If you've read Scott McCloud's classification of art into 4 quadrants:
I would classify myself as a Classicist very clearly. I am drawn towards art for it's capacity to capture a transcendent experience. That probably sounds a bit abstract....
In other words, the two general greatest compliments I can give a piece are that it is meaningful and that is emotionally resonant and the two worst general insults I can give are their opposites that it is meaningless and that it is cold.
The greatest works of art to my taste are in the Classicist quadrant and are both emotionally resonant and meaningful which coalesce into being "Inspiring", the english word I most want to see be reflected. On the other hand I have a difficult time connecting to Iconoclast works because they often strike me as being full of meaninglessness and being cold.
I can enjoy the adjacent quadrants, and indeed some of my favorite works I would consider in there. If you take the Stanley Parable, that is very clearly a Formalist work. I find it very meaningful I would say, I could analyze it a lot (though it mocks that very action humorously). That said I don't have strong emotional reaction to it. It still is one of my favorite works. Formalist works can be like to me reading philosophy novels. I can find them very interesting and mentally stimulating but I don't very emotional reactions to them very much.
On the other hand I also love Shojo, and most of it is highly romantic Animist works. Tokyo Mew Mew is also one of my favorite works, and it's very strongly Animist, drenched in pathos and emotions, sometimes light fluffy emotions granted. I have a very strong emotional reaction to many parts in Tokyo Mew Mew like the development of Ichigo and Masaya's relationship, though for the most part I can't analyze it very much because for the most part it's fairly simple and to the point. Animist works are often like going to parties. I am introvert and not very interested in that kind of thing, but I can enjoy the liveliness of it and the sociability of it, especially if I like the people there (the characters)
The attainment of the ideal of art in my view thus combining the quality of meaningfulness, the ability of things in the story to mean and symbolize things with the quality of emotional resonance, the ability of the story to speak to my emotions. The union of the heart and the mind in other words. The transcendent quality of art is to uplift and relate the emotions of the heart to the great impersonal concepts understood by the mind.
So let us analyze three types of death scenes with this in mind and demonstrate why they get a different degree of emotionality from me each.
Type 1: The Low Tier Death Scene
Perhaps you know the comic reviewer Linkara? I agree with him on some things, and disagree with him on some others, but one area I definitely agree is his annoyance at shock deaths.
The low tier death scene is a scene with no purpose or meaning. A death scene that feels random and arbitrary does not make me sad. It makes me go "WTH"
Allow me to give an infamous example in the Magical Girl fandom. In the series Magical Princess Minky Momo which for the most part is a completely mundane cutesy magical girl series, Minky Momo gets hit by a truck and dies without any forewarning.
I don't feel particularly sad at that scene, because it's so WTH. There is no purpose behind it. And yes I know there is an out of universe reason, but in-universe there is no purpose or meaning. It is merely senseless tragedy.
Senseless tragedy makes us feel bad in the real world, because it is real people affected. I don't feel bad at senseless tragedy in fiction because no real people were affected. There is no meaning behind it, which as established earlier is a negative for me.
At best I can relate to the feeling of emotion from other surviving characters reacting to the death. And even that is blunted and would be so much more if there was more meaning to it.
Type 2: The Mid Tier Death Scene
Allow me to use a classic example from fiction. The Death of Superman. Superman dies sacrificing himself to stop the monster Doomsday from destroying humanity. It has been recreated many times.
I feel some emotion at this, because the death now has meaning. Superman's death has meaning by his sacrifice.
Do I feel a lot of emotion at this? Not a huge amount. Why? Because while it has meaning, it's not meaningful literally full of meaning.
What we learn about Superman from most versions of the Death of Superman is Superman is willing to die to save his home. This is noble but it's not especially unique to Superman.
The Heroic Sacrifice is a trope similar to the Shock Death. While it's a better trope in my opinion, it is still something that any heroic character can be slotted into and have the same effect. A lot of villains, any villain that cares about something more then their own life, could also sacrifice their life in a similar sense.
