#tragic musicals

[kateeorg]

Okay, a few commenters wanted/were trying to make a list, so I'm going to attempt to compile one here. Please let me know if I missed one, I don't know every musical in existence... (SPOILERS for tagged musicals under the cut, read at your own risk)

A Very Potter Musical

Cedric Diggory

"The Ballad of Sara Berry" from 35MM

Patricia

Raquel

Anne

Mariana

Quiara

Eunice

Bare: A Pop Opera

Jason McConnell

Carrie the Musical

Carrie White

Tommy Ross

Chris Hargensen

Billy

Norma

Everyone else who went to prom (Don't know if we have an exact number? The movie version was 73, the novel version counted 67 graduating seniors but there could have been underclassmen)

Dear Evan Hansen

Connor Murphy

Starkid Hatchetverse (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, Black Friday, Nerdy Prudes Must Die, Nightmare Time 1 + 2)

From what I understand, pretty much every teen character has died in one version reality or another, so here's of the main teen characters plus a count of different versions of reality where they explicitly died.

Alice Woodward (2)

Deb (2)

Pete Spankoffski (2)

Lex Foster (2)

Steph Lauter (2)

Grace Chastity (2)

Ruth Fleming (3)

Richie Lipschitz (3)

Max Jagerman (3)

Jason Jepson (3)

Kyle Clauger (2)

Heathers the Musical

Heather Chandler

Ram Sweeney

Kurt Kelly

JD

Ride the Cyclone

Ocean O'Connell-Rosenberg

Noel Gruber

Mischa Bachinski

Ricky Potts

Constance Blackwood

Jane Doe

Six

K. Howard (was 17 when she died! Technically never went to high school but we're counting her)

Spring Awakening

Wendla

Moritz

We Are the Tigers

Chess

Farrah

Clark

West Side Story

Riff

Bernardo

Tony

Final kill count of named characters: 47

Final kill count with unnamed characters: 120+

BONUS LIST - Borderline cases

Philip Hamilton (Hamilton) - age 19, so would not have been in high school at time of death

Ethan Green (Hatchetverse) - 19, but had already graduated at time of death

Hannah Foster (Hatchetverse) - is only 13 in Black Friday, isn't explicitly in high school until Nightmare Time

Gabe (Next to Normal) - appears as a teen in the show but... well, if you've seen the show you know why he's an odd case

Linda, Scott, Shelly, and Cheryl (Evil Dead: The Musical) - are all college students, but unclear what year they are, so some could still be teens but too old for high school.

Jane Doe (Ride the Cyclone) - If you've seen this show, you know why she's borderline as a dead teen, but I'm not gonna spoil it.

BONUS LIST - Musical Teen Killers (Dead and Alive)

Carrie White

Grace Chastity (Hatchetverse)

Max Jagerman

JD

Veronica? (Kind of? Indirectly?)

Riley (WATT)

Sara Berry

Alice Woodward

Deb

Tony

Bernardo

I swear, the number of dead musical teen characters these days could populate their own high school

[sancastarcs]

"yeah but why couldn't they tell Glinda that they are alive" BECAUSE THE NARRATIVE WON'T LET THE CHARACTERS HAVE NO CONSEQUENCES!!!!!THATS THE TRAGEDY OF WICKED!!! THAT'S THE BITTERSWEET ENDING!!! glinda HAS to face the consequences of her actions and has to pay a price if she wants to start being actually good! there's a price to pay for her promotion of the propaganda towards Elphaba and how she is partly to blame for Neesa's death. Glinda HAS TO FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR HER ACTIONS TO BE REDEEMED AND TO BE ACTUALLY GOOD. also everyone remembers a little song called " For Good"? Where Glinda and Elphaba talk about how because they knew each other they changed for good and from now on a part of themselves will be from the other? Glinda took accountability and responsibility, like Elphaba would have wanted. Elphaba thought about her personal safety and happy ending FIRST like Glinda would have done. They switched places bc of the impact they have in each others life. Yes i wish they got their happy ending together but that's what makes wicked so good!!! That these women loved each other fiercely even with all the objects in the world.

[xlcovo]

[perversion666]

album covers ♱

[coddda]

Everyone knows that Light and L matched each other's freak but I think their dynamic in the musical (the Japanese ver specifically) is underrated. Like it's not super different from canon but they just had this extra edge of Violence that we never quite saw from the more methodical and careful mindgames in canon death note and I think it's great. Like, yes, they did declare in canon that they will bring each other to justice, yes L says he wants to send Kira to his execution, but in the lyrics of the musical they both outright say multiple times that they just want to straight up Kill each other. It's direct the whole way through. There's more mutual contempt. This game is about nothing more than simply being the first one to Kill the Other (they actually use the word "殺し合い" (koroshiau) or "to kill each other" to describe their game (translated as "murderous ... game")).

(Sidenote but all those references about wanting to send each other to Hell?? Beautiful)

Yeah this is a battle of justice and ideals, yes that clash is a key part of their final confrontation at the end of the musical, but throughout their duets (or even songs like The Game Begins where they're singing by themselves) there's this near singleminded desire to just fucking End each other. It's fucking Raw and it's great.

Also THIS FUCKING SCENE?? THIS SCENE FROM SECRETS AND LIES. Iconic. Actually Insane. My jaw dropped. Light looks like a crazy bitch it's beautiful.

Um. Also. Obligatory Playing His Game (yknow the gay sex song) lines dump. It basically says everything I just said above in like 9 lines. You see what I mean right.

