LogFAQs > #921983791

Today's trope is Too Good for this Sinful Earth. Here is the link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth

The good die young, or so authors would have us believe.

A popular and old (and perhaps outdated but overused) trope to justify Kill the Cutie. If there is a child of extraordinary beauty, goodness, and innocence in the story, she (its usually a she) will invariably die in as Anvilicious a manner as possible. The child will be certainly an Ill Girl, and frequently a Waif Prophet, whose death will be slow, torturous and lingering (tuberculosis or other disease was a particular favorite in the 19th Century), giving the child a chance to bid farewell to everyone she loved in a long, drawn-out drama scene. Sometimes she gets to speak a few last words to hammer in An Aesop relevant to the larger plot at hand. After she's breathed her last, her loss is mourned by all who knew her in particularly extreme cases even the Big Bad will take a moment to reflect on it and may serve to re-energize tired or disillusioned heroes to fight on for her cause.

The trope name comes from a frequent comment made at the subsequent funeral, that the poor departed child was too good for this sinful earth, and thus was called home to a good afterlife by a just God. In Real Life, this trope is a common way to understand tragic deaths among those who believe in some form of positive destiny.

TL,DR: An unambiguously innocent, pure and good character dies horribly through no fault of their own.

Nominations:
Nina (Full Metal Alchemist)
Ofelia (Pan's Labyrinth)
Red (There Will Be Brawl)