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3%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
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7[[quoteright:280:[[WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/venturestein_groovy.jpg]]]]
8[[caption-width-right:280:"Why, yes, Dr. Venture, I can see people just ''lining up'' for your resurrections!"]]
9
10->''"Sometimes, dead is better."''
11-->-- The CentralTheme of ''Literature/PetSematary''
12
13Sometimes, death is not a cheap event that's [[DeathIsCheap easily undone]], but a [[DeathIsDramatic dramatic, soul-scouring event]]. Even if MagicAndPowers exist, most would say [[JustForFun/HowToCheatDeath cheating it]] is [[TragicDream flat-out]] [[AllDeathsFinal impossible]]. However, [[LoveMakesYouCrazy if you really love someone]], [[{{Necromantic}} nothing's impossible, right?]] By technology or magic, by the power of the Gods or [[TheDarkArts the grace]] of the [[EldritchAbomination Old Ones]], surely there is a way...
14
15...Well, yeah, it ''is'' possible, but [[GoMadFromTheRevelation you won't like the result]]. Seriously. [[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} It's not a pretty picture.]]
16
17Basically, an attempt to resurrect someone from the dead -- [[ResurrectedRomance usually]] a {{Love Interest|s}}, sometimes a family member, a [[FriendlyTarget close friend]] or even ''[[StayingAlive one's self]]'' -- [[ScaleOfScientificSins will end badly]]. This can be due to unfortunate circumstances, external tampering, or the setting itself being constrained by an EquivalentExchange or FantasticAesop that makes all such attempts [[GoneHorriblyWrong Go Horribly Wrong]]. There are several ways this could go badly:
18
19* SoullessShell: The loved one's ''body'' comes back fine, but their soul remains gone for good.
20* DamagedSoul: Both the body and the soul come back, but the soul suffered some damage along the way, often leading to madness, depression or sociopathy.
21* MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil: Something goes ''really'' wrong, and the loved one comes back as an undead, demonic or EldritchAbomination that now wants to kill/eat their resurrector.
22* InhumanHuman: The person's soul comes back just fine. The body, on the other hand, is a complete mess, with bad results for both the person and the resurrector.
23* DestinationHostUnreachable: The body comes back, and the soul comes back, but the person can never see the resurrector again due to being shunted off somewhere/when else.
24
25Often falls under EquivalentExchange explaining why it doesn't work. Other times a FantasticAesop behind why those who've had DeathByOriginStory can't come back. If OnlyMostlyDead has also been used or the setting includes powerful WhiteMagic, it can seem like SourGrapes.
26
27Sometimes this can happen even in a universe where coming BackFromTheDead can be done without incident, if the resurrection's not performed competently, done without [[EyeOfNewt important supplies]], or intentionally sabotaged.
28
29Compare CreatingLife and the opposite, CameBackStrong. (Although, on some occasions the two Tropes [[BlessedWithSuck are not mutually exclusive]].) See also HarmfulHealing, UnwantedRevival, and ResurrectionSickness.
30
31Sometimes a ZombieApocalypse can be a Came Back Wrong on a massive scale.
32
33Most examples fall into one of the above-listed subtypes. Only examples that don't fit one of those should be included specifically on this page.
34
35Not to be confused with ThatCameOutWrong.
36
37!!'''As a {{Death Trope|s}} (or a partial nullification of it), many if not all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. ''Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''''
38----
39!!Examples:
40[[foldercontrol]]
41
42[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
43* This is Takako Sugiura's justification for attacking Mei Misaki (and convincing most of her classmates to do the same) in the anime version of ''Literature/{{Another}}''. She believes that the Mei everyone knows died at some point and was brought BackFromTheDead by the curse... but in reality, the girl she met was Mei's ''twin sister'' Misaki, who ''is'' dead due to the same curse.
44* Vetto and Fana in ''Manga/BlackClover'' suffer from radically different personalities to the one they had while they were alive, with Vetto becoming a mad brute obsessed with sinking his enemies into the most absolute despair and Fana being consumed by a deep hatred against those who oppose Licht. Rhya as well to a lesser extent because of the side-effects of the Forbidden Magic. They get better once Rhya restores them in their artificial bodies, though they still harbor some of the hate against humans they had while being reincarnated.
45* In ''Manga/{{Blame}}'', Seu, an enhanced human who acts as muscle for an AI control system, is repeatedly healed using a MatterReplicator, but each time his mind degrades more and more.
46* In ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'', the [[AlwaysSecondBest #2 Level 5]] Teitoku Kakine is able to recover from being reduced to a BrainInAJar from his battle with Accelerator by using his [[ImaginationBasedSuperpower Dark Matter]] power to forge a new body, complete with functional organs, for himself. The body, however, looks like a [[HumanoidAbomination white-and-black version of his old look with evil red eyes]], and no matter what Accelerator and Mugino do to him in the rematch, he can just [[HealingFactor fix the damage]] [[FromASingleCell no matter how severe]] and [[SelfDuplication make as many of himself as he wants]]. Dying also just made him ''even more'' determined to kill Accelerator and anyone who gets in his way. [[spoiler:Thankfully, [[SplitPersonalityTakeover one of his Dark Matter creations with a more benevolent mindset manages to take over Kakine when he spreads his consciousness too thin and becomes too distracted]], resulting in a far kinder Teitoku Kakine coming into existence.]]
47* ''Anime/CodeGeassLelouchOfTheResurrection'': Going off of the compilation movies' alternate continuity, [[spoiler:C.C. attempted to use C's World to ressurect Lelouch after he sacrificed his life as part of the Zero Requiem. It doesn't quite work: while she is able to restore his body, his soul doesn't quite come back intact, leaving him mute, amnesiac, and completely afraid of everything around him. It takes a second trip into C's World to make Lelouch's soul whole and bring him back completely]].
48* In ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'', [[spoiler:this happens to Falin when Marcille's resurrection magic inadvertently mixes up the Red Dragon's soul with hers. The resurrection succeeded, and she even CameBackStrong due to absorbing the dragon's natural magic, but being part monster gave the Mad Sorcerer control over her will and flesh]].
49* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'':
50** Inverted with the titular creatures. When they "die" their data is merely recycled and they eventually come back. More than a few times in the series a villain or evil mon has died, only to ultimately come back as a neutral or even benevolent character.
51** Played horrifyingly straight with [[EldritchAbomination [=ZeedMillenniummon=]]]. After Millenniummon was destroyed, the natural reincarnation process ''should'' have happened. Instead, his data failed to reconfigure back into an egg and ended up becoming an unholy beast that [[OmnicidalManiac wanted nothing more than to eradicate everything in the multiverse]].
52*** In Episode 61 of ''Anime/DigimonGhostGame'', a Moon=Millenniumon ([=ZeedMillenniumon's=] dormant form) murders a woman by crash-landing on her as soon as it manifested from a Digital Gate and reanimated her corpse through taking control of it. Because the woman's fiance was grief-ridden especially because she died days prior to their wedding, he brought her dead body home and toyed with it, though the reanimated body looks and acts completely wrong, and her presence attracts a huge flock of Evilmon and Tsumemon to haunt the house. By the time the protagonists got involved, Moon=Millenniumon was already feeding on its victim for 10 days and their intervention merely allowed it to officially resurrect as [=ZeedMillenniumon=] much quicker.
53* At the start of ''Manga/{{Dorohedoro}}'', [[MageKiller Kaiman]] brutally kills a Magic User named Ebisu in a fight. Another Magic User, Fujita, manages to bring her back from the dead with his powers, but the experience of gruesomely dying and being revived is so traumatic that Ebisu comes back as a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} with [[TraumaInducedAmnesia no memory of her past]]. The fact that all of this is PlayedForLaughs lets you know [[BlackComedy what to expect]] from this manga.
54* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
55** ''Manga/DragonBall'': Lampshaded in the "[[Recap/DragonBallKingPiccoloArc King Piccolo Arc]]" whenh Goku's friends discuss how to wish Krillin back to life, and Oolong is worried about Krillin potentially becoming a walking skeleton.
56** ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': Subverted with Majin Buu's resurrection. When the newly resurrected Buu starts acting like a child, Gohan assumes that something went wrong in the resurrection process... only for Kai to tell him that no, Buu has ''always'' been like that, [[BewareTheSillyOnes and he's no less dangerous for that]]. Although we eventually learn [[spoiler: Majin Buu was originally a being of pure chaos and destruction. He absorbed the pure-hearted Grand Supreme Kai, which turned him into a being who had the innocence of a child, but was still dangerously powerful. Bibidi and Babidi cajoled him into doing evil, but Mr. Satan taught him to be good. That is, until Mr. Satan was shot, angering Buu to the point that his inner evil was unleashed]].
57** ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'': Freeza's minions wish him back to life. Shenlong [[BenevolentGenie warns them that he'll be brought back in the state he was in when he died]] due to it having been too long since he died; in other words, [[http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonball/images/a/a3/Mecha_Frieza_remains.png cubed meat]] courtesy of Future Trunks. The minions go ahead with the wish anyway: Frieza's race are extraordinarily survivable and even in chunks Frieza is still alive and conscious, even attempting to pull his pieces back together. Additionally, the Frieza Force's HealingVat technology has advanced enough in the years since his death that it's able to reconstitute those chunks into Freeza, even restoring the parts that had to be replaced with cybernetics after his fight with Goku on Namek, ultimately subverting the trope.
58* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'':
59** Attempts at reviving dead people with alchemy creates a badly-constructed human body made from chemical elements. This body, which has no soul or consciousness and only the most rudimentary of biological functions, usually expires within moments of its 'birth'. One alchemist in a bonus chapter managed to create a body that was capable of maintaining biological functions... but all it could do was sit there, with brain functions barely above a vegetative state. And while the characters believed there was a soul in the body, there's no way of telling whether it was the soul of the dead person the alchemist was trying to revive, or just some other random soul.
60** In ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'', however, attempts at reviving dead people with alchemy create homunculi. Homunculi are beings with the same chemical makeup and appearance as the human that was supposed to be resurrected, but they have [[TheSoulless no souls]] or [[TheSociopath conscience]]. As a result of having no soul they cannot perform alchemy, but instead have a single alchemy-related super power. Many of the homunculi are {{Beta Test Baddie}}s who have thrown their lot in with the BigBad for the promise of a soul.
61** The manga ultimately subverts the trope, in that the "revived" people are entirely different beings. (Trisha's hair was brown, the body the Elrics created had black hair, etc.) This revelation leads Ed to conclude reviving the dead is impossible and relieves Alphonse and Izumi Curtis, who had been suffering immense grief over killing their loved ones [[NiceJobBreakingItHero again]] with failed transmutations.
62* [[{{Yandere}} Yuno]] of ''Manga/FutureDiary'' realizes this during the first time loop. She and Yukiteru, who are in a relationship, decide on a SuicidePact. However, Yuno doesn't swallow her pills purposefully, so that she can become God and resurrect Yuki. However, when she does, [[DeusExMachina Deus]] tells her that it is impossible to resurrect a soul.
63* Spoofed in ''Manga/HaruhiChan''. [[StepfordSmiler Ryoko Asakura]] restores her being... but ends up as the incredibly cute and tiny Achakura. Nagato takes her home.
64* The priestess Kikyo from ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'' is brought back in a clay body, but the body itself is soulless. Kagome's soul, being a reincarnation, was needed to complete the ritual, but it was interrupted so the only thing Kikyo was able to gain was the anger and hatred for Inuyasha. She then needs to feed on the souls of the dead in order to stay "alive."
65* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', Polnareff encounters a genie who offers to grant him three wishes. After using the first on treasure, he realizes how selfish he's being and asks the genie to bring his sister Sherry and [[spoiler:the recently-killed Avdol]] back to life; unfortunately, they come back as ravenous zombies who attack Polnareff. Ultimately subverted when the real [[spoiler:Avdol]] (who was only FakingTheDead) [[BigDamnHeroes returns in style]] and reveals that the zombies (and the treasure) are just simulacra made of dirt, and the "genie" is the Stand of one of DIO's assassins.
66* Fate Testarossa from ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'': When [[BigBad Precia]] [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Testarossa]] attempted to bring back her daughter Alicia after her accidental death, Fate was the result. Fate looked like Alicia and had all of her memories, but she was ''different''. She had different preferences, a different attitude, and [[LeftHandedMirror she was right-handed instead of left]]. Precia [[AbusiveParents did not take this well at all]].
67* ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}'': Summoning: Impure World Resurrection[[note]]In Mahayana Buddhism, the afterlife is called the "Pure Land", while the living world is called the "Impure Land" (or World).[[/note]] brings a person's soul from the afterlife, but has a lot of deficiencies. First, you need that person's cells, no matter what. Second, it requires a sacrifice, because the departed soul can only inhabit a living body. Third, the resurrected person has CompleteImmortality, yet, with two notable exceptions, they are completely subservient to the person who brought them back. You're basically committing graverobbing, murder, and slavery in one go. Oh, and the immortality part means it sucks if the caster wants to live with the resurrected. Plus, an IWR-resurrected person has very conspicuous physical defects, including necrotic veins and black eyes. Tellingly, the creator of the technique, Tobirama Senju, [[OldShame effectively disowned it]] a long time ago.[[note]]His intended purpose for the jutsu was killing an enemy soldier on the battlefield and using them as the vessel to revive a recently fallen ally, meaning that no slavery or graverobbing would've been involved, and the sacrifice would be somebody he would be trying to kill anyway.[[/note]] Not that it stops Orochimaru or Kabuto.
68** IWR is actually unusual in that, barring the physical defects (which are not really that bad) and immortality, the person brought back is exactly what they were when in life, because their soul is there. Yet virtually everyone, [[EvenEvilHasStandards including some villains]], think that it is a disgusting and dishonorable act to do.
69** [[BigBad Madara Uchiha]] is not happy that he is brought back this way, but not because he think it is disgusting. IWR-resurrected people cannot become vessel to the Ten Tails, which means they cannot cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Madara is very keen to perform the Outer Path's resurrection technique, because it genuinely brings a person back to life.
70* The contact experiments of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' tend to lead to this:
71** [[spoiler:Yui Ikari]] is absorbed into [[spoiler: Evangelion Unit 01. As an Evangelion, she frequently goes bezerk, most notably eating Zeruel alive. In the manga, it looks like she's raping it]].
72** Kyoko Zeppelin [[spoiler:Soryu]] is not killed by her contact experiment like [[spoiler:Yui]], but goes insane, believing that [[spoiler:a doll is the true Asuka and that Asuka is an impostor. She eventually hangs herself and the doll.]]
73** [[spoiler:Rei I]] was killed by [[spoiler:Naoko Akagi]], and part of her soul was absorbed into [[spoiler:Evangelion Unit 00. Future Reis are much more antisocial and detached than Rei I, who seems mostly normal. Unit 00 also has a habit of attacking Ritsuko Akagi, thinking she's Naoko.]]
74* The BigBad of ''Manga/NurseAngelRirikaSOS'' revives Ririka's crush/ [[ObiWanMoment fallen mentor]] Kanon as his lackey. Physically, he appears to be exactly as he was before he died, except that now he is an evil SmugSnake. He is a very difficult foe for Ririka to deal with not just because of the emotional pain from keeping his death a secret, but also because he is [[TheAce just as popular as he was]] before he suddenly disappeared.
75* In ''Anime/OccultAcademy'', Kozue is killed and reanimated as part of a FlatlinePlotline, but she comes back as a boring rationalist. On the flip side, she no longer needs glasses.
76* Brook from ''Manga/OnePiece'' ate a Devil Fruit that allowed his soul to return to his body after he had died... too bad it got lost at sea and only found his body after the corpse had decayed into a skeleton, causing his current DemBones appearance.
77* In ''Anime/PokemonJirachiWishmaker'', the VillainOfTheWeek tried to clone [[OlympusMons the legendary Groudon]] from one of its fossilized spikes, but instead created an EldritchAbomination that tried to destroy the world with its VampiricDraining power.
78* ''Franchise/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'':
79** Hoo boy. The MagicalGirl transformation process basically kills them and brings them back as [[OurLichesAreDifferent Liches]]. Not only do their bodies ''start decaying'' if they're removed from their [[SoulJar Soul Gem]] for too long, their removed souls also decay into "Witches", the [[BigBad Big Bads]] they have to spend eternity fighting. Think of ''Film/DeathBecomesHer'' with the BlackComedy replaced by just plain blackness.
80** The [[TheReveal big twist]] in ''Manga/PuellaMagiKazumiMagica'' is that [[spoiler:the titular Kazumi is actually the ''thirteenth'' clone of the original Michiru Kazusa, created from the remains of her human and witch selves and powered by the magic of her teammates the Pleiades Saints (who idolized Michiru as their leader). Whenever a clone started to fail or lose herself to turn into a Witch, they'd just redo the process again]].
81* The infamous ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' hentai series, "Ami's Secret": Ami discovers that, after their resurrection at the end of the first series, every time she gets sexually aroused, her vagina transforms into a penis and won't revert until she achieves orgasm.
82* ''Manga/{{Sankarea}}'': Rea came back alright... ''for now''. It can be said that she is sliding ''towards'' this trope. However she is a unique case in and of herself (as noted by zombie researcher Darin) because she took the reviving drug ''before'' she died.
83* ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'': Death is medium priced. One spell is capable of reviving a mostly-intact corpse with their soul returned twice. Unfortunately, the mental decay from the first resurrection causes the being in question to become high-strung and obediently loyal to the caster. The second resurrection leaves the being a tormented thrall, having lost most of their skill power and free will. Any further resurrections will result in a classic zombie, with some ingrained skills.
84* A more humorous one happened in ''Anime/TenchiMuyo''. Z kills Ryo-Ohki by slicing her ship form in half, reverting one of her crystals into an egg. When the egg finally hatches, there ends up being ''two'' Ryo-Ohkis. Ryoko will have none of that, closes the egg up, shakes it, and fuses the two Ryo-Ohkis.
85* While he was NotQuiteDead, Seidou Takizawa pretty much embodies this trope in ''Manga/TokyoGhoul :Re''. Mortally wounded at the conclusion of the previous series and assumed dead, he is revealed to have survived... because [[AntiHumanAlliance Aogiri]] captured him and turned him into a HalfHumanHybrid. Two years and plenty of FridgeHorror later, the series' former PluckyComicRelief has become a [[TookALevelInBadass powerful]] but [[AxCrazy completely insane]] Ghoul reintroduced going on a brutal killing spree for his [[TranshumanTreachery new masters]]. For bonus zombie parallels, he turns out to have a fondness for BrainFood.
86* ''Literature/TokyoRavens'': Suzuka´s brother's body was [[DemonicPossession possessed]] by a wandering spirit following resurrection. Then Natsume as a [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]] following a botched SacrificialRevivalSpell.
87* In ''Manga/WolfGuyWolfenCrest'', a blood transfusion from Inugami to Chiba (after Haguro brutally murders him [[CrazyJealousGuy just for talking with Inugami]]) [[SuperEmpowering turns him]] into a [[HalfHumanHybrid human/werewolf hybrid]].
88* In ''Anime/{{Zegapain}}'', coming back from the dead is possible, but there's a very good chance of losing body integrity and/or missing memories , turning people into different persons. Bad thing when your loved ones don't remember you, have become emotionless or have half their head turned into a hollow blackness.
89[[/folder]]
90
91[[folder:Audio Dramas]]
92* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' story ''Legion of the Lost'', the Time Lords, desperate for troops to fight the Time War, have allied with a group of demon-worshipping Technomancers to bring their soldiers back to life. The Doctor asks the Time Lord Co-Ordinator what the Technomancers are getting out of it and is told that each resurrection includes a tiny fragment of the Horned Ones, who can't normally exist in our dimension. And if this makes them more aggressive and ruthless, that's ''good'' in soldiers, right? The Doctor is horrified, as is one of the resurrected soldiers who overhears.
93-->'''Co-ordinator Jarad''': You don't ... regret it, do you, Collis? We brought you back. We brought you back to life! Surely that's a good thing?\
94'''Collis''': It is. And the old Collis would probably be grateful. But that's the flaw in your plan, you see. As you say, I'm more aggressive now. I feel the anger burning in me. The need ... for violence! ''(Snarls and attacks Jared)''
95[[/folder]]
96
97[[folder:Comic Books]]
98* The premise of the ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' spinoff ''ComicBook/AfterlifeWithArchie'' is that ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch tries to resurrect Jughead's dog Hot Dog, who died in a car accident caused by Reggie. Hot Dog ends up returning undead, and he and Jughead proceed to usher in a ZombieApocalypse.
99* In ''[[ComicBook/AthenaVoltaire Athena Voltaire and the Isle of the Dead]]'', this is what happens when people who are already dead are exposed to the waters of the Fountain of Life; the crew of Fontenda's ship were killed in a pirate attack, but then brought back as zombies when barrels of Fountain water which were on board burst.
100* People injected with [[PsychoSerum Compound V]] in ''ComicBook/TheBoys'' have a small chance of turning back to life... as brain-dead zombies prone to soil themselves.
101* In the original comic book ''ComicBook/TheCrow'' the titular character is arguably somewhere between Types 1, 2 and 4. He's not a monster, and appears to have returned from the dead relatively human, but virtually the only memories left in his head are of his and his fiance's deaths, the people who caused them, and an unstoppable desire for revenge. During the story arc, he experiences moments of EmptyShell, rage and near-superhuman physical abilities, and very human moments. The movie version didn't bring this across quite as clearly, possibly because further scenes of his resurrection had yet to be filmed when Brandon Lee died on-set.
102* ''Franchise/TheDCU'':
103** In ''ComicBook/AnimalMan2011'', Animal Man's young daughter Maxine has the power to reanimate dead animals. This does not, however, heal them or regenerate their missing bits, so what you're left with is a whole lot of zombie animals trying to walk with missing limbs, or trying to eat with missing jaws or holes in their stomachs.
104** ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':
105*** Most Lazarus Pit stories have this as a temporary effect. [[ResurrectionSickness Coming back drives you around the bend]]. Some recover. Not all do. The wife of Mr. Freeze was put into a Lazarus Pit and revived in the last arc of the ''ComicBook/Batgirl2000'' series. It wasn't pretty. Mostly since she was ''in pieces'' at the time, and Freeze didn't wait to get everything aligned properly. The good news is, she's alive. The bad news is, she's nuts and has superpowers. Oh, and the ''[[DeusAngstMachina really]]'' bad news is that the powers are ''heat''-based. Think on it for a sec.
106*** ''ComicBook/RedHoodTheLostDays'': Jason was catatonic after his resurrection, he only started talking and doing things of his own volition again after a dip in a Lazarus Pit and he's much more violent and anger-driven than he was before his death.
107*** Nora Fries again (albeit one [[ComicBook/New52 hard]] and one [[ComicBook/DCRebirth soft]] reboot later) in the ''ComicBook/DetectiveComics'' crossover with ''ComicBook/DCYearOfTheVillain'': Victor was given some kind of nanotech by ComicBook/LexLuthor (as Batman says, "That was your first mistake"), which restores her to life, but makes her a far more vindictive villain than her husband, and feels that his expectation she'd be the same person she used to be is a trap she needs to escape. Freeze later realises the "cure" was based on the B-Zero formula that produced Bizarro.
108*** In ''ComicBook/DarkNightsMetal'', the Dawnbreaker, a villainous version of Batman who was given a Green Lantern ring after his parents' death, ended up doing this to his parents when he tried to use the ring to revive them.
109** ''ComicBook/TheFlash'':
110** The heroes and villains resurrected for the ''ComicBook/BrightestDay'' miniseries. Most of them came back with powers tainted by being former Black Lanterns, and they had to ''earn'' a permanent stay among the living.
111*** Played with when the real Barry finally comes back to life. He feels off, like he shouldn't be alive. Turns out Professor Zoom brought him back with a corrupted Speed Force. Unlike most examples of this trope, they get it fixed.
