Line #45 Main/FirstLawOfResurrection


1	[[quoteright:255:[[ComicBook/XMen https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jgreyres1_6741.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:255:Jean Grey, aka the Phoenix who rises from the ashes.]]
3
4	->''"Mutant Heaven has no pearly gates, only revolving doors."''
5	-->-- '''Professor Charles Xavier''', ''ComicBook/XFactor'' #70
6
7	%% One quote is sufficient. Please place additional entries on the quotes tab.
8
9	''"If the creator wants to bring back a dead character, then by god that character'' '''''will''''' ''come back."''
10
11	It doesn't matter how DeaderThanDead or KilledOffForReal that character is, they'll find a way to return. Much [[HandWave handwaving]] may be required to explain it (if they don't [[StayingAlive leave it]] [[UnexplainedRecovery unexplained]]), but anything is possible with [[InferredSurvival a bit]] of {{Foreshadowing}} thrown in.
12
13	Also known as "comic book death" because comic books are especially known for taking place in long-spanning continuities where DeathIsCheap, important characters almost never [[CameBackWrong come back wrong]], AppliedPhlebotinum is everywhere and [[JokerImmunity iconic villains always come back from whatever fate]] that [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat no-one could have survived]]. In addition, the turnover of writers means that even if one writer says, "No really, they're dead this time," with no intention of bringing them back, odds are some future writer will disagree and [[ContractualImmortality bring them back a few years down the road]].
14
15	TropesAreTools, of course. While a Deader Than Dead character showing up out of the blue is almost always jarring, a good story can be told putting the pieces in place for the resurrection, and the sheer lengths needed to make it happen can narratively justify it as well. More often than not however, [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt it's used to quickly bring an iconic character back into the action]].
16
17	The First Law of Resurrection trumps the SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness with only a few exceptions, such as DeathByOriginStory. May lead to OpeningACanOfClones. See also ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated and DisneyDeath. Despite the name, there is no "Second Law of Resurrection", let alone a "Third Law of Resurrection".
18	----
19	!!Examples:
20	[[foldercontrol]]
21
22	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
23	* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'', it's revealed that Neo is, in fact, [[spoiler:Mu la Flaga... in spite of the fact that Mu performed a HeroicSacrifice in the second-to-last episode of the preceding series, blocking a massive [[WaveMotionGun positron cannon]] blast with his mecha to keep it from destroying a much larger spaceship. Mu's shattered helmet is shown floating amidst the wreckage in the ''SEED'' TV series, and is [[{{Retcon}} edited out in the compilation movies to make his survival look more plausible]]...and utterly ''fails'' to do so because this just makes it seem as though the {{antimatter}} weapon more realistically vaporized him.]].
24	* ''Anime/CodeGeass'', repeatedly. [[spoiler:Mao and Cornelia]] both get filled with bullets and survive anyway (if only for another episode in the former's case), [[spoiler:Ohgi]] gets [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment three knives in his chest and then falls off a cliff onto some pointy rocks]] and [[UnexplainedRecovery comes back anyway]] (ditto [[spoiler:Viletta]] less the knives), and then there's [[spoiler:the nuke that only killed unseen civilians]]. [[spoiler:Jeremiah]] was supposed to die in the first season, but became so popular that he was brought back [[spoiler:as a cyborg]].
25	* ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'':
26	** Rin's life was taken on two occasions as a plot point to teach the initially villainous Sesshoumaru AnAesop about the value of a compassionate heart. He restored her life the first time in a plot point that made him accept he was the true master of the HealingShiv he hated, but also to give him an AGodAmI complex about being able to avoid death. The second time was to [[PowerAtAPrice cure him of this complex]]. Rin was restored to life the second time because getting her killed to [[SecretTestOfCharacter teach Sesshoumaru a lesson]] would have defied the point of the lesson, which was to make him understand that people with his [[OneManArmy kind of power]] have to [[ComesGreatResponsibility protect life]].
27	** Kohaku spent much of the manga having his life held together by a [[DismantledMacGuffin jewel shard]] after he was dealt a mortal wound early in the story. Much of the story centred around how, when the jewel was completed, his life would be lost when the shard was taken, and how there was no solution to save his life, not even Sesshoumaru's HealingShiv. In the end, to show Kikyou had been fully redeemed from having CameBackWrong, her [[RedemptionEqualsDeath last act in this world]] was to save Kohaku's life when the shard was inevitably removed from his body; it was the first and last time a {{miko}} was ever shown to be able to defy death itself (for another, that is; she could not defy her own death).
28	* In the Legendary Heroes arc of ''Anime/YuGiOh'' (the first of two arcs centered around the Big Five), Joey, Mai, and Mokuba are destroyed by the Mythic Dragon (controlled by the Big Five). It seems that they are gone forever, but the Mystical Elf casts a spell that brings them back. It was a FillerArc, though.
29	** The spirit of the Millennium Ring is defeated many times, but keeps coming back. To count: he loses to Yugi, the ring containing his spirit is thrown away, he loses to Yugi again, and then he loses to Marik. And that's not counting "Season 0" taking place before the main series, where he's defeated a fifth time. With the exception of a HandWave that all the people Marik defeated are returned to normal when he's beaten, none of these revivals are adequately explained.
30	** It should be noted, however,that the manga explains/foreshadows things much better. After his first defeat (which was not in a duel) he is shown to still exist (although Yugi and friends think they have destroyed him,the reader remains under that illusion only very briefly), he never loses his ring, and he is not defeated again until the fights with Yugi and Malik in the battle city (in which, again, Yugi doesn't destroy him, but Malik does; he still survives thanks to the above-mentioned handwave (which acts more as a foreshadowing in the manga) to be the final arc's villain). His ring is also never destroyed.
31	* In ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', almost all the main characters except for Judai and Sho are killed off in Season 3, but a twist at the end of the season reveals they're just in an alternate universe and are freed after Yubel is defeated. However, this is played straight as can be with Ryo--he isn't sent to another dimension, he dies when his brutal style of dueling takes its toll on his heart and it just plain gives out. However, come next season it's reported he was found washed-up on the beach. His heart condition is still present but not fatal, and he survives to see the end of the series later that season.
32	* In most cases, whenever a good character dies in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', you know they are going to find the Dragon Balls and wish them back sooner or later, no matter what the odds are.
33	** And Goku even got the chance to get brought back in a completely different way since it had already been stated the typical form of resurrection wouldn't work. In the Buu saga, when things start looking really bleak for the heroes, the Elder Kai trades his life for Goku's to bring him back. Aside from being a literal DeusExMachina, this barely even counts as an inconvenience for Elder Kai since he already lives in the afterlife; he's able to remain an active part of the arc, but now with a halo over his head. And even ''that'' gets reversed when Vegeta wishes back everyone killed by Buu.
34	* Thoroughly parodied in ''Anime/ExcelSaga'', with both main characters dying and coming back from the dead '''all the fricking time'''. In Excel's case, it's for no other reason than the literally stated "It's your series. You have to live", with the resurrections performed by the Great Will of the Universe herself. In the case of Hyatt, her coming back from the dead is more of a running gag. Of course, you have to keep in mind that this series makes it its quest to parody absolutely everything.
