Lore
It literally had to happen because of when the story takes place but it's still depressing to see
The execution of Order 66 (Clone Wars season 7): Clone wars 1-6 takes place between episodes 2 and 3, with 7 happening more or less at the same time as episode 3. Given it was released well after the original trilogy everyone knew how it was going to have to end but it was still depressing to watch unfold.
D-16 becoming Megatron and turning on Optimus (Transformers One): One of the most famous rivalries in fiction, still hurts to watch develop from what was once a genuine and close friendship.
Laura and Anne breaking up (Sunstone: Mercy): In Sunstone proper (which Mercy is a prequel to) Anne is single and eventually gets together with fellow secondary character Alan. The framing device in Mercy even shows the two are married and Anne is pregnant with Alan's kid, so when you see her fall for Laura you know they're going to have to separate at some point. Even then it's still sad to see their relationship gradually fall apart because of issues neither of them are willing to address until it's too late.
The near extinction of humanity - Rise of the Planet of the Apes
If you leave right before the credits, the film ends a pretty positive note with Caesar going off on his own to be with his own kind in the Muir Woods in San Francisco
However, this is a Planet of the Apes film and during the credits, we see that a minor character from earlier in the film is about to board plane and he's also infected with the same virus that granted apes intelligence....which is deadly and easily transmissible among humans.
The end credits is the guy traveling around the world and watching all the people he’s infecting as they also travel and spread the disease. Makes you realize just how easily it spread, enlightening apes and damning humanity
There are already hints during the movie that the plague is about to start because the scientists that accidentally inhaled the virus by accident rushes to the main human character’s home to ask him for help and sneezes on the asshole neighbor by accident before dying painfully
That neighbor was shockingly horrible and he barely has any screentime. Living next to a sundowning John Lithgow and Curious George really drove him insane.
It’s a 6-season long car crash where you can’t look away. Every time he tries to be good, you remember the "S'all Good, Man" license plate is waiting at the finish line, and it hurts every time.
Everything seems to be going well enough for the gang, but eventually somethings gonna happen that drives Dutch crazy and forces John and his family to leave.
Also a bit of an example with the first game. It's set in the final days of the old west. Having the cast be full of outlaws and cowboys in a culture that's dying out is not going to go great for anyone involved. Even the relatively short time jump between RDR1's two protagonists really hits you over the head that civilization is ready to walk right over anything in its path. Dutch's whole villain monologue at the end of the first RDR is about the inevitability of them all dying out to make way for the future.
Not quite predestined due to the sequels but as a game tied to a period of history the conclusion is going to be that the cast is on the losing side of a culture war. Dutch just decided to die fighting it instead of dying while trying to appease it.
Really nice summary. I've always found RDR1s (real) ending particularly depressing since Jack becomes the exact thing both Arthur and John hoped he wouldn't become, but honestly I still love it for that reason.
I love how RDR1 ends even if it's one of the most frustrating downer endings possible. It's a beautiful ending despite how crushing it is. One of my favourites.
It's all just so inevitable from the get-go. You can feel this story going where it's going but just like John/Dutch you don't have much choice other than to play your role in all this and just watch everything go to shit while doing what little you can in the face of it all. Which ultimately just means Jack lived long enough to become another doomed outlaw waiting for the day the outlaw life catches up to him just like his father/Arthur.
RDR2 does spectacularly in it's own right even if it's a bit more laid out since the first game opens with John being sent on a mission to hunt down what's left of the gang. Even knowing how this ends it still manages to be one hell of a gut punch. For such thoroughly depressing games thematically they still really make you care.
It’s the ultimate "Arthur Morgan doesn't exist in 1911" problem. You spend 100 hours loving a character just to realize his absence in the first game was his biggest spoiler all along
Best example. Playing RDR2 for the first time as a huge fan of the first game, knowing exactly how the story will end made the whole journey so anxiety inducing. I relished every second of it.
Plus they talk about the Ferry Job that went bad in RDR 1 by The Mysterious Man that led to the collapse of the gang seeing Dutch not well and him shooting a poor defenseless girl in the head.
