Lady Business

But it's completely unnecessary to kill Vo in order to get that point across. By the time we get there we've already seen how damaging his religious upbringing has been to him. We've already seen how it has traumatized him and how this trauma has molded him into the person he's become. The point is already amply demonstrated; killing him off does nothing to further emphasize the message, nor to qualify or draw into question the message we've received.

His death is a cop-out. It's lazy writing. In fact, his death serves to trivialize and erase his pain; and hence, it undermines the very message it's supposedly delivering. People don't just suffer in a vacuum. Not all pain leads to tragic and (ig)noble death. Such romanticization of suffering is a method to avoid acknowledging and responding to that suffering. When everyone dies, it's sad, but we aren't called upon to answer for how we or our society has contributed to their suffering. We mourn and move on. Nothing we do can change the fact that they are dead, and we have no impetus to change our ways because that impetus has ceased breathing. But when there's a living person staring you in the face, you are forced to acknowledge and come to terms with the reality of that person and how their suffering takes place in your world.