| 1 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1606358027067591400 |
| 2 | %% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread. |
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| 4 | [[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/StarWarsShatteredEmpire https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/duvat.png]]]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:350:[[HilariousInHindsight And wouldn't you know]], Duvat [[Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker was onto something]].]] |
| 6 | %% |
| 7 | ->'''Walky:''' Joe'll be okay!\ |
| 8 | '''Danny:''' ...but he's dead.\ |
| 9 | '''Walky:''' Maybe. |
| 10 | -->-- ''[[Webcomic/RoomiesItsWalkyJoyceAndWalky It's Walky!]]'' |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Since anything is possible in fiction, including bringing people BackFromTheDead (even in fiction grounded in RealLife), fans often expect characters not to stay dead, or even assume the character isn't dead at all (as this often is how a character is brought back). |
| 13 | |
| 14 | But sometimes, the anticipated resurrection doesn't happen yet; the reaction to this forms this trope. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | It's especially common if the character they want back is on the low end of the SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness (often in the form of {{Fix Fic}}s and FanonDiscontinuity), but conversely it can also lead to backlash if the character they don't want back is on the high end (often in the form of DroppedABridgeOnHim in their FanFiction, or once they start RunningTheAsylum). The latter is common in those who complain about resurrection in {{Superhero}} {{Comic Book}}s. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Despite what some think, BackFromTheDead isn't always caused by PanderingToTheBase or ExecutiveMeddling. Sometimes [[WordOfGod the writers genuinely intended for a character to come back]]. On the other hand, characters can stay dead for those very reasons. But of course, there will be FanDumb making up their own reasons for either. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | This trope is loathed by some but thought of as perfectly normal WishFulfillment by others. Like most tropes, it's all in how it's handled. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | Compare UrbanLegendOfZelda, InferredSurvival, FirstLawOfResurrection, ElvisLives, UnexplainedRecovery, OpeningACanOfClones. See also ViewersInMourning. When he really ''is'' just hiding, it's FakingTheDead. See UncertainDoom for cases where the ambiguity as to whether someone died is ''intentional''. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | '''Warning: This is part of DeathTropes, so {{spoiler}}s abound. Don't come crying to us. We repeat: SPOILERS AHOY!''' |
| 25 | ---- |
| 26 | !!Examples: |
| 27 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 28 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 29 | * ''Anime/{{Astroganger}}'': Many fans believe that Ganger didn't truly die at the end, and instead went to his home planet of Katharos after sustaining irrepairable damage. This is because upon rewatching the scene where he's blown up, a flying comet exits the explosion. Unfortunately, Creator/KnackProductions can never confirm this because the closest thing ''Astroganger'' has to a sequel is ''Anime/ChargemanKen''. |
| 30 | * Perhaps the biggest example from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' is Ulquiorra. Fans saw his body disintegrate, but they still cling to the hope that he'll come back. The fact that his death was so [[AlasPoorVillain touching and poignant]] doesn't help matters. Other notable cases include Szayelaporro (he is just that CrazyPrepared), Starrk (NeverFoundTheBody + capacity for a SoulJar). and Harribel (negates the [[DroppedABridgeOnHim bridge drop]]). Some would be tempted to put Grimmjow on here as well, but [[InferredSurvival he wasn't exactly dead the last time we saw him.]] |
| 31 | ** Fans of Ulquiorra have even more to be worked up about now. WordOfGod pointed out in an interview how surprised he was by the worldwide [[AlasPoorVillain response to Ulquiorra's death.]] He refused to confirm whether that was the last of Ulquiorra. |
| 32 | ** Gin Ichimaru is theorized to be alive by some based on his fan-favorite status, the fact that he was still alive when he was last seen (his last words in his head were "great, now I know I can leave things to him," but it's not made clear if he means he can trust Ichigo to take down Aizen after his death or after he's no longer in any condition to fight), and the fact that Orihime showed up just a few chapters after his apparent death. There's also the fact that after the saga is over, Rangiku laments that Gin is gone, but never mentions if he's dead or if Orihime ''did'' heal him and he just took off somewhere. |
| 33 | ** Recently, Kaname has been added, with some fans suggesting that Mayuri is working on reviving him for...some reason. |
| 34 | ** [[spoiler: Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto.]] There are numerous theories about how he could have "faked it," including reviving himself as a zombie, being stored in his Zanpakuto somehow, and collaborating with AIZEN, of all people. All of these ignore that, even if he was just hiding, Soul Society really, REALLY needs him, and he's not there. The Kyoka Suigetsu theory sometimes counters this with Aizen is doing it as a practical joke. Yeah. One other thing that often gets cited is the statement that "no body was found," but this is because it was vaporized onscreen. |
| 35 | *** Szayelaporro in a separate chapter was shown to be in hell. Ulquiorra and Starrk were confirmed as dead in [[AllThereInTheManual Unmasked]], which is considered pretty definitive. Gin was later confirmed as dead in the Germany Interview. |
| 36 | *** But it turns out that Harribel really ''was'' Just Hiding - Orihime healed her (and her Fraccion) off-screen, and she's mentioned after the TimeSkip. Guess Creator/TiteKubo realised how stupid killing her off so anti-climactically was... |
| 37 | ** As of the latest arc, Byakuya Kuchiki can be added to that list. Ever since his apparent death, many people have denied it. Granted the chapter where he apparently died just came out so this might be a little premature, it still counts. |
| 38 | *** Nope, Byakuya as of the latest chapter did in fact survive. Though it also has people rolling their eyes at Kubo since it's just another example of him refusing to kill off his dear soul reapers. Kenpachi survived the ordeal too, but his survival is at least somewhat justified due to the guy beating him turning out to be a complete fake of the BigBad. |
| 39 | *** What was so aggravating about Byakuya surviving was that there were multiple points where it was indicated that he had died (i.e. Haschwald saying he'd died, Byakuya giving a farewell speech to a murderous Ichigo and finally his Zanpaktou falling down and breaking with a shot of him having so-called "final thoughts"). It's jarring to see it was just cheap drama. |
| 40 | *** On the other hand, all of this is pretty standard for a fake-out death in Bleach. The things we've seen that generally confirm a character's death are the destruction of the body, decapitation, and/or not appearing again for many chapters after being declared dead. |
| 41 | ** The NO BREATHES FROM HELL oneshot does bring back [[spoiler:Szayelaporro]], officially confirming that he's dead and that he's been sent to Hell. At the same time, he confirms that [[spoiler:Yamamoto, Unohana and Ukitake]] also went to Hell after their deaths (specifically [[spoiler:after their funerals, which were unknowingly performed for that exact purpose]]). |
| 42 | * Akai Shuuichi from ''Manga/CaseClosed'' is an interesting example. Immediately after his death, people declared him to be alive, due to the numerous inconsistencies around his death, as well as some notable differences between two shots of the body. Even though that, due to this, there was never much of a doubt in the community that he wasn't dead at all, there are a lot of arguments on ''who'' he is - is he Scar Akai, who looks just like his mirror image, but seems to have lost his memory? Or is he, in fact, the scary Subaru Okiya, who displays a lot of [[RedHerring non-obvious similarities]] to Akai? Or is he even someone else? Only time will tell. |
| 43 | ** A later Mystery Train arc pretty much settles this dispute; answering who's who as clear as day. [[spoiler: Tooru Amuro is confirmed as the real Bourbon, Vermouth and Tooru conspired the creation of Scar Akai to confirm the FBI's reaction to a living Akai and Subaru Okiya is in fact Akai-in-hiding.]] |
| 44 | * ''Anime/CodeGeass'': |
| 45 | ** Despite seemingly overwhelming evidence, many fans refused to accept the deaths of Euphemia, Jeremiah, Shirley, and Nunnally. Interestingly, Jeremiah and Nunnally actually ''were'' FakingTheDead, and show up later in the series. |
| 46 | ** WordOfGod has repeatedly stated that Lelouch is truly dead, they said so in [[https://forums.animesuki.com/group.php?do=discuss&gmid=38473 interviews]] (e.g. [[https://imgur.com/a/do0fiOb Animage 10 and 11]], [[https://www.retromags.com/galleryimgs/monthly_2017_10/small.59f05755697f9_ContinueVol.42(October2008).jpg.f9ec262ce76541c515b3ea32e65060c8.jpg Continue Vol.42]], etc), [[https://imgur.com/a/2dxGMFX tweets]] by the director ([[https://imgur.com/a/HoF6xhX translation]]), the [[https://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/c/a/code-geass-lelouch-of-the-rebellion-r2-official-guide-book-japan-anime-free-s-h-3dd125709d6de684a48b26ffff07f459.jpg official guide book,]] ..., and Lelouch is listed among the dead in [[https://imgur.com/a/GdjEhBD the Death List for R2.]] C.C. even explicitly says Lelouch is dead in [[https://streamable.com/d8dji the new epilogue]] (from 2009). ([[https://www.reddit.com/user/GeassedbyLelouch/comments/8hklfr/evaluating_code_theory_main_body_index/ database with official statements]]) And yet, some fans refused to believe WordOfGod that Lelouch is truly dead and clung to the belief that Lelouch survived his ThanatosGambit in the GrandFinale of the series, either by [[FakingTheDead faking his own death]] or accidentally absorbing the BigBad's CompleteImmortality in an earlier episode. The series writer stated the ending was made to be a ReallyDeadMontage for Lelouch, however a possibly deliberately misunderstood interview by the series director saying that "the happy or sad nature of the ending is up to the fans" was misrepresented as a ShrugOfGod, claiming that it meant that Lelouch's death was up to personal interpretation, while in truth what was really said was that Lelouch's death was free to interpret as a happy or a sad ending, but Lelouch's death itself was never open for interpretation. A {{Broken Base}}s inside the fandom ensued and often erroneous DeathOfTheAuthor arguments were used because the anime's lore itself made it impossible for Lelouch to have the code. 10 years later, a sequel was announced with the real Lelouch being confirmed as the protagonist and the official title of the sequel being "Lelouch of the Resurrection". This made it certain that Lelouch was truly dead, as WordOfGod always stated, and will be resurrected. |
| 47 | * From ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', fans of Spike will swear up and down that the character is just hiding, despite having suffered fatal injuries from a personal nemesis, being surrounded by {{Mooks}} from the Syndicate (while ''in'' the Syndicate Headquarters), collapsing in a pool of his own blood, and ''the entire series leading up to exactly that climax''. |
| 48 | ** Notable in that the guy writing the stuff [[ShrugOfGod isn't entirely sure if he's dead or alive, either.]] Some fans have interpreted this as a way of the writer saying it ''doesn't matter'' if he lived or died; Spike's story, and by extension the story of ''Cowboy Bebop'', has ended, and whatever happens afterwards, if anything, isn't for us to know. |
| 49 | ** Given the nature of the Syndicate in question, Spike would ''be made its new leader'' if he survived, since he had just killed the previous leader, Vicious, who in turn had assumed power by killing his own predecessors. Spike would be eligible to take command in this manner because he was previously a member of the Syndicate and despite his own best efforts [[ResignationsNotAccepted you never leave the Syndicate]]. |
| 50 | ** It really doesn't help that the ''entire situation'' (apart from the fight itself, funnily enough) is completely ambiguous, with Laughing Bull's description of a warrior dying being applicable to either Spike ''or'' Vicious, and Spike himself having survived a similar scenario (specifically being, shot, skewered, and jumping off of a four-story building), albeit barely, leaving the entire situation completely valid for either side to make a case. |
| 51 | * NeverFoundTheBody covers a multitude of sins. In the case of the ''Manga/DGrayMan'' fandom and General Cross, this includes disappearing from a room several stories above a lot of sharp rocks, leaving behind the cracked, bloody remains of his CoolMask, his EmpathicWeapon (which is no longer attuned to him), and more blood than a human can lose and survive, all of which was confirmed to be his. That said, there's still one hell of a lot of mystery surrounding his death/disappearance, since, well, they NeverFoundTheBody. |
| 52 | * ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'': |
| 53 | ** Juzo's got a fair amount of fans claiming this for him. They feel that if he could survive being impaled through the stomach and cutting his own arm off, he could survive the blood loss and just passed out in his last scene. The fact that Kyosuke gets a DownerEnding ''unless'' Juzo's alive helps contribute to this. |
| 54 | ** There's a fairly large section of the fanbase that does ''not'' want Chiaki to be dead, feeling that she deserved a happy ending. Those fans point out that [[TheAce Izuru]] was right there and could have pulled off a miracle to save her, supported by the fact that [[NeverFoundTheBody it's never shown what became of her body]]. |
| 55 | * ''Manga/DeathNote'': |
| 56 | ** L; not helped by the fact that this is the point in the story that [[BrokenBase broke the base]] on whether the series was still good or not. The [[Film/DeathNoteSeries live-action adaptations from 2006]] actually [[AscendedFanon use one escape theory]]: [[spoiler:When Rem tries to kill L and Watari to save Misa, L actually escapes death -- because he'd already written his own name in the Death Note to die at a later date]]. |
| 57 | ** And that's not to mention the deluded fans who are convinced that Light somehow made it. You know, despite having Ryuk write Light's name in his Death Note, just like he said he would in the VERY FIRST EPISODE, which is pretty damned final by the standards of pretty much everyone else. |
| 58 | * ''Anime/ADogOfFlanders1975'': Nello and Patrasche didn't die at the end, and the angels were just a dream because supernatural elements aren't a thing in WMT anime. What's that, WMT confirmed they died? ''(puts hands over ears)'' La-la-la-la! I can't hear you! Needless to say, many viewers were torn up about the ending and would prefer to think this instead. |
| 59 | * ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' got a few examples with the Tournament of Power: |
| 60 | ** Hit and Tien had fan theories surrounding them about how they weren't really eliminated, via explanations involving Tien's clone technique and Hit's time-skip ability. These theories were widely mocked due to the fact that they didn't really make any sense, given how they were shown on the spectator's stand. |
| 61 | ** [[spoiler: Android 17's HeroicSacrifice]] also got hit with this and was also widely mocked...[[TheCuckoolanderWasRight only for it to turn out that they had indeed survived.]] |
| 62 | * ''Manga/FairyTail'': |
| 63 | ** For some, [[spoiler: Simon]] has a following for not being truly dead due to the NobodyCanDie nature of this manga, and that because his corpse ends up falling into a dark abyss the last time we see him, someone will make the claim that he [[NeverFoundTheBody never got a proper burial]] to truly be considered dead. Eventually, though, [[spoiler:Simon reappeared as one of the Historias, magically conjured dead people who are turned against those who killed them]], something that would only be possible if the character was dead. |
| 64 | ** Some fans are speculating that [[spoiler:Juvia]] is not dead, despite the character having performed a HeroicSuicide to save [[spoiler:Gray, the man she loved]], and then used the last of her strength to give the person a blood transfusion. This may have to do with how, not long before that, [[spoiler:Gajeel]] similarly appeared to die, but turned out to have survived. Turns out [[spoiler: they were right]]. |
| 65 | * ''Franchise/FullmetalAlchemist'': |
| 66 | ** Maria Ross in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' turned out true in one series, but false in another. The least spoilery way to put it. |
| 67 | ** The fandom for ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemistTheConquerorOfShamballa'' has an actual ''holiday'' for when Alphons (Heidrich) dies. He gets shot in the back, but we don't see the shot actually hit him. They call it Denial Day, and it's November 8th (or 9th). |
| 68 | ** There are a number of fans who don't want to believe that [[spoiler:Pride]] killed [[spoiler:his son Selim]] at the end of the 2003 anime. It's cited that he just strangled him, though a cracking sound can be heard that implies his neck was broken. |
| 69 | * ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'': |
| 70 | ** Lockon Stratos in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00''. While the way he died made it [[NeverFoundTheBody impossible to recover the body]], WordOfGod has confirmed it -- as if the [[ReallyDeadMontage 5-minute montage and monologue sequence]] wasn't enough. The Platform/{{P|layStation2}}S2 game ''Gundam Meisters'' made Lockon's Death even more explicit, showing Lockon's faceplate crack off, a scene added to the special edition release to further solidify his death as final. |
| 71 | ** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' had the planned death of Mu la Fraga, at the end of a season. Anyway, since fans were revolting, he was decided to be brought back, with amnesia. Even his lone helmet in space which was originally shown, was removed, to make his survival possible. The fans did it! (In 00 it didn't work, though.) Whether this was actually a good idea, given that Mu's original death scene was a contender for the best HeroicSacrifice in all of Gundam, is one of the many [[BrokenBase base-breaking]] aspects of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny''. |
| 72 | ** The fate of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable at the end of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack'' has become a somewhat legendary topic of debate among certain fans of the ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' franchise. The intentional lack of a definitive WordOfGod doesn't help to settle this, and whenever the story appears in a crossover game, such as ''Another Century's Episode 3'', the hero Amuro always survives one way or another. Char's fate is often sealed. |
| 73 | * ''Manga/{{Guyver}}'' fans keep hoping very much that Purgstall will come back from the dead. He was a commonly suggested suspect of Appolyon's identity. |
| 74 | * ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean'': Since [[spoiler:F.F. is the only one missing from the universe post-reset]], many fans did not like the fact [[spoiler:they could be RetGone from that universe]], and would like to think that another version of them is just not present in the epilogue. The anime adaptation sways a bit on this direction, as unlike the manga, they do get to appear in the last shot alongside everyone else. |
| 75 | * Alto Saotome, the hero from ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'', in the movie adaptations. The ending never directly states whether he survived or not, but Ranka tells a comatose Sheryl that she will wake up when Alto comes back. At that very moment, Sheryl's mouth twitched and her earrings glinted. WordOfGod has stated that this is indeed the case. |
| 76 | * Though not exactly the most beloved character of the series, fans have hoped that if there's another season of ''Franchise/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'', Precia Testarossa should return. She's noted to be one of the cruelest villains ever in the series (on par and maybe surpassing Jail Scaglietti in Season 3), but the final battle against her doesn't have much action, thus fans wanted to at least have her return and be defeated in a more epic battle. And she'd presumably still be a credible threat even after Nanoha has grown up and grown in skill and power, as the SS-ranked Precia officially had more natural power than any other mage of the modern era. Besides, for her Season 1 death, she just fell over a cliff to a never-touched but interesting world and [[NeverFoundTheBody they never really bothered to see if she's dead for good]], fueling possible scenarios where she survived and returned with a more insane plan. |
| 77 | ** Although, she is RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap thanks to later adaptations. ''[[TheMovie The Movie 1st]]'' portrays her as a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds with a more sympathetic backstory, ''VideoGame/TheGearsOfDestiny'' allows her ghost to make peace with her {{Familiar}}, and ''[[Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaInnocent INNOCENTS]]'' portrays her as a DotingParent in an AlternateUniverse where she is sane. |
| 78 | * Gai Daigouji from ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico''; lampshaded with both an IdenticalStranger[[note]]Tsukumo Shiratori, [[spoiler:a Jovian ace who also dies tragically.]][[/note]] and a subversion of BackFromTheDead.[[note]]In the last TV episode, the reveal that a much less popular character -- [[spoiler:the Admiral who sacrificed himself so the Nadesico could escape Mars]] -- had miraculously survived, instead of Gai.[[/note]] Naturally, in many ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' games he really ''is''. |
| 79 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 80 | ** Fans of Jiraiya deny that he died, despite the fact that he was impaled through the chest repeatedly, lost copious amounts of blood, had emotional flashbacks reflecting on his failures and accomplishments in life, transferred his knowledge of the enemy to a frog messenger for Naruto, and sunk to the bottom of a lake while his vision faded to blackness. The fan rationale? It was just one of his shadow clones (even though those would disappear after even ''one'' of those things happened). |
| 81 | ** Itachi's death was questioned, despite Tobi implicitly stating that his body is lying around somewhere by saying Sasuke could have taken his eyes. Made even worse during the winter break of 2009/2010, when he made a "reappearance" which readers could tell was just genjutsu from a mile away. And then completely finished off when [[spoiler:Kabuto used Impure World Resurrection, which only works on the dead, to briefly bring back zombie-Itachi]]. |
| 82 | ** Many fans believed that Obito Uchiha was just hiding, as Tobi of all people. [[spoiler:[[BigBad He was]].]] |
| 83 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'' is set in a WorldOfBadass, which means hardly anyone ever dies; as such, any apparent death is generally assumed to be a case of this. Any other fandom would declare them dead. The ''One Piece'' fandom insists that no named character has ever died (except for in flashbacks). You can't really blame them, though, because other characters - even fairly minor ones - ''have'' come back from worse; after ten years of storyline, the number of named people that are confirmed to have actually died in the main storyline (aside from anime filler characters) doesn't even reach into double digits.[[labelnote:Namely...]]Mr. 11; the Straw Hat Pirates' first ship, the Going Merry; Portgas D. Ace; and Edward Newgate, a.k.a. Whitebeard. Yes, one of the confirmed deaths is not actually a person...though the ship was very much depicted as a character in its own right. Other characters have suffered seemingly obvious deaths, but only those are confirmed by WordOfGod…though two in the Punk Hazard arc seem to be final even by this trope's standard: Monet, who had her disembodied heart stabbed, and Vergo, who was chopped to pieces and then blown up. The former was survivable since it was via Law's Devil Fruit, but being left in such a helpless position meant Vergo would have been unable to use his normally-formidable defensive powers to survive the explosion.[[/labelnote]] |
| 84 | ** For instance, Miss Monday and Mr. 9 were last seen making a HeroicSacrifice and getting blown up, and failed to show up in any context for ''years'', but were still assumed to be alive. And sure enough, both are revealed to be alive in Chapter 632's cover story. Not only that, they had a kid together. |
| 85 | ** Gin, TheDragon to one of the earlier antagonists who developed a friendly relationship with Sanji and Luffy, seems to be fatally poisoned when he's last seen, but he is never shown dying, leading some to believe that he may have survived (although neither he nor any of Krieg's pirates have been seen since the East Blue saga). |
| 86 | ** Bellamy from the start of the Skypiea saga, seemingly a throwaway villain with too much pride and not enough power. He gets on Luffy's bad side and gets taken out with one punch. At the end of that saga, we see him getting a YouHaveFailedMe treatment from his boss, Donquixote Doflamingo, an absurdly powerful and influential pirate who can be considered One Piece's rendition of ComicBook/TheJoker. Fast forward about five hundred chapters, and we see him alive, well, and significantly more mature, with only a scar to hint at his punishment. |
| 87 | ** Gekko Moria of the Seven Warlords of the Sea made the mistake of challenging the Straw Hat Pirates. The last Warlord who made an enemy out of them, Crocodile, had his plans ruined, got beaten to a pulp, and imprisoned in [[TheAlcatraz Impel Down]]. Moria suffered the former two fates. Later, after the War of the Best and his less-than-satisfactory performance, Doflamingo comes after him with a small army of cyborgs, each akin to The Terminator, the top brass of the World Government having ordered his execution. He escapes, allegedly with his powers, but Doflamingo claims that he was injured too much to survive. Obviously, he was wrong; not much is known about Moria's current status, but what is known is that... He's Just Hiding, somewhere in the New World. It's implied that [[TheDragon Absalom]] used his powers of invisibility to help Moria escape. |
| 88 | ** Another particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} example is Nero, a very minor character who had just enough screentime to get his butt kicked by Franky. He was thrown off a speeding train. Into the ocean. In the middle of one of the biggest, most powerful storms in the world. And he was unconscious at the time. And also horribly wounded. Fans assume he survived. They're probably right. |
| 89 | ** The Alabasta arc has two egregious examples of this. First, Igaram is caught in a massive explosion that converts a galleon to scrap-wood, mourned over for the entire arc, and then wanders back in at the end to be supportive. Even worse, Pell carries a bomb with a reported blast radius of five kilometers, which was supposed to kill every living thing in the capital city, high enough into the sky that it doesn't even char the buildings; he's not only caught in the blast, he's actively carrying the thing (and doing nothing to defend himself). After that, he must have fallen the, oh, ''three miles'' to the ground. He walks back to the capital on crutches, apparently with no permanent injuries, and in fact wearing the same clothes, which are hardly dirty. In the anime, he walks up to his own tombstone, showing that his friends quite reasonably thought he was dead. And when we see him again one saga later, he's perfectly healthy. Both cases ruin a perfectly good HeroicSacrifice. |
| 90 | ** Bentham, better known as Mr. 2 Bon Kurei, has fallen under this trope twice, both times as a HeroicSacrifice to help Luffy and his allies escape. The first time, he and his crew face off against a crew of Marines, and his boat is destroyed. Later, a mini-series in the manga shows that he survived…but was incarcerated in [[TheAlcatraz Impel Down]]. The second time, after Luffy's break-in of Impel Down, he alone stays behind to make sure everyone else escapes. This has him facing down a ton of guards and the prison's warden, Magellan, whose [[PoisonousPerson Venom-Venom Fruit]] powers had let him [[CurbStompBattle Curb-Stomp]] just about anyone who challenged him, including Luffy himself. Heck, Magellan had effortlessly sent Luffy to death's door a few chapters prior. But much to the delight of the fandom, it's revealed post-TimeSkip, in chapter 666 (make of that what you will), that he somehow survived and is now the "queen" of the secret sanctuary in the prison. |
