I know it's silly (because it's fiction) but there are a lot of books and manga that have me waking up to this day feeling depressed or out of sorts because of a character's death, or because of how far a character was pushed mentally and emotionally over the edge, or from watching a character slowly become more and more broken to the point that they don't care about living. These stories are naturally the most interesting to read, but perhaps not always the most healthy. Which brings me to my question: What deaths or events in fiction gave (or still give you) minor PTSD?
Spoilers encouraged.
I have to admit I'm quite the crybaby when it comes to any sort of emotional stuff but there are some events and deaths that definitely left me with a long rehab period/sleepless nights (although I can't remember many right now). But worst one by far is Jiro Taniguchi's inu wo kau (SPOILER and DEPRESSION ALLERT😅)...not only the final scene but the entire story was painful to watch and sometimes I still think about it. The way he describes the slow process of departure of the dog and how the owners can see his determination to go for a walk or stay by their side even just for one more day just broke my heart. Last scene when they took the blanket off to reveal how frail his body had become...It was too realistic. I unfortunately or fortunately (I don't even know anymore) had the same experience with my own dog not long after reading it. The story is a masterpiece like any of Taniguchi's works and I recommend it but it definitely left a scar. Makes you realize how complex and deep death and the feelings that come with it actually are. Yeah just go read gintama or something 😂
I'm admittedly not here to voice my five cents on the issue, cause I can't really remember a story that really marked me the same way a lot of people talk about (it's not really my cup of tea so to speak), but for what its worth I just want to say that there's nothing silly about being moved by fiction. If anything I'd say the opposite, being emotionally moved by fiction to such a degree speaks a lot about your empathy and ability to feel for other people, even fictional ones.
I wouldn't say I got PTSD but Ushio's death straight out tore my heart out and left me feeling saddened for a couple of days. Till this day I can't
look at her without my heart tightening and her death scene will reduce me to tears.
I know it's silly (because it's fiction) but there are a lot of books and manga that have me waking up to this day feeling depressed or out of sorts because of a character's death, or because of how far a character was pushed mentally and emotionally over the edge, or from watching a character slowly become more and more broken to the point that they don't care about living.
I do not see it silly that you feel this way whenever you see something bad happen to characters in stories. It’s quite normal and as @Luhood mentions it shows you are good with empathy. Besides, I think if we did not feel for the characters we would not be as invested in the stories they are in.
Also, I have gone through similar experiences as well with the most recent one being last week. It did not help that I was already going through a feeling of melancholy at the time, but now I felt anxious for the characters’ well being. However there was one situation that happened early last year that shook me so much that I had to drop the series for my well being. I could share what it was except this topic is in the manga category and what I experience happen with watching an anime so I will leave it at that unless you want to learn what it is.
@May_Lily Now I'm curious. I read books and manga more than anything but I used to be a huge anime junkie.
What lowkey traumatized me more than anything else in fiction
was Aiko's death, along with the entire last volume of Oyasumi Punpun.
A year later I read it again hoping that it would hurt less on a second reading and that I could finally stop thinking about it, but no such luck. I think the biggest difference between it's world and our world is that we're really good at sugar coating things and kicking litter on our shit, while the world in the manga displays itself in all it's ugliness.
The scene, where Askeladd killed King Sweyn. At this point in the story, everything was progressing smoothly, and there were no signs of any aggressive moves. But King Sweyn suddenly gave Askeladd an ultimatum: betray his people, or betray King Sweyns son, Canute, the person Askeladd saw as his real king. Both of these being the most important to him, he was now really being pushed to the limit
But instead of obeying him, Askeladd chose to kill Sweyn instead, saving both Canute and his people, though he had to give his own life as well.
I didnt see this whole scene coming at all, rather Askeladd seemed like the person, that would survive the longest, so that was more than surprising.
in JJBA really got to me but like, after the fact. When it happened I was just getting really attached to the character and I was like "wow they actually killed him off" ..now I'm so affected by it I can't even go back and read the chapter?? I think the nature of his death really freaked me out. I even read like, greif articles to try and wrap my mind around it.
@ccartimandua I always get mixed feelings thinking of that scene, because for one its sad. On the other hand, I cant stop laughing because of that one video of a furby getting crushed by a hydraulic press that is dubbed with it. I know, I shoukdnt laugh, but its too ridiculous.