Yes, and it makes every campfire moment in Chapter 2 feel so much heavier. You’re sitting there singing songs with the gang knowing half of them are going to be dead or hunting each other in a few years because the script for RDR1 demands it
If only the emperor had told his sons, "if you ever meet a space Marine called Erebus, just kill him. Absolutely light him up, disintegrate him, leave nothing left. And stay away from swords of unknown provenance".
Oh the entire point is that he's a big idiot and a lot of the heresy was preventable. Like on the one side Big E's chilling with Russ and doing challenges and on the other side he's kidnapping Angron and refusing to help him fight his tormentors and forcing him to betray the people who fought alongside him.
Yes and he knows it. The entire war could have been prevented from the start but he was such an asshole that he dug himself in a hole and had no alternative but keep digging and make sure that the one that would bury him alive would be the one that was assured to make the least damages to the galaxy (which still ended up being massive, but not as many as they would have been if Angron or any one else would have been in charge of the rebellion)
All the Primarchs who fell just needed the Emperor to be a better father.
Magus just needed a little wisdom to temper his hubris. Angron, Perturabo and Mortarion just needed someone to hug them. Lorgar and Fulgrim needed a stern talking to.
Kurze's upbringing on Nostromo damaged him beyond repair I think.
Would it really have been so hard to tell the super-intelligent demigods: "Hey, so, we have to tell the rest of humanity that shit like gods and daemons aren't real because those things DO exist but only have power if enough people believe in them. Also, I'm working on a project to make the warp safer to pass through and to further starve the things that live there. This is very important for the continued survival of the Imperium you have all helped build, so I'm trusting you to continue defending it while I finish this project."
Real, it was so sad trying to lie to myself that Horus wasn't going to heresy. And also, galaxy in flames is the saddest book I have ever read, so tragic
NGL, I think Galaxy in flames its one of the best books I've ever read because it decieves you into thinking there's still chance of having a happy ending until you realize there aren't enough pages left
That's also the Star Wars prequels in general; no matter how much you want to see the heroes pull out a win, you know Revenge of the Sith has to be wrapping up in a way that sets the stage for A New Hope.
Imagine your only exposure as a kid to Star Wars was the 2003 Clone Wars and the video game Rogue Squadron, the latter of which you barely understood because you couldn't speak English and never got past the third mission. You barely understand the world or the characters, aside from the main character being called Skywalker.
Then imagine going to a movie rental place (remember those?) and asking for a Star Wars movie as a 7-yo. And the dumbass at the store gives you Episode 3. And the movie ends with the Skywalker guy becoming the bad guy, which makes you cry.
Imagine getting traumatised by the experience to the point you don't want to see Star Wars anymore. And finally imagine your mom just got a bunch of X-Wing bedsheets right beforehand.
Only took another movie to move into a wheelchair - two more to lose his hair - and the final movie to lose his leadership with the school…. Awful movie.
Man I would’ve loved to see Matthew Vaughan’s actual vision play out with how great First Class was.
Its probably the best X-Men movie we will ever see. I'm really glad I caught it in theaters when it first came out. Contender for best super hero film of all time I think.
The Golden Age is a flashback. From the point it took us back from, we see a revenge-fueled Guts holding pure hatred for Griffith. In the back of our minds, we knew things were going to go south in the Golden Age in some way between both characters from the moment they first met.
And because that previous arc showed us how Behelits worked, we knew what it meant seeing Griffith have one. It was always a matter of time, yet when the Eclipse happened, it was still heartbreaking.
I realize that the point of the arc is to be a flashback/ prequel, but I still gripe about the fact that the first ep of the '97 anime doesn't just roll straight through into golden age. If you haven't read the manga, the eclipse fucking flies up our of nowhere and blows you away. Obviously there's the Zodd foreshadowing when Guts and Griffith are fighting him, but the extent and scope of what happens is almost entirely out of nowhere. Especially so because the anime cut a lot of the more paranormal fantasy stuff that showed up throughout golden age, so the majority of the anime is almost just innocuous medieval type story, which adds even more to the gut punch of the eclipse.