| 91 | ** Sabo. Luffy's brother. Only seen in a flashback involving Luffy and Ace's past, and seen having his raft bombarded at the end of that flashback, with only a tattered hat at sea to indicate his fate. This being a flashback, he was eligible for real-death even under the usual "rules". Many, many fans insisted that he was still alive (and a member of the Revolutionary Army), even after his death was confirmed in a [[WordOfDante One Piece Databook]]. [[spoiler:And as of Chapter 744, it's finally been confirmed that they were right on both counts. Well, sort of on both counts; he's not just a member of the Revolutionary Army. He's ''second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army.'']] |
| 92 | ** Oda seems to counterbalance this by killing off people by the truckload in flashbacks. From heroic doctors to beloved mothers to whole pirate crews and the entire population of an island, flashbacks are infamous not only for their body counts but for the deceased never ever coming back...[[BackFromTheDead except for]] [[DemBones Brook]], that is. |
| 93 | *** And Franky, who only survived by [[WeCanRebuildHim rebuilding his body with iron.]] |
| 94 | * Pokémon Hunter J and her crew from ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesDiamondAndPearl'', as they NeverFoundTheBody. Then again, they probably won't, since they all blew up. |
| 95 | * Many fans theorized this was the fate of Shiro after the last episode of ''Anime/ProjectK''. Turns out they were right as the movie went on to show. |
| 96 | * ''Literature/SentouYouseiYukikaze'' has an ''InUniverse'' example of this trope: during the evacuation of Faery, Rei Fukai breaks off from the rest of the FAF fleet to lure the [[InscrutableAliens JAM]] toward him & Yukikaze as the fleet is traveling through [[OurWormholesAreDifferent the hyperspace Passageway]] to escape back to Earth. When he's at the center of the Passageway, the three [[AttackDrone Flip Knight drones]] escorting Rei then detonate their ''nuclear bombs'' and collapse the Passageway. Repeat: ''[[NoOneCouldSurviveThat Rei was at the freaking center of a triple nuclear explosion in a collapsing alien wormhole.]]'' Back on Earth though, his commanding officer Jack Booker tells a journalist that he's pretty sure Rei didn't die and is living happily somewhere else in the universe. [[spoiler: Considering that the Passageway was created by the JAM, coupled with the fact that we have no clue how it works, this may be possible. Maybe he really did get teleported somewhere else in the universe.]] |
| 97 | * ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'': The {{Filler}} second-season finale most importantly brings the death of main character Kaneki's best friend Hideyoshi Nagachika (more commonly known as Hide). Although Hide is ''shown'' to be bleeding out and [[DiedInYourArmsTonight dying in Kaneki's arms]], the fandom went ''straight into denial mode'', saying "he's just sleeping", referring to how Kaneki covered him with a sheet and [[BridalCarry bridal carried]] his body back to the base. Retconned when the third season chose to continue from where the manga ended of from season one, wherein Hide is still alive even at the epilouge |
| 98 | * Haruto from ''Anime/ValvraveTheLiberator'' is getting this for how unrealistic his death was. He just lost all of his memories. There is a 30-second scene of a girl mourning his death and even a memorial around him but poor delivery of all of this made people believe he still lives in a vegetative state. |
| 99 | [[/folder]] |
| 100 | |
| 101 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 102 | * ''ComicBook/TheAtom'': Following the death of Ryan Choi in the ''[[ComicBook/Titans2008 Titans]]'' relaunch, it became a minor meme to draw him, as a black marker stick figure, in totally unrelated books, celebrating his survival and/or swearing to turn the tables on the villains responsible. [[http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=322341 Endorsed by Gail Simone herself, no less!]] The resulting backlash surrounding Choi's death was enough to get him brought back in the ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}'' reboot. |
| 103 | ** Although technically, Ryan never truly debuted as the Atom in the ''ComicBook/New52'' and instead they introduced newcomer Rhonda Pineda as the Atom. [[spoiler: Although it turned out she was the Atom's EvilCounterpart, Atomica, from the Crime Syndicate's universe]]. It wasn't until ''ComicBook/{{Convergence}}'' that Ryan, the original Ryan Choi killed by Deathstroke's team and not a new version, was officially brought back from the dead. |
| 104 | * ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': |
| 105 | ** There are a few who found the FaceHeelTurn of [[ComicBook/Batgirl2000 Batgirl III]] (Cassandra Cain) so badly written and conceived that they are torn between a duplicate (the real one still off finding herself) and a mind-seed implanting a new personality outright as alternate explanations. The subsequent editorially mandated damage control mollified things somewhat, though. They did try to explain it, but due to an apparent lack of coordination between writers, the thing that was causing her to act differently and how it was cured were different in two different comic books. It now appears that they've just given up on trying to explain it and have (mostly) moved Cass back to her original characterization. |
| 106 | ** This trope is also the reason Creator/NeilGaiman has been so enthusiastic about being offered the chance to write ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheCapedCrusader'', which, like how Alan Moore's ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow'' is the "last Superman story" before the retcons of ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' took place, is the "last Batman story" for the retcons of ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis''. |
| 107 | * ''The Big Book of Conspiracies'': The comic examines a couple of conspiracy theories claiming that Jim Morrison, lead singer of Music/TheDoors, faked his death. |
| 108 | * ''ComicBook/BlueBeetle'': There was a lot of this surrounding the 2004 death of Ted Kord. It helped the situation that Ted had been getting more panel time via flashbacks since his death than he had in the entire decade before it. There was a RedHerring that strongly hinted that Ted was alive, but he then showed up as a Black Lantern in ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', confirming his demise. |
| 109 | * ''ComicBook/TheGoldenAge'': |
| 110 | ** [[spoiler:Bob Daley]] and [[spoiler:Human Bomb]] both seem to die in the final battle, but their fates are only depicted in quick panels that don't show much of the gory details (after which they are never mentioned again) and some fans feel they may have only been wounded. |
| 111 | ** [[spoiler:Miss America]]'s death is possible to question, since her powers have let her recover from worse in the main timeline. |
| 112 | * ''ComicBook/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'': ComicBook/{{Huntress}} didn't get her neck snapped by Wonder Woman! The cracking sound was just the platemail of her suit rubbing together, and the force of the Lasso of Truth jerking her head around just gave her severe whiplash and knocked her out. She ''was'' on Kryptonian durability pills at the time, after all. And where's her gravestone, huh?! |
| 113 | ** We ''do'' find out that the Legion of superheroes have been going around and saving/recruiting people... |
| 114 | * ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'': The robot Hourman sacrificed himself to rescue Hourman I and II in ''JSA''. Hourman indicated he would try rebuilding him and time-traveler Rip Hunter later said the robot Hourman would be out of commission "for a relative year." |
| 115 | * ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'': The quick and chaotic nature of the nuclear bombing and brevity of the scene showing there are survivors made it possible to hope that many seemingly dead characters like [[spoiler:Red Hood, Human Bomb, Olivia, Batwoman II and Ace, Lightning, Kid Flash, Menagerie, Living Doll, Hawkman, Red Arrow, the Red Tornadoes, Zatara II, Steel, Aleea Strange, Power Woman, Blue Beetle, Stars, Stripes, 666, and Phantom Lady]] survived offscreen even before many did indeed turn up alive in other works like ''ComicBook/TheKingdomDC'' and ''ComicBook/TeenTitans''. |
| 116 | * ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'': This is the sentiment shared by many fans on the status of Superman's descendant Laurel Kent. After the company edict stating Superman could be the only surviving Kryptonian character following ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', they had to rewrite Laurel's backstory and "revealed" during the ''Millennium'' crossover that she was really an undercover Manhunter android. Since there was no evidence that there was never a real Laurel, fans believe she's still out there. And many years later in ''Superman/Batman'', writer Chris Roberson introduced a new version of Superwoman named Elna Kent in the 31st Century. Not only does she look like Laurel and have a similar costume, but "Elna" was an alias Laurel used in her debut. In fact, the artist's designs revealed she ''is'' Laurel Kent, but for whatever reason, they weren't allowed to call her that in the published story. |
| 117 | * ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'': Played with. Chase and his pet dinosaur, Old Lace, are on the top of a skyscraper when ComicBook/ThePunisher pops up and blasts him with an RPG. While the rest of the team is convinced of his death, Molly refuses to accept it. |
| 118 | -->'''Molly:''' Chase probably saw the missile and jumped out of the way and then he... would... fall and then -- Old Lace! Old Lace would jump down a dinosaur jump and, and -- ...and she would grab the building with her claws and '''''SKREEEECH!''''' Save Chase from falling with her mouth! |
| 119 | ** Not much later, Chase returns and says that that is ''exactly what happened''. Molly points out that this was exactly what she said, and asks why the others aren't [[{{Malaproper}} awesomed]] by her. |
| 120 | * ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'': Creator/NeilGaiman knows this trope, to the point that he said the truly revolutionary aspect of the series is that when someone dies, they are dead. Even if they get some new incarnation, it is distinctly different and pointed out to be so. One character, when offered a chance to be recreated, even delivers an AuthorFilibuster about the importance of final deaths. |
| 121 | * ''ComicBook/SilverSurfer'': Though not dead, Norin Radd is constantly losing his true love Shalla-bal and regaining her to the point where him losing her has lost all impact. Even her dying in Earth X seems trite and cliched. |
| 122 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': |
| 123 | ** It's become a sort of meme in the comic fandom regarding the Osborns. When ComicBook/NormanOsborn turned out to be responsible for ComicBook/TheCloneSaga, he revealed he was just hiding in Europe. Then, when Harry was resurrected post-ComicBook/OneMoreDay, he says that he was also in Europe. To fans, Europe is essentially Osborn-Limbo. |
| 124 | ** Despite being a minor member of the supporting cast and a normal human who died from ''a shotgun blast at close range'' at the beginning of a story arc titled ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfJeanDeWolff'', fans ''still'' refused to believe [=DeWolff=] was dead, and came up with all sorts of loopy theories as to why she wasn't. |
| 125 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': |
| 126 | ** In ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'', it turned out that Superman's body was removed by the Fortress of Solitude robots and kept in regenerative stasis while the four pretenders were gallivanting around Metropolis. |
| 127 | ** ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'' features a race of humanoid dinosaurs that are evolved descendants of the dinosaurs of the past who turned out to have gone literally underground instead of getting totally wiped out. Why would [[Creator/GrantMorrison the author]] make such a concept? Because [[RuleOfCool they're too cool to just be extinct, of course]]! |
| 128 | * ''ComicBook/TheTransformersLastStandOfTheWreckers'': The infamously brutal death scenes were done expressly to [[AvertedTrope avert this]]; the writers didn’t want people [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt second-guessing the drama and betting the characters would survive]], so they made the deaths as horrific and unambiguous as physically possible. They even [[TrollingCreator trolled]] the readers with this, having [[spoiler:Ironfist]] miraculously survive the final battle [[YankTheDogsChain only to die of an aneurysm on the very next page]]. |
| 129 | * ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'': Subverted in a story where Richard Parker (Pete's dad) claims that he has been hiding after his reported death. It turns out that he is not really Richard Parker but a clone of Peter that has been aged to a much more mature level and given FakeMemories. |
| 130 | ** When it was revealed that Marvel was planning a crossover involving [[AffirmativeActionLegacy Miles Morales]] titled ''ComicBook/SpiderMen'', there was rampant speculation that the series would reveal that ComicBook/{{Ultimate|SpiderMan}} Peter Parker survived his recent death. It then turned out the Peter teaming up with Miles was simply the adult version from the main Franchise/MarvelUniverse. This turned out to be HilariousInHindsight as it was then revealed a year later that, yes, Ultimate Peter had survived after all, and he had been in hiding. |
| 131 | * ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'': |
| 132 | ** Beast is killed. Turns out he was just hiding underground. This after the architects of the Ultimate Universe promised none of these. |
| 133 | ** Gambit was KilledOffForReal but nobody wants to believe it, because he's GAMBIT. |
| 134 | * ''ComicBook/TheWasp'': Janet Van Dyne was supposedly killed in an explosion at the end of ''ComicBook/{{Secret Invasion|2008}}'', but Creator/BrianMichaelBendis' final ''[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers]]'' story revealed that she had simply been transported to the Microverse. This caused a bit of CanonDiscontinuity, as a prior issue of ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules'' showed the Wasp was indeed in the afterlife. In any case, she's back and part of the ''ComicBook/UncannyAvengers''. |
| 135 | * ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'': Rorschach wasn't killed by Dr. Manhattan! Jon just teleported him somewhere, the blood was just a decoy to throw off Adrian! Also Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice. Hooded Justice's death is highly ambiguous, though it seems Nelly officially died in a car crash. However, a popular theory that the pair are in truth alive and together may be confirmed by WordOfGod. |
| 136 | ** The strongest evidence supporting the theory that Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis are alive and well is in Chapter 1, page 25, middle-left panel. In the restaurant, two men are holding hands and are the focus of the panel. The main characters, Dan and Laurie, are in the background. This technique is sometimes used elsewhere in the work, for example, page 14 of chapter 10 where the intent is to transfer the reader's attention from the main characters to a new character (in this case, Roy Chess). The men resemble older versions of Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis, assuming Justice is the strongman. A final detail is their bow-ties. Their ties have green markings on them, making them resemble domino masks. While the other indicators are rather vague on their own, the addition of the bow-ties seal it for some. And given that Hooded Justice and Metropolis died in ways that leave bodies difficult to identify, were gay lovers, and resemble the drawn men who steal the focus of the panel, it could be true. If you really want to get crazy, Laurie's dialog ("Me and Jon? Oh, yeah yeah, everything's fine. Couldn't be better.") that is present in the panel could be juxtaposed purposely with the men and the relationship of HJ and Nelly. Laurie and Jon's relationship is public, with no privacy, physical intimacy or affection, while HJ and Nelly's was secret and private, and the two men are obviously very intimate with each other. Or it's just a load of crap. |
| 137 | ** Word of God, well one of the Gods (the artist) is that it's unintentional, but he likes the idea so [[AscendedFanon why not?]] |
| 138 | * ''ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'': ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} dying in ''Wolverine'' #55? Turns out he was a clone, and the real Sabretooth was in hiding all along. Which doesn't explain how his soul shows up in Hell and is beheaded by a sword that is supposed to render the victim unable to return to the living. |
| 139 | [[/folder]] |
| 140 | |
| 141 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 142 | * ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'': It turns out the dinosaurs didn't die out sixty-five million years ago: they were just hiding. (One of them claims to be a 'Nobodysaurus' -- [[PunnyName geddit?]] This is a joke, however.) |
| 143 | [[/folder]] |
| 144 | |
| 145 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 146 | * ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' had this as the immediate reaction - on consideration, InUniverse, in general by the readers - when it appeared as if [[spoiler: Doctor Strange]] had died in chapter 29 of the sequel. [[spoiler: This turned out to be completely correct, and he strolled in for breakfast in chapter 34.]] |
| 147 | * ''Fanfic/ToHellAndBackArrowverse'' offers an InUniverse example. Barry knows that Eobard has to be alive somewhere after being sucked into the portal, but also knows that, wherever he is, it's likely somewhere that is currently beyond their reach. |
| 148 | [[/folder]] |
| 149 | |
| 150 | [[folder:Film -- Animated]] |
| 151 | * Prince Charming was speculated to have survived the events of ''WesternAnimation/ShrekTheThird'' by the window falling on him after the huge realistic prop tower was knocked onto him by Dragon. |
| 152 | * ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBadBlood'': It's tempting to question whether Killer Moth and Hellhound might have survived being crushed by falling debris at the abbey, or whether Onyx might have survived the explosion of Talia's vessel after already having a NoOneCouldSurviveThat moment. |
| 153 | * [[BigBad Tai Lung's]] ambiguous fate at the end of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda1'' has led to many, '''many''' a FixFic. |
| 154 | ** To be fair, [[WordOfGod the directors' commentary]] made it clear that the creators never intended to reveal Tai Lung's actual fate. [[ObfuscatingStupidity Whether this was a cunning move on their part]] to prevent it from being obvious he'd appear in a sequel will only be revealed in time. But with the exact words being 'Nobody knows what happened to him, it's just a mystery', they clearly don't mind if some fans believe he's only hiding, and may even be just encouraging it. |
| 155 | ** Same for Oogway's disappearance in a puff of petals. Seems to be a natural result in a movie that shows no bodies and [[NeverSayDie never says die]]. |
| 156 | *** It's clear that Oogway's disappearance is a case of AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence; the ambiguity is because there's nothing to tell us whether he can come ''back.'' |
| 157 | *** The [[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda3 third film]] clarifies that Oogway is now living peacefully in the Spirit Realm, and could possibly come back if he wanted to. Via FreezeFrameBonus, [[spoiler: Tai Lung's fate was confirmed as being absorbed by Kai.]] |
| 158 | * ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'': There are still a great many people (even his ''voice actor'', of all people) who believe that Gaston could still be alive, even after WordOfGod confirmed (well, mostly confirmed, at least, [[WordOfStPaul since his voice actor begs to differ]]) that he did, in fact, perish. |
| 159 | * Starting with Optimus Prime and Starscream's deaths in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie'', the weeping of thousands of small children over the former, and their returns in the later stages of the cartoon's third season, it's gotten to the point where nobody's surprised when dead Franchise/{{Transformers}} don't stay that way. [[WesternAnimation/BeastWars Optimus Primal]] came BackFromTheDead ''three times''. Had young fans come to terms with the death of their hero somehow, the world of the Transformers might have been a very different place. |
| 160 | ** Prime's death in the ''G1'' movie had such a profound effect, it actually caused an aversion in another Hasbro toy-based movie; protests over it caused the creators of ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeTheMovie'' to turn Duke's death near the end into a coma. Which is even more ironic when you find out that apparently, the idea to kill off the leader originally came from the guys writing the GI Joe movie. The Hasbro execs liked it so much [[MerchandiseDriven as a way to clear old stock off of shelves]] that they suggested the Transformers movie do the same. Then the GI Joe movie got delayed, Optimus Prime died, and the rest is history. |
| 161 | *** This is also an in-canon rumor about the single, unnamed SAW Viper who notoriously killed four Joes before being hunted down by Snake Eyes in revenge. |
| 162 | * After being defeated in her OneWingedAngel form, Maleficent of ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'' noticeably does ''not'' leave behind a corpse--not a dragon corpse, not a fairy corpse. This has caused many fans to speculate that she did indeed survive, and spawned many a FanFic. |
| 163 | * ''Franchise/TheLionKing'': |
| 164 | ** Thanks to his death occurring in a GoryDiscretionShot, fans of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' believe the villain Scar to have survived and is in hiding somewhere far, far away from the pride. The fact that he's a DracoInLeatherPants ''and'' he makes several cameos in the questionably-canonical animated series doesn't help matters any. |
| 165 | ** Scar also had the trope similarly invoked on him in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''. Despite his being dead, there were a few hints that Scar, even after his Heartless was defeated, still lived on as a ghost hive and later the Earthshaker, and he might have even created a Nobody of himself as the result of his transforming into a Heartless, going by several heavy implications of what happens to people when they become heartless. Plus, if what is implied to have happened to Master Xehanort/Terranort after ''Kingdom Hearts II'' is anything to go by, destroying both his heartless and nobody would most likely bring Scar back to life. |
| 166 | ** The same treatment is often given to Zira and less often Nuka and Mufasa. Zira dies by falling into a raging river and being trampled by logs, but it's vague enough that fans say she could have survived. |
| 167 | * The ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'' fandom has collectively "nope'd" the death of Tadashi Hamada. To be fair, [[spoiler:the other victim of the fire turned out to be just fine]]. |
| 168 | ** Discussed in-universe in the manga adaptation where Tadashi was sucked into a portal during a failed attempt to bring Abigail back. It's theorised that he could still be alive in another dimension. |
| 169 | * When discussing writing [[ComicBook/TheIncredibles comics]] based on ''Franchise/TheIncredibles'', Creator/MarkWaid said that Syndrome might have survived the end of the movie but [[ShrugOfGod refused to say]] whether he did or not. |
| 170 | * Elsa and Anna's parents were killed at sea in ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}''. Since it's implied they [[NeverFoundTheBody never retrieved their remains]], many theories exist that they survived. ''Why'' they have been missing for three years varies, with two popular choices being either they are on a desert island or they have amnesia. The director of both movies, Chris Buck, jokingly said they washed up on an island with their new baby, WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Film -- Live-Action]] |
| 174 | * ''Film/AWedding1978'': While the other characters assume that Tracy dies in the car crash with Briggs, the viewers might question whether she really was with him. It isn't clear how many people are in the car when it leaves, and Tracy and Briggs only have one conversation earlier in the movie, which doesn't seem to set up a strong enough bond for them to steal a car together to spite the newlyweds. |
| 175 | * ''Film/EscapeRoomTournamentOfChampions'': |
| 176 | ** Some fans are convinced that [[spoiler:Rachel and/or Brianna survive the acid rain, especially since Rachel's body has already endured a lot and she falls on top of Brianna and may have shielded her.]] This is mainly due to the two only being seen from a distance once the acid rain starts pouring harder and [[spoiler:Amanda turning up alive after her apparent death.]] |
| 177 | ** Some people think [[spoiler:Nate]] survives being pulled under the quicksand. |
| 178 | * Franchise/MonsterVerse: |
| 179 | ** Somewhat with Ghidorah (specifically with the [[EnsembleDarkhorse San/Kevin]]'s [[MultipleHeadCase decapitated head]]) at the end of ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019''. The fact that the head's flesh is clearly experiencing decomposition in the film's [[TheStinger Stinger]] didn't stop fans speculating that the head is still biologically alive and could [[spoiler:regenerate a whole body from the neck-stump in time]]. Ultimately, ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' revealed that [[spoiler:whilst the head decayed to just a skull, the skull retained Ghidorah's consciousness or at least a fragment of it, enabling Ghidorah's remains to hijack Mechagodzilla and turn it into a RoboticPsychopath]]. |
| 180 | ** Following the release of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', a theory has been gaining traction that [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter Ren Serizawa]] (or at least his body) isn't really dead at the end of the film. The very last we see of Ren in the film is him getting electrocuted in [[spoiler:Ghidorah's skull]] and then slumping forward, whilst an extra scene in the film's novelization depicts Madison returning to the now-destroyed chamber and finding no trace of Ren's body (albeit after the room has been annihilated by [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla's rampage]]). It's really gotten fans hoping that Ren will return after his electrocution, [[Film/Godzilla1954 wearing an eyepatch]] or [[spoiler:possessed by Ghidorah's consciousness]]. |
| 181 | * ''Franchise/StarWars'': |
| 182 | ** {{Inverted|Trope}} by the fandom, who desperately, '''desperately''', wanted [[TheScrappy Jar Jar Binks]] to be hiding... on Alderaan. (Or better yet, accidentally shot by a passing Clone Trooper. In slow-mo.) |
| 183 | ** The fans who believe Mace Windu survived the electrocution and several hundred story fall in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' and has been hiding on Coruscant ever since. It doesn't help that official sources seem to intentionally avoid saying the word "death" here. Well, there '''are''' characters in SW canon who survived similar situations, namely Darth Krayt and Rahm Kota. |
| 184 | *** Then there is Creator/SamuelLJackson wanting to appear in the new SW films and saying that Windu may not have died... |
| 185 | ** Similarly, some think Kit Fisto survived his gut-slash from Palpatine. The claim is based on the fact that the slash didn't appear to be too lethal, just barely hitting his torso. |
| 186 | ** [[EnsembleDarkhorse/StarWars The fandom, in general, loved Boba Fett so much]], {{retcon}}s occurred to keep him alive in the ExpandedUniverse after he was thrown into the Saarlac pit. Creator/GeorgeLucas himself says (in the commentary track on the ''Return of the Jedi'' DVD) that he regrets killing off Boba Fett, and that he seriously considered adding a scene to the DVD showing him escaping from the pit. According to Lucas, the only reason he didn't add the scene was that it didn't seem necessary when most of the fans already believed he survived anyway. [[spoiler:Season 2 of ''Series/TheMandalorian'' would confirm that he did survive in the new Disney canon.]] |
