->'''Yuusuke (mourning):''' I'm sorry, Kuwabara... it's all my fault...
->'''Kuwabara:''' Okay! I think you've done enough groveling for one day! Though, it is pretty entertaining. Reporting for duty: Captain Faker! That's me!
->'''Yuusuke:''' ..Wah.. why's that dead guy walkin' around!?
->'''Kurama:''' Yes, well... I tried to inform you, but you were too engrossed in your speech.
->'''Yuusuke:''' But... [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat the heart! And the finger-poking]]!
->'''Kurama:''' You're a moving public speaker, by the way.
-->-- ''YuYuHakusho'' (English version)

A character's death is faked, for one or more of the following purposes:

* To throw the villains off the trail.
* To allow said character to be taken into Witness Relocation.
* To make a criminal commit JustOneLittleMistake.
* To allow two characters to live HappilyEverAfter.
* As part of a con.
* To gain a temporary advantage in combat - generally considered [[TryingToCatchMeFightingDirty less than sporting]].
** Unless it's done to fake out your teammates and throw them into an UnstoppableRage... then it's heroic.
* To [[TrickedOutTime prevent a Time Paradox.]]

Often the audience will think the character has been KilledOffForReal. Extra points if a fake crime scene photo or FakeGunshot is used. Sometimes a John Doe's remains are substituted and destroyed beyond recognition, or everyone is simply told 'They NeverFoundTheBody.'

When the method of faking actually temporarily turns the character into a realistic-seeming corpse, this is FauxDeath.

DeathFakedForYou is a SubTrope.

A play on the common turn of phrase "waking the dead."
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* ''Higurashi no Naku Koro ni'' - [[spoiler: Revealed in Minagoroshi-hen that Takano Miyo, the villain mastermind, has been faking her own death for every Hinamizawa to appear as a victim of the curse.]]
* Happens in ''RurouniKenshin'', where Enishi is forced to [[spoiler: kidnap Kaoru and fake her death, because Enishi can't bring himself to harm or kill any young woman, due to being traumatized by his beloved sister Tomoe's death.]] Enishi was ''very'' GenreSavvy, though, so [[XanatosGambit he hatched a plan]] in base to this... and it worked ''horrifyingly well'' on Kenshin. [[spoiler: By making his MadArtist henchman build a flesh mannequin looking ''exactly'' like Kaoru beforehand, kidnapping Kaoru, replacing her with said doll *and* impaling the mannequin to a wall with Enishi's sword before he leaves it for Kenshin to find, he pretty much [[HeroicBSOD destroys Kenshin's will to live]] for quite a while.]]
* In the ''FullmetalAlchemist'' manga, [[spoiler: Colonel Mustang helped Maria Ross fake her own death when she was framed for murder.]] It was pretty convincing, too--he created a phony corpse with alchemy and burned it beyond all recognition, then faked the dental evidence to remove any doubt that the body was real.
* In ''YuYuHakusho'', [[spoiler:Toguro faked killing Kuwabara by stabbing him just around the heart, barely missing it, in order to give Yusuke the motivation to defeat him.]] Kuwabara played along for the same reason, only revealing himself to have been faking after the fight was finished.
* [[spoiler:Aizen Sousuke]] of ''{{Bleach}}''. Notable in that [[spoiler:he later reveals himself to be not just alive, but the BigBad as well, and that [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning the death was merely one part]] of his elaborate XanatosRoulette.]]
* [[spoiler:Matsuda]] in ''DeathNote''.
** Not to mention [[spoiler:L Lawlliet]] in the live-action movie.
* Rokudo Mukuro from ''KatekyoHitmanReborn'' pretended to have suicided by shooting himself in the head. Turns out he shot himself with a special bullet that allows him possess others, and tries to surprise attack Tsuna using other people's bodies.
** [[spoiler:Future Tsuna]] also does the same thing, as part of the gigantic XanatosGambit that is the future arc.
* Once he learns that the Queen of Midland and her nobles want him dead, Griffith of ''{{Berserk}}'' blackmails Foss, the head of the conspiracy, into helping him set up a BatmanGambit involving FakingTheDead that ultimately leads to the Queen and her nobles being locked into a burning castle to die.
* Briefly in ''DarkerThanBlack'': [[spoiler:When Hei was fighting Wei, he intentionally got his own blood on his mask and fell off the edge of a building. Wei smugly headed down to kill Alice and HannibalLecture Kirihara, and was rather unpleasantly surprised when the Black Shinigami [[DynamicEntry smashed in through the window, kicked him in the head]], and electrocuted him half to death through the blood he'd gotten all over the floor.]]
* Inverted in ''[=~Jin-roh: The Wolf Brigade~=]'' where a witness to a government scandal is KilledOffForReal to guarantee she'll never be found by the opposition. As long as they believe she's still out there somewhere, they can't move against the protagonist's unit.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comics ]]

