular ship will be lost and the mission will fail. Thrawn will also leave the Chiss and serve the Emperor, becoming even more ruthless. Jorj Car'das will become a merciless criminal.
has this in spades. About fifty pages from the big finish, Han Solo has an (adoptive) son, an old girlfriend he reconnects with and a great reputation. It appears that this was the point where the author re-watched , sighed and got the character scythe out of the tool shed.
The Beast Within tells the background of the Beast from , expanding on how he was cursed. He initially has a relationship with Circe, who turns out to be the Enchantress who placed the curse on him, which is automatically doomed to fail and lead to him being cursed. When he later enters an engagement with princess Tulip, the reader again knows that nothing will come from it, as it is after he is cursed and Tulip is not Belle.
Fiona Patton's
is a historical fantasy series written in reverse each book is set over a century before the previous one. This leads to some obvious foregone conclusions (historical events alluded to in previous books actually occurring) and some more subtle ones (Noble families clearly named for major characters in later books, a character vowing to uphold his faith but the previous book revealing his daughter converted).
novella The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, Bree has to stay with the vampire army, fight the Cullens at the end, and die by the hands of the Volturi. Although it's arguable as to whether or not it counts as canonical, she also has to fall in love and lose said love interest, since
said before the book was published that Bree "found and lost love".
Those familiar with the comic know that Penny in
is set to become a zombie.
The whole of the
series, with the
In 's False Gods, Magnus the Red is not going to persuade Horus not to betray the Emperor.
In 's Galaxy In Flames, the loyalist Space Marines are not going to survive.
novel The Armour of Contempt takes place centuries before the "current day". As a consequence, we know that the Inquisition is not going to find the treatment against Chaos they think might be on Gereon: it would have changed history and acted as a .
Similarly, Abnett's
has to end with Eisenhorn and Cherubael alive, although mostly the question is whether Eisenhorn will slip into heresy, rather than die. And it's only "whether" because it doesn't have to happen in this prequel. (Or in the
one, either. But it's coming, we know, because it's in the
As several books of
are retellings of stories established in
canonicity, some of this is bound to happen.
Sergant Namaan doesn't get out of Siege of Kallidus alive.
The Ultramarines eventually leave the Damnos to the Necron - it's even right in the title of Fall of Damnos.
The Crimson Fists losing their Fortress Monastery to a faulty missile battery and nearly losing their home planet to the Orks has been part of their characterization nearly since their first appearance.
The Astral Knights sacrifice their entire Chapter to destroy the World Engine - the World Engine crisis is, in fact, the only time the Astral Knights are mentioned in canonicity.
In the prequels, we never heard about characters like Snowfur, so they have to die.
The leaders have to die so they can be replaced.
Willowbreeze, a cat who the author explained would appear, be in an
with a main character, and then die.
at the end of . This isn't the case in
The titular character of Whortle's Hope, a prequel to the
trilogy, is one of the fieldmice who ended up murdered in The Crystal Prison, the second of those books. As anyone reading Whortle's Hope likely has already read the main trilogy, they know full well that soon he'll be dead.
&&&&Live-Action TV&
is affected by this trope. We know from other shows and movies within the MCU that Agent Carter not only lives long enough to see Steve Rogers emerge from the ice 40+ years after the period her series covers, but that she was a founding member of SHIELD. Any attempts to kill or seriously maim her throughout the series' run are doomed to fail. We also know that Stark is a known founder of SHIELD and
is later killed by HYDRA; so, he is safe from harm and so forth, and plans etc to do such are doomed to fail— at least until after SHIELD is founded. Conversely, the surrounding cast is free game.
Two examples from Season 5 of , during the time-travel saga:
Jin meets Danielle Rousseau's science expedition. You know, the same team we know all died?
The time-shifting islanders come to join The Dharma Initiative when they're stranded in the 70s. We already know that there will be both an "Incident" and a Purge, the latter wiping out almost every remaining member of Dharma.
