10 Movie Characters That Suffered Unnecessarily Cruel Fates

10. Hoban Washburne - Serenity (2005)

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Right then, if we're going to start now, we're going to start big.

A full fifteen years on and there is still no movie death that gets sci-fi fans clucking in disbelief half as much than that of Alan Tudyk’s Hoban “Wash” Washburne.

In the climactic final act of the film the crew of the eponymous ship try their darndest to evade a battle between the Alliance and the Reavers. Wash – like an absolute boss – pilots Serenity out of harm’s way and crash lands, saving all our friends’ lives in the process. And then he gets impaled by a bloody big spear. And he dies instantly. And all of that in front of his wife. His wife, dammit!

And that’s that. Firefly’s most affable and warm-hearted mainstay gone in an instant. If the death had come at a different point in the film it could have been used as a crutch to spur our heroes on to great things, but sadly that’s not what we were given. He just…went. A pitiless reminder that life is a precious gift that can be snatched away at any given moment, no matter how popular you are.