35	* The ''Anime/GhostInTheShell1995'' [=OVA=] has a variation in that it simply has a major character descend back from [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence A Higher Plane of Existence]]. Apparently because it wasn't that interesting.
36	* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' actually ''starts'' with the main character, Yuusuke Urameshi, dead on the first page. He gets better. [[spoiler:He gets better the second time, too.]]
37	* The main characters of ''Anime/{{Gintama}}'' are burnt at the end of episode 297 (ItMakesSenseInContext), but they all end up coming back for more hijinx in the very next episode.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Asian Animation]]
41	* One major character in ''Animation/HappyHeroes'', [[spoiler:Kalo]], performs a HeroicSacrifice in Season 7. Fast forward to Season 10, said character is now inexplicably alive and well again.
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:Comic Books]]
45	* It used to be that the four comic characters who would actually stay dead were [[Characters/TheFlashBarryAllen Barry Allen]], [[Characters/BatmanJasonTodd Jason Todd]], [[ComicBook/SpiderMan Uncle Ben]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsBuckyBarnes Bucky Barnes]]. Guess which one's still dead? [[DeathByOriginStory The one whose death is required for the origin story.]] [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Thomas and Martha Wayne]] also consistently stayed dead, though like Uncle Ben, their deaths are necessary for the origin story.
46	* ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'': While the comic generally tries to avert this, one major exception happened with ''ComicBook/StrontiumDog''. Alan Grant killed Johnny Alpha off via HeroicSacrifice at the end of "The Final Solution" as a [[WriterRevolt a statement about creators' rights]] in a way that he was DeaderThanDead. Carlos Ezquerra was reportedly so upset by the story that refused to draw it, so the majority of the story was drawn by Simon Harrison, with Colin [=MacNeil=] drawing the end of the story. Nine years later, John Wagner began what was originally a ContinuityReboot, but later {{Ret Con}}ned out the more gruesome aspects of Johnny's death so his body was still intact and had him brought back to life via magical means.
47	* ''ComicBook/AntMan'': Averted with the final disposal of Elihas Starr/Egghead in ''ComicBook/TheAvengers''. After his body is retrieved and put to the fire, [[DueToTheDead Hank Pym personally scatters his ashes at sea]]. Not many superheroes would even consider scattering the ashes of their enemies; Pym not only did just that, he even turned it into a MeaningfulFuneral with a eulogy taken straight from the pen of Creator/MarkTwain as he did so.
48	-->'''Hank Pym''': I recall something that Mark Twain wrote that seems appropriate here. "Death... the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all--the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved." Farewell, Egghead.
49	** And then played straight decades later when Creator/NickSpencer brought Egghead back with a HandWave.
50	* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'':
51	** In an attempt to avert this, Batman personally sees to it that Ra's al Ghul's body is burned after the latter's death in one story. Unfortunately, not even fire can stop Ra's, and this trope wound up being played straight anyway.
52	** [[JokerImmunity The Joker]], who originally started off as a one-shot character, and was KilledOffForReal in his first appearance. At this point in its history, the ''Batman'' comic had multiple stories in each issue. The Joker died in the first one - and then returned in the last story of '''the same issue'''. Since then, it appears that death is simply one more thing that's covered by JokerImmunity.
53	** Characters/{{Batman\|TheCharacter}} died in ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'' #6. Not even bothering to try to make the readers believe he'd be gone for good, Bruce is shown alive and well at the end of the series. The plot was about '''how''' and '''when''' he'd come back, not '''if'''.
54	** Batman got a six-part mini-series called "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Return of Bruce Wayne]]", which detailed his coming back. Odd, since a few months ago Marvel released ''Captain America: Reborn'', which was a six-part mini-series about Cap coming back.
55	** [[Characters/BatmanJasonTodd Jason Todd]] died in ''ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily''. It actually took Jason Todd almost 20 years to return from the dead. And it ''was'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in Franchise/TheDCU that death had become cheap after the return of Superman. It also tied in to ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' and ties in to ''ComicBook/CountdownToFinalCrisis'', so this isn't quite as egregious as some other examples.
56	* ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'': The event was built around a number of big name characters who had died and come back over the years. The series ends with a promise that from here on out, "dead is dead," with the explicit exception of Bruce Wayne, whose return was already well underway.
57	* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'':
58	** The [[Characters/MarvelComicsRedSkull Red Skull]] was pretty much guaranteed to get caught in a lethal explosion or some such ''every time'' he showed up--just never leaving a body--only to casually reappear next time. This culminated in an 80s story where Cap actually ''[[KilledOffForReal saw]]'' [[KilledOffForReal him die, complete with a corpse.]] This left Skully dead for longer than usual, and the next writer to use him had to invoke some particularly wacky AppliedPhlebotinum to explain his return. Hell, he doesn't even have a body these days.
59	** Apparently averted with the villains "retired" by the Scourge of the Underworld. Of course, they were CListFodder to begin with.
60	* ''ComicBook/DraculaMarvelComics'': When Marvel killed off their version of {{Dracula}} several years ago, they included a death certificate signed by the writer and editor guaranteeing he'd never be brought back. Guess what happened? Anyone who seriously thinks they can get away with killing off Dracula for good is oblivious to his ContractualImmortality clause -- being a PublicDomainCharacter and all.
61	* ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': He doesn't do it as much anymore, but in the Silver Age Doctor Doom would die about every other appearance -- coming BackFromTheDead was one of his most terrifying abilities -- again and again, he'd return from things [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat no one could survive]], and describe his miraculous return with casual arrogance. What with everyone doing it nowadays, not so much. (Doctor Doom prefers to be as unique as possible.)
62	** As the Silver Age passed it became a retcon subversion. "Doom" would still die, but invariably when he returned the "death" had actually been a Doombot. At one point someone pointed out that there had been 41 Doombots who apparently thought they were Doom that had died.
63	* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules'': Lampshaded, where the entrance to Hades' underworld is a casino where various deceased heroes can gamble for their next resurrection. Interestingly, one character in that scene has since been resurrected, but in a "wasn't dead after all" manner rather than an actual supernatural resurrection, so [[spoiler: Wasp]] shouldn't have been in the Underworld in the first place.
64	* ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'': In ''Thor'' vol. 2 #85, the Ragnarok destroys the realms of Yggdrasil and all its inhabitants, and all the Asgardians die. In ''Thor'' vol. 3, everything gradually comes back.
65	* ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'': Gertrude Yorkes was a subversion; she died during the original series and Chase Stein considered bringing her back in an arc aptly titled "Dead Means Dead" but the price was [[PoweredByAForsakenChild another innocent person had to die]] so he chose not to go through with it. However, Chase would eventually use time travel to save her life at the start of the 2017 revival series.
