History Main / TheDisembodied

In the world of fiction, life and death aren't always black and white, there's a very large and very varied grey area - see OnlyMostlyDead. One aspect of which is characters that aren't dead so much as corporeally challenged.

Compare with AnAstralProjectionNotAGhost, AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence and VirtualGhost.

[[folder:Anime & Manga ]]

* In ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'', a "Contractor" is a DifferentlyPoweredIndividual who has to [[ConditionalPowers perform a Renumeration for every use of their power]]. The only exception are Contractors who have "fully paid off their contract." One of the only ways this is shown is when a character who has the ability [[GrandTheftMe to take over someone else's body]] has their original body destroyed while they're in someone else's.
* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': Alphonse Elric lost his body due to a botched attempt at human transmutation and ended up as a soul stuck inside a suit of armour. [[spoiler:It's eventually discovered the armor is more of a RemoteBody--the original is still whole within the GateOfTruth, where it ages, is speculated to be taking nutrition from Ed's body, and will cause Al's death were it to die.]]
* ''Anime/VariableGeo'' centers around [[NebulousEvilOrganization The Jahana Group's]] attempt to resurrect their deceased leader, [[BigBad Miranda Jahana]], by finding [[GrandTheftMe a suitably powerful body]] for her spirit to inhabit. Which is why they manipulate [[spoiler: [[LivingMacGuffin Satomi]]]] into entering the VG Tournament.

[[folder:Comic Books ]]

* The ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes''' Wildfire, sort of like Johann Kraus, is a being of pure energy who needs to wear a suit to survive.
* Creator/MarvelComics:
** Holocaust from ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' and ''Exiles''.
** A minor student at the Xavier academy in the ''Comicbook/XMen'' comics, Dummy, was also basically a suit with sentient gas inside of it.
* Dr. Manhattan from ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' was completely torn apart at an atomic level due to a FreakLabAccident, but his consciousness remained and very gradually was able to [[SelfConstructedBeing piece together a body]]. [[spoiler:He doesn't NEED the body, though. [[FightingAShadow If his body is destroyed again, his mind will be unaffected,]] and can easily make a new body this time.]]

[[folder:Literature ]]
* Voldemort in ''Literature/HarryPotter'', following a backfired [[OneHitKill Killing Curse]]. He can't die until [[spoiler:all of his [[SoulJar Horcruxes]] are destroyed]], but actually reincarnating himself takes quite a bit of effort and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire an entire book's]] worth of XanatosSpeedChess, both from himself and from his [[TheRenfield Renfield-like]] henchmen.
* In the German pulp sci-fi magazine series ''Literature/PerryRhodan'', a man named Ernst Ellert was among the first generation of known "mutants" (people with psychic powers) and was a member of the first Mutant Corps; his power was the ability to separate his mind (or astral body, or soul, whatever you want to call it) from his physical body and travel through time and space along temporal strands. He could travel to the past, or could select the statistically most probable future among several potential futures and follow the strand to see where it led. He died a heroic death in 1972 in an accident with high voltage, but the shock of dying completely separated his astral body from his body and he was hurled through time and space. After a long odyssey (during which he learned that his astral body could enter and control the bodies of physical beings), he eventually managed to return to 21st century Earth. For a short time, he was even forced to "possess" his own preserved dead body, until the deteriorating state of the body put it beyond his powers. In the year 4013, Ellert was given a new material body, created by advanced alien technology out of billions of sentient nanomachines. The new body was humanoid, although Ellert's control over the nanites allowed him to transform his body into a cloud of nanomachines and solidify it again at will, i.e. if he wanted to walk through walls.
* In Literature/TolkiensLegendarium, this happens to Sauron multiple times. As a [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Maia]], his natural state is as a spirit, but he can construct a physical body for himself at will, although if these are destroyed rather than willingly cast off it can take a long time to create a new one, to the point that he was willing to surrender to [[Literature/BerenAndLuthien Lúthien and Huan]] rather than have his body killed by Huan. He was later reduced to a disembodied spirit [[Literature/TheSilmarillion in the Fall of Númenor]], again [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings when he lost the One Ring and finally and irreversibly (until doomsday) when the Ring was destroyed]].

[[folder:Live-Action TV ]]
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has Omega in "The Three Doctors" (he's been so eaten away by anti-matter that only his will exists) and, most recently, [[spoiler: Dr. Simeon, aka The Great Intelligence]].

