Sometimes humor does crop up in sad situations. I was helping my sister load up her dog for his last trip to the vet. And her other dog was whining thinking he was missing out on a car ride. My sister just blurted out "he wants to die too!" and we both chuckled.

Also, players play RPGs to get that sense of freedom you don't when you watch/read media. You don't have to trust that sketchy person who shows up out of the blue. You can keep hitting the homicidal maniac to make sure he's actually dead and not just stunned. You could describe a heart-wrenching elven dirge and like clockwork a player will immediately pipe up that his character doesn't care.