History Main / DIsneyDeath

* [[spoiler:Fly]] gets one of these in ''WesternAnimation/HelpImAFish!'' [[spoiler:Everyone thinks that he's failed to turn back into a human, and [[HeroicBSOD Chuck is frantic in trying to save his cousin]], even trying to suggest ludicrous things like brewing up a new potion or using time travel as the Professor and Aunt Anna tries to calm him down and explain there's nothing that can be done. In the commotion Chuck slips and Fly goes into the air, Aunt Anna tries to catch him, drops him and steps wrong. Cue SickeningCrunch and gasps from the family. Then Fly calls out offscreen and sticks a hand out of the tank. Turns out he really did turn back and he's still alive (albeit still hurt from where Crab nicked him) and the fish was just the stuffed fish model from earlier. Cute HappyEnding.]]

* [[spoiler:Fly]] gets one of these in ''WesternAnimation/HelpImAFish!''
** [[spoiler:His aunt accidentally steps on him and crushes him, the family goes "GASP!"... no, wait, that was a decoy fish, the real Fly is fine, albeit with a broken leg [a reminder of the injury Crab gave him in his fish form.]]

* ''FanFic/InnerDemons'': [[spoiler:Rarity is seemingly killed by [[TheDragon Trixie]] during the Battle of Fillydelphia]], but it turns out she was just rendered comatose.
* ''FanFic/TheImmortalGame'': [[spoiler:Fluttershy]] is seemingly killed by [[BrainwashedAndCrazy Wrong!Dash]] during the final fight with [[BloodKnight Nihilus]], but it turns out that [[spoiler:Fluttershy]] has a HealingFactor (something that only Earth ponies are supposed to have), which saves her life.

** Zigzagged in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy''. Plant-being Groot heroically sacrifices himself to save the other Guardians--but his friend Rocket finds a still-living twig and plants it. By the end-credits, we see a little baby Groot growing again. But he looks subtly different, and in the sequel we find that he has quite a different personality. WordOfGod [[https://www.cbr.com/guardians-of-the-galaxy-groot-dead-baby-groot-son/ confirmed]] that Groot had in fact died, and "baby Groot" is a different being--essentially, the old Groot's son.

* WebAnimation/HTFPlus: Flippy [[HEROICSACRIFICe sacrifices himself]] by blowing up the building with the HTF zombies in it to save Flaky in HTF+Amnesia 2, in HTF+Amnesia 3/HTF+LG 4 he comes back.

* Done with bears in ''Comicstrip/TheFarSide''. In the middle of a funeral, the "corpse" sits up and berates the mourners, "I was hibernating, you idiots! Don't you ever check for a pulse?"

* In addition to its more serious examples, ''Franchise/Star Wars: Episode IV — Film/ANewHope'' also features a more humorous take when C-3PO and R2-D2 are desperately trying to save Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewbacca from being crushed inside a trash compactor. R2 successfully shuts it off, leading to everyone in the compactor to start crying out in joy, but 3PO initially believes that they're screaming from being crushed to death and that they failed to save them in time.

** Simba is [[spoiler:presumed to be dead in ''Friends to the End''. He isn't, though, and gets his [[TheBigDamnKiss Big Damn Kiss]] with Nala]].

** ''Film/RogueOne'': Initially played straight with Cassian, who appears to fall to his death while [[ActionGirl Jyn]] flees with the Death Star plans. When Krennic nearly kills Jyn, Cassian comes to her aid and [[BigDamnHeroes guns him down]] despite severe injuries. It's {{Subverted}} when the Death Star fires on Scarif, and [[KillEmAll obliterates everyone left on the base, including the protagonists]]. Not to mention, ''every single character'' who wasn't SavedByCanon dies during the movie.

* Subverted in the ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' series. Because of ExecutiveMeddling, creator Hergé was forced to imply the possibility of survival in the suicide note of astronaut Frank Wolff in ''Explorers on the Moon'', who stepped out of his space shuttle into space to [[HeroicSacrifice save oxygen for the remaining passengers]]. WordOfGod, after the fact, confirmed that there was no way Wolff survived.

->"Yeah, boo hiss. I know, look, I hate it too. In movies, where the studio gets all paranoid about a downer ending so the guy shows up, he's magically alive on crutches? I hate that. ''I mean, shit, why not bring them all back?"''

