You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.

American Lensky.

I recently got an email from a listener named Elizabeth Seminoe, and she was wondering if I would ever consider doing an episode

on how we grieve the loss of fictional characters.

She was actually inspired by a Facebook discussion that she was involved in where people were talking about which fictional characters

They were still grieving over, and you couldn't believe how passionate they were about their opinions.

I know that this was really interesting because it really tied into something that I had been thinking about for months

Since I saw the movie Avengers Infinity War, and by the way, I'm about to spoil the ending of Avengers Infinity War.

Now, if you haven't seen the movie, but don't care about spoilers,

The villain, Thanos, is trying to acquire these infinity stones, which will give him godlike powers.

And his goal is to erase half the living beings in the universe because they were drain in on the total supply of natural resources.

He's basically a very cold and calculating environmentalist.

Now, shockingly, the heroes failed to stop him.

Thanos acquires these godlike powers.

He snaps his fingers and half of the characters crumble into dust.

Now, a lot of people were bothered by the ending because they felt like it was a cheap trick.

I mean, we saw characters like Black Panther, Spider-Man, and most the Guardians of the Galaxy die.

But we know, first of all, this is part one of a two-part story.

And secondly, those actors are all signed up for sequels.

And if anything, we're in a holding pattern until the next movie, when we learn how the surviving Avengers will bring everybody back.

And the fans have been scrutinizing which actors contracts will be up in 2019,

and trying to predict who will die in the next movie for real, no backsees.

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