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<blockquote data-quote="Daniel Avery" data-source="post: 151240" data-attributes="member: 27">If they chose to tell that sort of story, it would seem rather...half-assed? without anything from Neil that indicated a problem in his life.&nbsp; If they had set up some kind of lingering issue (say...depression over his daughter being in jail or something we saw onscreen) in scenes he played before KSJ died, then they could use that as flashbacks to under-pin the story.&nbsp; I don&#039;t think there&#039;s any of that available.&nbsp; We know that real-life suicides sometimes occur without the usual indicators prior to the act, but in soapland, viewers are much more accustomed to cause-effect storytelling, where clues are dropped and the shock twist is therefore somewhat telegraphed beforehand.&nbsp; In the most emotional story of this type I can recall right now, Ben Reade on Guiding Light committed suicide onscreen after it was revealed he had committed some violent crimes (killing someone?&nbsp; I forget) and the police were going to arrest him.&nbsp; Viewers had learned that Ben (a legacy character that had grown up onscreen) had been sexually abused as a child/teen for many years while away in SORAS boarding school and had been carrying around that trauma.&nbsp; The actor (Matt Bomer) got to play out the whole scenario, including actually doing the deed.&nbsp; The story had impact mostly because the actor was there to play it out to the end.&nbsp; If Y&amp;R really wanted to write off the character of Neil with an out-of-the-blue suicide, they should keep in mind that to many viewers, this would forever tarnish the image of a heroic, strong character.&nbsp; Writing it without KSJ there to play it out would seem to have none of the emotional impact, but with all of the controversy that might leave people thinking less of the character for the decision to kill himself.&nbsp; Additionally, they would not have that concrete explanation/reason that might help them understand why he did it.&nbsp; The writers could come up with some after-the-fact reason for his doing it, but I don&#039;t think exposition/dialogue explanations with no &quot;visuals&quot; (flashbacks, etc.) for major actions like that rarely play well.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Daniel Avery, post: 151240, member: 27"] If they chose to tell that sort of story, it would seem rather...[I]half-assed?[/I] without anything from Neil that indicated a problem in his life. If they had set up some kind of lingering issue (say...depression over his daughter being in jail or something we saw onscreen) in scenes he played before KSJ died, then they could use that as flashbacks to under-pin the story. I don't think there's any of that available. We know that real-life suicides sometimes occur without the usual indicators prior to the act, but in soapland, viewers are much more accustomed to cause-effect storytelling, where clues are dropped and the shock twist is therefore somewhat telegraphed beforehand. In the most emotional story of this type I can recall right now, Ben Reade on [I]Guiding Light[/I] committed suicide onscreen after it was revealed he had committed some violent crimes (killing someone? I forget) and the police were going to arrest him. Viewers had learned that Ben (a legacy character that had grown up onscreen) had been sexually abused as a child/teen for many years while away in SORAS boarding school and had been carrying around that trauma. The actor (Matt Bomer) got to play out the whole scenario, including actually doing the deed. The story had impact mostly because the actor was there to play it out to the end. If Y&R really wanted to write off the character of Neil with an out-of-the-blue suicide, they should keep in mind that to many viewers, this would forever tarnish the image of a heroic, strong character. Writing it without KSJ there to play it out would seem to have none of the emotional impact, but with all of the controversy that might leave people thinking less of the character for the decision to kill himself. Additionally, they would not have that concrete explanation/reason that might help them understand why he did it. The writers could come up with some after-the-fact reason for his doing it, but I don't think exposition/dialogue explanations with no "visuals" (flashbacks, etc.) for major actions like that rarely play well. [/QUOTE]

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