History Main / LeftForDead

* In ''Series/DoctorWho'', the Doctor is LeftForDead by an bloodsucking alien after she drained his blood. She was unaware that the Doctor possesses [[BizarreAlienBiology a dual vascular system]], so in fact she'd only gotten half his blood, leaving him weakened but ready to pop up and save the day.

* [[spoiler: Agent Phil Coulson]] from ''Film/{{The Avengers}}''.

** It happens with Mikhail. Twice! The first time occurs when Locke pushes him through the sonar fence and the second time he is left for dead in the Looking Glass station. Needless to say, this losties' omission does not end up very well.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': This happens a lot. The problem stems from hollows and shinigami only being confirmed dead by cutting off the head. As a result, they can potentially (but not always) survive ridiculous injuries if this step isn't taken. More often than not, antagonists and protagonists will not take this last step, causing this trope to kick in. Lampshaded in-universe by Zommari who was a firm believer in cutting off heads to avert this trope and Hitsugaya who lectured Luppi on not following through when Luppi assumed he'd killed Hitsugaya. Aizen himself wasn't a fan of following through except on three occasions where he really did want his opponents dead and even then, one of his targets still survived (Yamamoto). Most of the time it seems that Aizen is just too egotistical to care; he's already proved that these people are no threat by [[CurbStombBattle curbstomping them]], so what difference does it make if they manage to survive?

*** No one. Being that close should vaporize you, and if you were far enough, you'd either be cooked from the heat or have your internals liquefied from the shockwave.
**** And you thought Jesus Yamato was just a nickname.
**** His last action was to shut down the nuclear reactor. The mushroom cloud was a RedHerring to create the cliffhanger that Kira might have actually died; its actual cause was the firing of a [[{{antimatter}} positron cannon]] into the ocean nearby.
***** Actually, both are inversions of the trope. Shinn assumed Kira, Athrun, and Meyrin were dead; [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy Durandal]] had the area searched for evidence.

*** Though that could've just been seen as putting his padawan out of his misery.
*** Given that the Emperor was alive and well and only died because Vader killed him, the choice to not kill Vader there saved the galaxy. Maybe Obi-Wan got a sense of that.
**** The novelization of the movie says that Obi-Wan sensed Palpatine's arrival and knew that if he and the others didn't leave ASAP they'd all be dead.

** Somewhat justified, though. They [[NeverFoundTheBody couldn't find the body]], and couldn't spare the time to stop and make a thorough search for him.

** In the attacker's defense, he did ''shoot the Courier twice in the head'' (it might not have gotten deep into the brain, but still), and then buried him. Just, that wasn't enough to kill the Courier (or even necessarily cause any real permanent brain damage), and someone was on hand to dig the Courier out and bring him to a doctor as soon as the bad guys left.

A character is so obviously dead that the attacker just walks away instead of [[MakeSureHesDead putting one in his brain]] and making him DeaderThanDead. Conversely, the attacker may have shot him, stabbed him, or otherwise inflicted what he thought was a lethal wound upon the character before deciding to be extra sadistic and leaving him to die instead of finishing him off. Inevitably the character is NotQuiteDead and will come back to seek his vengeance on the original attacker, who will say [[CaptainObvious "You're alive!"]] in shock.

A character is so obviously dead that the attacker just walks away instead of [[MakeSureHesDead putting one in his brain]] and making him DeaderThanDead. Inevitably the character is NotQuiteDead and will come back to seek his vengeance on the original attacker, who will say [[CaptainObvious "You're alive!"]] in shock.

* [[DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''Disney/TheLionKing'': Simba is Left For Dead in the middle of a burning desert, only to be later saved by Timon and Pumbaa.
** Simba was supposed to have been finished off by the hyenas, but they blundered this (as usual) -- and weren't going to tell Scar about their failure.
* Peter Griffin's fights with the giant chicken in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' end with Peter finally triumphing over the chicken and leaving. Then the camera zooms in and the chicken opens one eye over a {{sting}}.
** Peter never thinks to wring its neck and make a chicken dinner (though they did make peace and [[GoKartingWithBowser have dinner together]] at one point, but [[HereWeGoAgain then they started fighting over the check]]).

* Season 1 finale of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': The Master catches Buffy deep in his subterranean vampire lair, drains her, and dumps her face-first in a pool. What more needs to be done? Besides making sure Xander doesn't man up, go into an underground vamp playpen, and perform [=CPR=] on the Buffster, that is. The Master lives to regret it. About half an hour.
** In fairness to the Master, she ''was'' dead, just not brain dead.

** ''Kill Bill 2'' likewise features the Bride being LeftForDead -- ''literally'', by being BuriedAlive in an actual grave and coffin... apparently ''many, many'' more than 6 feet underground; but she is somehow able to break out of her coffin and burrow upwards through apparently 20-30 fee of solid earth, to come back and KillBill.

** Later in the Series, Punisher and Bullseye both end up in the same NoOneCouldSurviveThat situation. Frank ends up in traction and prison, but Bullseye isn't mentioned. Punisher seems to realize that [[GenreSavvy if he survived, so did Bullseye]], so the first thing he does after escaping prison [[hottip:*: actually, the third thing after stealing a skull shirt, setting up a base and killing a drug dealer for his gun. ]] is to track down the comatose Bullseye and shoot him in the head.

