History Main / DeathIsCheap

* ''WebVideo/LifeSMP'': In its previous seasons, the players typically have three lives each, and AnyoneCanDie for any reason.[[note]]The exception is the second season, ''Last Life'', where players spawn with 2-6 lives each and can transfer lives to others.[[/note]] However, its fourth season, ''Limited Life'', downplays the severity of death for the players; although it is still penalized and undesirable, everyone starts out with the rough equivalent of twenty-four lives and [=keepInventory=] is enabled, so death is significantly less painful. This quickly results in an uptick of [[YetAnotherStupidDeath deaths by stupid and preventable means]], like accidentally walking off of cliffs or hostile mobs.

* That's the prelude to ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/7555768?view_full_work=true Encore and Improvisation]]'', with [[VideoGame/TalesoftheAbyss Luke]] coming back to life again and again no matter how dead he gets.

* ''WebAnimation/{{Curses|Chrisrin}}'': Similarly to [[WebVideo/LifeSMP the source material]], as everyone has multiple lives, characters who were seen brutally murdered can be seen walking around just fine mere scenes later, optionally only to get brutally murdered again. The only exception to this is [[spoiler:Scott's]] [[KilledOffForReal final death]] at the end of the animatic shortly after winning the season -- the only final death to be depicted in the entire animatic.

!!'''As a DeathTrope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''

* ''WebAnimation/{{Curses|Chrisrin}}'': Similarly to [[WebVideo/LifeSMP]], as everyone has multiple lives, characters who were seen brutally murdered can be seen walking around just fine mere scenes later, optionally only to get brutally murdered again. The only exception to this is [[spoiler:Scott's]] [[KilledOffForReal final death]] at the end of the animatic shortly after winning the season -- the only final death to be depicted in the entire animatic.

* Deconstructed in the ''{{Manga/Bleach}}'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4063172/6/Calm_After_the_Storm Calm After the Storm]]''. Orihime managed to bring her friends back to life multiple times (Ichigo stopped counting after 5) but there are still people who couldn't be saved. Seeing friends dying, even if they come back later, still traumatized the heroes. There is also a sense of guilt that always touches survivors. The narrative mentions that some of the {{Mooks}} in Ehndris are "awaiting resurrection."

* The default for humanity in ''Fanfic/{{Vigil}}'', where brain uploads, backup copies of everyone's brain, and cortical stacks--small storage devices that maintain a saved brain-state--are ubiquitous except among bio-conservatives. Death just means you get uploaded into a new body.
* In ''Fanfic/WhenReasonFails'', Ochako has the ability to keep coming back from death. [[spoiler: For as long as Izuku wants her around, she will ''always'' come back from death since that's how her species works.]]
* In ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'', As'taris has one of the shortest deaths imaginable—about half a page later, he's been resurrected. As the resurrectionist quotes, "Death is cheap, life is expensive" when Grunnel complains about the price. (Which seems rather petty of him, given how much money he has.)

* [[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Strong Bad]]'s crudely drawn and amazingly long-running comic WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad exemplifies this trope. Most likely, The Brothers Chap didn't think it would go beyond that one e-mail, but then realized that they had something corny and really easy to animate that they could milk the bejabbers out of and decided to run with it.

** If your brain is intact, any sufficiently-skilled MadScientist can bring you BackFromTheDead - it is their purpose in doing so that may be the issue. (Note ''intact''. Brain damage sets in quickly, so unless you die in a lab you're probably out of luck.) Then there's the fact that most of them [[CameBackWrong come back mad]]... like really mad. [[MadScientist Worse than when they started]].

** One or two other characters have certainly survived very-near-death experiences, sometimes due to the unreliable competence of the franchised GrimReaper operation. On the other hand, one dead character joined that franchise...
* In ''Webcomic/RustyAndCo'', [[http://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-19/ averted and explained in one of the critical missives]]. To be sure, that's for a wight. All sorts of bit characters have died and reappeared without explanation--sometimes more than once.

* ''Webcomic/Level1Housewife:'' Angrboda is a hulking amazon swordswoman who has married a fruit merchant half her size and is trying to adjust to domestic life. She frequently crushes her husband to death when she gets too enthusiastic about showing him affection, but the local priest raises him for a nominal fee, and is pleased with the regular revenue stream.