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In the episode "Free Spirit", a human test subject became a disembodied body-possessing spirit after his body was terminated in the middle of a mind transference experiment. Then he comes back for revenge against the scientists responsible for his death.
* General Zod in ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' until the events of "Dominion".
** Earlier in the series, the episode "Spirit" had [[AlphaBitch Dawn Stiles]], who crashed her car into an area full of [[GreenRocks Kryptonite]]. Dawn blurs the line between this trope and AnAstralProjectionNotAGhost since while her spirit is around [[DemonicPossession possessing]] people, her body is alive [[spoiler: until she possesses a nurse and kills her own body.]]
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': A group of rogue Asurans (killer androids made of nanites related to the Replicators in ''SG-1'') attempt to achieve [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascension]] by destroying their original bodies and becoming incorporeal, but because they aren't organic this simply left them in a transient state.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics ]]
* Allen the Amorphous Cloud of Gas in ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' was so uncommitted that eventually the particles that make him up became bored and stopped binding. Now he exists only as a faint odour near the copy room.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3rd Edition supplements for PsychicPowers introduced "unbodied," psionic humanoids that have transcended their physical shells and now exist as entities of pure thought. Player characters can get in on this with the "psion uncarnate" PrestigeClass, which allows them to evolve into incorporeal beings.

[[folder:Video Games ]]
* The Luteces in ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' are this, more or less. A not-so-FreakLabAccident killed them, leaving behind bodies to be buried, but also scattered them across time and space, allowing them to visit the city mortician and complain about the job he did on their corpses. They're able to interact with the world as necessary, but can [[ImmuneToBullets ignore bullets]] as from their perspective, even a point-blank shot will always miss them. [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything It's probably quantum.]]
* In ''Franchise/BlazBlue'', Yuuki Terumi is the disembodied spirit of [[spoiler:the Susanoo Unit itself. He hated serving his "sister" Amaterasu and sought to usurp her, but his own body's hardwired limitations prevented him from doing so directly, so he had to abandon it to set his plans in motion. He eventually returns to his original body in the last installment of the series ''Central Fiction'' and serves as the franchise's Final Boss.]]

* ''Videogame/HonkaiImpact3rd:'' In the backstory, Seele Vollerei was put in an experiment related to quantum physics. Unfortunately for her, it WentHorriblyWrong, causing her body to dissipate into atoms. However, her consciousness survived in the "Imaginary Space", and she becomes unable to interact with any kind of matter, nor could she be heard or interacted with. Bronya (her friend), knowing that she's still alive, vowed to find a way to restore her. In chapter 11 of the game, they finally meet each other again when Bronya stumbled into [[EldritchLocation the Sea of Quanta]]. Then, after a series of struggles, the two manage to go back to the real world, and Seele regains her physical form.
* The postgame of ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand'' has this happening to two characters: [[spoiler:[[BigBad Fecto Forgo]], whose body was totally destroyed after Kirby [[CarFu ran them over]], and [[KingOfBeasts Leongar]], whose soul Fecto tore out of his body and [[AnatomyOfTheSoul shattered into hundreds of pieces]] so they can use him as a [[GrandTheftMe replacement vessel]].]]

* Both the ending and the bonus chapter of ''[[VideoGame/MysteryCaseFiles Mystery Case Files: Incident at Pendle Tower]]'' reveal that both [[spoiler: Millicent and Bobby]], who were thought to be bonafide ghosts for the whole game, are actually this: [[spoiler:Dr. Corman's experiment didn't ''kill'' them per se, but turned them into spirits. And, as shown by the endgame, this is ''reversible'', as both regain their physical bodies when the experiment itself if reversed by the Master Detective]].
* Issue #10 of ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' reveals that the Black Signal, initially introduced as an incorporeal EldritchAbomination with a penchant for calling itself John, is actually one of these: [[spoiler: once a human member of the Fear Nothing Foundation, he supposedly ended his life detonating a Filth-bomb on the Tokyo subway... but instead of being killed or merely infected, the pure Filth at the epicenter of the blast converted him into a disembodied Filth-entity capable of possessing any mind touched by the Filth - or tech, which he greatly prefers.]]
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' brings us [[spoiler: Mephiles the Dark, the mind and will of the time god Solaris. As the Duke of Soleanna tried to harness its power for his own ends (specifically to resurrect his fallen wife), Solaris angrily rebelled and exploded, splitting into [[EvilIsBurningHot Iblis]] and [[LivingShadow Mephiles]]. Both of them were sealed away separately until Dr. Eggman accidentally freed Mephiles ten years later. During the Last Story, Mephiles frees Iblis and rejoins with it, recreating Solaris.]]

