History Main / StayingAlive

* {{Dracula}}, in [[Literature/{{Dracula}} books]], [[Film/BramStokersDracula movies]], comics, and ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}''.

* ''Film/{{Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides}}'' makes no attempt to explain how blackbeard survived his hystorical death.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'': In one of the bonus levels, Bond has to dispatch Baron Samedi in an Egyptian temple after receiving an invitation. First, killing him requires retrieving the Golden Gun from another room, a OneHitKill weapon that kills any normal enemy instantly. But every time Bond shoots him, he lets out an EvilLaugh and reappears somewhere else in the level. After killing him three times and 'completing' the mission, Samedi *again* shows up.[[note]]Hilariously enough though, a glitch in the programming makes it theoretically possible to kill him again even in this segment.[[/note]]

* In RickRiordan's ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', Gaea grants her minions this.

* Aaron in [[ChaosWalking The Knife Of Never Letting Go]] - he gets [[spoiler: attacked by a crocodile, half his face ripped off, left unconscious and face-down in a river and his nose ripped off by a dog while travelling for days on end seemingly without rest before being beaten to a bloody pulp in a brawl that includes him getting smacked repeatedly in the head with rather large rocks before finally being stabbed in the neck. Even then he still manages to stagger to his full height and try to say something before he finally tumbles into a waterfall.]] Wtf?!

Particularly jarring when there's other, "[[SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness less dead]]" characters around who stay dead, while the dude who was visibly disintegrated on-screen is back in action. Even with a perfect "[[FourIsDeath 4]]", the "deadest" you can get on the SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness, the guy just ''won't stay dead!'' [[TheSeventies Disco]], it seems, [[DeaderThanDisco is back]].

* [[spoiler:Loki, following a drawn-out DisneyDeath,]] at the end of ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld''. Before that, [[spoiler:he survived a [[DrivenToSuicide suicide attenpt]] by [[DisneyVillainDeath letting himself fall into a black hole]]]] in ''Film/{{Thor}}'', something that judging by the other characters' reactions clearly was considered impossible to survive.

[[RecordNeedleScratch Wait, '''''what?!''''']]

Wait, '''''what?!'''''

* [[spoiler:Loki, following a drawn-out DisneyDeath,]] at the end of ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld''.

* ''Film/{{Pirates of the Carribbean On Stranger Tides}}'' makes no attempt to explain how blackbeard survived his hystorical death.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]

* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'': In one of the bonus levels, Bond has to dispatch Baron Samedi in an Egyptian temple after receiving an invitation. First, killing him requires retrieving the Golden Gun from another room, a OneHitKill weapon that kills any enemy instantly. But every time Bond shoots him, he lets out an EvilLaugh and reappears somewhere else in the level. After killing him three times and 'completing' the mission, Samedi *again* shows up.[[note]]Hilariously enough though, a glitch in the programming makes it theoretically possible to kill him again even in this segment.[[/note]]

* In ''Series/BabylonFive'' [[spoiler: Mr. Morden is a few hundred feet from two 500-megaton nuclear explosions that destroys an entire city. He shows up a few weeks later with nothing but some severe burns that heal within a month or so. He does not survive having his head cut off and stuck on a pike, however. A book involving the techno mages explains exactly HOW he survived. And note that the burns included minor insanity as a side effect, and he was PEELING OFF HIS OWN FLESH!]]

* In ''PrincessGwenevereAndTheJewelRiders'', Kale returns after being magically dematerialized and vanishing into Wild Magic - where she is then also magically restored, accidental courtesy of Morgana in her attempt to retrieve the Dark Stone. When told by Gwen she was thought "to be lost in Wild Magic", Kale answers "Well, I'm back!"

* {{Jesus}}. First they beat him nearly to death, then they nailed him to a cross and left him till he was completely dead, then they put a spear through his heart to make sure, then they buried him and sealed the grave with a boulder and a squadron of Roman soldiers. Three days later: "[[BackFromTheDead Hi, guys!]] Got any fish? [[JesusWasWayCool Oh yeah, I can walk through walls now, too.]]"

** ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' does this on occasion, often due to the PR story disagreeing with the imported ''Series/SuperSentai'' footage. Most recently (as of 2012) it was ''Series/PowerRangersRPM:'' Kilobyte goes through his counterpart's final battle footage, getting explodiated quite utterly by no less than the combined might of five Megazords. He later staggers back into the villains' lair a little singed.

* ComicBook/TheJoker makes somehow living through usually fatal things an art form, to the point where Franchise/{{Batman}} will occasionally ignore him and save someone else because [[GenreSavvy he knows the Joker will get away just fine]].

* Ming the Merciless from ''Film/FlashGordon''. He was stabbed through the heart [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill by a spaceship]], yet his hand and evil laughter at the end of the film clearly indicate that death was a mere inconvenience.

Apparently, some villains and other characters have discovered the secret to staying alive even after they've visibly died a horrible, gruesome death. Explanation? Apparently, they don't need one. Maybe they're just too {{Badass}} for death itself. Maybe they bought the advanced ContractualImmortality plan which also includes death insurance. Or maybe they're just [[EscapedFromHell too tough for Hell to contain]]. Or maybe you were only FightingAShadow and only succeeded in driving them back to hell for a while. Either way, they're given a full SnapBack [[BackFromTheDead from the dead]] at the start of the next episode, game, or season, and all the audience can do is accept the fact that they're back and at it again!

->''"Go ahead and shoot! I'll be back! I ''always'' come back! ''(sighs)'' But dying is such a ''bitch''."''