112*** The time Thawne impersonated him aside, but when Barry ''really'' came BackFromTheDead, he felt ''off'', and was briefly turned into the Black Flash. He thought it was Thawne poisoning the Speed Force with his Negative Speed Force, but it turns out its way worse: in-between his death and return, Eobard went back in time and killed Barry's mother, leaving Barry split between memories of a happy childhood with a loving relationship with his mother well into adulthood, and traumatic memories of her brutal murder in his childhood as well as his father being framed. The result is Barry is a ''broken'' man that ends up doing increasingly messy things.
113** This was the case for ''ComicBook/GreenArrow''. [[ComicBook/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]], before his HeroicSacrifice in reigniting the sun, recreated Ollie's body after his ''own'' HeroicSacrifice. However, he couldn't bring the soul back and it took Hal as ComicBook/TheSpectre and an appeal from body to soul to fix that little problem.
114** ''ComicBook/Robin1993'': Darla Aquista wasn't the greatest before her death with her entitled behavior and interest in getting involved with her dad's mob work but after her return she tries to blame her murderous actions on her resurrection to gain sympathy points from Tim. She is certainly quick to violence after her return, and now has enough powers to easily hurt ComicBook/{{Superboy|1994}} which makes her incredibly dangerous.
115** ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
116*** Discussed in ''[[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 2008 storyline]]'' ''ComicBook/WayOfTheWorld''. Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}} is trying to save a young cancer victim named Thomas. Unfortunately, Thomas dies, but she thinks a blood transfusion of another superhero's nanite-laced blood may revive Thomas. Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} tries to dissuade her, stating that "the transfusion might bring Thomas back as something inhuman... a blazing skull, a monster, or worse."
117*** In ''ComicBook/SupergirlRebirth'' Cyborg Superman turns the people of Argo into Cyborgs to bring them back from the dead. However, they are only soulless zombie robots.
118*** ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'': Following his resurrection, Superman's powers were restored due to the Eradicator's HeroicSacrifice, his artificial body channeling and transferring the Kryptonite energies pummeling him into Superman. However, the energies ''kept augmenting themselves'', bulking Superman's incredible power and his frame to the point where he was scared to even try and touch Lois. He gets this fixed by luring in the Parasite, letting him absorb his massive powers, but transforming him into the more well-known monster form. The Eradicator himself is this trope as well as he attempted to take over Superman's body, but failed, instead creating the artificial body out of parts of the concrete slab holding the casket. However, his eyes were unable to adjust to the light and he's forced to use his iconic shades.
119** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'':
120*** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Kris Lazarus seems incapable of understanding the consequences of his actions nor empathizing with the bystander victims of his "game" after his father "brings him back". This is because, despite his father's insistence otherwise, Kris is still dead and the version of Kris his grief stricken father is trying to protect is just an AI designed to act like what his father remembers of Kris.
121*** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'' Genocide is Diana's own corpse resurrected into genocide incarnate.
122* Malibu Comics's hero Gravestone had the power to come back from being killed seemingly with ease... in truth, his soul had to ''fight his way out of the underworld'' each and every time. One story had a girl's soul tag along (without his permission) so she revived too... except an ancient evil also tagged along in her, causing her to turn into a monster who kills her family.
123* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'':
124** The ancient clan of ninjas known as the Hand, when they aren't serving as disposable cannon fodder in stories featuring [[Characters/MarvelComicsLogan Wolverine]], [[Characters/MarvelComicsMattMurdock Daredevil]], and/or Characters/{{Elektra}}, can bring recently-slain people back from the dead; dozens of the ninjas give up their lives voluntarily, reanimating the dead person by donating their life force. Upon resurrection, the person in question typically does a 180-degree alignment flip, and often acquires a near-total devotion to the Hand and its goals. This can often be undone through ''extensive'' deprogramming.
125** Subverted magnificently in an ''[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers]]'' story: the supervillain Grim Reaper (who has come back wrong a few times himself) turned several dead Avengers into undead beings hoping to use them against the current team... but he underestimated the power of their HeroicWillpower and they turned on him. Reaper's brother, the hero ComicBook/WonderMan, even [[LampshadeHanging remarked]] to his face how stupid his plan had been.
126** Happened briefly to Jack of Hearts in the ''ComicBook/AvengersDisassembled'' storyline, although it's a toss-up whether it was actually him.
127** After Characters/{{Blade}} uses the [[TomeOfEldritchLore Darkhold]] and becomes Switchblade, he kills a bunch of his allies. Most are brought back to life without lasting damage, but Characters/{{Morbius}} is revived as an undead being, and without his soul to boot.
128** In ''ComicBook/DarkReign'', Wolverine's AntiVillain son Daken kills [[Characters/MarvelComicsFrankCastle The Punisher]] on orders from the Green Goblin, carves his body into pieces, and discards it. He's then revived as a FrankensteinsMonster by Morbius, with the whole thing being PlayedForLaughs until Franken-Castle's returned to normal by [[ComicBook/{{Bloodstone}} Elsa Bloodstone]].
129** A ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' story had an ancient artifact called the Resurrection Stone which had to be retrieved for contrived reasons. It was in two parts, one would animate the body (but leave it a soulless husk) and the other would replace the soul (in an inanimate body). The people who used the two pieces are also driven completely insane by using them.
130** After Requiem killed [[Characters/MarvelComicsThanos Thanos]] early in ''ComicBook/{{Infinity Wars|2018}}'', it was discovered in ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2019'' that Thanos had planned to revive himself by pulling a GrandTheftMe on someone, who ended up being [[spoiler:his own brother, Eros]]. Thanos proceeds to make an attempt to bring his consciousness back into his original body, but the process is disrupted by [[Characters/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyModern Gamora]] killing his host, leaving the revived Thanos mentally impaired.
131** ComicBook/ManThing was once Dr. Ted Sallis before a scientific accident (plus a little magic) turned him into a hulking, mindless mound of empathic sludge.
132** ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'':
133*** [[Characters/MarvelComicsKravenTheHunter Kraven the Hunter]] committed suicide in ''ComicBook/KravensLastHunt'', but was later brought back to life by his family in the story ''ComicBook/GrimHunt''. However, due to the resurrection ritual being sabotaged by Spider-Man's clone Kaine dying in place of the true Spider-Man, Kraven has been 'cursed with un-life' and only Peter or another connected to the Web of Life can kill him. Mentally, he's all there, just angry about it - Madame Web even mocks his wife for assuming he's changed. He's exactly the same, she just prefers not to remember him that way (and even the Chameleon pointed out that bringing him back to life may not have been what Kraven wanted, considering that the man did ''kill himself'').
134*** The 2009 version of ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'' sees [[spoiler:Harry Osborn believe this to be the case for the Norman clone he had created as the clone ended up being a MorallySuperiorCopy who was horrified by what the original Norman turned Harry into and did everything he could to stop him, including dying to save Peter]].
135** This is the powerset for adult Layla Miller, aka Butterfly from ''ComicBook/XFactor2006''. She can resurrect the dead, but the soul doesn't get reattached to the revived body.
136** In ''ComicBook/Strange2022'', Thunderstrike is resurrected as a shambling mess of bone and rotting flesh. While he's still able to command his former powers, he has no will of his own, merely shouting his name while being controlled by the thousands of gestalt souls used to puppet his body.
137** ''ComicBook/XMen'':
138*** Villain Trevor Fitzroy (a time traveler who hails from one of the Marvel Universe's many possible {{Bad Future}}s) eventually had this retconned into his origin story. He was once a heroic freedom fighter in his own time, but when he was killed and his specific powers were needed, Layla Miller used her own powers to bring him back to life. But Layla can only revive bodies, not souls. So the Fitzroy that caused so much carnage in his other appearances turns out to have been evil because he was literally soulless.
139*** During the events of ''Necrosha'', Selene resurrects the ''entire mutant population of Genosha'', along with a number of other mutants. This includes former X-Men like Thunderbird, Cypher, and Banshee. They return completely bound to her will. Only a handful, like Destiny, retain their free will, although Thunderbird and Cypher are able to be broken from her control by ThePowerOfLove (John for his brother, Warpath, and Doug by Warlock and the rest of the ComicBook/NewMutants). Additionally, they're driven by Selene's magic, so once she is slain almost all of them die again a short while later once her power fades, with only a few exceptions.
140*** Showing that people don't learn, the Characters/ScarletWitch attempted to resurrect ''that very same mutant population'' prior to ''ComicBook/{{Empyre}}''. On the plus side, two million of those resurrected were vegetarians, so they had an army to deal with [[spoiler:the plant race known as the Cotati, who was attempting to eradicate humanity on Earth]].
141* Dozens of dead people are resurrected in the opening pages of ''ComicBook/{{Revival}}''. They look normal but have a HealingFactor for all wounds and complete emotional disconnection. They also manifest increased strength and a tendency to self-harm, though that may just be reduced emotional reaction to pain.
142* Mordath in ''ComicBook/{{Sojourn}}''. He was a megalomaniacal tyrant already before his death. Now he is an [[TheUndead Undead]] DarkLord with the very same goals and a worse attitude.
143* Knuckles had this happen in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''. When he's killed trying to save Dimitri from Mammoth Mogul, Knuckles ends up [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence passing through the Chaos Force]] and meets his ancestors. However, he decides he's better off in the living world and returns. However, when he does so, his powers ''don't'' follow him. He spends a year powerless and it isn't until Sonic returns that Knuckles is able to get repowered.
144* ''ComicBook/TheTenSeconders'': After Malloy is made into a God by the Fathers, he tries to repair the damage to Earth by bringing everyone who has already died back from the dead. It only revives their bodies, as the people become drooling vegetables without any autonomy.
145[[/folder]]
146
147[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
148* In Creator/TheBrothersGrimm's "Literature/TheThreeSnakeLeaves" the hero uses the titular leaves to bring his wife back from the dead. At first it seems fine, but after being resurrected her love for him has turned into hate and she tries to murder him on a sea voyage. He is rescued by a faithful servant and she is executed.
149[[/folder]]
150
151[[folder:Fan Works]]
152[[AC:Crossover]]
153* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'':
154** This temporarily happened to Thor before the story began; he had been incarnated as James Potter, as a first run at the humility thing. Unfortunately, being violently murdered before being yanked back into his original body did not do his sanity any favours, driving him insane. As a result, only Odin could ''barely'' restrain him, and he had to have the relevant memories removed -- his getting them back, after a decade or so, triggers the events of the story.
155** This is also an ever-present risk in the sequel with [[spoiler:Harry]], who as a Phoenix host has a get out of death free card, with the Dark Phoenix as an unfortunate side-effect.
156* ''Fanfic/CindersAndAshesTheChroniclesOfKamenRiderDante'' (''Franchise/KamenRider'' & ''Anime/ReCreators''): {{Defied}} by [[Anime/ReCreators Altair]] when Magane offers to revive Setsuna, since [[GenreSavvy knowing]] [[TheGadfly Magane]], she'd pull off this trope.
157* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7858657/1/Dark-Arts-Revived Dark Arts Revised]]'' Draco resurrects Harry two years after Voldemort killed him, in the hope of escaping his impossible mission from Voldemort. What he gets is a clingy, possessive Harry who regularly has rough sex with him and violently kills Crabbe when he tries to kill Draco. Blaise states that a similar thing happened with one of his mother's husbands when she brought him back after he died without making a will in her favor.
158* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10718717/1/Demon-s-Games Demon's Game]]'' (''Series/{{Angel}}'' & ''Literature/TheHungerGames''): Features a comparatively lesser example of this for [[spoiler:Buffy, who was sacrificed as part of a ritual by the Senior Partners to destroy the Slayer line and subsequently brought back to life by Wesley. The spell Wesley uses was able to bring Buffy back from the death dimension she'd been banished to after the initial sacrifice, but since she was restored using tissue samples almost a century old and incompatible blood from Peeta, her body starts to decay after a few weeks, and Willow estimates that she will only have another couple of weeks before the genetic issues result in Buffy either suffering a brain haemorrhage or basically drowning in her own blood after the capillaries in her lungs collapse]].
159* The ''Franchise/ArrowVerse'' fic “[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/26682751/chapters/65081434 Happy Accident]]” features a relatively positive version of this. After Black Siren is killed by a lucky punch from Felicity, Oliver contacts John Constantine for help finding a Lazarus Pit to bring her back to life, but since Black Siren was from an alternate Earth, her soul was apparently ‘lost’ after her death on this world. However, Oliver is able to help the Laurel of his Earth come back to life in Black Siren’s body, and Constantine confirms that the soul and body are so compatible that there should be no long-term problems beyond Laurel being surprised to find that she has tattoos and scars she didn’t have before. As a result, the resurrection didn’t bring back the ‘right’ Laurel, but nobody involved is complaining as they like the Laurel who was brought back to life better than the one who was killed.
160* ''Fanfic/HowTheLightGetsIn'' (''Series/{{Arrow}}'' & ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''): A complex case. Laurel actually comes back right for the most part, but the spell that did so is slowly failing which will cause her to die (again). It's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:she was supposed to be resurrected as a SoullessShell, her soul came back as an accident, and the spell can't handle her body and soul being alive. Essentially, she was supposed to come back wrong, came back right, which is actually wrong]]. Laurel eventually namedrops it, though Dean fervently denies it.
161* ''Fanfic/SongsOfTheSpheres'': This has something like a 50% chance of happening, especially prevalent when those who aren't [[Franchise/FinalFantasy Void]] denizens have are revived with Arise. It's always best to have a loaded gun handy before you try and bring someone back.
162* ''FanFic/WhiteDevilOfTheMoon'' (''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' & ''Anime/SailorMoon''): This is the basis. Queen Serenity accidentally botches the resurrection spell and placing the soul of Princess Serenity ''not'' in Usagi Tsukino, but Nanoha Takamachi. This has serious consequences as not only are the Sailor Senshi, without Usagi's guidance, not the incredible TrueCompanions that they are in canon, but when Nanoha learns of her past, [[IHatePastMe she's utterly disgusted with it]] and renounces everything, preferring how she is now. Luna doesn't take this well at all.
163
164[[AC:FusionFic]]
165* ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfAnElderGod'' (Franchise/CthulhuMythos & ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''): When [[spoiler:[[ArchnemesisDad Gendo and Yui]]]] created [[spoiler:a FalseUtopia]] using [[spoiler:the stolen power of [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos the Outer Gods]], they brought Kaji and other characters back to life]]. However they were puppets with no life of their own. They'd stop moving if no one was looking at them.
166
167[[AC:''Series/GameOfThrones'' / ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'']]
168* ''Fanfic/PurpleDays'': In the [[GroundhogDayLoop Final Loop]], Joff masterminds an assassination against Daenerys, who despite the killers' best efforts escapes, albeit heavily wounded, into the Red Wastes, and later resurfaces with two dragons and obsessed with burning all life. It turns out the assassination was ultimately successful - Quaithe found Daenerys' corpse and [[BalancingDeathsBooks sacrificed herself]] to bring the young Targaryen back. Unfortunately, by then she'd already seen the truth of the White Walkers and the force behind them, leading her to the completely honest belief it is better to kill all life in Westeros herself via dragonfire rather than allow the Walkers to succeed.
169* In ''Fanfic/ThereAndBackAgain'',
170** This trope is zig-zagged with a number of characters whose souls [[PeggySue come back to their younger bodies]], with full memory of what happened up to their deaths. Most of the intentional examples come back okay, but then there's [[spoiler:Daenerys Targaryen]], who is implied to be a wayward soul who latched on when the rest were sent back. Technically, her body is fine (outside of [[spoiler:[[BroughtDownToNormal losing her immunity to heat and fire]] since Bloodraven can't siphon Jon's innate magic to her]]]). Mentally, she's gained a vengeful streak a mile wide after [[spoiler:Jon killed her in the last season]].
171** According to The Stranger, Jon Snow suffered this when he was resurrected by the Lord of Light. In fairness, this happens to anybody resurrected by the Lord of Light, but Jon had it worse because [[spoiler:the resident EvilSorcerer Bloodraven]] sabotaged the ritual by tampering with his BloodMagic. This is also an in-universe reason why Jon TookALevelInDumbass in the last three seasons of the show.
172
173[[AC:''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' / ''Franchise/KingKong'' / Franchise/MonsterVerse]]
174* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'':
175** Vivienne is an InhumanHuman case when she's revived and transformed into part of [[TwoBeingsOneBody Monster X]]'s [[FlawedPrototype defective]] first form; although her memories, personality and other mental faculties are intact.
176** [[spoiler:Sergeant Travis and Krupin]] when their corpses are infused with Ghidorah's DNA by [[spoiler:Alan Jonah and his closest goons]] in Chapter 11, essentially turning them into monstrous mutant {{Artificial Zombie}}s with only fragments of their original selves.
177
178[[AC:''Franchise/MegaMan'']]
179* ''Fanfic/MegaManReawakened'': Robert is this due to returning from the dead.
180* ''Fanfic/MegaManRecut'': Snake Man comes back wrong after bodyswapping with Mega Man, s his mind begins to outstrip his original body's programming.
181
182[[AC:''Franchise/MyLittlePony'']]
183* In the ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'':
184** It's implied that any resurrection ''not'' performed without [[TheGrimReaper Mortis]]' actual assistance will inevitably end this way, but it's not been touched upon heavily. The implication seems to be that doing so doesn't actually resurrect their body, so much as tether their soul to it, which could lead to some horrifying implications.
185** A [[EmptyShell Shadow of Existence]] (half of the soul of a being who's been erased from existence representing their now no longer existing life) can revive in a sense by fusing with a mortal and becoming a merger of their combined traits (if it's with the person who now possesses their Light of Existence, the other half of their soul, and they reform their original soul, it becomes CameBackStrong). However it's implied for this to ''actually'' work, the Shadow and the pony must be compatible. If they're not, it will be this trope due to the Shadow overwhelming the light. this is ''especially'' true when it comes to the Shadows of deities, which require a one hundred percent compatibility or they'll become something ''very'' bad that's considered a FateWorseThanDeath. [[spoiler:D___t attempted this on Bright Eyes, but she was able to fend him off and destroy him.]]
186** [[spoiler:During the FinalBattle, Destruction manages to resurrect himself when Discord uses his [[MesACrowd Detachments]] and accidentally put his brother's essence inside it. Like D___t, Destruction is very much not himself and is convinced he's still in the middle of the Alicorn/Draconequi War and nearly kills all life on Equus before Twilight (with [[EnemyMine some help from Discord]]) manages to take him down and let Discord reabsorb him.]]
187
188[[AC:''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'']]
189* ''Fanfic/PokemonStrangledRed'': Miki comes back from the dead with the name "M@*#." And when she is shown at the end of the game, she is described as "horribly glitched."
190
191[[AC:''Franchise/ThePowerpuffGirls'']]
192
193* The premise of ''Fanfic/ImmortalitySyndrome''. Mojo Jojo kills Blossom. She is revived but suffers amnesia. When she recovers her memories, however, due to seeing TheNothingAfterDeath and remembering the pain of her death she becomes traumatized. Blossom ends up turning into an OmnicidalManiac nihilist.
194
195[[AC:Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica]]
196* ''Fanfic/ResonanceDays'' is set in an afterlife specific to Puella Magi and Witches. While Puella Magi, or magical girls, who were killed in combat arrive in the afterlife with full recollection of their past lives and looking exactly like they did in life, even retaining their magic powers, those who were killed after reaching the DespairEventHorizon and becoming Witches do not. Witches in the afterlife only retain vague recollections of their lives as witches, and nothing from being Magical Girls. They only answer to their witch name, calling them by any other name can in fact drive them insane, and, while they physically resemble their original human forms, they have at least one physical feature from their witch forms that carry over. Kyoko Sakura in particular is very unsettled at how a girl she cared deeply about when they were alive now goes by the name Oktavia, can't remember her at all, hums a creepy melody all the time, and has a fish tail instead of legs. The Witch Charlotte subverts this trope by suggesting that this setup is probably for the best; Since becoming a witch requires crossing the DespairEventHorizon, it's better for them that they don't remember the trauma they suffered. It's also notable that Puella Magi seem a lot more prone to mental instability than Witches.
197
198[[AC:''Franchise/StarWars'']]
199* ''Fanfic/IWarrior'': The big reveal at the climax is that [[spoiler: [[BigBad the Master]] is a Yuuzhan Vong-created clone of Anakin Solo that was accidentally fused with a Sith spirit before properly maturing. The resulting being is not quite Anakin ''or'' the Sith, but has the power of both, making him extremely dangerous]].
200
201[[AC:''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'']]
202* In the ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5565841/1/Eternal-Life Eternal Life]]", Rattrap saves Dinobot's life after his fight to save the human race by merging the core of Rampage's spark, which was dropped by Megatron, to give Dinobot Rampage's healing abilities. Unfortunately, this results in Dinobot being corrupted by Rampage's insanity, which leads to Dinobot joining Rampage in killing various Maximals and Predacons before the survivors (Optimus, Cheetor, Rattrap, Tarantulas and Waspinator) join forces and help Dinobot regain control of himself enough to kill Rampage in a HeroicSacrifice.
203* [[https://www.fanfiction.net/u/280809/ Ty-Chou/Ghost of the Dawn]]'s series. After Crystal dies in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4500810/ Ghost In The Machine]]'', she's brought back... as a Transformer. She immediately punches out Prowl, the one responsible, yelling "I'm your friend! You're supposed to let me die with a little dignity!" There are currently four such fictions on Fanfiction.net: ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3836521/ Small Problems]]'', ''Ghost in the Machine'', ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4767477/ The Autobot Files]]'', and the newest, ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5769066/ The Secret Lives of Decepticons]]''.
204
205[[AC:Unsorted]]
206* ''Fanfic/GoddessRebornChronicle'' has Cambions and Guardians, whose transformations are [[NightmareFuel horrifying]].
207* ''Fanfic/HorseshoesAndHandGrenades'' has Gentaro resurrected, but not by Kengo and the Cosmic Switch. He was revived by an evil serpent known as Ophiuchus who twisted his mind to focus on how his friends left him to die when Ryusei killed him. As shown in future chapters, people who have died just like Gentaro also are resurrected badly. This includes Shun, Shotaro and Haruto.
208** In ''Fanfic/QuickToTheTrigger'', David Trueheart--Tommy Oliver's old brother from his ''Zeo'' days--was revived this way by Hayato. So far, he's shown as a quiet, mindless zombie which ''really'' doesn't bode well with Dr. Oliver.
209* In the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' collaborative fics under the ''Fanfic/LeftBeyond'' umbrella, metabolic extension controllers work like this - the soul is in Hell, but can still steer the body, and the brain has been made to be unable to understand pain through a careful (or not-so-careful) lobotomy so as to not go insane from the pain of Hell. Depending on how quickly the metabolic extender was installed, and what TechnologyLevels the controller is, the result can be a docile zombie, a throwaway undead soldier, a depressed or manic version of the living character, or - towards the end - a nearly full reconstruction, with the character only losing or dampening their special talent. By the end of the series, reconstruction happens routinely enough that there's an entire small economy built around the devices.
210* In the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''/''Series/{{Angel}}'' fic "[[http://www.geocities.ws/debnockels/newadditions/homebeforedark01.html Home Before Dark]]", Giles discovers a record of a man who witnessed a vampire fighting a Mohra demon and the vampire being restored to humanity after some of the Mohra's blood got into its mouth. The diary also mentions that the resurrected vampire committed suicide a few months later, with the priest of the village where he had settled revealing that the ex-vampire had confessed to a sense of emptiness and an inability to connect with other people. The diary concludes with the speculation that the Mohra blood only restored the vampire to life without restoring his soul at the same time; Angel was only restored to complete humanity during his own encounter with a Mohra because he already ''had'' his soul.