| 187 | ** Aayla Secura, a very minor ([[EnsembleDarkhorse in the films, anyway]]) Jedi killed onscreen during the Order 66 sequence, has attracted speculation that she may have survived. This in spite of the fact that the film goes to fairly great lengths to show her being shot InTheBack, collapsing, then [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill continuing to be shot for some time]]. The usual theory is that her squad of Clone Troopers used stun blasts to ''pretend'' to comply with Order 66. The Expanded Universe did include the examples of Jedi surviving Order 66 because their clones refused to obey the order, but Aayla wasn't one of them. |
| 188 | ** Similarly, Shaak Ti, another minor Jedi, has a habit of surviving not only situations that ''should'' have killed her, but also two that actually '''did'''. She was filmed dying ''twice'' in ''Revenge of the Sith'', at the hands of both General Grievous and Darth Vader, but both scenes were dropped. She was last seen falling into a Sarlacc pit in ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'', and we ''all'' know NoOneCouldSurviveThat...[[note]]...though what appears to be her Force Ghost can be seen flying away in some versions of the game.[[/note]] She was also supposed to die during [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars the first animated Clone Wars series]], making it '''3''' times she's cheated death. |
| 189 | ** They've recently been killing off all sorts of characters. There's a whole genre of fanfic dedicated to Anakin (Solo) and Mara getting better. And many believe Luke's going to survive even into ''Legacy'', but for some reason, he has to appear to Cade as a blue ghostie. |
| 190 | ** The official ''Franchise/StarWars'' board had a joke movement saying that the background character [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/San_Hill San Hill]] is still alive and well because he is never shown being killed in the movie and his body isn't there after Anakin kills the Separatist council. WordOfGod by a continuity manager squashed this, though this doesn't explain the appearance of ''another'' San Hill (but a human one, not a muun) in the same position in the game ''Forces of Corruption''. |
| 191 | ** ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' fans have this attitude toward Revan. Which definitely isn't helped by the fact that his fate after around a year after the game is set was never revealed. They were right this time around. [[VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic He's still alive and kicking 300 years later.]] Well, for [[AndIMustScream certain definitions of "alive."]] |
| 192 | ** InUniverse in ''ComicBook/StarWarsShatteredEmpire'', Captain Duvat believes that the Emperor still lives and anything else is just Rebel propaganda, and repeating it is a punishable act of treason. |
| 193 | ** [[spoiler:Han Solo]]'s death in ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' has naturally received quite a bit of this. The fact that [[spoiler:Creator/HarrisonFord]] has been announced to be appearing in Episode 8 no doubt fuels quite a bit of this. However, later cast lists released as Episode 8 began filming began casting doubt on this. |
| 194 | ** After the announcement of ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', a lot of people began to apply this train of thought to Darth Plagueis, first mentioned in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', based on Palpatine's comments that his old master was able to conquer death. The EU book ''[[Literature/StarWarsTarkin Tarkin]]'' dropped a couple of details about the enigmatic figure into the canon also helped the theory gain some support. A number of people are convinced that he was somehow FakingTheDead and could be the BigBad of the Sequel Trilogy as a way of [[SerialEscalation raising the stakes]] from his apprentice. This theory gained greater credibility when fans found that [[https://youtu.be/mSQ3BJVMfAI "Snoke's Theme"]] from TFA's soundtrack sounded very similar to [[https://youtu.be/tckqZzI4eb0 "Palpatine's Teachings"]] from ROTS's soundtrack. |
| 195 | ** Creator/MarkHamill says that Luke didn't die in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', he teleported to a nudist colony, hence the [[EmptyPilesOfClothing empty pile of clothing]] he left behind. |
| 196 | ** A fair amount of fans believe that Captain Phasma yet again survived her apparent fiery death. |
| 197 | ** Despite being bisected by Kylo Ren, some fans believe that Snoke may have somehow cheated death. ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' showed they were correct... [[HijackedByGanon from a certain point of view]]. |
| 198 | ** [[spoiler: Ben Solo's]] death in ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' sparked a ''massive'' backlash and WildMassGuessing as to how he could potentially be brought back, with the [[spoiler: Save Ben Solo]] social media hashtag turning into a full-blown fan campaign. |
| 199 | ** Darth Maul, despite being [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe bisected]] and pushed down [[DisneyVillainDeath a pit]] in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', was the subject of speculation for years as to whether he survived or not, mainly due to his EnsembleDarkhorse status in ''The Phantom Menace''. [[spoiler: ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' ended up bringing him back for real, and explores the consequences of his survival.]] |
| 200 | * After the advance screenings of ''Film/{{Serenity}}'', a whole website/blog was established devoted to saving the character of Wash, because some fans found his death too upsetting and felt that it ruined the movie's good vibes. In this case, it wasn't so much a matter of making up {{fanon}}ical ways that he could still be alive (being impaled through the chest with a giant wooden harpoon being a fairly definitive death) as pressuring the filmmakers to go back and change the movie's final sequence to have Wash survive somehow ("he can just be trapped offscreen during the final battle!"), as though it would have been possible/cost-effective to bring back the entire cast and crew, remake the final thirty minutes of the movie, and have it ready for the movie's September release, which at that point was three months away. Even years later, fans still continue to come up with ideas like Wash being switched for a clone and actually being held in an Alliance prison. The comics make the death harder to reverse, though, in several ways. |
| 201 | ** Creator/JossWhedon has said that this is what he fully intended the reaction to be, to an extent; he knew that the fandom would not react favourably to the death and in this way made the connection with the character all the stronger by proving that they were genuinely sad that he was gone. |
| 202 | * [[http://www.bringbackkirk.com Many fans of]] ''Franchise/StarTrek'' didn't like the way [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Captain Kirk was killed]] in ''[[Film/StarTrekGenerations Generations]]''. And neither did Creator/WilliamShatner, who co-wrote a series of non-{{Canon}} Trek novels set after ''Generations'' which resurrected Kirk. Fans call this series the "[[TheVerse Shatnerverse]]", though whether lovingly or derisively depends on the Trekkie. |
| 203 | ** And then there's Data. It seems that every single Data fan has fanfic detailing what happens after ''Nemesis'' to bring the beloved android back to life. Of course... he ''is'' an android in the first place and the movie did hint at Data's possible rebirth through his brother B4, so it's slightly more believable than a lot of other instances of this trope... even if it will never happen in canon (Brent Spiner himself has said he's getting too old for the role). |
| 204 | *** This has achieved a sort of quasi-canonicity now, with Data's "resurrection" through B4 being a plot point of a new comic book miniseries which bills itself as "the official prequel to the [[Film/StarTrek2009 new Star Trek movie]]". While comics are not considered canon in ''Trek'', this certainly has some weight as it's written by Kurtzman and Orci, who wrote the screenplay for the new film. |
| 205 | *** ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' consider the event to be canon in the timeline leading up to the game, too. |
| 206 | *** The ''Literature/StarTrekTheNextGenerationRelaunch'' novels also resurrected Data, albeit in a slightly different way to ''Star Trek Online'' (his memories are transferred from B4 into a new body, rather than taking control of B4's body). |
| 207 | *** Dr [=McCoy=] in ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'' |
| 208 | --->'''[=McCoy=]''': He's not dead....not as long as we remember him. |
| 209 | *** [[spoiler:Data is officially resurrected in the final season of ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', in a new human-like body.]] |
| 210 | * The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse: |
| 211 | ** In ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'': |
| 212 | *** It was speculated that Comicbook/RedSkull was actually (possibly temporarily) banished to another plane of existence rather than actually killed in the climax. The main supporting evidence was that the method of Red Skull's "disintegration" into a beam of light was very similar to interdimensional travel and portals that were seen in other Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse films like ''Film/{{Thor}}'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}''. [[spoiler:This was '''finally''' confirmed to be true years later, in his brief cameo in ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''.]] |
| 213 | *** And ComicBook/BuckyBarnes had been rescued from some vague experiments before his apparent death falling from a train, leading to speculation that he'd been made into another super-soldier who could have survived such a fall. Further evidence is that something similar to this had happened to Bucky in the comics. The sequel all but confirmed it from the moment it was subtitled ''[[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier The Winter Soldier]]'' - Bucky's post-"resurrection" codename from the comics. |
| 214 | ** In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', it was widely speculated that Phil Coulson survived being stabbed by Loki and Comicbook/NickFury lied about him dying to motivate the Avengers. We know that Fury was lying to the team anyway - Maria Hill pointed out that Coulson wasn't actually carrying the bloodstained TragicKeepsake that Fury showed the team afterward, and while we saw the medics arrive it was ''Fury'' that relayed their verdict to everyone else. The ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' TV series later provided an answer, but it's complicated: [[spoiler:Coulson ''was'' dead, for ''days'', before being revived through horrific experimental procedures involving alien body fluids]]. |
| 215 | ** ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'': |
| 216 | *** There are a large number of fans who suspect/hope that [[spoiler:Arnim Zola]] had some secret means of escaping before his home got blown up. After all, [[spoiler:he's digitized himself as a computer program now, all it would take to escape would be an Internet connection]]. |
| 217 | *** Like with Coulson (see below) fans are now wishing the same of [[spoiler:Sitwell to both still be alive and be a triple agent instead of a traitor. He even has his own hashtag campaign like Coulson did called #ibelieveinsitwell.]] |
| 218 | ** ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'': |
| 219 | *** While there is definitive proof that Quicksilver is down for the count, many wondered if the character will [[DeathIsCheap stay dead forever]], especially when taking the character's shared film rights into account. It's also worth noting that the actor has signed a multi-film contract, so it's not impossible that they're planning to bring him BackFromTheDead later down the line ([[Film/TheAvengers2012 it wouldn't be]] [[Series/AgentsOfSHIELD the first time]]). |
| 220 | *** Ultron. Seriously, if you've got an army of drones and you can hide inside any single one, then why not let two slip away with one acting as a decoy? The fact that the film does not outright show Vision destroying him has only added fuel to this fire. |
| 221 | *** Baron Strucker is killed by Ultron barely halfway through the film, but in the comics, the character has [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat a history of surviving seemingly-fatal incidents]] which could be carried over here. Also, the actor signed a multi-film contract before filming started on this movie just like Aaron Johnson as Quicksilver, so it's not impossible we'll see them again. |
| 222 | ** ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' and ''Film/AvengersEndgame'': |
| 223 | *** Nobody, '''nobody''', who had any knowledge of the superhero genre believed that [[spoiler: the characters snapped out of existence by Thanos]] wouldn't get resurrected, despite the claims of some people connected with the films that they were absolutely permanently dead, not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story, no do-overs. This rang especially true when the trailer ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'' was released a few months before ''Endgame'', showing footage of [[spoiler:Nick Fury and Peter Parker [[LateArrivalSpoiler alive and well, even though both were dusted]] in ''Infinity War''.]] |
| 224 | *** On the other hand, fan reactions to the other deaths in the first film got it completely wrong. [[spoiler:Loki - who was assumed to be coming back due to his trickster nature and the DroppedABridgeOnHim aspects of his demise - and Gamora - used by Thanos as the necessary sacrifice to get the Soul Stone - were indeed KilledOffForReal, but given ''Endgame'' is centered around time travel, this means early versions of the characters were 'spared' and brought back into the fold. In her case, it's one from the start of ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'' who arrives with Thanos's army in the film's present day. In his case, he escapes with the Tesseract after ''Film/TheAvengers2012'', and [[Series/Loki2021 a whole show ensues]] because the [[TimePolice Time Variance Authority]] didn't like seeing such a disruption of history.]] |
| 225 | *** Though the major fan-theory about how Loki faked his death (swapping out his 'corpse' for a random piece of debris) is semi-canonized in his series. [[spoiler: A Variant, Classic Loki, ''did'' do this, but he ended up Pruned by the TVA because the Sacred Timeline had Loki die for real.]] |
| 226 | *** There are a lot of fans who think that, given [[spoiler:Thanos' vision of Gamora]], the characters who were [[spoiler:sacrificed to obtain the Soul Gem]] might be in limbo somehow and resurrectable. [[spoiler:This is {{Jossed}} in ''Endgame'', when Hulk reveals that he tried to bring back Natasha, who also sacrificed herself to retrieve the Soul Stone, when he performed his own Snap, but it proved impossible. Even when it was revealed [[Film/BlackWidow2021 Natasha's solo film]] would be sort of a prequel (which indeed, in TheStinger has her "sister" / successor Yelena going to Natasha's grave), set before ''Infinity War'', some fans still have hope she is alive or will be revived.]] |
| 227 | *** Any of number of fans still think it's possible that [[spoiler:Tony Stark]] could be resurrected as early as ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'' despite the aftermath of his death explicitly being a driving presence in that movie alone. |
| 228 | ** Because of Mysterio's standing as a MasterOfIllusion and the nature of his ThanatosGambit at the end of ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'', many believe it's possible he faked his death (as his comics counterpart frequently did) in the final battle. |
| 229 | * Harvey Dent/Two-Face in ''Film/TheDarkKnight''. He wasn't moving after he hit the ground and there was a funeral, but some fans say that they "saw him breathing" after his fall. The fate of the character was addressed in an interview where Creator/AaronEckhart revealed that Harvey did in fact die and that he had to ask the director if the character was really, truly dead from the fall. This, of course, has led to fans pointing out the [[ExactWords possible loophole]] that while ''Harvey'' might be dead, ''Two-Face'' might have survived. |
| 230 | ** A lot of the speculation was likely also because Creator/HeathLedger's death left a void in what would (presumably) have been the main villain of the next movie, leading some fans to believe that Two-Face's death might be retconned even if it had been intended as final. [[IKnewIt As it happens]], [[WordOfGod Nolan himself confirmed]] in an interview that had Heath Ledger not died, half the plot of the third Batman movie [[WhatCouldHaveBeen would have]] involved [[NotQuiteDead Two Face]] going on a rampage through Gotham while ComicBook/TheJoker stood trial. |
| 231 | ** In-universe examples: Two people fake their deaths. [[spoiler:Gordon]] in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', and [[spoiler:Batman himself]] in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''. |
| 232 | * After Dr. Gordon's grim (but not conclusive) fate in the original ''Film/SawI'' film, fans were rabidly divided as to whether or not the character should, or even could return in a later film. [[spoiler:He did, in ''Film/Saw3D''.]] |
| 233 | ** [[spoiler: Adam]] was also left to an uncertain fate in the first film before being confirmed to be dead in the second, but that hasn't stopped fans from theorizing how he could still possibly be alive. |
| 234 | * Cleon of ''Film/TheWarriors'' is given this treatment by some of the fanbase. The last time he's seen in the film, he's being beaten up by The Riff's after being accused of killing their leader. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse He's never seen or mentioned after this.]] The fact that the novel character he's based on actually survived continues to fuel the theories. |
| 235 | * Rinzler, who is actually a corrupted Tron in ''Film/TronLegacy'', especially since it's uncertain as to whether he drowned or not in the [[BuffySpeak cubey-sea]]. |
| 236 | ** A fair amount of the fandom calls this on Flynn and[=/=]or Clu as well. |
| 237 | ** ''Confirmed'' in [[DVDBonusContent The Next Day]] with [[spoiler: ''[[BigBad Master]] [[FromBadToWorse Control]] [[OhCrap Program]]'']]. |
| 238 | * ''Film/Scream3'': Jennifer is stabbed twice and thrown through a glass pane in front of Gale and Dewey, but the stab wounds don't look fatal and listening closely, she seems to be screaming after smashing through the glass but before hitting the floor, making it possible that she was just unconscious. |
| 239 | * Kirby is stabbed twice in ''Film/{{Scream 4}}'' and left for dead by the film's co-Ghostface Charlie - but as many fans of her character and/or Creator/HaydenPanettiere have pointed out (as do director Creator/WesCraven and Panettiere herself on the DVDCommentary), it's never actually confirmed in the film that she kicks it; the last time she's seen she's still alive, and this series generally makes very sure to let us know who's KilledOffForReal and who [[NotQuiteDead isn't]]. Admittedly the film's designated Ghostface Jill includes her in the roll call in the hospital, but she wasn't around when it took place and it's reasonable to presume she only assumed it went according to plan, as everything else had up to then. (Interestingly, a lot of ''Scream 5'' fan fiction [[FixFic brings back]] Kirby.) Eleven years later, ''Film/Scream2022'' revealed in a FreezeFrameBonus that Kirby had survived and was still alive, and then she returns with a prominent supporting role in ''Film/ScreamVI'', where she survives again. |
| 240 | * People unhappy about Irene Adler's [[DroppedABridgeOnHim bridge dropping]] in ''Film/SherlockHolmesAGameOfShadows'' have proposed that she's still alive and is being held captive by Moriarty/Moran and that her rescue (and Moran's survival) will drive the plot of the inevitable third movie. And, of course, Holmes himself, for some reason, actually is hiding. |
| 241 | * ''Film/FridayThe13thPart2'': |
| 242 | ** [[spoiler:Paul]] has many people convinced that he survived his final battle with Jason, although in the film itself his fate is unclear. |
| 243 | ** [[spoiler:Terry]] being attacked off-screen and not having any serious-looking wounds when Jason lays her body at the shrine for his mother causes some fans to believe that she may just be unconscious. |
| 244 | * ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation'': Any Joe not seen killed on screen during the big massacre who was a character in [[Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra the original]] might be presumably still alive, out there somewhere. Candidates include Scarlett, Ripcord, Breaker, and pretty much anyone else still alive at the end of Rise that didn't make it to screen in Retaliation. |
| 245 | * ''Film/PacificRim'': [[http://www.deviantart.com/art/team-cherno-393318881 Plenty of comics]] [[http://pocketaimee.com/post/58790959258/this-is-what-happened-after-the-end-of-the-movie have been made]] [[http://pocketaimee.com/post/58912484064/they-are-not-so-good-with-directions-and-yes retconning]] [[spoiler:the Kaidanovskys']] death. |
| 246 | * There were plans for a sequel to ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' where Rocky would have been revealed to be in a coma rather than dead and a blood transfusion would have resurrected Dr. Frank N. Furter but it was rewritten into ''Film/ShockTreatment'' where this never happens. |
| 247 | * The Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse: |
| 248 | ** ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' has an interesting case: According to the [[DirectorsCut Ultimate Edition]], the CIA spook disguised as a cameraman was named Comicbook/JimmyOlsen. Many fans were outraged that they killed off such an important ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' character [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter so flippantly]]--he [[NoNameGiven didn't even get named]] in the theatrical cut, and never met his "pal" Clark--with a persistent fan theory/hope that a later movie will reveal that the CIA agent was just using the ''real'' Jimmy's identity. |
| 249 | ** Also from [=BvS=], [[BodyguardBabes Mercy Graves]]. Sure, she was caught up in an explosion, but her comic version is an Amazon who's gone toe-to-toe with Superman--so what if she ''seems'' [[AdaptationalWimp wimpier]] here? |
| 250 | ** In ''Film/{{Suicide Squad|2016}},'' [[spoiler:[[TokenGoodTeammate El Diablo]]]] is one of the most popular characters and he pulls a HeroicSacrifice, but we never see his body, so... |
| 251 | * ''Film/KingsmanTheGoldenCircle'': [[spoiler:Roxy]] is rather abruptly killed off in the first act. A number of fans pulled this especially because unlike the other dead Kingsmen like Arthur, who are explicitly hit by missiles, the one fired at [[spoiler:Roxy]] hits the bunker under the Kingsman mansion and that causes the structure to collapse. The lack of a direct hit, coupled by them moving offscreen for cover when they notice the missile has led to many thinking it was a fake-out in the same vein as [[spoiler:Harry from the first film]]. |
| 252 | * ''Film/MackennasGold'': While Hesh-Ke ''is'' seen taking a pretty long fall off a cliff, she isn't shown hitting the ground, and once the other characters reach the bottom of the canyon, her body isn't there. |
| 253 | * ''Film/Roadhouse1989'': Some fans think that [[spoiler:Morgan and O'Connor]] are only knocked unconscious and not killed during the climax. It helps that their fights with Dalton are offscreen. |
| 254 | * ''Film/{{Sabretooth}}'': |
| 255 | ** [[spoiler:Lola]]. [[spoiler:She]]'s still screaming while being carried away by the creature, [[spoiler:her]] body is never shown, and a previous victim of the beast was found badly mauled but still alive. |
| 256 | ** [[spoiler:Leon]] isn't clawed anywhere near the heart and his body isn't mauled further or drenched with enough blood to indicate he bled out, leaving it possible that he may have just been unconscious when his body is seen. |
| 257 | * ''Film/{{Goldeneye}}'': Given the limited amount of time that [[spoiler:Xenia Onatopp spends being "squeezed" by her harness during the helicopter crash, some fans wonder if she's only unconscious.]] |
| 258 | * ''Film/AustinPowers'': The second movie ''The Spy Who Shagged Me'' abruptly and nonsensically retcons the first movie’s love interest Vanessa into having been one of Dr. Evil’s Fembots all along in order to write her out of the movie as a TemporaryLoveInterest, with the only comment about it after she self-destructs being Basil Exposition saying, "Sadly, we knew all along," and then no one ever bringing it up again for RuleOfFunny. Fans who were attached to Vanessa in the first film who were dissatisfied with how she was killed off also noticed contradictions in her having been a robot the entire time, namely that she had a mother who was Austin’s partner in the Sixties and time the Fembots were first created in the Nineties. Many of these fans speculate that there was a real human Vanessa, but she got replaced by a Fembot duplicate at some point prior to the second movie (which doesn’t exactly bode well for the real Vanessa anyway, but at least does not completely retcon her entire character). The common point at which she is believed to have been replaced is during the climax of the first movie, in the time between Austin going off on his own to confront Dr. Evil after the other Fembots are destroyed and Alotta Fagina showing up with Vanessa held at gunpoint, with the Vanessa she’s holding hostage actually being the Fembot and the real Vanessa’s whereabouts uncertain. |
| 259 | [[/folder]] |
| 260 | |
| 261 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 262 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 263 | ** Sirius Black. The denial of his death has become an international meme known as "Sirius denial". The name comes from one of the EpilepticTrees planted by the manner of his death - literally going beyond the veil separating the world and the afterlife, leaving him DeaderThanDead. The premise is that having your physical body, rather than just your soul, sent to the afterlife must surely be different from actually ''dying''. |
| 264 | ** The death of Albus Dumbledore set off an equally large reaction, if not larger. This despite the fact that there were no less than three factors to the death, any one of which would have killed him on its own. Four factors, if you've read ''Deathly Hallows''. |
| 265 | ** Parodied in ''Deathly Hallows'', when Mad-Eye Moody dies off-screen and the characters spend several minutes debating if he was really dead or not. Ron remains unconvinced even after Hermione pointed out that what would have had him survive, well, pretty much the same things that killed Dumbledore, required stunning leaps of logic. The nail in the coffin for the trio comes when Harry sees his magic eye implanted in Umbridge's door but that itself doesn't fully prove his death. Out-of-universe, some fans point to a briefly glimpsed one-eyed beggar as evidence Moody may not be as dead as he seems. |
| 266 | ** Also parodied by the site "Hedwig is Not Dead". |
| 267 | ** Although the reaction was not as large, a large number of Snape fans believe that the character is still alive (secretly) after the final book. Normally the fan suggestion is that he would have left the country due to a lack of reason to stay and the antagonism that would have remained around him even if Harry fought for his name to be cleared. The most frequent evidence for Snape being alive are: a) he did not appear immediately in a painting in Hogwarts on the wall of dead Headmasters the way that Dumbledore did (something that has been explained by Rowling as him leaving his post without dying or officially retiring), b) the fact that he was a Potions Master with an extensive knowledge of poisons and antidotes, c) that Arthur Weasley survived multiple bites from the same snake in an earlier book, suggesting the venom is not fast-working, and d) that because there was no immediate spurt of blood the snake did not actually pierce the jugular. |
| 268 | *** The film adaptation adds an additional wrinkle to the death scene by having Voldemort also use the Sectumsempra curse, which itself is lethal in time. Regardless, this death stands out because Snape almost certainly could have been saved with sufficiently quick medical attention, and also because it's the only time Voldemort has ever been shown to kill someone without using the Avada Kedavra curse. |
| 269 | ** A group of the fandom believed for a time that Regulus Black, the brother of Sirius, may still be alive and that he only faked his death. |
| 270 | ** Given that we never see his body or even witness his death, some people believed for a time that Prof. Quirrell survived. |