: In The Beginning is a prequel film detailing the events of the Earth Minbari War (by way of a
summing up a large chunk of
for new viewers after the show changed networks). Mostly we have characters that we see from the show, doing whatever they were doing before the war broke out, with three notable exceptions: Captain Jankowski, Captain Sterns, and Lenonn. In the movie, two of the three don't survive (one of the Captains, notably gets
during a brief battle). In the novelization, it is mentioned in passing the other character, upon
prequel series . It's clear at least Willie and Joseph Adama cannot die. Willie since he's in Battlestar Galactica and Joseph because both Lee and Lampkin state they knew Joseph personally, whereas both won't be born for at least a couple decades. Everyone else, however, was neither seen or mentioned in the series-so their eventual fate is unknown, meaning ...
Subverted: Willie does die. It turns out he wasn't Commander Adama after all, but rather an older brother who the commander himself was named after.
In the main series, there's also Kendra Shaw, who appears in a extended-episode set in the 2nd season's continuity. However, since the show itself was in the 4th season at the time, and despite her high rank and prominent position we'd never seen her in all of the intervening episodes...
An example from the Classic series could also be , where The Doctor is sent back in time to destroy the Daleks before they can even be created. However, because of the number of adventures involving the Daleks, this is clearly not possible.
Most of the episodes that take place in the past fall under this trope, as the writers don't want to rewrite history too much. Donna can't allow the people of Pompeii to escape Vesuvius, the Doctor and Amy can't save Vincent van Gogh, Barbara can't convince the Aztecs to give up human sacrifice, etc.
Some fans believe that the story // (in which it's revealed that the last sentient entities surviving before the heat-death of the universe will be a small group of humans who devolve into nihilistic, psychopathic cyborgs) does this to the entire universe.
An interesting example: while it doesn't involve prequels in the sense that it moves forward in the Doctor's personal timeline, River Song can't die in any of her appearances after /, since we already saw her final fate. In an attempt to counterbalance this, the Doctor makes a point of mentioning every time River Song shows up that history can be changed and that she could die some other way instead.
Played with in , where the Doctor decides
and tries to save a (future) historical character whose death is a fixed point in time. She dies anyway, committing suicide to preserve the timeline after being freaked out by the Doctor's
Subverted in . The Doctor suspects fairly early on that Clara is the same person as Oswin from , and as Oswin died in that episode, she can't die in "The Snowmen", right? Wrong!
Inverted in . Clara and the Doctor meet Orson Pink, Danny Pink's identical descendant. This plus Danny and Clara's relationship makes it seem very unlikely Danny is dead for good in /. He's really dead.
is that Orson is a lateral descendant.
Due to the nature of the series, in which the Doctor changes form and personality periodically and is, to a degree, immortal, the notion of a "happily ever after" with any romantic interest who is not, like him, immortal, is doomed by the established canon of the series. To date only two confirmed loves could possibly have fulfilled this, however: River Song is doomed by established canonicity that says she must die in "Forest of the Dead", and loses her ability to regenerate in order to save the Doctor in , while Clara Oswald likewise must die as shown in , making her subsequent technical immortality only temporary.
In , even though the details differ, both Earl McGraw and the Geckos? original hostage die at more or less the same point in the story as they did in the movie.
loves to reveal bits of the future in advance, usually through Future Ted's narration (but sometimes by standard flash-forwards). As a result, while Ted has to marry someone, most of his steady girlfriends are ruled out for us viewers before the relationship even begins. The most extreme case was Robin, who was his love interest f we knew from the PILOT that she wasn't the Mother. Which doesn't mean they don't get together in the end.
Everyone knows how things are ultimately going to end for the
characters, once they hit the legendary era. Lancelot returned from the dead briefly, but in the end, the inevitable did happen.