211* The Halloween episode of ''Fanfic/LifeOreDeath'' is based on "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E11WakeTheDead Wake the Dead]]" and deals with Solomon Grundy being improperly reanimated (by Chaos magic) and Ferris teams up with Captain Marvel to try putting him down while he rampages around Fawcett City.
212* ''Fanfic/MegaManDefenderOfTheHumanRace'' has Dark Man, who was given a new memory core after death, and became, essentially, a zombie. The author stated that this was like putting a new soul in the same body.
213* [[http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/15253.html?thread=82359701 This]] brilliant Sherlock fanfiction, which has the exact prompt.
214* In "Fanfic/SweetiesMansion" all of the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic mane cast]] that has been brought back to life from being paintings -thanks to Sweetie Belle using the AmplifierArtifact given to her by [[BigGood Madame Fleur]], has no cutie marks and not only that- their cutie marks and their talents are really [[PowerCopying transferred into]] Sweetie Belle each time she catches each of their ghost form. There's another problem in that the mane cast may not have come completely back to life from the paintings. Sweetie ran into their lifeless bodies with grayed out cutie marks that were being controlled by other ghosts (ghost dogs) when Sweetie was hunting Ghost!Pinkie. It was established in that same chapter that when a pony is dead, their cutie mark is grayed out.
215* In ''Fanfic/WarWithoutEnd'' though Light [[DontYouDarePityMe would never admit it]], after his resurrection he is seeking comfort in Misa-- something that would have been OutOfCharacter for him to do before.
216* In the ''Fanfic/EdgeOfTimeRoadToTheKing'' and ''Fanfic/CindersAndAshesTheChroniclesOfKamenRiderDante'' crossover [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13691668/1/Kamen-Rider-Cross-Generations Kamen Rider Cross Generations]], [[Series/GameOfThrones Jaime Lannister]] was murdered by a powered up Joffrey and was given the [[Fanfic/KamenRiderShowa Showa]] Another Watch, causing his transformation into the Showa Darkling. During this transformation, he unknowingly tapped into Showa's ability to rewind time to before a monster attack happened, but because he was dead when using the power, it made him more akin to a thrall.
217* ''Fanfic/StarWarsGalacticFolkloreAndMythology'': Twi'lek legend tells about a magical song that can restore life to the dead. However, if the singer should falter or miss a note, the deceased will come back as a Receased, a skinless zombie with eyes hanging from its sockets, which feasts on the lekku (head-tendrils) of the living and will go on a murderous rampage until it can catch and devour its resurrector.
218[[/folder]]
219
220[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
221* Genie in ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' gives Aladdin a list of three things he can't do and one of those things was raising the dead. From Genie's choice of words, it's implied that he is ''in a way'' capable of raising the dead, but no one will like the results (as he tells Aladdin that he can't bring the dead back to life, he gets all slimy and icky and creepy, as if he's showing what would happen instead of a fully resurrected person being back to normal). The person would be back, but the after-effects of death on the body would not be reversed.
222--> It's not a pretty picture. ''I don't like doing it!''
223* [[Characters/BatmanJasonTodd Jason Todd]] in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanUnderTheRedHood''. Put into a Lazarus Pit by [[Characters/BatmanRasAlGhul Ra's Al-Ghul]]. Comes back ''screaming'', murders the first people he sees and flees off into the night. Later played with.
224-->'''Jason:''' Does it make it easier for you to think my little dip in his fountain of youth turned me rabid? Or is this just the real me?
225* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frankenweenie}}'':
226** Averted in the original short film, in which the resurrected Sparky, apart from the bolts and stitches in his neck, is the same sweet dog he was before he died.
227** The remake has the lightning affecting deceased animals differently; for example, transforming a turtle into a Film/{{Gamera}} {{expy}} thanks to a strange plant growth substance that was near when the peculiar lightning event took place.
228* Characters/{{Nightwing|DickGrayson}} in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar''. In the flashbacks to the Apokoliptian invasion of Earth, Dick is impaled by a paradoom, and Damian Wayne in the present reveals that he revived him via Lazarus Pit, costing him his sanity. He's in a straitjacket for the rest of the movie, and is last seen being cradled in [[Characters/TeenTitansStarfire Starfire]]'s lap.
229* EVE successfully revives the titular character of ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Walle}} WALL•E]]'', but he doesn't remember her, or the life he lived for 700 years before his death. [[SoullessShell There's nothing left of him apart from his original directive]]: to compress all the trash that he can find. What makes this worse is that before it happened, WALL•E was the movie's unwitting BlitheSpirit. Him simply ''meeting'' someone was usually all that it took for them to search for more in life than what they were told to do. Now, the one who lit up a spark in everyone he met has no spark left. [[spoiler:The movie might have ended there, too, if it weren't from [[DisneyDeath Disney]]. A TrueLovesKiss from EVE brings WALL•E, the ''real'' WALL•E, back]].
230[[/folder]]
231
232[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
233* Zig-zagged in ''Film/The6thDay''. Many clones made in the movie come back essentially the same, due to a combination of full-grown templates and memory extraction. One clone, however, develops cumulative post-traumatic stress from his many deaths (getting run over, neck broken, etc.). It's at least strongly implied that each revival has some [[CloneDegeneration copying decay]] -- not much at once, but it adds up if you're in a violent business -- independent of whether the recording was taken before or after the death trauma.
234* Ripley in ''Film/AlienResurrection''. Ripley 8 is the most successful clone, though she's meaner than the original and has a disturbing affinity with xenomorphs. [[BodyHorror Ripley 1 through 7, on the other hand...]]
235* Subverted in ''Film/BlackDeath''. Osmund's lover Averill was injured, but still alive, and drugged into a death-like state so that when the drugs wore off she would be "resurrected" and the woman who drugged her would be worshiped as a miracle-worker. Unfortunately, when Osmund finds her the drugs have yet to wear off completely, turning her into TheOphelia and making it seem like a case of Came back wrong. He learns the truth only ''after'' he {{Mercy Kill}}s her to set her free and send her to heaven.
236* ''Film/BoyEatsGirl'': Nathan was resurrected by a magic ritual his mother performed. Unfortunately, she botched it, so he's a zombie.
237* In ''Film/TheButchers'', artistic liberties were taken with how a few of the real-life killers were portrayed, most notably Ed Gein, who is depicted as being a hulking and gleefully homicidal maniac who wants to make a shirt out of a man seemingly just for the fun of it, when in actuality he was a diminutive and meek man who killed and made clothing out of only women due to suffering from a particularly deranged form of gender dysphoria. This is implied to be the result of some kind of side-effect or flaw in the resurrection ritual, as Daisy, after examining JB's occult paraphernalia, mutters, "If they really are back from the dead, then they're not the serial killers that we knew of."
238* ''Film/{{Chiller}}'': A man named Miles Creighton is revived from cryonic preservation 10 years after being frozen due to having an incurable disease. With technology now advanced enough to resurrect people preserved this way, Miles is brought back to life, but has undergone an unpleasant change of personality, becoming cruel and sadistic, with the implication that he has lost his soul.
239* ''Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse'':
240** Discussed in ''Film/JusticeLeague2017'' when Bruce suggests using a [[ArtifactOfDoom Mother Box]] to revive Superman; Barry even makes a reference to ''Film/PetSematary1989''. It's ultimately averted: Supes was confused and grumpy when he first woke up, but after he had a bit of time to get his marbles together, he proved to be the same True-Blue hero we all know and love.
241** The discussion is absent from ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'', and as is the ''Pet Sematary'' reference (which was a Creator/JossWhedon addition). Superman's revival plays mostly the same as above otherwise.
242** However, according to WordOfGod, the [[WhatCouldHaveBeen planned sequels]] would have played this straight. Superman would ultimately have become an example of LightIsNotGood, becoming unnervingly optimistic as a result of losing his humanity and viewing "Clark Kent" as a disguise, with Lois Lane as his MoralityChain and her death triggering the BadFuture.
243* In ''Film/TheDeadCenter'', John Doe is introduced as a suicide victim whose corpse somehow came back to life. [[DamagedSoul He's left a weak, wheezing, catatonic wreck.]] It's eventually revealed that [[spoiler: his name is Michael Clark, and he and his wife were supposed to die in a house fire. But a demon went into him and brought him back to life]]. Once he figured out what happened, [[spoiler: he tried killing himself via draining all of the blood from his body to stop the demon, but it revived him ''again'']].
244* The plot of ''Film/DeadHeat'' revolves around a MadScientist selling resurrection to elite millionaires. The villain commits suicide to elude capture, is resurrected in his own machine, then is resurrected again while alive and explodes.
245* In ''Film/DeathShip'', Capt. Ashland drowns in the initial sinking of his cruise ship, and then gets possessed by ghost of the titular vessel's former commanding officer.
246* The plot of ''Film/EdAndHisDeadMother''. Ed pays $1,000 to have his dead mom resurrected. She seems fine at first, but then... ''quirks'' start appearing and soon it gets worse.
247* Happens to the protagonist in ''Film/EnterTheVoid'' after his death. At least that is how his sister imagines it in a nightmare she is having.
248* ''Film/EventHorizon'': Hoo boy, where to start... the ship's [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace trip through hyperspace screws up both the crew and the environment]]. At a certain point, the creator of the Hyperdrive sees his dead wife.
249* In the 1966 BMovie ''Film/TheFrozenDead'', a Nazi scientist attempts (twenty years after WWII ended) to resurrect German soldiers who volunteered to be frozen back when it looked like Germany was going to lose the war. Unfortunately, the soldiers brought back have brain damage, reliving a single moment from their lives over and over again.
250* In ''Film/JennifersBody'', this is how the eponymous AlphaBitch character becomes a demonic LiteralManeater. The members of [[RockMeAsmodeus the rock band Low Shoulder]] kill her as a VirginSacrifice in a DealWithTheDevil for music sales. Trouble is, she's decidedly ''[[ReallyGetsAround not]]'' a virgin. Her friend told them that to protect Jennifer's reputation ("and you're right, she ''is'' a virgin, and that beats sleeping with creeps like you!"), and Jennifer herself claimed to be a virgin under the assumption that her captors intended to rape her and that her supposed lack of experience would make her less appealing to them. The sacrifice ''does'' earn the band success, but Jennifer comes back wrong -- specifically, possessed by a carnivorous succubus.
251* ''Film/KamenRiderWForeverAToZTheGaiaMemoriesOfFate'':
252** The Necro-Overs (NEVER for short). Katsumi was previously a very good person and not all that evil, in fact he loved his mother dearly. Then she used the Necro-Over project to bring him back after his accidental death. However, when he was brought back, instead of the kind, caring son she once had, he wants everyone to be turned into 'monsters' like he is. When he's finally destroyed, he laughs at how it feels to die. It's unknown why, but he may have just been glad to be dead again.
253** {{Retcon}}'d in his spin-off movie. Apparently, he was still normal when he was revived, as were the others. However, during a mission involving Foundation X, a girl he only knew for a day died along with a bunch of other psychics, and this apparently drove Daido to insanity and thus lead into the events of the above movie.
254* ''Film/TheLazarusEffect'' is based around this. The premise is that a team of scientists are trying to create a serum that can bring the dead back to life, first testing it on a dead dog. When one of their team dies in an accident during the trial, the head of the team (her fiance) desperately tries the process on her. She comes back, but she's gone crazy due to the trauma and claims that she went to hell, making her a DamagedSoul case of this.
255* One of the stories in ''Film/{{Necronomicon}}'' is about a man who tries to use the book to bring his wife and daughter back. The ritual seems to work at first -- however, the souls of his family have become demons and quickly try to consume him.
256* The premise of ''Film/PetSematary1989''. Main character uses the local supernatural burial ground to bring back his cat, then later his son, [[spoiler:and finally his wife]], all of whom could have their mindset translated by Music/TheRamones' ThemeSong for the movie:
257-->I don't wanna be buried in a pet sematary/I don't want to live my life again.
258* In ''Film/PetSematary2019'', it's [[spoiler:Ellie, the daughter,]] who winds up being buried. [[spoiler:Being older than Gage, she's a bit more self-aware upon reanimation (even realizing the nature of her predicament) but no less murderous, and in fact personally buries the rest of her family so they can join in her fate.]]
259* One of the plot points in ''Film/PracticalMagic''. The resurrection spell in the witches' book will bring back the revived in a dark and unnatural state.
260-->'''Gillian:''' That's okay! Jimmy was already dark and unnatural!
261* In ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'', Fifield, unlike Milburn, manages to walk away from his encounter with the alien snakes. However, the crew quickly finds themselves wishing that he hadn't, considering the ultra-violent rampage that his infected corpse proceeds to wreak upon them.
262* ''Film/PumpkinheadIIBloodWings'': Pumpkinhead was originally a mentally retarded boy who was killed by a group of teenagers in the 1950s. His distraught mother researched witchcraft to find a way to bring him back, but opted against it because it would revive him as an unstoppable demonic killing machine. Of course, our stupid main characters decide to do just that.
263%% * The whole plot of ''Film/ReAnimator''.
264* ''Film/{{Replicas}}'': The soldier who William revives at the start of the movie cannot seem to remember who he is, then starts panicking and ripping his new, robotic body apart and bashing his own head in. Subverted, though, for his family and the robot he later places [[spoiler:a copy of his own mind into]], after he makes it think it's in an organic body, along with [[spoiler:Jones]] at the end.
265* In ''Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDead3'', a teenager "resurrects" his dead girlfriend using a gas called Trioxin... as a [[AttractiveZombie zombie]]. She's far from mindless after coming back, but HorrorHunger and [[VampireRefugee struggles to retain her humanity]] quickly ensue.
266* ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'': {{Downplayed|Trope}}. The effort of resurrecting Palpatine was not precise, resulting in him having milky white eyes and a need for life support. Outside of that, he is still an expert manipulator and sorcerer (though less subtle than before -- possibly he has grown more unhinged from his resurrection).
267* ''Film/{{Savaged}}'': Grey Wolf attempts to bring Zoe back from the dead. The ritual succeeds, but she comes back sharing her body with an angry Apache spirit who sends her on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge.
268* Played with in the original ''Franchise/StarTrek'' movies. After Spock's HeroicSacrifice, it's discovered in ''[[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock The Search for Spock]]'' that he left an imprint of his consciousness on Dr. [=McCoy=], and the fallout from the Genesis Device has restored his body to a blank slate. An archaic Vulcan ritual is able to rejoin the two, but it takes effort for him to recognize his old friends. [[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome The next movie]] shows that the Vulcans have put him through mental exercises to restore his intellect, but he still has to [[HumansThroughAlienEyes relearn the elements of human nature]] he'd previously become accustomed to.
269* ''{{Film/Tamara}}'': Tamara comes back from the dead as a cruel, manipulative and ruthless young woman bent on revenge, in stark contrast with her meek, kind previous self.
270* ''{{Film/Terrified}}'': Alicia's son is run over by a bus, but after the funeral his corpse returns to the house, although it seems that [[PossessingADeadBody something other than him is inhabiting his body]]. Albreck and Jano are also (apparently) killed and return as twisted or evil abominations.
271* In ''Film/{{Transcendence}}'', Joseph and Max [[spoiler: and eventually Evelyn]] are convinced that the transcended Will is [[SoullessShell a cold, logical machine]]. RIFT is convinced he is [[MonsterFromBeyondtheVeil something else]]. [[spoiler:They may all be wrong.]]
272* The second segment of ''Film/TrilogyOfTerrorII'' features a mother who brings back her son from the dead with black magic, only to have him turn against her. It is then revealed at the end that her son never came back, he's actually a demon who was sent to punish her.
273* Jean in ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'', of course. She comes back without power barriers -- or moral ones, particularly after being reminded of the past restraints.
274[[/folder]]
275
276[[folder:Folklore]]
277* In the Icelandic folk tale ''Djákninn á Myrká'' (The Deacon of Dark River), a man drowns after promising to take his girlfriend to a Christmas party, and manages to rise from the dead on Christmas Eve. But then he brings her to the cemetary and attempts to drag her into his grave. She escapes, ripping her coat off in the process, and calls an exorcist to lay him to rest.
278* In Romania, the ''[[OurVampiresAreDifferent strigoi]]'' is a person who had previously died whose body is possessed by a demon or spirit. It is said to look and sometimes even act like the person did in life, but now drinks the blood of the living to sustain itself.
279* In the Jewish tale "The Homunculus of Maimonides", the wise old philosopher Maimonides carries out an experiment to see if he can bring his assistant back from the dead. The process takes nine months like a pregnancy, during which time Maimonedes observes the body grow strong and obviously evil. With the permission of a council of rabbis, Maimonides destroys the body before it can revive.
280[[/folder]]
281
282[[folder:Literature]]
283* ''Literature/AgathaHAndTheAirshipCity'':
284** [[WeCanRebuildHim Given the setting]], this happens so often that it's been termed PRT or Post-Revivification Trauma.
285** This is speculated to be what's wrong with Von Pinn, given that most of the Wulfenbach students think she's Lucrezia Mongfish. [[spoiler:They're wrong, though she was forced into her current body by Lucrezia.]]
286* ''Literature/TheBookOfTheDunCow'': In a disturbing scene in ''The Book of Sorrows'', Lord Russel the fox, who recently died of an infection, returns as an undead creature due to Wyrm's evil power.
287* This tragically happens to [[spoiler:Grianne Ohmsford]] after she had transformed into a different, happier existence for over a hundred years in ''Literature/TheDarkLegacyOfShannara''. The plot revolves around Tael Riverine from the (chronologically) most recent trilogy, who is still fixated on making her his bride. She's been gone, but the protagonists try to retrieve her from her new existence in the belief that she can help stop Riverine. The ancient being that allowed her to ascend grants her return to humanity, but not quite as the protagonists wanted... Tragic especially because she had wanted to be free from the doubt and pain of human life, only to be dragged back again to finish her unfinished business.
288* In ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'', necromancy is possible with both patryn and sartan runes... but [[BalancingDeathsBooks for every soul brought back untimely, another dies untimely]]. It is implied that the sartan almost drove themselves to extinction because on one of the worlds they were bringing back everyone who died, so their brothers and sisters on the other worlds were dying in their sleep. Also, both patryn and sartan languages transfer more than just the words to each other, so the sartan who did not live on that world felt "lighter" when they spoke, and the ones who practiced necromancy made the listener feel "wrong", heavy, and sometimes cold.
289* ''Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth'' has a climactic battle sequence in which the sidekick Polk the Teamster is brutally killed. Following the trial scene (it's a rather involved story) he gets brought back...by a Faerie priest, who doesn't have access to Raise Dead, having to use Reincarnate (this is an AD&D Novel, firmly rooted in 2nd Edition although 3rd was already long out). He comes back as a badger. Which has the ability to function normally after drinking approximately his own body weight in alcohol, which the severely alcoholic Polk thoroughly enjoys.
290* The Igors of ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' can bring back a fresh or properly preserved person with the right equipment and a bolt of lightning, but even they admit the result isn't quite right (and they even routinely do this for each other). Fortunately, the main drawback is giving the resurrectee "The Love of Iron" (a.k.a. they become magnetized).
291* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' has Butters fearing this in ''Literature/SkinGame'' in regards to [[spoiler: Harry, who was revived after being shot in the freaking heart. In one of the most tearjerking scenes in the book, he details exactly ''why'' he thinks this, because after Harry died the world became horrifyingly dark. The ones left behind had to damage themselves greatly just to ''try'' filling his shoes. Then he came back, and it was like the sun rising up. Except Harry ''didn't'' help. He just became distant and cryptic, asking them to put insane amounts of trust in him without giving explanation as to what he was doing, and actually admitting to working with the bad guys to boot]]. No wonder he cited ''Literature/PetSematary''.
292* In K.J. Taylor's ''Literature/TheFallenMoon'', Arenadd is brought back by the Night God to be her avatar and prophet. Unfortunately, she is the goddess of death not life, so this is without a heartbeat. Later resurrections cause him to lose/give up increasingly more of his weaker, human, qualities, including his memories.
293* A milder example in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: City of the Dead''. Inject a rotting corpse with the reanimation serum, get a rotting clumsy zombie. Fresher corpses produce more useful zombies. The ''freshest'' ones - like, say, someone an inquiring scientist has just murdered - come back with some of their old ability to speak and remember, but still obedient. Zak Arranda, finding his new friend Kairn [[UndeadChild turned into a zombie]] in such a fresh way, thinks he's changed - he's more morbid, can't seem to follow a conversation very well, and oh yes he helps the scientist capture Zak. Said scientist injects himself while still alive. When he's killed, he comes back ''right'', the only negative effect that seen being a periodic uncontrollable spasming. ''Kairn'' didn't come back right, exactly, but enough of him remains that when Zak appeals to him for help, he's able to struggle against the scientist's control and help his friend.
294* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
295** Subverted in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' with Voldemort's resurrection. His revived body is distorted and disfigured, and his soul is damaged, but these are due to a separate bit of dark magic and it is later seen in a flashback that he was gradually deformed long before the physical reincarnation. Later it is also revealed that he was never really dead: his soul stayed alive because he had anchored it in [[SoulJar Horcruxes]], even though his body died when his own curse was reflected. Therefore, he only needed a new body.
296** In a fairy tale from the Potterverse, "[[Literature/TheTalesOfBeedleTheBard The Tale of the Three Brothers]]," one brother gets a magic stone that can bring his loved ones back from the dead. He brings back his girlfriend, but she's sad and cold, and doesn't seem like she belongs. Eventually, the guy commits suicide so he can truly join her. Harry actually uses the stone, but with much better results, since he never intended it to be permanent but merely to conjure the souls of his loved ones to stay with him as he marches to his death.
297* In ''Literature/HerbertWestReanimator'', the title character becomes convinced that life is strictly chemical, and repeatedly attempts to bring the dead back to life. His first revived human attempts to claw its way back into its filled-in grave, and the others exhibit similar signs of madness when revived. Finally, the abominations that West hauled back from the great beyond find him, and silently tear him to pieces in front of the narrator, before leaving without a trace with West's remains. The last one of West's experiments does appear to be quite sentient: a pilot decapitated in an accident, whose head and body live separate from each other but act as one entity. He is not only able to understand what West did to him (having helped with a few experiments himself) and desire revenge, but also bend the other research subjects to his will, as well.
298* There is a short story by Creator/EdmondHamilton about the last man on Earth (an immortal) who tries to bring humanity back. He tries to resurrect the dead, and they, while alive (and sentient) are devoid of any human emotion, even the children they bear. Then he tries to bring people from the past - and the travel makes them raving mad.
299* ''Literature/InCryptid'': After [[spoiler:Artie Harrington]]'s mind is accidentally wiped and he becomes an EmptyShell, Sarah tries to [[spoiler:reconstruct his mind from everyone else's memories of him]], but not having [[spoiler:his own original memories]] makes him a little...off.
300* Discussed in the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle''. At the end of the last book ''Inheritance'', Eragon wants to [[spoiler:use the Eldunarí to resurrect his mentor (and father) Brom]], but they warn him that they will probably never be able to restore his mind. He decides that it's not meant to be and just carves a new epitaph for him. They also make the very good point that they aren't neurologists and would probably fry his brain in the process.
301* Subverted in ''Literature/IxiaAndSitia'' wherein it turns out there are perfectly valid ''psychological'' reasons why the experience of dying might affect your emotional state. Who knew?
302* In ''Literature/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'', Lady Pole is resurrected by a magician who made a deal with a faerie to let her half her life back, provided the faerie can have the other half. However, she is languid, appears ill and exhausted and does not demonstrate any pleasure in life or happiness that she is alive again. She also often speaks nonsense due to a spell that prevents her from telling anyone the truth about her condition and the implications of the deal, which mean she is taken into Faerie every night and forced to attend balls and dance all night long.
