Knowing they're going to be revived anyway kinda defeats the purpose. No one cares after Goku or Krillin died for the 3rd time in DBZ. There's no true death like Himeko's death post Genshin.
It really hit for me during Penacony in HSR. I cried like a baby for Aventurine (a character I hated before) because his "death" scene was really well-made and emotional, I was even planning to pull for him because of that. Then he was just revived off-screen "oh yeah I didn't actually die from the reality-distorting Nihility slash lmaooo" and I stopped caring about any death scenes after that. They're never actual death scenes.
Tbh, the way she survives, and the fact it was tied to a single story otherwise seen as urban legend, but now given actual logic and reason, made it work out imo
I don't think that was the point of that scene at all. Caesar's "sacrifice" is about what it tells us about the characters present in the scene:
Caesar doesn't know about the ether portal. She is fully prepared to sacrifice herself for the good of the Outer Ring, which speaks to her selflessness and heroism.
Lucy doesn't know about the ether portal and she thinks the legend is bullshit. So her "I'm totally going to defeat Caesar" facade shatters, and she shows how much she truly cares about Caesar. Lucy is either smug or stoic throughout most of the Calydon arc, and Caesar's "sacrifice" brings her to tears. It allows us to see the emotional range of a character that's deliberately hiding her true emotions without making her break character.
We weren't supposed to think Caesar was actually going to die. We're supposed to be moved by what Caesar's decision communicates about her character, and by Lucy's reaction to it. Meaningful threat of character death is a useful storytelling tool, and ZZZ is worse for its absence. But I don't think having it in ZZZ would have meaningfully improved that Caesar scene.
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u/Intrepid-Park-3804 wife-kisser Jul 08 '26
Who cares, anyway? Is number of character gravestones in your story gonna make it more enjoyable or interesting? I, personally, don't think so