History Main / ReviveKillsZombie

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** Exploited both ways in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1119.html #1119]] when a group of living characters fights a group of undead: the living use a Mass Cure Wounds spell that simultaneously heals themselves and harms the undead, while the undead use a Mass Inflict Wounds spell that does the opposite.

* Justified in ''TabletopGame/{{Eon}}''; with the way Mundana's FunctionalMagic works, different aspects of magic within the same "schools" of magecraft tend to be "opposites" of each other. E.g., [[PlayingWithFire Pyrotropy]] and [[MakingASplash Hydrotropy]] are opposite aspects within the school of [[ElementalPowers Elemental Forces]], meaning it's ''much'' harder to use Pyrotropic magic while submerged in water, and it's likewise harder to use Hydrotropic magic while surrounded by raging fires. [[WhiteMagic Biotroty]] and [[BlackMagic Necrotropy]] are opposite aspects within the school of [[LifeEnergy Life Forces]], meaning that healing magic cancels out the energies that makes a corpse move, and the kinda energies that makes a corpse move can also cancel out the effects of a healing spell.

* ''VideoGame/AbsentedAgeSquarebound'': Undead enemies take damage from healing, which means skills and items that can heal the enemy can be situationally useful, especially if the player is faced with ghost enemies, which resist everything except psychic, light, and healing.

* ''VideoGame/AbsentedAgeSquarebound'': Undead enemies take damage from healing, which means skills and items that can heal the enemy can be situationally useful.

* In sequels for ''VideoGame/KingsBounty'' some healing spells will damage Undead troops.

* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Shantae}} Shantae and the Seven Sirens]]'', Shantae's Refresh Dance has this kind of effect on certain enemies. Bonefish are killed instantly by it, mummies are turned into naked zombies before exploding from DefeatByModesty, while Sickly Silverfish aren't ''killed'' so much as have their sickness cured, turn friendly, and start throwing you gems.
* ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}: Shadow of Chernobyl'' has an oversight which allows you to apply the inverse of this to yourself, in a manner of speaking. The gist of it is that there are artifacts you can attach to your armor to increase your resistance to certain damage types like electricity - get enough of them with strong enough effects and your resistance to that damage type gets so high it wraps around and applies ''negative'' damage to you when you take that type of damage, even repairing your armor.

** In ''Videogame/DivinityOriginalSinII'', Undead such as Fane are harmed by healing spells and potions (including food) and [[InvertedTrope healed by poison damage]]. However, [[BackFromTheDead Resurrection]] scrolls function normally on them, causing them no harm but returning them to (un)life.

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has several kinds of potions with beneficial or harmful effects. For every type, you can use it on yourself, or turn it into a splash potion to throw at friends or enemies. Zombies, zombie pigmen, skeletons, and phantoms are healed by potions of Poison or Instant Harm, but can be damaged with potions of Regeneration and Instant Health.

** Changed in 4th Edition, wherein healing effects work the same on everybody, and the old "positive energy/negative energy" has been changed to "radiant damage/necrotic damage" . Undead are resistant to necrotic damage and vulnerable to radiant damage, but enough necrotic damage will still destroy undead, and radiant damage hurts the living too. This trend was continued in 5th Edition as well, though cure spells will instead just fizzle completely instead of actually healing undead.

* Subverted in ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}'': A zombie is brought back to life with a healing spell only to [[ShaggyDogStory die again while being hit by a train during his celebration]].

* ''Roleplay/DestroyTheGodmodder'': This is used occasionally, but once resulted in a week-long series of hilarity when one player flooded the field with variant of holy water (which was used twiced), most notably unholy water (which was used three times), each time the godmodder was ''somehow'' transformed into whatever would benefit from the flood. Culminating in the mass of floods canceling each other out and killing everything but the godmodder.

* ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' made a ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' related [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/04/23 comic about a group of Horde characters]] gathered around their fallen Undead friend, who was asking politely to be rezzed; the others ponder whether or not casting revival on a zombie would be a good thing or if it would finish him off.

* ''Webcomic/MonstersCanBeHeroesToo'': One of the monsters that Coal the Kobold recruits to her party is a skeleton named Shelley who is ironically a WhiteMage, who joins Coal after she accidently killed one of her skeleton allies by trying to heal them, causing the other skeletons to turn on her.

* Referenced in a combination of [[http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100604 this]] ''Webcomic/CtrlAltDel'' strip and [[http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100607 the one straight after it]]. Although in this case it may be that Ethan did not intend the trope's meaning. The fact that the arc so far has a heavy tabletop games theme running through it though seems to indicate that he would know about it.

* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Shantae}} Shantae and the Seven Sirens]]'' Shantae's Refresh Dance has this kind of effect on certain enemies. Bonefish are killed instantly by it, while Sickly Silverfish aren't ''killed'' so much as have their sickness cured, turn friendly, and start throwing you gems.

A game mechanic where undead enemies can be quickly defeated with [[HealingPotion health items]] or by casting healing/revival magic. From a gameplay standpoint, this simply allows healing skills to do double duty as TurnUndead, and makes the party's dedicated healer not-so-useless when your party is asked to explore that ancient crypt at night. Logically, it's often explained or assumed that the source of healing magic (usually nature or the divine) is anathema to the undead. This particular example is one of the worst cases of GuideDangIt, since it's unintuitive to cast a healing spell on an enemy if players are unfamiliar with this trope.

*** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' was supposed to have the reverse to this system as well: while curative magic and items healed regular characters and hurt undead enemies, Seizure and Phantasm would hurt regular characters and heal undead. Unfortunately, due to one of the numerous bugs in the game's battle system, the status effect didn't work like it was supposed to, and actually ended up ''hurting'' the monsters that used Seizure instead of healing them. The resultant battles are rather humorous to watch.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' doesn't allow players to use healing magic on enemies, so undead enemies have to be beaten the normal way. The final boss in the hard version of the Lost City of Amdapor dungeon has Cure III and Cure IV to heal itself and an altered Regen spell to create a healing field for itself, but it can also use Reverse on itself to reverse the healing properties by having casting Cure III and Cure IV on your party for damage and making the Regen field cause the Bleeding status if you stand in it.

* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Shantae}} Shantae and the Seven Sirens]]'' Shantae's Refresh Dance has this kind of affect on certain enemies. Bonefish are killed instantly by it, while Sickly Silverfish aren't ''killed'' so much as have their sickness cured, turn friendly, and start throwing you gems.

*** In second edition and before, however, it did work on undead creatures, either destroying them or turning them into living creatures depending on exactly what rule you looked at. The description of the mummy in first edition stated specifically that a resurrection spell turns it into a normal fighter. Raise Dead acted as Slay Living for undead. (Yeah, it makes sense) But then, 2nd. ed. had the entire concept of "reversible" spells...

* Inverted in ''Manga/InuYasha'', Sesshoumaru's sword Tenseiga isn't able to harm living beings, but it can cut spirits, ghosts, and other MadeOfAir entities. As it happens, this little quirk means that Tenseiga ''can'' [[HealingShiv revive the dead]] by ''slaying the spirits that come to gather the dead person's soul''. In the cat arc, Sesshomaru defeats a monster that had sucked up the souls of four other demons using Tenseiga, and the trapped souls return to their bodies, rendering the BigBad's butt infinitely more kickable.

** For example, silver is a known germicide (it's toxic to germs like many heavy metals but not toxic enough to kill humans, at least not accidentally) and has been used instead of antibiotics throughout history. Werewolves are hurt by silver, as well as vampires and possibly other evil creatures.

* Referenced in a combination of [[http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100604 this]] ''Webcomic/CtrlAltDel'' strip and [[http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100607 the one straight after it]]. Although in this case it may be that Ethan did not intend the tropes meaning. The fact that the arc so far has a heavy tabletop games theme running through it though seems to indicate that he would know about it.
* ''Webcomic/FullFrontalNerdity'' played this with regards to a ''Left 4 Dead''-inspired campaign. Cure Disease would kill the zombies by eliminating the virus animating them while a resurrection would return them to life... at which point the zombies would tear the newly-revived character apart.

** In ''Videogame/DivinityOriginalSin2'', Undead such as Fane are harmed by healing spells and potions (including food) and [[InvertedTrope healed by poison damage]]. However, [[BackFromTheDead Resurrection]] scrolls function normally on them, causing them no harm but returning them to (un)life.

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagicVII'' plays it straight - characters raised as zombies at a dark-aligned temple or with the Reanimate spell take damage instead of being healed by healing spells such as Heal or Power Cure.

*
''VideoGame/MightAndMagicVII'' plays it straight - characters raised as zombies at a dark-aligned temple or with the Reanimate spell take damage instead of being healed by healing spells such as Heal or Power Cure.

* ''Rappaccini's Daughter'' by Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the older examples of this. The daughter of a botanist, Beatrice Rappaccini grows up in a poisonous garden and, as a result, becomes poisonous herself. A man falls in love with her from afar and, in desperation, gives her an antidote so they can try to live together. Guess what happens...

** In early editions, this is explained within the rules by stating that undead creatures are powered by negative energy, while healing spells work by channeling positive energy. When the two types meet, they cancel each other out, harming the undead by negating part of their 'life'-force. Likewise Inflict Wound spells use negative energy to harm the living, and thus heal undead creatures. Most Necromancy spells, which use negative energy, only heal Undead foes. An exception is "Undeath to Death", one of the very few instant-kill spells that can affect them.

*** There's the [[spoiler: Zombie President]], which transforms into a zombie after a few hits. After it transforms, it can be killed by a single Phoenix Down. [[LuckBasedMission The success rate, however, is quite low, so it actually takes a relatively large number of Phoenix Downs to kill him]].

*** Played completely straight, while also adding practicality to the Life 2 spell; both versions of it are lethal to the undead, but the upgraded form is ''much'' more accurate. It also makese battles against undead squads the perfect place to deploy a character with the Calculator skill; even if their spell parameters hit everybody on the field, that's hardly a problem if you're casting Cure 4 or Life 2 on your party of living beings.

* ''Literature/LicaniusTrilogy'': [[{{Satan}} Shammaeloth]] is repelled and harmed by Essence, the magical energy generated by living things. His own magic, kan, is anathema to Essence, and when he makes his final assault on the Deillanis rift he has to send his Banes before him to kill everything in his path, because the plants and animals and people generate enough Essence to slow and harm him.