In , the story develops in two alternate timelines: the present day and the night of the bonfire, the latter which is set at some point in the future. In the Night of the Bonfire storyline (called "Flash-Forwards" by fans), the protagonists deal with burying the murder of
Annalise's husband, Sam Keating, whose identity as the one being murdered by the protagonists was revealed in the pilot episode, and while we see him in the present day storyline, we already know he'll inevitably die when the narrative timeline reaches the Night of the Bonfire.
Which it does on the
"Kill Me, Kill Me, Kill Me".
Joanie Trotter was
in , so it's not hard to work out where the story arc in prequel Rock and Chips was going had it not been cut short by John Sullivan's .
In a similar vein,
has two simultaneous story arcs, one taking place during the training and one in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack in New York some time after the training. The show does a good job at keeping key revelations to a minimum, but certain events become obvious, including who will be cut from the program and whose relationship will fail.
If you are an original character, you have a very high mortality rate. Not even being a main character could save you. Chloe Sullivan is the only original character from the main cast to survive the entire series as Whitney Fordman, Jason Teague, Davis Bloome and Tess Mercer all died.
Jonathan and Martha Kent never have a biological child, which concludes a plot point from Season 2 very early for anyone familiar with the comics.
Everyone knew that the romance between Clark and Lana wasn't going to lastnote& and that any advances by Chloe towards Clark were ultimately going to be ineffective (eventually, Chloe outgrows her teenaged crush and matures). Especially after the one and only
was introduced, and Clark gradually began moving towards his relationship with her.
Lex in the first couple of seasons makes sincere efforts not to be the
his father is, or if he must be one of those, to at least work towards noble goals and help his friend Clark. It is even implied that
could have saved him if only Lex had been willing to let go of his obsessions.
While this trope - retitled "Doomed by History" - can apply to every single production depicting real-life events and the lives of historical figures (for example, we all know how the story of President John F. Kennedy ends), there have been occasions where fans have hoped for an aversion. An example is , which depicts an implied
(with varying degrees of ) between Queen Victoria and her prime minister, Lord Melbourne. However, regardless what the show did with the two, history shows that Victoria subsequently fell in love with Prince Albert and "Lord M" withdrew from her life soon after.
&&&&Myths & Religion&
Speaking of doom, Rev 20:7-10—&"When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth?Gog and Magog?and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God?s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever."
Ragnarok. In fact, end-of-the-world prophecies in general.
&&&&Theater&
of , has its titular characters helplessly postponing their death between scenes in the original parent canon. Their death comes as no surprise, even though it would have been possible for Tom Stoppard to .
Most Greek Tragedies were based on well-known myths, so the ancient Greeks watching , for example, would . The Greek dramatists played with this by using .
A particular instance of this occurring within a playwright's own continuity is the ending of
as Antigone and Ismene head to Thebes to try and dissuade their brothers from civil war. Sophocles had already treated their fate in his
over thirty years previous to writing .
, despite being a modern version of La boh&me, is actually a subversion. Angel dies of AIDS, despite her counterpart (Schaunard) surviving the opera. Mimi appears to die at the end (as her La boh&me counterpart), but is revived by
(or , your call).
In , Enjolras and the other revolutionaries (save Marius of course) must inevitably be killed on the barricades, because the real-life June 1832 Rebellion failed.
On the other hand, however, not all performances make it clear exactly what year it is. In fact, the only time reference that is always given is that Valjean was in prison nineteen years. Apart from that different productions mix and match how much information they give.
Also, given that Marius managed to survive, there is nothing inevitable about all of his friends being killed on the barricades. According to contemporary estimates, less than 100 revolutionaries were killed, about 200-300 were wounded and 1,500 were taken prisoner unwounded by the troops fighting them.
The Metru Nui saga in
was a two year-long () flashback, so fans already knew that: Vakama and his team would have to give up their Toa powers and turn into weaker Turaga elders, their mutation into animal-like Toa Hordika would be undone, Vakama's
would be temporary (these last two were no-brainers even for new fans because 2005's story was an interquel to the already concluded 2004 plot), they would fail at stopping
from putting
into a coma, also that Makuta's defeat at their hands would not last, and that the city of Metru Nui would be abandoned with the knowledge of having lived there wiped from the islanders' memory.