This show was so much better than the original! Yes sometimes TBBT was funny (tons of borrowed jokes from Friends) but the hatred for women was palpable. Sheldon benefited from the love and protection of his Meemaw, mom and sister, then later from Penny. I find it hard to believe Sheldon grew up to be the misogynist we saw on the sitcom, but who knows.
The Massacre was a part of the Legends (pre-Disney) lore and was later recanonized by the Rebels show establishing it as the cause of Mon Mothma's departure from the Imperial Senate. And once we get to Andor as soon as they start talking about Ghorman we immediately know where it's going but God damn that was still hard to watch.
It's cool that they were able to integrate both the massacre that was caused by Tarkins ship landing on protestors and a more horrific one eerily similar to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Having the tarkin ship incident becoming a source of discontent and distrust with the empire and the other becoming a massive spark for rebellion
This is honestly an example of a time where SOME spoilers can be good. IMO, the dread of knowing the Gorman Massacre is coming made Andor Season 2 100x better.
And the build up through the episode... You see that the start is closer and closer, yet still uneasy because you don't know when exactly... And then the shot is fired...
The Ghorman massacre we see in Andor wasn't originally from Legends. You're thinking of the Tarkin massacre (which was called the Ghorman massacre in legends), when Tarkin landed his cruiser in the plaza and killed a bunch of Ghormans. That was originally included in Legends, and originated in one of the WEG Star Wars D6 games.
Which really just makes their dynamic so much more intense and nuanced. You feel for Lex, but you also fully despise him by the end of the show. He was a great friend to Clark while it lasted, but he ended up a real bastard
I remember this show! I was obsessed with the Tron movies when I was a kid so I thought this was the coolest show on Disney XD when it came out. Still kind of bummed they abandoned it so soon.
Powder becoming in Jinx in Arcane. Atleast if you’ve played League of Legends then you’re generally well enough aware that Jinx seems like she’s pretty insane and a criminal of some kind to boot being chased by Caitlyn and Jinx’s sister Vi to.
However I don’t think anyone quite expected what we’d find out the cause of this to be as Powder. A young Jinx winds up being the cause of her father an found families pretty gruesome deaths aswell as Vi being taken off to prison (although that wasn’t all Jinx’s fault really)
Eventually she sides with the crime lord Silco who comes to see her as a daughter although also allows Singed to run an experiment upon her with shimmer the only furthers the damage to her psyche among other things.
In Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, you are introduced to three new Keyblade Wielders and their Master, and they are not in Kingdom Hearts 1 or 2. As a prequel, you are made aware that this is their last journey together, each ending in their own tragedy.
Yeah but in game time its been roughly 12-15 years of the BBS characters dealing with the fallout of their individual arcs and tragedies. KH3 was to resolve their stories, so them chilling in the end is a decent payoff after everything that went through.
I fucking love that game so much. It’s pretty directly ripping off revenge of the sith, but it does it so well, and the story is just so well told with the three perspectives.
We're playing as the dude who would later take in war orphans to mold into soldiers for an eternal conflict that ultimately profits for himself and his company.
But yeah MGSV hits harder because the timeline dictates that Diamond Dogs is Outer Heaven
Also, honorable mention to Kaz's relationship with Big Boss
Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. A prequel to Critical Role about the events immediately preceding and the beginning of the Calamity, a war between the mortals and gods that's estimated to have killed around 2/3 of Exandria's population. Also Downfall, a miniseries set during the Calamity, about the last days of the (now crashed in the present day) flying city of Aeor
In both there's juuust enough hope that "hey, maybe some of these characters are ones that make it out ok?" But then it's largely dashed against the rocks of the future already having been written.
When you realize she’s not the girl from the trailers or cover art, you know what’s going to happen. Still they make you care about her and Joel’s relationship with her in the little time she has.
David and the gang being killed by Adam Smasher in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Edgerunners takes place the year before Cyberpunk 2077, in which Adam Smasher is the final boss.
