So, Derek Reese is dead. And Charley Dixon is dead, too. Dead, because we killed them. We sat down, and we wrote it, and we killed them.
Okay. So here’s the deal. It’s not like we enjoy doing that. Trust me, I know what you guys think. I’m a fan – I know how we think. I know what I invest in, I know how I invest in those things. It’s not rational. It doesn’t make sense. We bond emotionally with characters because they speak to something in us. So when they die…
It hurts.
This is not an apology. This is me confessing on our behalf. Not to ask forgiveness, not because we crave absolution. Because we want you to know that sitting in the writer or producer’s chair doesn’t deaden you to the horror or pain that unfolds in your characters lives, just because you chose that they would suffer it.
You love these people. I loved them, too. I loved Riley. I loved Jesse (jury is out I know – but go with it). I loved Charley. And I loved Derek. They were heroes. Flawed heroes. Tragic heroes. But heroes, every one. Which is a pretty romantic way of saying they were screwed from “go”. Because it’s the destiny of the hero to die.
I read something once that stuck with me as a writer, though the source is lost to memory: you haven’t told a character’s story unless you’ve told the story of his death. I’ve meditated on this for years. Really. It’s not as simple as it sounds. It’s not about telling all the beats of the story, from cradle to grave. It’s about how we understand a character’s life through an understanding of his or her death.
Riley Dawson died a fighter, struggling to survive – in the end, an animal. The kind of animal that could survive Judgment Day. If Jesse is dead, she died alone… in her own mind systematically betrayed and disappointed by everyone she believed in and risked all to protect. Defiant. Charley Dixon sacrificed himself not for John Connor, future leader of mankind – he did it for John, the boy he called “son” in his heart.
Derek Reese died like a soldier. Doing the job. Exactly the way he expected he would. No blaze of glory. No eulogy. Only the mission. His number came up, as everyone’s eventually must in the cold mathematics of war.
If that’s small comfort to you, you’re not alone. It’s not supposed to be comforting. It’s supposed to be a kick in the gut. It’s supposed to hurt like hell. On some level, The Terminator franchise is about the value of human life. Death is the scale on which it is measured. Pain means it matters.
And we keep moving.