* In the ''What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?'', {{Superman}} fakes his death by exposure by gold kryptonite (removing his powers), and walking to his death into the frozen Antarctic. In reality, [[spoiler:he only removed his powers, and became Jordan Elliot, a regular working class guy]].
* In the DCU, the Outsiders led by Nightwing fake their death to be able to work undercover. The stratagem is blown in the One Year Later storyline, and the team then [[HeroWithBadPublicity has to deal]] with the various consequences for [[NiceJobBreakingItHero their actions]].
* In an issue of ''[[{{Batman}} Batgirl]]'', Batgirl once fakes the dead to get the villain to trust Robin, who's supposedly taken her down. That includes ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome staying still]]'' when Robin [[ShootYourMate shoots her]] on the villain's orders, who's DangerouslyGenreSavvy.
* Occasionally pulled by {{Batman}} when he needs to lure a villain into a [[GenreBlind false sense of security]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* In the PilotMovie for ''JusticeLeague'', J'onn J'onnz telepathically prevents everyone from noticing Batman, leading to the villains (and heroes) not realizing he was there until it was time for him to attack. Of course, being Batman, this was a plot he was used to; see the episode in [[BatmanTheAnimatedSeries his own series]] where everyone thinks a minor crook offed him.
* This is the setup for ''Double Jeopardy''. A husband frames his wife for his murder so that he can run off with his wife's friend and the life insurance money while evading his creditors. When confronted, the husband has the audacity to claim that he intended to fake his suicide. That may have been believable, except for the blood and knife and the radio message claiming his wife was trying to kill him.
* Happens in ''[[DarkKnightTrilogy The Dark Knight]]'' with [[spoiler:Jim Gordon; the Joker also pulls this off at one point, but the audience knows it's clearly a trick from the beginning]]
* JamesBond does it to himself in ''You Only Live Twice'' (hence the title.)
**[[spoiler: Alec Trevelyan]] in ''GoldenEye''.
** And [[spoiler:Tan-Sun Moon]] ''In DieAnother Day''
* The movie ''Eraser'' is about a federal agent who fakes people's deaths for the Witness Protection Program.
* In ''[[TheSilenceOfTheLambs Red Dragon]]'', [[spoiler: Dolarhyde fakes his own death using the body of a man he shot to make his blind girlfriend think he shot himself]].
* ''The Lady From Shanghai'' (1947) has a faked death that [[spoiler:turns out to be real]].
* [[spoiler:Balin Mundson (Gilda's husband)]] in ''Gilda''.
* [[spoiler:Both Robert Redford ''and'' Paul Newman]] in ''The Sting''.
* ''Raw Deal'' (1986). Arnold Schwarzenegger (playing an ex-FBI agent turned sheriff) fakes his own death before going undercover as a mob hitman. He drives his squad car into an oil refinery, opens a few valves then blows it up with a flare pistol.
* Jackie Chan playing the villain in ''Killer Meteors'' fakes his own death early on, and then later reveals to the hero (played by Jimmy Wang Yu) "You didn't see me die, you only saw me fall over". Makes perfect sense.
* The villain's master plan in Bruceploitation film ''Game of Death 2''.
* [[spoiler:Jigsaw]] does this in the entirety of the [[spoiler:bathroom trap]] in {{Saw}}.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature and Theatre ]]