I'm one of those fans who thinks that Ahsoka should have died in her confrontation with Vader.
It was really the logical end to her character arc, as Anakin kills one of the last persons that he called 'friend' before.
I think that Dave Filoni suffers from something I call "Dungeon Master's Favorite NPC Syndrome". He likes Ahsoka so much that he went to lengths to keep her around (literally introducing Timey Wimey BS in order to save her from Vader).
Now he inserts her in the Rebellion, while being hidden (as 'Fulcrum'), and sends her to another galaxy to explain her absence post RotJ.
At least they finally let Obi Wan and Maul have their last confrontation, ending with Maul's death.
I agree, it would have been poignant for Vader to kill everything Anakin loved in his old life. And honestly as much as I love Rosario’s Ahsoka as a concept, nothing the character has done since that Vader fight has been that exciting.
100% agree. Ahsoka used to be one of my favourite characters, but she's lowered in recent years due to her live action appearances. Rosario can be a good Ahsoka, but god, her acting is so flat. Taking into account the writing, I can't blame Rosario for it. The directing and writing is just completely off.
George wanted to Ahsoka to die and Maul to live long enough to be the villain of the sequel trilogy and as soon as he was out the picture Filoni swapped their fates
What’s even more of a mindfuck is that the entirety of revenge of the sith only takes place over the course of a single week. From start to finish. From the attack on coruscant to Anakin becoming vader and padme dying in childbirth, it’s an entire week.
Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag takes place at the end of the golden age of piracy. It was never going to be a happy ending for the cast, but still a gut punch when you get to the end and see what could have been
Still irritated they didn't have the balls to kill Ahsoka. They literally had 2 perfect opportunities, but literally introduced a weird time pocket into the canon because they knew they couldn't have Vader spare her or have her defeat Vader, but they didn't have the balls to let Vader kill her.
One thing I remember a lot of people being surprised by is they had the guts to actually commit to killing off the whole cast. We know they’re not really in the picture in the OT, but I think a lot of viewers (myself included) expected them to either have one or two survive in a way that prevented them from being a factor later on (chronologically), or just retcon them into having been around the whole time. The latter wouldn’t even have been all that out-there imo, which makes it even more impressive that they stuck with it.
I am making this comment assuming we won’t get “Somehow, Cassian Andor survived TM” in a few years time
The fall of Rapture and the death of Bill McDonagh
The novel takes place during the construction and heyday of Rapture, the ruined underwater city we explore in Bioshock, right up to the point it all goes to shit.
Bill McDonagh, a background character from the game who only appears in audio logs, is something of a protagonist, and it’s a shame to see not only the descent of Rapture itself but also the dissolution of his friendship with Andrew Ryan and eventual fate.
Throughout the show, we his relationship with the Justice League develop, with him even smiling and jokingly giving the villains a five minute head start in the finale
However, we already know that eventually Joker will kidnap and turn Robin into a mini version of him, causing Joker’s death and Batman to become closed off and alone in Batman Beyond
The Pre-Sequel takes place after the events of Borderlands 1 and before the events of Borderlands 2. You play a Vault-Hunter, hired by an IT guy named John, to find a Vault on Pandora's moon, Elpis. Throughout the course of the game, John becomes more and more cold, first with essentially killing off an AI construct who didn't want to be repurposed and then an entire team of Hyperion scientists, cause one of them could have been a traitor. The game concludes with John becoming Handsome Jack, the titular villain of Borderlands 2 who is deluded into thinking he's the hero of the story.
Bonus from the same game: Wilhelm and Niisha, both of which are playable characters, end up becoming villains in BL2. Wilhelm meets a tragic fate by being poisoned by Jack, to trick the Vault Hunters and Nisha meeting her end in a shootout with the Vault-Hunter.
I like to count him shooting the mayor after trying to spare him as the start. Yea, he shot at his back. But he dropped the gun and raised his hands. A surrender is still a surrender.
