The Medical Magic of Plot
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but sometimes in media one character will die from a particular injury, while another character will survive the same injury.
Two examples I can think of:
- One is from Star Wars. In The Phantom Menace, Qui Gon Jinn dies after taking a lightsaber to the gut from Darth Maul. Other characters do as well, in The Force Awakens and in the video game series Star Wars: Jedi. But in other Star Wars entries, Kenobi, Ahsoka, and The Rise of Skywalker, characters survive the same injury.
- The second is in the latest Avatar movie, Avatar: Fire and Ash. I watched it this last weekend (and have many thoughts1), and in it two characters get shot in the shoulder, but only one of them survives2.
Why do some survive and others don't? Because Plot. The plot needs to happen, so some characters need to survive, and some need to die.
Here's the thing though. I think it cheapens the death of those that do die. Jinn's death in particular, in the climax of The Phantom Menace, is meant to be deeply impactful and this tragic turn of events that is a major domino leading to Darth Vader. So when other Star Wars characters survive the same battle injury, it essentially throws back the curtain and breaks the immersion in the story. Rather than it being a traumatic and fatal injury leading to a natural consequence, it is a plot device, where the powerful master Jedi is denigrated and weaker than padawans who never finished their training.
The same can be said about the death in Avatar. I'm not going to spoil who lives and who dies, but when the death happens, I was left somewhat confused and annoyed. This character had survived, why hadn't that character? Instead of the tragedy, it was a clear moment of emotional manipulation. The character died to make the audience feel bad. This wouldn't have been such an issue if the first character hadn't already survived from what seemed like a worse injury.
This feeling of manipulation, of cheapening, can be alleviated in storytelling. But it takes more careful thought. There aren't a lot of places on the human body that do not house vital organs where injury would be catastrophic. Shoulders and guts are easy short-hand for "very injured" without "should be dead". And sometimes it seems like people in media like the easy thing a little too much3.