66	* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'':
67	** The Green Goblin[=/=][[Characters/MarvelComicsNormanOsborn Norman Osborn]] had one of the greatest death scenes in comics in ''ComicBook/TheNightGwenStacyDied'' - impaled on his own Goblin Glider after a brutal fight with Spider-Man (after having killed Peter Parker's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy), and was then resurrected with a lot of [[HandWave Handwaving]][[note]] Basically, it turned out the serum that gave him his powers also gave him a HealingFactor; he then murdered a lookalike for his funeral and ran off to Europe to found a criminal empire and took over a weird evil cult called the Scriers; after coming back, he even wrote a book to explain why he had to fake his death and to refute all the evidence that he was ever the Green Goblin[[/note]]. The resurrection didn't happen until 20+ years later, and the writers brought him back because they had written themselves deep into a corner with ComicBook/TheCloneSaga and had to come up with ''something'' suitably climactic to end it. His resurrection also allowed them to bring back Aunt May via a [[VoodooShark contrived storyline involving an actress replacing her in her final days]]. Since he came BackFromTheDead Osborn TookALevelInBadass[=/=]TookALevelInJerkass and has become a major player in the wider Marvel U. as well as once for all firmly establishing himself as Spidey's one, true ArchEnemy, so in many ways he's an example of how to do this ''right''.
68	** Harry Osborn is back, thanks to ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay'', although they didn't go with the obvious [[AWizardDidIt "The Devil did it"]] explanation. [[spoiler: And then ''ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderMan2018'' revealed that it was a clone and the real Harry had been dead the whole time.]]
69	** Also what a lot of fans were hoping for [[spoiler:Peter Parker/Spider-Man himself]] to come back after he died [[spoiler:in Doctor Octopus' body and Ock became the ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan]]. They got their wish -- [[spoiler:Peter's memories and personality stuck around in the body that Ock now controlled. Even after Ock supposedly wiped it out entirely, he got in over his head and salvaged it to fix things, effectively handing control back to Peter]].
70	** Ben Reilly is back in ''ComicBook/DeadNoMoreTheCloneConspiracy''.
71	* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'': Kara Zor-El was killed off in ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' as part of a general overhaul to make Superman the only Kryptonian again. Afterwards, DC took great pains to establish that Kara didn't and couldn't exist in the new continuity: implying Jor-El was an only child, stating her hometown Argo City got blown up long before Krypton did, retconning that Superman was the only Kryptonian who could survive out of his planet...It took her nearly 20 years, but of course she came back.
72	* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
73	** "ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman": Superman gets killed by Doomsday and brought back to life shortly after.
74	** [[Characters/SupermanConnerKent Kon-El]] dies during ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' and returns in ''Final Crisis: ComicBook/LegionOfThreeWorlds'' and ''ComicBook/AdventureComics'' Vol 2.
75	** For a while, Superman liked to hallucinate that all of his species was dead; no wonder the citizens of the shrunken city of Kandor went a little nuts once they regrew.
76	** "ComicBook/TheDeathOfLightningLad" starts with the titular hero pulling off a heroic sacrifice and ends with his resurrection several issues later. Given that he is one of the three founders and leaders of the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes, and a previous story featured an adult Lightning Lad, many fans were not surprised when he came back from the dead.
77	* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'': While [[Characters/WonderWomanAllies Artemis]]'s death in ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'' was meant to stick just like Orana's--the character [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 whose story]] was recycled for Temi's intro and death--she proved more popular than expected and was brought back by William Messner-Loebs and Ed Benes.
78	* ''ComicBook/XMen'': The franchise is the poster-child for this trope. The tendency of dead X-Men coming back to life is due to the fact that there are 20+ main characters, and a writer is likely to have any one of them as a favorite. And various members are constantly being killed off for the sake of either drama or to try to thin out the herd. The result is that the average length of death for any mutant in the Marvel universe is 1 to 2 years.
79	** This happens to Colossus in Creator/JossWhedon's run on ''ComicBook/AstonishingXMen''.
80	---> '''Kitty Pryde:''' ''You have to know that if you're a clone or robot or, yeah, a ghost or an alternate universe thingie, I can deal, ...but if you are some shapeshifter or illusionist who's just watching me twist I will kill you and I will kill you with an axe--''
81	** This happens so frequently that after Banshee dies in ''ComicBook/XMenDeadlyGenesis'', in ''ComicBook/XFactor'', his daughter Siryn is informed of his death, and she point blank refuses to believe that he'll stay dead. He showed up in Erebus in ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules'' #129, coming back from the dead in ''Necrosha'', and again in ''ComicBook/ChaosWar'', but the creator writing his daughter ignored all three of them so she could continue working out her issues on the subject. Banshee returns for good in ''ComicBook/UncannyAvengers''.
82	** Though [[Characters/MarvelComicsJeanGrey Jean Grey]] [[CommonKnowledge/XMen is often thought to have died and come back multiple times]], the ''original'' Jean Grey has only died and returned a couple times, starting with her death and resurrection in the first Phoenix story, in ''X-Men'' #100-101. In ''ComicBook/NewXMen'', Jean dies [[KilledOffForReal for the final time]], and, aside from her afterlife appearances in the White Hot Room, Jean stays dead, permanently, until her brief series of resurrections in ''Phoenix Endsong'', during which she is revived and killed repeatedly to weaken the Phoenix Force. In ''X-Men: Deadly Genesis'', Jean's reputation for frequent resurrection was further lampshaded, when Vulcan impersonates Jean returning from the dead, with Wolverine swearing in disbelief. While the adult Jean has remained incorporeal, a teenage, time-displaced Jean appears in ''ComicBook/AllNewXMen''. Anyhow, Jean Grey returns in ''Phoenix Resurrection''.
83	** The "Necrosha" {{crossover}} has Selene resurrecting deceased mutants left and right, proving once and for all that for mutants, death is nothing more than a big game of freeze tag.
84	** The earliest example being the death of Professor X in the '60s, with a cover screaming "Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale! This is for ''real''!" He was back less than two years later.
85	** [[ComicBook/XMenTheKrakoanAge Krakoa]] is able to resurrect any mutant that has ever died by cloning their body and uploading a stored copy of their mind into it.
86	** Wolverine dies in ''ComicBook/DeathOfWolverine'' and returns in ''ComicBook/MarvelLegacy'' #1. That's three years.
87	** Sabretooth was beheaded with a sword that negates {{Healing Factor}}s. Can you get deader than that? ''Yes, you can.'' We next see him in Hell, to eventually get beheaded ''again.'' How long does having your head and body separated by a blade your HealingFactor is useless against, descending into FireAndBrimstoneHell, and then ''having your soul beheaded'' keep you away? ''One. Freaking. Year.''
88	[[/folder]]
89
90	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
91	* ''Rudy Park'': Rudy's megaphone-toting Uncle Mort was killed off in January of 2007... but brought back to life in February of 2009.
92	* Stephan Pastis of ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'' is fond of this one. Rat's character Angry Bob has been resurrected (or "[[PerfectlyCromulentWord undied]]") in each of his appearances. Sometimes it will be because Pastis forgets which characters he's killed off, other times, he'll bring someone back from the dead [[RuleOfFunny because it's funny.]] Pastis has even killed himself off in the strip, only to return.