303* This is the central premise of Leonid N. Andreyev's short story "[[http://www.online-literature.com/leonid-andreyev/1479/ Lazarus]]", which tells the story of the titular character following his resurrection by Christ.
304* Nicolae Carpathia's "resurrection" in the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' book ''The Indwelling'' turns out to be Satan indwelling Nicolae's body, imbuing him with supernatural abilities.
305* Necromancy and Resurrection in ''Literature/TheLegendOfSunKnight'' is a tricky business.
306** It is extremely difficult to create an undead that retains its sense of self. Roland is the only undead in the series to retain his personality; all other Death Knights are powerful but mindless. [[spoiler:It turns out there's a deliberate reason for this]].
307** [[spoiler:Roland himself]] created [[TheDragon Illu]] by killing a Dark Knight and reviving the corpse as an undead. Illu is sentient, but he's clearly not the same person who died; he insists that his master didn't kill him, but created him.
308** The Resurrection spell can bring someone back from the dead, but there's a high chance of failure, and a nonzero chance of something going wrong. [[spoiler:The one time it was used 'normally', Sun lost half his holy magic]].
309* The protagonists of "Literature/TheMonkeysPaw" get ThreeWishes with the title artifact, only to find out you have to BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor. The first wish is for a pile of money, which they get as compensation for the horrific death of their son. The second wish, made in a rash moment of extreme grief, is for their son to come back. The father quickly realizes this trope will be in effect given the way the first wish came about (the son was said to have been brutally mangled in the machinery of the plant he was working at, and the second wish never specified for him to come back unmaimed). The audience/reader never actually sees ''what'' comes back, because just as the mother is about to open the door and let their "son" in, her husband uses the third and final wish to undo the second one and she finds nothing and no one there.
310* ''Literature/OurWivesUnderTheSea'': While the book [[NothingIsScarier doesn't elaborate]] on what exactly caused Leah to be this way, she comes back from an undersea expedition with her body and mindset changed. In particular, her skin gets a more fluid and silvery texture. She spends much of her time sitting in the bathtub at home, is very quiet and mostly talks about the ocean, and is essentially an EmptyShell with little of what Miri loved about her in the first place.
311* The basic premise of ''Literature/PetSematary'' is that what you bring back is not what first died. To disastrous degrees. Specifically, while they stop decaying and can pass for alive if cleaned up, what comes back is a moving corpse [[SlidingScaleOfUndeadRegeneration that cannot heal]], saddled with whatever injuries may have killed it. To further worsen the deal, while the corpse has all the memories and echoes of their personality, what "comes back" is not the soul of the deceased but some form of {{Demon|icPossession}} or MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil bent on making the one who resurrected it suffer through killing those they hold dear, and then them.
312* The main character of ''Literature/PresidentsVampire'' believes himself to fit this, as, after being resurrected as a vampire, he killed his best friend in a burst of HorrorHunger. Much better examples, though, are ''[[FrankensteinsMonster Unmanschensoldaten]]'', who are built from dead people resurrected with barely any awareness of what's going on, and intent on killing everything that stands in the path between them and what their creator deemed their targets.
313* Discussed and subverted in ''Literature/TheRadix''. John Brynstone's baby daughter dies, and he brings her back with the power of the Radix. Cori Cassidy fears that this could happen to the kid. Later she finds out that baby has CameBackStrong, getting a HealingFactor.
314* ''Literature/RoadsidePicnic'' tells how the protagonist's father, who had died and been buried years before, is inadvertently resurrected by whatever the alien artifacts are emitting. He's not quite himself, rather behaving like a machine.
315* Gabriel from ''Literature/RoTeO'' should have been an angel coming back from resurrection but ends up as a demon instead.
316* In the Creator/DeanKoontz novel ''Literature/ShadowFires'', Eric, a wealthy man with an extreme fear of death, subjects himself to an experimental regeneration formula, then is killed by a truck. However, he is brought back to life by his regeneration. That's the good news (in his opinion). The bad news? His death causes his HealingFactor to go out of control and starts mutating out of control in several horrible ways.
317* Used in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' with the red priests.
318** Thoros of Myr is able to bring people back from the dead, and in ''Literature/AStormOfSwords'', he does this to one person repeatedly, who continually loses more and more of his original self in the process.
319** The finest example of all, though, is Catelyn Stark. Dead for days before she was revived and murdered under circumstances that simply scream a [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge need for vengeance]], the loving mother that dies is brought back as a merciless, half-decayed killer.
320** Downplayed with Ser Robert Strong, who is almost certainly Ser Gregor Clegane, re-animated by Qyburn's "[[PlayingWithSyringes experiments]]" and possibly magic. Downplayed in that he's 100% obedient to the throne, and never speaks, and is thus a far less despicable person than the complete psychopath Gregor Clegane was. On the other hand, however, it's very heavily implied that he doesn't have a head, sooo yeah...
321* Bubba from ''Literature/TheSookieStackhouseMysteries'' was a rock star who died of a drug overdose. One of the morgue attendants on duty was a fan of his who happened to be a vampire. He tried to turn Bubba, but the drugs already in his system interfered with the process, turning him a partially-amnesiac, feeble-minded GentleGiant, with who tends to go berserk when confronted with memories of his former life. Even saying who he looks like is enough to trigger a rage episode. Bubba's real name is only mentioned a couple of times, other than his origin: [[spoiler:Music/ElvisPresley]].
322* ''Literature/TheSouthernReachTrilogy'': [[EldritchLocation Area X]] creates doppelgängers of the people who die in it, but they tend to be... off, with only superficial memories of the original and all with the same docile personality. But Ghost Bird is off even compared to the other clones. Normally, they are indistinguishable from each other in what they know and how they act. Ghost Bird retains significantly more of the biologist's personality and memories of Area X.
323* Duke Roger, the BigBad of ''Literature/SongOfTheLioness'', is killed in the second book and brought back in the forth. He was actually NotQuiteDead, but being trapped and immobile in a coffin for over a year drove him around the bend and his plans changed from "usurp the throne" to "DESTROY EVERYTHING."
324* ''Literature/StarTrekImmortalCoil'' further explores the case of Roger Korby (see Live-Action TV). In the novel, it's explained that, probably because the machine that transferred Korby's consciousness to an android body was designed for a different species and/or due to the state his body was in at the time (he was gravely injured and near death), the transfer was imperfect, and this is the reason the android Korby wasn't quite the same person as the human.
325* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'':
326** Being killed and reborn over and over again wears away at the Fused's minds. Many have gone catatonic, while others are merely mentally or emotionally unstable.
327** [[spoiler:Shardblades, or at least the dead ones. Surgebinders can hear them screaming in agony when they touch them, because they are stuck at the moment when they were "killed" to keep themselves solid. They have to be revived every time they are summoned, which is why they need ten heartbeats.]]
328* ''Literature/TheSunEater'':
329** Downplayed after the protagonist Hadrian Marlowe is killed by a Cielcin Prince. In the fight, he gets his right arm and head cut off, but the enigmatic aliens, the Quiet, capture Hadrian's consciousness and yank a Hadrian from another timestream to house the consciousness. This Hadrian only has his left arm cut off and he stabs the prince in the back. Later Hadrian is disturbed when he finds his amputated right arm in a lake and he disposes of it, otherwise there's nothing wrong with Hadrian. Many did witness Hadrian killed the first time and they give him the epithet "Halfmortal", forming a cult around him.
330** Also downplayed with the death and resurrection of Kharn Sagara. Sagara is murdered and his consciousness is supposed to be uploaded to his young clone Ren. However, Sagara had been killed by a [[LightningGun Phase Disruptor]] electric bolt to the head, this weakened the signal and so the uploading also had to go to his female clone Suzuha. Sagara took his split consciousness in stride and noted that the tech he has will eventually fix him, so that he's only in Ren.
331* ''Literature/ThirdTimeLuckyAndOtherStoriesOfTheMostPowerfulWizardInTheWorld'': Magdelene [[BackFromTheDead raises]] Warlord Herrick when the villagers insist, but leaves him with the mind of a toddler so he's no longer a threat. This is a special case, since raising people otherwise doesn't appear to affect them negatively, as she does Juan too, who's fine.
332* In the ''Literature/TowersTrilogy'', Xhea once witnessed an attempted resurrection gone horribly wrong. An attempt to bind a ghost back into its reanimated body left the spirit in unbearable agony and forced Xhea to MercyKill it.
333* In the Creator/PhilipKDick story "Upon the Dull Earth", Silvia sacrifices herself to some angel-like creatures to be among them. When her boyfriend Rick gets them to bring her back, they do so by transforming another living human (her sister) into Silvia. She seems to come back completely unchanged from the experience. Then it turns out that this upset the natural balance, and as a result ''everyone in the world'' is slowly turning into Silvia, both mentally and physically.
334* ''Literature/VampireAcademy'': In ''Spirit Bound'', after [[spoiler:Dimitri's recovery from being a Strigoi]], he is convinced this is the case, as he feels unable to feel proper emotions. [[spoiler:He is wrong.]]
335* In ''Literature/VelveteenVs'', the alternate universe Velveteen, Marionette, is animating herself based on the life of those about her. Most Marionettes are evil. One is supported willingly by a friend until she defeats the Patriots. This one helps Jackie to deal with how Velveteen brought Tag back -- wrong in that it's slowly killing her.
336* The Returned in ''Literature/{{Warbreaker}}''. Returned lose their memories, and must consume one human soul a week to stay on this plane of existence.
337* ''Literature/WayHome'':
338** Roshag the Log dragon died (messily) after an intended human victim messed up his HumanSacrifice ritual. Roshag's soul was enslaved by the Sleepers, omnicidal powers from beyond the world. Their power forced Roshag back into his decomposed remains, to return as their Harbringer, a blighted abomination. Roshag is now driven by revenge unto that human, and doesn't mind becoming an undead monstrosity as much as becoming enslaved.
339** The necromancer Lord Markus of Tlantos intended to take over the body of his subordinate necromancer Chismar - in the case that his own body was killed - through the Soul Bridge spell placed on said subordinate. As Chismar was killed before Markus, the Soul Bridge forced Markus' soul into the corpse, creating a lich. Note that in this setting a lich is an omnicidal manifestation of supercharged necromancy and becoming one is a disgrace.
340** An unnamed Ancient died and was buried in the ancient dwarven capital, Heart of the Mountains. The dwarves built a Crystal Gate in the city to tap into abyssal energy. As the Crystal Gate went haywire, the abyssal energy flooded the city, causing said Ancient to rise as a powerful undead creature.
341* ''Literature/WildCards'' feature two examples:
342** Demise. After drawing the Black Queen, Demise was treated with the experimental Trump cure. It seemed to work, as he survived, retaining his human shape, sanity, memory and personality, thus not fitting any of the 5 subtropes above. Demise also gained absolute regeneration, thus becoming an Ace. The only problem was apparently being conscious during death and aware of the entire process, requiring massive therapy afterwards. Now Demise can, upon locking eyes, telepathically project memories of death, which can shock, stun or kill the recipient depending on the dose.
343** Crypt Kicker. His [[SuperpowerLottery Wild Card]] kicked in as he went postal, at the moment he shot himself. Crypt Kicker has kept the human shape, (debatable) sanity, personality and memory, thus not fitting any of the subtropes above, and gained the Ace ability to excrete unspecified caustics and toxins from his palms. While technically immortal, he has no regenerative abilities, gradually losing parts through the books, until someone [[MercyKill releases him from the mortal coil]].
344** After killing a man, Fortunato uses his Tantric Magic-style powers to bring the man back to life. The man gets back up, a haunted expression on his face as if he had seen Something Man Was Not Meant To Know, utters one word, "Tiamat", and immediately tears out his own throat.
345* This is the entire plot of ''The Winter People'' by Jennifer [=McMahon=]. A person can be resurrected for a week by performing a ritual in a specific place, but they won't come back in a good state. It's never explicitly described what's wrong with them, but they have physical problems (a bad smell, muteness) as well as animalistic AxCrazy tendencies and a craving for human blood. It's also unclear if they still have a soul, though it seems implied that they do, just a [[DamagedSoul badly damaged one]].
346* ''Literature/TheWitchOfKnightcharm'': The Medina twins, both student necromancers, mention that their resurrection skills aren't quite perfect yet.
347-->'''Julia Medina:''' When I was eight, I used my necromancy to kill a tiger.\
348'''Alejandra Medina:''' And I brought it back. ''[{{Beat}}]'' Mostly.
349* In ''Literature/TheWitchlands'', Kullen dies via [[MysticalPlague the Cleaving]]. One book later, he comes back with CastingAShadow added to his powerset, a desire to bring ruin to his homeland and newfound allegiance to the BigBad. Oh, and he's nigh unkillable now. Most of that can be explained by the fact that he was brough back to life by TheDragon.
350* ''Literature/WorldsOfShadow'': Fetches and revenants. There is a "spark" both lack. Fetches can't speak well, while both are entirely apathetic and will follow orders blindly.
351[[/folder]]
352
353[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
354* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'':
355** In a running plotline Coulson learns he was killed by [[Characters/MarvelComicsLoki Loki]] and brought back from the dead, his FakeMemories of a ''near'' fatal injury and recovery in Tahiti used to make him forget the horrors of the process during which he begged to be allowed to die. He's bothered that people who knew him before comment he seems different now, and he becomes much more worried (to the point of having a HeroicBSOD) when he finds out biological material from an alien was used to heal his injuries, and isn't sure what it's done to him. "Nothing Personal" ultimately reveals that the original head of the project was ''Coulson himself'', via a recording where he explains that the procedure had been attempted on other people, all of whom suffered from mental breakdowns of some variety, and the only thing they found that ''might'' counter the effects was removing all of the patient's memories of the procedure. [[spoiler: Whether Coulson came back wrong or not remains to be seen as of the end of Season 1. At the end of the finale, Coulson is seen up in the middle of night scribbling in a weird script on a plastic wall.]]
356** Jiaying, the BigBad of the second half of Season 2. By all accounts, she once truly was the caring and compassionate leader she pretends to be. Then Daniel Whitehall kidnapped, vivisected, and murdered her in an attempt to take her longevity powers for himself. Her remains were eventually recovered by her husband, who used a combination of her HealingFactor and his own medical knowledge to resuscitate her. But her mind couldn't handle the trauma of what happened to her, and she became a cold, ruthless, and paranoid woman who cares for nothing but her own preservation and revenge.
357* ''Series/AliensInTheFamily'': Snizzy brings a dead frog back to life, but it becomes a gigantic monster that eats people.
358* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' features the infamous Lazarus Pit which has miraculous healing powers and even the ability to revive dead people, mostly fallen assassins. It has a catch nonetheless, that whosoever is healed by it becomes bloodthirsty until the revived one avenges him/herself. Just ask [[spoiler:Thea Queen and Sara Lance]]. And if they are actually dead, as opposed to being nearly dead like the former, they truly come back wrong, soulless and animalistic. It takes [[Series/{{Constantine}} John Constantine]]'s help to fix the latter issue.
359* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' has the Cylons routinely resurrect after death in new bodies, with few to no physical or mental ill effects other than the implied trauma and disorientation. One Cylon, Number 3, even found it "rejuvenating". However, a Number 1 described the process as a white hot poker being driven into his skull. Another 1 mentions that the process is more unpleasant each time he does it, although it is apparently less unpleasant than healing up normally after severe injury. Interestingly, the only "downside" to resurrection was that it made Cylons under-appreciate life, as well as allow for some ''severe'' post traumatic effects depending on the cause of death.
360** ''Series/{{Caprica}}'', the {{prequel}} to ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' both uses and subverts this trope. It seems the qualifying factor here is that Zoe's technology does not cheat death, but ''creates life''. Granted, life heavily based on existing people, but the mental and emotional health of the AIs seems directly proportional to how much they are treated as separate individuals to their originals. And whether they are ''aware'' they are separate individuals.
361** After some trauma after the death of her creator, virtual Zoe becomes generally well-adjusted and fine with being an AI clone of the real Zoe and trapped in CyberSpace with the emotional support of Lacy. Zoe-A knows that she is a virtual avatar of Zoe Graystone.
362** Tamara's virtual copy does not fare so well, she panics at waking up in a black void and ''not having a heartbeat''. Tamara-A ''thinks she is actually Tamara Adama''.
363* Referenced verbatim and PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/BetterOffTed'', when Phil and Lem are talking to Ted about their attempt to "rebuild" their decommissioned shop-vac, Chumley.
364--> '''Lem:''' We found Chumley and reassembled him, but something's different.
365--> '''Phil:''' He came back wrong.
366* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': {{Trope Namer|s}}; the line was coined by Spike [[spoiler:when he noticed his anti-violence brain chip stopped working on]] Buffy, who was brought back from the dead after her HeroicSacrifice at the end of Season 5.
367** It becomes a major plot point in Season 6. When Buffy behaves [[OocIsSeriousBusiness erratically and out of character]] after her resurrection, Spike attempts to convince her that she's lost something in her return to Earth, [[spoiler:aided by the fact that his [[RestrainingBolt inhibitor chip]] doesn't work on her, enabling him to injure Buffy in a fight -- and during their increasingly violent sexual encounters]]. When Tara reassures Buffy that, while she's molecularly a bit different ("same Buffy, with a deep tropical cellular tan"), she ''didn't'' come back wrong, it actually makes things ''worse'', as Buffy had been hoping there was an external reason for her recent odd and self-destructive behavior rather than her own severe depression since returning.
368*** Buffy herself was depressed because she had been torn out of Heaven, and initially didn't bring this up with the others when they brought her back; as far as they knew, they'd brought her back from some deep part of Hell she didn't want to talk about. This makes it all the more heart-wrenching when a musical demon forces them all to tell their truth in song, and Buffy tells them all where she had actually been and what she thought of her resurrection.
369** Earlier in Season 5, this trope also appears in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E17Forever Forever]]", when Buffy and Dawn's mother dies, Dawn makes her first venture into witchcraft, invoking a spell to bring their mother back. Buffy is furious at Dawn; witchcraft can produce horrific results, especially when done by amateurs. Dawn is obstinate, accusing Buffy of not even understanding how much she misses their mom--until their mother's silhouette appears outside their window and there's a knock at the door à la ''Literature/TheMonkeysPaw''. Suddenly Buffy, who has been trying to be strong for her sister this whole time, breaks down and rushes to the door, yearning to see her mother again. At the same moment, Dawn realizes how much Buffy has also been suffering and that she isn't as alone in her grief and loss as she thought. Dawn revokes the spell, and whatever was on the other side of the door disappears before Buffy can open it. We never learn whether or not Joyce Summers came back wrong. Considering Dawn got the spell from a demon later revealed to be an ally (possibly TheDragon) of [[BigBad Glory]], odds are it was probably ''designed'' to make the person it was used on come back wrong.
370** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E7LieToMe Lie to Me]]", Buffy tries to dissuade her old friend Billy Fordham from seeking to become a vampire before he dies of cancer.
371--->'''Buffy:''' Well, I've got a news flash for you, brain trust. That's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you.
372** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E17LiesMyParentsToldMe Lies My Parents Told Me]]", a flashback shows Spike trying to save his dying mother by turning her into a vampire. To his horror, the vampire version of his mother taunts him cruelly and makes incestuous advances toward him. He immediately stakes her.
373** Considering later examples it's interesting that when Buffy dies for the first time in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E12ProphecyGirl Prophecy Girl]]" (she was OnlyMostlyDead) there aren't any major ramifications. Well, aside from the aforementioned disruption in the cycle leading to there being two Slayers from then on. Justified in that it wasn't a magical resurrection but CPR that started her heart beating again before brain death due to lack of oxygen could set in.
374** In Season 9, Eyghon, the demon summoned by Giles and Ethan in their youth, returned and possessed Ethan's body to literally snatch Giles' corpse at his funeral. Eyghon now possesses Giles and has resurrected a recently deceased Slayer as well as other people, though not with their own souls as the bodies are possessed by the demon.
375* ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'' plays with this; Zelda is able to bring Hilda back from death repeatedly without any ill-effects by burying her in a patch of special earth, though it is said that eventually this will stop working, and Hilda could be left permanently dead. This trope is played straight, however, when Sabrina attempts to bring [[spoiler:her boyfriend Harvey's dead brother]] back to life after he is murdered by other witches; he returns as a mute, semi-conscious shell with only the most basic reflexes and instincts, and he is on the path to murderous cannibalism when he is given a MercyKill. Interestingly, this only happened because Sabrina attempted to cheat; the ritual she used required [[EquivalentExchange her to kill someone to bring him back]], but she then buried the sacrifice (Agatha) in the special earth to bring back both. We don't know what would have happened if she had performed the ritual properly, but it is implied that this trope would have been averted.
376* ''Series/DeadLikeMe'' (also created by Creator/BryanFuller) does the same thing with freshly reaped souls. If they haven't been reaped before death they keep the damage, and can feel it all. Being found and touched beforehand ensures a painless death. George found out that she couldn't run away from her job when the man she was supposed to reap remained conscious during his autopsy.
377* ''Series/{{Defiance}}'' plays with this in a single episode of Season 1 and pretty much all of Season 2. Anyone resurrected by Votan nanotechnology tends to become a dangerous religious fanatic under the control of insane AI.
378* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
379** While they don't really die in the process, Time Lords have the ability to regenerate, whereby they lose their former personality and looks, but get a new lifespan and heal any wounds, poisonings, etc. It is, strictly speaking, not coming back, but being reborn. Except that they don't really come back "wrong", they just come back different. Although the Doctor usually experiences a period of confusion right after regenerating.
380*** They can also come back desperately ill, as happened with the regeneration from the 4th to the 5th Doctor. He needed to spend at least a few days in a "Zero Room", a special chamber shielded from ''all'' outside stimuli, to recover. With the regeneration from the 9th to the 10th Doctor, he fell into a coma after having some seizures.
381*** Sometimes, they come back crazy, as with the 5th Doctor's regeneration into the 6th Doctor. He becomes psychotic and nearly kills his companion in a paranoia-induced rage, believing that she's actually a spy.
382*** And then there's the 14th Doctor, who [[spoiler:somehow resembles the 10th]].
383** Captain Jack Harkness. After he gets exterminated by the Daleks in the Series 1 finale, Rose uses her temporary god-powers to resurrect him, but she overdoes it, bringing him back ''permanently''. While automatic resurrection doesn't sound like the worst side effect ever, he's effectively doomed to a lifespan of thousands of years (at least), knowing for a fact that he will outlive every human that becomes his friend or lover as well as any child he has, and at one point [[AndIMustScream gets buried alive and spends the next couple thousand years or so repeatedly suffocating and reviving]]. It's later revealed that he's the Face of Boe, making him billions of years old when he dies for real.
384** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary Silence in the Library]]", Miss Evangelista is saved, in the computer sense, by Doctor Moon and CAL. Unluckily, the saving was corrupted and her face became horribly distorted yet her mind became astoundingly intelligent. By the end of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Forest of the Dead]]", she got better... still dead, but better.
385** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]", Lucy sabotages the Master's resurrection, leaving him bleeding energy and eating anything he can get his hands on, including people. On the upside, he gets quite a few superpowers, even if they're part of the [[CastFromLifespan bleeding life-force]] deal.
386** As if Rory's death wasn't bad enough, he returns as an Auton constructed from memories. While the Rory persona eventually wins out in the ensuing mental battle, it's not before he fatally shoots Amy.
387** PlayedForLaughs in "[[Recap/DoctorWho2012CSTheSnowmen The Snowmen]]"; Strax is said to have been revived under unknown circumstances from the Battle of Demon's Run by an unnamed friend of the Doctor. However, the Doctor speculates that something went wrong in the process, as Strax is much more of [[TheDitz a ditz]] than before. [[spoiler:Turns out? Strax didn't even die in the first place. So, serious subversion.]]
388** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E5TheGirlWhoDied The Girl Who Died]]", Ashildr's situation is comparable to Captain Jack's. A sweet Viking girl, her imagination is used by the Doctor to defeat the alien Mire, but the process of using their technology against them drains her energy and leaves her dead. The brokenhearted Doctor decides ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight and defies his usual reluctance to disturb the web of time by reviving her with a modified Mire medkit. The problem -- and he suspected it from the start -- is that it ''also'' turns her into a functional [[TheAgeless immortal]]. As her brain still has only a normal human amount of storage space, her less recent memories fade over the centuries, leading her to keep a library's worth of diaries. By the time the Doctor meets her again, she just calls herself "Me" (as in Lady Me, and later Mayor Me) instead of "Ashildr".
389** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]", Clara Oswald, after being brought back from the moment of death by the Time Lords, finds out that while she is technically "alive" and functioning, she no longer has a pulse, and will [[TheAgeless no longer age]].
390* In ''Series/FirstKill'', [[spoiler: Ashley]] is brought back as a zombie in episode 5. Her memories are all scrambled, she doesn't realize she died or what she's becoming, and she's filled with violent bloodthirst.
391* In the ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' episode "[[Recap/FringeS03E09Marionette Marionette]]", after trying to bring a girl back to life, the villain realizes that what came back "wasn't her anymore". It's [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane ambiguous]] whether it was a matter of severe brain decay or something spiritual.
392* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
393** Daenerys Targaryen asks a witch to give her husband Drogo "life" when she says that he is going to die of his rotting, infected wounds, and the witch says there will be a price to pay. The next day Dany finds that her unborn son has died during childbirth and Drogo is a catatonic EmptyShell. When she asks the witch what she has done she says: "You asked for life". It could be argued that this is not an example of 'Came Back Wrong' because Drogo is not shown to have fully died beforehand, but he was very close to death, and it is implied that some form of dark necromancy was used.
394** Strongly implied to be the case with Gregor Clegane. His duel with Oberyn Martell left him technically victorious but mortally wounded and doomed to die a slow and agonizing death via poisoning. Qyburn suggests that he may be able to save him using "unorthodox" means, but warns that the process will "change" him. When Gregor next appears, he seems to have regained his old strength, but he's lost the ability to speak and what little of his face is visible is covered in veins and [[UndeathlyPallor tinted blue]].
395** Beric Dondarrion mentions that every time he's resurrected, he feels that he loses a bit of himself. May be an InformedAttribute, as until [[spoiler: he is finally killed in The Long Night]] he seems like a decent and not particularly angsty man.
396** Jon Snow. Seemingly averted, for the most part. Despite his resurrection coming from circumstances similar to Beric Dondarrion's, the only marked change in him is a (more) melancholic demeanor and a new hairdo. His willingness to interpret the preceding events as an out from the Night's Watch may also count.
397** Narrowly averted with Jojen Reed, who is showing signs of becoming a wight when he is incinerated.
398** Poor Benjen stays in a limbo, neither wight nor human, close to an EmptyShell but full of infinite sadness.
399* In ''{{Series/Gotham}}'', the main project Professor Hugo Strange is working on in Arkham is finding a method to revive the dead. He finally manages it through a variation of Mr. Freeze's life-preserving ice invention, but the process of a mind returning to its corpse turns out to be so traumatic that the subject is driven insane with very little of their original personality intact. Strange is forced to use stories to help the subjects build new personalities and even then the new personality tends to be badly unhinged; when [[spoiler:Theo Galavan is brought back, Strange uses old religious knight legends and in the process turns Galavan into the insane KnightTemplar Azrael]]. This all makes it rather frightening when the process is performed on [[spoiler: Fish Mooney]] and she not only comes back with her mind intact, but also [[spoiler: with her latent metahuman powers activated]]. Strange was already at a loss to explain the resurrection process and this ends up throwing him for an even bigger loop.
400* ''Series/IronFist2017'': When he was dying from cancer, Harold Meachum struck a deal with The Hand for resurrection in exchange for them getting to use Rand Enterprises resources. In the seventh episode, his son/[[MouthOfSauron mouthpiece]] Ward has enough of him and stabs him repeatedly, supposedly killing him. However, two episodes later, Harold comes back to life. He was unstable and short tempered the first time he was brought back from the dead, and it gets even worse after the second time he resurrects. The moment he discovers Harold's second resurrection, Ward meets with the head of the Triads that are in conflict with The Hand and asks for help. The Triad boss recounts a tale from his great-grandfather's village, about a farmer who cut a deal with The Hand, who kept resurrecting him each time he died on the battlefield. But each time he came back, he got more and more deranged until he roasted his own children.
401* ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' has one of its antagonists make use of the SurvivalHorror game ''Dangerous Zombie'' to grant himself immortality, reviving within seconds of taking fatal damage and stopping the PowerDegeneration caused by his previous abilities. While at first all seems well, over the course of the next ten episodes he gradually becomes more and more of a LargeHam and slips into ever-greater depths of insanity, until by the time of his final death he's barely coherent in his ranting. However, the audience was given a glimpse of similar behavior from him much earlier in the show, and his biggest act of petty spite was over a decade ago, so it's unclear how much of this can actually be attributed to ''Dangerous Zombie'' versus how much is just Kuroto revealing what he was all along.
402* ''Series/LegendOfTheSeeker'': All the banelings. They have to kill people each day in return for living again.
403* In Season 6 of ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Sayid is drowned in the sacred waters of the Temple. He miraculously lives, but he gradually becomes a SoullessShell who doesn't care whose side he's on -- until he [[HeroicSacrifice heroically sacrifices]] his life at the end.
404* ''Series/Merlin2008'' has had a few resurrections, all of which went wrong. Tristan du Bois: undead wraith, Lancelot: SoullessShell, Uther: TookALevelInJerkass, which is quite impressive considering he was a genocidal tyrant in the first place.
405* In ''Series/{{Misfits}}'', people (and animals) revived by the resurrection power act normally at first, but soon become flesh-eating, plague-bearing zombies. Not quite played straight, because they maintain their intelligence, personality, and a sense of remorse. At one point they make it seem as simple as a change in diet, although it's implied at the end that eventually the hunger takes over and makes them evil.
406* In an episode of ''Series/MyBabysittersAVampire'', Benny tries to resurrect his crush's dead dog to impress her. However, the dog and other deceased animals that accidentally been affected by Benny's potion (including Ethan's late turtle) come back as undead zombie that raid across town. Thankfully, they can brought back to the dead by a blast of holy water.
407-->'''Benny's Grandma:''' You brought back the bodies, but the souls are gone. And a soulless body is a devil's playground.
408* ''Series/NightVisions'': In "Afterlife", a middle-aged man comes back from the dead during his funeral. He becomes convinced that he visited {{Heaven}} and that life on Earth is just a transitory prison of rotting human flesh. He eventually tries to force his beloved daughter into a suicide pact so they can be TogetherInDeath. [[spoiler:Too bad for him the idyllic afterlife he remembers was just about the stained glass window above his coffin in the funeral parlor, which would have been the very first thing his traumatized, fogged mind would see when he revived.]]
409* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': This is the main driver in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S3E11NewLease New Lease]]". A scientist invents a regeneration device. When he uses it on a patient, the patient comes back but dies horribly shortly afterwards. When he is shot, he uses the device on himself, and believing he will die soon, murders the robber. He finds out the device worked properly on him -- because unlike the test subjects, his body was never frozen -- and he will now go to prison for the rest of his life.
410* In ''Series/PushingDaisies'' the dead people who Ned brings touches come back just as they are - even if they've been, for example, rolled over by a cement mixer. The fruit that he touches seems to come back as it was freshly picked, so perhaps what matter still exists is returned, in freshness at least, to how it was as a living organism.
411* ''Series/Reno911'' eventually explained that this is what happened to Weigel. She died during a drug raid gone wrong and Dangle revived her. Turns out she had been dead for 14 minutes, causing permanent brain damage. The doctor flat out told him he should've let her die.
412* ''Series/TheRiver'' has an episode where Lincoln is dead and is brought back to life by a local ritual - but he's been possessed by the spirit of the Boiuna as a result.
413%%* This trope appears in ''Series/TheSecretCircle''. Nick does this, though Melissa finishes him off to save Jake.
414* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E7WhatAreLittleGirlsMadeOf What Are Little Girls Made Of?]]", it's revealed that Chapel's fiance, Roger Korby, is actually an android that the real Korby transferred his consciousness into before dying. As the episode goes on, it's increasingly made clear that the android Korby is not the same person the human Korby was.
415* Season 4 of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' has the [[UnexpectedlyDarkEpisode unusually dark and introspective episode]] "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E11MortalCoil Mortal Coil]]", which takes the rare avenue of following the situation from the point of view of the revived person. Neelix is killed and then resurrected a while later courtesy of Borg technology. He remembers nothing of his time spent dead and spirals into depression, becoming convinced at one point that the real Neelix died and he is all that's left of him.
416* Any dead thing brought back (or not completely dead/outliving its normal life/becoming immortal) in the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' universe: ghosts, demons, zombies...
417** In "[[Recap/SupernaturalS02E04ChildrenShouldntPlayWithDeadThings Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things]]", a college student-turned-necromancer brings back a woman on whom he had a crush. She is, of course, a vengeful bloodthirsty zombie. Dean even outright says "What's dead should stay dead", and he obviously thinks this applies to himself as well as the zombie because of the deal his father made three episodes earlier so Dean wouldn't die.
418** Dean even lampshades it when Bobby's wife returns from the dead apparently normal. Dean, not clouded by emotions, proves to be right.
419** Also pointed out by Yellow Eyes after Dean makes a deal to bring Sam back to life -- he asks Dean if he thinks that maybe the deal sounded too good to be true and if Sam's possibly been brought back... [[NotHimself different]].
420*** Notably subverted this one time when Sam came back: although he did seem to act darker at first after being revived, it turned out that he was actually attempting to toughen himself up to carry on as a hunter after Dean died in a year from the deal to bring Sam back.
421** The second (well, technically third, but the second big one) time Sam came back, however, [[SoullessShell he was definitely wrong]]. This mainly happened because his soul was unreachable (trapped in Lucifer's Cage), but it probably didn't help that Cas was too distracted with the angelic civil war to double-check his work.
422** A recurring theme in Seasons 6 and 7 was that while [[DeathIsCheap death might be cheap]] in the ''Supernatural'' universe, everything comes back wrong, including Sam, Dean, and Castiel. Even if your soul is fully intact, you'll end up causing destruction and cursing the people around you. Dean's resurrection (after he began torturing souls in Hell) broke the first seal, Sam's (both of them in different ways) eventually resulted in Armageddon, and poor Cas accidentally wiped out his entire (or almost entire) species by turning them into Leviathan chow. Even the LittlestCancerPatient accidentally killed a nurse because her soul wasn't reaped in time.
423** Both Cain and Dean were resurrected after death by the power of the Mark of Cain, but as a demon, specifically a Knight of Hell.
424* This trope is the impetus for ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'': after being killed by Daleks in ''Doctor Who'', Jack Came Back Wrong and subsequently took charge of Torchwood 3 (Cardiff). Also happens more than once to other characters, thanks to the resurrection gauntlet. Both Suzie Costello and Owen Harper are brought back from the dead with some interesting, but different, side effects: Suzie drains Gwen to become permanently alive and Owen comes back with Death, but he gets better... kinda.
425* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S3E23TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", a man comes back from the dead, but the townsfolk notice some things are off about him and decide that he's [[PossessingADeadBody possessed]] by a demon. He manages to shame them away... and then [[FingerSnapLighter lights his pipe without a match or lighter]].
426%%* This trope applies to ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''. When Elena dies and comes back a vampire, she's sired to Damon.
427* ''Series/TheXFiles'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS07E21JeSouhaite Je Souhaite]]", with an honest-to-goodness ThreeWishes genie, the first master wishes to be [[{{Invisibility}} invisible]] and [[BlessedWithSuck gets killed by a car when trying to cross the street.]] When his brother wishes for him to come back alive, he appears as a shivering necrotic corpse, unable to speak. His brother wishes for him to be able to talk in spite of the genie's warning, and he screams for minutes straight. After he's all screamed out, he attempts to light the stove to warm himself, complaining that he can't feel his blood. He fumbles the matches with the gas on full blast for many minutes, and when he finally does light one the trailer explodes, killing both brothers (we hope) permanently and ejecting the genie. BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor.
428[[/folder]]
429
430[[folder:Music]]
431* Avenged Sevenfold's "A Little Piece of Heaven".
432* Ancient Bards' "Soulless Child".
433* In {{Music/Blue Oyster Cult}}'s concept album ''Music/{{Imaginos}}'', the titular character is already a HumanoidAbomination, but when he dies he is resurrected without his humanity and dedicates his existence to serving his alien masters and corrupting human society.
434* "Eulogy for a Ghost" by {{Music/Clutch}}.
435-->Waiting for a dead man's shoes\
436Have you heard the latest news?\
437Lazarus is back from the dead, looking as one would expect\
438Dripping with the waters of Sheol\
439Babbling about body and soul
440* Music/TheMegas portray Proto Man this way.
441* Music/TheMenThatWillNotBeBlamedForNothing: "Victoria's Secret" is that she used occult forces to bring back Prince Albert as a FleshEatingZombie. She keeps him in the palace basement, sating his hunger with the brains of the lower class.
442* ''Music/{{Vocaloid}}'': Miku In "HYPER LATION".
443* Music/NineInchNails' "Came Back Haunted."
444* ''Music/SuperGhostbusters'': The track "Ghestbest" involves a ghost named Ghost Johnson who can play drums so good that he can bring back the dead. He tries it on another person's grandma. It works, but she's brought back [[BodyHorror without any skin]].
445-->'''Ghost Johnson:''' No refunds!
446* "The World Ender" by ''Music/LordHuron'' is about a man who seems to have been murdered coming back for revenge upon not just his killer(s) but "the fair and the brave and the good".
447[[/folder]]
448
449[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
450* Osiris from the [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Ancient Egyptian pantheon]] died repeatedly only to return a short while later, suffering several indignities such as being resurrected without a penis, which was eaten by fish before it could be found and reattached. He averts the Trope in that he never came back in some monstrously horrific form, but true to it in that afterwards he was usually worse off than he was previously. And green.
451* Discussed and averted in the Gospel of John of Literature/TheBible, chapter 11. When Jesus proceeds to resurrect Lazarus, his sister Martha tells Jesus in verse 39 that she is worried that it has been four days since he died, meaning that at this point of time, his body would stink and begin to rot. Jesus then responds by reminding those at Lazarus' tomb that he is the Resurrection and the Life, before calling to his Father to raise Lazarus from the dead. Fortunately, Lazarus then emerges from the tomb alive and well, apparently no worse for the wear after his grave clothes were unwrapped.
452* A possible interpretation of the story of Admetis and Alkestis - when Herakles descends into the underworld and brings her back to life, she has lost the power of speech until the correct sacrifices are performed. It's possible that whatever Herakles brought back wasn't actually Alkestis at all...
453* A downplayed case in Myth/NorseMythology: The thunder god Thor had two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, who not only pulled his chariot but also served as regular food for him. However, as long as their bones are intact, Thor can use his magic hammer Mjolnir to revive them none the worse for wear. One day, Thor shared the goats with some humans, and one of them broke a bone to eat the marrow, thus when the goats were resurrected, one of them ended up with a limp.
454[[/folder]]
455
456[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
457* All of the players in ''TabletopGame/{{Anathema|2011}}''. You have almost no memory of your life, you have to murder massive amounts of men, women, and children to survive, and you don't look anything like yourself. No one would recognize you and, if they did, they would likely be horrified.
458* In ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'', a game where one of the [[MagicAIsMagicA hard and fast rules]] of [[FunctionalMagic Hermetic Magic]] is that it can't bring back the dead, there ''is'' a spell that can bring back the dead... sort of. But you have to roll on a table to see what goes wrong (not ''if'' something goes wrong -- something always goes wrong.) The results can include almost any of the things named above, except that the original soul can never return -- the 'best' possibility is a facsimile with the memories and personality of the original person, but without the ability to learn anything new. You're far more likely to get an emotionless automaton or a possessed body, though.
459* ''TabletopGame/BleakWorld'' has the Witches and Experiments. Witches may have been spared from death, but they all are now in service to either demons, corpses, nature itself, the first flame, or [[TokenGoodTeammate the Moon]]. Experiments meanwhile are either FrankensteinsMonster, [[VoiceOfTheLegion a soul jar of dozens of demons and ghosts]], [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul a vicious cyborg]], a NuclearMutant, or a Super Soldier with no free will.
460* ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' has lots of ways to come back, almost all of them fulfilling this trope. ANY player character who dies may come back as a walking corpse with a demon using their head as a time-share. Players came to expect this trope so much that when the CollectibleCardGame offered the resurrection of a dead character as a tournament prize, the writers made it clear that it would avert this trope and be an honest-to-God divine intervention - which in ''Deadlands'' is the ONLY way to come back "right."
461* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
462** The 3.5 edition spell Reincarnation has a good chance of bringing the reincarnated character back as something other than what they were before. The consequences of bringing an elf back as a dwarf (or vice versa) would be quite silly, though. This has also been used to create horror, such as when the elf is reincarnated as an orc or a bugbear or something else which is simply terrifying to them.
463** Earlier editions had a fair number of animals on the list. The elf might come back as a badger. The old ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' setting actually has a group whose special abilities include having Reincarnation guaranteed to at least give you a player character race.
464** ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' has the same spell, though a more player-friendly version of it. This is unsurprising.
465** ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' exploits Came Back Wrong on every resurrection spell, with the recipient of the spell having a very good chance of being possessed by something suitably blasphemous.
466** ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'', due to the orbital movements of the planes, sets the reliability of any spell that brings back the dead by the proximity of the plane of death. When Dolurrh is furthest from Eberron those spells don't work at all, at its closest point the resurrectee has a chance of being brought back with someone else's soul or possessed by a demon, or accompanied by a horde of ghosts.
467** 3.5 book ''Heroes of Horror'' recommended this as an optional rule to inject some extra horror into the world, while also making the players less likely to rush through the afterlife's revolving door.
468** Some planes in ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' risk this if you try to resurrect someone while on them. Particularly in the Abyss, you were likely to end up with a demonic spirit inhabiting the body instead.
469* In ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', coming BackFromTheDead is impossible (save via {{Reincarnation}}). The Liminal Exalted, introduced in Third Edition, are what occurs when someone tries (in spite of that rule) to either bring back the dead or breathe new life into dead flesh, and attracts the attention of an entity in TheUnderworld, which creates the Liminal. Though the being produced may have some of the memories of the person(s) whose body they were created from, they are secondhand experiences, like scenes from a movie, and the original person's soul is ''not'' what guides the Liminal.
470* While many cards have handled this theme in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', mostly Black and mostly involving selfish necromancers raising the dead as mindless servants, this is the defining attribute of The Returned, the chief Black society in the ''Theros'' expansion. Returning from the underworld is no small feat, and those doing so for themselves are forced to give up their personalities and identities as toll. Those who Return are ''not'' human; They bear only brief flickers of their old memories and cannot form new ones. They have dark bluish-grey skin and [[TheBlank no face]], wearing a golden mask to hide this. (gold being the most abundant metal in the Underworld due to all the coins entombed with the newly dead as a funeral rite) And just to add insult to injury, the face on a Returned's mask isn't even theirs, because they willfully gave up every aspect of their old identity when they returned, and even if they die again [[FateWorseThanDeath they can never reclaim who they once were.]]
471* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', when people get stuffed with too many [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul artificial implants]], they die. This can be averted by having a [[AWizardDidIt magician]] go on a journey to what may or may not be the afterlife in order to bind your soul and force it back into what's left of your body when you cross that threshold of having too much good stuff in your body. On the plus side, you get to avoid the normal limitations on having useful cybernetics, and you become a semi-magical creature to boot. Too bad that you constantly find yourself detaching from the world around you as your [[DamagedSoul soul]] keeps on thinking that your body is dead and tries to ''leave''. You constantly pollute the [[SpiritWorld astral space]] around you with the sheer ''wrongness'' that you exude, and that you quickly grow more and more [[DespairEventHorizon depressed]], [[AxCrazy insane]], and [[InstantIllness tumor-ridden]], [[YourDaysAreNumbered leading up to your eventual]] [[KilledOffForReal death.]]
472** Some versions of ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' have a character become violently insane before they get to the point of dying from too much cybernetics, due to the CyberneticsEatYourSoul feature built in to the game mechanics.
473* In a mix of 4 and 5, the Black Savants of ''TabletopGame/{{Talislanta}}'' were once living necromancers in Khazad, before the Great Disaster. Their people chose to die temporarily to avoid the predicted catastrophe, expecting they'd be returned to life once things had calmed down. But the spells to resurrect them failed, and the majority of Khazad's souls were lost in extraplanar realms of demons and ghosts. The few who ''did'' revive, did so in mute, undead bodies. Now, these Black Savants work endlessly to locate the lost souls of their people and bring Khazad back from the dead. Oh, and creep out other Talislantans.
474* In ''The World of Darkness'', particularly in the ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'' game-lines, there are a number of different ways to bring a recently deceased person back from the dead. ''None'' of them result in a mentally- or spiritually-sound being. Here's a quick run: you can make a Revenant out of them, but that gives you a zombie with a supercharged case of OCD. You can try [[TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem Embracing]] them, but now they're a vampire and, since you Embraced them ''after'' death, their reflection/shadow has come loose and become a separate being that hates them. Making a ''[[TabletopGame/PrometheanTheCreated Promethean]]'' out of them opens the door to a laundry list of problems.[[note]](Not the least of which is that the "resurrectee" is [[ThatManIsDead actually a whole different person]]. The previous occupant / soul is gone, the Promethean is a wholly new being.)[[/note]] A [[TabletopGame/GeistTheSinEaters Geist]] can haul someone back if they were [[ISeeDeadPeople the right sort]] and [[NearDeathExperience enough wiggle room exists,]] but it's ''never'' for free. Some [[TabletopGame/DeviantTheRenegades Deviants]] have healing powers strong enough to raise the dead, but there's a non-zero chance the resurrected will end up as another Deviant. On the lighter end, there's a [[TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil Benediction]] that resurrects the very-recently-slain but leaves them with a permanent mental illness, and an [[TabletopGame/DemonTheDescent Exploit]] that is perfectly capable of raising the dead... but is highly likely to leave them [[TouchedByVorlons stigmatic]].
475** This is also actually the default for ''TabletopGame/DemonTheFallen'', since every player character is literally a biblical Demon from [[{{Hell}} Hell]] that took [[DemonicPossession possession]] of some weakened or recently deceased human body, though it depends on the player how strongly the possessed acts more like its host or the Demon. The host's soul, though, is gone. Additionally, there's a chance for playing this trope straight or any other way by combining the powers of some of the fallen. You can have a Devourer [[{{Biomanipulation}} build a body]], a Scourge [[CreatingLife animate]] [[FrankensteinsMonster it]] if necessary and a Slayer [[WeCanRebuildHim drag a soul from the afterlife]] or hell or wherever and have it take over that body, then use the lore of humanity to make it a [[MyMasterRightOrWrong loyal servant]]. It's not playing god, if you actually know what you're doing!
476** In ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' from the ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'', The Gurahl (werebears) have at least one method that will return the deceased, no matter how long they were dead, with no side effects. The catch? The ritual to do so requires fighting the avatar of the literal [[TheGrimReaper God of Death]]. Guess what happens if you lose.
477** Another option was to have a soul-shard happen across the recently deceased and make a deal. This one got them brought back better than before, as one of [[TabletopGame/MummyTheResurrection the Amenti]], the Reborn. No matter how often they died again, they could resurrect without a hitch (well, barring the waiting period). The OWOD was a bit kinder on this front than the NWOD.