| 271 | * Wellsie's vicious murder in the Literature/BlackDaggerBrotherhood series left fans not only [[TearJerker heartbroken]], but scrambling for this trope. |
| 272 | * When Literature/SherlockHolmes went over the waterfall in "The Final Problem", Conan Doyle got scads of hate mail, apparently-sane young men wore mourning bands, and he was offered scads of money to bring him back. Of course, since they NeverFoundTheBody, it turned out that he was just hiding with the Dalai Lama, having somehow won his death-struggle by means of a mastery of "Baritsu, the Japanese system of wrestling". |
| 273 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' is an excellent source for these theories. |
| 274 | ** There are people out there who still think Eddard Stark is alive... Somehow... Without his head... Well, the theory is that it was an imposter who lost his head (which is not completely an AssPull, as it's been explicitly established in the series that shapeshifters exist -- of course, they're all a secret order of death-obsessed assassins). |
| 275 | ** Two words: The Hound. There is even sufficient evidence that he ''is'' still alive, unless Martin is pulling a gigantic [[{{Fauxshadow}} dick move]]. WordOfGod says that The Hound is dead. Sandor Clegane is at rest. That just screams [[MetaphoricallyTrue Jedi Truth]]. The Hound is dead (because Sandor Clegane has stopped being a murdering psycho). Sandor Clegane is at rest (since he has pulled a HeelFaithTurn). |
| 276 | *** There's also the matter of the fake!Hounds. Brienne, even knowing that Sandor is "at rest," refers to Rorge and then Lem as "the Hound" in her narration after they each appropriate the Hound's distinctive helmet. This gives more support to the idea that "the Hound" is only a title/LegacyCharacter-situation, an identity which has now become detached from Sandor Clegane himself. |
| 277 | ** And then there's Bran and Rickon, who really ''were'' just hiding after Theon apparently killed them in ''A Clash of Kings''. |
| 278 | ** Syrio Forel. Given how he easily disarmed several armed men using a stick and his actual death wasn't shown on-screen, some deny his death, even going so far as to claim he's actually Jaqen H'ghar. WordOfGod says he's dead, that men-at-arms are one thing and a well-trained Knight of the Kingsguard in full plate armour is something else entirely. |
| 279 | ** Benjen Stark has been theorized to be about half of the world's population at this point, due to him mysteriously going missing in the first book. |
| 280 | * When Creator/IanFleming killed off Literature/JamesBond in ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove'', there apparently was a large outcry for Fleming to reinstate Bond in the next book, ''Literature/DrNo''. |
| 281 | * Rudolf Rassendyll in ''Rupert of Hentzau'' (the little-known sequel to ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda'') is an early example of this phenomenon, as is Fuchsia Groan of ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}'' fame. In both cases made particularly ridiculous by the fact that they had ''on-page state funerals''. |
| 282 | * Creator/StephenKing {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this trope in ''Literature/{{Misery}}''. When LoonyFan Annie Wilkes finds out that Paul Sheldon killed off her favorite character in his most recent novel, she forces him to write a sequel in which Misery is shown to be still alive. When she reads Paul's first draft, which revises the ending of the previous book, she accuses Paul of [[RetCon cheating]]. His next draft reveals that she was accidentally BuriedAlive. |
| 283 | * Many fans of ''Literature/TheUnderlandChronicles'' refuse to believe that Twitchtip is dead, mostly because Gregor (and the audience) only found out about her "off screen" death through a bit of intercepted information. Some say she faked her death and is out running in the Underland somewhere while others say the rats were just lying to each other. |
| 284 | * ''Literature/LorienLegacies'': People like to believe that Devektra from ''The Lost Files'' may have survived the invasion of Lorien due to her BadassBystander moments and cute interactions with Sandor. While the planet she was left behind on is apparently entirely scourged of life, some fans point out that she isn't killed onscreen despite ample opportunities when she could have been. |
| 285 | * Quite a few old-school fans of the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse refuse to believe that [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn]] was killed at Bilbringi, to the point that it's a FandomSpecificPlot that he survived his BodyguardBetrayal due to armor embedded under his skin/nanites[=/=]BizarreAlienBiology, despite the fact that all media set past that point makes no sense if Thrawn lived. This plot featured in some of the "[[FixFic Zahn fixes]]" that came up in reaction to some of the events in the EU. Creator/TimothyZahn semi-addressed this in the ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology and ''[[Literature/OutboundFlight Survivor's Quest]]''; Hand of Thrawn has a clone, the BigBadTriumvirate creating the illusion that he was BackFromTheDead, ''and'' [[HomosexualReproduction Grodin Tierce]]. ''Survivor's Quest'' just hints rather strongly and has Luke and Mara speculate that there was another clone. Though Zahn has made it clear that a clone of Thrawn, even with copies of his memories, [[ClonesArePeopleToo would still be his own person]]. |
| 286 | ** ''Literature/FateOfTheJedi'' has an inversion: Because of it being released either after or around the same time as the Legacy era comics (which has Luke Skywalker as a force ghost), several fans were speculating that Luke Skywalker might end up dying by the end of this book series. However, he did not. |
| 287 | ** In-universe, it's stated that if Corran Horn ever dies for ''real'' (he's been thought dead more times in the Literature/XWingSeries than he's actually ''appeared'' in it), everyone will assume he's alive somewhere and will reappear soon. |
| 288 | * In Creator/CharlesDickens' last and incomplete novel, ''Literature/TheMysteryOfEdwinDrood'', the title character Edwin disappears mid-novel and is assumed to be dead, a victim of murder, although no body is found. Because the author died before completing the book, the intended resolution is unknown and subject to much speculation. One theory is that the character Dick Datchery is actually a disguised Edwin. |
| 289 | * In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' short story ''Aftermath'', this trope is invoked at the end, when Murphy says, "There's this voice inside me that keeps pointing out that we haven't seen a body. Until I have, I can't believe [Harry] is dead." |
| 290 | ** In ''Literature/GhostStory'' she refuses to believe that Harry's ghost is him because that would mean admitting he's dead. She finally accepts it at the end of the book, and [[TearJerker/TheDresdenFiles breaks down]]. |
| 291 | *** Of course, she has no way of knowing that he was resurrected less than an hour later. |
| 292 | * Weirdly inverted in ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo''. Due to his previous manipulations (writing himself into flight rosters to get the flight bonus without actually flying), Doc Daneeka is recorded as having been inside of a plane that crashes. He's marked down as dead, and the administration refuses to correct the error, even though he is standing right in front of them, clearly alive. A more straightforward example is Orr, who is presumed dead when he disappears in combat, [[spoiler:but has actually fled to Sweden]]. |
| 293 | * Barley from ''Literature/TheBuilders''. The novel itself hinted that he might have fled from battle after he was assaulting Mephetic's forces. Since [[NeverFoundTheBody his body wasn't found]], we've no idea if he abandoned the Captain's crew and went back to living a normal life, or if he was killed and buried beneath the rubble. |
| 294 | * Applied InUniverse in "''Laura and the Silver Wolf''". Near to the end, Laura tells Eileen that [[IChooseToStay she will go to Ice-Land and stay there]] and that it will probably look like she is dead - but she isn't and Eileen should tell that to her father. And then she [[TearJerker does go to Ice-Land. The End]] But maybe... she was right? |
| 295 | * An in-universe case. Fans were unhappy when Zilpha Keatley Snyder killed off Raamo in the Literature/GreenSkyTrilogy. Snyder herself came to regret the decision as well...leading to her creating and helping to design a {{Canon}} sequel to her work in the form of [[TheGameOfTheBook a video game]] (one of the first of its kind). The game's quest is to gather information, strength, and tools in order to rescue the poor fellow. |
| 296 | * Most Fanfics for ''Literature/BridgeToTerabithia'' fall into two categories: "What '''If''' Leslie didn't die?", and " Leslie '''didn't die''', ''period''". This is actually done InUniverse as well, with Jesse believing that her death is all lies, believing she saw her over at her house when they went to pay their respects, and finally mistaking May-Belle's voice for Leslie's. |
| 297 | * InUniverse example in Creator/JohnGreen's ''Literature/LookingForAlaska''. When Pudge learns that Alaska is dead, he tries to convince the Dean of the school that she's just pulling a prank. [[TearJerker The Dean then tells Pudge he saw her body.]] |
| 298 | * InUniverse example in ''Literature/MidnightsChildren'': After she turns against Pakistan's government, Saleem's sister is arrested and never seen again. However, Saleem has a dream about her escaping and hiding among a group of nuns, and desperately clings to this happier possibility. Her ultimate fate is left ambiguous. |
| 299 | * ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' makes it ''pretty clear'' that when Dorn kills Alpharius, he really does kill Alpharius. However, thanks to Alpha Legion having a wheels-within-wheels methodology, a penchant for MindScrew and great love for [[ActuallyADoombot body doubles]], many people believe that it wasn't Alpharius at all. Even many of those who ''do'' accept his death believe that he already has a resurrection scheme in place. |
| 300 | * ''Literature/WarriorCats'': |
| 301 | ** Snowkit is a very minor character but fans felt so bad for him that this idea is very common. Snowkit was a [[BuryYourDisabled deaf kit who was taken away by a hawk]] because he couldn't hear the warning cries. Fans usually say that either the bird dropped him/he fell out of the nest and he was taken in by another Clan, the same thing but he survived into adulthood on his own as a loner, he was taken in by a twoleg and became a kittypet, or he grew up into Snowtuft. |
| 302 | ** Some fans have interpreted the deaths in ''Shattered Sky'' to be this, due to most of them being off-screen and ambiguous. Two major examples of this are [[spoiler:Dawnpelt, who was never seen again after stating her intention to flee to [=ThunderClan=],]] as well as [[spoiler:Needletail,]] who was never ''shown'' dying due to a GoryDiscretionShot and the PointOfView switching. We do hear [[spoiler:her]] screaming off-screen, however. The fact that they NeverFoundTheBody in both cases, as well as most of the deaths, supports this. Not to mention, a good chunk of [[spoiler:[=ShadowClan=]]] disappeared in this matter... |
| 303 | * There is fan fiction for Rene Barjavel's ''The Ice People'' (''La Nuit de Temps'') in which thirty or so years later, a second team is able to reopen the Gondawa complex in the Antarctic and read more of the material preserved there, and find that the Black Seed is not a death pill but causes suspended animation, meaning both the [[HumanPopsicle frozen people]] in the dome are alive and can be revived. |
| 304 | * ''Literature/SergeStorms'': Given how [[BumblingSidekick Coleman]]'s explicit death in the first book is later retconned, it can occasionally be nice to hope that other characters who seem dead are really alive. |
| 305 | ** In ''Cadillac Beach'', [[spoiler:MasterActor Doug]], a particularly impressive villain, is shown falling to the ground after being shot in the chest, but the word ''dead'' is never used. |
| 306 | ** In ''Torpedo Juice'', [[spoiler:Gaskin Fussels/DEA Agent Wilson]] getting an anticlimactic "fatal wound to the head" can feel disappointing after his ObfuscatingStupidity GoodAllAlong undercover cop antics, and it can be nice to wonder if that line just meant potentially fatal and not actually fatal. |
| 307 | ** [[spoiler:FemmeFatale Rachael Rhodes]] from ''Atomic Lobster'' is one of the few people whose killing be Serge doesn’t really sit right with many fans due to her not doing much worse than [[spoiler:doing drugs, or attacking Serge and Coleman in justifiable anger at learning they killed her sister in an earlier book]]. Since her NeverFoundTheBody death involves falling off a cruise ship while suffocating on fire extinguisher foam, it can be nice to hope that she somehow survived. Temporarily inhaling some water could have even saved her life (assuming she coughed it up) by potentially cleansing out the foam. |
| 308 | * ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': After Eshonai fell into a chasm during the final battle of ''Literature/WordsOfRadiance'', it was widely assumed that she was not dead, not least because it had already been announced that she'd have flashbacks in a later book in the series. It probably didn't help that another character in the same book actually was just hiding and a third was resurrected. Even after the body was found in ''Literature/{{Oathbringer}}'', some fans expected her to return, with some assuming that the spren that followed her sister around after she found the body was actually her soul. Creator/BrandonSanderson eventually {{Jossed}} that theory, confirming that Eshonai is definitely dead and not coming back. |
| 309 | * In ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' this trope is outright given by Lemony Snicket in regards to many of the supporting characters in the series who reappear in the penultimate book of the series. While we are told that some of them died and others are this trope, we are not given any specifics. |
| 310 | ** Some fans think that Aunt Josephine may have somehow survived the swarm of leaches. The Baudelaires themselves wonder about this, though they grimly seem to accept that she's unlikely to have survived. |
| 311 | ** Similarly we never see whether or not the henchman of Olaf's who looks like neither a man nor a woman perished in the fire set in Heimlich Hospital. Even the other henchmen hold out hope that he/she survived. |
| 312 | ** We are never told what the final fate of the Quagmires, the Widdershins family, Hector, and Phil was after being attacked by a giant question mark figure. Though it may have killed them it just as likely may have rescued them, though the Baudelaires and Kit Snicket seem to believe the worst. |
| 313 | * ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': Sammael's high-powered WizardDuel with TheChosenOne Rand gets cut off when his position is overrun by a SoulEating FogOfDoom. Given the setting's {{Reincarnation}} mechanics, the [[NeverFoundTheBody lack of a body]], and the rumour that someone is giving orders to Shadowspawn in his name later, many readers expected him to return. WordOfGod eventually confirmed not only that Sammael is permanently dead, but that he is a "louse" who [[DroppedABridgeOnHim didn't deserve a more climactic demise]]. |
| 314 | * Literature/CiaphasCain, '''[[MemeticMutation HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!]]''' has been declared Missing Presumed Dead or apparently killed and then later come back so often that the Administratum eventually issued a decree that he was to be kept on the active duty roster no matter ''what'' reports of his death they got. This policy remained in effect for some time after Cain died of old age and was buried with full military honors. |
| 315 | [[/folder]] |
| 316 | |
| 317 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 318 | * When Marcus Cole was removed from ''Series/BabylonFive'' in Season 4, he was last seen in a coma, and viewers weren't shown or explicitly told that the plug was pulled. This led many fans to believe he was still in a state of living death and would be revived later. This {{fanon}} theory was seemingly confirmed by a shot in the credits of the DistantFinale, and later confirmed in the more-or-less canon short story "Space, Time, and the Incurable Romantic", where Marcus is revived several hundred years later and lives happily ever after with a cloned Ivanova. |
| 319 | * Many people were devoted to the relationship of Willow and Tara on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and were devastated when Tara died near the end of season 6. There are many websites of Willow and Tara fanfics. In half of these stories, the events of season 6 are changed to keep Tara from dying. In the other half, Tara dies but is somehow brought back from the dead afterwards. After all, Buffy was resurrected by a magic spell at the start of season 6, so why not Tara? Willow tried and failed to use magic to bring back Tara on the TV show, but in fanfiction, the FirstLawOfResurrection applies. |
| 320 | ** There were several areas where Creator/AmberBenson might have come back. As the First, but Benson was available. Also, the originally planned finale was to give Buffy one wish, which she would spend the episode trying to figure out how to spend, before ultimately bringing Tara back for Willow. Creator/JossWhedon later stated that, even though neither of those theories panned out, he likes that she stayed dead because it sent the message that Willow could still find love and move on with her life. |
| 321 | *** That said, fans still have reason to be annoyed, because he continues to tease the possibility in the comics, and [[spoiler: pretty much everyone else]] that died during Season 6 was revived, often under very contrived justifications. If he wasn't so quick to use resurrection as a plot device, it might be understandable, but nearly the entire main cast has been brought back at least once. |
| 322 | ** Spike was killed off in the series finale, but was later resurrected in ''Series/{{Angel}}''. The WB's website was advertising Spike joining the cast of ''Angel'' the same day that ''[=BtVS=]'' aired its last episode, if not before. It irritated Joss since it prevented him from doing a shocking intro for anyone who had even looked at the website or read articles pertaining to the show. |
| 323 | * ''Series/BurnNotice'': Larry apparently got blown up towards the end of the series, but given how the character had already escaped almost certain death several times up to that point, only to always come popping back in, viewers were a bit skeptical that he was truly gone. But the series ended before he could ever come back. |
| 324 | * In-story example - in the tv-movie ''Film/DarkNightOfTheScarecrow'', mentally-challenged Bubba is gunned down. His mother later has to tell his young playmate Marylee that he's dead; she laughs and says "He's just being silly...he's playing the Hiding Game!" and [[spoiler: she's right]]. |
| 325 | * ''Series/TheDefenders2017'': The finale creates both in and out-of-universe cases. |
| 326 | ** InUniverse: Even days after Midland Circle was demolished to wipe out the Hand, Karen Page fervently believes that Matt must have somehow survived the building crumbling, and sure enough, the episode's last seconds reveal that he did indeed survive and is recovering in a convent, setting up ''Series/Daredevil2015'' season 3 to adapt the comics' ''ComicBook/BornAgain'' storyline. |
| 327 | ** Out-of-universe: Because Matt survived, many fans have theorized that Elektra may have also survived the collapse as well. |
| 328 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 329 | ** Fans are known for mourning their favourite Doctors after [[TheNthDoctor their regeneration]], even though the character isn't technically dead, and cooking up elaborate theories for how Doctors can regenerate back into whatever the fan's preferred version of themselves is. These theories were eventually [[AscendedFanon confirmed]] in [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], in which Tom Baker, who played the very much loved Fourth Doctor, reappears as a curator who "might" be a future Doctor, playing EccentricMentor to his young self and assuring him that maybe he'll find himself 'revisiting old favourite faces'. However, it is deliberately left ambiguous. |
| 330 | *** Possibly confirmed in ''Timewyrm: Revelation'' where it is claimed that when a Doctor regenerates he lives on in the Doctor's mind. |
| 331 | ** Inverted after the "Trial of a Time Lord" arc, there are a sizable number of fans who believe that Peri really died at the end of "Mindwarp" and that the Inquisitor's claim that she [[EsotericHappyEnding survived to marry Yrcanos]] was a lie. |
| 332 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks "Remembrance of the Daleks"]]: John Peel actually wrote a FixFic ''Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures'' novel which literally claimed the planet Skaro was just hiding. |
| 333 | ** The Time Lords were all killed, with the Doctor as the LastOfHisKind. Then [[EvilCounterpart the Master]] was revealed to have concealed himself by temporarily becoming human, leading fans to endlessly speculate about who else did this (Romana and the Rani being among the most popular choices). [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]] and then even less ambiguously [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]] revealed that Gallifrey was actually locked away from the rest of the universe rather than being destroyed, and could potentially be rediscovered. Then the Master burnt it to the ground and killed all the Time Lords for real, as revealed in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]]. That said, the show's complete disregard for standard logic and continuity means that there's no stopping yet another left-field {{retcon}} from reversing ''this'' bout of ArmedWithCanon. |
| 334 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]]: |
| 335 | *** Theories regarding Donna's Time Lord memories/self/whatever and how she can regain them are similarly endless. |
| 336 | *** In the commentary producer Julie Gardner expressed her belief that Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister wasn't dead and had escaped through a trap door. |
| 337 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven "Death in Heaven"]]: |
| 338 | *** Fans were quick to notice that if Danny had the opportunity to return to the living world two weeks after his Cyberman body was killed, similar means could be used to resurrect any other character killed in the episode. [[JokerImmunity Especially Missy]]. |
| 339 | *** Fans are also adamant that Missy killed a [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor Zygon]] and not the real Osgood. Ingrid Oliver, Osgood's actress, [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02b9fpy certainly liked to think]] her character's just hiding! The following season, it was revealed that ''either'' the real Osgood ''or'' the double was killed, and the surviving one won't say which is which for purposes of maintaining the human-Zygon peace. |
| 340 | *** Missy had been using her disintegrator device to blast people into a cloud of fine red dust left and right. It seems kind of odd that the same device disintegrates her into a cloud of fine blue dust instead, not unlike her teleportation earlier. To this, many point out that the reasoning is flawed because the device itself wasn't used to disintegrate her, with it instead being the Brigadier's Cyberman artillery that did the job. That said, Moffat himself enforced this trope with his comments immediately after the episode aired, noting that he hoped Missy would emulate Anthony Ainley's Master in reappearing without a scratch after getting involved in DeaderThanDead situations. She reappeared at the top of Series 9, in fact, and revealed she had used the weapon fired at her to charge a teleport. |
| 341 | *** Since Seb isn't actually alive, but an A.I., it's unlikely he would have been "killed" by Missy. This, in turn, provides a small HopeSpot regarding Osgood's survival. |
| 342 | ** Clara Oswald's tragic DeaderThanDead sacrifice (lifeforce/soul ripped from her body) in Series 9's [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven "Face the Raven"]] immediately elicited these reactions, partially because there were two episodes left in the season, partially because the cast and crew admitted the fallout from this was key to those episodes (with severely out-of-character behavior on the grieving Doctor's part), and partially because she was set to have at least a final scene in the finale [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent "Hell Bent"]]. In the finale, Clara was extracted from her timeline one heartbeat before her death, and was effectively "put on pause" — she can travel for a very long time before her death, but must eventually return to it, because it's a fixed point in time. And she still can't come back as a companion, because she and the Doctor got too dangerous together. |
| 343 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E1TheWomanWhoFellToEarth "The Woman Who Fell to Earth"]], Grace O'Brien, Graham's wife and Ryan's grandmother, dies in a HeroicSacrifice stopping the antagonist's data coil from toppling the crane that Ryan and Yaz are in. However, her actress Sharon D. Clarke was announced as playing a "returning role" when she was revealed to be involved with Series 11. Thus, there are a few possible options speculated by fans and reviewers: 1) this was misdirection to avoid spoiling the climax; 2) it's technically true as Grace will reappear in flashbacks or a trip back in time, 3) this trope: she will be somehow resurrected and return. Of course, it could also be 4) she's impersonated by some kind of alien entity. It turned out to be (4) in a single episode, but other than that she's just dead. |
| 344 | * ''Series/EastEnders'' has had a few resurrections. Den Watts was just about acceptable, since his body was unrecognisable and he was about to go into hiding when he was apparently killed. Kathy Beale, in a vastly out of character twist, faking her [[BusCrash off-screen car cash death]] and abandoning her sons for an insurance scam was stretching it. It's happened enough that, when a new producer decided to kll of Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell, he made them DeaderThanDead: Not only did they drown in a swimming pool, they drowned in full view of CCTV cameras, their bodies were left in the water for hours before being found, and Ronnie was repeatedly shown dead in an open coffin in the weeks that followed. And ''still'' fans insist they're just hiding. It doesn't help that Samantha Womack, who played Ronnie, has a tendency to respond to people asking about the theories in interviews by agreeing that they could come back. |
| 345 | * Played with in-canon in ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' with the apparent killing of Xhalax by Crais in Season 3. To avoid killing Xhalax in front of her daughter Aeryn, Crais takes her off into the swamp and there's a SoundOnlyDeath. A couple of episodes later, we see an apparent flashback in which Crais makes a private deal with her and spares her life, but then it's comically revealed to be a paranoid ImagineSpot on John's part. Then a few episodes after that, it turns out that Crais really did spare her life. |
| 346 | ** Speaking of Crais, a sizable part of the fanbase believes he and Talyn both actually survived their HeroicSacrifice in season 3, and that they actually ''did'' [=StarBurst=] away. |
| 347 | ** Zhaan gets this as well, with many believing she safely escaped through the wormhole. This was particularly fueled by comments by Stark following Talyn!John's death, in that he heard Zhaan's spirit calling to him on the planet they were visiting. |
| 348 | ** You won't find ''anyone'' who believes that D'Argo actually died in ''Peacekeeper Wars''. The fact that the similarly left-for-dead Sikozu and Grunchlk ''did'' turn up alive in the comic continuation add fuel to that fire. |
| 349 | * An episode of the 1990s revival of ''{{Series/Flipper}}'' featured a man convinced that his dead son was alive and would return home "soon". He went so far as to buy a present for each birthday his son missed, saving them all for the day the boy would come back. He was rather creepily casual about the whole affair, acting as though the fact that his son has been missing for years was absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Surprisingly for a family-oriented show, the son did not turn out to be alive and the episode ended with the man learning to move on. |
| 350 | * Few if any fans really believed Joe Carroll was killed off in the first season finale of ''Series/TheFollowing''. [[spoiler: The first promo for season two pretty much confirmed that he's still alive.]] |