Oh boy.... I can't say PTSD exactly, but the following definitely make me cry anytime I think about it. Also only restricting my self to anime/manga or else this list would be endless.....I'm a weeper sue me.
Gintama Episode 130 - Cat Lovers and Dog Lovers Are Mutually Exclusive: Kintaro an old dying dog and his owner an old man both refusing to die before the other one so they wouldn't leave their friend behind and alone.
One Piece: Ace, Merry Go, Hiriluk, Rumbar Pirates' Demise ANNNDDD Fisher Tiger... This last one was hard, because even though I didn't TRULY mourn the character's death I was more morose as to what brought his passing. Which was the racism and prejudice between the humans and fishmen....it just hit close to home.
Your Lie in April: Kaori Miyazono, this was mostly due to the beautiful soundtrack and cinematic art that truly pushed her surgery scene to the peak for me
Code Geass: Lelouch Lamperouge I was 14? 15? when this aired on Adult Swim and I just couldn't come to terms with him turning into a martyr and up to this point I can't make myself go past the first season without hating everyone for the remainder of the week.
Attack on Titan: ....Sasha....fuckin Sasha.....There's so many deaths in this story and they mostly all made me tear up and Sasha WAS NOT even a character I liked, but her whole death was essentially what really made me take in the whole bleakness when it comes to war. There is no good or bad side like my parents always used to tell me growing up. As a child I couldn't grasp that answer, because clearly the scary people attacking my loved ones ARE the evil ones, but....then what was my father in the face of another child on the other side of the boarder looked like to her?...I dunno Sasha's death really impacted me
Imma end this with one of my top anime/manga when I read the manga and later watched the anime there just was something that pulled on me and kinda took out of me I wrote a hella long review of this episodes YEARS ago on discord and I'll post it as a spoiler since its massive and incase no one has had a chance to read it and would like to (someone was kind enough to share onto other anime websites for me).
Hunter x Hunter: Meruem and Komugi
Kokoriko is an advanced Gungi technique developed by Komugi that centers around isolating the King (as in the Gungi piece, not the Chimera Ant), separating it from the other pieces and killing it off. Just like Netero and the Hunters were planning to do to Meruem. However, Komugi unexpectedly develops a counter to this technique in the middle of a game, meaning that the King piece (representing Meruem) no longer has to die (since he unexpectedly survived the nuke). Then, later on, when Komugi uses Kokoriko again, she actually develops a counter to the counter ("she reversed my reversal???"), representing that the King piece (Meruem) apparently actually does have to die after all (because of the Rose's poison).
However, immediately after beating Meruem using Kokoriko (symbolizing his imminent death), Komugi and Meruem start one final game together, a game that they never finish. 1-5-1 Black King -> 9-5-1 White Lieutenant General, I believe, or something to that extent. Immediately afterwards, they die together, leaving on the board Meruem's one black piece and Komugi's single white piece, together in Gungi forever.
This represents that the two were always united through Gungi, and will continue to be together even after death, undisturbed and united for all eternity. Meruem places his piece down, symbolizing his death, and then Komugi responds by placing her piece down next to his, showing that she is perfectly willing to die at his side..
The black screen/black panels in the manga show that the Rose's poison has made Meruem go blind. That's why he has to keep asking Komugi if she's still there, because he can't see her anymore. This is ironic because his name means "the light that illuminates/shines upon all". He even got some godlike light-related photon-based powers before his death, allowing him to fulfill his name. In addition, as they are playing in the bunker before their deaths, Meruem sees a blinding light radiating from Komugi as she "reverses his reversal", making her "the light that illuminates even the all-powerful light".
Despite being far weaker (and blind to boot), her light shined far brighter than his. Then, as he dies, Komugi holds him and feels his head, allowing her to finally "see" or know what his face is like. Thus, as they die, Meruem joins Komugi in blindness as she joins him in death. Meruem can finally see what Komugi has been seeing all along, and knows what it feels like to be blind like her, and Komugi finally knows his face, allowing each to understand the other more as they fade away (the OST used during their death scene is called "Understanding"). Touching, isn't it?
Togashi is a mastermind, and this entire story, especially this arc, is a masterpiece, a beautiful work of art, a canvas depicting love, hatred, innocence, corruption, happiness, suffering, loyalty, betrayal, anger, sadness, life, death, malevolence, destruction, resolve, determination, avarice, sacrifice, "true" power, truth, and understanding.