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' plays around with this a bit. After his fight with Tai Lung, Po returns to the temple to find [[spoiler:Shifu lying on the ground, still injured from his fight with Tai Lung. As Po rushed to his side to comfort him Shifu thanked Po for bringing peace to the valley and himself, closing his eyes. Afraid that he was succumbing to his wounds, Po calls to Shifu begging him to not die, to which Shifu replies "I'm not dying you idiot!"]]

* ''Film/ThePrincess'': Linh appears to be slain by Julius before he's killed as a classic case of MentorOccupationalHazard, but turns out to have survived at the end. Foreshadowed by the fact that Khai is shown hustling her off, presumably to see to her wound.

* ''Film/ThePrincess'': Linh appears to be slain by Julius before he's killed as a classic case of MentorOccupationalHazard, but turns out to have survived at the end.

Subtrope of ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated and FirstLawOfResurrection. Compare SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness (how likely this is to happen), OurHeroIsDead (when this is used as a CliffHanger), UnexplainedRecovery, ShockAndSwitchEnding, WorldHealingWave (done on a massive scale), OnlyMostlyDead, PlotArmor (you know he's going to live because he's the main character). Contrast KilledOffForReal. May involve NotNowWereTooBusyCryingOverYou. A PrematureEulogy is likely to occur somewhere between the death and the return.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Advertising/TrixRabbit Silly witch!]] [[DisneyVillainDeath Death is for villains!]]]]

* The first season finale of ''Series/RobinHood'', where [[spoiler:Marian is mourned, avenged, and then discovered to be still alive]]. (Setting the scene for a major audience shock when [[spoiler:she died in the second season finale]].)

** In ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', the T-101 robot is seemingly beaten then impaled by the T-1000, leaving Sarah and John Connor helpless. Then his backup power source turns on, and he [[BigDamnHeroes heads off to save the day]]. Moments later he does die for real, [[ICannotSelfTerminate but by choice]]. In the novel version, he deliberately feigned death after the impaling in order to give himself the chance of a surprise attack.

* In an episode of ''Radio/TheShadow'' called "The Blind Beggar Dies, The Shadow suspected that Spike and Marty were setting a trap for him, so he stood behind them and use "ventriloquism" to make his voice sound like it was near the door, tricking them into thinking that they killed him.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Home}}'', it momentarily looks like Oh was crushed by the Gorg's machine, but there was an indentation in it large enough for him to fit without being crushed.

Beloved [[KilledOffForReal major character is seemingly killed]] at the climax of the movie/episode, [[TearJerker hearts are wrenched, four-year-olds are traumatized, grown men are reduced to tears,]] and then — oh look, the character is NotQuiteDead after all. "I thought you were dead!", [[StockPhrases they recite]] before walking off into the sunset.

A variant is the Robot Disney Death where a RobotBuddy is seemingly destroyed in a HeroicSacrifice. While at least one character mourns, the robot reappears fully repaired after an extensive period in MrFixit's maintenance shop good as new and touched by all the concern.

Animated films seem destined to have these, considering the target audience is primarily young kids, and nobody wants to give a DownerEnding to them. Writers who are considering implementing it need to be extremely careful, as it can very easily come across as a tacky and lazy way to add some cheap, manipulative and predictable drama to the ending. Over the years it has been done to — um — [[{{Pun}} death]], and [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt audiences expect it]]. You run the risk of making your viewers remember they're watching television, even if it does shut up the {{Media Watchdog}}s.

* There is a very long list of people in Franchise/TheDCU who have been revived by the Lazarus Pit. The Lazarus Pit, discovered by ComicBook/RasAlGhul, can revive people at death's door, or full-on bring the dead back to life. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of using the Lazarus Pit is losing your mind. Those who have been resurrected or healed from fatal injuries include [[spoiler:Ra's al Ghul, [[ComicBook/RedHood Jason Todd]], ComicBook/TaliaAlGhul, the second ComicBook/BlackCanary, [[ComicBook/BatGirl2000 Cassandra Cain]], ComicBook/LadyShiva, ComicBook/{{Bane}}, Isis, the wife of ComicBook/BlackAdam, and more]].

* One ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' strip has a bear sitting up from his coffin at his funeral, and says "I was hibernating, for cryin' out loud. Don't you guys ever bother to take a pulse?"

* ''FanFic/InnerDemons'': [[spoiler:Rarity is seemingly killed by [[TheDragon Trixie]] during the Battle of Fillydelphia, but it turns out she was just rendered comatose]].