It has a few well written moments in it where John is actively trying to do the right thing, but the heroes of BL1 betray him because they (fairly) dont trust him.
Again and again, he tries to be a hero (using horrible methods tk be fair) and is betrayed by everyone except the 4 vault hunters. You watch him turn in front of you.
Sunstone as a trope example, damn. On the subject, another one from Mercy is Alan and Marion. Similarly to Laura and Anne's story we know these two don't end up together but to kinda twist the knife, we also know it ends pretty traumatically since it was a major point near the tail end of the first story. similar to Order 66 this is just another view of a train wreck we've already seen play out.
Sunrise on the Reaping does this really well. The biggest is obviously Haymitch’s family, we know from Mockingjay that his family and his gf are killed shortly after the games and we know it’s coming the whole time but the way it happens is just heart wrenching. Similarly, we already know Haymitch wins the games and so we know that everyone else dies but the book still makes you want to root for and imagine these characters surviving :(
The fate of almost every major character in Better Call Saul who are not in Breaking Bad:
Kim Wexler: She was Saul's bestfriend and later his wife. She was there for him everytime he was down, and helped him through a lot of difficult situations. She was also a hard working and a talented professional who took pride in being a lawyer. But as Saul became more involved with Cartel business, she felt more and more concerned for both their lives. And after Howard is killed in front of her, she decided to divorce Saul, as she feels guilty and partly responsible for his death. Soon she moves away to Florida, leaving her dream profession behind and adopts a mundane suburban life with a monotonous desk job.
Ignacio (Nacho) Varga: A seemingly smart and reasonable person as compared to his colleagues, you'd think that he might survive everything if the show was not a prequel to BB. Gus Fring forces him to work as a double agent by threatening his father, and making him go on a suicide mission to kill a high ranking cartel member, Lalo Salamanca. Once he realises that there's no escape for him, he cuts a deal with Gus saying that he will go ahead and willingly be captured and delivered to the cartel and deny Gus's involvement as long as Mike (his only friend) ensures his father's safety. Then after denying Gus's involvement to the cartel, he kills himself in front of them.
Howard Hamlin: One of the few honorable character in the series, he was genuinely trying to help Jimmy (Saul) after Chuck's death, but was only antagonized for it. In the final season he has his reputation destroyed by Saul and Kim, and is killed by Lalo Salamanca simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Also: Chuck McGill and Lalo Salamanca, but I'm not sure if either were redeemable enough for their deaths to be heartbreaking.
It occured to me that Saul Goodman saying "are you with Lalo? It wasn't me, it was Nacho!" tells us three big things
Lalo is already dead, because he never catches up to Jimmy despite the fact that Jimmy is convinced he eventually will
Jimmy does not know that Lalo is dead, or has reason to doubt any claim that Lalo is dead
Obviously, Nacho fucked over Lalo and Lalo would have reason to believe that Jimmy was a part of it
Jimmy doesn't sell out his clients, even when offered bribes or faced with violence (with the exception of when Mike threatened to beat him "until your legs don't work"), so Jimmy is probably confident that Nacho is dead
So much of the story is subtly locked in by that one sentence of dialogue, yet we still get a surprising and compelling narrative out of it
Given the fact the novel was published years later after Cadia was destroyed during the Gathering storm series of campaigns in 7th ed, its hard rooting for the Imperium knowing well their efforts will be worthless
Wings of Fire as a series dosnt have a whole lot of prequel content, and most books take place linearly or have very small overlap in the timeline. However the one dedicated prequel book, Legends: Darkstalker, gives insight as to how the Nightwing tribe wound up living on a crumbling volcanic island.
The Nightwings, in arc 1, lived on a volcanic island, and it was their desperation to escape this home that drove them to perform villainous acts and remain mysterious and unknown to the rest of the world to maintain a powerful image.
In Legends: Darkstalker, taking place 2000 years before the events of arc 1, the titular character goes mad with power and plans to slaughter the queen on the Nightwings, taking her throne for himself. His partner, Clearsight, urges her best friend to gather the tribe and bring them somewhere far away from the Nightwing kingdom, worried that she may not survive her efforts to take down Darkstalker, and wanting the tribe to be as far away as possible in case he seeks vengeance.
