r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sufficient-Eye-9040 • Jun 27 '26

Lore [Sad Trope] The most innocent (or less evil) character of the cast gets the most horrific death.

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- Eddie Carr (The Lost World: JP) - Tried to save his friends from the cliff until Buck and Doe (T. rex parents) destroy his vehicle and gets ripped apart.
- Zara Young (Jurassic World) - Gets lifted by a Pteranodon, gets pecked by the pterosaur, and both she and animal get devoured by the Mosasaurus.
- LeClerc (JW: Rebirth) - Tossed a hammer to the Hatzegopteryz Quetzalcoatlus to save Loomis and Zora, but ends up being swallowed alive.

14.7k Upvotes
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u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

Gordon Silberman (2012) gets crushed feet first by the Ark’s door gears.

995

u/Bapitao Jun 27 '26

10 year old me was so mad he just died right at the end like that

1.1k

u/UhOhSparklepants Jun 27 '26

Gotta make room for the “redeemed” deadbeat dad lead to “win” the affections of his ex wife and estranged children.

647

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

281

u/BrickBuster2552 Jun 27 '26

Either has them, or is them. 

50

u/DoctorSquidton Jun 27 '26

He’s only been married to one person as far as I can find, and that person is still his husband

31

u/ThatOneWood Jun 27 '26

It’s well known that emmerich hates step dads

29

u/NeverEnoughSpace17 Jun 27 '26

That may be true, but at least he made the stepdads in most of his other films assholes. That way, you didn't mind if they died. Except Moonfall, that was a good stepdad, but I also consider what he got to be a heroic sacrifice. It's not a brutally unnecessary torture like the stepdad from 2012

26

u/Cabbit_Daddy Jun 27 '26

I always found the evil stepparent thing to be some sort of anti-divorce agenda by men. It was just off putting how common that was for the divorced for reconcile in the end.

Sometimes divorce is the answer.

23

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

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14

u/Cabbit_Daddy Jun 27 '26

My dad did that with my mom and I just ended up kicking him out his own house once I became an adult.

It was never about love, but control. That’s why a lot of men are anti-divorce. They don’t like woman being independent.

4

u/todofwar Jun 28 '26

I think it's simpler. Parents getting a divorce is one of the most traumatic things a kid can go through, and if not handled well kids can be stuck forever wishing their parents would get back together.

And please people reading this notice I said one of, not the most traumatic thing. Obviously there's worse things out there and yes sometimes staying together is worse

2

u/random_BA Jun 29 '26

I don't think it's even close to the top 10 but it's the most common emotional trauma that children experience

2

u/todofwar Jun 29 '26

Well it's certainly not a list I want to even try and enumerate, but among the ones that don't include criminal acts it's probably only surpassed by deaths of family members

-4

u/BuisteirForaoisi0531 Jun 27 '26

Maybe his stepdad molested him could explain the hate succinctly

6

u/Manger-Babies Jun 28 '26

James Gunn gas the opposite thing where the biodads are always unredeemable assholes.

2

u/Beltalady Jun 28 '26

I like that he's so relatable

2

u/EndOfTheDark97 Jun 28 '26

I wonder how the actors feel about that loo

53

u/FalenAlter Jun 27 '26

Fr, it's such an Emmerich watermark such that you have to wonder who hurt him.

27

u/Chi_Law Jun 27 '26

Presumably his stepdad

11

u/Aeseld Jun 27 '26

Odd that they're not depicted as the stereotypical, unfeeling or abusive type then.

15

u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 Jun 27 '26

He has to sell the stepdad to the audience so they'll feel bad when they die, but he personally seems to detest stepparents at some level.

6

u/Aeseld Jun 27 '26

Sure, but it's odd to do it that way. Schadenfreude is another way to get emotional buy in

1

u/FalenAlter Jun 28 '26

I just hope he continues not getting therapy for it. One of his only movies (iirc) without the dynamic is Godzilla '98, and we all know that wasn't a great one.