93	* This has happened a few times in ''ComicStrip/DickTracy''. Pruneface returned as a HumanPopsicle. Mumbles has actually come back ''three times'' (although the third time was by the current writers simply [[CanonDiscontinuity ignoring the story]] that killed him, since his death story had a lot of [[ContinuitySnarl continuity problems]] anyway). A recent major story arc involved the apparent return of Moon Maid. [[spoiler: It's not really her.]] Still, these are exceptions; the strip generally averts this trope. Popular characters like Flattop have died and staying very dead.
94	[[/folder]]
95
96	[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
97	* In ''Film/TheFastAndTheFurious'', Leticia "Letty" Ortiz dies in a car crash in ''Film/FastAndFurious'', and turns up alive with amnesia later.
98	* [[Creator/SeanConnery Ramírez]] dies very convincingly in ''Film/{{Highlander}}'', in ''Film/HighlanderIITheQuickening'', Connor summons him back to life. Despite this never happening anywhere else in the ''Highlander'' continuity. But then, ''Highlander II'' [[CanonDiscontinuity isn't actually part of the continuity]].
99	* In the ''Film/JamesBond'' film ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'', Jaws was supposed to die, but test audiences liked him so much that they went back and filmed a scene of him defeating the shark he went up against. He then appeared in the next film, ''Film/{{Moonraker}}''.
100	* Humorously lampshaded in ''Film/ScaryMovie4'', when Brenda (who died and had a funeral in 3) shows up. Cindy tells her "I thought you were dead", to which she replies "I thought ''you'' were dead".
101	* Horror movie villains (particularly slashers). They have a tendency to return from the dead, especially [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Krueger]] and [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason Voorhees]]. Sometimes they seemingly die but are later revealed in the next film to survive, invoking JokerImmunity. Jason was intended to be permanently killed off in ''[[Film/FridayThe13thTheFinalChapter The Final Chapter]]'' (fourth film), but after receiving poor reception to [[spoiler: a Jason impostor (and a mortal one at that)]] in ''[[Film/FridayThe13thPartVANewBeginning Part V]]'', they brought him back to life in ''[[Film/FridayThe13thPartVIJasonLives Part VI]]''. Jason dies twice more in the series, the second time for good, as [[Film/FridayThe13th2009 a remake]] series has been started already. As for Freddy, he is destroyed in every single movie he appears in but can always return as long as people remember him (i.e. a studio thinks that enough people will pay to watch another movie of him to make it worth their while).
102	** It got to the point where being unkillable becomes one of his signature traits; in Jason X, scientists have Jason's mostly-dead body and are trying to reverse-engineer his indestructibility. It... goes poorly.
103	* Moriarty gets this treatment in the Rathbone Franchise/SherlockHolmes movies, with no regard being paid to continuity in which he is supposedly killed (usually by a long fall) repeatedly.
104	* Used in ''Film/SoapDish'', a comedy that takes place behind the scenes of a TV Soap Opera. Creator/WhoopiGoldberg plays a writer who has to write for a guy coming back to life after having been decapitated. She is not pleased.
105	* [[Franchise/StarWars Sheev Palpatine]] is brought back for ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' despite his death in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' appearing to render him DeaderThanDead. Other characters [[HandWave briefly speculate]] on his return, simply attributing it to "dark magic" and "secrets of the Sith" before shrugging and moving on to how to deal with him.
106	* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has done this on two occasions.
107	** Spock dies at the end of ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'', sacrificing his life by manually realigning the dilithium crystals in the main power core so that the Enterprise can escape Khan detonating the Genesis device. In ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'', the magic radiation of the Genesis planet has managed to raise him from the dead and regenerated him into an infant. When David Kirk and Saavik find him he is a young man, and the rapid aging of the planet brings him back up to his correct age by the time Captain Kirk and friends find him and escape.
108	** In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', it's Kirk that dies, and in this case Spock ends capturing Khan so that Dr. [=McCoy=] can use his magic blood to bring Kirk back to life.
109	* Played with in ''Film/XMen1'': when Toad knocks Storm down an elevator shaft, he looks down and sees that she somehow survived the fall. Turning away, he mutters, "Don't you people ever die?"
110	[[/folder]]
111
112	[[folder:Literature]]
113	* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'': Sherlock's retconned death is often named Sherlockian Death after him. Arthur Conan Doyle didn't actually want to bring him back. But ''everyone else did'', and they pestered him about it until he gave in.
114	* Ian Malcolm is implied to die while other characters watch near the end of ''Literature/JurassicPark1990'', but in ''Literature/TheLostWorld1995'', he's back, and says in a lecture that reports of his death were "exaggerated". The real circumstances are left ambiguous at best: When they are escaping with the helicopters, Muldoon tells Grant that there is another heli which will collect the other survivors. When Grant asks him about Malcolm, Muldoon just shakes his head. Muldoon could have been wrong; the evacuation ''was'' pretty hectic, and there was also a lot of stress with some roaming raptors. The epilogue, in which a funeral for Hammond and Malcolm is mentioned, is clearly written in Grant's point of view, so he may have received wrong information from Muldoon--or others--or Malcolm was revived after Muldoon left.
115	%%%* Literature/FuManchu in Sax Rohmer's ''The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu ''
116	* One of the rules of ''Literature/{{Caraval}}'' is that Legend's performers can't die during the game. They always come back to life after everything is over.
117	* A subversion, perhaps providing a corollary: "If the character's ''owner'' wants a character to come back, it will come back ''[[ExecutiveMeddling even if the creator and writer doesn't]]''." Creator/RASalvatore didn't want to bring [[Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt Wulfgar]] back, but was told by Creator/{{TSR}}[=/=]Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast that if he didn't, someone else would. So he did it, figuring his version would probably be better than others. In ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'', Drizzt's entire party gets a cameo, and upon reference to Hell, Wulfgar quips "I've been there. It was nothing special."
118	* Portrayed in ''Literature/{{Misery}}''. Author Paul Sheldon kills off the title character of his "Misery" romantic potboiler series, only for a psychotic fan to force him to write a new book where she comes back. His initial attempt [[CliffhangerCopout directly contradicts the circumstances of Misery's "death"]], and the fan forces him to play fair. He ends up coming up with what is actually a very clever way to not only bring her back to life, but reveal that [[spoiler: she's royalty (something to do with her blood type) in the process. She shares a rare, like-death-coma syndrome triggered by bee's venom. Simple, and still plain good]].
119	* Ditto for Literature/JamesBond, who was killed off at the end of ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove'', and then resurrected for ''Literature/DrNo''. The author actually had a fairly good justification for his survival -- he wasn't actually ''dead'', just ''dying'', and the people he was with at the time were able to keep him alive long enough for proper medical help to arrive.
120	* While ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' usually has AllDeathsFinal, it has used this trope on several notable occasions.
121	** In the ''ComicBook/DarkEmpire'' graphic novel, Emperor Palpatine and Boba Fett both return from what looks like certain death in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''.
