One of the main challenges of current supernova research is to identify
the nature of stars that explode, and to link this knowledge to
observed supernova properties. Nowhere is this problem more urgent than
for the most massive stars in the local and distant Universe. Recent exciting
results have challenged currently accepted paradigms of stellar evolution, and
for these supernovae, ever more exotic scenarios are being proposed.
I will discuss a few special cases within the currently-accepted framework
that highlight gaps in our knowledge.
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