[[folder:Web Original]]

* Website/ChannelAwesome: Santa Christ came back to life three days after his death. When WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick calls him on this (specifically, the part about him waiting that long to come back and fix the crisis), Santa Christ asks if she knows of a faster way, or if she has ever come back at all.

* In ''WebAnimation/CombatDevolved'', this is parodied and justified as they can just respawn. ZigZagged in the case of Corporal Thompson, who has run out of lives, but still finds a way to come back.
* Max Landis's ''The Death And Return Of Superman'' postulates that the eponymous 1992 arcs are largely responsible for opening the floodgates of this phenomenon in comic books.

* ''WebAnimation/GamingAllStars'': Due to the existence of [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl trophification]] in ''The Ultimate Crossover'' and ''Remastered'', most characters can be revived if their trophy is touched by someone or something with enough force. However, there are some exceptions like giant-sized, non-One-Winged angel monsters ([[VideoGame/{{Rampage}} Lizzie]], [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 Whomp]]), Passersby and enemy mooks ([[VideoGame/TheSims Sims]], [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Goombas]], as well as a few other outliers like [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/SilentHill2 Pyramid Head]] and [[VideoGame/{{Manhunt}} Danny Lamb]], the trophies in [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Eggman's]] vault]], and especially [[spoiler:characters corrupted by [[VideoGame/PlaystationAllStarsBattleRoyale Polygon Man]]]].
** Averted in ''2'' due to [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/KatamariDamacy the King of All Cosmos]] spreading out the remaining trophies across the world and subsequently negating the existence of trophification afterward]].
* Characters are resurrected, cloned, or body surf frequently on ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil''. While no one wants their characters to die, it's still not that distressing to see a character ripped apart. They'll be back...
* Susan from ''WebAnimation/HalfFull'' is killed in the first episode only to be brought back a few minutes later, due to a cosmic technicality.
* In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'', nearly every character dies whenever they appear, only to return next time with not a scratch. They don't even seem to be aware that they've died.

* Website/{{Mortasheen}}'s titular city has this due to cheap and easy cloning in the titular city, something that the genocidal villain civilization of Wreathe finds abhorrent.

* ''Averted'' in ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'': as it turns out, the only people who ever officially died and came back actually were AI, and therefore never alive to begin with.
** After Church was revealed to be the Alpha, he was destroyed by the EMP at the end of Reconstruction. The one seen in Recreation and Revelation is the Epsilon AI, a fragment of the Alpha that is reconstructed by Caboose telling him stories about the old Church.
** Tex dies for good halfway through [[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheProjectFreelancerSaga the Project Freelancer saga]], and [[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheChorusTrilogy 4 seasons later]] Epsilon-Church dies in a HeroicSacrifice.

* Parodied in the ''WebAnimation/SocietyOfVirtue'' episode "Resurrection", in the end the Professor X Expy declares it a ZombieApocalypse and grabs a shotgun.

* ''WebAnimation/ZsdavAdventures'': PlayedWith. There are some {{justification}}s why some characters are still alive after dying, such as getting ressurected by [[http://wikipedia.com/wiki/Markus_Persson Notch]], EscapedFromHell, and [[UrbanLegendOfZelda Herobrine]] having ResurrectiveImmortality. That or [[UnexplainedRecovery there is no justification at all]].

* ''WebAnimation/ZsdavAdventures'': PlayedWith. There are some {{justification}}s why some characters are still alive after dying, such as getting ressurected by [[http://wikipedia.com/wiki/Markus_Persson Notch]], EscapedFromHell, and [[SchalaLives Herobrine]] having ResurrectiveImmortality. That or [[UnexplainedRecovery there is no justification at all]].

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'', where Batman delivers a eulogy for Green Arrow's funeral only to stop half-way and point out how pointless it all is since he'll simply come back in some form or another eventually just like everyone in the room and he's sick and tired of having to go through all the problems of arranging useless memorials. The scene ends with everyone applauding, including Green Arrow himself who was seated in the back all along.

* In ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'', As'taris has one of the shortest deaths imaginable—about half a page later, he's been resurrected. As the resurrectionist quotes, "Death is cheap, life is expensive" when Grunnel complains about the price. (Which seems rather petty of him, given how much money he has.)