[[folder:Web Video]]

* In Literature/TolkiensLegendarium, this happens to Sauron multiple times. As a [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Maia]], his natural state is as a spirit, but he can construct a physical body for himself at will, although if these are destroyed rather than willingly cast off it can take a long time to create a new one. He was reduced to a disembodied spirit after [[Literature/TheSilmarillion his defeat at the hands of Lúthien and Huan, again in the Fall of Númenor]], once more [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings when he lost the One Ring and for a final time when the Ring was destroyed]].

* ''Manga/FullMetalAlchemist'': Alphonse Elric lost his body due to a botched attempt at human transmutation and ended up as a soul stuck inside a suit of armour. [[spoiler:It's eventually discovered his body is still whole within the GateOfTruth, and without that Al couldn't even be alive in his current state.]]

In the world of fiction, life and death aren't always black and white, there's a very large and very varied grey area - see OnlyMostlyDead. One aspect of which is characters that aren't dead so much as corporally challenged.

* The Luteces in ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' are this, more or less. A not-so-FreakLabAccident killed them, leaving behind bodies to be buried, but also scattered them across time and space, allowing them to visit the city mortician and complain about the job he did on their corpses. They're able to interact with the world as necessary, but can [[ImmuneToBullets ignore bullets]] as from their persepctive, even a point-blank shot will always miss them. [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything It's probably quantum.]]

* In ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'', Positron was a guy who was essentially converted completely into antimatter. He was stuck permanently inside his armor, and when it was damaged, he actually started ''leaking out''. At one point, Badass Normal Manticore successfully scares off a whole ''group'' of powerful supervillains by threatening to put an arrow through Positron, turning the guy into an antimatter bomb. One of the comic storylines ended with Positron having a wish for a regular human body granted, with his character in-game changed to reflect this.

* The ''ComicBook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}}''' Wildfire, sort of like Johann Kraus, is a being of pure energy who needs to wear a suit to survive.

[[folder: Anime & Manga ]]

* ''Manga/FullMetalAlchemist'': Alphonse Elric lost his body due to a botched attempt at human transmutation and ended up as a soul stuck inside a suit of armour. [[spoiler:It's eventually discovered his body is still whole within the GateOfTruth, and without that Al couldn't even be alive in his current state.]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* A minor student at the Xavier academy in the ''Comicbook/XMen'' comics, Dummy, was also basically a suit with sentient gas inside of it.
* A variation appears in ''Comicbook/ElfQuest''. Unfortunately, it needs a lot of spoilers because it happens late in the story. [[spoiler:Winnowill chooses to die in order that her disembodied malevolent soul can destroy her enemies and wreak havoc. Instead, Rayek absorbs her soul and holds her captive in his own body. It's an endless, bitter struggle and we haven't seen the end of it yet.]]
* Holocaust from Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' and ''Exiles''.

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* General Zod in ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' until the events of "Dominion".
** Earlier in the series, the episode "Spirit" had [[AlphaBitch Dawn Stiles]], who crashed her car into an area full of [[GreenRocks Kryptonite]]. Dawn blurs the line between this trope and AnAstralProjectionNotAGhost since while her spirit is around [[DemonicPossession possessing]] people, her body is alive [[spoiler: until she possesses a nurse and kills her own body.]]

[[folder: Newspaper Comics ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In ''Franchise/BlazBlue'', Yuuki Terumi is the disembodied spirit of [[spoiler:the Susanoo Unit itself. He hated serving his "sister" Amaterasu and sought to usurp her, but his own body's hardwired limitations prevented him from doing so directly, so he had to abandon it to set his plans in motion. He eventually returns to his original body in the last installment of the series ''Central Fiction'' and serves as the franchise's Final Boss.]]
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' brings us [[spoiler: Mephiles the Dark, the mind and will of the time god Solaris. As the Duke of Soleanna tried to harness its power for his own ends (specifically to resurrect his fallen wife), Solaris angrily rebelled and exploded, splitting into [[EvilIsBurningHot Iblis]] and [[LivingShadow Mephiles]]. Both of them were sealed away separately until Dr. Eggman accidentally freed Mephiles ten years later. During the Last Story, Mephiles frees Iblis and rejoins with it, recreating Solaris.]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Voldemort in ''Literature/HarryPotter'', following a backfired [[OneHitKill Killing Curse]]. He can't die until [[spoiler:all of his [[SoulJar Horcruxes]] are destroyed]], but actually reincarnating himself takes quite a bit of effort and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire an entire book's]] worth of XanatosSpeedChess.