122	*** Palpatine really did die in ''[=RotJ=]''. He came back with the help of a few [[CloningGambit cloned bodies]] and some [[BodySurf dark side abilities]]. He's conclusively dead by the end of that story, though.
123	*** Boba Fett only fought his way out of the Sarlacc off-camera.
124	** No matter how many times the Jedi seem to kill Asajj Ventress, she always comes back.
125	** The Jedi K'Kruhk has multiple scrapes with death over the course of nearly 200 years, and each time emerges unscathed - along with his straw hat (which is jokingly attributed by fans as the reason for his survival). He even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades it]]: "I've died any number of times... or so I've been told."
126	* ''Literature/TheVoyageOfAlice'' has Jolly U meet a DisneyVillainDeath as he is dropped from the sky by a gigantic bird. Except not. The author liked Jolly U and went on to include him, alive and well, in many more works to come, without any explanation on how he survived. That situation never repeated since the space pirates became so fixed in the plot as Alice's arch-enemies that both acquired JokerImmunity and the author never tried to kill either of them off again.
127	[[/folder]]
128
129	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
130	!!!'''In General:'''
131	* Soap operas in general are as bad as comic books about keeping characters dead. A good rule of thumb is that unless a) the ''actor'' died while playing a long-running character he is deeply associated with, b) the dead character's heart was donated to another character or c) the character's [[SoapOperaDisease slow death]] from a [[VerySpecialEpisode real life disease]] was a major storyline (usually AIDS), the character can be brought back from the dead. Even if her dead body was on screen. Even if the character was killed off over a decade prior.
132	** The most (in)famous resurrection has to be that of Bobby Ewing in ''Series/{{Dallas}}'' by having the entire previous 40 or 50 episodes, stretching over about 2 years of story time, {{Handwave}}d [[ExecutiveMeddling away]] as a dream by Pamela Ewing. To accomplish this, in the last episode of the dream sequence, several characters were killed, including fan favorite JR Ewing. Needless to say, none of the characters introduced during the story arc between Bobby's death and resurrection returned, as they were just figments of the imagination.
133	*** Which was summarily ignored and thus averted by the creators of ''Dallas'''s sibling series, ''Series/KnotsLanding'' where Bobby remained dead.
134	** ''Series/AsTheWorldTurns'' [[LampshadeHanging hung a lampshade]] on this trope with the death of David Stenbeck. David, the son of the villainous, oft-resurrected James (and a character who also had a couple returns from the dead), was killed by the police. When the coffin was being lowered into the ground, Julia shot it full of holes, just to be sure. When James himself was finally KilledOffForReal, a bunch of people came to his funeral just to be sure that his body was found and that he was really dead that time.
135	** ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'' had characters shown killed, shown their bloody bodies on their floor, their suited bodies in coffins, had them briefly show up as ghosts, and then showed that they were NotQuiteDead. ''Series/{{Friends}}'' parodied this by bringing Joey's character back as having been in a coma and receiving a brain transplant.
136	!!!'''Series:'''
137	* [[spoiler:Tony]] in the seventh season of ''Series/TwentyFour''. The writers had planned for him to die quite a few times during the show's run and they got a lot of mileage from his first real death scene (he was intended to die in the same explosion that killed [[spoiler:Michelle]]).
138	* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy [[LampshadeHanging lampshades this]] in the musical. "Hey, I've died twice!" And she very nearly dies a ''third'' time in "Seeing Red".
139	** The Master's bloodline is apparently immortal, what with all the resurrections going on. Angel broke out of hell to come back, Darla was resurrected in the first season of ''Series/{{Angel}}'', Spike was also resurrected on ''Angel'', and [[spoiler:the Master himself]] comes back in [[ComicBook/BuffyTheVampireSlayer the comics]].
140	** Cordelia came back from the "higher plane", which is pretty obviously a type of heaven. Twice. [[spoiler:Though she did stay dead after the second time.]]
141	** Warren comes back in the comics, and it is explicitly mentioned he was resurrected by [[spoiler:Amy Madison]].
142	* ''Series/{{Charmed\|1998}}''. Oh boy. Over the course of 8 seasons, Piper and Phoebe die 9 times each. Paige reaches the same number of deaths within just 5 seasons and Prue has 3 deaths to show. And of course, being the main characters, they all [[BackFromTheDead get better]]. Well, except for [[spoiler:Prue at the end of season 3]], which actually underlines the point that the characters ''only'' get better when the creators want them to.
143	* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
144	** The Daleks, especially in the new series. Not a single character per se, but after having "definitely killed all of them forever, no really, this time we mean it" ''at least seven times'', only to have them invariably show up next series, they're certain to be back sometime. Their first reappearance was explained by time travel; while the Daleks were destroyed at the end of the Doctor's first encounter with them, that doesn't mean he can't meet them in a time period before their destruction. This kind of non-linearity rarely seems to happen to the Doctor; usually he seems to encounter allies and enemies (even time travellers) in the same order they do. Indeed, the Daleks' "final end" in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E9TheEvilOfTheDaleks "The Evil of the Daleks"]] would have been explained away with a far more straightforward "it wasn't the final end, and the [[spoiler:human-factor Daleks]] were wiped out" explanation in a cut scene in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E1DayOfTheDaleks "Day of the Daleks"]].
145	** TheMaster, introduced in the early 1970s, is known, from the early 1980s onward, to [[JokerImmunity always return]], usually with no explanation given. In "Planet of Fire", for example, we see him completely burned away in full view of the Doctor and the viewers. When next he returns in "The Mark of the Rani" in the next season and when reminded that he's supposed to be dead. He [[LampshadeHanging replies]] that [[UnexplainedRecovery "You jest, of course. I'm indestructible, the whole universe knows that."]]
146	*** The Master ended up DeaderThanDead in the [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie TV movie]], sucked into the Eye of Harmony, a harnessed black hole with the power to destroy the universe if left open. His return in the new series is handwaved with a single line: "The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a Time War."
147	*** He was stored in a time lock in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]], only to return yet again in Series 8, having regenerated into a [[GenderBender woman]] this time.
148	*** Missy, who once explained a return from being disintegrated with, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice "Death is for ''other'' people!"]] was [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls last seen]] [[spoiler:shot with an AntiRegeneration blast by her past self, minutes before a massive explosion that destroyed the deck of the spaceship she was on. Come Series 12, the Master is back in a new regeneration with no explanation]].
149	** The ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio ''The Boy that Time Forgot'' brought back [[spoiler:''Adric'', of all people. He dies of old age at the end, though]].
150	** Referenced by Creator/NeilGaiman in a question-and-answer session regarding what happened to the body of a character in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife "The Doctor's Wife"]]:
151	--->[It] is on a bubble universe that reached Absolute Zero pretty quickly, destroying all the cells, [[spoiler:Corsair]] DNA etc.\
152	Unless of course someone needs it for a future story, in which case it will have been perfectly preserved.
153	* William Boone, Zo'or, and Liam Kincaid in ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'', although, in the latter case, they NeverFoundTheBody, while Boone and Zo'or were clearly shown disintegrating. Thankfully, Zo'or is finally killed off after resurrection. Unfortunately, so is Boone, albeit off-screen. Liam comes back in the series finale without an explanation.
