Dead Gays Dying

[erastes]

Whilst I don't like the automatic "I already know the ending before I start out" habit that is the HEA (as hypocritical as that sounds, seeing as how I write romance) I also baulk at the Dead Gay Syndrome which flowers here and there.

Here's a great list "Bring out your Gay Dead" which lists a hell of a lot of them, modern and otherwise from many different media. It has kindly used white text to avoid too many spoilers, so you have to highlight the text to read them.

I could add to this list pretty easily:

The protagonist in A Single Man - once he decides he's going to move on and find love again, he dies of a heart attack.
Richard and Alec in Swordspoint. Although it's pretty clear that they lived and loved to a ripe old age - Kushner has to kill them both off in the short story Death of the Duke.
Trueblood the TV Series: one dead gay vampire (although I guess all vampires are dead), one dead gay cook (although that's not established completely as yet and I'm hoping not) one dead gay boys toy killed by vampires for being treacherous.
Brideshead Revisited - Sebastian is destroyed, if not actually killed off.
Death in Venice. No spoilers there, at least.
Sirius Black.  Yeah yeah.. I know... Leave me some fanfic illusions will you?

I could go on...  How about you? Any more to add?

Other links
http://eddieonfilm.blogspot.com/2006/11/oscars-rules-for-gay-characters.html
http://www.afterelton.com/archive/elton/movies/2006/10/horror2.html

Ps Don't forget The Advent Calendar. There's a competition today!

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I don't know why Alec and Richard touch me so very deeply, but they do. They are so real to me and I weep buckets just thinking about them. I don't know if you read The Death of the Duke but I read it for the first time yesterday (or rather, I may have read it before, but it didn't make as much sense until after I'd read TPOTS) and I was incoherent for about 20 minutes afterwards.

the beautiful manservant to an aging Duke (never named) says disbelievingly (when told that the Duke's swordsman killed by blow to the heart ) something like "To the heart? No one bares their heart to the sword."

And the dying Duke pulls him close and whispers, "No. Not no-one."

WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i'm crying again just thinking about it.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I DO NOT RE-READ THAT ONE BECAUSE IT MAKES ME CRY. And of course I read it. Before Swordspoint was re-released with the short stories in it at the back, I tracked down the various anthologies that had the Riverside short stories in them, so I could read them.

And oh yes, Alec and Richard are so very, very real. And stubborn and stiff-necked and infuriating and WAAAAAAH. Because they love each other SO much. And Alec so needy, and Richard so guarded, and the two of them together so perfect.

why, yes, their dynamic had something to do with Severus and Evan. How not?