The only fictional death that I cried at was in this. (No, it's not a spoiler because it's established from the first chapter) https://mangadex.org/title/21863/kimi-no-suizou-wo-tabetai
At it wasn't so much her death itself as her journal. MC thought he had died, but the whole theme of the work is pointing towards that the line between life and death is random, and that you can die at any time, and so when she dies later of
a random assault instead of her cancer,
MC is robbed of the time he has left with her and so is too scared and too regretful to go to the funeral, and so she, knowing that he would most likely still have lingering regrets, wrote in her journal a farewell message to give to him.
But honestly, even though I cried at it, it's not the most impactful of deaths, and whilst it is well done and continues the themes of the work, it's not the one I would point to as one that I look back on often.
There are a few literary examples I can point to that reoccur to me. The opening of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried showed a random solider just get shot and it was so sudden and such a common occurrence that the troops weren't even phased by it. Another death is when in Albert Camus's the Stranger when Mersault
shots an arab for seemingly no reason,
and then he is sentenced to die for
essentially not crying at his mother's funeral.
But these, whilst I think back to them, aren't the one I think I can say definitively impacted the most. It actual comes from a novel called Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. In the novel, the main character-who is left nameless-eventually joins up with a group of radical Communists in the Harlem district of New York. Of this group, there's only one other black man with them besides the main character named Clifton, and after he and the main character, who is left nameless, fight an afro-supremacist named Ras the Destroyer, Clifton disappears for a good while, before the main character sees him in the street with a crowd around him as he puppets a Sambo doll. Eventually, the police
catch wind of the situation and quarrel breaks out, and the main character witnesses them shoot Clifton dead, despite him not doing anything illegal.
At first the main character thinks that this is due to some racial factor, some racial tension as his mentality through the story has pointed him towards. He even says as much at Clifton's funeral. But, as he witnesses the racism from blacks on whites and whites on blacks and the subsequent riots that proceed to breakout, he realizes that's not why the killed Clifton.
Clifton ultimately faced the same revelation that the main character would, that everyone was trying to sell them answers about what their place in the world was going to be, and that they were being robbed of their freedom and right to self-determination. (See-the symbolism in him making the Sambo puppet dance) And, because he realized the absurdist futility of it all and that all the narratives they were sold were utter lies and nonsense, he had liberated himself from the control of those around him. And, for that, the rest of the world could not let him live, for he was the most dangerous element amongst them.
I think the reason I think so much about his death is what it signifies in the story. Ellison is very good at making no one clearly good or bad and making the world seem to be in various shades of grey. Clifton was what the main character would eventually become, in that he would realize that no matter what worldview he held, it wouldn't give him the answers he was looking for, and so he would have to eventually break off and go his own way. That philosophy, I think, has stuck with me and resonated with me much more than any other fictional death, because it's a reoccurring reminder to me not to go for simple answers, and that it's better to be free and dead like Clifton than to be living a life that another man wants you to live. I can't say any other death has quite hit me like that one because they all lack that philosophical staying power that Clifton's did.
Sket dance was my first anime, and well, the past arc of all 3 MC’s was hard,...
But the series “children of the lamp” teenage based novel series, fantasy, magic, but really realistic.... I could connect to it so well, All that was happening in it, most of its circumstances, were nearly same to the ones I was facing myself, and those that I wasn’t, were even more amazing than reality.... I learned a lot from it, how to face the situations n all... I think it made me a bit more mature and considerate when the similar things repeated IRL, it’s like I’ve already faced them once.
Well, I guess I'm gonna show my age by going with Saishuu Heiki Kanojo.
I read it at the end of summer / early fall 2002 after putting my hand on a sub of the anime's first two episode. Finding it on Irc back then was a pain, but I had to read the manga, I was hooked. It hit too close to home at that time.
Anyway... That's the period that got me into manga and anime, as a coping mechanism, escapism, from the reality that I had just lost a close friend to cancer; the one that had introduced me to anime to begin with, ironically.
Saikano wasn't the best choice of media to watch or read when you're down from loss. It's cute but bleak, and pulls at your feelings from the get go, but I had to go through... I cried my heart out, my feelings matching the protagonist, heavy with loss. And boy do that guy loose a lot of his friends thourough this story...
Anyway, it helped me cope with my loss. To this day, I have not been able to read or watch this one to the end again. I have to put it down midway. Call it PTSD if you think it fits the definition...