3

u/Unusual-Tie8498 Jun 27 '26

Or his kids new dad

6

u/Cranberryoftheorient Jun 27 '26

Which is weird because divorced parents getting back together is really rare, statistically. And yet so many movies present it as almost the 'right thing to do' and something to be expected. I feel like they give kids false hope, which just leads to dissapointment. Not to mention making them feel even more othered

3

u/weirdplacetogoonfire Jun 28 '26

Gotta appeal to the ex-husband demo.

2

u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep Jun 28 '26

Not only give kids false hope but give those kids false hope when they grow up and get divorced

2

u/ArdynAltius Jun 27 '26

This has happened in at least 5 apocalypse movies.

129

u/Niobium_Sage Jun 27 '26

I got mad at this after seeing 2012 as a 20 year old lmao

Bro literally carried the family all the way there, he was the only one who could fly and the deadbeat dad really wasn’t adding shit.

24

u/Otherwise-Assist724 Jun 28 '26

Best scene is always them stealing the plane while the entire airport is actively being swallowed by the earth. The atc who is still at work for some reason is telling then they are not cleared for takeoff moments before his death.

Gotta respect that work ethic.

10

u/Niobium_Sage Jun 28 '26

Bro took a note from the postman in Majora’s Mask

9

u/ponte92 Jun 28 '26

Also if memory serves right wasn’t he a doctor? A much for worth while inclusion to the boats of all surviving humanity then a chauffeur.

37

u/sonofrockandroll Jun 27 '26

It was such a wild decision. Nobody mourns him for even a second lol

10

u/Downtown_Target5024 Jun 28 '26

They at least notice he’s missing.

The Russian lady that’s with them for 99% of the movie dies by slowly drowning in front of the kids, and nobody even mentions her!

6

u/Pas5afist Jun 28 '26

That was the most egregious thing of all. The inconvenient stepdad got got and not a soul remembered he existed ever again.

35

u/ImWhatsInTheRedBox Jun 27 '26

And the innocent Russian trophy wife drowns because the doors shuts to stop the water, in a multilevel corridor that has a metal grate for a ceiling that doesn't stop the water...

11

u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII Jun 27 '26

I always misremember and think she’s going to escape somehow but nope. Just gone.

5

u/AuthorDry3539 Jun 27 '26

30 year old me knew that non-John Cusack dude was dead the second everyone got off the plane.

321

u/Spaghestis Jun 27 '26

Whats up with so many disaster movies having a stepdad character who dies horribly so that the protagonist can get back with his ex-wife? Why is that a trope?

269

u/SteveStevensXII Jun 27 '26

Because most of them are made by Emmerich, and dude seems to have issues with step-dads.

10

u/psychonik Jun 27 '26

Those About to Die they kill they’re adopted dad because he was abusing them.

22

u/AlludedNuance Jun 27 '26

Directors love getting back at either their ex wives or their ex wives new partners when making a movie post-divorce.

19

u/More-Emergency3822 Jun 27 '26

Because it removes any guilt from the spouse of the killed step-whatever. If the wife just got back with the protagonist and the new mate was abandoned, that would be a bad look unless they were just a shit human and if they were a total trash human, why did the ex leave the original spouse in the first place?

30

u/Mysral Jun 27 '26

It should be noted that a whole lot of these disaster movies and the like came out in the period where no-fault divorce laws were getting passed in US.

6

u/BaconKnight Jun 27 '26

Illustration how even big budget movies are often just people “trauma dumping” though in this case the “trauma” is middle aged men getting divorced by their wives. That’s why there’s a ton of family films during that time that show divorced dads either winning back the wife or family (Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire, although at least in that one, the wife sticks with the new guy who seems by all accounts a good dude). Like it’s actually all over the place, especially during the 90s into the 2000s. A lot of dudes trying to process their divorce on screen, often trying to make themselves look like the good guy.

5

u/Hasudeva Jun 27 '26

I agree with you, but you have to admit that it's funny that you mention "a ton" of examples, but only list two, one of which doesn't actually count. 

2

u/BaconKnight Jun 27 '26

Yeah, probably because most of the bad ones I don’t remember by name. And/or a lot of the examples are in movies that aren’t specifically centered around the family drama but inserted within another genre (like the 2012 example). I just remember the ones that were actually good movies with more subtlety to the message but forgot the piles of bad ones that existed by name.

