In his book Bagombo Snuff Box, Kurt Vonnegut encouraged writers to: “Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” Sometimes, that can mean torturing your favorite characters. Other times, it’s best just to kill them.

Great deaths in fiction so often make the reader’s heart ache. It’s not fair, we know. But there are the occasional deaths in fiction that serve more as entertainment than heartbreak — some that are shocking, hilarious and still sometimes devastating despite their “WTF?!” factor. For those who like to walk on the dark side, who don’t believe in karma, here are seven of the most bizarre deaths to gape at: