History Main / NeverFoundtheBody

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'':

* ''Anime/PatlaborTheMovie'' opens with Hoba, the programmer of the BABEL virus that was hidden in his operating system for the [[HumongousMecha Labors]], jumping from the Ark into the ocean. Gotoh notes that they never found the body. [[spoiler:In the climax, when the protagonists go to the supposedly evacuated platform to destroy it to prevent the virus from spreading, they pick up a signal from one employee in the building they're trying to demolish: Hoba. Noa goes after him, but it turns out that he really is dead: he attached his employee badge to his pet raven, perhaps as part of a ThanatosGambit.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' averts, inverts and subverts this trope repeatedly. In the game world, losers' bodies are [[RetGone erased]]. Averted because despite erasure being a kind of super-death, no trace of the body is found (at most an item of importance to the NPC will found post-erasure.) Inverted because Dragon #2's/Sho Minamimoto's body is found intact, some fans speculate he's still alive. Subverted in a previous battle between Joshua and Sho Minamimoto the latter explodes a 'nuke' that presumably erases them both. Although they both turn up alive again, it's only through use of a revival. Joshua is the Composer and using his god powers jumps into another universe to avoid it, and Minamimoto [[ThanatosGambit planned his own death]].

This is a potential DeathTrope, so this page will be filled with '''Unmarked Spoilers'''.

* Lydecker in the early second season of ''Series/DarkAngel''. It's revealed in [[TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised the last book]] that he was alive after all.

** Defied in Episode 11 with regards to Sayaka. Kyoko makes sure to take her body out of the witch's barrier and place it in a hotel for it to be found by a {{muggle|s}}.

* Also a staple of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. There's Elijah, Enoch, Moses, Mary mother of Jesus, and UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} himself. The first two are explicitly confirmed not to have died, the latter died and were buried, but God never disclosed where Moses' body went, Mary's tomb was later found to be empty (and many believe she was bodily assumed into Heaven), and Jesus came BackFromTheDead, bodily [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascending to Heaven]] in full view of his original band of Disciples later on. (What he did with his body after that is not known, though Christians, not sharing the Gnostics' presumption that flesh and blood are evil, presume he's still using it). The ultimate form is The ''Rapturos'' ("Catching Away") a.k.a. the Rapture, which will involve the resurrection of the dead, and every living member of the Faithful ascending into Heaven, presumably leaving many ''more'' empty graves and tombs.

* Also a staple of the Judeo-Christian mythos. There's Elijah, Enoch, Mary mother of Jesus, and UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} himself (although the text is not really clear if this is actually an example after physical resurrection or Lost The Body), while the first two are explicitly confirmed not to have died. The ultimate form is The Rapture, which involves the resurrection of the dead, and every living member of the Faithful ascending into Heaven.

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'':

* ''Literature/TheSyrenaLegacy'': In the 1940s, the Triton prince Grom was betrothed to the Poseidon princess Nalia. They were deeply in love, until they accidentally set off a mine left by humans. In the aftermath of the explosion, Grom couldn't sense Nalia anymore. When her body was never recovered, everyone assumed she'd been blown to bits. Grom spent the next seventy years grieving. [[spoiler:It turns out his senses were discombobulated by the explosion. Nalia survived and, thinking Grom was dead, went on land to live as the human Natalie before either she or Grom could recover enough to sense each other. She enters a MarriageOfConvenience with a human man and has Emma, who grows up thinking she is fully human until her Syrena abilities start to awaken when she's eighteen. Nalia and Grom are finally reunited in ''Of Triton''.

* Invoked by the central character in ''The Highest Treason'' by Creator/RandallGarrett; facing death or capture, he arranges his death so that no body will be found, deliberately to promote a belief that he somehow got away and one day he'll be back.

%%* Played completely straight in StateOfFear.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': Alkyone went into the {{megalodon}} protected sea off a cliff on Themyscira and was presumed dead. A few issues later a megalodon that had been cut open from the inside washed up on Themyscira's shore, informing the reader that the villain was making a comeback.

--> Oops, that's the wrong one, I confess,

* ''Film/TheIncredibleShrinkingMan'': When Louise returns home she finds that Scott, her [[IncredibleShrinkingMan mouse-sized husband,]] is missing. She then sees that the dollhouse where he lives is smashed and finds their cat with a scrap of Scott's shirt in its mouth. This causes her to conclude that Scott has [[UndignifiedDeath been eaten by their pet cat.]] which explains the lack of a body.However, Scott survived his encounter with the cat but ended up trapped in the basement. Since everyone thinks he's dead no one looks for him there and the rest of the film is Scott's day to day survival in his new surroundings.