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker makes somehow living through usually fatal things an art form, to the point where Franchise/{{Batman}} will occasionally ignore him and save someone else because [[GenreSavvy he knows the Joker will get away just fine]].

** This is how he got Harley Quinn to fall in love with him.He was recovering in Arkham Asylum for about two weeks, joked about how the Bats kicked his ass constantly in his usual, hilarious way, and she busted him out of prison because she felt Batman was the aggressor and Joker the victim. Which may be kinda true....

[[folder:Film]]
* Just about every popular horror and SlasherMovie character.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Rio 2}}'', the trope is invoked\discussed as CardCarryingVillain Nigel (who had already survived a painful collision with a plane's engine in the original movie) does a [[WaxingLyrical dramatic reading of "I Will Survive"]] as an audition.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Religion]]

* TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering: Though many individual creatures have abilities along these lines, the Undying mechanic from [[GothicHorror Innistrad]] exemplifies it best (with its predecessor, Persist, coming in a close second).
** Undying combines this with CameBackStrong (the creature comes back with a small stat boost), while Persist is basically being weakened but too stubborn to die.

* Tuyet from Toys/{{Bionicle}} has a chronic case of this, to the point where it's almost a non-comic version of TheyKilledKennyAgain. At first it was assumed that she died during the Great Cataclysm, then later her corpse was found and reanimated into a zombie, which was subsequently destroyed. Then an alternate universe version of her appeared, [[PortalCut and was also disposed of]]. It was then revealed that [[spoiler: the original Tuyet was actually imprisoned in an alternate dimension, and was replaced by a duplicate that died. She escaped back to her home universe by faking her own death]]. Lampshaded in the title of the short story "The Many Deaths of Toa Tuyet."

* Calo Nord in ''Star Wars: KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' somehow survives being attacked by your party, hit by a building-destroying laser, and being crushed by falling rubble. He then escapes, despite the fact that the ''planet'' he is on is being bombarded. His explanation later on? "I'm hard to kill".

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Doctor Helen Alpha Narbon from ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}''. When her daughter/clone Beta insists that she saw her being burned at the stake and chopped into pieces by angry villagers, Alpha simply replies, "There's always an out, Beta. Remember that."
** Let's also not forget Dave. Really, why did he even decide to stay there after everything they did to him.
*** As he says in the "[[http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic_plus/series.php?view=archive&chapter=39897&name=narbonic_plus#strip4 Professor Madblood and the Doppelganger Gambit]]" arc, while standing on the moon and looking at the earth... "You know, sometimes I wonder why I stick with Narbonics Labs. Then I get a moment like this, and I feel like there's no way I could work anywhere else. Of course, to get up here, I had to appropriate the body of an evil genius with skinny girl arms who'll probably end up killing me for this." As he trudges to the moon base, he thinks to himself, "Casual dress, smoking permitted... Casual dress, smoking permitted..."
* Oasis and Kusari from ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''. Oasis has died multiple times, including being blown up twice and taking a bullet to the head, while Kusari's one (on-screen) death was a decapitation. It's implied that there ''is'' an explanation for how they can seemingly come back from the dead, but after nine years we still haven't gotten it.
* Crushed from ''Crushed: Doomed Kitty Adventures'', a project from ''Webcomic/{{Supermegatopia}}''. A parody of RPG and Fantasy Comics, Crushed dies ''a lot'', but that's just fine, because main characters are always reincarnated at the Temple of Infinite Lives the second they kick the bucket. She doesn't even lose her memory or anything, although [[NakedOnArrival all her gear]] (including [[{{Fanservice}} her clothes]]) are left behind -- along with her previous body.
** The Temple eventually gets tired of her constant reincarnations, so they assign a huge priestess to tag along with Crushed and keep her alive. By the time the head priest has turned around, the party -- priestess included -- is back in the reincarnation circle.
* ''Webcomic/CaseyAndAndy'' are mad scientist roommates who occasionally die. Throughout the strip's run they constantly got killed, either by enemies or by their own malfunctioning mad science, and always immediately came back. The reason for this was [[spoiler: intentionally never explained anywhere, not even by Word Of God]].
* Parodied in ''Webcomic/SamAndFuzzy'': [[http://samandfuzzy.com/1126]]

* Inverted in WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad, when Tompkins famously "died somehow".
** [[spoiler: [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Torso took silver]]]]
** Teen Girl Squad plays this trope straight all the time thanks to a combination of KillEmAll and NegativeContinuity. Indeed, the mentioned episode takes place mostly in a flashback, in which many of the eponymous girl squad are killed in their infanthood before being shown alive in their teens reflecting on their memories (before being killed again).
* ''HappyTreeFriends'': The entire point of the series is [[KillEmAll Everyone Dies]], yet they still have a large group of recurring characters. This one is definitely NegativeContinuity at work.

* ''WebVideo/{{Phelous}}'' dies at the end of practically every review and reappears unharmed for the next. While explanations for this have been given, the reason changes randomly and often makes little sense to start with (frequently based on some plot element of the movie he's just reviewed).
** This becomes a RunningGag in ''WebOriginal/ToBoldlyFlee'', where his RedShirt causes him to have many swift and improbable deaths, even when there's nothing around to kill him. He just shows up alive shortly after, with the HandWave that Red Shirts always are in infinite supply in movies.

* Major Force in {{DC Comics}} has exploded and come back so many times, sometimes with an intervening period of having been absorbed by ComicBook/CaptainAtom, that ComicBook/GreenLantern Kyle Rayner finally just cut off his head, sealed it in a force energy bubble, and knocked it into deep space, leaving the rest of the body on an asteroid. He was back a few months later, with nary a comment about the experience.