| 351 | * With the second season opener of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', many people are suspecting/hoping this about Charlie. Some have several reasonable reasons for how it's improbable for the shape-shifter to have killed, body-copied, hid the body and clothes-swapped in the confined time. Wither this remains as a plot hole, red herring or foreshadowing is up in the air. It doesn't help that one of the first series episodes, heavily featuring Charlie, was held back and became part of the second series. Leading to him turning up again with no explanation. |
| 352 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 353 | ** Several fans think that about Jon Snow, who was stabbed by the Night Watch in the finale to the fifth season. The fact that his actor is returning, and that a poster for the sixth season shows his face helps the theory out. [[spoiler: This turned out to be true, as he was resurrected in the second episode of the sixth season by Melisandre.]] |
| 354 | ** There was also a significant belief that Stannis getting beheaded by Brienne at the end of Season 5 was a fakeout due to the scene cutting the second Brienne swings her sword. This lead to both the writers and the actor confirming no, he's definitely dead. |
| 355 | ** Catelyn Stark. In her case, it was initially justified, as she actually was resurrected in the books. However, both her actress and the showrunners have confirmed they have no intention of adapting that storyline into the show, and by the end of season 6, the story has long since passed the point where it would make sense for her to return. Nevertheless, some fans still hold out hope that someday we'll see [[CameBackWrong Lady Stoneheart]] on ''Game of Thrones''. |
| 356 | ** Many fans believe this about Ser Brynden Tully, aka the Blackfish. Though he supposedly died doing a LastStand against the oncoming Lannister and Frey forces at Riverrun, the [[KilledOffscreen lack of an onscreen death]] and the Blackfish's [[FourStarBadass well-known fighting abilities]] convinced many that he somehow escaped again. Further fueling this speculation is that in the books, the Riverrun plotline ended with the Blackfish escaping the Lannister forces by jumping in the moat and swimming down the river. |
| 357 | ** The series finale has Drogon pick up the stabbed body of Daenerys Targaryen and fly off to parts unknown, later said to have been seen heading towards Volantis. Some fans were quick to posit that he'd take her to Kinvara, a member of a priesthood capable of resurrecting people who lives in Volantis ''and'' is a firm supporter of Daenerys. |
| 358 | * In ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' all that was found of Abigail Hobbs was her ear, and it was cut off while she was still alive. This led to (usually not very convinced themselves) suggestions that Hannibal let her go. There is also the even more dubious suggestion, only offered as a joke, that Miriam Lass is still alive too and just missing her arm. |
| 359 | ** Surprisingly, the one about Miriam Lass turned out to be ''true''. Hannibal cut off her arm and had been keeping her captive since. |
| 360 | ** In ''Naka-Choko'', Freddie Lounds is implied to have been killed by ''Will'' and offered as meat for Hannibal to cook. However, fans are holding out for her to be alive and hiding as part of Will's BatmanGambit to oust Hannibal. |
| 361 | * There are still people out there claiming that Adam Monroe's death in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' was a part of a yet unrevealed [[ThePlan plan]]. |
| 362 | * Richie from ''Series/{{Highlander}}''. Not only was he a rather popular character handed the IdiotBall after being taught for over a season how to survive as an [[WhoWantsToLiveForever Immortal]], he gets killed by [[NotHimself Duncan, who was under the influence of a demon at the time and thought he was surrounded by his enemies]]. Many fans, not just Richie fans, [[FanonDiscontinuity disavow that this episode ever happened]], and decided Richie [[PutOnABus just moved out]]. |
| 363 | * When ''Series/HolbyCity'' announced Bernie Wolfe had been blown up off screen, it was not well received, especially since she was one half of SuperCouple "Berena", and fans insisted she was still alive. Initially, this was reasonable, since they NeverFoundTheBody, but then they found the body, and we saw her ashes...and then, in an almost absurd case of [[PanderingToTheBase fan pandering]], she just turned up with a {{Handwave}} about lending her body armour to a colleague (which ignored the fact the armour was found before her body and all the ter ways it would have been identified) and announced she'd been living with Serena in the South of France all along while inexplicably letting her son [[SanitySlippage go mad]] [[ExcessiveMourning thinking she was dead]] and [[LoveMakesYouEvil become a serial killer]]. |
| 364 | * ''Series/HomeAndAway'' has pulled the "faking their death to go into witness protection" twist enough times that when a character dies, there's usually ''someone'' suggesting it. The deaths in quick succession of Jack Holden and Belle Taylor were prime candidates, with boards being flooded with [[FixFic Fix Fics]] where Belle had actually gone into hiding to escape the crooked developers she had tried to expose the previous year, despite having terminal cancer and the audience seeing her husband wake up to find she'd died during the night, and other people insisting Jack's [[FriendOrFoe friendly fire]] death was some sort of set-up. |
| 365 | ** When an episode ended with Charlie Buckton's life support being turned up, at least one fan insisted she was going to wake up at the start of the next episode. |
| 366 | ** More recently, when rumours began to circulate that Robbo Shaw was going to die, one fan insisted they wouldn't believe he was dead unless we saw him die, saw someone visit his body and saw his funeral. We saw all three, as he was caught in a horror car smash and pronounced dead after a prolonged resuscitation attempt in front of witnesses, and people ''sill'' insisted he was just hiding. (Hilariously, the same storyline saw fellow regular Mason Morgan killed off, and even though we didn't see him die, see someone visit the body or see his funeral, there were far fewer calls for him to be just hiding!) |
| 367 | * Archie Kennedy dies a [[HeroicSacrifice gloriously]] [[DeathIsDramatic tragic on-screen death]] in ''Series/HoratioHornblower''... but there are so many fics about him surviving that post-Retribution fics usually feature either the label 'LKU', or 'DKU', as in Live Kennedy Universe and Dead Kennedy Universe. |
| 368 | * ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'': While [[spoiler:MysteriousProtector Ezekiel]] is never seen after being shot in the season 1 finale, some fans hope he survived his wounds. |
| 369 | * On ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'', this is Bobby Goren's in-universe reaction to discovering his nemesis, serial murderess Nicole Wallace, who had expertly pulled a KarmaHoudini in every prior appearance, [[TheKillerBecomesTheKilled has herself been murdered]]. This is despite the fact that her heart was cut out from her body and [[FingerInTheMail sent to Goren in the mail]], and DNA confirmed the organ's identity - Goren is convinced that unless he finds the rest of her, she's enough of a {{Magnificent B|astard}}itch to come back from even this. [[KilledOffForReal She stays dead]]. |
| 370 | * ''Series/LawAndOrderUK'' fanfic writers have resurrected another of Creator/JamieBamber's characters, Matt Devlin, (who by some eerie coincidence also died making a HeroicSacrifice), penning stories where he recovers from his gunshot wounds ([[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7706832/1/Surviving an especially poignant story has him left paralyzed from the waist down]]) and finally embarks on a relationship with Alesha Phillips. By some equally bizarre happenstance, a [[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6281118/1/Safety-Catch story]] such as this was written a full year ''before'' the episode "Deal". Even stranger, another [[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7712514/1/Happy-New-Year fanfic]] has provided readers with a literal example of this trope -- he lives, [[FakingTheDead but is sent into hiding to recover from his injuries]] and to protect him from his would-be killers. For their own safety as well, his clueless loved ones are left to grieve for him until he's brought back in order to testify against his assailants and resume his normal life. One of [[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7622098/1/Declassified them]] even combines the two series (possibly lampshading the tendency of Bamber's characters to get killed off) with ''Franchise/{{Highlander}}'', having it turn out that Matt Devlin is, in fact, Archie Kennedy himself and that he survived his injuries and all subsequent ones because he's immortal. |
| 371 | * ''Series/{{Lost}}'': |
| 372 | ** Even though it wasn't a case of a truly major character, the death of Rousseau on is an example. Even though she was shot, her corpse was later found in a shallow grave, ''and'' a guy who talks to dead people heard her voice there were still people online trying to come with survival scenarios. |
| 373 | ** Michael and Jin were both on a boat when it exploded. The latter was shown to have survived in this explosion. The former's fate is still up in the air. |
| 374 | ** But Jin was on the deck and could've [[{{Pun}} jumped ship]]. Michael was next to the bomb when it exploded. |
| 375 | ** In what may be a subversion, many fans of Lost took the close-shot of Ethan's corpse and the motion of his breathing (which appears to have been a goof) unnoticed by the Losties as a casual foreshadowing that the character would come back. While he featured frequently in flashbacks after the episode of his death, he never made his return in the "present day". |
| 376 | ** Another example would be Rose who, in season one, refused to believe her husband had died in the crash. Come season two... |
| 377 | ** Frank Lapidus was thought to be just hiding when he went down with the sub. Turns out, he was. |
| 378 | ** And then there's the time the Smoke Monster punted Richard into the jungle with no mention of whether he was okay or not until the series finale. |
| 379 | * In the Season 3 finale of ''Series/TheMentalist'', fans speculated that the guy who was killed by Jane in the ending of the episode was not Red John. Jane's actor also hints at this in a pre-season interview explaining the premise of the fourth season. |
| 380 | * ''Series/{{NCIS}}'': |
| 381 | ** There's quite a bit of "Kate is not dead" fanfic, despite her death being caused by sniping. To the ''head.'' There are some crazy theories like some are suggesting a body double. The reason for the body double? So that Kate and Ari can run off and elope. |
| 382 | ** There's also a huge amount of "Jenny Shepard is not dead" out there, and the prevailing theory is that she faked her gunfight death to continue her rogue activities unhindered before her disease kills her. Lending credence to this is the fact that the storyline about her dead father (who she thought was alive and in hiding, and ''could'' very well have been) didn't have a definitive ending. |
| 383 | ** And now there's the same speculation regarding Ziva David, supposedly killed in a bombing at the end of Season 13. It helps that the death happened off-screen, viewers never saw the body, and that TPTB have been vague (apparently intentionally) about whether or not she's truly dead). [[spoiler:The episode "She" confirmed Ziva was alive and she returned at the end of Season 16, having gone into hiding to protect her family and hunt down those responsible for the bombing.]] |
| 384 | ** There has been similar speculation about Gibbs' first wife Shannon and their daughter Kelly, though more of the [=WMG=] type, suggesting that they were spirited away into hiding to protect them from the drug dealer looking to kill them. |
| 385 | * When ''Series/{{Neighbours}}'' revealed that Mark Brennan had died in witness protection, an Internet campaign (possibly the work of one person) insisted he was actually alive in witness protection. This turned out to be true but shortly after his return, his alleged OneTrueLove Kate Ramsay was killed. Despite her being shot and pronounced dead on screen, the campaign immediately started insisting that ''she'' was now alive in witness protection, citing the lack of blood (which is mainly because [[BloodlessCarnage it's that sort of show]]). |
| 386 | * In the first ''Series/NewsRadio'' episode after actor Creator/PhilHartman's death, his character Bill [=McNeal=] is said to be alive but hiding in an increasingly ridiculous series of stories by his friend Matthew. |
| 387 | * ''Series/NoOrdinaryFamily'': Detective Cho getting a SoundOnlyDeath in the second episode (although said death is discussed in the next episode) and vague statements the show runners made about not being sure if they were done with the character cause some fans to wonder if she's really dead. |
| 388 | * A large chunk of the ''Series/OrphanBlack'' fanbase refuse to believe that Helena died in the Season One finale. One [[WMG/OrphanBlack Wild Mass Guess entry]] theorizes that, since Helena and Sarah are identical twins, Helena has the same [[HealingFactor self-repair gene]] that Sarah's daughter Kira appears to have. Even an online contest to win Helena's signature parka hasn't dimmed "Clone Club's" belief that she will return at some point. |
| 389 | ** [[spoiler:In the second series, she was, surprise surprise, alive. Although she also showed signs of superhuman healing, the main explanation was that she's a [[OrganDodge mirror-image twin]] of Sarah, with her internal organs on the other side of her body to the usual one.]] |
| 390 | * Many fans of ''Series/OurFlagMeansDeath'' believe [[spoiler:Lucius]] survived [[spoiler:being thrown overboard by Blackbeard]] in the Season 1 finale. There are several lines of reasoning that support this, from the editing of the scene itself ([[spoiler:he's still screaming when it cuts]]), to an unfired ChekhovsGun from the first episode ([[spoiler:the secret passages within the ship that could easily conceal a stowaway]]), to the overarching plot of the show ([[spoiler:the romance between Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard, which would be pretty badly derailed by Blackbeard murdering Lucius, Stede's closest confidant]]). |
| 391 | * ''Series/{{Ozark}}'': In real life, plenty of people have survived similar gunshot wounds similar to the one [[spoiler:Ruth]] gets in the finale, the bloodstain around the wound is still bleeding when the camera cuts away (dead people stop bleeding), and her shooter is shaken and unfocused. All of this and the character's enormous popularity make it both possible and tempting to hope that she's not dead. |
| 392 | * ''Franchise/PowerRangers'': |
| 393 | ** ''Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue'': Some fans like to hope that Jinxer (and maybe even the Batling {{Mook}}s who accompany him in stealing the Omega Megazord) survive the robot's destruction in the finale. |
| 394 | ** ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'': Given how out-of-focus Choobo is when he gets taken out in the finale, many fans believe that he only got knocked down and survived. |
| 395 | * Even ''Series/SesameStreet'' has an example of this trope. When Mr. Hooper's death was revealed in a legendary VerySpecialEpisode in 1983, the cause of death was never mentioned (WordOfGod states the writers chose not to reveal how he died because explaining that he was old and ill could have increased children's fears about death). Several fans have concluded that he faked his death so he could live out his retirement in peace. |
| 396 | * ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': |
| 397 | ** Series 2 led to the speculation that Moriarty faked his own death and that he'd return sometime in the future. Creator/AndrewScott stated in an interview that Moriarty wouldn't be returning for series 3. [[spoiler:The finale reveals that [[TrollingCreator he was bloody lying]], how [[ManipulativeBastard appropriate.]] But then it turned out in series 4 that he really was dead and it was a PostMortemComeback.]] |
| 398 | ** Sherlock gets this in-universe in series 3. The audience quickly learns in series 2 that he's not dead, but some of his [[FamedInStory in-story fans]] theorize and hope that he's just hiding. |
| 399 | * Professor Maximillian Arturo was shot near the end of Season 3 of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', and his body was apparently obliterated by a [[ItMakesSenseInContext pulsar]]. But, since there was an episode in Season 2 where the Professor fought his double, many fans speculated that the "real" Professor was still alive, and the evil Professor had travelled with the heroes for a year before being killed off. It also seemed possible that Jonathan Rhys-Davies would reappear as another version of the Professor. IIRC, many years post-cancellation WordOfGod finally stated that it was the evil Professor who slid (and died). Not that it matters now. |
| 400 | * ''Series/{{Snowpiercer}}'': Several characters who are seemingly killed turn out to be NotQuiteDead some time later, so this kind of speculation isn't uncommon. |
| 401 | ** Some people expect to see LJ's parents, Grey, their prisoners and the others who are left to freeze in season one come back. |
| 402 | ** Icy Bob does seemingly die from too much exposure to the cold, but some people wonder if anything could kill him. |
| 403 | ** Whether or not Melanie will survive being stranded in the season 2 finale attracts some debate. |
| 404 | ** Bojan's fate in the season 2 finale is considered slightly ambiguous by some. |
| 405 | ** Mr. Headwood and the Last Australians dying of influenza during the TimeSkip between seasons might be taken with a grain of salt. |
| 406 | * ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'': |
| 407 | ** Dr. Beckett's DroppedABridgeOnHim death in ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' spurred outcry from fans. The character returned as a clone, though one with all the original's memories. |
| 408 | ** ''Series/StargateSG1'': |
| 409 | *** Janet, Martouf and Jacob Carter/Selmak are on a super sekrit mission together. |
| 410 | *** Daniel Jackson died and was resurrected so many times he wouldn't stay dead even if he was shot in the face at point-blank range with an Asgard beam weapon. Fans don't even bother with this trope when he dies. |
| 411 | *** Done in-universe by O'Neill when he refuses to have a funeral for Daniel after one of his many "deaths". |
| 412 | * ''Series/Stargirl2020'': |
| 413 | ** Many fans are convinced that [[spoiler:Henry King Jr.]] either was only wounded after being crushed by a pile of rubble or that [[spoiler:his consciousness escaped the death of his physical body due to his telepathy]]. |
| 414 | ** Some fans have wondered whether [[spoiler:Joey Zarick might have somehow inherited some of his dad's magical power and unconsciously used it to transfer his soul into the family cat and thus has the potential to be fully resurrected one day]]. |
| 415 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'' |
| 416 | ** Done by professional authors in the Expanded Universe in ''The Good That Men Do'', a novel that basically explains that the holodeck reconstruction in "[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise These Are The Voyages...]]" is revisionist history and that Trip faked his death. Since the episode in question is [[FanonDiscontinuity universally reviled]] by cast and fans alike, the basic premise of the novel in question is basically regarded as {{Canon}} (although whether or not it happened when and how the novel says it did is up for debate), and everyone pretends that "These Are The Voyages..." never happened. |
| 417 | ** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': There are fans who are in denial that [[spoiler:Hugh]] is permanently dead, and they believe he can be resurrected with Borg technology. They use the hashtag [[spoiler:[=#BringBackHugh=]]] on Twitter and compose {{Fix Fic}}s where the character is alive again. The ''Star Trek Timelines'' game [[https://66.media.tumblr.com/2e3022e5eb9f4c2e5faf2107a94f0da3/f77ffb034791b310-7a/s640x960/da7a4b16159c4d4b808434981f5b4ae940eca4d4.jpg has also joined in.]] |
| 418 | * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': |
| 419 | ** Gabriel's death. The Pepsi commercials don't really reject the argument, nor do the constant rumors that the writers are trying to work out how to bring him back. |
| 420 | ** Castiel and Bobby both got this after their respective deaths in season 7. Of course, since DeathIsCheap and Castiel was also a case of NeverFoundTheBody, this was not entirely without merit. Castiel does indeed show up alive and (mostly) well near the end of the season. Bobby returns as a ghost but is still technically dead. |
| 421 | * ''Franchise/SuperSentai'': Some fans of ''Series/ChoujinSentaiJetman'' believed that Black Condor/Gai Yuki merely passed out in the final episode after he was stabbed by a mugger, even though he was officially declared dead by writer [[WordOfGod Toshiki Inoue]] in ensuing interviews. In Episode 28 of ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'', which Inoue specifically wrote, any doubts of Gai Yuki's death was cleared up when his spirit escaped from the afterlife to help the Gokaigers unlock Jetman's greater power. |
| 422 | * This started amongst ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' fans when Ianto was killed in ''Children of Earth''. |
| 423 | * ''Series/TrueBlood:'' While the faeries at Hotwings aren't exactly EnsembleDarkhorse material, plenty of fans like to hope that some of Claude's sisters aren't there when Warlow kills everyone present at the club in season 6. |
| 424 | * A version of this happens on ''Series/VeronicaMars'' -- Logan doesn't believe his mother killed herself; he thinks she faked her death and ran away. Unlike most fans, however, he lives in the "real world", and after his last ounce of hope is stolen, breaks down. |
| 425 | [[/folder]] |
| 426 | |
| 427 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 428 | * It's heavily implied that the titular character of "Sandy Fishnets" by Music/EvelynEvelyn was murdered. This doesn't stop fans from speculating that she either ran away or was kicked out like Evelyn Evelyn were. |
| 429 | [[/folder]] |
| 430 | |
| 431 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 432 | * ''Radio/PokemonTheBirthOfMewtwo'' features Jessie's mother, Miyamoto who disappeared in an avalanche looking for Mew. Giovanni says her whereabouts are unknown, as she was said to have made reports after she disappeared. There is absolutely no reason to think she survived. The story says she sincerely loved her daughter, Jessie, so it seems ridiculously out of character for her to simply abandon her. Only EpilepticTrees could explain her still being around. There were some rumors going around that she became Prima/Lorelei of the Elite Four, but with absolutely no basis. |
| 433 | [[/folder]] |
| 434 | |
| 435 | |
| 436 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 437 | * ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'': Nessarose is not dead! Yes, she dies in both the source material and the musical, but hey, Elphaba and Fiyero got {{Disney Death}}s, so why not her? After all, the way her feet disappeared like that -- had to be an illusion... |
| 438 | * Franchise/ThePhantomOfTheOpera, even though technically, the phantom doesn't die at the end of the play, just simply disappears--this might actually be a literal example of this trope. Sure enough, numerous fic writers have him resurfacing to wreak more havoc in Christine's life. |
| 439 | [[/folder]] |
| 440 | |
| 441 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 442 | * ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' uses this in-universe, in the DLC ''Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep''. Tina runs a role-playing game for the four original vault hunters, and she seems to be in complete denial that one of them is dead. When the others finally confront her about this, she admits that she understands the truth, but she doesn't have to like it. The game is her way of providing a better ending. In fact, she kills two birds with one stone, bringing back another character who had died in the main plot so they can save the day at the last minute. |
| 443 | * ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'': |
| 444 | ** Captain Price, Gaz, Griggs, and Soap in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare'' all survived the final battle. They were just gravely wounded. ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' reveals that Soap not only survived but has been promoted to Captain and will essentially be taking Price's place as the badass squad leader who mentors the player. Whether this was the ''developers'' saying "he was just hiding" (not to mention what became of Captain Price) remains to be seen, but so far no one's been complaining. |
| 445 | ** Price is also back in ''Modern Warfare 2'', and he and Soap survive the events of the game. Still no word on Gaz or Griggs, but things aren't looking too bright in that category. |
| 446 | ** As of ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare3 MW3]]'', Soap [=MacTavish=] is on the "just hiding!" list. |
| 447 | * A common fan interpretation of ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' to account for the off-screen deaths of Crono, Marle, and Lucca. That the dialogue describing their current status is either implicit ("I'll send you to see Lucca!") or vague ("We no longer exist in this timeline.") does much to aid and abet such theories. [[ContemplateOurNavels Even if we're not told they're dead, are they any more alive after 10 years of nonexistence?]] |
| 448 | * In ''[[VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries Completing the Mission]]'', the ''Valiant Hero'' ending ends with [[spoiler:Charles Calvin]] dying at the very end when [[spoiler:he pulls out a HeroicSacrifice by throwing Henry Stickmin into an escape pod, leaving Charles himself to die moments later when the Toppat Orbital Station explodes]]. [[EnsembleDarkHorse The status]] [[spoiler:Charles]] has left many fans to ''refuse'' that [[spoiler:he]] died. Some even pointed out that [[spoiler:behind the rubble in the same hall, an escape pod was unselectable and that we see five escape pods flying towards Earth]]. They say that [[spoiler:Charles]] simply [[spoiler:went into the unselectable escape pod off-screen, and him cutting off when the station explodes is his headset losing signal]], leaving [[spoiler:him]] as presumed dead. |
| 449 | * A variant from ''VideoGame/Destiny2'': the Forsaken expansion begins with the death of fan-favorite character Cayde-6. He is very definitely dead: his irreplaceable [[SoulJar Ghost]] is destroyed, he's fatally wounded, he dies in the player character's arms, and is last seen under a shroud on a bier while other characters discuss his death. However, since he was a RidiculouslyHumanRobot created by BrainUploading, that just led to discussion about how he could be brought back if his original brain scan could be found. Come ''Beyond Light'', the repository for all such brain scans ''is'' found... but it's taken as a given that they won't use it to resurrect Cayde, as this would bring him back without his memories or experiences -- Cayde-7 would be a completely new person. Cayde-7's only appearance was in the Chronicon lore book, which was basically in-universe bad fanfiction, and he dies the same page he appears. |
| 450 | * ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'': |
| 451 | ** For over a decade, Vergil's last {{canon}}ical appearance in the first ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'' saw him outright exploding. Yet, the fandom refused to believe that he was dead even when his signature weapon Yamato was inherited by Nero and the Angelos were created by his body/armor being experimented on in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4''. And then suddenly, this reaction got resolved when ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' showed Vergil alive and retaking Yamato to heal himself. However, [[UnexplainedRecovery there is no real explanation for how he was still alive]] to begin with. |
| 452 | ** Sparda. The {{Narrator}} from the [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry1 first game]] stated that he died [[labelnote:Excerpt]]"His name was Sparda. Later, he quietly reigned the human world, and continued to preserve harmony, until his death."[[/labelnote]], Arkham in the [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening third game]]'s manga stated that he died, but for some reason, the fans insist that he only "disappeared" (and is likely to return one day), basing it on a misinterpreted line in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry2'' or Modeus's musing in the [[Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries animated series]]. No one ever bothers to answer the question of just ''what'' Sparda might be doing if he did simply just vanish. |