478** One of the ironies of the Mage splat in ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' is that it actually is possible to bring people back just fine with no ill effect, it doesn't even require archmastery. The reason it usually goes bad is because the kinds of people that play Mage often can't risk trying to bring you back ... 'better'. And that's sort of handing the GM a free pass to mess with things in a game full of paradox and Id demons.
479** The [=nWOD=] fangame ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' has this as a serious possibility for Geniuses trying to resurrect the dead. A ZombieApocalypse is quite possible, and frankly it's one of the more manageable things that could result. The good news is, you're fine if you're resurrecting someone from a point where modern medicine could revive them. Beyond that... good luck and have fun with that Obligation transgression.
480* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': The Tomb Kings are former rulers of Nehekhara who, as their lives neared their ends, had themselves put through a ritual that would eventually (after centuries) resurrect them in immaculate, undying bodies of living gold. Then Nagash showed up and ruined everything. Thanks to his interference, the Tomb Kings were woken up centuries ahead of schedule, trapped in their withered corpses.
481* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':
482** Urien Rakarth, the Dark Eldar Master Haemonculus, discovered the secret of resurrecting himself so long ago, and has done it so many times, that things have started to go inexplicably wrong with the process. He now tends to come back with a small physical reminder of each previous resurrection, usually additional vestigial limbs growing from his spinal sump. Being an utterly insane genius surgeon, body modifier, peerless torturer, and obsessive experimenter, Urien regards this condition as little more than a fascinating quirk and certainly nothing to get all angsty about. Indeed, Urien is so jaded that he practically collects deaths and looks forward to seeing what new and unusual ways he will come back wrong in next.
483** Later Dark Eldar lore revealed that ''all'' Dark Eldar raiders make deals with a Haemonculus to resurrect them if they fall in battle. All that's required is a piece of their body, say a finger. Andy Chambers's Dark Eldar novels center on an attempt to resurrect El'Uriaq, an ancient Eldar Archon (who predated Vect) whose remains and soul have been stewing in Chaos for ages, and ''it does not go well''.
484** Necron "resurrection protocols" teleport a damaged unit back to its tomb for repair. Necron platforms are over sixty-five million years old, their tech hasn't always weathered the aeons, they get bashed up a lot, and the lords skimped on the quality of their foot soldiers, so Necrons pick up aberrations as they get refurbished: the foot soldiers are barely sentient anymore and describing some lords as "deranged" would be putting it mildly.
485** Even the initial "reawakening" protocols and interment were flawed, causing many of the Necrons to become quirky and insane before all this "resurrection" nonsense. Nemesor Zahndrekh is the most notable example, as he still thinks he's a creature of flesh and blood fighting against the other Necrontyr Dynasties rather than waging inter-galactic war against aliens. The Destroyer Cults are ones who were so thoroughly broken by their bio-transference that now they want to utterly annihilate everything (this madness extends to the aptly named Destroyer Lords, and the fluff indicates that this is also responsible for the entire earlier canon fluff; the first of the lords and warriors to awaken had their memories damaged so much that they thought they were still slaves to the C'tan, slavishly carrying out the wills of long-dead gods.
486** According to a microstory in the ''TabletopGame/{{Inquisitor}}'' rulebook, two of the Inquisition's founders opposed the idea of the Emperor being revived in the wake of the Literature/HorusHeresy, because they were afraid that what they brought back wouldn't be the man they once knew. For better or worse, [[AvertedTrope they got their way]] -- he's still [[ManInTheMachine stuck on the Golden Throne]] ten thousand years later.
487** Mad Dok Grotsnik was once an Ork Painboy who found himself on the receiving end of a one-sided whooping when the Nobs in his tribe found out about the bombs he planted in their new bionik skulls. Grotsnik was battered beyond recognition and his Gretchin orderlies did what they could to save him, though this did mean that one of them nearly lost his lunch while up to his elbows in Grotsnik's exposed braincase, another's pet spider crawled in and found someplace warm and wet and wasn't retrieved, and Grotsnik himself died several times in the night and it was only through inventive use of a Grot-prod that he made it at all. Grotsnik managed against all odds to survive his ordeal, though now he's a complete mess of mutilated flesh and cyborknetics who really is one scalpel short of a medpack.
488** When Chaos Dreadnoughts come to and realize they're trapped in a weaponized sarcophagus (and unlike their Loyalist counterparts, they aren't put in slumber when not in battle, [[AndIMustScream just chained up and have their weapons deactivated]]), their sanity doesn't survive, and become TriggerHappy {{Death Seeker}}s as a result... which suits their commanders just fine, and becoming a Dreadnought is a very persuasive threat among Chaos forces.
489** In the spin-off RPG ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', player characters are slowly corrupted when they see or handle heretical artefacts or phenomena, culminating in "mutations". One of them is that the character is no longer allowed to die: They will always come back, suffering additional corruption each time, until they fall to Chaos.
490* In ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', the Stormcast Eternals lose a bit of their personalities with each reforging after the first one. Notably, this is not a flaw in the process itself, but caused by the death god Nagash (the same one mentioned under the ''Warhammer'' section) who greedily refuses to give up any of the dead.
491* ''Tabletopgame/YuGiOh'': When players [[NeverSayDie destroy]] or [[DevourTheDragon Tribute]] monsters, they either go to the [[OnlyMostlyDead Graveyard]] or are [[DeaderThanDead Banished]]. As such, many card effects rely on bringing back said monsters from either location. ''Monster Reborn'' and ''Call of the Haunted'' were [[BackFromTheDead pretty straightforward]], but later cards ended up playing every aspect of this trope. The most common types are EmptyShell and DamagedSoul, where a monster's ability to act is limited, or else becomes "dangerous" to the player. Some cards even resurrect your monsters ''on the opponent's side''.
492[[/folder]]
493
494[[folder:Video Games]]
495* In ''VideoGame/AgeOfWonders'', the elven king Inioch, thanks to his son's fumbling with black magic he didn't understand. Instead of getting revenge on the humans and rebuilding the elven empire, Inioch tries to end all life.
496* In ''VideoGame/AlanWake'', Thomas Zane tried to bring back his love Barbara through the RewritingReality powers the [[EldritchAbomination Dark Presence]] in Cauldron Lake gave writers. Unfortunately, he left a PlotHole by not giving a reason for how she came back, leaving the Dark Presence to [[HumanoidAbomination create its own reason]]... Even if he did have a reason, it would have to be a reason ''internally consistent with the narrative'' -- e.g. the Franchise/CareBears couldn't appear out of a cloud of butterflies and revive her with ThePowerOfFriendship -- or else the Dark Presence could come in through ''that'' PlotHole instead. This is why Alan has to resort to a HeroicSacrifice to save Alice and the town -- a straight HappilyEverAfter wouldn't be consistent with the darkly-toned horror story that led up to it.
497* ''Franchise/BatmanArkhamSeries'': By the time of ''[[VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight Arkham Knight's]]'' Season of Infamy DLC, Ra's al Ghul, after yet another resurrection in the Lazarus Pit, is now hooked up to [[DarkLordOnLifeSupport life support]], and his mind is so fractured that he can barely talk. According to his daughter Nyssa, every time Ra's was revived, he came back worse; by this point, she considers him nothing more than a zombie who should have died permanently long ago. Ra's himself was aware of this possibility in ''[[VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity Arkham City]]'', which played a big part in his desperation to find a successor:
498-->'''Ra's''': I have used the Lazarus Pit too many times. My mind and body cannot take much more. Every time I enter the Pit... I am frightened of what will come out.
499* The plot of the first ''{{VideoGame/Bayonetta}}'' game centered around [[BigBad Father Balder]] wanting to resurrect the Creator-God of [[{{Heaven}} Paradiso]], Jubileus, by using the combined powers of the Eyes of the Overseer himself and his daughter, Bayonetta, held domain over. Things were going well, too, until [[HeelFaceTurn Jeanne]] yanked Bayonetta, and thus her Overseer power, out of Jubileus's body right before the Dea reformed, thus leading to Jubileus being brought into being at only 50% power and basically completely insane, screeching at the top of her lungs and attempting to bring about Armageddon.
500* Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFire'': The first time you reach Romero you find that the citizens who have died have been revived by one of the villains yet, despite being referred to as "zombies" and avoiding the sun, they aren't any different than regular people and their family members are glad to have them back. Unfortunately when you return later, you find the citizens locked in their homes and the now rotting zombies lurching about mindlessly and aggressively.
501* ''VideoGame/CliveBarkersUndying'': Those brought back by the undying curse are twisted shadows of their former selves.
502* In ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'', [[spoiler:if [[PlayerCharacter V]] fails to send [[SacrificialLion Jackie's body]] back to his family, [[EvilInc Arasaka]] uses him as a test subject for their VirtualGhost program and during [[DownerEnding "The Devil" ending path]] V is able to speak to him from Mikoshi. Unfortunately, since he was already dead when [[BrainUploading he was copied]] he can only answer using a few set lines he said before and [[FateWorseThanDeath has no sentience whatsoever, remaining endlessly optimistic despite the situation they're in]].]]
503* A random event in ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' offers you a chance to bring back one of your slain party members (chosen from a group of 3, all 3 of which are chosen randomly), but while they maintain the level they had before death, they also come back afflicted, and with no equipment upgrades or combat/camping skills to their name.
504* The curse of the Darksign makes this inevitable in ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''. The Darksign prevents its bearers from permanently dying, but each resurrection robs them of a little humanity. Eventually they become mindless Hollows- which can also happen immediately if they lose their will to go on. The transformation can be delayed by gathering Humanity, but it's still just a matter of time. The player character doesn't have to worry about this though. Turns out there's a reason for that beyond gameplay mechanics.
505* The first ''VideoGame/{{Deception}}'' tasks you with keeping your fiancee, Princess Fiana, alive and safe after she leaves her kingdom to be with you. If she gets taken out, [[LadyOfBlackMagic Astarte]] offers to restore her to life for you. What Astarte doesn't mention is that Fiana will be revived as a demoness, available at your beck and call with SummonMagic (and she's quite powerful, at that).
506* ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'' plays around with this, as resurrection plays a huge role in the setting. Generally speaking, whether your revival works or turns out well seems to depend largely on which method is used:
507** [[PlayerCharacter Guardians]] are dead humans, [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots exos]], [[SpaceElves awoken]], or, [[FallenHero formerly]], [[DyingRace eliksni]] who have been deemed worthy of resurrection by [[BigGood the inert Traveler]], based on their past lives and compatibility with a [[PiecesOfGod Ghost]]. They are revived and imbued with Light magic, giving them the powers needed to fight evil, as well as a degree of ResurrectiveImmortality; they cease aging and, as long as their Ghost is not destroyed or their Light drained, revive when "killed". They have [[LaserGuidedAmnesia absolutely no memory of their past lives]], and have an unsettling tendency to be [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} questionably sane]]. Whether they are an aversion or played straight is a matter of debate, in-universe and out; most see them as TheChosenMany, but there's a not-insignificant number who see them as [[OurZombiesAreDifferent undead]] [[HumanoidAbomination Humanoid Abominations]] that would kill anything or anyone just because they think the Traveler wants them to.
508** [[EvilCounterpart The Scorn]] play this very straight, as their resurrections are based around [[DarkIsEvil Dark magic]]. Similar to the Guardians, they are dead eliksni given life through [[BigBad Darkness]]-blessed rituals performed by the Scorned Barons... but ''un''like the Guardians, most Scorn are turned into violent maniacs with no free will or sense of self-preservation. With each revival, less and less of their souls/minds come back with their bodies, until the bodies finally come back as soulless, feral animals dubbed "screebs". They also rack up more and more [[BodyHorror physical deformities]], as their bodies are warped and mutated by the Dark-tainted ether the Barons use to revive them. They can be [[ClippedWingAngel fairly easily killed permanently]] by Lightbearers, though [[ZergRush coming in huge swarms]] means they're still very dangerous.
509** [[AIIsACrapshoot SIVA]]-based resurrections zig-zag this, as it's debatable if they even really qualify as resurrections. Whatever is brought back, there is no semblance of the original being left at all; the body is effectively just a MeatPuppet animated by SIVA to carry out tasks.
510* In ''VideoGame/{{The Dig|1995}}'', Brink is resurrected with an alien crystal, but slowly turns into an obsessed shadow of his former self. Maggie, seeing this, asks Boston not to use a life crystal on her if something were to happen. If you ignore her wishes and revive her with a crystal, she will yell at you and then throw herself off a building. Luckily, after you save the aliens, they bring both of them back in their original condition. Depending on whether you honored her wishes or not, you either get a hug or a slap.
511* In all ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' games, there are "former humans", which are slain humans brought back to life by demonic rituals, serving as basic demon footsoldiers. They have a healthy shade of skin, lack any visible rot, and are still capable of moving in a human fashion and operating their firearms... but their red eyes, monstrous growls, and pained breathing when active indicate that there is something ''very wrong'' with them (also counting the rather obvious fact that they are shooting at you).
512* ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'':
513** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'': After you kill Baramos, he is brought back to life by Zoma, split into two components: his soul and his bones. When you fight his reanimated bones near the end of the game, they have no special abilities whatsoever and do nothing but attack repeatedly. His soul, on the other hand, is much closer in both appearance and behavior to when you first encounter him as a mortal.
514** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'': The various members of the Gittish Empire received their monstrous forms as a function of being brought back to life.
515* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'': in the final moments of the Ending B route, Inuart places Furiae's deceased body into a Seed of Destruction in the hopes of reviving her. The end result comes back ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gy4qho_NX0 so horrifyingly wrong]]'' that it presages TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
516* In ''VideoGame/DungeonSiege III'', Jeyne revives archons who come back as twisted, cold monsters. Then she revives a god. [[EldritchAbomination That doesn't work out so well either]].
517* ''VideoGame/DyztopiaPostHumanRPG'': In Chapter 3, [[spoiler:Rosie's comatose body is used to sync with Virgo, a hybrid demon/angel. However, Virgo is the one in full control of the fusion, though they inherited Rosie's memories and sympathize with her plight. If the player maxes out Rosie/Virgo's sync, Rosie will avert this trope by making a complete mental recovery]].
518* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'': Renalla has created a method of 'rebirth' (mechanically, it's a respec) that can permanently alter one's appearance and abilities... but if you don't have the Great Rune of the Unborn (reward from her boss fight), the process strips you of your mind and makes you likely to die within a day. The students that she's practiced the ritual on have devolved into a completely feral state and can't even walk, and die so quickly that death and subsequent rebirth is like ''sleep'' to them.
519* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series has seemingly every type of magic ''except'' for true resurrection, leading to AllDeathsFinal. (There is {{Necromancy}}, but that's not ''quite'' the same thing...) In the few in-universe cases where someone has had some success with true resurrection, the person that is resurrected is typically either deranged in some way or suffers from some other issue.
520* Mild example in ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'' with the Tomb Colonists. DeathIsCheap in the Neath, and aside from certain nasty methods you're certain to get back up from death. However, when you come back your corpse might not be in such a good state, depending on how messy it was. After a certain point people just wrap themselves up in bandages and leave for the Tomb Colonies, where people are much more open towards such insignificant things as looking like a zombie leper.
521* Defied in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''. Dead people can remain as "unsent", essentially revenants that age normally (but can't die from old age), eat, sleep and in all other ways appear exactly as a living person. As far as is shown in the game, they don't appear to behave differently than they did in life. Good people are still good, and bad people are still bad but don't actually appear to go "worse". It is still considered desirable for souls to move on, as many of the unsent characters do just that once their business in the world of the living is done.
522* Various things in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'':
523** As revealed in the ''Heavensward'' expansion, [[spoiler:Primals are not creatures that are created through numerous crystals and the prayers of others, their figures warped and their negative traits ramped up. This can happen even if someone knew the being created, as the dragon Tiamat tried to bring back Bahamut and what she got was a demonic creature who would cause trouble for Eorzea centuries later]]. As the story progresses, we learn that [[spoiler:the summoning method is a corrupted version created by the Ascians to sow discord and help push Calamities. In ''Endwalker'', everyone is taught the "right" way to summon, which creates much more benign and heroic Primals]].
524** At the end of ''A Realm Reborn'', [[spoiler:Y'Shtola and Thancred escape the attacking Brass Braves and Crystal Braves through a DangerousForbiddenTechnique teleportation spell called "Flow", sending them spiraling into the aether. When they are pulled out, Y'Shtola is rendered blind and Thancred has lost his ability to use magic]].
525** In ''Stormblood'', [[spoiler:it's revealed the Qaiyana Tribe of Ananta snake women had this problem. The Ala Mhigan soldier for the Garleans, Fordola, had kidnapped the daughter of their queen, hoping to draw out a person known as the Butcher. Their attempt to save her ended badly when Fordola accidentally killed her, leading to the grieving queen to summon the Primal version of their goddess Lakshmi to resurrect her. She did, but without her soul, leaving her a husk of her former self.]]
526* In the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series:
527** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'', BigBad Nergal brings back several major bosses as mindless Morphs to oppose you in the final chapter. He also did this to Renault's close friend in his backstory; this friend is possibly implied to be [[spoiler:Kishuna]].
528** Used twice in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'':
529*** Orson's wife Monica is resurrected by Lyon as a 'reward' for his FaceHeelTurn. The results are so horrifying, Seth and Ephraim kill her out of mercy, without the others seeing. What makes things worse is Orson's utter devotion to whatever is left of his wife.
530*** The same happened to Emperor Vigarde, who is incapable of doing anything except fighting, and crumbles to dust when defeated.
531*** [[spoiler: Lyon is later revealed to have gained the power to resurrect the corpses of Vigarde and Monica from The Demon King Fomortiis, who was using the puppet corpses resurrected through his host as part of his grand scheme to destroy the remaining Sacred Stones that sealed the Demon King's body away]].
532** This is a sort-of "trademark" of [[GreaterScopeVillain Anankos]] from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'':
533*** In the story proper he pulled it on his once-lover Mikoto, Mikoto's SecondLove and the King of Hoshido Sumeragi, and Mikoto's sister Queen Arete (adding LaserGuidedAmnesia in Arete's case, plus altering Mikoto and Sumeragi's personalities) so he can have them as his brainwashed servants. Additionally, when King Garon died he replaced Garon's spirit with that of a monster servant with access to Garon's memories, and who Anankos can control as he pleases.
534*** In the ''Heirs of Fate'' DLC, he does this not only on the former four, but on the dead parents of the second generation kids whose worlds he destroyed.
535*** In the ''Conquest'' route, he does this to [[spoiler:Takumi]], while in the ''Revelation'' route he does this to [[spoiler:Scarlet]]; in both cases, all you can do for them is put them out of their misery.
536** Heavily implied to have happened to [[spoiler:Nemesis and the Ten Elites]] during the FinalBattle of the Verdant Wind route of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' courtesy of "those who slither in the dark" [[spoiler:aka their original benefactors the Agarthans]]. The former is intelligent enough to speak and use battle strategies, but he's far more concerned with {{Revenge}} for his initial death than anything else and has ''noticeable'' BlackEyesOfEvil that he didn't have in life, and the latter are just silent super-strong minions following his orders [[spoiler:that he's also using to empower himself with boosted stats for each one alive.]]
537** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemEngage'', this is played straight with most resurrected Corrupted, especially [[spoiler: King Morion, who is brought back as a mindless beast with purple skin and red eyes]], but ''averting'' this is [[spoiler: Veyle]]'s specialty: the Corrupted they create retain their looks and can speak coherently... but are still subservient to Sombron, making this fate even ''[[UncannyValley more]]'' horrifying. [[spoiler: This becomes a ChekhovsGun once Veyle is freed from her brainwashing, as she's able to revive Alear as a sentient Corrupted after they take a fatal blow for her, a desperate plan that helps them re-awaken the Emblems. The party is genre-savvy enough to make SURE this trope isn't at play before trusting them]].
538* ''VideoGame/ForgetMeNotMyOrganicGarden'': Irene states that trying to bring a dead creature back to life with a magic organ won't restore its soul, instead replacing it with the organ's. [[spoiler:She knows this from experience.]]
539* Humorously alluded to in the Game Over screen for ''VideoGame/GabrielKnight 20th Anniversary Edition:'' It's a sign for a resurrection spell that reads: "No refunds if your loved one attempts to eat you."
540* At the end of ''VideoGame/GothamKnights2022'', we find out that [[spoiler:Talia al Ghul had stolen Bruce Wayne's body and continuously dunked him in the Lazarus Pit hidden under the ruins of Wayne Manor and the Batcave, turning him into her supposedly perfect soldier. The heroes are able to free him from the hold but it really doesn't take.]]
541* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
542** This happens to an entire species. After the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]] all but wiped out the [[RecursivePrecursors Precursors]], the few remaining Precursors who weren't taken prisoner by the Forerunners devolved themselves into a dust that was designed to reform them when the time was right. It went badly, with the dust mutating into a disease. The increasingly angry and insane Precursor [[HiveMind hive mind]] turned this disease into a weapon and the once galaxy-spanning intelligence of the Precursors became the Flood. A virus so hideous and unstoppable that the Forerunner decided it would be safer to [[GodzillaThreshold destroy all sentient life in the galaxy than let it carry on]].
543** The Composer is a Forerunner device originally designed to transfer a biological being's "essence" into a new, often digitally-based, body; however, the essences tended to come back as abominations. They later tried to use it to cure Flood infectees, and they also came back as abominations. One of the Forerunners' leaders, the Ur-Didact, decided to abuse this feature by turning an ancient civilization of humans into [[MechaMooks Promethean Knights]]; these end up being some of the main enemies you fight from ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'' onward.
544** Cortana was strictly speaking only dying, but since Master Chief assumed she had died in ''Halo 4'', her going mad with power after being "cured" and becoming immortal in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'' has a similar effect on him.
545* Resurrection doesn't ''ever'' look pretty in the ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series. And the few vampires who ''did'' come back pretty (namely [[http://i.imgur.com/PwV4A.jpg Kain]] and [[http://i.imgur.com/Kfs9o.jpg Raziel]]) either evolved into something monstrous or were mutilated beyond recognition (namely [[http://i.imgur.com/Ua8O7.jpg Kain and Raziel]].) Kain's situation is further complicated since some of his physical deformities in his later years are also due to the corruption of his soul (which happened even before he was born) and [[spoiler:becoming more and more like the original Vampires]].
546* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': When Oogie Boogie is brought back to life by Maleficent, he has difficulty remembering things from before his death. It eventually devolves into a very severe case of short-term memory loss, as he fails to recognize Santa Claus despite having personally kidnapped him shortly before.
547* In ''VideoGame/KingOfTheCastle'', the "Saint or Sinner?" story event revolves around one of the Grandees of the South insisting that they are descended from St. Umber, and as the bodies of saints do not decay after death, they ask for permission to exhume the body. However, if the body has decayed, the later event "An Abomination" sees the mortified Grandee admitting that they paid a witch to summon their ancestor's spirit into their bones in search of answers, only for the re-animated skeleton to kill the witch and flee. The Council can vote to [[BurnTheWitch burn the Grandee for practising dark magic]], while the skeleton can become the founder of its own cult, denouncing the Grandees as evil necromancers.
548* In the ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' series, this is what happens to the [[{{Superboss}} Soul Bosses]]. While they return stronger than ever, they've also lost their minds, have given in to hatred, or are just [[EmptyShell Empty Shells]].
549* If a corpse in ''Part III'' of ''VideoGame/LakeviewCabinCollection'' is thrown into the water, they'll come back as a zombie which you must put down.
550* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
551** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames'': In the linked game, Twinrova attempts to sacrifice Zelda to resurrect Ganon. When Link defeats her, they sacrifice themselves. Since they are impure, Ganon becomes a mindless, AxCrazy beast rather than his usual self.
552** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': Calamity Ganon initially manifests as a swirling, boar-shaped cloud of [[MadeOfEvil Malice]] flying around Hyrule Castle, where it is being trapped by Zelda's magic. As Link goes on his quest to prepare for battle against the beast, Ganon attempts to reconstitute into a proper physical form with help from pilfered Sheikah {{Magitek}}. But Link ultimately comes to fight before the process is complete, forcing Ganon to prematurely emerge from its "cocoon" as a gruesome MechanicalAbomination.
553* ''VideoGame/{{Lusternia}}'': This is the fate of those resurrected by [[PsychoSerum the Soulless elixir]]. Pioneered by Fain and his followers during the [[HopelessWar Elder Wars]], it was intended to turn the strength of the Soulless Gods against them -- namely, by [[CannibalismSuperpower eating]] their essence, just as they ate the Elder Gods essence. Only Orlachmar and Thax were brought back from the dead with it: Orlachmar as a [[DeathSeeker death-seeking]] BloodKnight, Thax just plain AxCrazy.
554* ''VideoGame/MariAndTheBlackTower'': The miasma is not only deadly to living beings, [[spoiler:it can also be used to revive and control its victims. Morgoth uses it to bring back Vera, the nymph leader, as TheDragon, who in turn uses miasma to control the king of Halonia. This also ends up happening to Harold, Therese, Lucius, and Marsha, making them the bosses of the HELLGATE floor]].
555* ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcomClashOfSuperHeroes'': The SecretCharacter known as Shadow Lady is [[Franchise/StreetFighter Chun-Li]] from an AlternateUniverse who was [[UnwillingRoboticisation forcibly turned into a brainwashed cyborg]] for Shadaloo. In retaliation for foiling their operations, Shadaloo kidnapped and robotized Chun-Li for the sake of transforming her into M. Bison's [[TheDragon top assassin]]. Unlike Shadow--a brainwashed Charlie Nash, who escaped shortly after being transformed--Shadaloo added a RestrainingBolt to Shadow Lady's programming so she would remain fully loyal to them. As Shadow Lady, [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul her formerly cheerful personality was obliterated]], transforming her into a emotionless minion. [[spoiler:In her ending however, Shadow Lady [[HeroicWillpower overcomes Shadaloo's brainwashing]], [[HeelFaceTurn regain her original memories as Chun-Li]], and join forces with Shadow in taking down Shadaloo.]]
556* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
557** A player can use this in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' to explain why the biotic Commander Shepard in the first game suddenly is a non-biotic soldier in the second, or why the jerkass Renegade is now a compassionate Paragon. There's also conversations in the second game and [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 third game]], in story, where the issue is brought up, and Shepard himself sometimes wonders if they really are the same person who were killed.
558** On of the [[CoincidentalBroadcast Cerberus Daily News]] story threads follows the circumstances of North American President Huerta, who is assassinated and then "brought back" via a sophisticated VI programmed with Huerta's memories and personality. Much is made of whether this is (practically or legally) the "same" Huerta, or just a robot that ''thinks'' it's Huerta -- especially when the former Vice President brings the case to the Supreme Court at least in part because she doesn't want to give up the big chair. In the third game, the hospital Shepard's comrades keep getting sent to is Huerta ''Memorial'', and there's a significant (if background) controversy over that choice of name, which Shepard can weigh in on.
559* ''Franchise/MegaMan'':
560** Sigma from the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' series usually has no problem coming BackFromTheDead. But after the events of ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'', he had taken such a beating (and had already stretched himself thin by spreading the Sigma Virus over the entire planet) that when he's resurrected by Gate in [[VideoGame/MegaManX6 the next game]], he still hasn't fully recovered, resulting in [[RevenantZombie an unstable zombie]] who can barely speak coherently (though he can still fight and take the role of FinalBoss [[StatusQuoIsGod as usual]], even speaking in a few completely comprehensible sentences before [[spoiler:killing Gate]]). In fact, even when his mind seems to have recovered in ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX7 X7]]'' (as far as [[AxCrazy Sigma]] is concerned, anyway), the extreme state of disrepair he's shown in post-defeat suggest he ''still'' might not have been at 100%, and by the time of ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX8 X8]]'' he's little more than heaps of scrap metal barely held together by the Sigma Virus (which has even less potency while on the Moon, hence [[spoiler:Sigma's JokerImmunity actually being [[KilledOffForReal revoked]] when he's destroyed this time around]]). There are hints this may have started as far back as ''VideoGame/MegaManX3'', which was the first death actually meant to stick, and it was from there on his MotiveDecay really hit home.
561** In ''VideoGame/MegaManMaverickHunterX'' (a [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of the original ''VideoGame/MegaManX1''), when X faces his first opponent in the BossRush, this is X's first guess as to what happened to them, due to them sounding weird, distorted, or half-dead.
562** ''VideoGame/MegaManZero3'' sees Dr. Weil use his rather {{Necromancer}}-esque knowledge of Reploid DNA to revive several bosses who died in [[VideoGame/MegaManZero1 the first game]], but where this trope really comes into play is Copy X, who experiences some very strange speech patterns indicating he's not quite intact: [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable strange syllable emphasis]] in Japanese and [[ElectronicSpeechImpediment a pronounced stutter]] in English. One common explanation is that Copy X Mk. II isn't so much the [[EvilKnockoff "original"]] brought back to life as he is a copy of a copy, meaning his data could have very well [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_loss degraded]] beyond the [[PsychopathicManchild childish]] KnightTemplar seen in ''Z1''.
563* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
564** In the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', Gray Fox, Snake's [[TragicBromance best friend]], is returned to life as a highly-unstable, experimental, insane cyborg alternating between [[DeathSeeker craving death]], [[OmnicidalManiac craving the death of everyone else]], and [[StalkerWithACrush trying to get Snake to fight him to the death so he can find peace]].
565** [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater The Boss]] in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'' is revived as a computer facsimile of her mind. Her ability to express humanity is somewhat stunted and it's strongly suggested she is suicidal.
566* ''VideoGame/MetalMax'' series has a few cases of that, such as a woman who was reconstructed as a robot in her likeness but craves for material proof of love because she can't understand love, Bias Vlad who tried to cheat death by uploading his consciousness to a super computer which ended up going completely insane and somehow manages to continue existing for a brief moment as a cloud of pure energy because he didn't want to die, Dr Minchi in Metal Dogs who had most of his body turned into machine by some sort of mechanical virus and tries to fix himself back by using organic matter to recreate what he has lost only to realize his body can barely hold itself together...
567* A RunningGag in the ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' series, where the villain is constantly coming back wrong. When [=LeChuck=] does finally come back as a normal human (thanks to Guybrush messing up the voodoo spell), this is a big shock to everyone. Unfortunately, all of [=LeChuck=]'s supernatural evil starts to infect every pirate in the Caribbean. [[spoiler:Also, [=LeChuck=] himself has no intention of staying human, trying to re-absorb all the evil to become a pirate god.]]
568* Necromancy in ''Monster Girl Quest!'' tends to have this effect:
569** Chrome raises a large number of zombies, most of whom are dumb and retain little memory of their previous lives. Her masterpiece, Frederika, is a massive zombie created from the body parts of multiple people and at one point begs Luka to end her existence. [[spoiler:Later on, though, the ghost of Frederika (the woman who was used as the core of the zombie) actually asks Chrome to raise her again as a zombie, since there's trouble coming and she wants the strength to fight it.]]
570** [[spoiler:Chrome's older sister]] La Croix raises several famous monsters who retain much more of their intelligence, even being able to speak normally, but are her loyal slaves. [[spoiler:One of them, Alice XV, regains her true self after being defeated, and tells her daughter she's proud of her before dying once more.]] And as it turns out, [[spoiler:La Croix is herself a zombie: in the past, she suffered mortal wounds protecting Chrome from an explosion, so she had to use her skills on herself. She fears that this trope is applying to her as well, as she's now doing atrocities that would be unthinkable for her living self. Ultimately, she lets herself die at Chrome's hand.]]
571* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'':
572** In the original timeline, Raiden is a less extreme example than most, but according to Fujin, he should have been resurrected as a blank slate after his HeroicSacrifice seen in the opening to ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception''. Instead, he comes back DarkerAndEdgier. To make things worse, he brings back the late hero Liu Kang from the dead but as berserker zombie.
573** A few examples in the rebooted timeline:
574*** Many of the fallen heroes are revived as revenants, brainwashed to serve the fallen Elder God Shinnok and his arch-sorcerer Quan Chi following the end of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. [[spoiler:Though Raiden manages to restore a few of them back to the side of good in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', the rest are doomed to stay as revenants because Scorpion [[RevengeBeforeReason unwittingly kills off Quan Chi]], thereby dashing any hopes of reviving them.]]
575*** [[spoiler:After Shinnok is defeated at the end of ''MKX'', Raiden manages to pull off a HeroicSacrifice by purifying the Jinsei of Shinnok's taint, but the process has [[TheCorruption corrupted him,]] thereby reverting him back to the [[FaceHeelTurn ruthless persona]] he was in ''Deception''.]]
576* A minor but no less unsettling case of this pops up in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'' during Duster's chapter. When he heads through the graveyard a trio of zombies erupt from the ground and, apparently being people who knew him as a child, pleasantly comment on how much he's grown. [[HorrorHunger Then on how hungry they are]] before attacking. All in all it's your first clue that this game that began as bright, cheerful, and pleasant is going to take you to [[TraumaCongaLine very bad places]] before it's done with you.
577* ''VideoGame/PeretEmHeruForThePrisoners'': During the climax, your attempt to escape the ruins is hampered by [[spoiler:any of the other tourists who died during the expedition coming back as undead monsters]], forcing you to fight your way through. It's suggested that this may have been caused by [[spoiler:Kyosuke unwittingly inheriting control of the pyramid's powers -- he ''expected'' this to happen because it's so common in horror movies, and his mind made it real]].
578* In ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' this is the big problem of the Nameless One. Each time he died before the events of the game, he completely lost his memory and essentially [[{{reincarnation}} became a new person upon reviving]]. As is eventually revealed by Morte, some of those incarnations were insane; he specifically mentions one that became convinced Morte was his own skull and chased Morte through Sigil, trying to smash and eat him, before he was fatally hit by a cart. One of the three most important incarnations that the player encounters during the game suffered from such severe paranoia that he became a compulsive killer. In the final stretch of the game, the BigBad reveals that the Nameless One's soul is being torn thinner and thinner with each resurrection, and eventually, there will be nothing left by a mindless husk of a man. [[spoiler: To say nothing of the fact that each resurrection is fuelled by making him a LifeDrinker of someone else in TheMultiverse.]]
579* Usually when you do FossilRevival in the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' series, you get more or less what the creature would have looked like in ancient times. Not so much with [[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Galar's fossil quartet]], which in a nod to the old days of paleontology are very clearly [[MixAndMatchCritters made of different Pokémon parts]]. [[FailedASpotCheck No one in Galar thinks there's anything wrong with them]], and [[UnreliableNarrator the Pokédex still qualifies them as official Pokémon]].
580* ''VideoGame/{{Rimworld}}'' has a technological version in trying to use Resurrector Mech Serum on a body that's been decaying (or, if you're unlucky, just having the nanites glitch out on a fresh body). People ''start'' out fine, if afflicted by the usual ResurrectionSickness, but then the Resurrection Psychosis kicks in and their consciousness starts degrading, along with mental breaks getting increasingly frequent until they're just constantly having psychotic breaks all day long and then just collapse into unconsciousness and never wake up. More mildly they can end up being ressurected blind, neccitating sourcing bionic eyes to replace the ruined ones.
581* Some versions of ''VideoGame/{{Rogue}}'' allow you to resurrect as an undead character, only faintly able to derive sustenance from normal food and chowing down on dead enemies instead.
582* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' quest "The Death of Chivalry" does this to Sir Owen Sonde... ''[[TheWoobie twice]]'', first deliberately killed and transformed into a zombie by a villain, forcing the player to put him down in self defense, and the second time when his own patron god [[GodIsFlawed botches resurrecting him]], resulting in an undead arm and TheCorruption slowly eating away at his sanity.
583* ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'': In the episode "What's New Beelzebub?", the duo's 1960 [=DeSoto=] Adventurer convertible dies and goes to hell. After they free its soul back to the mortal realm, the obsolete computers working at the Pimp Le Car garage refuse to work on it. Kurt explicitly says that it "came back... processing... wrong." He's right, since it revs and bounces at the curb, and in the driving minigame it steers itself for maximum carnage.
584* Happens all over the place in ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'':
585** It's possible for infusions of [[MysticalPlague the Filth]] to restore the dead to life. Unfortunately, the side-effects invariably render them violently insane, dangerously strong and extremely contagious.
586** Elsewhere, the Cult of the Aten created a very specific kind of mummification that bound the souls of the departed to their mortal remains, allowing them to serve as soldiers following their deaths. Unfortunately, the process often left the victims deranged, either because of the process used to operate on their souls, or because they remained conscious in their tombs; the resulting mummies are barely-sentient killers.
587** Outside of the Atenist cult, the [[MerchantPrince future members]] of [[TheNecrocracy the Kingdom]] invested vast sums of money in occult rituals and spells for their tombs, hoping to attain immortality. They were resurrected as preserved, walking, talking corpses. Subverted in that they actually enjoy their immortality, revelling in luxury and politics despite having the consistency of beef jerky.
588* This is a common plot point in the ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series. The Emigre Manuscript allows one to resurrect the dead through vile alchemy, but it brings them back as a monster (due to [[ThePowerOfHate Malice]] that is used to create their new bodies).
589** In the first game Elaine is brought back to life as a monster, and is the final boss.
590** In the second game, the owner of an orphanage decides to resurrect his mother this way, only for her to become a boss for the players to defeat.
591** The third game makes this a plot point, as both Roger Bacon and Sgt. Kato use it in a fundamentally different way and don't make monsters: Roger tries to revive Alice, Yuri's lover, but her soul simply doesn't return and the body crumbles, while Kato merely makes a clone of Lt. Col. Kawashima in Ouka.
592** In the fourth game Grace is revived through the Emigre Manuscript and given the power of Will, so that she actually does return as she should, but when she notices her brother Johnny isn't returning, she gives up her Will so that he can, turning her into the monstrous Lady.
593* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'':
594** Literature/{{Alice|InWonderland}} is a recurrent character. The problem is, how did she die in the first place? And exactly how deep is the damage? There's this fella in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', and he provides a very comprehensive answer to why a character once known for deep love for all things came back as an unrepentant, undead sorcerous sadist... and it ain't pretty.
595** Also in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', Commander Gore is killed shortly into the mission, but restored as an "Ubergestalt" by the "Mothers" of the Schwarzwelt. It seems like it's this trope all over, what with his mindless gaze, otherworldly presence, and obvious manipulation by the goddesses... until you break him loose from the mind control and not only does he regain his humanity, but he gains supernatural brilliance over the Schwarzwelt and mankind's future.
596** In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'':
597*** In the Chaos ending, [[spoiler:your body is restored to normal rather than being the technical zombie that Dagda made you into. However, you now have a demonic soul.]]
598*** In the Massacre path, [[spoiler:Flynn dies, but is subsequently restored by Dagda. The catch? [[BrainwashedAndCrazy Flynn has lost his former self and he now sees himself as merely a god-slaying servant to you]], an OmnicidalNeutral god-in-training (whereas the old Flynn was dedicated to liberating humanity rather than trying to kill it like he and you are on this route). Shortly afterwards, you can choose one of your partners (all of which are dead at this point) to bring back; while they do have some sense of their old personalities, they are like Flynn in that they too are brainwashed and dedicate their entire existence (as a reborn goddess) to serving you and your goals, having thrown their own aspirations and selves away]].
599* ''VideoGame/TheSims'' series features multiple examples. ''The Sims 1'', ''2'', and ''3'' all feature Zombies, although ''Sims 3''[='s=] zombies are a strange variety that doesn't actually involve death, or coming back, so they don't count:
600** ''VideoGame/TheSims1'' introduced Zombies. Sims can play rock paper scissors with the grim reaper to save another from death, but if the reaper is in a bad mood, he only brings them back half way. Zombies are tinted green and lose ALL of their personality points, making them all dirty, mean, lazy slobs who don't like to play or talk.
601** ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' lets players dial up the reaper to ask for an already-dead sim to be resurrected. Offering too small of a bribe results in a Zombie, who has a set personality, and loses most or all of their skill points, essentially making them a different person. Their skin is blue, their facial expression is sagging and in pain, and they shamble instead of walking.
602* [[BigBad Spooky]] in ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'' [[spoiler:became a sociopathic poltergeist after one of her parents' failed attempt to resurrect her]].
603* In the ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' expansion ''Shadow of Revan'', [[PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo Darth Revan]]'s return is the result of this. After becoming BrainwashedAndCrazy at the hands of the [[BigBad Sith Emperor]] and put down by Imperial players, his [[LiteralSplitPersonality soul becomes fractured]] with the Light Side half leaving his body and becoming a SpiritAdvisor while the DarkSide half remained, keeping his body alive and becoming completely unhinged.
604* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/{{Stray|2022}}'', there was a human scientist who underwent BrainUploading to save themself from dying to a plague killing off their kind. However, during the process something went wrong and they became trapped in the virtual network. As the centuries passed they started to lose their memories and sense of self. Were it not for the efforts of [[spoiler:the cat protagonist providing them a drone body labeled "B-12"]], they would most likely have faded completely into the system, and even by then they had begun to believe they were the robotic creation of a different scientist.
605* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV'' features the return of Charlie, Guile's old friend and mentor, who was implied to be severely crippled or killed at the end of ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha Alpha 3]]''. As it turns out, [[BodyHorror the truth isn't much better]]. Now, the entire right half of his body is composed of ashen grey skin with huge stitches holding it together. This includes his face, by the way, which also has some sort of gem embedded in the forehead. Even worse, he appears to have trouble keeping this skin rigid, resulting in zombie-like posture and an odd sort of limp. Worse still, [[SameCharacterButDifferent his personality has become far darker than before]] as he is stated to be out for revenge against all who wronged him. His battle intro has him threatening to outright ''kill'' his opponent, a far cry from the patriotic soldier we know and love. [[CameBackStrong As an upside, he seems to have gained impressive new abilities such as teleportation and the ability to perform aerial Flash Kicks.]]
606* Happens to Solo in ''VideoGame/Strider2014''. He's brought back from near death as "Solo ZN-2" by Meio's subordinates [[CameBackStrong stronger than ever]], but the forceful resurrection process, plus his [[SoreLoser inability to cope with having been dealt his very first defeat ever]], took their toll on his sanity and turned the confident and arrogant BountyHunter into a deranged madman hell-bent on taking revenge.
607* ''VideoGame/ShinSuperRobotWars'': After the final scenario, Kouji is disgusted that the Devil Gundam would revive the dead as zombies, and the psychological effect of doing so is plainly visible on Eiji's face as he remembers Gale.
608* ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'':
609** In ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny'', [[spoiler:Leon Magnus]] is brought back as a zombie to fight the party. He begs for death, and is granted it. Later subverted when he's resurrected with no apparent side effects in [[VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny2 the sequel]].
610** In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'', the BigBad plans to revive his dead older sister by turning people into empty shells while they're ''still alive'', so that he can download her soul into them. There's also Tabatha, a [[RobotGirl living doll]] who's a mechanical body that looks and sounds just like his sister, but who apparently wasn't actually able to house her soul. By the end of the game, it's shown that Tabatha is capable of it after all, suggesting that Martel simply refused to enter her body the first time. In the one case where the soul transfer ''does'' work with a living body, she is shown to be horrified by her brother's efforts, and gives the body back to its original owner shortly after.
611** For another ''Tales'' example, in ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'', Jade's first attempt at testing out the cloning techniques he invented on a living subject was [[spoiler:trying to resurrect his teacher after she was mortally wounded in a fire he accidentally started. He was successful at creating a replica of her, but the replica had none of the original's memories and was extremely unstable]]. May apply to [[spoiler: Ion's replicas as well, since all of them are substantially weaker in some way than the original, deceased Ion- for example, Ion has the original's strong magical abilities but not his strong constitution, while Sync has his strong constitution but not his strong magical abilities]]. Also applies later in the game, when nearly all of the replicas the party encounters were created from people who had died, and they all have stiff, robotic movements and are unable to speak in anything other than CreepyMonotone.
612* At the end of ''VideoGame/TravisStrikesAgainNoMoreHeroes'', Travis and Badman succeed in getting their wish from the Death Balls to resurrect Badman's daughter, [[VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes Bad Girl]]. Unfortunately, since one of the Death Balls was an incomplete beta, Bad Girl was resurrected as a small dog. In one of the [=DLCs=], however, they manage to get the last complete Death Ball and bring her back as a human, but even then, her mind has regressed to that of a hyperactive, murder-obsessed child. This largely sticks for ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'', [[spoiler:which makes her devasted reaction to the death of her father that much worse]].
613* ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal'':
614** In ''Black'', after taxi driver Charlie Kane dies after being shot in the head by a random passenger, [[GadgeteerGenius his son]] figures out a way to bring him back. What results is a [[PeoplePuppets remote-controlled corpse]] controlled by the son that can only qualify as being alive because it moves.
615** Miranda Watts, driver of Twister in ''Head-On'', requests as her wish to [[JackassGenie Calypso]] to restore her twin sister Amanda, who participated in ''Twisted Metal 2'' and disappeared ever since. [[spoiler:What she got was a horrible zombified sister, as Amanda had died millions of years ago due to her wish to [[FasterThanLightTravel break the speed of light]] sent her back in time to prehistory.]]
616* In ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', resurrecting a party member at a Healer will leave the party member in a non-interactive, zombie-like state. This can be corrected with a third-party program.
617* In ''VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan2005'', ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} [[AdaptationalVillainy/UltimateMarvel was a serious, mutant-hating mercenary who hunted mutants on live TV]], and dies at the end of his story arc. He comes BackFromTheDead in ''VideoGame/SpiderManShatteredDimensions'' as a crazy, fourth wall-breaking mercenary who trades his hatred of mutants for a sense of humor. For fans who disliked Serious!Deadpool, [[CharacterRerailment this was Came Back Right]].
618* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'':
619** In a PacifistRun, you'll go through the True Lab, where [[spoiler:Alphys performed experiments with Determination in an attempt to harvest the [=SOULs=] of critical-condition monsters, which could then be used as a key to free monsterkind from their mountain prison. Instead of watching them die, the Determination gave the monsters the sheer will to shrug off their lethal wounds and incurable diseases... but unfortunately, overusing Determination causes monster bodies to ''melt'', and what was left on the floor merged into terrifying Amalgamates. Subverted, though -- this didn't change their temperament one bit, and both they and their families were glad to be reunited in the GoldenEnding.]]
620** [[TheReveal The big reveal]] of the True Lab is even worse -- [[spoiler:Alphys's other experiment was to try infusing Determination into something that didn't have a SOUL. The golden flower that sprouted where Asriel died. This resulted in Asriel being essentially reincarnated as a [=SOULless=] creature incapable of feeling love -- Flowey. He makes it very clear later in the Pacifist and Genocide routes that [[FateWorseThanDeath this sucks.]]]]
621* People brought back by the Necris process in the ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' series have, up until ''VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII'', are bodies consisting of nearly no colors at all, and [[AxCrazy just as happy (if not more so) to indulge in the sanctioned massacres as the next man]].
622* In ''VideoGame/VagrantStory'', Grissom is killed by Ashley. Because zombies in this game are random dead souls who get trapped in random dead bodies, he could have become just another monster... but he gets trapped into his ''own'' dead body by accident, making him fully conscious and horribly disturbed at his own undeath.
623* Necromancy in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' almost always results in someone coming back wrong:
624** Death Knights are intentionally designed to be damaged in some way so they can be better killing machines for the Lich King.