One of the lowest degrees in the SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness. However, an en masse version this is sometimes used as a build-up to a ZombieApocalypse, in which people begin dying due to a strange new disease...only to come back from the dead

* ''KillBill'' has the Bride being LeftForDead after a truly vicious NoHoldsBarredBeatdown courtesy of her four former partners, followed by a bullet in the head from Bill himself. She survives the entire thing, though it takes her four years of lying in a coma to recover from the ordeal.

* In TheFilmOfTheBook of ''TheLordOfTheRings'', Aragorn plunges off a cliff during the warg battle in the Two Towers and is left for dead by his companions since NoOneCouldSurviveThat.

* At the start of ''Film/RoboCop'' the bad guys execute officer Murphy in a brutal fashion and leave his body behind. They do not know that OCP has new experimental technology that can bring him back as the titular cyborg policeman.

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* ''Left4Dead'' was NAMED for this trope. In both games, the setup is that the army had been evacuating survivors of the ZombieApocalypse, and the two groups of four immune survivors in each game got there too late, and were therefore [[LeftForDead Left 4 Dead]].[[note]] Also cleverly played with on its cover art. A left hand, that has four fingers, and is dead. ''Videogame/{{Left 4 Dead 2}}'s'' cover features a hand with four fingers, two pointing up, and two curled down.[[/note]]

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* ''Left4Dead'' was NAMED for this trope. In both games, the setup is that the army had been evacuating survivors of the ZombieApocalypse, and the two groups of four immune survivors in each game got there too late, and were therefore [[LeftForDead Left 4 Dead]].[[note: Also cleverly played with on its cover art. A left hand, that has four fingers, and is dead. ''Left4Dead2's'' cover features a hand with four fingers, two pointing up, and two curled down.]]

* ''Left4Dead'' was NAMED for this trope. In both games, the setup is while the army was evacuating survivors of the ZombieApocalypse, and four immune survivors got there late, therefor being [[LeftForDead Left 4 Dead]].

** This is a [[PlayedWithTrope weird example.]] 006 was shot point blank in the head by [[TheDragon Ourimov]], so Bond was really only leaving a dead body behind in the explosion. [[spoiler: Or so he thought. 006 had Ourimov fake his death, a plan which almost went off the rails when 007 not only escaped, but lowered the timer on the planted explosives, nearly killing them all. In the end, 006 was only LeftForDead by accident and unknowingly on Bond's part.]]

** In the attacker's defense, he did ''shoot the Courier in the head'' (it might not have gotten deep into the brain, but still), and then buried him. Just, that wasn't enough to kill the Courier (or even necessarily cause any real permanent brain damage), and someone was on hand to dig the Courier out and bring him to a doctor as soon as the bad guys left.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': This happens a lot. The problem stems from hollows and shinigami only being confirmed dead by cutting off the head. As a result, they can potentially (but not always) survive ridiculous injuries if this step isn't taken. More often than not, antagonists and protagonists will not take this last step, causing this trope to kick in. Lampshaded in-universe by Zommari who was a firm believer in cutting off heads to avert this trope and Hitsugaya who lectured Luppi on not following through when Luppi assumed he'd killed Hitsugaya. Aizen himself wasn't a fan of following through except on three occasions where he really did want his opponents dead and even then, one of his targets still survived (Yamamoto).

**** His last action was to shut down the nuclear reactor.
***** Actually, both are inversions of the trope. Shinn assumed Kira, Athrun, and Meyrin were dead; Durandal had the area searched for evidence.

** In his first fight with Luffy, he impaled him in the chest with his hook and buried him in quicksand. Luffy survived thanks to the help of Mrs. All-Sunday.

* In ''RevengeOfTheSith,'' Clone troopers shoot at Obi-Wan -- who falls into water and is left for dead (despite knowing that Jedi can both fall any distance and breathe underwater (via what Kevin Murphy calls "his trusty 'air-monica'" in ''Rifftrax''). The clones simply remarked (literally): "[[NoOneCouldSurviveThat No One Could Have Survived That]]." Their GenreSavvy commander told them to continue searching.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' places the NotQuiteDead blunder on the heroes' shoulders - when [[spoiler: protecting the Dark Crystal in the Dwarven Castle]], Cecil and company are taken out one by one from Golbez's Shadow Dragon. [[spoiler: Rydia]], previously thought dead ([[ArbitraryHeadcountLimit not uncommon in this game]]), appears and takes out the dragon just before it can kill Cecil, allowing them to turn the battle around and fell Golbez. The party is so overjoyed that [[spoiler: Rydia]] is still alive that they start to leave [[WhyDontYaJustShootHim without checking how alive Golbez is]] - he manages to get up, grab [[spoiler: the Crystal]], and warp out.

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* [[DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''TheLionKing'': Simba is Left For Dead in the middle of a burning desert, only to be later rescued by Timon and Pumbaa.
** Simba was supposed to have been finished off by the hyenas, but they blundered this (as usual) -- and of course weren't going to tell Scar about their failure.
* Peter Griffin's fights with the giant chicken in ''FamilyGuy'' end with Peter finally triumphing over the chicken and leaving. Then the camera zooms in and the chicken opens one eye over a {{sting}}.

* Amanda Evert in ''TombRaider'' (Legend). Lara Croft was convinced she was dead... until an antagonist drops her name in conversation.