154	* Several characters on ''Series/{{Passions}}'' have been killed off during their runs on the show, but all of them got better. The best-known instance of this was when the show employed the FakeShemp method to keep Timmy alive when Josh Ryan Evans died (having already filmed a scene in heaven and a scene where Timmy appears to Tabitha as an angel). The character then went on to appear later in the series as a gloved hand, [[FridgeLogic wreaking havoc with the show's continuity]].
155	* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' has a particular antagonist who was intended to be a simple [[MonsterOfTheWeek Villain of the Week]] and dies at the end of the episode. He put in such a memorable performance, however, that the writers turned his species into a race of clones just so they could give him a larger role in the show (and kill him a few more times for laughs). [[spoiler: He becomes DeaderThanDead at the end after the cloning facility that holds his pattern is destroyed.]]
156	* The creators of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' can't even seem to keep their three main characters dead for more than an episode. With the unusual exception of [[spoiler:Sam in season 6,]] all of the leads are guaranteed to come back to life either the episode they die, or the very next one.
157	** Dean stayed dead for some four months between Seasons 3 and 4, so while technically he did return the next episode, that next episode wasn't until the next season and several months later real-time. Same for Castiel between Seasons 4 and 5 and yes, Sam between 5 and 6, though that one's a bit iffy depending on whether you count him as really alive or not...
158	** Castiel also did manage to stay dead (or at least presumed dead) for most of Season 7 and for the first five episodes of Season 13, though the viewers knew earlier that he was going to return. Even after his [[spoiler: DyingDeclarationOfLove in the final season, he's reported to be alive and in Heaven a couple of episodes later in the SeriesFinale even though we don't see him.]]
159	** Season 5 has an episode where Sam and Dean die, go to Heaven and are resurrected by {{God}} at the end of the episode; they are informed that they have actually died ''dozens'' of times off-screen and went through all of that before, though each time their memories were wiped. They are told that this time they will remember it, and they won't get another second chance. As Sam demonstrates, they do, but to be fair it wasn't {{God}} who brought him back and this time he CameBackWrong and had to earn a proper resurrection afterwards over the course of several episodes.
160	** But if you're not a main character, even if you're a fairly important recurring character, you're KilledOffForReal.
161	*** That is, until the Apocalypse World storyline allowed the writers to bring back a number of beloved supporting characters in their darker, alternate timeline version.
162	*** This is also the reason why the decision to bring back [[spoiler: Mary Winchester]] in Season 12 was so controversial, as her death had previously had such an impact on the story.
163	* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' writers killed Owen just so they could bring him back undead. No other reason.
164	** Suzie Costello, too. Though she was also the SacrificialLamb.
165	* This is one of the trademarks of ''Series/TheXFiles''; no one really stays dead. The X-Files, the place where you can put your own death as the reason for missing work--three times (in Mulder's case, at least).
166	[[/folder]]
167
168	[[folder:Multiple Media]]
169	* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'':
170	** Jaller [[TakingTheBullet took the energy bullet]] that was meant for his friend Takua. Minutes later the now transformed and [[FusionDance merged with the]] BigBad Takua brings him back, but at the cost of his life energy. Then, ''he'' is resurrected through some ill-defined means, by a contraption built into the floor that they never use again. The {{novelization}} gives a different account though, where Takua/Takanuva appears unharmed after his fusion is split apart.
171	** Toa Tuyet was sentenced to the Pit for her crimes, where she then drowned when the place got demolished by a flood. Even the corpse has been found. Later story material revealed that the Tuyet they jailed was only her (possibly innocent) AlternateUniverse-self, while the real Tuyet was locked away in a pocket dimension for study. She escaped from there, and found her way back into the story through a series of off-screen dimension-hopping.
172	** Even more egregiously, it was also revealed after the story's cancellation that even that false-Tuyet and many other characters that died in the Matoran Universe have been alive all these years -- they are simply trapped on the Red Star space station. The writer introduced a couple caveats: only those were resurrected who had died in a way that left their memories intact ([[spoiler:this excludes those like Matoro whose body turned into energy, Sidorak whose head was crushed and nearly all the Makuta who were incinerated]]), and the returning characters would slowly decompose or be subjected to experiments by the Red Star's operators. Meaning most of them would not be themselves anymore. As the story was not wrapped up, the state of most resurrected people remains unconfirmed.
173	* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'': In general, the mechanical nature of Transformers means that it's easier for writers to think up ways to have them repaired or rebuilt when the plot or a new toy calls for it.
174	** Optimus Prime. ''His deaths have their own [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_many_deaths_of_Optimus_Prime fan page]].'' Also Optimus Primal in ''Beast Wars''.
175	** Ravage isn't quite that bad, but he's returned by ''multiple'' methods in comics that are not in continuity with each other, both G1 Ravage (intended to be dead, with his head shown being knocked off a cliff to ''really'' hammer it home, at the end of his Beast Wars three-parter appearance) and Movieverse Ravage (can you get deader than having your spine ripped out, and what's left of your carcass being used as a blunt instrument to bash Rampage with?)
176	[[/folder]]
177
178	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
179	* In TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy Battles Volkmar the Grim is killed by Archaon tied on a banner carried by the legions of hell in a weakened state is about as close as you get. He gets free and fights his way from there. Otherwise it's pretty much averted in the world.
180	* Eldrad in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Originally had his soul eaten by Slannesh when he tried to board [[WaveMotionGun the blackstone fortress]] at the end of the 13th Black Crusade. One revision of the codex later though, and it was revealed that he actually never tried to board the fortress at all and was alive and well (Abandon instead [[ColonyDrop crashed]] it into Cadia).
181	* In the original ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'' modules, DM's were specifically instructed that certain villains [[LordBritishPostulate simply were not allowed to be killed off]], and that if the players somehow succeeded in doing so, their apparent death should be done in such a way that the players [[NeverFoundTheBody could not recover the body]], allowing them to return in future modules.
182	** In general, if the players succeed in killing off the BigBad [[OffTheRails too early]], the DungeonMaster has several options at his disposal to salvage the plot. The players aren't the only ones with access to resurrection spells, after all, and having the villain return as an undead monstrosity is also on the table...
183	** And in ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' most of the Darklords are meant to be too powerful for the players to defeat, and in the event that the players kill them, many of them have some method of cheating death. If the players do manage to kill them and stop them from using whatever method they have of cheating death, then either somebody will take that Darklord's place as the new Darklord, or if there isn't anybody to replace them, the Dark Powers who rule over the setting may intervene to bring the Darklord back.
184	* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has plenty of ways to bring back dead creatures. Mostly in [[{{Necromancer}} black]], but green and white can also do so.
185	[[/folder]]
186
187	[[folder:Video Games]]
188	* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' - even if Dracula's '[[SealedEvilInACan sealed forever]]' in their main timeline, they keep making games set prior to this to continue including him, and his soul lives on in [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow Soma Cruz]]. Still... unlike most characters on this page, Dracula's ''undead.'' Rising from the grave is exactly what he's supposed to do.
