Spoilers for Torchwood, so don’t read if you haven’t finished it.
So, this maybe will read more like a review, or a miniature essay, but it is a reused trope that I have noticed for years, across the Whoniverse, in TV, books, audio dramas. Often by different writers as well, yet they all leave me feeling the same, so I’d like to make this post, leave it up as a discussion I suppose.
I bring it up after watching Moffat’s and Gatiss’ Dracula miniseries, as the first episode is a great demonstration of this trope, as well as some moments throughout the rest of the series. Regardless, I first noticed it when I was younger after watching Children of Earth, where Ianto’s death bothered me for reasons I couldn’t really describe.
I wasn’t in the camp that he shouldn’t have died, nor do I dislike the plot-point. But it is, I suppose, its legacy, the copycats in the Whoniverse it created, and the weird after-taste in the stories following it that I do dislike. Intensely.
I did a bit of research into it, and I wouldn’t say its so easily defined as the Bury Your Gays trope, though it works similarly, as a kind of offshoot trope, I guess. Idk if its sacrificial lamb trope either, but its the best way I can simplify it for now.
You take a young male character, whose character is sensitive, less masculine than those around him, where the writing or character design implicitly focuses on their fragility, or overall vulnerabilities that other male characters lack.
At some later point, this young male character is killed off, thus becoming the sacrificial lamb, but often, they are not given a normal, dignified death. With some, they are consumed, or are given particularly violent deaths.
I am a woman, so obviously I notice this happening a lot with the female characters too, but the distinction really lies in the aftermath and comments about the death. With the male characters, there is often strange remarks, insults, and a weirdly gross fetishization/dehumanization, usually where the killer delights in the murder, in a way they don’t do as much with mirroring/parallel female characters. As, when a female character is killed off, it is treated much more like standard horror; it doesn’t linger in a way that makes me want to claw my eyes out. They could definitely still be intertwined, but I notice it far less with female characters. Likely due to how where women are depicted as weak throughout misogynist media so therefore the treatment becomes normalized/standard, a male character’s weakness may be over-emphasized to compensate for the fact they are a male character.
In the Torchwood EU, where, mainly the books, and a few audios come to my mind, there are moments in the books which surrounds season 4, which also focus on this odd trope. I don’t want to really mention which ones, as I’ve felt deeply uncomfortable whilst reading them tbh, in a way I do not think was the writer’s intention. And I don’t want to turn this into a bibliography.
Although I do consider myself a writer, and am perfectly fine with character deaths, this trope deeply makes me feel a sense of nausea when I identify it. Obviously, with vampire media, it’s more common, but when you see all the reviews of Dracula suggesting it is written as if it is a Doctor Who episode, it becomes hard to decouple the vibe from wherever I spot it in the Whoniverse as well.
Plus, I understand a writer needs to demonstrate a villain through characters they kill, but with this trope, it extends into the conversations between characters who knew the victim, friends, family, protagonists, etc, where this lack of dignity is perpetuated. Again, often focusing on the fact the male characters were dissimilar from the stereotypical portrayal of a man. Included with this can include a dark fascination, or a patronizing pity about the death too. Where, like most horror, death is treated as a boundary that is or is not mourned, here it is instead something that is sadistically, focused on, brought up too much, and more likely to not be mourned at all. It’s like whilst the script suggests that the reader should feel sad or upset by what has happened, the script is simultaneously gleeful that it did happen. No slight to any writers, this is just a simile for what it feels like to me. That doesn’t mean to say I hate a script either, as ironically that first Dracula episode was my favourite of the three despite this trope being so blatant within it.
Anchoring back to Ianto’s character, as being one of the most clear ones (the most-fleshed out character I can think of who I believe falls into this), he is frequently described as “rabbit”, “lamb” in stories taking place after season 2. Even not taking in the fact I relate this to the sacrificial lamb trope, the language here less so focuses on purity or innocence, I feel, and more on a predatory outlook. (Probably most clear in one audio drama where Ianto hallucinates, and becomes a rabbit caught in a trap, which is then used for meat. Though here, it is not directly relevant to his overall character arc, just the tonal ways the descriptors are used).
Then, after season 3, multiple books explore the themes of Ianto’s death with new characters, but it’s here where I find the trope becomes unbearable. I do not know if this was as common in Classic Who, as I’m only onto Pertwee’s Doctor. But I can imagine Adric’s death leading to copycat storylines with completely new characters, and the strange post-death descriptions and insights they make of the dead character happening all the same as it does in Nuwho.
Apologies if this makes little sense, its just something that has bothered me a lot in fiction, and Doctor Who, despite my love for it, is a franchise where I have seen it happen the most. I do wonder if this is more of a problem with British media, British writers, or if it is more so just British writers taking ‘inspiration’ and accidentally repackaging the trope in other works. Then again, this is all speculation, as it very much feels like less of a trope, and more like an uneasy vibe or feeling I get whenever it occurs in media. I’m also not going to get too far into other descriptions for this narrative habit trope thing, mainly because of the audience here lol. If anything needs changing/editing, or if the post isn’t allowed, I understand that too.
My degree isn’t in English, so I apologize that for a lot of the terms here, I may not know fully.
tldr: I wish i had a literary/trope categorization definition for a feeling I get when certain characters die.