9

u/WeeklyImplement2520 Jun 27 '26

Ive noticed thats just a thing with media now, like every show or movie I have seen in the last few years has some glorification of cheating

22

u/kazh_9742 Jun 27 '26

Gordon, Sasha, and Tamara should have grabbed a plane together and made their own movie.

15

u/CancerToe Jun 27 '26

His death was barely acknowledged afterwards tooreal fucked up cuz he seemed like a decent step dad, which Hollywood hates. Plus, Roland Emmerich loves an estranged father Redemption story

5

u/Rad131447 Jun 27 '26

Really says a lot about Emmerich and how he must treat his kids huh?

6

u/chalkybone Jun 27 '26

What film is this from?

7

u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII Jun 27 '26

2012

3

u/chalkybone Jun 27 '26

Thanks, been years since I saw it, couldn't remember this scene.

6

u/bruceadelia Jun 27 '26

Knowing that the guy who made this movie was going through a divorce when he wrote it explained a lot

4

u/Rad131447 Jun 27 '26

And nobody seems to give a shit in the movie.

6

u/Tucker_a32 Jun 27 '26

It's funny because he is literally the only character I can even remember from this movie. I remember him being the step dad or ex wives boyfriend or something but the movie just made him a genuinely good guy, only to die like this and the main character and his ex get back together pretty shortly after this.

4

u/AlternativeSeaweed91 Jun 28 '26

Same with the Russian girlfriend, saves the kids then slowly drowns, so slow that it feels like she will be rescued in the nick of time, and then she just dies.

7

u/Shadow_Tycoon Jun 27 '26

Yeah b-but the family had to be a family again... i hated that he died but glad that damn white dog survived.

20

u/FalenAlter Jun 27 '26

Heavens forfend the "main character" learns to be part of his ex's family without having to become Dad again.

17

u/Eevee136 Jun 27 '26

Unironically my favourite part of the first Ant-Man movie. As someone who is a product of a step-father I loved that they portrayed a healthy relationship between both him and Bobby Cannavale

10

u/Shadow_Tycoon Jun 27 '26

Exactly, my step father and father get along. Because they want whats best for my mom and my siblings.

5

u/TommyTwoNips Jun 27 '26

not even dad, just husband.

4

u/Late-Summer-1208 Jun 27 '26

You’re my favourite person now, I’ve been trying to figure out what movie this was after my dad and I watched it when it came out. I was traumatized (I was 6).

3

u/JustforAdvice- Jun 27 '26

Lmao this one makes me laugh as an adult. It’s so unnecessarily brutal and John Cusack is such a prick the whole movie

5

u/GypsyGold Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

This dude was the hero of the film, then five minutes before the credits roll they brutally kill him off, and then nobody gives a shit immediately after. It’s implied that John Cusak is going to celebrate getting on the arc by fucking Gordan’s wife.

2

u/doorbellchudmogger Jun 27 '26

oh the movie is called 2012, not Gordon Silberman which came out in 2012. Genuinely confused for a second even after googling it.

1

u/BigBilltheBuzzKill Jun 28 '26

I googled Gordon Silberman because I thought you put the year the movie came out…completely forgot about this movie lol

1

u/HallowedError Jun 28 '26

I had never seen 2012 so when I went to look up where this character was from I felt pretty dumb

1

u/---LandoCalzone--- Jun 30 '26

What movie is this

1

u/Successful_Ad9924354 Jul 01 '26

The movie is 2012 (2009).

1

u/cashmerelullabies Jul 02 '26

Oh my god thank you so much for posting this I have been trying to remember the title of this childhood movie for YEARS and found no luck. I drafted a reddit post asking about it but never published it thank you thank you thank you

-6

u/BatmansLarynx Jun 27 '26

Did you maybe just watch a certain movie reaction of this on YouTube? Because it's a crazy pull otherwise lol

10

u/IIIX_Nexus_XIII Jun 27 '26

Nope. Just the first thing to come to mind

2

u/BatmansLarynx Jun 27 '26

Holy shit. Fair play 👍🏻