Panik: Why aren't you dead?!
Yami: As I explained earlier, I'm the main character. You, however, can just go right ahead and die.
— Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series
"Word of advice, if the will says you need to spend the night in a haunted house you better hope everybody else there are black guys and sluts."
— Liz, 30 Rock
So you're watching a horror show, slasher flic, or maybe an action show that promises a high body count. In order to prove just how high the stakes are and how willing the show is to be Darker and Edgier and scarier, it bravely advertises that Tonight Someone Dies! Not just anyone though, but someone on the poster!
So who dies? That's a tricky question. Kill the wrong person, or too early, and you risk angering the viewer. Execs and writers have, through time, trial, and (mostly) error, discovered that killing off "unpopular" minorities is safer than popular ones or majorities.
This has led many to notice patterns, a kind of Sorting Algorithm of Mortality, whereby a character's odds of gruesome, violent death are established relative to the rest of cast. The following is a rough generalization; some movies or shows might mix it up depending on which roles and traits a given character has, but few outright subvert or avert it, and when they do, it's painful.
Compare Acceptable Targets. Once killed, see Sorting Algorithm of Deadness to see how likely they are to come back. See also Rule of Empathy.
To use the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality, simply add the
Scream Score for each applicable row, then divide by the number of applicable rows (at this point, 13 or fewer). Remember: this is a relative score, so you need at least 3 characters from the same movie or series to establish a baseline. To keep this page clean, please put speculation on the mortality of a cast in the Wild Mass Guessing Sorting Algorithm Of Mortality page.
| Likelihood of death | So dead | | Average life expectancy | | Die? Me? Ha! |
| Scream Score! | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Age | Older and Wiser | Parent, Clueless teens | Single adult | Protagonist teens | Child |
| Sexual Orientation | Slut, Bisexual, Innocent Virgin | Gay | Straight | Reluctant | Celibate |
| Love Interests by Genre | Rich Bitch, Horror Genre | Hooker with a Heart of Gold, Temporary | Shallow, Romance show | Shrinking Violet | Distressed Damsel, Action Series |
| Role | Villain, Faceless Goons, Mooks, Red Shirt, The Obi-Wan, The Big Guy | Loners, Plucky Comic Relief, Mauve Shirt, Long-lost Friend, The Smart Guy | The Lancer, Hero of Another Story, The Sidekick, The Scrappy | Ignored Expert,
Those Two Guys, The Chick, Supporting Protagonist | Hero, Creator's Pet |
| Race | Black, Twofer's, Leomon | Mexican | Asian | Indian/Native American | Caucasian or The Same As The Writer |
| Gender | Tough Girl, Ambiguous Gender, |
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