625** ''Cataclysm'' gives us the Rotbrain, which are the new villains of Deathknell. One priest sadly notes that they seem human outside, but are sick within. They eventually rally and plan to take over the town, and must be killed.
626--->'''[[EliteMooks Marshal Redpath]]:''' I'm a monster, don't look at me!
627** An [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation alternate interpretation]] of the "Rotbrain" is that they've come back wrong in a different way: without the blind devotion to the Forsaken that undead player characters possess.
628** According to WordOfGod, this is the case for the Forsaken. The state of undeath is an imperfect "chain" of dark magic holding the soul of a person to their rotting corpse, and these chains cause malevolent tendencies and negative emotions to become more apparent. Forsaken can still feel positive emotion, though, so they're not ''monsters'', they can rise above it and become {{Anti Hero}}es.
629** Sylvanas's short story revealed there is another underlying issue with the Forsaken. Being torn from the afterlife [[DamagedSoul damaged their souls]], which could play a part in their darker tendencies. Worse this seems to have condemned them to a hellish afterlife.
630** The ''Legion'' expansion actually managed to invert the trope in one instance. [[spoiler:High Inquisitor Sally Whitemane]] was a zealous murderer and completely insane in life. When chosen to be risen by the Knights of the Ebon Blade into a Death Knight, she's focused and stable again. Death has a way of quelling the madness of the mind.
631* Similarly to the Monica example above, Kylier of ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'' is purposely resurrected horribly by the BigBad, enforcing her comrades to mercy kill her.
632[[/folder]]
633
634[[folder:Visual Novels]]
635* ''VisualNovel/Case03TrueCannibalBoy'': This is Sally's fate, [[spoiler:due to the Cannibal Boy of Mt. Candyhouse eating her body and Marty using the goddess extract to revive her as a zombie head. As a result, she develops a taste for blood and is slowly going through SanitySlippage]].
636* ''VisualNovel/CorpseParty: Book of Shadows'' has Naomi and Ayumi try to resurrect Mayu. It goes ''badly''.
637[[/folder]]
638
639[[folder:Webcomics]]
640* White Mage's attempt to revive Black Belt in ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater''. [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/11/10/episode-622-now-shut-up/ And how]].
641* ''Webcomic/{{Daniel}}''...in spades. For one he develops a lust for blood that wasn't there before.
642* Downplayed in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'': the unnamed "French Immortals" suffer EasyAmnesia as a result of not dying properly before [[BornAgainImmortality being reborn]].
643** Immortals in general use an intentional form of this. Immortals have to "reset" every few centuries in order to avoid going insane, but the new Immortal is functionally a new person, who only remembers their past self's life "as though reading about it from a book". They can make some things stick (such as Jerry ensuring that the debt he owed Susan would be carried over and not dismissed), but for most part shedding the excess baggage is seen as a ''good'' thing. [[spoiler: Pandora has postponed her own reset for several centuries, and it's definitely caused her problems.]]
644* In ''Webcomic/{{Endstone}}'', [[http://endstone.net/2010/05/24/issue-3-webpage-36/ fear of this trope kept Pablo from reviving his wife, but now the power revived him.]]
645* Ian from ''Webcomic/ErrantStory'' can restore physical life to the dead, even repairing extensive burns and decomposition, but can't restore the subject's intelligence. Since all he gets are SoullessShell-types anyway, he's stopped putting much effort into making them look lifelike and actually calls them zombies. They work fine as cannon fodder.
646* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'':
647** Science can resurrect someone if their head (brain) is intact, but there are many possible side effects, like memory loss, insanity, and some sort of "cascade effect that normally sets the lab on fire." Later on, it's revealed that, if the one operating is an expert, one can be brought back from death even without an intact brain. However, the end result is just a body without a true mind, essentially, a SoullessShell.
648** Because of a combination of this trope and the fact that spark resurrection (especially self-resurrection) that works perfectly is still often a case of GoneHorriblyRight, one of the only actual explicit universal laws that the Fifty Families agree on is that a ruler that dies loses his crown permanently, no matter how immortal/invincible/etc she later becomes and whether her mind is intact or not. Gil gives a slightly more cynical explanation; nobles don't want someone ahead of them in the line of succession to just pop back to life and disrupt their claim, so they made the rule that you're out if you die. It's not uncommon for nobles to get resurrected and then try to hide it, which Gil and his father think makes for wonderful blackmail material.
649** A variation occurs with Tarvek's sister Anevka, given a mechanical new body plugged into life support with what remained of her own. However, Anevka still died, albeit slower than she would have normally, but, as she weakened, the machine itself took on her personality. By the time she was dead, the machine thought she was Anevka and had no idea that anything (such as the death of the real Anekva) had happened, and everyone believed the same, except Tarvek, who knew the truth. The mechanical Anevka eventually became conniving and self-serving, culminating in killing her father after his attempts to restore the Other "almost" killed her. No word yet on whether this cold-hearted behaviour was a result of being a clank or being an accurate copy of a member of the Sturmvoraus family.
650* [[BewareTheSillyOnes Gamzee]] from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' brings [[ManipulativeBitch Vriska]] and [[ExtremeDoormat Tavros]] back to life by prototyping Jane's sprite with both of their corpses. [[TwoBeingsOneBody At the]] [[SplitPersonality same time.]] It didn't last long, because Tavrisprite blew themselves up, sending both of them back to the afterlife (separately, fortunately).
651* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', as a comic based on ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', has several ways of bringing back someone to life. Usually anything other than Raise Dead / Resurrection results in this trope. Especially golems, which are mindless monsters remote-controlled by their owners.
652** Celia, desperately wanting to resurrect Roy, brings his skeleton to Grubwiggler (a Frankenstein {{expy}}), who promises he won't turn Roy into an undead. He turns him into a bone golem instead. Of course since she doesn't want to pay for it, the party later has to take him by force.
653** After Haley kills Crystal, Bozzok brings her to Grubwiggler to turn her into a golem. He pays extra money to turn her into a semi-conscious one so she would channel her hate to more effectively kill Haley. Eventually, though, his plan has GoneHorriblyRight, because now Crystal is just intelligent enough for Haley to point out she should be more mad at ''Bozzok''.
654** In ''Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickStartOfDarkness'', a boy cries over his dead dog and wishes it would come back to life. His sorcerer powers manifest for the first time, and the dog becomes reanimated... as a zombie. {{Subverted|Trope}}: the boy, being the future BigBad of the series, thinks this is awesome.
655* In ''Webcomic/{{Plume}}'', the side effect of Aricon's BlackMagic is that his and Corrick's older brother comes back to life... as an undead humanoid ''creature'' gleefully causing and enjoying destruction.
656* Similar to ''Halo'' above, in ''WebComic/QuentynQuinnSpaceRanger,'' it's possible to upload a sapient mind into a computer, but they come back buckin' fonkers due to [[AndIMustScream sensory deprivation]]. It's possible to download them into a clone body, and this is considered murder because the digital copy overwrites the clone, psychologically murdering them. One story arc involved a [[{{Necromantic}} grieving widower]] who got it right-hooking the computer his wife was in up to electronic sensors to keep her sane while her clone grew to maturity, then downloading her ASAP. She considers him to be a murderer and runs for it.
657* In ''Webcomic/RubyQuest'', anyone who dies while taking the Cure can be resurrected -- but simply taking the cure at all means they're corrupted by [[EldritchAbomination Cjopaze]]. Of course, it's also rather inverted, as TheCorruption gets worse the longer you live and get injured (the Cure heals you, but also causes mutations), and dying means you come back relatively intact and sane, [[AndIMustScream with your memories gone and your body ready to repeat the cycle of injury and mutation yet again]].
658* The Scarecrows from ''Webcomic/TheSanityCircus'' are ageless {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who can resurrect after death as many times as needed. However, Posey later says that this time it had been so long that some had trouble coming back. Sammy Talbot's eyes, for instance, have two pupils and a doubled iris in each. Some of them have even forgotten what they are.
659* ''Webcomic/RustyAndCo'' [[http://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-19/ managed to]] invert this (White Knight looked better [[http://rustyandco.com/comic/39/ as a wight]]).
660* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2012-03-04 the young Baby Blue tried to raise a dove right.]] {{Satan}} intervened to bring it back as a diabolic thing.
661[[/folder]]
662
663[[folder:Web Original]]
664* From ''Roleplay/{{AJCO}}'': Egg thought it would be a good idea to summon the ghost of Cameo while investigating their murder. As Cameo hadn't ''technically'' died, only been trapped between worlds, they came back as a horrible shambling grey monster. It was probably a good thing the Void claimed them for good when [[spoiler: A_J set off the Needle, sending everyone falling through the Void into the next world along]].
665* The ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' Clone Saga reveals that [[spoiler:the Linkara "clone" really isn't one, but a resurrected and now-human Mechakara--who, given he hate organics and was actually an evil ''Pollo'' from an alternate universe wearing his universe's Linkara's skin, didn't take too kindly upon what happened when he remembers his true self]].
666* Used verbatim in the ''WebAnimation/CharlieTheUnicorn'' Playlist LIVE video to describe the resurrected Jenna Marbles.
667* The [[{{Dracolich}} Undead dragons]] from Website/DragonCave. Reviving dragons has a very small chance of creating these (the other two possibilities are being revived normally and permanent death). They are zombies which are incapable of breeding, and are described as being extremely dangerous and the result of a failed magic spell. They are only visible from 12 AM to 6 AM, and at all other times they appear as gravestones.
668* The basis for ''WebAnimation/EmesisBlue'' is that The Respawn Machine brings back the mercenaries, but they physically and mentally degrade each time. Some develop mundane schizophrenic-like symptoms, [[spoiler:others outright become {{Humanoid Abomination}}s]].
669* In ''Literature/EntirelyPresentingYou'', Alexis takes a bullet through the head. Her healing factor saves her, but her personality and memories get affected, and she no longer feels connected to her old personality. Eventually she abandons her old life to be someone else.
670* In ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil'', Phylis Alince, though in a more benign fashion as she has no memory after being 18.
671* In ''Website/{{Mortasheen}}'' this is a bit weird. For, you see, zombies here can regenerate from any injury with few lethal effects, given that they have a ridiculously powerful HealingFactor and a consciousness distributed all over their body. But, sometimes as they're regenerating, they may accidentally get the organic tissue of some other lifeform stuck in theirs, like say that of a snail or a tree. And then things go [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/escarghoul.htm a bit]] [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/wormroot.htm awry]]...
672* ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'': Not a physical resurrection, but the Director of Project Freelancer kept trying to bring back his dead love Allison in the form of an AI. He never quite grasps that he needs to just let her go--but Epsilon finally does.
673* In the ''Website/ChannelAwesome'' universe Creator/MaraWilson did this, coming back with glowing eyes, unholy strength, and a thirst for {{REVENGE}} against...something. General revengy things.
674* ''WebAnimation/VelmaMeetsTheOriginalVelma'': After killing the members of Mystery Inc., Scooby always takes a bit of their essence and recreates them alongside the entire world. However, each time he does, he captures less and less essence, meaning they end up as more flawed than the original. He's done this so much that the ''WesternAnimation/{{Velma}}'' cast are his [[TakeThat most flawed recreations]] yet.
675[[/folder]]
676
677[[folder:Western Animation]]
678* In the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', Princess Bubblegum creates a serum that revives the dead, but gets it wrong on the first try and turns a cemetery full of departed Candy Kingdom residents into sugar-crazed zombies. She later corrects the formula and [[DeathIsCheap restores them to health]].
679* After the events of "The Void" in ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', Rob ends up returning from the Void, but ends up [[BodyHorror horribly disfigured]] upon his arrival back on Earth.
680* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' has Stan get attached to a puppy that the family adopts until it gets maimed in a freak accident. Stan refuses to let the puppy die since he doesn't want to relive the horrible experience he had as a child when his first dog had to be put down, so he takes the puppy to a shady veterinarian who puts the animal back together again in the most horrifying way possible; eyes for testicles, legs that don't match, a softball mitt grafted to his head and has to use a device powered by a car battery just to crawl around. Stan eventually accepts the fact that the puppy was long gone and [[MercyKill puts it out of its misery by]] [[StuffBlowingUp making it explode with dynamite]].
681* Parodied as the premise of ''WesternAnimation/CountDuckula'': The last time his butler Igor tried to resurrect him after being slain, there was [[ImperfectRitual a mixup in the ritual that substituted blood with tomato ketchup]], resulting with the reincarnated count being a pacifistic VegetarianVampire. Much to Igor's horror.
682* ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'': Severe radiation poisoning caused the clone of Marie Curie to come back horribly disfigured.
683* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'': Coldstone. Of course, he was not the product of any ordinary resurrection; he was bits and pieces of 3 different gargoyles stitched together with some robotics and black magic. With a recipe like that, something is bound to go horribly wrong.
684* [[BigBad Van Kleiss]] from ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' is able to come BackFromTheDead as long as he's in contact with the [[GreyGoo nanite]]-rich soil of Abysus. After he's seemingly KilledOffForReal, the nanites of Abysus go berserk, and when Rex is brought in to solve the problem, he's coerced into activating a machine designed to resurrect Van Kleiss. This time, however, the resurrected Van Kleiss' Evo condition is curable, and Rex is able to strip him of his powers.
685* Solomon Grundy is brought back to life by a couple of amateur sorcerers in the ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E11WakeTheDead Wake the Dead]]". However, thanks to one of them messing up the summoning circle, he comes back soulless, an empty vessel of [[UnstoppableRage pure rage]]. After fighting for almost the entire episode, his friend Shayera finally [[MercyKill puts him out of his misery]] off screen. Grundy was already a case of this trope, having originally been a prohibition-era gangster from Gotham City that was murdered and dumped into a swamp, only to emerge decades later as a super-strong zombie.
686* In the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'', the band's chef Jean-Pierre is torn apart by helicopter blades, but is (somehow) kept alive by hooking his parts up to various machines. After HilarityEnsues as the band tries (and fails miserably) to shop and cook for themselves for the first time in their lives, they realize they can't handle it and that they need their chef back, so they decide to sew him back together. Toki remarks that they suck so bad at everything but playing music that they'd probably sew him back together wrong, which Nathan thinks is a cool song idea. "SEWN! Back together WRONG! Back together. SEWN!" For what it's worth, Jean-Pierre doesn't seem very bothered by being sewn back together wrong, and it doesn't seem to have any effect on his ability to cook either (though his disfigured appearance ''does'' seem to have an effect on [[LostMyAppetite the band's ability to eat]]).
687* This may be the case for King Sombra in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''. In Season 3 he is basically pony [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Sauron]]: serious, menacing, rarely speaks, and extremely intelligent, [[NearVillainVictory nearly winning]] by planning ahead and not being one to mess around. Six seasons after his death he is resurrected, in which he acts more pompous and arrogant, often in an exaggerated way, and, despite an intelligent plan to [[spoiler: destroy the Elements of Harmony]], also displays BondVillainStupidity when he has the Mane 6 trapped, [[spoiler:which ultimately results in his [[KilledOffForReal second and final death]].]]
688* In Season 8 of ''WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}}'', the Sons of Garmadon, led by a LoonyFan of his, plan to use the Oni Masks to revive him. The twist is that they want to bring him back ''without'' any of his redeeming qualities such as his love for his son Lloyd since they believe these traits hold him back from unleashing his true potential. By the end of the season, they succeed. The revived Lord Garmadon demonstrates that he's no longer the father Lloyd knew and loved when he nearly beats Lloyd to death in a fight -- he would never try to hurt Lloyd even when he was Lord Garmadon in the past -- while declaring IHaveNoSon. Unfortunately, the Sons of Garmadon turned out to be right about this unlocking his true potential, making him CameBackStrong as well. [[spoiler:However, over time Garmadon regains his kinder qualities due to learning empathy from the people of Ninjago and confronting his repressed guilt over his past sins and eventually redeems himself while seeking to make amends for all the harm he caused making his resurrection an eventually-subverted example.]]
689* Subverted in a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch where ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} is run over by a car and Jon's neighbor warns him not to bury him in the ''Literature/PetSematary''. Jon does and Garfield returns, killing the neighbor and then Nermal. [[spoiler: It turns out his fat protected him from the car and he was BuriedAlive. He killed the neighbor due to lasagna withdrawal and Nermal because he's just a twat.]] Played straight in another sketch where a guy dies by being run over by a car. He goes to Heaven and is brought back as a mangled corpse [[spoiler: and immediately killed again for being a zombie]].
690* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' parodies this idea in "[[Recap/SouthParkS9E9Marjorine Marjorine]]" when Butters [[FakingTheDead fakes his death]] and his parents want to bring him back (using a method parodying ''Literature/PetSematary''. When he arrives home, revealing that he is not really dead, they mistakenly believe that he is a soulless demon trapped in his body and kill a woman so he can "feed."
691* In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', this appears to happen to [[spoiler:Glossaryck]] after his return - he acts more like a dog than a person, and can only say "Globgor". [[spoiler:It eventually turns out to be subverted, however. His behavior was ObfuscatingStupidity, and he had been referring to someone ''named'' Globgor.]]
692* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', [[TheEmpire the Homeworld Gems]] experimented on combining the splintered shards of deceased Crystal Gems into disfigured mutants that are [[TorturedMonster in constant]] [[AndIMustScream agony]], the largest of which is made of millions of shards and threatens to destroy the planet from the inside out.
693** Later on in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture'' one of the [[TheAtoner Diamond Authority's]] new duties in the newly-reformed Gem society is to undo those experiments via Yellow Diamond separating the gem shards from each other and piecing together the alike shards. While the result isn't always perfect due to not being able to find all the shards, Yellow Diamond is able to use [[HealingHands her power]] to modify any defects in their physical form to make them more comfortable.
694* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'': A dying John Corben is subjected to [[EmergencyTransformation treatment that transforms him into Metallo by transferring his brain to a robotic body]]. He wakes up keeping his consciousness intact, but is constantly disturbed at how he can't really feel anything through taste and smell, nor can he draw any excitement from a woman's kiss, which slowly drives him insane.
695* ''Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'':
696** ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'': In Season 5, Tiger Claw summons the [[DragonsAreDemonic demodragon]] Kavaxas to Earth in order to resurrect the Shredder, who was killed by Leonardo at the end of Season 4. By the fourth episode of the season, Kavaxas succeeds in doing so... but the revived Shredder is little more than a shambling corpse. Tiger Claw himself suspects that Shredder has not been truly revived, and Kavaxas is simply using him as a puppet; he's proven right.
697** ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheTeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'': In the Season 1 finale, [[spoiler:the Foot Clan manage to reassemble the Shredder's AnimatedArmor and bring him back to life... but thanks to a flaw in the armor they didn't know about (the helmet was chipped years ago and that chip was never put back), the resurrection goes wrong and Shredder comes back as a crazed, gibbering animal that mindlessly attacks everything around him, including the Foot themselves]].
698* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'': In the "Night of the Living Pets" segment from the "Toons From the Crypt" episode, Elmyra wishes to see all of her dead pets one more time, which does happen but instead they come back as zombies. [[AllJustADream Fortunately, it was only a nightmare.]]
699* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'':
700** "[[Recap/TheVentureBrosS2E1PowerlessInTheFaceOfDeath Powerless in the Face of Death]]": Dr. Orpheus believes that his attempted resurrection of Hank and Dean resulted in the creation of soulless zombies. He didn't. They're clones that were just released from their tubes too early. Apparently they feel like Stretch Armstrongs.
701** "[[Recap/TheVentureBrosS2E11VivaLosMuertos ¡Viva los Muertos!]]": Venture's more unusual experiments to resurrect the dead, Venturestein. Rusty was apparently more interested in doing it just to see if he could, as he put it, "laugh in God's face," but soon finds the only possible application for this particular form of resurrection is selling his zombies to the military for willing suicide bombers.
702* ''WesternAnimation/UnicornWarriorsEternal'': The trio of heroes has been reincarnated many times throughout history, though each time Copernicus finds them as adults to awaken their souls and restore their memories, along with full mastery of their powers. This time, however, in Steampunk London, they were accidentally activated younger than they should have been. Emma/Melinda doesn't understand what's going on at all and only has vague blurred instincts of her past lives, conflicting with her life as "Emma". Alfie/Seng is just a kid, and it's outright stated that the awareness of the astral plane that comes with being a cosmic monk is utterly overwhelming to a child's mind (to the point he's half-insane in a dream-like stupor). Dmitri/Edred fared the best out of the three, but while he has most of his memories and mastery of his powers, even he notes that some key memories are blurry to him, and he notes things aren’t quite right.
703[[/folder]]
704
705[[folder:Real Life]]
706* Sometimes a person who "dies", as in no breath or pulse, can be brought back to life via CPR or other medical care. However, current medical tech cannot get around the fact that most people can only go without oxygen for about 4 minutes before brain damage sets in, 6 minutes tops. The greater the delay, the worse it gets. It can get to the point where the person isn't there anymore and all you have is a body that (with help) breathes and has a pulse. Among other possible results, less hopeless but still not nice by any standards, are people who forget how to read, walk or use the toilet. Less disastrously, they can forget things that aren't required for basic day-to-day functioning but are still of some significance, such as major life events. They may also behave differently -- anger issues in particular are common among people who suffer from this sort of brain damage.
707** CPR has another issue: since you're having a lot of oxygen pumped into your lungs, your ribs will crack and potentially break from the air expanding your lungs, and having your chest beaten (if done) will also cause damage on its own. This will cause pretty severe damage, so while from others' point of view you came back fine (if severely injured), you may very well have this view yourself. Some doctors even refuse to be resuscitated for this reason.
708** If a person dies while under extreme hypothermia, revivability can be extended much longer due to their lowered metabolism.
709*** There's a saying in emergency medicine: "You aren't dead 'til you're warm and dead".
710*** You may still suffer damage to your brain, limbs, etc. so that you may not be able to do things as well as before your revival.
711* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage Phineas Gage]], a rail worker with a kind disposition, lost a good chunk of his brain in an accident and survived. After the accident, he became angry very easily and took greater risks, and his friends would describe him as "no longer Gage." It's worth noting that the bulk of the damage was in the left frontal lobe, which is also the section of the brain targeted during the now-obsolete practice of lobotomy. Gage's case was the confluence of several factors, including: post-injury infection caused by the town doctor rooting around with his fingers inside Gage's braincase, damage to the frontal white matter of his brain (which is a critical regulatory structure in addition to other important functions), and the fact that he explosively lobotomized himself with a meter long, six-kilo iron bar. However, it's equally important to note that the majority of the symptoms ascribed to Gage's injury have, over the years, been both exaggerated from the truth as well as just outright fabricated. Much of the blame for this belongs to doctor John Harlow, who was responsible for Gage's initial treatment. Rather than acquiring a reliable patient history, Harlow encouraged the belief that Gage's blast to the brain turned him into a sociopath, likely in a bid for personal fame.
712* Rosemary Kennedy (sister of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy) potentially has this happen ''twice''. First, during her birth, Rosemary was deprived of oxygen (due to some pretty horrific decision-making by nurses attending the birth), which is generally believed to have changed her from the person she would have been otherwise, leaving her with developmental disabilities and difficulty regulating her emotions. Then, when those emotional difficulties she had as a result of the first incident became unmanageable, doctors convinced her father that a lobotomy would calm her difficult behavior. Instead, the procedure destroyed Rosemary's mental capabilities, leaving her unable to walk, talk, or regulate her basic body functions. (She regained some limited abilities over the years, but was never able to return to anything remotely resembling her previous level of function.)
713* In general, traumatic head injuries can cause significant changes in survivors. It doesn't exactly create new personality traits, but it can lead to things like increased irritability and problems with impulse control, which can make a person seem very different to an outside observer. Severe brain injuries can also impair a person's physical and mental capabilities.
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