Type 3: The High Tier Death Scene
The greatest death scene, the ones I love are the ones where the death of a character is perfectly entwined with their individual character, the more it encapsulates them the better it is. This principle encapsulates the lower 2 tiers as well, as the low tier death scene has nothing unique to a character about it, and the mid tier death scene demonstrates only that the character is willing to die for a cause.
It can be difficult to explain this concept quickly or clearly as generally in-universe it requires large amounts of setting up and is obviously tailed to the character's self so is personalized.
This is sort of the classical archetype of the tragedy, where the hero's own fatal flaw damns them and kills them but can also be combined with a heroic sacrifice for a more heroic version. Take episode 45 of Sailor Moon Classic for instance.
Episode 45 involves the deaths of the 4 guardian senshi and is considered one of the best episodes of the series by the fandom. The three episodes most often chosen to be the best would be episodes 45, 125, and 198. Why is this? Do Moonies just like to see their heroes die? No, it's because episode 45 encapsulates what makes the Guardian Senshi as individual characters amazing through their deaths. I will only give Mercury's for the sake of time and because hers is the easiest to explain probably.
LONG SM Death sequence analysis here. Feel free to skip if you don't need my example to understand what I'm getting at:
Episode 45 is the penultimate episode of season 1. The witch Queen Beryl has begun her ritual to revive the Goddess of Darkness Metaria however the Guardian Senshi and Sailor Moon found the entrance to the Dark Kingdom where Beryl is and mount an assault. Beryl, needing more time sends out her 5 strongest youma, the DD Girls, youma as strong or stronger then the Senshi and with powerful illusion abilities to kill the Senshi or at least slow them down long enough.
The episode features the 4 Guardian Senshi dying brutally one after the other in defense of their princess killing the DD Girls. Sailor Mercury is the intellectual/nerd of the Senshi group. She was outcasted because people assumed bad things because of her high scores, and she felt that people only valued her for her intelligence. Despite this she was one of the kindest senshi and highly rational as well, and wanted to learn and help her friends develop their minds. She is also subtly implied to be attracted to her teammate Sailor Jupiter.
When Sailor Jupiter dies on the battlefield to protect the others after the senshi are ensnared by the DD girls illusion ability, Sailor Moon (who is the reincarnation of a princess and not a soldier like the others) is crying hysterically and losing her mind. Sailor Mercury tells Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus that they should move on to Beryl while she holds off the DD Girls saying rational that their attack powers are stronger then hers and that they will be needed therefore.
Moon gets even more hysterical not wanting Mercury to die but Mercury convinces her to go on. Mercury then faces certain death against 3 surviving Senshi Level Enemies. She only has her shabon spray, creating a cold distracting mist and her computer. The DD Girls attack her with balls of lava but Mercury uses her computer to analyze the threat and her water magic to cool it to stone. The DD Girls get more aggressive and Mercury thinks quick and encases herself in her own shabon spray allowing her to enter the lava unharmed.
The 3 DD Girls circle her menacing and begin sadistically torturing her about where the others are. Mercury lies to them, that the others ran away, prompting the 3 to get closer to her. Mercury, having previously analyzed to find that the illusion comes from a gem on the leader's forehead, smashes her mercury computer on the leader's forehead destroying their illusion making capacity causing the DD girls to kill her in rage.
What does this demonstrate? Mercury heroically sacrifices herself here, so that shows her nobility. But it's so much more then that. We see Mercury's dual rationality and compassion. We see her putting less value in herself and her abilities and at the same see how amazing that ability as she quick-wits herself out of death against a certain death against 3 enemies of the same power as her. And the biggest poetry of it, Mercury who wanted to help her friends learn and see more of the truth dies destroying illusions, freeing their minds. Mercury's death sequence is so emotionally heartwrenching because it's so incredibly her.
Finished my example
That is how to create a truly amazing death scene. Imbueing everything about it with what it distinctly and uniquely that character, making the death reflect the person it is from. THAT is meaning, that has symbolic resonance. That is why it is so emotionally powerful.
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