Trouble with Animator Controller and Script for Death animation

Heh, you will have “already debugged” when you have found The Problem.

So far you have symptoms, not The Problem™.

For instance, you state these symptoms:

But you leave off saying “The code that CALLS Die() definitely executes, and when I replace Die() with spawn a cube, that works but Die does not.” (for instance).

That’s debugging. Rip tear shred until it works.

Did you test the animator(s) in question in isolation without code? Here’s my cribsheet:

Anything with Animations / Animators / Mechanim:

Only consider the code AFTER you have done this critical step:

Always start with the Animator state machine and prove it works in isolation, no code at all.

Here’s more reading: