A duel in which a villain does not survive

Hello all. Some of you may know me from the Saga Fan Fiction forum. I find myself in a difficult position.

I am building to the climax of the lightsaber duel of my fanfic. As I am doing so, I read someone else's post about how they could not describe the death of a character in a lightsaber duel in their own story thread. This leaves me at something of a loss, and I need to end the duel with a death. Also, I plan to have one minor character kill two other minor characters in a subplot in short order.

The FAQ says that nothing can be more violent than in the movies, yet the movies have shown the dueling deaths of Darth Maul, Qui-Gon Jinn, Darth Tyrannus, General Greivous and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Also, In another fic I have seen a Sith Lord kill a Jedi Master with one blast of Force Lightning, and nobody called him out for that. Not that I would, either, but I'm worried that someone will smack me down. What do I do?? HELP!

 

First of all, I've never heard this rule that you can't show someone dying in combat. I've written such scenes myself, so I'm confused

For now, I would suggest writing the scene and running it by a moderator to make sure it's okay. And if it's not, you could always just have it happen "off-screen", I suppose

LJS

 

Lots of people kill off others in their fanfic so I'm a bit confused about your problem. It may be that the person who said that is writing something that is very intense or goes on too long or is very graphic about the pain and suffering that they are writing about. If you have any concerns, you should PM a mod about this. It would help to have the scene written or if you could describe it in more detail, they may be able to help you with violence PG issues.


LJS posted right as I did.

 

From the "Extinction" story in the Saga Fiction forum: "Fun Fact: In the original draft of this fic, Obi-Wan's death was inserted and described. In order to adapt it to JC rules, I had to take it out"

But you two have reassured me.

 

Usually, as long as it isn't too graphic, it's okay to kill people in your story. I've done it many times. Once I thought it might be too graphic for these boards, so I sent it off to Leona, she shared it with the other mods and it came back as okay.

Good luck with it.

 

I had a scene that involved the aftermath of a duel between Jaina Solo and a Dark Jedi that was a little graphic. After sending it to the mods it was deemed ok so I posted it. That would be the wisest thing to do. If you aren't sure ask a mod.

 

I'v read some stories that are pretty grafic. Much much more then movies.

 

I agree with what everyone else said: when in doubt, asked a Mod. I had a duel involving Vader, Luke, Darth Maul, and a Noghri bodyguard where Maul was killed. It was fairly intense, and I never had anyone complain about it.


JD.

 

You could post a 'toned-down' version and offer the 'uncut' version via PM. Sorta like what they do with some movies.

 

FG1 has considered a few different story excerpts as examples of the "upper limit" on violence--nearly all of them involved people dying from lightsaber wounds. The one it looks like people are going to go with is a "death by lightsaber wounds" scene. In fact, I just wrote a "death by lightsaber wounds" scene last night.

If someone else was told they couldn't post something, it may have been because of the way it was described rather than because of what happened in the scene. Therefore, feel free to kill off as many people with lightsaber wounds as you want, so long as it doesn't go over the PG level.

 

In one of my fics the duel resulted in the duel resulted in the hero and villain dieing. I don't see anything wrong.

-The Scummy-

 

The great thing about lightsaber duels as they really aren't very graphic...sure, there are dismemberments and decapitations all around, but they're such nice, clean limb farewells that everyone, even the victims, can't help but have a good ol' time.

I wouldn't think there would be a problem. Even graphic deaths can be described carefully so as to not be gratuitous. Theoretically, you could have someone slaughter a room full of cute, defenseless animals in a paragraph without it being particularly grisly to read. I think often the really ugly ways characters go out are usually best left up to the imagination - the reader's mind is far more cruel than your own when it comes to your character's demise in most cases