10 TV Characters Who Went Through Hell To Win (And Died Anyway)

You hate to see it. A character we've grown to love fights through no end of torture, losing friends, minds, and sometimes even limbs to finally claim bitter victory, only to end up offed, often off-screen, to no fanfare an episode later. And we really mean it when we say you hate to see it. To the extent that a lot of viewers never make it to the end of acclaimed shows such as Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad because of sheer frustration with the constant stream of near-misses and brutal deaths which rain down on the ostensible heroes. These are the characters whose stories we followed desperate for a little light at the end of the tunnel, only to find that after their eventual success, their only thanks was an ignoble death thrown in for sheer shock value. So, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with TV characters who went through hell to win and died anyway. Mike in Breaking Bad. Okay, so including Breaking Bad on this list is a move so obvious it feels like cheating. The show made a twisted point of ensuring viewers were invested in characters both heroic and villainous, only to off them in underwhelming circumstances every other week. As if attempting to prove that subversions can be as frustrating as they are sometimes fun. However, no character got it in the neck figuratively or literally as badly as Mike in Breaking Bad. After three seasons of fraught collaboration with Jesse and Walt, it seemed as if Mike would finally be able to sell his shares in the pair's meth production operation, give the proceeds to his granddaughter, and escape the whole mess unscathed. Until Walt intercepted said cash and pulled a gun on Mike, threatening to off him unless he named his in-prison associates so Walt could tie up loose ends. Of course, this being Breaking Bad, it was only after firing that Walt remembered he could have just quizzed their mutual acquaintance, leaving Mike to plead that the murderous sad sack leave him to die in peace. Filming TV is cool, but you know what else is cool? Protecting your privacy online. Scan the QR code or click the link in the description and get up to 76% off a two-year NordVPN plan, plus three months free if you sign up today. I'd make that deal. Damn good deal. Rickon in Game of Thrones. Ah, Rickon. Everyone's least favourite Stark may be the best example in the entire Game of Thrones universe of a truly pointless death, and for a show as long-running and unforgiving as the HBO mega-hit, that's quite an achievement. At various points in the show's first six seasons, Rickon graduated from oblivious kid to inept but caring protector of his older brother Bran, and then he spends an entire two seasons attempting to reach the Umbers, a house who are theoretically loyal to his late father. He lays low for a while, remaining unseen for quite some time, before reappearing in the penultimate episode of Season 6. It appears the long journey to the Umbers was all for naught, as it merely drove Rickon into the hands of Ramsay Bolton, the show's worst psycho. Ramsay drags the youngest Stark out onto the battlefield for an explosive start to the long-awaited Battle of the Bastards, and sends an arrow straight through the poor blighter a few seconds before he would have reached his older half-brother Jon Snow. Unlike Jon, his kid brother doesn't warrant a resurrection, and so his long journey ends with a PSA teaching all of us the importance of zigzagging when avoiding projectiles. Bill in True Blood True Blood was the R-rated HBO response to mega-franchise Twilight, which reveled in both explicit sex and gruesome gore, but at its core was a romantic love story as sweet as anything from the tweenage phenomenon. When the series debuted in 2008, we were introduced to smooth talking, good-hearted vampire Bill Compton, and also his love interest, the telepathic fairy, Miss Stackhouse. With an intense chemistry between its leads, surely the show would end with the pair together despite the endless obstacles, human, vampire, demon, fairy, and otherwise, which came between them, right? Sure. Or Bill could end up becoming the Vampire King, his greatest ambition, and still eventually become infected by an awkward AIDS metaphor prompting his eventual suicide. Yeah, this was a weird show. Karl in The Walking Dead Famously optimistic and cheery, The Walking Dead is not. But the critically beloved first season did manage to tread carefully and maintain the balance between thrills and the grim, realistic, nihilistic streak of the source material. Later seasons? Less so, if the declining viewership and rapidly increasing gore quotient are anything to go by. Come Season 2, and the show became an increasingly sluggish affair, bleaker with each passing season, and seemingly committed to offing anyone remotely likeable. The low point for many viewers was the ultra-violent death of Glenn in the opening episode of Season 7 at the hands of Negan, a shocking spectacle which pushed the boundaries of television violence as well as the patience of viewers. But the character who made this list is young Karl, the son of and sole source of moral redemption for protagonist Rick Grimes. After moving over the years from a cute but burdensome kid to a remorseless survivalist, to a likable and relatively well-adjusted young hero, Karl is killed off via walker bite and subsequent suicide in the eighth season of the show, proving that the show's central thesis is that there's really no point in trying, is there? Cooper in Black Mirror We're getting into the anthology episodes now, because while these may be one-off stories, the characters they feature have gone through enough misery for multiple lifetimes. The poor denizens of the Twilight Zone, and in particular the Outer Limits, are infamous for suffering ironic fates that are often far worse than whatever misdemeanor prompted the misadventure that led to them, and many were doomed to cruel hell just for the sheer fun of it. The contemporary sci-fi satire Black Mirror, penned by Charlie Brooker, may be sharper in its condemnation of society and culture than The Outer Limits, but it sure didn't blunt the edge of the show's mean sense of humor. Just look at Playtest, wherein a happy-go-lucky slacker gets more than he bargained for when he agrees to test out an experimental virtual reality game for a shadowy, uber-rich developer. What follows is a nightmarish odyssey which delves deep into his subconscious as his worst memories and fears come