189	* ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'': Wakestones are in-universe resurrection stones that can work on any ''intact'' body, including the Arisen. There's even a sidequest to resurrect a commoner for his grieving father. For obvious reasons, they are extremely expensive; a Wakestone costs 30,000G.
190	* William Afton of ''Franchise/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' won't stay dead. While his first death doesn't count, everything else does: Fazbear's Fright from ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3'' [[spoiler:burns down]]? Yeah, guess what, he survived. [[spoiler:He gets burned alive ''again'']] in ''VideoGame/FreddyFazbearsPizzeriaSimulator'' and ''VideoGame/UltimateCustomNight'' is implied to be his {{Hell}}? He comes BackFromTheDead, and forget about the whole "it's his {{Hell}}" thing: It was actually his [[spoiler:repeating nightmare]]. At the end of ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysVRHelpWanted'' he seemingly [[ItMakesSenseInContext gets reduced to a plushie]]? That's not what happened: He actually [[spoiler:entered the mind of the PlayerCharacter and is ordering them to kill kids]]. Every time it seems like he was KilledOffForReal, he just comes back.
191	-->'''William Afton:''' I '''''always''''' come back!
192	* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' brought back from the dead Yone, Yasuo's half-brother, to be the game's 150th champion in the tenth season of the game. Yone was previously killed by Yasuo when the former pursued the latter after Yasuo was blamed for murdering their sword school's master (which Yasuo didn't do), and while there's some justification for his revival (a demon who was hunting him in life followed him to the spirit realm and tried to consume him, but Yone defeated him and is now hunting other demons in both realms), '''how''' he came back is left intentionally vague.
193	** Also, while they weren't "truly" dead, both Kai'sa and Senna were previously lore characters related to already-existing champions (Kai'sa is Kassadin's daughter and Senna is Lucian's wife) who were described as being lost (Senna "merely" had her soul trapped in Thresh's lantern, while Kai'sa was thrown into a void rift by Malzahar when she was a child) but eventually came back to [[PromotedToPlayable become champions themselves]] in the game's ninth season. Also, all three champions mentioned are notable for '''not''' [[CameBackWrong coming back wrong]]; sure, they're changed (Kai'sa is bonded to a void creature, Yone has a demon mask that he can't remove, and Senna has dark powers), but all of them are still sane and all on the good side.
194	* At the beginning of ''VideoGame/OriAndTheBlindForest'', Naru dies of starvation due to the "blinding" of the eponymous forest and ensuing famine, then the eponymous protagonist himself runs out of energy and dies after setting off into the forest alone. The latter is immediately revived by the Spirit Tree's residual power, while Gumo brings the former BackFromTheDead with the Light Vessel at the start of the game's last act.
195	* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':
196	** At the end of ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', we see Shadow the Hedgehog plummet through the atmosphere. Initially this was meant to kill him, just case he wasn't popular enough to join the franchise. But he ''was'' popular and they brought him back. Nobody's quite clear on how he survived a fall through the atmosphere; at one point he was implied to be a clone, then Eggman saved him and built an android army, sometimes it's Chaos Control, sometimes it's just that you can't assume the Ultimate Lifeform is dead just because he fell from space.
197	** Via a throwaway set of quotes in the [[TrueFinalBoss final battle]] of ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'', it's revealed nine minutes in that [[spoiler:the Shadow you're playing as is indeed the real one, as Eggman's robots saved and recovered him from the orbital freefall.]] Even so, it's a compulsive liar telling you this in a pep-talk to save the planet.
198	* While [[BigBad Bowser]] in the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' series has JokerImmunity, he does occasionally (confirmed at least three times) die in the Mario games; once he is mentioned in ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'' to have previously been defeated by Mario ("defeated" apparently meaning "destroyed", as it is theorized that King Boo revived him), once in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' Bowser falls into lava and is reduced to a skeleton and in ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' [[spoiler:Bowser is killed by Dimentio along with Mario and Peach]]. However, Bowser cannot permanently exit the series, and is resurrected on all three occasions; He appears in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' without any mention of him previously being dead, and is resurrected onscreen by Bowser Jr. in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'', and in the case of ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', [[spoiler: Dimentio's attack wasn't intended to permanently kill him, so that when he appeared in the land of ended games, he was still considered "alive", and returned with Mario, Peach, and Luigi through a dimensional door]]. ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' lampshades this in the levels you control him. [[spoiler:His life count is the infinity sign.]]
199	* ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny'': Leon Magnus became far, ''far'' too popular to leave dead despite having both drowned, [[DeaderThanDead then killed again]] after he was [[CameBackWrong resurrected as a zombie]] by the BigBad. The sequel immediately brings him back [[spoiler:via means of FaustianRebellion from the new BigBad.]]
200	* In ''VideoGame/WitchesLegacy'' it doesn't matter what happens to Elisabeth or Morgana, because by the next game at least one of them will be back to cause havoc in the lives of Lynn and Carrie.
201	* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'': Anyone who gets "erased" is DeaderThanDead. The First Law of Resurrection is in use, though; if the author wants anyone to come back, it's possible. The secret reports detail the nature and rules of the game.
202	* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' (and supplementary material) has brought back many characters once thought dead. [[spoiler: Muradin]] lost his memory and remained in Northrend, the dreadlords [[spoiler: Balnazzar]] and [[spoiler: Mal'Ganis]] returned to corrupt the [[spoiler: Scarlet Crusade]], the Alliance expedition to Outland "returned" in the Burning Crusade (although Turalyon and Alleria are still missing), Magtheridon turned out to be just imprisoned, [[spoiler: Xavius]] became the Nightmare Lord, [[spoiler:Cho'gall]] returned ''twice'', and even Deathwing was presumed dead by some before being confirmed to be alive. [[spoiler: and now both his children (albeit as undead) and his mate are returning for Cataclysm]]. [[spoiler: The latest is Illidan Stormrage, who reveals in the demon hunter starting questline that he's akin to the player character in that his soul waits in the Twisting Nether until he can return to his body.]]
203	** The Alliance expedition is not a proper example -- last we saw them they were in a position to survive for a while longer (Burning Crusade just retconned them to not leaving Draenor after all), it's just that they were presumed dead ''in-universe'' (since no-one on Azeroth knew what had happened to them). Of course, the place the expedition was ''to'' might be an example -- as presented in ''Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal'', Draenor was about to be destroyed. Come ''Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne'', and the place (while shattered and renamed Outland) is still habitable, more-or-less.
204	[[/folder]]
205
206	[[folder:Webcomics]]
207	* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' almost everyone has died at some point, and almost all of those people were resurrected, brought back as ghosts, etc. John in particular has now died three times, and that's not even counting at least one alternate timeline death. The author has compared their many deaths to the way extra lives/ save files work in video games, only in this context the characters are aware of their alternate dead selves.
