"I definitely have character arcs in mind for each character unless I kill them"
About this Quote
Kirkman’s line lands because it treats storytelling’s most sanctified promise - “character development” - as a conditional clause with a trapdoor. The first half sounds like the responsible craftsman talking: arcs planned, trajectories mapped, a creator in control. Then he snaps the audience back to the real engine of his work: volatility. “Unless I kill them” isn’t just a joke about writerly power; it’s a mission statement for a comics-and-TV era where shock deaths became both signature and marketing.
The subtext is about tension management. If arcs are guaranteed, viewers relax; they start watching the blueprint instead of the story. Kirkman’s worlds (The Walking Dead especially) run on the opposite contract: emotional investment is the point, but safety is never the reward. The threat of death keeps every scene charged, turns ordinary decisions into potential last words, and forces supporting characters to behave like protagonists because the plot can’t rely on any single anchor.
Context matters: Kirkman emerged during the prestige-TV arms race and the peak of “anyone can die” discourse, but he’s also responding to a comic-book tradition where death is often reversible and therefore cheap. His aside implicitly distinguishes his approach: killing isn’t a reset button; it’s a narrative reallocation of grief, responsibility, and momentum.
There’s also a sly admission of craft underneath the bravado. Killing a character is the most brutal way to end an arc - which means you still owe it shape. The joke works because it acknowledges the spreadsheet and the guillotine in the same breath.
The subtext is about tension management. If arcs are guaranteed, viewers relax; they start watching the blueprint instead of the story. Kirkman’s worlds (The Walking Dead especially) run on the opposite contract: emotional investment is the point, but safety is never the reward. The threat of death keeps every scene charged, turns ordinary decisions into potential last words, and forces supporting characters to behave like protagonists because the plot can’t rely on any single anchor.
Context matters: Kirkman emerged during the prestige-TV arms race and the peak of “anyone can die” discourse, but he’s also responding to a comic-book tradition where death is often reversible and therefore cheap. His aside implicitly distinguishes his approach: killing isn’t a reset button; it’s a narrative reallocation of grief, responsibility, and momentum.
There’s also a sly admission of craft underneath the bravado. Killing a character is the most brutal way to end an arc - which means you still owe it shape. The joke works because it acknowledges the spreadsheet and the guillotine in the same breath.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|
More Quotes by Robert
Add to List