&&&&Video Games&
is a multiplayer arena battle game in the
series. One of the playable classes is the flying Sentinel. Those familiar with the Legacy of Kain series will note the bitterness of playing this class as, as per games set later in the series' timeline, the entire clan making up the Sentinel class has been slaughtered and indeed is never even seen in the rest of the series at all.
begins on a ship which fled the complete annihilation of the planet Reach and the destruction of almost the entire remaining human fleet, which almost seals the inevitable defeat of the human race in the nearly 30-year-long war against the Covenant. Throughout the series, the Fall of Reach is treated as one of the darkest moments of human history. The later prequel
takes place on said planet, so it's a foregone conclusion that that almost none of the characters will survive. And throughout the entire game, most players would have been aware that any attempt at defending the planet and each minor victory would be completely irrelevant in the end. The only character introduced in Reach who survives is
The DS remake of
adds an extra ending where the party and
try to rescue
from the . The sequel, , is also about a different party trying to rescue Schala from the Devourer, so obviously Crono and the party didn't succeed. But that's the only ending doomed to failure thanks to the use of parallel worlds in Chrono Cross all the endings can be considered canonical. For instance, the future from the ending where humans were replaced by dinosaur people is where and when the
comes from.
Zigzagged by , which is a prequel to . There's a
makes it through unscathed... but the first scene of Lufia I, in which we see some legendary and ancient hero named "Maxim" making a , turns out to also be the closing scene of Lufia II.
is arguably an example as well. Maxim is going to live because he has not married Selan yet and had a child (the Hero of Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is Maxim's descendant). Though this can be defied in a New Game+ of the remake .
about Jack's rise to
Jack, who, as those who have played
know, is ultimately defeated and killed by Vault Hunters. Additionally, The Pre-Sequel! features Wilhelm the Enforcer and Nisha the Lawbringer as playable characters, both of whom also die
the former is a mandatory boss, and the latter is killed at the end of a series of optional side-quests (however,
confirms that the Vault Hunters canonically kill her). The only character whose fate is inconclusive is Jack's Body Double, who is not the same one in the second game.
has the difficult task of working Zack, Aerith and Sephiroth into an interesting plot despite the player knowing how it has to end. It does pretty well. The developers commented that writing the story was similar to writing an adaptation of a historical event, because these doomed side characters did not have the sort of storylines that you would normally tell a game story with, but could not be contradicted.
introduces a large team of unnamed Turks as the player characters. All but Shuriken Female aren't seen in other media and the end of the game has all Turks except the big 4 (Reno, Rude, Elena and Tseng) go into hiding. The one member who does appear in other media? Cissnei who appears in , which is in the MIDDLE of .
Ditto , which stars the
group whose members all die by the end of .
You never heard of Xion during Roxas' flashbacks in Kingdom Hearts II, despite her important role. So that helps guessing she was .
has the same thing. Ven, Terra and Aqua aren't around in previous games so obviously it won't turn out well. It actually doesn't end that badly, but Terra's body is
while , Ven's heart is sealed into Sora's, and Aqua is thrown into the Realm of Darkness, to wander there alone without her friends for at least a decade. However the secret ending reveals there's still hope that they may one day see each other again.
Most likely almost everyone in Daybreak town in
as the events of the game happened before the First Keyblade War which wrecked the universe.
Considering the above examples, by now it seems that
has learnt the "don't-make-handheld-prequels-if-they-don't-end-well" lesson with their latest title, , where, while narrating the second-to-last war cycle prior to the first Dissidia and therefore being somewhat of a , after completing that war cycle there's another - namely, the 13th seen in the first Dissidia, , promptly subverting the .
4: , there's the flashback mission with Captain MacMillan where the objective is to assassinate the
Zakhaev. Naturally, you fail, you "only" take his arm off.