| 453 | * Duncan from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' has met with this due to his death [[FadeToWhite not being directly shown onscreen]] and [[NeverFoundTheBody his body being missing]] during the ''Return to Ostagar'' DLC. WordOfGod is that he is indeed dead. And even if he didn't die then [[spoiler: dialogue with Alister reveals that Duncan was suffering from the horrible nightmares that proceed the Calling, and would have died soon after anyway]]. |
| 454 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'''s much-maligned "Good" ending results in your character's HeroicSacrifice. It screamed ButThouMust so hard the walls of the Jefferson Memorial should have exploded. Bethesda wrote the [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Broken_Steel Broken Steel DLC]] to fix their mistake. |
| 455 | * Aerith from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is the princess of the trope. For decades, people would insist that she never truly died after Sephiroth stabbed her and that there was a way to bring her back life. This even becomes a major plot point in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' where Aerith gets a vision of the original timeline where she's supposed to die. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRebirth'' quite frankly takes this to parodic levels, as Aerith [[spoiler:seemingly is both saved by Cloud and killed by Sephiroth, with Cloud's unreliable vision meaning we don't know what to trust. At the end, Cloud literally sees Aerith off to go in hiding in the Forgotten Capital, though whether she is actually there is very ambiguous]]. |
| 456 | ** Invoked with Rufus Shinra, who is last seen taking an explosion to the face. He turns up later in ''Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'', having somehow survived the blast. |
| 457 | * Leo from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. There are [[UrbanLegendOfZelda many, many, MANY rumors]] that claimed his return was DummiedOut, and others give ridiculous methods to revive him that don't work. You can bring him back through a VERY convoluted {{Good Bad Bug|s}} that requires you to play for at least 8 hours without saving so you can go back before the PointOfNoReturn, but it's clearly not intentional. |
| 458 | * Tidus from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' disintegrates at the end of his game but makes a brief cameo following the credits. One of the main questions from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' is that if Tidus is hiding or doing something. Turns out the answer is completely unrelated but the cameo reveals that Tidus is alive. |
| 459 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has this happen quite often: |
| 460 | ** Gaius is defeated by the player and the last of him we see is him staggering in the ruins of the facility before he gets hit with an explosion. Because they NeverFoundTheBody, fans insisted that he survived and was in hiding. Several years and two expansions later, Gaius reappears alive and well and has a new agenda that aligns with the Scions's goals in eradicating the Ascians. Alisae does lampshade how it should have been impossible for Gaius to survive. |
| 461 | ** Lahabrea, a scheming Ascian, dies at the hand of King Thordon, who became a primal and and uses one of Nidhoggs's eyes to suck Lahabrea's soul into it and then uses the eye like a battery to power himself up. After the player beats Thordon, another Ascian named Elidibus confirms that Lahabrea is dead, thus ending his role in the ''Heavensward'' story. Lahabrea's death did not stop fans from insisting that his soul was still in the dragon's eye and that he would return eventually. Later on in the ''Stormblood'' expansion, Nidhogg's eyes are used to summon a primal that are fueled by said eyes. When the player beats the primal, the eyes are found lying on the ground by Estinien, who confirms that the aether in the eyes are all but spent and he destroys them just to make sure that no one else can use them ever again. While it likely wasn't the intent from the developers, the destruction of the eyes confirms that if Lahabrea's soul wasn't burned up from fueling two different primals, the physical destruction of the eyes would have finished his remains off. |
| 462 | ** Zenos returning after his supposed death in ''Stormblood'' left such a big impact on the fan base that when the player finishes him off for good at the edge of the universe in ''Endwalker'', people insisted that he wasn't truly dead and that he would find a way to come back again. While the developers did tease the idea a bit, they eventually stated that Zenos was actually dead and he would not be returning ever again. |
| 463 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' has something of an [[InvertedTrope inversion,]] where despite the ending implying (and WordOfGod confirming many years later) that Ramza, Alma, and the rest of the party escaped Murond Death City and lived out the rest of their lives in hiding, some fans still insist that they all perished in [[LoadBearingBoss Altima's death throes]] and that Ramza and Alma's later appearances were their ghosts or [[BelatedHappyEnding metaphorical survival]], rather than literal. |
| 464 | * A fan theory exists in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' that after the first generation was massacred, [[ActionGirl Ayra]] still lives and just wanders off to places unknown. Even after being rebuked at the sidequel (''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Thracia 776]]''), whereas survivors of the massacre were gathered together and turned to stone, which may possibly include her. Fans still don't buy it and merely list her as "just wandering off". [[EnsembleDarkhorse "Because she's just too badass to be turned to stone"]], or so they say... |
| 465 | ** There's a similar theory for [[MemeticMolester Gheb]]. Gheb is rumored to have a double Gleb who took his place when he was killed. Gheb's far too handsome to die. |
| 466 | ** Might as well latch onto the fact that in FE 10, it is possible to be "too badass to be turned into stone", and apply that to a totally different universe. |
| 467 | * Agatio and Karst in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge''. There is some reasoning behind this, as their last scene had them [[NotQuiteDead mortally wounded but still alive]] and swearing to survive long enough to see Mars Lighthouse lit. Whether or not they actually manage to is left ambiguous. However, several other dying characters were healed by the Psynergy that erupted from Mars Lighthouse when it's beacon was lit, so if they were still alive at the time it's possible they could have been healed as well. On the other hand, they're nowhere to be found during the PlayableEpilogue, and if they did survive, why didn't they return to Prox? DummiedOut Mind Read text indicates they did die, though whether that can be taken as canon or not is debatable. |
| 468 | * The original ''VideoGame/Grandia1'' tweaks the trope a bit by giving a female party member an unexpected case of traumatic stress disorder, forcing her to return to her village before the final battle begins. |
| 469 | * In ''VideoGame/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyTheTelltaleSeries'', a case of this actually impacted how players handled the game. At the end of episode four, you’re forced to choose between letting [[spoiler:Drax]] perform a HeroicSacrifice to aid in the team’s escape, or stopping him against his wishes, making the escape more difficult and [[spoiler:getting Groot badly injured in the process]]. It’s obviously meant as a SadisticChoice, but many players suspected that [[spoiler:Drax]] [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt wouldn’t really die]] (especially since you don’t actually ''see'' him die) or [[spoiler:would be revived with the Eternity Forge]], so they gladly let him sacrifice himself in one of the most bizarre instances of metagaming ever. [[IKnewIt Sure enough]], the final episode revealed that he survives even if you let him sacrifice himself. |
| 470 | * In ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', we have the WildCard Axel, who ultimately performed a HeelFaceTurn because of Roxas, culminating in a HeroicSacrifice to save Sora and company and open their passageway to The World That Never Was. We later find out that if a Heartless and Nobody are both destroyed, the Somebody that created them comes back to life. And with that, come ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'', Axel becomes Lea, and Lea becomes a SixthRanger. |
| 471 | ** Ansem in the original game: you defeated him as a boss at the end of the original game? Sorry, [[RetCon that wasn't Ansem]] - the real one really ''has'' been hiding. Luckily for the protagonists, the real Ansem is a good guy...to the point that in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', he performs a HeroicSacrifice to jeopardize the BigBad's plan. |
| 472 | *** Turns out, Ansem the Wise survived that, and, as of Reconnect: Kingdom Hearts, is in the dark realm, memoryless, meeting up with Aqua. |
| 473 | ** Although Scar was killed in ''Kingdom Hearts'', the fact that he became a Heartless shortly after his first death and retained his regular form, as well as the heavy implications that an equally strong Nobody would be formed in the process strongly implies that we haven't seen the last of Scar just yet, even after his Groundshaker form was destroyed. |
| 474 | * In ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' if one of your teammates is killed, they can be found later in a closet or a room, but in the final sequence, if that's happened, its KilledOffForReal. |
| 475 | ** In canon, Bill is dead after he performed a HeroicSacrifice to save the rest of his team. His body appears in the sequel and fans insist that [[UrbanLegendOfZelda you can revive Bill with the defibrillator]], even though it's physically impossible. |
| 476 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 477 | ** Since almost every single''Zelda'' game ends with the EnsembleDarkhorse ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg or]] [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Navi]]) somehow being irreversibly separated from the main characters, naturally fans keep coming up with the weirdest WildMassGuessing, about how "Character X will return, because he/she is awesome enough to open the portal sealed by the gods/come BackFromTheDead!!" Common targets of this brand of ''Zelda'' WMG are Midna from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', Linebeck from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'' (who actually came back, sort of, in form of an IdenticalGrandson) and, the newest and yet ''worst'' offender, Byrne from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks''. A group of fans on a ''Zelda'' forum created an entire website dedicated to bringing Midna back in a future game -- [=WantMidnaBack.com=]. Too bad it'll never happen. [[VideoGame/HyruleWarriors Not in canon, at least.]] Read this little tidbit of info: when asked if Midna would return for a future game or not in an interview with Game Informer, Eiji Aonuma stated: "Because of the way Twilight Princess ended, I don't see her making a reappearance, but who knows? If we hear enough voices for her to come back, how can we not?" |
| 478 | ** Inverted with the Sages from ''Ocarina Of Time''. A popular theory that floats around the fandom is that they died and are ghosts. |
| 479 | * Joe Barbaro in ''VideoGame/MafiaII'', possibly because it was never shown that he was killed (or the acts of killing him), with his death only being described by Vito in ''VideoGame/MafiaIII''. Some also believe that Leo Galante's driver seen near the very end of the game may actually be Joe due to them looking very similar in build and facial structure. |
| 480 | * The initial teaser trailer for ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' indicated that Commander Shepard, the protagonist of the first game, is considered killed in action. The fanbase immediately began coming up with explanations ranging from "Shepard is FakingTheDead to go undercover" to "Shepard has been [[WeCanRebuildHim converted into a geth]]". [[NeverTrustATrailer Given that it's only a one-minute teaser]], of course, it was all a ruse, as Shepard dies at the start of ''[=ME2=]'' but just gets brought back to life two years (and four billion credits) later. |
| 481 | * Zero of ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' was originally designed to appear only in [[VideoGame/MegaManX1 the first game]], and was killed off at the end. However, [[EnsembleDarkhorse fans liked him so much]] that the developers decided to bring him back -- his recovery and resurrection comprise the entire plot of ''X2'', and all subsequent games featured him as a playable character. This would happen countless times over the course of the ''X'' series, even stretching to his own SpinOff series. |
| 482 | ** Notable in ''X5'', which was meant to be the last in the series, according to creator Inafune. Alas, ''X6'' was created, in which Zero was literally hiding the entire time up until he returns from the dead. |
| 483 | -->'''Zero:''' I hid myself while I tried to repair myself. |
| 484 | ** ''VideoGame/MegaManZero 4'' ended with Zero's death as he broke up a ColonyDrop while re-entering Earth's orbit (although WordOfGod claims that he's MIA in the Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works). Fans were counting the months for his return. ''VideoGame/MegaManZX'' has his Expy (who is killed within an hour or so) and you find a biometal that has his properties and attitude, but no, he's really dead. |
| 485 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' fans found Big Boss' death to a cigarette lighter and aerosol can at the end of ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'' was too cheap and anticlimactic a death for the series' greatest FallenHero, given his backstory in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' (not to mention surviving The Fury's flames from his flamethrower, which was stated to use Rocket Fuel to have the fires burn much longer, and surviving being near ground zero of the ICBMG's launch). They were proven right in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots''. |
| 486 | ** Big Boss dies again in [=MGS4=], along with his comrades Eva and Ocelot. However, given these characters massive popularity, fan theories have cropped up by the hundreds claiming that all three are still alive and well and their supposed 'deaths' were just a way of hiding themselves from the various militaries and governments who want to abuse them. |
| 487 | ** Solid Snake himself has this trope in an odd way... The ending of ''[=MGS4=]'' pretty much outright states Snake will die and very soon. But, he doesn't technically expire within the game itself, leading some to assume that Snake lives on in spite of his body's decline. ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' adds to this by having Raiden only talk about Snake in the present tense. |
| 488 | ** An in-universe example happens in ''Peace Walker'' when it's noted that Paz landed in the ocean in her presumed death, the body was never found, and she had been wearing SCUBA gear at the time of her defeat. So it's quite likely she's still alive, and the trailers for ''Ground Zeroes'' confirm she is alive. |
| 489 | * In-universe in ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'', [[TheCaligula Sergei Taboritsky]] is utterly convinced that Alexei Nikolaevich, son of the emperor Nicholas II, is still alive despite having been dead for over fifty years. For him, the only way to allow Alexei to [[RightfulKingReturns come back and claim the throne]] is to "purify" Russia by the means of [[FinalSolution genocide]] and CrushingThePopulace. Once [[SanitySlippage his sanity fully breaks]] (represented in-game by a clock reaching midnight), Sergei Taboritsky finally realises that Alexei is dead, and dies from shock. |
| 490 | * Robert T. Sturgeon from the NES version of ''VideoGame/NinjaGaidenIITheDarkSwordOfChaos'' is often assumed to have survived the events of the game despite being severely injured while fighting off the Tribe of Chaos at the end of the game, due to the ambiguity of his final scene. |
| 491 | * Before the release of ''VideoGame/Persona3: FES'', many fans claimed that the Main Character hadn't died in the end (despite the [[CastFromHitPoints 100% HP cost]] from The Great Seal and that he just fell asleep for no apparent reason...) Needless to say, they were all pissed off by "The Answer". |
| 492 | ** The lyrics for the song "Memories of You" at the end of the game pretty much confirmed his death before FES was even in development. |
| 493 | ** The [[VideoGame/Persona4 immediate]] [[VideoGame/Persona4Arena sequels to]] [[VideoGame/Persona4ArenaUltimax the game]] confirm that MC is indeed dead[[spoiler: and that Elizabeth is trying to resurrect him while keeping Erebus' seal intact]]. |
| 494 | ** ''VideoGame/Persona5'' fans applied this to Goro Akechi as during the plot events of vanilla, he seals himself behind a door in Shido's Palace with his doppelganger in an apparent HeroicSacrifice as is never brought up again outside of being briefly mentioned by Lavenza and Sae, due to the sound editing and Akechi's popularity amongst the fanbase. ''[[UpdatedRerelease Persona 5 Royal]]'' confirms that he did survive his "final battle"... only to later reveal Akechi's [[YourDaysAreNumbered days are numbered]] from having been brought BackFromTheDead by Takuto due to the protagonist's regret of being unable to save him during the events of Shido's Palace. Given that Akechi (or at the very least someone resembling him) appears in the True Ending cutscene, and some seeming incongruencies in the mechanics of Maruki's power, this trope still applies. |
| 495 | * An extremely similar plot twist could be found in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarII'', released eight years before ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. Female lead Nei dies halfway through the game and cannot be revived. |
| 496 | ** Except in the [[NoExportForYou Japan-only]] UpdatedRerelease. |
| 497 | * Eothas, [[CrystalDragonJesus god of light, redemption, and rebirth]], from ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternity'' manifested in human form and, for reasons not immediately clear, went on a violent crusade, ending with his being annihilated by [[FantasticNuke the Godhammer]]. (The only reason his priests can still cast spells is that priest powers come from [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve faith]], not the actual god.) Many, in-universe and out, believed he was NotQuiteDead, due to resurrect, or otherwise not as gone as it would seem... [[IKnewIt and indeed]], his resurrection is the event that will kick off the plot of ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternityIIDeadfire''. |
| 498 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 499 | ** Inverted with Giovanni. In ''Heartgold and Soulsilver'', there's an event where many fans swear he [[DrivenToSuicide jumped off a waterfall]]. When he reappeared in ''Black 2 and White 2'' fans opted for a BungledSuicide. |
| 500 | ** Infamously inverted with Blue's Raticate, who many fans believe Red accidentally killed thanks to a [[Fanfic/PoorRival popular theory]]. The more likely explanation is that it was either put in the PC or released, but many believe it is dead. |
| 501 | * Fans speculated that despite being consumed by James Heller at the end of his boss fight in ''VideoGame/Prototype2'', Alex Mercer is still alive and will most likely return in future installments. This is backup from a memory that Heller read after defeating him where Mercer stated that he is "no longer bound by life and death." |
| 502 | * ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' fans have a hard time believing Albert Wesker has truly [[KilledOffForReal died]] after ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''. Doubly-so due to his cheap death (lava didn't faze him, rockets didn't faze him, but lava + rockets did the trick?). [[WordOfGod The series producer]] would have you believe otherwise, though. And to an extent, [[spoiler:Piers Nivans]] in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6''. |
| 503 | * In-universe example in ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'', where the protagonist James Sunderland believes this about his dead wife Mary, by virtue of LoveMakesYouCrazy. The game's goal, ultimately, is for the player to rediscover the truth about her death, and decide whether James faces up to the fact that he [[MercyKill killed her]], or continues to hide from himself. It's more or less an InvokedTrope for James himself, since WordOfGod deliberately refuses to name any ending as "canon" and encourages players to decide his fate for themselves. From there, he either could have chosen to succumb to despair and commit suicide, sidestepped the issue and remained in Silent Hill to live out a delusion, learned to forgive himself, leave his old life behind, and start over anew, or the whole thing was masterminded by a supr intelligent shiba inu; none of these is a wrong answer. |
| 504 | * ''VideoGame/TheSims'': Bella Goth could be called [[UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat Schroedinger's Hottie]], being considered dead despite her family tree portrait not being shaded-out, and being able to be summoned up through means both legitimate and illegitimate (such as sending Alexander to college with Mortimer dead). Also, of course, there's the situation with her having a {{Doppelganger}}. The Platform/{{P|layStationPortable}}SP Sims 2 sequel features her (or a version of her), and explains where she's been. (Abducted, and now in hiding, since you asked.) |
| 505 | * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': There are more than a few fanworks where Maria didn't die in the ARK massacre. She was saved and kept away, preferably either in a manner where she hasn't aged in over 50 years or has been transformed into an anthro teenage hedgehog. |
| 506 | * Sam's daughter in ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'' literally. |
| 507 | * ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'' fans came up with theories about bringing back Axel Almer and Mekibos after ''[=OG2=]'', and Lamia Loveless after ''2.5''. Given Banpresto's proud history of subverting the "AnyoneCanDie" mentality, the only surprise in Axel and Lamia's return in ''OG Gaiden'' was the how of it. Also, given Mekibos's death and revival as a cyborg in the original timeline, it's only a matter of time before he comes out of hiding, too. |
| 508 | ** Speaking of that kinda hiding, you can't forget how [[VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsReversal Fiona Gureden]] got thought to be dead EARLIER in [=OGs=]. She got sucked into a dimensional hole, and beforehand still gives out the feel that "I'm gonna die, so don't miss me, Raul...". Then POOF! She comes out from hiding in that dimensional hole in OGG. [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil Damn trailers]]. |
| 509 | ** SRW K gives you a literal 'just hiding' in form of ''Anime/GunXSword'''s Michael Garret and Fasalina. In the show, they're supposed to be never heard of again after [[DiabolusExMachina a sudden]] collapsing ceiling from a destroyed base. In here, after all that happened, [[GuideDangIt if proper actions were taken]], they immediately came out from hiding and ''[[HeelFaceTurn joins right after]]''. |
| 510 | * In ''VideoGame/Tekken7'', Heihachi is killed by a devil gene-empowered punch to the chest, and thrown into a lava pit by Kazuya, for good measure. However, due to Heihachi's history of [[JokerImmunity cheating death]], some fans have a hard time believing he's gone for good, arguing that he'll probably just be resurrected somehow, much like Kazuya himself after his death ''Tekken 2''. |
| 511 | * ''Franchise/TombRaider'': |
| 512 | ** A significant portion of the fandom still believe Alister Fletcher did not die and is somewhere in Avalon, due to his last words being "I'll see you in Avalon". There is plenty of fanfiction involving Lara travelling to Avalon/Helheim to find him - despite the fact that one cannot choose to go to Avalon in death, and people who are there are turned into soulless thralls. Other than this, in a similar way to Archie from Hornblower, fans just choose to write post-Underworld fics and state that Alister didn't die. |
| 513 | ** Kurtis Trent from ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderAngelOfDarkness Angel of Darkness]]'' gets this as well, however, it is justified in that the game ended on a cliffhanger and the fate of Kurtis was never revealed. |
| 514 | * ''VideoGame/{{Ultrakill}}'': Even after [[LudicrousGibs V2 was splattered to oblivion]] following its second defeat in the Greed layer, many people in the fandom still theorize it will return in Act III. Adding to the sheer ridiculousness of the thing is that V2's death was explicitly made to be gory as hell to [[KilledOffForReal make it abundantly clear that it wasn't coming back this time]]. When it was pointed out to [[WordOfGod Hakita]] in a stream that V2 was ''still'' expected to somehow reconstruct itself, [[YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe his response was succinct]]: |
| 515 | -->"Reconstruct '''[[BigWhat WHAT]]?! [[NotEnoughToBury THERE'S NOTHING LEFT]]!!!'''" |
| 516 | * Many, many people insisted this of [[spoiler:Kenny]] from ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadTelltale'', after his HeroicSacrifice to either save [[spoiler:Christa]] or MercyKill [[spoiler:Ben]]. In both cases, the player doesn't see him die or get bitten and he quickly runs offscreen, not to be seen again for the rest of the game. Additionally, the endgame statistics only list him as 'lost to the herd', rather than 'dead'. Sure enough, [[spoiler:[[DisneyDeath he shows up alive and well in Season 2]] with the excuse of having gotten lucky]]. |
| 517 | * The [[https://watchdogs.fandom.com/wiki/Sabine_Brandt entry]] for ''VideoGame/WatchDogsLegion'' BigBad [[spoiler:Sabine Brandt]] on the Franchise/WatchDogs wiki lists [[spoiler:her]] as Presumed Dead, notably this is somewhat of a BrokenBase, as can be seen on the article's comment section, noting that given how [[spoiler:Sabine dies, falling from Blume Tower, she]] most certainly ''did'' die, however some fans insist that because we NeverFoundTheBody [[spoiler:she]] may be alive. |
| 518 | * In ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', Sho Minamimoto's body is found during the last day of the Game, ''just'' before you enter the final BossRush. As he is a [[EnsembleDarkhorse fan-favorite]], and the standard death for Reapers involves [[EverythingFades their body disappearing]], some believe that he is, in fact, still alive. |
| 519 | ** There's even more evidence in the words of Joshua, the [[BigBad Composer]], who states he's been well aware of Minamimoto's [[TheStarscream Starscream]] status the whole time but keeps him around because he thinks Sho's crazy betrayal plots are [[MagnificentBastard amusing]]. This suggests he left Minamimoto alive on purpose. |
| 520 | ** Trailers for ''VideoGame/NEOTheWorldEndsWithYou'' pretty [[LateArrivalSpoiler openly showed him]] [[PromotedToPlayable as a party member]]. Though his high stats seen in preview images imply... [[GuestStarPartyMember something]]. |
| 521 | * [[WellIntentionedExtremist Illidan Stormrage]] from ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is an odd case. Nobody really thinks he wasn't KilledOffForReal at Black Temple, or at least wasn't intended to be when the raid was created. However, DeathIsCheap in the Warcraft universe and many fans were unhappy with Illidan's MotiveDecay and subsequent death in the ''Burning Crusade'' expansion. Since then, several EpilepticTrees have been made explaining how he could have survived the incident or been resurrected afterward. [[WordOfGod Several members of Blizzard's staff]] have even teased the idea of bringing Illidan back in a future patch or expansion. His return was eventually confirmed in the ''Legion'' expansion, approximately nine years after his "death" in Black Temple. |
| 522 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': Because of the InferredHolocaust that comes with [[spoiler:the City having to be removed from existence along with Aionios for the worlds to separate again, while the game itself (via Melia and Ghondor) implies the people of the City will eventually be born in the future]], some fans envision that after the ending, [[spoiler:the City residents were evenly allocated across the ''Xenoblade 1'' and ''2'' worlds]], if only to give characters such as [[spoiler:[[ActionMom Monica]], [[BeleagueredAssistant Travis]], and even [[JerkassWoobie Shania]] (since Joran is present in the ending)]] a satisfying conclusion. |