to life in the form of disformed spider monsters, a creaky haunted house, and a murderous version of a former lover. The episode culminates in his scraped-by survival, and ends with him reunited with his ailing mother. Psyche, he actually died before the test even began. Forgot to turn his phone off, didn't he? If you look closely, there's a very subtle anti-tech subtext there. Marty in Tales From The Crypt. Another entry, and another appearance, from the venerable institution of endless character suffering, the Anthology series. There really is no end to the torture writers can put the one-off stars of anthology episodes through, as the audience know they won't be appearing again, and therefore can be offed as messily as the creators feel like without sacrificing narrative momentum. To this end, an episode of Tales From The Crypt sees a pair of brothers, both surgeons, playing a long-running set of pranks on one another which get more than a little out of hand, to say the least. First off, there's the dumb med school prank which gives one brother, Carl, a heart attack, a reaction which you would think might discourage this family from further shenanigans. But alas, shenanigans continue unabated, and Carl retaliates years later by drugging his brother, Marty, and pretending to perform an entire autopsy on him whilst he's alive and awake, but paralysed. It's a pretty savage prank by any metric, and no doubt Marty would have had some years of therapy ahead of him to undo the autopsy room four style ordeal he's been put through. Or at least he would have if he didn't promptly have a heart attack, leading his brother to declare him dead and go through with the real autopsy, while poor Carl is still conscious and unable to move. Peter in Hemlock Grove Poor Peter. Just like True Blood before it, Hemlock Grove made a point from its opening episodes to distinguish itself from the then-dwindling-but-once-massive Twilight franchise by showcasing an impressive amount of sex and gory, gory violence. This element was rarely better embodied than in Peter's pointless sacrifice, which made for impressive makeup effects and little else in storytelling terms. See, series protagonist Peter realises before his climactic face-off with vargolf Christina that he's going to have to do more than fight. As the man himself puts it, the price of this turn will be his human face. And it's a price he pays, with the vargolf version of his murderous nemesis eating his face after he was kind enough to coat it in bacon grease to coax her. Yes, really, that is something that happens in this show. And after having his face torn off, the heroic sacrifice pays off, right? Well, kind of. Inasmuch as Christina is eventually defeated and Peter does revert to human form, face thankfully intact, but the manoeuvre still costs him his life and it isn't actually enough to stop Christina. Instead, she's offed by Shelley, who in turn is shot by the sheriff, rendering Peter's not inconsiderable contribution of having his face mauled off pretty much irrelevant. Lieutenant Blake in MASH This may be the most famous or infamous moment on this list, depending on your perspective, and it's one that still holds a place in the annals of television history. Where many of the entries on here fell victim to melodramatic plot machinations which aimed for tragedy but fell flat upon execution, and others aimed for dark comedy in their pointless demises, MASH had another, more poignant reason to kill off a character despite their heroic efforts. For all of its warmth, this show is ultimately an anti-war text, and one committed to highlighting the pointless brutality and inhumanity of conflict. It's a metaphor rendered more pointed by the fact that the show aired as the Vietnam War drew to a close, and this makes this death all the more understandable, if no less devastating. After years of service, Lieutenant Blake is finally granted an honorable discharge, prompting him to say his goodbyes to Hawkeye, Radar, and the rest of the camp as he excitedly calls his wife and family at home. So, Blake heads off, free at last, until the episode's iconic closing line reveals that he died when his plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. Misty Day in American Horror Story American Horror Story could quite easily have filled this list alone, given the fact that the horror anthology show has made a habit of offing every character, major and minor, fan-favorite and most hated, before each season's closing credits roll. It's difficult to pick the most egregious case, but the one which drew the most ire from the internet will suffice. Misty Day was a deeply likable character who was utterly tortured for no discernible reason, and the ignominious end of her character arc is inexcusable, particularly in a show where characters played by Emma Roberts frequently go on to survive. First off, Misty was burned alive for the crime of being a witch. Luckily, she was, as accused, a witch and as such survived to tell the tale, but she's nonetheless isolated from the world, only to be buried alive and die of starvation when integrated into the titular coven. But she's resurrected, and ends up in her own personal hell, dissecting a frog on an eternal loop because she can't pass some wizarding test or something. I dunno, it got a bit weird. Candace in You If ever there were a lesson in not relying on the power of sisterhood, Candace's brutal fate in You's second season has to qualify. The presumed dead ex-girlfriend of the show's psychotic protagonist, Candace is revealed to have been buried alive after a few cryptic references to her moving to Italy once she cheated on former gossip girl and current Patrick Bateman wannabe, Joe. Unfortunately for him, Candace very much survived as more than just a figure haunting his troubled mind, and she's out for ambitious revenge against the psycho killer. Thus begins a season-long game of cat and mouse as Candace digs herself up, digs up the dirt necessary to prove Joe is the dangerous killer she knows him to be, integrates herself into his social circle over the course of some months, gets closer to the people he's close to, and finally has enough evidence to bring him to justice. Time to pull the trigger and end this guy, right? Right, well, or, and hear me out here, why not bring his girlfriend down to the inescapable subterranean lair you've got him trapped in and tell her everything? After all, she can't possibly be as crazy as him, right? Well, I guess some characters are best left buried, it would appear.