* Deconstructed in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465732 where ash accidentally reveals too much and when alain asks him about it he reveals so much more that he didn’t really mean to]]''. By Kalos, Ash has died at least six times since age ten and it doesn't phase him anymore, or at least he says. But, to Alain, it's freaky and sad because people aren't supposed to die and be revived like that, especially kids.

* ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' and ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
** In the ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'' finale, [[spoiler:Venjix breaks into Dr. K's lab, hacks her computers, and downloads everything to do with the Rangers. Using this data, he can not only "delete" megazords out of existence, but also the Rangers themselves. He finishes the first of the two episodes by "deleting" Gem and Gemma (Gold and Silver), but with help from Tenaya, Dr. K is able to retrieve their data and reassemble her first two friends to help defeat Venjix once and for all... [[TheEndOrIsIt or did they]]? The final scene of the series is one light on one of the Rangers' morphers lighting, red like the Venjix Eye, with the big V's theme music playing. One good Disney Death deserves another]].
** Its source material, ''Series/EngineSentaiGoOnger'', also features an example: [[spoiler:in [=GP35=], Yogostein turns Sousuke [[TakenForGranite into a bronze statue]], seemingly killing him off... until the next episode, where he's revived and defeats Yogostein in a one-on-one duel]].
** ''Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive''. In the season finale, Mack, the Red Ranger, uses his full power on one of the {{Big Bad}}s using the MacGuffin of the series -- and dies. Sentinal Knight used the MacGuffin to turn Mack into a human.
** ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'' has Kendrix, the Pink Ranger, sacrifice herself in a failed attempt at {{McLean|ed}}ing Valerie Vernon, who was leukemia-stricken at the time; Vernon recovered in time for Kendrix to be BackForTheFinale.
** In ''Series/TensouSentaiGoseiger'', [[spoiler:Buredoran embodies this trope and is a rare villainous example. Not counting his reappearances in movies, he seemingly dies twice. First as Buredoran of the Comet and second as Buredoran of the Chupercabra when he's revived as [=BuredoRUN=] after being OnlyMostlyDead. He's finally killed for good, ...for the time being, after his reveal as Brajira of the Messiah]].

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' has a subversion in its first campaign: during a battle with the archlich Vecna, Vax'ildan is struck with a deadly spell that disintegrated him, rendering him DeaderThanDead as there is no way to revive someone from disintegration (other party members were killed, but subsequently revived using Pike's holy magic as their bodies were still intact). Some time after, Vax returns, alive and well...at a price: the Raven Queen has struck a bargain with him, allowing him to return to life for long enough to defeat Vecna. After the party succeeds in banishing Vecna, the Raven Queen comes to collect on her end of the bargain. Vax [[FaceDeathWithDignity graciously departs with the Raven Queen]] after saying his farewells to his friends, [[KilledOffForReal this time for good]].

* Zigzagged in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy''. Plant-being Groot heroically sacrifices himself to save the other Guardians--but his friend Rocket finds a still-living twig and plants it. By the end-credits, we see a little baby Groot growing again. But he looks subtly different, and in the sequel we find that he has quite a different personality. WordOfGod [[https://www.cbr.com/guardians-of-the-galaxy-groot-dead-baby-groot-son/ confirmed]] that Groot had in fact died, and "baby Groot" is a different being--essentially, the old Groot's son.

** In the climactic final battle of ''Film/{{Eternals}}'', Ikaris grabs [[spoiler: Druig]] by the throat, lifting him into the sky, hurls him into the side of a volcano and then lasers him into the ground for good measure. Ikaris then flies back to the other Eternals and reports that [[spoiler: Druig]] is gone, earning himself a revenge-fueled beatdown from a grief stricken and enraged [[spoiler: Makkari]], only for the supposed murder victim to turn up just in the nick of time to save [[spoiler: Sersi’s]] life so that she can [[spoiler: kill the Celestial Tiamut and prevent his planet-destroying Emergence, which is why Ikaris tried to kill Druig and previously killed Ajak]].

** In ''Film/BlackPanther'', during a DuelToTheDeath for the Throne of Wakanda, [[spoiler: T’Challa is thrown over a waterfall by his cousin Killmonger]]. He gets better though and virtually [[{{Lampshading}} Lampshades]] this trope when he returns for the final battle. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging?from=Main.Lampshading

** In ''Film/BlackPanther'', during a DuelToTheDeath for the Throne of Wakanda, [[spoiler: T’Challa is thrown over a waterfall by his cousin Killmonger]]. He gets better though.