| 523 | * ''VideoGame/YomawariNightAlone'' gives an InUniverse example with the game's heroine believing that her dog simply ran off and went missing. [[spoiler:She's in complete denial, having witnessed and essentially caused her dog's death when he gets hit by a truck trying to chase after a pebble she tossed onto the road.]] |
| 524 | * In ''VideoGame/YsIAncientYsVanishedOmen'', Sara is killed off in Falcom's official canon, but goes into hiding in the Platform/PCEngine version, returning in the [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canonical]] ''VideoGame/YsIVTheDawnOfYs''. |
| 525 | [[/folder]] |
| 526 | |
| 527 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 528 | * Brian Clevinger, the creator of ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', was so annoyed by his audience's refusal to accept the death of Black Belt that he wrote a strip (entitled [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/11/10/episode-622-now-shut-up/ "Now shut up."]]), just to permanently close the door on a persistent [[EpilepticTrees fan theory]] on how he could be brought back. |
| 529 | * When Gordon Frohman died in the final episode of ''Webcomic/{{Concerned}}'', you could see tons of messages full of grief, rage and hatred on the comic's forum, most of them written without any regard for spelling or, for that matter, the comic's subtitle: "The Half-Life and ''Death'' of Gordon Frohman". (Maybe that's because, in their opinion, he was [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed off anticlimactically]].) |
| 530 | ** The reason for this is more that Frohman apparently went from living to dead ''without taking damage'', which can't happen in the game. |
| 531 | ** It was so pervasive, that recently, a fan created a comic titled ''Concerned 2: A Concerned Ripoff-The Continuing Adventures of Gordon Frohman.'' In the first strip, Frohman was revived by ''[[http://aconcernedrip-off.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=11205247 Reloading from the last checkpoint]].'' |
| 532 | * Miko Miyazaki in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': The fandom is awash in speculation and rumors about Miko, despite her plot arc ending with her being cut in half, her soul being taken to 'her destination' personally by a ghost, and any possibility of her being brought back as an [[TheUndead undead abomination]] shot down in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0465.html this strip]]. Before her death, the author had stated that she would remain in the story for most of its run, so while he could have changed his mind, there is at least that. |
| 533 | ** This differs from the norm for this trope in that nobody denies Miko is dead ([=OotS=]'s format makes that impossible, as any character who dies has their eyes turn into a pair of "X"s), but many in the fandom expect her to come back anyway. But then, [=OotS=] ''does'' take place in a [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons world]] where [[DeathIsCheap death need not be permanent]], and where coming BackFromTheDead is so routine, the heroes have actually recommended imprisonment over execution for a recurring villain because they figured his eventual resurrection was more likely than his escape from jail. |
| 534 | *** As of early 2021, she's stayed dead for 14 real-world years and the comic has entered its final arc, meaning the statement about her being present for most of the story is already confirmed as either a LyingCreator or a FlipFlopOfGod. She still ''could'' come back, but after this much time it seems highly unlikely. |
| 535 | ** In the same vein, Belkar's predicted death has plenty of people wondering if he'll become undead or some kind of sentient construct, despite the Oracle's ramblings and direct statements. So not so much He's Just Hiding, so much as He Will Be Hiding. |
| 536 | * ''Webcomic/CollegeRoomiesFromHell'': |
| 537 | ** Mike. And he's back... as a zombie. |
| 538 | ** Earlier in the comic, Dave was originally intended to die in his first encounter with {{Satan}}, but fan outcry meant an AuthorsSavingThrow in the form of a holy shotgun. |
| 539 | * Fans of ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' spent ''years'' insisting that psychobear AI Petey was Just Hiding, to the point when the character came back the strip outright [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2004-08-29 lampshaded it]]. |
| 540 | * ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' actually managed a kind of cruel subversion of this, even though it's an audience reaction trope. For years, the central cast was protected by PlotArmor, so when it appeared that someone had finally very dramatically died for real, a large proportion of readers insisted that they were just hiding. However, when it was revealed that they were, in fact, alive, and further revealed just [[AndIMustScream what state they were in]], some turned around and said it would be better if they ''were'' dead, even hoping for that to happen. |
| 541 | * Related to the RealLife section, ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' has Dracula keeping Bruce Lee, Tupac, the real Michael Jackson, the real Paul [=McCartney=], Elvis, and Hitler in his moon base. |
| 542 | * Everyone thought Sir Reginald Derby had died in a colossal explosion of his landship but in fact, he was seen to be [[http://www.jaydenandcrusader.com/2010/11/01/page-172/ just hiding]] in the wreckage |
| 543 | * ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}''. Bro is just faking it, right? ''Right?'' |
| 544 | ** A whole lot of people seemed to think that Jade's dreamself survived the destruction of Prospit, judging by fans' reactions to said event containing a whole lot of "ifs" in reference to her being dead. This was despite the fact that her dreambot was clearly shown being destroyed, and, you know, having ''a goddamn moon'' dropped on her. Thankfully, Andrew showed the corpse shortly after and clearly showed and referred to her as dead, putting an end to this. She came back anyway. |
| 545 | *** The Guardians gets hit hardest with this, as the Trolls who've died still are around in their Dream afterlife. |
| 546 | ** During a [[DarkestHour period in the story where several characters died]], some fans speculated that the whole thing was an AlternateTimeline and it never really happened. In what may have been a FandomNod, there was a scene where Karkat and Terezi were seemingly killed before it was revealed it was an AlternateTimeline. The same thing happened to Spades Slick. |
| 547 | ** A [[WordOfGod Q&A session with Hussie]] included a question by a fan asking if Spades Slick is okay, after ''having his entire universe obliterated with him inside it''. Hussie responded in his [[TrollingCreator usual style]]: |
| 548 | --->'''Hussie:''' I am nursing him back to health in my house, like a baby bird that fell from its nest too young. |
| 549 | *** ''[[AuthorAvatar He wasn't joking.]]'' |
| 550 | ** There is speculation that Jake's dreamself isn't really dead despite his corpse being shown. The reason being that he died due to the Courtyard Droll being shown stuffing peanuts into his mouth, to which he is fatally allergic to...but the peanuts were described as being "like the kind from circuses". [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_Peanuts Circus Peanuts]] are actually peanut-shaped marshmallows with no trace of peanut. |
| 551 | * Fans of ''Webcomic/SlightlyDamned'' thought this about Sakido so many often that the author went ahead and [[http://www.sdamned.com/about/faq/ wrote on her FAQ page]] that, yes, Sakido is dead for good. |
| 552 | * This is the earlier depiction of a character death in ''Webcomic/SanThreeKingdomsComic''. Dong Zhuo and Dian Wei go to Hawaii after their novel death, and Lu Bu got sent to Alaska (while wearing a bikini). It looks like latter strips drop this concept, however. |
| 553 | * ''Webcomic/SleeplessDomain'': Given the [[UncertainDoom circumstances]] surrounding [[spoiler:Cassidy's]] apparent death scene -- it comes [[MoodWhiplash with very little warning]] in what had appeared to be the middle of her character arc, and [[GeminiDestructionLaw due to the nature of her powers]] she conveniently [[NoBodyLeftBehind doesn't leave behind a body]] -- it's no surprise that fans quickly and fervently latched on to the idea that she might somehow still be alive. It started out as genuine speculation as to whether she was really dead, but it soon passed into ironic MemeticMutation as it became increasingly clear (to the point that Anemone, the nigh-omniscient FourthWallObserver, eventually had to step in and all but confirmed she was really gone) that she was gone for good... [[WildMassGuessing probably]]. |
| 554 | [[/folder]] |
| 555 | |
| 556 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 557 | * "Kate" of ''WebVideo/KateModern'' was brutally murdered, her blood smeared over a wall, her dying screams recorded, and her killer - a [[SerialKiller raving, bloodthirsty psychopath]] - confessed. None of which has stopped fans from speculating that she might still be alive. |
| 558 | ** The show has parodied this a couple of times. On one occasion, a character's insanity manifests itself as the belief that "Kate" faked her death. Another time, a character suggests that William Griffin faked his death (despite the body having been found), prompting another character to comment on how unlikely that would be. |
| 559 | * In ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'', if a character is designated to die, and people like him and refuse to believe that he's going to die, there's a special system designed to save them (albeit at the cost of one of your own characters). |
| 560 | ** In v3 many handlers suspected that the characters killed off in the inactive clearing were still around Faking The Dead and plotting against the terrorists. However, this was actually proven to be canonical. In v4, some handlers have speculated that the STAR escape group did not die in a fiery boat explosion as the terrorists claim, but for now, they're treated as dead by most people. |
| 561 | * Death in ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' is rare, but on the few occasions that it's happened, the fanbase tends to react this way. In particular, regarding the deaths of Lopez, Alpha!Church, and the original Tex. The arguments for Lopez and Tex are fairly reasonable (Lopez did mention having backups, and it's never explicitly said the original Tex "died" anyway), but the justification for the original Alpha!Church is a little more contrived, especially because his death [[WordOfGod has been confirmed by the creators.]] |
| 562 | * ''Podcast/TheAdventureZone'': people, including the players, kept asking for Barry Blue Jeans to come back - the joke being that he was, in fact, an extremely minor character who only appeared in a couple of episodes before being killed off with all the inhabitants of an entire town in a magical disaster. Griffin kept ranting that he was dead, goddammit - and then brought him back as a lich. |
| 563 | * ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': |
| 564 | ** Volume 3's sudden escalation of darkness in the show contributed to many fans struggling to accept the death of fan-favourite villain, Roman Torchwick; he was SwallowedWhole while ranting at the heroine, by a monster that was immediately destroyed in an explosion. Although the creators admitted that Roman's role was extended beyond the originally intended one-off pilot episode appearance because both the creators and fans loved him so much, they have confirmed several times that he's dead and won't return. That doesn't stop fans theorising how to bring him back. |
| 565 | ** The death of fan-favourite protagonist, Pyrrha Nikos, was widely anticipated due to her character inspiration being [[AchillesHeel Achilles]]. However, her death hit the fandom so hard, the voice actress confirmed that Pyrrha's death had been planned from conception. The many theories about how she could be brought back include downloading her consciousness into a robot as at least one sentient RobotGirl has existed in the show. |
| 566 | ** In Volume 6, the creators admitted they tried to avert this trope when Adam died by having him be stabbed twice, plunge off a cliff-edge into a raging waterfall and rapids, and even bouncing off rocks with a SickeningCrunch on the way down. This did not stop fans from trying to figure out ways to bring him back and give him a role in the Atlas Arc, as a result of his past connections to the Schnee Dust Comapany. |
| 567 | ** Although the creators have confirmed Summer Rose has been dead for years, her grave does not hold a body as it's heavily implied that her body was never found. Many fans theorise that there is a way to bring her back, especially given certain plot reveals that occurred in Volume 8 connected to Salem's interest in Silver-Eyed Warriors. |
| 568 | * In ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'', this is a common fan reaction to Molly's death. To be fair, he's come back once before... |
| 569 | * ''WebAnimation/TheAmazingDigitalCircus'': Gummigoo in Episode 2 had a lot of buildup and a budding relationship with Pomni, only to have him be snuffed out of existence by Caine by the end of the episode. Many fans did not take this well and even expressed newfound vitriol towards Caine, and many theorize that Gummigoo could somehow return, which in fairness was helped that Ragatha's reassurance suggested it. The fact that he was the only major character from Episode 2 to receive merch alongside the rest of the designated main cast could imply there is hope for him in the future. |
| 570 | [[/folder]] |
| 571 | |
| 572 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 573 | * Many people believe Bill Cipher is still alive at the end of ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', with the fact that Stan regained his memory possibly being a sign that the mind-wipe wasn't entirely effective. Additionally, Bill's final words, when played in reverse, are "MY TIME HAS COME TO BURN, I INVOKE THE ANCIENT POWER THAT I MAY RETURN". |
| 574 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 575 | ** Spoofed, if not outright ruthlessly mocked, when Homer becomes distraught over the death of "Lord Greystash" in the [[CaptainErsatz Harry Potter knockoff]] ''Angelica Button and the Dragon King's Trundle Bed'' and tries to hide it from Lisa. Of course, it might not be mocked either, as Lisa commented after reading the true ending that she actually liked Homer's rendition of the ending better than the actual ending. |
| 576 | ** Played straight with Homer's mother, in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E2MyMotherTheCarjacker her second appearance]]. She flies off a cliff in a prison van and explodes. Homer then tries to find a hidden message from her in the newspapers a la ''Film/ABeautifulMind'', but he doesn't find any. Although he did find something he thought was a message (I M OK), it just wasn't the lengthy and detailed one she'd really left. She's actually alive. Averted by his Mother's actual death in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS19E19MonaLeavesA her next appearance]]. She later appears in an ''Film/{{Inception}}'' style dream delving session, where she's confirmed to be really dead, but alive in Homer's memories. |
| 577 | * ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': |
| 578 | ** [[DracoInLeatherPants Zhao]] often suffered from this. Apparently, getting dragged underwater by the Ocean Spirit [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu he just pissed off]] doesn't count. But Season 2 of the sequel series reveals that the fans were right. La didn't kill Zhao…because death would be too merciful. So, La gave him a FateWorseThanDeath, by imprisoning him in the [[PsychologicalTormentZone Fog of Lost Souls]]. |
| 579 | ** Due to the NeverSayDie nature of the show, it was believed that Jet was merely injured by Long Feng. It took WordOfGod to convince fans that he was truly dead. |
| 580 | *** This was lampshaded in the Ember Island Players episode, when Zuko directly asks if the Jet character on stage just died and Sokka agrees it was really unclear. |
| 581 | ** A very popular fan theory states that a small portion of Air Nomads and Airbenders managed to escape the Fire Nation genocide and went into hiding somewhere. This theory was confirmed only by a non-canon card game. |
| 582 | *** Addressed in one of the comics, the Fire Nation had put Air Nomad relics into circulation, and set up bases in various mountain chains, until they ultimately found or lured in every last escaped Airbender and killed them. It's not completely clear if this is canon, they may have all just been killed in the initial attack. |
| 583 | *** Similar theories exist for the Sky Bison and Flying Lemurs. These were ultimately confirmed true by the SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', and they've been repopulating. |
| 584 | *** This even applies in-character; when Aang is told that the Air Nomads were wiped out, he is initially insistent that the Fire Nation could never have accessed the Air Temples, and suggests that they've been in hiding for the last hundred years. It's only when he discovers the remains of several Fire Nation soldiers surrounding the skeleton of his closest friend and father figure that Aang accepts that he is [[TitleDrop the last airbender]]. |
| 585 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''. Let's face it, there are probably going to be a lot more of these. Starting with [[spoiler: [[Characters/TheLegendOfKorraAmon Amon]], lots of speculation has been that he could somehow have survived his boat exploding in the middle of the ocean & return as the main antagonist, in spite of the fact that this was explicitly done to ensure that he couldn't restart the Equalists]]. No word on why there doesn't seem to be much speculation about [[spoiler: Tarrlok]]. People also argue over whether or not the Lieutenant died, which is pretty ambiguous at the moment. |
| 586 | ** Becomes HilariousInHindsight with Varrick's mover idea in Book 4's episode "Remembrances" featuring a zombie Amon that came back from the dead to join a LegionOfDoom with the other BigBad villains of the series. Even Varrick's idea doesn't conclude on what happens to Zombie Amon after the BigBad legion is defeated. |
| 587 | * ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw'': Some fans have the theory that Birdman did not die in the last episode, it was the copy made in the previous episode that [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse suddenly disappeared]] (or alternatively, the copy lived on to take up his life). |
| 588 | * Many members of the ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' fandom refuse to believe that Blurr is dead, even though it was one of the single most brutal moments in the show. Seeing as his apparent death came mere moments after his CMOA and Transformers have survived being crushed into a metal cube before, this is to be expected. Being incinerated shortly after, however... |
| 589 | ** However, WordOfGod and [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PX0o2_aJqt0/ScBOx2tf34I/AAAAAAAAAOs/5kk5p2NIQYE/s1600-h/Squishy.jpg a rather insightful bit of released storyboard]] say that this one might not be forever either... |
| 590 | ** As of the end of the series, he's still not back. But the above image, plus the fact that existing Transformer sparks can be transferred into the bodies of healthy protoforms, makes hope spring eternal. |
| 591 | *** The [=BotCon=] 2011 comic book, set in the ''Animated'' universe and written by Marty Isenberg and Derrick Wyatt, showed Blurr alive, but still stuck in cube form, as Cliffjumper took him to see the Stunticons' stunt show. |
| 592 | ** It doesn't help that Starscream's [[BackFromTheDead resurrections]] by an Allspark fragment opens the door to the possibility of it happening to others. |
| 593 | * ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'': Some fans speculate that Dinobot II did, in fact, survive the exploding ship he was trapped in during the series finale and continued to live on Earth alone complete with his memories of being the original Dinobot. The evidence to support this comes from the fact that he had Protoform X's spark in its whole form, which could heal injuries and was already shown to be highly difficult to kill given his transmetal body. |
| 594 | * ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries'': The highly popular villain [[spoiler: [[Characters/BigHero6Obake Obake]]]] died in what was essentially an [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids assisted suicide]] by way of CollapsingLair. All we were given was a shot of [[spoiler: his chip]] in the rubble to indicate his [[VillainousLegacy legacy]] could live on if nothing else, but it doesn't stop fans yearning for a genuine reappearance by the man himself. [[spoiler: The fact that [[DaddysLittleVillain Trina]] searched the wreckage of the base and only found the chip, as well as the fact that she tells Hiro that her father is dead, makes it HIGHLY unlikely he will come back.]] |
| 595 | * The first ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'' episode introduced the character Morph, only to kill him off in the first episode. This was supposedly done to prove to the audience that this show had balls. [[FirstLawOfResurrection Apparently, his brief appearance made him popular enough to bring back in the second season]], where it was revealed Mr. Sinister resurrected and brainwashed him. |
| 596 | * Many ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'' fans like to believe that [[spoiler: Nabu]] may still be alive. Since Morgana promised to look after him until he wakes up again, some think that he is just in a coma. The last two episodes still seem to suggest that he really is dead, though... [[MindScrew Maybe the writers put that line in just to confuse us]]. The characters all act as if he's dead and not in a coma... [[spoiler: [[KilledOffForReal because he actually is dead.]]]] |
| 597 | * ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': [[Characters/SouthParkKennyMcCormick Kenny McCormick]], of course, [[TheyKilledKennyAgain died all the time]] until it was decided that it should be played straight and he would be KilledOffForReal... Until he came back in "Red Sleigh Down" and said he'd just been "hanging out over there" and pointing offscreen. A CerebusRetcon revealed Kenny has superpowers. Every time he dies, he is literally reborn. Thank his parents for [[spoiler: being Cthulhu cultists]]. |
| 598 | * This is what many ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' fans prayed was the case with resident EnsembleDarkHorse Breach. Turned out she was just hiding. |
| 599 | * ''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'': Young Lance, at his fathers funeral, states simply that "He's not even in there" (They NeverFoundTheBody), and continues to claim that his father will be back soon, until the TearJerker ending when he tells the King his father won't be coming back. Though many fans heavily believe that the leader of G3 is, in fact, Lance's father. Even the episodes he is in highly suggest this. |
| 600 | * Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse: |
| 601 | ** [[Characters/DCAUBatman Batman]] seems to be the in-universe version of this trope in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''. After [[Characters/DCAUSuperman Superman]] is apparently vaporized by a massive energy blast, Batman is the only member of the League that seems openly resistant to the conclusion that Superman's dead. He searches for evidence to disprove it and even forgoes the funeral "because he's not dead." However, it's later shown that he was apparently just in denial, and in a heartwrenching scene, he finally comes to accept it. Of course, it turns out he had it right the first time. |
| 602 | ** [[Characters/DCAUTerryMcGinnis Terry McGinnis / Batman]] also invoked the trope twice in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' in regards to various villains "deaths," especially towards their treacherous relatives. The first time was in "Ascension". Shortly after Paxton is nominated to succeed his father after Derek Powers tried to sink the submarine with Paxton Powers, Batman, and himself still inside, Batman tells Paxton that he "made a really big enemy" that day, in reference to Derek Powers. Powers bluntly says that his father died. After Batman responds, "Sure he did," and walks away, a news report comes up that has the news crew revealing that [[NeverFoundTheBody they never found Derek Powers' body]] in the sunken submarine. The second time was in "Inqueling", where Inque's daughter stabs her in the back by giving her a solvent-laced cure to dissolve Inque. Batman then meets up with the daughter, and she mentions that Inque's dead, and Batman merely replies that "[Inque's] been dead before" prior to leaving. The shadows shift and become heavily inked as she draws her knees to her chest and hugs her legs. [[spoiler: Inque]] is seen again in the FullyAbsorbedFinale episode of ''Justice League'', but [[spoiler: Powers]] only appears in unrelated comics. No word on what happened to their children. |
| 603 | ** Batman allows everybody to assume that he's dead in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Man Who Killed Batman", so he can follow the two-bit gangster who supposedly kills him back to the central boss of a drug ring. |
| 604 | ** Clayface's TragicVillain status and ability to reform his body have many fans arguing that he must have survived being blown apart by firecrackers. |
| 605 | ** The fact that [[spoiler: Ace's]] death doesn't cause a massive psychic backlash like Waller had said it would (and her reality warping powers having the potential to heal her aneurysm) can cast a little doubt on Waller's claim that she did die. |
| 606 | ** There are those who hope that ReasonableAuthorityFigure Nardoc was only knocked unconscious and not murdered when Ares starts impersonating him in "Hawk and Dove." |
| 607 | ** It's nice to hope that Grodd's mutineers in "Alive" (Shade, Blockbuster, Copperhead, Fastball, Rampage, Goldface, etc.) might have survived. This is made somewhat plausible by Luthor giving the order to jettison them after they're frozen but before his ship is blown up. Additionally, the episode "Epilogue" implies Parasite, who is part of that group, is still alive forty years later). |
| 608 | * ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': |
| 609 | ** Evil Stewie appeared to have been killed by Brian, but the other Stewie turns to the screen with [[Music/MichaelJackson glowing yellow eyes]], and [[EvilLaugh evil laughter is heard]]. [[FridgeHorror Perhaps Brian shot the wrong Stewie?]] |
| 610 | ** [[spoiler: After "Life of Brian", a lot of people thought this about [[Characters/FamilyGuyBrianGriffin Brian Griffin]] after he was fatally run over by a car. He actually did die, [[DeusExMachina but was brought back 2 episodes later]] via TimeTravel.]] |
| 611 | ** WordOfGod stated that Stewie's former wife Olivia may have survived the events of "Chick Cancer". Confirmed with her appearance in "The Boys in the Band". |
| 612 | --->'''Stewie''': Well, I'm glad to hear you're still acting. You know, [[ContinuityNod the last time I saw you, you were]]…\ |
| 613 | '''Olivia''': Burning in a cardboard house?\ |
| 614 | '''Stewie''': Yep, burning in a cardboard house, yeah. |
| 615 | * ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': While WordOfGod says Warhok and Warmonga do die in the explosion of their ship in the GrandFinale, many fans prefer to think that they survived, or at least that EnsembleDarkhorse Warmonga did. |
| 616 | * Wally in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'' thinks this after Artemis and the rest of the team's supposed deaths in 'Failsafe', until it's revealed [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation it was just a training exercise to prep them for failure.]] [[spoiler: Wally's]] death in the Season 2 Finale had this reaction from fans within hours of the episode airing. The ambiguity: [[spoiler: He vanished after the energy of the vortex was drawn into him]], leaving the possibility of [[spoiler: "sucked into the Speed Force]] to dramatically return in season 3. |
| 617 | * From ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Some fans believe that [[spoiler: [[Characters/FriendshipIsMagicKingSombra King Sombra]], the villain of the season 3 two-part premiere, isn't really dead. This is grounded in the fact that even though his death is actually on-screen, his horn is prominently seen flying away intact, and earlier it was shown that even a small piece of his horn can spread his [[TheCorruption Corruption.]] Part of it stems from disappointment in how [[GenericDoomsdayVillain minimal]] his characterization and backstory was, and some believe it was intentional to flesh him out later on]]. |
