Death
I’ve always wondered this when it comes to some stories involving a set location that has either high levels of science or magic. These are the ones where at least one person dies in every adventure. Not always random people too. You get named characters introduced in an episode and they are killed at some point. They had lives, connections, and an existence in that world. Then, they’re gone and are sometimes joined by others by the time the problem is solved.
While I get that this helps to raise the stakes in stories, it does come with a curious issue for me:
Why would people still live in these areas or attends these schools?
In the real world, a high death count would drive people away from an area. Only those who are unable to move away or believe they will be fine will stay. Yet, I can’t see many seeing the stats on these places and wanting to put their lives at risk. Some stories play this off as ‘the rewards outweigh the threat of death’, but that is not as common a mentality as one would imagine. Not when person flat out see or are affected by the lose of a community member. I can’t remember any stories where one or several people are killed in an incident then the next one has fewer characters due to a few deciding they want to be somewhere safer. It’s not even a discussion most of the time.
Now, I do know that this is for a story to continue. Heroes are heroes because they don’t give up. Same goes for their allies who might stay simply because they trust in their heroic friend. Still, the surrounding characters don’t really seem to run away. Is it just how humans work though? We have people living in regions where natural disasters are common and they’ve come to accept that fact. Many just shrug when a tornado or hurricane is coming. Guess if you survive enough, you just assume you will make it through and have to rebuild. Not sure if this falls under blind acceptance or pure stubbornness though. It could explain why this is found in fiction too without there being much discussion.
On the other hand, I do think there should be conversations about the possibility of leaving if the death count is high. 5 people being killed in a day by a magic spell run amok or a robotic experiment going berserk should have some people questioning their decision to stay. Perhaps it isn’t important if it isn’t the main characters doing it, but you don’t even see a mention of the tension at times. Nobody is scared of the next accident taking their life. Could it be that everyone thinks they’re the main character and will be safe from whatever happens? Lots of psychology to consider here when writing a story that continues after such events.
Personally, I don’t really know what to do here. Having a story stop because everyone is scared is definitely not a good idea. Yet, moving on with no mention of the fear and tension feels lazy. There is a simpler middle ground with having the emotions talked about and showing unnamed characters leaving. You don’t really reduce the population since they appear solely to be departing. Seems the easiest and cleanest way to tackle this and put a handful of readers at ease. Good chance that I’m not the majority in thinking about this problem.
So, what do you think about characters staying in areas with a high risk of death?
Legends of Windemere 