What’s the most annoying trope in books or movies?
And then 20 minutes in, their plane crashes and they are gone!
As a film buff and story teller, this has to be the most annoying trope in movies for me. It’s often called Expendable ,or Decoy protagonist setup and it rarely works the way filmmakers think it does.
Instead of feeling shocked, the audience just feels cheated. You invested time getting to know that character, you started to care about their arc, and then the story pulls the rug out from under you for a cheap shock value moment.
A great twist should reframe the story, not derail it. If you are going to take a major player off the board early, their death has to mean something for the characters left behind and drive the plot forward in a way nothing else could.
Otherwise it’s just an expensive plane crash and a wasted character.