| 618 | ** If it helps, in the IDW comicverse, guess who's a ''good guy'' in the MirrorUniverse? So we do get a more fleshed-out Sombra, just not ''this'' one. |
| 619 | ** Luckily, [[spoiler: he's featured in an alternate timeline in Season 4 and is resurrected in Season 9... only to be KilledOffForReal, with Grogar refusing to resurrect him again to [[MakeAnExampleOfThem Make an Example of Him]] for his legion.]] |
| 620 | * Early in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', it's just a matter-of-fact piece of backstory that Jonas Venture, Sr. died some twenty years ago. As the series progresses, however, tiny off-hand allusions start to cast some doubt, if not on the fact of his death, then at least on the circumstances. As of the sixth season, Jonas's demise remains "off-screen" from everyone's point of view, as far as we know, so there is room to wonder. This is played with in "All This and Gargantua-2", when Dr. Mrs. The Monarch breaks into the home of the Sovereign of the Guild of Calamitous Intent and finds that the Sovereign is apparently Jonas, but it's quickly revealed that the shapeshifting Sovereign is just messing with her. [[spoiler:Then comes the Season 7 premiere and it turns out Jonas actually is alive--as a disembodied head kept alive by the PROBLEM Light. Then he dies for real two episodes later.]] |
| 621 | * Despite his death being the catalyst for the events of ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'''s second half, a number of fans believe that [[Characters/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilToffee Toffee of Septarsis]] isn't actually dead, and could conceivably return due to his [[FromASingleCell ungodly regeneration]]. It probably didn't help that he survived his first apparant death at the end of Season 1. |
| 622 | ** There's a theory going around that Hekapoo [[spoiler: survived the destruction of magic in the Multiverse in the last episode.]] The argument is that she seemed nonchalant about dying and her remains weren't seen, while the other members of the Magic High Commission were. Possibly, she escaped into another dimension that was unaffected. She'd still be unable to see the other characters as portal dimension travel no longer works. [[spoiler: The series does end on a SequelHook so make of that what you will.]] |
| 623 | [[/folder]] |
| 624 | |
| 625 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 626 | * A disquieting number of people believe that Music/ElvisPresley, [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]], Music/TheNotoriousBIG, Music/TupacShakur, and Music/MichaelJackson actually faked their own deaths. This is so common for Elvis in particular that [[ElvisLives it's a trope unto itself]]. |
| 627 | ** The fact that Tupac is somehow ''still'' releasing singles, and has put out more material posthumously than during his lifetime, does help their case a bit. |
| 628 | ** Of course, as Creator/FrankieBoyle pointed out, Music/MichaelJackson ''might'' have something of a hard time hiding out after his "death." B.I.G. as well. |
| 629 | *** In MJ's case the sheer amount of [[PromotedFanboy dedicated impersonators]] and [[PoorMansSubstitute sound-alikes]] would probably get people to [[CloningGambit assume]] he's just [[ActuallyADoombot a really good tribute artist]] if he went out in public. |
| 630 | ** And a ''Series/ThirtyRock'' episode: "Wait till I tell Tupac about this! Oh- um..." (awkward silence) Jack: "I didn't hear anything." |
| 631 | ** The notion that Tupac is still alive was spoofed in a ''Series/ChappellesShow'' [[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/cio5rg/chappelle-s-show-tupac-is-still-alive---uncensored skit]]. |
| 632 | ** ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'' has Elvis singing in an out-of-the-way alien bar. For the record, he wasn't abducted by aliens -- because he left willingly. |
| 633 | ** Hilariously carried on in ''Literature/GoodOmens'' by Creator/NeilGaiman and Creator/TerryPratchett, when some bikers in a bar are playing a trivia game and come across the question of when Elvis died. It turns out the one with the control for the game is [[TheGrimReaper Death himself]], one of the HorsemenOfTheApocalypse, who states that he never laid a finger on him. Of course, he never gets any of the answers associated with deaths wrong. It turns out that Elvis is working in a [[BurgerFool Burger Lord]] as a short-order cook. |
| 634 | ** ''Film/MenInBlack'' provided this answer: "Elvis is not dead, [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy he just went home]]." |
| 635 | ** One ''Magazine/WeeklyWorldNews'' article claims that the "Elvis" who died was actually his supposedly stillborn twin brother Jesse, who survived his birth but was put in a home due to being severely mentally handicapped. When Jesse died, Elvis took it as a sign that it was time to give up his rock star life and faked his death, having his brother buried under his name. |
| 636 | ** And then there is ''Film/BubbaHotep'', where it was actually an Elvis impersonator who died. Elvis himself lived to a ripe old age. |
| 637 | ** A Kit Kat [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5Tgn-HBxg advert]] from the 1990s showed a figure wearing Elvis' trademark outfit watching a news report about this trope. He eats a Kit Kat and says, in full Elvis accent: "I'm not dead baby, I'm just having a break." |
| 638 | ** Even an episode of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' showed Elvis as one of Alan Matthews's poker buddies. [[MundaneFantastic No one seemed that impressed]]. |
| 639 | ** Elvis is alive and well in ''Literature/TheSookieStackhouseMysteries''. [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Sort of...]] |
| 640 | ** Elvis is alive and well on Marshall's paper route in ''Series/EerieIndiana''. |
| 641 | ** Elvis is alive and well as the ruler of a "secret underground rock 'n roll beach kingdom" in ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents''. |
| 642 | ** Creator/StephenKing once claimed he met Jim Morrison at a random gas station. When asked why he wasn't dead, Morrison replied "Don't believe everything that you read", before driving off. King put the unnerving story in the mouth of one of his characters in ''Literature/TheStand''. |
| 643 | * Of course, we might as well mention the most famous RealLife inversion, too: Some people believe that Music/PaulMcCartney is dead based on [[EpilepticTrees "evidence"]] in Music/TheBeatles' songs and album covers. |
| 644 | ** Some people believe [=McCartney=] ''faked his death''. |
| 645 | * Creator/MarkTwain: "[[ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated]]." |
| 646 | * Similar to this are the rumors of Creator/WaltDisney being cryogenically frozen. Or [[WesternAnimation/RobotChicken being installed onto a spider mech that hungers for Cuban children.]] |
| 647 | * As many as half the members of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect believe that their long-deceased spiritual leader, Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneerson, touted late in his life as the Messiah, is not really dead. Rather, they claim, he has been mystically "concealed" and will return to fulfill his mission. A much smaller number of Lubavitch messianists have claimed that Schneerson was actually an angel in human guise, or even somehow equivalent to God. |
| 648 | ** And then there was that other Jewish fellow, two thousand years ago... |
| 649 | *** Subverted, since [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} said fellow]] has been stated explicitly as having died and been brought back to life. However, this trope is often offered as an alternative explanation for his return by those who reject his divinity (e.g. [[UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} Muslims]] and Unitarians) or the supernatural in general. |
| 650 | ** And the Twelfth Imam, who is believed to be in "occultation" until the day of Judgement. |
| 651 | * It turned out that the long-lost author of the classic {{orphaned|Series}} 1970s ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' comic ''ComicStrip/{{Wormy}}'' ''was'' just hiding, having dropped comics work altogether and gotten a job as a taxi driver, trying his damnedest to sever any connection to his previous work. |
| 652 | * Some people thought that Amelia Earhart succeeded with her attempted world flight and assumed a different identity afterwards. |
| 653 | ** There is a book of short stories in which one featured Amelia as an Orthodox Jewish girl who'd always longed to be a pilot. She eventually achieved her goal, but then realized how much she was missing out on, faked her death, and lived out the rest of her life in Bnei Brak or similar. |
| 654 | ** ''The Autobiography of Santa Claus'' has it that she faked her death so that she could go to the North Pole and become one of [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy Santa's immortal helpers]]. So did Myth/KingArthur, UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun, and a few other people, as well as St. Nicolas himself, who basically left a fake body behind him so that people would think he died in his sleep. |
| 655 | * It's worth noting that for a while, people believed Napoleon had actually faked his own death to escape prison. His ultimate fate? A glasses salesman back in France. |
| 656 | ** Michel Ney, a French Marshal, was executed after Waterloo as an example to the remaining generals. Some legends have it that he escaped to America, some even say that he had Freemasonic ties and received help from Wellesley, who also was a Freemason. |
| 657 | * The legend that Dmitri, the alleged son of Tsar UsefulNotes/IvanTheTerrible who somehow escaped death and went into hiding, was responsible for decades of chaos in Russia called the Time of Troubles, as there were multiple pretenders claiming to be him that sought to claim the throne when the Rurikid Dynasty died out. And some anti-Bolshevik Cossack leaders who disappeared after the end of the Russian Civil War, it turned out, really did just go into hiding as they came out after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Their stories did not end well. |
| 658 | * [[StockUnsolvedMysteries D.B. Cooper]], who stole more than $250,000, before leaping off an airplane, with a parachute. The FBI is still uncertain if he's alive, but since part of the money he stole washed ashore, it's generally assumed that he drowned. Apparently, Agent Cooper of ''Series/TwinPeaks'' is based on him and is partly this trope. |
| 659 | * Creator/BruceLee, according to some, faked his death in order to escape his rapidly ballooning fame, retreating into the mountains to meditate and train. |
| 660 | * Creator/MitchHedberg's death was questioned, due to the fact that his death was ironically announced on April Fool's Day. |
| 661 | * Many Rastafarians believe that Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia didn't die [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence and just returned to Heaven]] until the right time. Or simply that he isn't dead. |
| 662 | * The Nation of Islam apparently believe that former leader Elijah Muhammad and founder W. Fard Muhammad aren't dead and have instead ascended on a high-tech craft {{Muggles}} refer to a UFO. Apparently, in it, they can extend their lives well beyond 100 years... |
| 663 | * There were UsefulNotes/{{Nero}} sightings throughout the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire for about a century after his death, with people believing either that he had somehow survived, or had come back from the Elysian Fields to usher in a new age of imperial greatness. |
| 664 | ** And then there were early Christians, who honestly thought Nero was so evil that they expected he was TheAntichrist and would return from Hell to bring about the Apocalypse. This can partially be explained by the fact that early Christians read a character in the Book of Revelations as referring to him; his death, therefore, put a crimp in their readings of its prophecies. |
| 665 | * Many, perhaps mostly Nazis, have believed UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler to have been alive long after 1945. Whether anyone ''still'' believes it is a mystery. If he is alive then he's the oldest man alive and is over 120 years old. We might be safe. All depends on how long [[Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic a human brain can keep in a jar]]. [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Or possibly in a great white shark]]. |
| 666 | * More serious theories concerned Hitler's private secretary Martin Bormann, and the leader of Gestapo, Heinrich Müller, who both disappeared near the end of the war. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal believed that Bormann escaped to South America, while others theorized that he was actually a Soviet agent. In 1998, it was confirmed that Bormann died in 1945. Probably so did Müller, but this is still not confirmed. |
| 667 | * Creator/AndyKaufman talked about faking his death from cancer, but decided against it -- not long after that, [[HarsherInHindsight he was actually diagnosed with cancer]]. Because so much of his work was based on making people wonder if what he was doing was AllPartOfTheShow or not, a lot of people thought his illness was another elaborate hoax, and some still think he didn't actually die in 1984. |
| 668 | ** Conversely, it also wouldn't be out of character for Kaufman to want people to ''think'' he had faked his own death when he did actually die. Yes, meaning he'd ''[[LogicBomb faked]]'' [[LogicBomb faking his death]]. |
| 669 | ** It didn't help that Kaufman himself stated that if he were to fake his own death, he would return 20 years later. His friends threw a "Welcome Home Andy" party on May 16, 2004, which Andy curiously did not show up to. |
| 670 | ** It also didn't help that Tony Clifton (Kaufman's abusive lounge singer character) managed to continue touring after Andy's death. It would probably be more of a puzzler if not for the fact that the entire point of the Clifton character was to present a fictional person as if they were real, and to convince people that it WASN'T simply Andy Kaufman by occasionally having someone else play the role and confront Kaufman on stage, because then there wouldn't be an easy explanation for how a fictional character could survive the death of their actor. |
| 671 | ** In short, Kaufman was such a master of the MindScrew that he's still got people confused decades on, to the point where his [[http://www.autopsyfiles.org/reports/deathcert/kaufman,%20andy_dc.pdf death certificate]] was publicly released to finally put the rumors to rest. |
| 672 | * This trope is one of the most common when dealing with monarchs linked to an old lost cause. From Myth/KingArthur [[KingInTheMountain sleeping in Avalon till the motherland needs him again]] to the ''[[ArtisticLicenseHistory Grand Duchess]]'' Anastasia and other members of the Russian royal family, the examples are countless. |
| 673 | * Creator/BillyMays didn't die; he faked his death because he wanted to start a new life at the North Pole. |
| 674 | * Music/ViktorTsoi fans also refuse to believe he really is dead, preferring to say he "went out to smoke", and graffitis saying ЦОЙ ЖИВ ("Tsoi is alive") are a common sight. Since Tsoi is hit ''hard'' by HypeAversion on the Internet, this is mocked a lot by Russian netizens. |
| 675 | * ''{{Inverted|Trope}}'' by Russian rapper Alexei "Guf" Dolmatov. Back in 2011, his death was reported by a few publications, with different accounts of how this had happened. Seeing how Guf still releases tracks and tours, this is quite definitely a hoax. Didn't stop "Guf died" from entering [[MemeticMutation meme lexicon]] at the time. |
| 676 | ** In 2012, Guf recorded a track with that title, a pretty tongue-in-cheek reply to his then-fresh memetic fame. It also featured Basta, who was reported to be dead around the same time (not as famous for that though). |
| 677 | * There are people who genuinely insist that UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy didn't die. Forget the fact that [[WhoShotJFK most theories regarding his death border on the insane]], there are mountains of evidence (mostly logical and scientific in nature) that suggest that yes, JFK DID die on November 22, 1963. Not to mention that it would be pretty hard for the president of the United States to run away and live a normal life. Which makes me question why these people don't just latch onto the many theories regarding his death. |
| 678 | * Many adherents of Scientology believe that Creator/LRonHubbard didn't die. Instead he "voluntarily left his body" to go travel around the universe. Many of the centers keep a writing desk for him, should he ever return. |
| 679 | * There are so many premature obituaries that [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] has a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries long article about them]]. |
| 680 | * This actually ''was'' the case for WebVideo/TheTourettesGuy, who was largely believed to be dead for two whole years, even by the [[http://www.thetourettesguy.tv official website's]] owner. The official website now claims he was in prison the whole time and [[SeriesContinuityError mentions nothing about the death rumors at all]]. |
| 681 | * Richey James, depressed, self-harming Music/ManicStreetPreachers songwriter, disappeared on 1 February 1995, and his car was found near the Severn Bridge about two weeks later. It was pretty obvious he had killed himself, especially considering his mental health and the fact he never reappeared but was only pronounced dead in November 2008, having been classed as a missing person for the past 13 years. Though considering that he had allegedly bought books on how to disappear, and had withdrawn the maximum possible amounts off of his credit card every day for a week before his car was found, it's not as far-fetched an idea as it first appears... |
| 682 | * It's died out some now, but after Creator/HeathLedger's death in 2008 a lot of people honestly believed it was faked as a publicity stunt for ''Film/TheDarkKnight''. |
| 683 | * As with many other famous people, there are theories about how Richie Valens, Music/BuddyHolly, and The Big Bopper are alive. This was parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' where a flashback hints that two members of the Council of 13 of the [[WeirdTradeUnion Guild of Calamitous Intent]] are actually The Big Bopper and Buddy Holly and the plane crash that "killed" them both was faked. |
| 684 | * {{Music/Genesis|Band}} drummer John Mayhew vanished somewhere between ''Trespass'' and ''Nursery Cryme'' (he played on the former but had been replaced with Phil Collins by the time of the latter), never even collecting most of his royalty cheques for ''Trespass''. For years rumours circulated that he'd died or fallen extremely ill. He turned up in the 90s, alive and reasonably well, having moved first to Scotland then Australia and taken up carpentry; in the mid-2000's he was actively giving interviews and even put in an appearance drumming with a Genesis tribute band, before returning to keeping a low profile. When his brother went looking for him in 2009, he found out he really ''had'' died earlier that year, of a heart condition. |
| 685 | * During the Wrestling/{{WWE}}'s "higher power" storyline there was some speculation that the Higher Power would turn out to be Wrestling/OwenHart or Wrestling/BrianPillman, with their "death" being a publicity stunt. Some fans thought that Wrestling/EddieGuerrero would show up at Survivor Series 2005, which was the week after his death. |
| 686 | * A disturbing number of people (particularly amongst those sympathetic to him) think that UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden is still alive and that reports of his death were "propaganda." |
| 687 | ** Even larger amount believes that he had been dead for a long time and reports about it were postponed for a better time, politics-wise. Both opinions probably take fuel in same...details in reports. One could say that his corpse has been just hiding, for these people. |
| 688 | ** Some people think he and UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein are still alive on free vacation on an island with help from the CIA. Seeing as both bodies have been photographed dead, this is rather stupid, but conspiracy theorists never let facts get in the way of a good time. |
| 689 | * Some people think Israeli PM Yitskhak Rabin’s assassination is not quite what the authorities tell them, as some details don’t entirely add up, and a considerable portion of what the Shabak did beforehand is still classified. |
| 690 | * Tenrikyo followers believe their prophet, Nakayama Miki, ‘concealed’ her human form and still lives on. They still bathe her and feed her and read the newspaper to her; how they do it is not known, as it’s performed only by the Shinbashira (hereditary elite Tenrikyo clergy), which is a cause for a serious amount of {{Squick}}, or at least FridgeLogic. |
| 691 | * Because of the lack of information about Music/{{Versailles}} bassist Jasmine You's death in 2009 (the only information released to the public was that he died of an unspecified illness), there are a few people who believe that he faked his own death for whatever reason--maybe it was a publicity stunt, or he wanted to retire from the music business without being pestered to return, or [[UsefulNotes/{{Transgender}} he secretly identified as a woman and wanted to get a sex change without publicizing it]], or [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy he returned to his home planet]]. |
| 692 | * A rather different example, but this principle applies to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_species Lazarus taxa]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil living fossils]], species of organism presumed to be extinct that pop up much later in the fossil record. |
| 693 | ** Many believe that several "extinct" species, like the Thylacine, are still alive in small numbers. |
| 694 | *** Then there's the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory-billed_woodpecker Ivory-billed woodpecker]]... |
| 695 | * Some people have had difficulty accepting the proposition that mankind is capable of driving species to extinction. For example, when the passenger pigeon (the most populous bird in the world in the 19th century) was driven to extinction in the early 20th century, some Americans suggested the birds were not really dead, but hiding in Chile. |
| 696 | * The Princes in the Tower. Despite the most popular theory about their disappearance being that [[EvilUncle Richard III]] murdered them, there are still ideas that they escaped. Pretenders to the throne tried to capitalise on this, claiming to be them. And now the theory about Richard III murdering them has actually been discredited if not totally disproven. However, the idea that they escaped The Tower of London is still pretty far-fetched: it IS an incredibly well-built fortress extensively remodeled as a prison. The most likely explanation for what happened to them, is that they lived out their lives in the Tower. It's easy to forget that the Tower was actually intended for people to live in, and only the lower portions were ever actually used as a prison. It was never the most comfortable of homes (rather cold and drafty), but it did have all the necessary rooms into which all the necessary furnishings could be placed. Many royals were sentenced to a form of "House Arrest", in the Tower: sometimes for life. Some evidence for this can be found in the palace inventories, although it's hard to use these rather detail-less lists to ''prove'' anything (which indeed was the point: written records were deliberately obfuscated to confuse foreign spies). Though the escape theories are not completely impossible, it should also be remembered that the Plantagenets had a fairly distinctive look: for starters they ''towered'' over the English of that time period (they were descended from Vikings), had jaws as square as bricks, and what would come to be called the "Gallic nose" (large and protruberant). They could not have hidden anywhere in England, people would have instantly recognized them as Norman and that would be enough. If they escaped and went into hiding, then it was definitely in Normandy. Though even there, the idea of them hiding among the general population is dubious. There was simply too great a chance of them being recognized as Plantagenets: which would be enough for the English authorities to find them and recapture them (not to mention send the entirety of Western Europe into a tizzy). |
| 697 | * Pretty common with famous criminals/outlaws like John Wilkes Booth, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, even John Dillinger. Either they faked their own deaths or, in Dillinger's case, the murder was staged to save authorities the embarrassment of letting them escape. |
| 698 | * A persistent theory about Tsar Alexander I -- who talked about giving up the throne and living as an ordinary man at several points in his life -- is that his sudden death in the remote town of Taganrog was staged and that he spent the rest of his life as a wandering hermit named Feodor Kuzmitch. |
| 699 | * Edward II's younger brother, the Earl of Kent, attempted to gather a rebellion to rescue him from captivity and put him back on the throne - over two years after his funeral. He got a surprising amount of support, considering, and was beheaded for his trouble. This plays into the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieschi_Letter theory]] that Edward escaped and lived out his days as a monk in Italy. |
| 700 | * When his beloved youngest daughter Princess Amelia died in 1810, George III went mad with grief, one of his delusions being that she wasn't dead, but merely went to live in an estate in Hannover. The King however was the only person who believed this delusion, everyone else well... there's a reason he's called "The Mad King" (and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution is only half of it). Parliament forced him to appoint a regent and retire from all royal duties: hence the name for this time period being The Regency. It should be noted, that this is the time period when ''Creator/JaneAusten'''s novels are set. The English gentry took full advantage of there being no King to marry into the old aristocracy (or otherwise win titles for themselves often via the military): something that Kings generally took a dim view of, since it undermined their power. |
| 701 | * Maria Feodorovna, the Dowager Empress of Russia, never accepted that her son, Tsar Nicholas II, and his family was killed by the Bolsheviks, believing they were in hiding. There was a persistent faker who went by the assumed name Anna Anderson that pretended to be the youngest daughter [[DidAnastasiaSurvive Anastasia]], until her death in 1984. She never convinced any of Nicholas’s immediate family but some extended relatives bought it. There were some people that tried to claim they were the only son, Alexis, but she also never bought it because he had hemophilia and there’s no way he could have survived the injuries he would have sustained. Every now and again, a Russian-American will pop up claiming to be a descendent of Anastasia, or one of the other Romanovs. A few of the more dubious publications will run with the story, but few people ever really take it seriously and the person usually disappears again pretty quickly. This says more about the general reaction to revelations of royalty among Americans than about their gullibility though. Americans just don't care that much. |
| 702 | * Mexican {{bandito}} Joaquin Murrieta was reportedly killed by the California Rangers in 1853, but there were and are stories claiming that they got the wrong man and the real Murrieta lived to a ripe old age. |
| 703 | * Russian rapper Detsl has gone on record saying in an interview that he wanted to fake his death at the age of 35 and go into hiding on a remote island. He died in 2019 at the age of 35, so naturally that interview began circulating on the internet, with a vocal group claiming that everything went according to the plan. |
| 704 | * Many adherents of the infamous [=QAnon=] conspiracy theory believe that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his death in a plane crash and will return one day to expose the truth about an alleged cabal of child traffickers. |
| 705 | * In his memoir ''Spare'', Britain's [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily Prince Harry]] admits to having convinced himself of this about his mother Princess Diana for a solid decade after her death, believing that she was hiding away from the paparazzi. Not until driving through the tunnel where she'd had her fatal accident could he finally force himself to admit the truth. |
| 706 | [[/folder]] |
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