GameSided Roundtable: Emotional Character Deaths

Greetings! This is our weekly GameSided Roundtable feature, where our writers converge to provide their opinions, wishes, statements or critical thought on one general topic centered around video games. Sometimes it can be funny, sometimes it can be serious. Contemporary, classic; we hope to cover a wide variety of things in this segment as a group. If you wish to submit an idea for a GameSided Roundtable discussion topic, you can leave the editor an email at: daniel.george@fansided.com. We’ll totally give you (and your Twitter account, if applicable) a shoutout!

The Gamesided Roundtable this week involves spoilers from Valkyria Chronicles, Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, World of Warcraft, Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead Seasons 1 and 2. Please be advised!

This week’s topic: Which character’s death in a video game has affected you the most?

Keith Myers (Twitter)

Isara Gunther – Valkyria Chronicles

Aside from being a tank driver, mechanic and brilliant inventor, Isara was also a Darcsen. Darcens are second-class citizens, practically enslaved due to a long-forgotten war that happened centuries before. Despite being a constant victim of prejudice and oppression, Isara manages to conquer hatred and racism using a smile and a warm touch.

While Isara’s death was a turning point for many of the other main characters, and became a rallying cry as the game’s plot continued, losing her somehow made the rest of the story feel empty.

The other themes within the story have been lost in my memory as time has passed, but not Isara’s story. She made me want to be a better person. That is something that no other game character has ever done.

Erik Sugay

I’m not sure if it can really be considered a death, but no character’s demise hit me as hard as the loss of Personal Frame (PF) from the Wii’s Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon. The game starts as the main character, a young boy, wanders an empty world after the death of the only human being he knew. He comes across PF, an A.I. assistant that helps him travel through the (literally) haunted depths of an underground station and mall, teaching him about how life used to be before the human population was decimated.

Just as they’re about to make it out of the mall, PF reveals that, as she’s no longer connected to her power source, her battery is dying. She thanks the boy for his company and for giving her a chance to be useful in aiding him. How could you not be affected by the loss of the only true companion you’ve known in a desolate world? You know what makes this character even more remarkable? Look at that picture. PF is visually nothing more than a metal box, lights and an antenna. The character relies solely on dialogue and blinking lights to convey emotions and it conveys them well.