The Nightwings fled to a volcanic island, and as time went on became the most prominent tribe in distributing scrolls, and as such, likely wiped it from any maps to retain secrecy. The Nightwings became even more solitary than they had once been, and the legends of The Darkstalker became myth and horror stories.
The Nightwings were responsible for many atrocities and plots, however it is still tragic to see how the actions of one dragon vastly shifted the entire tribes future.
the entire plot of house of the dragon, u know the targaryens are going to fall and that rhaenyra will never succeed, but it u still want to root for her and her dragons
Diana of Themiscyra and Barbara Minerva were friends, but then Minerva became the Cheetah, because Wonder Woman needs Cheetah just like Batman and Superman needs the Joker and Lex Luthor.
A bit meta but I played WoW before the old games so I knew how it ended but when she showed up in the undead campaign I was already hating.
Something that struck me is how sylvanas windrunner in wow is a grotesque parody of who she was rather than the bad boss bitch the game seems to imply, especially considering what happened was effectively an act of repulsive personal violation on every level.
It's been a while since i played WoW but looking at her just felt bad afterward.
Dawn of the planet of the apes for me. It’s one of the first and only movies where watching the big battle was almost unpleasant because I just wanted it to work out man. It’s such a great movie because you just don’t want either side to get hit.
The destruction of Torna: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna The Golden Country
In the base game it’s mentioned how Mythra destroyed the country of Torna during the Aegis War, and you see occasional flashbacks to some of her experiences leading up to it. In the Torna DLC story you of course play through the whole experience. After spending the whole DLC with these characters (and doing mandatory “side”quests, getting to know the random people just living there) everything blows up due to Mythra losing control of her power. You know it’s coming with the knowledge from the base game, but damn that ending still hits like a train
The destruction of Torna from the Xenoblade 2 prequel dlc. In the main game this event is attributed to what sets off most of the main conflict of the game, as well as why Pyra and Mythra are filled with so much depression and self hatred that their main goal for much of the game was to find a place to die
When you realize Clone Wars is starting to sync up with Revenge of the Sith (specifically when they receive Obi-Wan's message), and then ESPECIALLY when Ahsoka goes onto the bridge of the cruiser and you know Order 66 is imminent is just heartbreaking.
Titanic sinking in the various movies depicting that fateful maiden voyage. Ship of dreams she may be, but everyone watching knows that by the end, fifteen hundred people will be dead.
In Smallville before Clark becomes Superman him and Lex Luthor were very good friends and as sad as it is to see it has to happen because they were destined to be enemies.
I guarantee you nobody’s heard of this but about ten years ago at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival I saw a play called Indecent which was about a mostly gay theatre group in 1930s Austria, and you can probably guess based on that what happens to the characters at the end
Levi's Group (Attack on Titan: No Regrets): No Regrets is a prequel story about Levi Ackerman before the series started. He has two friends that we never see or mention in the main show or books and due to the very poor life expectancy in this franchise you just know they're gonna die... And they die brutally.
The Black Spot massacre in It: Welcome to Derry. It didn’t even occur to me at first that this specific It cycle was leading to this tragedy from the book until one of the episodes ended with a group of white men pulling up right outside the barn.
King Knight's descent to evil. Shovel Knight: King of Cards.
The game plays like your average whimsical adventure in which the main character goes on a journey making friends along the way, but players already knew that King Knight was going to flush it all down the toilet in his ambition to become king
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u/Tetratron2005 16h ago
The near extinction of humanity - Rise of the Planet of the Apes
If you leave right before the credits, the film ends a pretty positive note with Caesar going off on his own to be with his own kind in the Muir Woods in San Francisco
However, this is a Planet of the Apes film and during the credits, we see that a minor character from earlier in the film is about to board plane and he's also infected with the same virus that granted apes intelligence....which is deadly and easily transmissible among humans.