This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Red Shoe: From the description, this doesn't seem to want to include "It turns out they're Not Quite Dead after all." That's all well and good, but I'm not convinced "They really were dead, but we're going to Machina them back to life" is really all that substantial of a difference from "At the time, even the writers thought they were dead, but we've decided to bring back the character so we're going to say that they weren't really dead after all." Thoughts
Gus: I think a little more flesh on the Not Quite Dead entry would make the distinction more clear, for one thing. (So I'll do that.) For another, I think the ploy of bringing back a character we were pretty darned sure was dead, but it turns out they weren't — if only to make the writers' lives easier — is another trope entirely. One distinct element is that the character comes back in the same "life". You know, a little bit older, in the same body, all that lot.
There have certainly been series where you never chalked up a character as dead until they are shown immolated, with a stake driven through the ashes.
Red Shoe: I think it was the mention of Apophis that started my confusion, since he seems pretty squarely in the "he wasn't really dead after all" camp, despite the fact that he, well, really was technically dead.
Gus: OK, now I'm confuzzled. What is the distinction between "wasn't really dead after all"-dead and "technically"-dead? For me, I read "wasn't really dead after all"-dead as "never died" — we were tricked by the writers, or they tricked themselves — either way, the dude has been breathing all along. I am reading this entry as being about all the various undead and resurrected scenarios.
Red Shoe: Yeah. I didn't put that well. Apophis was dead in the normal way — heart stopped, no brainwave activity, etc., but in the context of the Stargate Universe, this isn't much different from having your heart stop for a few minutes on the operating table (the sarcophagus device being, essentially, a Sufficiently Advanced Defibrilator): he doesn't come back as a ghost or some kind of magical resurrection, or as a car, he just, well, "recovers" from being dead.
Gus: Ah! His animation was suspended. I can not believe we don't have an entry for that bit of phlebotinum.
Silent Hunter: Then add it if you so desire. I've removed the Harry Potter bit because it's inaccurate.
Ununnilium: Yes, it's a picky-comic-book-fan kind of thing, but I think it's silly to say that Uncle Ben came back from the dead; it's an alternate-universe version who in no way falls into the same Uncle-Ben-shaped hole, and is basically there to set up a supervillain who looks like Spidey's uncle.
Kendra Kirai: Yeah, you want a true comic book Back from the Dead who was really for truly cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die DEAD, look at...oh damn, now who was that...Oh, well, there's Lobo. Heaven doesn't want him and Hell won't take him, so when he dies he just come right back. (And it's hard to kill him anyhow). Doomsday is another one. he really does die, but then he reincarnates and comes back, resistant to what killed him before. Then there's the whole Marvel Comics Captain Marvel thing...he died from cancer, chilled out in the realm of the dead for a while, then came back a couple of times..Thanos has been pretty difinitively pronounced dead a couple times, I'm pretty sure...Deadpool was dead a couple of times...in fact, all that was left of him was just his hand one time, and he re-grew from it..he really was in the realm of the dead, too. he was gettin' it on with Death. (The marvel one, not the perky lolibait Endless.)
Ununnilium: Well, Marvel-Cap didn't come back - that's his son. I think they've actually been pretty good about not bringing him back.
Dwayne Hicks: To be fair, Jean Grey is the Phoenix, so the whole coming-back-from-the-dead bit is kind of implicit.
Ununnilium: This is true, and the only reason that's not yet mentioned there is that I don't know of a subtle way of slipping it in.
Also, you know what I said about Marvel being good about not bringing Captain Marvel back? Well, Civil War: The Return came out last month, and guess who's in it...
Paul A: I've pulled the Father Ted example because the trope explicitly excludes cases where they come back in the same episode in which they died.
Ophicius: Removed the Captain Jack Harkness example for the same reason.
Darmok: Having recently read The Adventure of the Empty House, I have removed the Sherlock Holmes entry "* After Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, he eventually succumbed to public demand and brought him back through a Retcon, making this one of The Oldest Ones in the Book." This is partly a case of Never Found the Body, and partly a case of Faking the Dead.
Ununnilium: Pulling out this link from the American Super Hero comics example, since it only restates what's already in there halfway down the page and doesn't otherwise have anything to do with it: http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=3160149&view=findpost&p=8984421
<random troper>: This trope should probably include the variation where a character is Killed Off for Real but a relative—usually a son/daughter or brother/sister—pops up as an almost identical character as the deceased. Key point being if you substituted the old character's name in place of the new one, it wouldn't be noticable. Generally done in historical and real-world shows and movies where the character was more popular than expected but resurrection would not be plasuible.