* ''Film/Daylight2013'': Ray was convinced thirty years ago of the murder of the prostitute Rosita and her infant daughter Anna, but Anna's body was never found. Part of the reason Iris thinks he's innocent is that she doesn't think he would have been clear-headed enough to hide a body. [[spoiler:Sure enough, it turns out that Iris is really Anna, raised by [[FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo her biological grandmother Ageeth]].]]

* In ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'', WordofGod made it the official rule. Death off-screen, not found the body? So don't believe what other characters say, they will come back. This is possibly subverted with Matoro, though his body was turned into energy on-screen.

* In Barbara Kingsolver's ''The Lacuna'', the main character, Harrison Shepherd, is driven out of the US by the [[RedScare House of Un-American Activities Committee]] blacklisting him. He flees to Mexico, and shortly after is reported as committing suicide by drowning. In reality, he faked his death via a secret underwater passage and went on to start a new life.

* Looking even further back in time, around AD 200 Achilles Tatius wrote a novel entitled ''Leucippe and Clitophone'' where the titular character Leucippe apparently is KilledOffForReal not once but twice. She is captured by desperados (and given up as HumanSacrifice) and after her miraculous return is later captured by pirates and beheaded. In the first case, her body is carried away and in the second this trope is slightly subverted when they find the body...of the other women that got beheaded. This makes this trope OlderThanFeudalism.

* The pilot in Kim Wilde's song "Cambodia" goes missing in action just when his wife is expecting him to return home.

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' has a variation: a certain redheaded conductor was presumed to be dead because they ''did'' find the body...well, what's left of it, anyway. Of course, the body is really that of that one similarly redheaded and uniformed lackey of Ladd Russo, who made the mistake of assuming that the aforementioned conductor would not be absolutely AxCrazy. Said conductor cheerfully got off the train with a near-perfect alibi and nary a scratch.

* At the end of ''LightNovel/CoffinPrincessChaika'' Season 1, Alberic Gillette is seemingly caught in a blast fired by the Soara Fortress and obliterated: all that is found of him is his sword. Season 2, however, reveals that he survived seemingly unharmed.

* Occurred in ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' with Gauron. Again, and again, and again, and I think again. He just refuses to ''stay dead''. Let's see... airfield hostage situation? Never found the body. Afghanistan (Helmajistan)? Never found the body. De Dannan's takeover? Never found the body. Before the series started, he was shot in the head. I guess they never found the body on that one, either.

* ''LightNovel/KyoKaraMaoh'':

* The first ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}'' movie opens with Hoba, the programmer of the BABEL virus that was hidden in his operating system for the [[HumongousMecha Labors]], jumping off a large sea platform. Gotoh notes they never found the body. When the protagonist go to the supposedly evacuated platform to destroy it to prevent the virus from spreading, they pick up one employee on the sensors: Hoba. Turns out he really was dead though: he attached his employee badge to his pet raven, perhaps as part of a ThanatosGambit.

* ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'':
** Sadakiyo's death is never seen on-screen, and both the characters and the reader only hear about it through a news story (which could've been easily manufactured by Friend.) This, of course, sets up his return at the end of the manga.
** The same goes for Kenji, who suddenly disappears from the plot after the first third of the story, and the reader is told that he apparently died on Bloody New Year's Eve. He eventually returns in the final third of the story after [[TookALevelInBadass Taking A Level In Badass]].

* Subverted in the ''LightNovel/VioletEvergarden'' anime, where the Major was last seen heavily wounded in an area that was bombed immediately afterwards, and his dogtags were found nearby. The fact that his body was never found causes Violet to insist that he's not really dead, but it's implied she's just in denial and he never shows up again. However, it is played straight in the Light Novel, where he did in fact survive.

* ''Anime/PatlaborTheMovie'': BigBad Eiichi Hoba jumps from the Ark into the ocean at the start of the film. [[spoiler: In the climactic finale they pick up a signal from him in the building they're trying to demolish. Noa goes after him, but it turns out he really was dead: The employee badge with the tracker was attached to the leg of his pet raven.]]

** In the Tower Of Paradise arc, they don't even try to find Jellal's body. They just assume that since Erza was still alive he must have sacrificed himself to save her (which makes less sense in context), give him a ReallyDeadMontage, and go on with their lives. When he comes back in a later they're all shocked.
** They also invert this with Lisana, whose body is found immediately after her death but turns out to have never died two years later anyway.

** John Sheridan, on a hostile planet, dropped a [[NukeEm nuclear bomb]] on his own location. While jumping into a {{bottomless pit|s}}. The other cast members couldn't even make sense of the reports about what happened, let alone find the body. Some of them refused to believe that he was dead. He was. He got better.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': In-universe for Emilio Koyama, Krazy-8, Drew Sharp, and Mike Ehrmantraut. All were dissolved in acid with no one outside the clean-up knowing their fate.