* This trope gets parodied in the movie ''Film/SoapDish'' where the writers on a soap opera talk about bringing a dead character back to life. While they try to talk about all the crazy ways to bring the character back, [[Creator/WhoopiGoldberg one of them]] shouts, [[NooneCouldSurviveThat "THE MAN HAS NO HEAD!"]] to get her point about how ridiculous this trope can sometimes get. Ironically, two of the film's stars go on to star in comic book films, who play this trope just as much as soap operas do ([[Film/IronMan Robert Downey Jr./Iron Man]] and [[Film/TheAmazingSpiderManSeries Sally Fields/Aunt May]]).

** In the Abridged Broly movie, the titular villainous Super Saiyan tries to threaten Goku by saying that he'll kill Gohan. Goku responds as if that would be nothing but a minor inconvenience, as gathering the Dragon Balls to revive him would take a whole day. Then he recalls that Gohan has never met King Kai before, and suddenly decides it's a good idea for him to die, just so he can meet him.

* In ''Webcomic/CaseyAndAndy'', main character and AuthorAvatar Andy was killed in the very first strip! And many times thereafter, Casey and Andy being {{mad scientist}}s who leave boxes of antimatter lying around. The first time, C&A appear at the Pearly Gates... but after Andy starts dating [[EvilIsSexy Satan]], they always seems to end up going to the [[{{Hell}} other place]].

** ''Film/DoctorStrange2016:'' Strange dies countless times by an EldritchAbomination, but keeps coming back due to him using the power of the Time Stone to create an endless TimeLoop, [[SealedEvilInADuel thus also trapping his killer.]]

** In a similar fashion, the discovery that Prince Aegon, previously thought to have been killed as an infant was alive and well makes the death of many other characters fall into question.

* ''LetsPlay/LifeSMP'': In its previous seasons, the players typically have three lives each, and AnyoneCanDie for any reason.[[note]]The exception is the second season, ''Last Life'', where players spawn with 2-6 lives each and can transfer lives to others.[[/note]] However, its fourth season, ''Limited Life'', downplays the severity of death for the players; although it is still penalized and undesirable, everyone starts out with the rough equivalent of twenty-four lives and [=keepInventory=] is enabled, so death is significantly less painful. This quickly results in an uptick of [[YetAnotherStupidDeath deaths by stupid and preventable means]], like accidentally walking off of cliffs or hostile mobs.

* Death proves cheap three times in ''Webcomic/TrueBelievers'', starring Franchise/SpiderMan, since comic book characters "always come back." This trope worked in Spidey's favor after [[RealityWarper reality-warping]] writer Creator/{{Joe Quesad|a}}illa killed Mary Jane Watson, but she revitalized herself just in time to {{retcon}} Quesadilla's existence, preventing him from making any further attempts to [[Comicbook/OneMoreDay separate Spidey and her]].

* ''WebAnimation/GamingAllStars'': Due to the existence of [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl trophification]] in ''The Ultimate Crossover'' and ''Remastered'', most characters can be revived if their trophy is touched by someone or something with enough force. However, there are some exceptions like giant-sized, non-One-Winged angel monsters ([[VideoGame/{{Rampage}} Lizzie]], [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 Whomp]]), Passersby and enemy mooks ([[VideoGame/TheSims Sims]], [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Goombas]], as well as a few other outliers like [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/SilentHill2 Pyramid Head]] and [[VideoGame/{{Manhunt}} Danny Lamb]], the trophies in [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Eggman's]] vault]], and especially [[spoiler:characters corrupted by [[VideoGame/PlaystationAllStarsBattleRoyale Polygon Man]]]].

* Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses: Santa Christ came back to life three days after his death. When WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick calls him on this (specifically, the part about him waiting that long to come back and fix the crisis), Santa Christ asks if she knows of a faster way, or if she has ever come back at all.
** WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic and Phelous. The Critic has repeatedly died for the purpose of comedy, and Phelous' main gimmick is dying. Really, it's a safe bet that when death is PlayedForLaughs, it won't stick. Which may be why Ma-Ti is still dead.
** [[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment Spoony]]. So far he has been blown up by Dr. Insano, killed by [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Mechakara]], and committed suicide. Bonus points for becoming [[Comicbook/BlackestNight a Black Lantern]] whenever he's killed.
%%** [[Film/BattlefieldEarth Terl]].