In canon they're playing a game of mental chess, trying to use everyone around them to finally catch the other as their end goal, but in the musical you really do feel like all they see is each other. They would probably beat each other to death with their fists if it came down to that. Idk they're just so excited and fired up about their little game in the musical and it's so unhinged and fun and special and I love it. It's like the writers for the musical decided to kick their murderous intent up a couple notches and the result is absolutely Beautiful.

I also think that the intensity of their rivalry in the beginning just makes the wind-down of The Way It Ends soo much better. It's such a good contrast to their previous duets where they try to sing over each other (Secrets and Lies & Stalemate) or with each other but basically at the top of their lungs (Playing His Game). It feels like there's both a quiet mutual understanding but also an underlying disappointment that the game is finally over. In canon, L's death Is instead the peak of their game, the moment he gets confirmation that Light is Kira is the exact same moment that he dies. In the jdrama it's almost sudden, how L dies, after the quiet moment has already passed. But in the musical L's death, ironically, Is the one quieter moment in their game. Their peak was the game itself. It was Secrets and Lies and Playing His Game. But the end of the game in the musical is not a victory, it's just (as L says) the end of everything they'd been wanting up until this point.

Uh. Fuck it. Clip from the Kenji Urai version because I just love his delivery here. His tone just goes so well with the silence and the sound of the clock ticking. You see what I mean right.

Their rivalry in the musical may have been more shortlived but like Damn they were really enjoying every second of it. They were truly insane about each other until the very end. (Like despite everything I just said about the ending it was still unhinged as fuck. Light Making L Shoot Him and then Making L Shoot Himself with L's Own Hand?? Holy shit man. What the fuck /pos)

Musical Light and L your game might've been shorter but you'll always be famous <33 Please never inflict what you had on anyone else ever please stay in hell forever thank you

[basilpaste]

the romances in hatchetfield fuck me up so bad like. every time. like youve got:

the most normal couple of all time, except one of them always seems to understand when the world is going to end and they inevitably are driven apart by something out of their control.

two grungy teens/young adults who will never get a happy ending so long as theyre together

a woman who everyone forgets and the man who falls in love with her every time he meets her again and again and again.

high school sweethearts haunted by their pasts and sometimes their futures, too.

a nerd and a 'cool kid', who just keep trying to sacrifice themselves for each other despite something interrupting them every time.

romance is not dead in hatchetfield! except for the fact that it usually ends up dying horribly and tragically.

[js-dragonart]

Inspired by a Taylor Swift song.

[the-storyteller78]

Headcanon:

Telemachus used to have long hair. His mother always told him that long hair—and the ability to keep it without it getting cut off during battle—was the mark of a good warrior. She told him his father, the mighty Odysseus, the man of many devices, had long hair for much of his youth.

(What she doesn't tell him is that Odysseus went to war with shorn hair and red-rimmed eyes, because leaving his family behind was a cause for mourning far worse than a war lost.)

And so Telemachus, young and bright and quite without the father he so adored, grew out his hair. It got to be quite long indeed, and if his father had been there to witness it, he would have sung his dear son's praises, boasting of his honor and dignity and patience to anyone who would listen. But Odysseus was not there, and all Telemachus had of him were stories and desperate imitation. Still, there was comfort in even those, like his father might be watching over him in some odd way he couldn't sense. The thought gave him strength.

The more benign suitors dismissed the change. Let the boy have his hair, they said, chuckling with faint fondness. What is the harm? Even our little prince must become a man at some point.

But the other suitors, the ones who schemed with malice in their eyes as they watched Telemachus pass by them with a new confidence in the set of his shoulders, saw the danger in allowing this to continue.

The maids were on their side. It wasn't difficult for a few of them to find their way into Telemachus' room in the dead of night and cut his hair with quiet, nimble hands.

Telemachus knows it was suitors. The incident is never brought up again, and he never tells anyone the truth of the matter, not even Penelope. But he can no longer sleep as soundly as he once did, and he no longer tries to grow out his hair.

He isn't brave enough to try.

[aforgottenthing]

Tragedy enjoyers when there’s not one, not two, but three combinations of tragic relationships at the center of the narrative AND they’re bisexual

[gabixanderrrr]

thank you ❂

[haze-of-hyperfixations]

wait, hold on.

"i need you to always be devout, and comply with this, or we'll all die in this, okay?" was right before Eurylochus went against orders to open the bag. and Odysseus was right, people died for it.

and Eurylochus doesn't go against a direct order after that. because he's learned what happens when he does.

but then Odysseus orders him to light up six torches, and he does it without question. because why would he question it? Odysseus knows what he's doing, of course he does.

then six men die. and Eurylochus is faced with the truth that there is no way to avoid tragedy. all paths lead to the same end. rebel against your captain, your friends die because of you. follow orders, your friends die because of you. there's no escaping the death that follows them, and Eurylochus always ends up with unintentional blood on his hands. he's exhausted.

"Ody, we're never gonna get to make it home, you know it's true."

[vor-leser]

"Oh wise Athena, help them see..."

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

I don't think I ever fully realized that in many ways, The Odyssey is a tragedy until I listened to Epic. Because he survives and he manages to get home and see his family again, so it doesn't really strike as a tragedy.

But then there is Epic going, "but look at all he lost to get there, all the people that died for him to get home. Don't forget that the man you met at the start of the musical is not the one that makes it home. He dies in "Monster.""

[miwkchii]

Tweaked my calypso design just a tiny bit ☆

[r00sting-sparr0w]

feel alright for the rest of your life!

[phantomoftheorpheum]

Julie and the Phantoms being one of the most heartwarming and feel good shows I've ever watched, while simultaneously having the most absurdly tragic premise will never not to be funny to me.