208	* {{Jerkass}}/JerkWithAHeartOfGold Mike Warner's resurrection has yet to be explained after his badass HeroicSacrifice (at least we think that's what he was doing) near the end of ''Webcomic/ItsWalky''. He was mentioned in a list of people who probably wouldn't be able to be resurrected using the martian technology, but a year later (a gap sufficiently long enough to allow for the nine-month process) he shows up working at the Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}} toy store without explanation. At his parent's house he has several medals from the war--some of which are only awarded posthumously.
209	** The owner of the Shortpacked! toy store, Galasso, also brought back Ronald Reagan; FDR appears to work at the nearby store [=McAwesome=]'s. Later, Galasso also brings back Historical Jesus.
210	*** Joyce eventually hinted that she leaked resurrection technology when she realized that Mike wasn't going to be resurrected by the government, with resurrecting him a condition.
211	* The mermaid in ''Webcomic/AxeCop'' whom Axe Cop mistook for a bad guy [[BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad because a friendly mermaid face looks like a human scowl]] and [[MurderByMistake accidentally murdered]] was revived in this way. [[CheerfulChild The author of the comic, Malachai]] called up [[CoolBigBro the illustrator, Ethan]], and told him that [[WhatHaveIDone he didn't want the mermaid to die any more]]. Ethan assured Malachai that since it was his story, they could bring him back, so they planned out a story where Axe Cop wished the mermaid back to life after finding out she was the daughter of the King of the Mermaids.
212	** Also, in one comic, Ethan mistakenly drew the Moon Warriors' bug monster truck exploding, when Malachai didn't say anything about that. When Malachai found out, he called out his brother because he thought the truck was cool, so the next comic includes a NoteFromEd discussing how the heroes found a ninja mechanic to fix it, then killed him.
213	* Oasis in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' has been killed just off-screen many times now. Lampshaded ''several'' times that her deaths always occur in such a way as to leave no body. Then it was explained and it was ''awesome''.
214	** [[spoiler:Zoe, who was not dead but in a permanent vegetative state, was restored to normal in a {{plan}} involving nanites by Riff.]]
215	* Lampshaded when [[spoiler:Roy]] dies in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. The deva assigned to process [[spoiler:his]] death says that it's important to fill out the paperwork concerning [[spoiler:his]] death now, so that any time [[spoiler:he]] dies in the future, they can fast-track [[spoiler:him]] directly into Good Heaven, with as little waiting as possible. The strip portrays a literal revolving door with accompanying astral bellhop. [[spoiler:Roy]] mentions that [[spoiler:he]] assumed the phrase "revolving door afterlife" was merely a metaphor, and the deva begins explaining how [[spoiler:Roy]] can begin earning "frequent dying miles".
216	** Subverted, as [[spoiler:Roy]] stays dead for pretty much the entire arc, while the rest of his party is split up and dealing with their own problems, and Haley, Celia and Belkar try to resurrect [[spoiler:him]] several times to no avail and are constantly getting sidetracked.
217	** Ironically, this is pretty much the only example of this trope in the entire series, despite the fact that D&D characters can be resurrected as many times as their player wishes, so long as the party has the materials to. The Order of the Stick, meanwhile, struggles to find the resources to resurrect [[spoiler:Roy]] even once, to the point that they have to steal the necessary diamond from [[BreakingTheFourthWall the website's character page]]. No other character is ever resurrected (excluding the undead and immortal Xykon), with the exception of the Oracle (who can predict his own death and makes arrangements to be resurrected afterwards).
218	** There is also the caveat that true resurrection is only possible if the body is in one piece, or at least if all the pieces can be assembled in one place: [[spoiler:Miko]] stays dead due to being bisected, and the nearest necromancer being too lazy to search for her legs. This also leads to some pragmatic characters [[DefiedTrope completely destroying the bodies of their enemies to make sure they remain]] KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler:Tsukiko]] is devoured by a pack of undead, who are then ordered to destroy themselves so nothing remains, [[spoiler:Kubota]] is killed with [[DisintegratorRay Disintegration]] in the first place, and [[spoiler:Nale]] is posthumously disintegrated to dust by a vengeful spellcaster.
219	* Played for drama in the fan comic ''Webcomic/TrueBelievers''. Peter, in despair that MJ has been retgoned, allows Doc Ock to kill him in hopes of invoking TogetherInDeath. He later gets revived in an unrelated crossover and realizes to his horror that as a comic book character, he can't be killed permanently as long as people want him around. He eventually gets fired and moving to a town of unused comic characters, rejoining Mary Jane that way.
220	[[/folder]]
221
222	[[folder:Western Animation]]
223	* ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'': The cast has occasionally died OncePerEpisode with some lampshading. When the SeriesFauxnale claimed it would be permanent, they're all shown to be back watching it on their television.
224	* Kenny in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has this in spades, and in fact, the TheyKilledKennyAgain trope is named after him.
225	* ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'':
226	** [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] on ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'':
227	*** Batman ''never'' angsts about the Joker's many supposed deaths (not even in Mad Love when he knocked him into a smokestack) since he knows he'll always come back thanks to JokerImmunity.
228	*** In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker'', which takes place in the far future, the Joker "returns" after having met his definite end during an encounter long ago. Terry floats theories as to whether Joker is a clone, robot or just reawakened from [[HarmlessFreezing cryogenic sleep]].[[spoiler: He's a clone, sort of, via implanting his [=DNA=] in Tim Drake (Robin). The real Joker really is dead. Eventually, he's purged from Tim Drake, making for the Joker's absolute final end... probably.]]
229	** At the end of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Unlimited'', [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] and [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] both seemingly die, thanks to Lex making a HeroicSacrifice to kill them both with the Anti-Life Equation. Batman muses that neither of them are likely dead and both of them will probably come back. Unusually, this was the GrandFinale of the show, and for all intents and purposes the entire DCAU came to an end with this, so as far as anyone knows they ''don't'' come back. Even more unusually, the whole thing was so ambiguous that it's not even clear that Lex was even using the Equation to kill the two of them in the first place, and both of them might not even have died at all. (According to WordOfGod, they didn't: They ended up trapped in the Source Wall, which still means they're not coming back.)
230	* Morph in ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'' was supposed to remain dead to show the DarkerAndEdgier tone of the series. Due to his EnsembleDarkHorse status, [[EvilutionaryBiologist Mister Sinister]] brought him back to life.
231	* In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' [[spoiler:it's revealed that Darth Maul has]] survived his bisection at the hands [[spoiler:of Obi-Wan in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'']]. In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' the aforementioned [[spoiler:Maul]] is finally [[spoiler:KilledOffForReal]], however a newly introduced character from the old Legends continuity, [[spoiler:Grand Admiral Thrawn]] who got a NoOneCouldSurviveThat scene in the series finale had WordOfGod confirm that he is indeed still alive.
232	* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' did this when Lieutenant Shaxs was killed in "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS1E10NoSmallParts No Small Parts]]" while battling the Pakleds, and was then brought back to life inexplicably in "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS2E03WellAlwaysHaveTomParis We'll Always Have Tom Paris]]". That episode really lampshades how dying and being brought back to life has become so common place in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' by now that it is now considered normal.
233	[[/folder]]

Context Main / FirstLawOfResurrection