: All of the flashback cases in some way or another have this by virtue of what characters are involved.
Case 3 of Investigations 2 is a big offender. You know that no matter how hard Gregory tries, he can't get a Not Guilty verdict for Tenkai. And that exposing von Karma's forgery isn't going to end well for him... Fortunately, you get to solve the case for real as Miles in the present.
Apollo Justice is especially cruel about this. You, as the player, are forced to make Phoenix present evidence that you know will ruin his career.
, as the prequel to Sword of Seals, has multiple characters that are either depicted this way or implied to turn out that way given that only a handful of the Sword of Flame playable cast even shows up in the previous title. Since Sword of Seals was never officially released , however, many players don't actually realize this and the deaths have less impact.
Canas the Shaman is clearly intended to be the father of Hugh and son of Niime, given that he looks like both of them. Regardless of supports, Canas' epilogue notes that he and his wife die in a blizzard between games, hence why Hugh is being raised by his grandmother by the time of Sword of Seals.
Hector, despite being easily the most powerful unit in Sword of Flame, is killed within the first chapters of Sword of Seals as a much older man. One of the support chats in Sword of Flame notes that he had a premonition of his death, though he misreads the circumstances. He also eventually wields a weapon that comes with a curse that its wielder will die in battle, a clear reference to his death in Sword of Seals. Additionally, as Lilina's mother is dead by the time of Sword of Seals, any of the women Hector gets an A support with and marries in the epilogue are also doomed to die between games.
Similarly to Hector, Roy's mother is dead by the time of Sword of Seals, which dooms all of his father Eliwood's potential brides to the same fate.
The Black Fang do not appear in Sword of Seals, which is a pretty clear clue that they will not survive the events of their game.
The mother of Sword of Seals mages Lleu and Lugh appears in Sword of Flame. The player recruits them in an orphanage in Sword of Seals. All of her endings have her disappearing either chasing her husband, Jaffar, or escaping bounty hunters to protect her family.
Erk turns into this if he gets A support with Nino, though his other two marriage options would canonically allow him to live happily ever after (even if ).
It's not stated what happened to Rebecca, but her son Wolt never mentions her, so this may have caught up to her as well.
If Lyndis married Eliwood or Hector in her ending, she gets this by default. One of her endings also puts her as the mother of Sue in Sword of Seals, though neither of her parents actually show in that, so she may still be doomed.
Karla is the mother of Fir in Sword of Seal, who explicitly became a sword fighter in honor of her dead mother.
Athos and Brammimond, the final two Legendary Heroes. The Legendary Heroes are all deceased by Sword of Seals. Athos kicks the bucket on camera and his death also implies Brammimond died as well.
It is assumed Hawkeye died between games as his daughter is doing his job in Sword of Seals. it's never stated, however.
, the prequel to Ray Force. Despite your efforts, Con-Human succeeds in taking over the planet, according to the story of the first game. Makes the prequel a
story too.
In Portal: Prelude, an unofficial 3rd party mod. GLaDOS goes berserk and kills everyone. Apparently, even the main character. Mike and the main character (Abby) MAY have survived, but even if they did, they hastily abandoned Aperture.
During the Old Aperture segments of Portal 2 you can hear recordings of Cave Johnson throughout the different eras of Aperture Science. From its bright and golden beginning to eventually what happens to it in the present day. Since the only three things still left in Aperture at that point is Chell, Wheatly and GLaDOS, you know the story isn't gonna end on a happy note, especially for Cave Johnson since he canonically went crazy just before dying.
In , a prequel to the entire
series, having Snake or Ocelot killed will result in a Time Paradox since they were important characters in the previous games. Likewise, killing off EVA will result in a game over too, since her presence is needed for the game to progress. On the other hand, the game forces the player to kill off The Boss after defeating her, since her death is necessary for Big Boss' . If the player doesn't pull the trigger when prompted after a while, Snake will do it}