* Voldemort in ''Literature/HarryPotter'', following a backfired [[OneHitKill Killing Curse]]. He can't die until [[spoiler:all of his [[SoulJar Horcruxes]] are destroyed]], but actually reincarnating himself takes quite a bit of effort and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire an entire book's]] worth of XanatosSpeedChess.]]

* Voldemort in ''Literature/HarryPotter'', following a backfired curse. [[spoiler: He can't die as long as at least one of his [[SoulJar Horcruxes]] exists, but actually reincarnating himself takes quite a bit of effort and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire an entire book's worth of]] [[GambitRoulette convoluted scheming.]]]]

The Disembodied was once human but lost his body through a bizarre accident without actually dying. In other words, they're the TechnicallyLivingZombie variant of [[OurGhostsAreDifferent a ghost]]. This may happen through AstralProjection and then having your body destroyed, or being unable to go back for one reason or another.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' brings us [[spoiler: Mephiles the Dark, the mind and will of the time god Solaris. After the Duke of Soleanna tried to harness its power for his own ends (specifically to resurrect his fallen wife), Solaris angrily rebelled and exploded, splitting into [[EvilIsBurningHot Iblis]] and [[LivingShadow Mephiles]]. Both of them were sealed away separately until Dr. Eggman accidentally freed Mephiles. During the Last Story, Mephiles frees Iblis and rejoins with it, recreating Solaris.]]

The Disembodied was once human but lost his body through a bizarre accident without actually dying. In other words, they're the TechnicallyLivingZombie variant of a ghost. This may happen through AstralProjection and then having your body destroyed, or being unable to go back for one reason or another.

Compare with AstralProjectionNotAGhost, AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence and VirtualGhost.

In the world of fiction, life and death aren't always black and white, there's a very large and very varied grey area, one aspect of which is characters that aren't dead so much as corporally challenged. The Disembodied was once human but lost his body through a bizarre accident without actually dying. Compare with AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence and VirtualGhost.

* ''Manga/FullMetalAlchemist'': Alphonse Elric lost his body due to a botched attempt at human transmutation and ended up as a soul stuck inside a suit of armour.
* In ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'', a "Contractor" is a DifferentlyPoweredIndividual who has to [[PowerAtAPrice perform a Renumeration for every use of their power]]. The only exception are Contractors who have "fully paid off their contract." One of the only ways this is shown is when a character who has the ability [[GrandTheftMe to take over someone else's body]] has their original body destroyed while they're in someone else's.

* In the German pulp sci-fi magazine series ''PerryRhodan'', a man named Ernst Ellert was among the first generation of known "mutants" (people with psychic powers) and was a member of the first Mutant Corps; his power was the ability to separate his mind (or astral body, or soul, whatever you want to call it) from his physical body and travel through time and space along temporal strands. He could travel to the past, or could select the statistically most probable future among several potential futures and follow the strand to see where it led. He died a heroic death in 1972 in an accident with high voltage, but the shock of dying completely separated his astral body from his body and he was hurled through time and space. After a long odyssey (during which he learned that his astral body could enter and control the bodies of physical beings), he eventually managed to return to 21st century Earth. For a short time, he was even forced to "possess" his own preserved dead body, until the deteriorating state of the body put it beyond his powers. In the year 4013, Ellert was given a new material body, created by advanced alien technology out of billions of sentient nanomachines. The new body was humanoid, although Ellert's control over the nanites allowed him to transform his body into a cloud of nanomachines and solidify it again at will, i.e. if he wanted to walk through walls.

* A minor student at the Xavier academy in the ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}'' comics, Dummy, was also basically a suit with sentient gas inside of it.

* In ''Franchise/BlazBlue'', Yuuki Terumi is the disembodied spirit of [[spoiler:the Susanoo Unit itself. He eventually returns to his original body in the last installment of the series ''Central Fiction'' and serves as the franchise's Final Boss.]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* Dr. Manhattan from ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' had this as part of his backstory. He was completely torn apart at an atomic level due to a FreakLabAccident, but his consciousness remained and very gradually was able to piece together a body.