*[[spoiler:The Judge]] in AgathaChristie's ''TenLittleIndians''/''AndThenThereWereNone''
* This is how Arthur Conan Doyle brought SherlockHolmes back in "The Adventure of the Empty House" (1903) after previously attempting to permanently kill him off in "The Final Problem" (1893).
* [[spoiler: Lucien]] of "Character Issues" pulls one of these. It had a double purpose, [[spoiler: originally attempted as a way of avoiding his own death when Charon wanted Issac to prove that he'd done his job.]] It backfired [[spoiler: when Zach, not Charon, was the one to find the supposed crime scene, complete with Issac holding a bloody spear. Naturally, this triggered a {{Berserker Rage}} which ended up with Issac's actual death.]]
* David Gerrold ''TheWarAgainstTheChtorr''. Colonel Ira Wallachstein, head of the covert Uncle Ira Group, is reportedly killed by an escaping Chtorran worm in the first novel of this sci-fi series. However he comes back "apparently suffering only a ''mild'' case of death" in the fourth book. It turns out his death was faked. [[XanatosGambit Given the way the Uncle Ira Group operates]] this is not particularly surprising.
*[[spoiler:Caine]] does this in [[BookOfAmber The Chronicles of Amber]] -- [[spoiler: by murdering the version of himself from one of the closer Shadow worlds]].
* Happens in the XWingSeries time and time again. Mostly, it's the Rogues managing to escape death and taking advantage of everyone's assumptions until they can come back triumphant, but [[spoiler: Asyr Sei'lar instead goes back to her homeworld to fight her species' [[PlanetOfTheHats Hat]] of political treachery]], and then there's [[spoiler: Isard]]. The survival of the Rogues is believed by one minor Imperial character to be a fake - he believes that they really have died each time, and were replaced by clones.
** Another book in the StarWarsExpandedUniverse has a birdman who really wants to quit the criminal business and return to his homeworld, but he's fairly high up in the criminal syndicate Black Sun, and YouCanNeverLeave something like that. His underlord even hints that if he tries, his world will suffer. In the same book, Darth Vader gives a character the terrible choice of betraying his friend, one of the last surviving Jedi, or having the plateau where his people live bombed from orbit. Both of them are eventually thought to have been caught in a nuclear blast, and both of them take advantage of being thought dead.
* In ''{{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows}}'', [[spoiler:Harry pretends to be dead after surviving yet another Killing Curse from Voldemort. He pretends to be dead until the height of the battle, during which he leaps into the fray to save Mrs. Weasley from being fried by old Voldie]].
* In ''The Leper of St. Giles'' by EllisPeters, Cadfael discovers that a mourned crusader is still alive, but had his Saracen captors falsely report his death from battle-wounds. In reality, the unfortunate warrior had contracted leprosy and didn't want anyone to see or pity his disfigurements.
* A tactic employed in self-defense by [[spoiler: the Count]] in ''A Night In The Lonesome October'' by RogerZelazny, to avert a potential daylight assassination.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* Numerous people in ''{{Alias}}'', so much that fans are suspicious of those who ''are'' supposedly KilledOffForReal.
* Jack shooting [[spoiler:Nina]] in season 1 of ''[[TwentyFour 24]]'', and [[spoiler:Jack himself]] at the end of season 4.
* Alex in ''[[LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit Law And Order: Special Victims Unit]]''. (This was a slight variation, in that the bad guys really did shoot her, but the Feds let everyone think it killed her.)
* Mulder stages his own suicide at the end of a season, only to return several episodes into the next, on ''[[TheXFiles The X-Files]]''.
* Captain Kirk on ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' in "Amok Time" (where he has apparently been killed by Spock, but we learn that Dr. [=McCoy=] has actually given him a shot to knock him out), and in "The Enterprise Incident" (where Spock uses the fictional Vulcan Death Grip on Kirk so he can return to a Romulan ship in disguise).
* ''TheDresdenFiles'' uses this to throw a demon off the trail, so an ex-demon and his girlfriend can go into the High Council's witness protection program and live happily ever after.
** This particular death-fakery is done for all the reasons listed above, as Harry manages to get the demon in question arrested to boot.
* Done by George Senior on ''ArrestedDevelopment''.
* ''{{House}}'' does this when [[spoiler: he hires an actress to die as a patient Kutner was advising as House. We figure this out at the end of the episode when House pretends to resusitate her and she wakes up in a HolyShit moment.]]
* ''{{Hustle}}'' did this several times, referring to the practice as 'pulling a cacklebladder'. Mickey pulled one in the premiere, and a later episode had CelebrityGuest Richard Chamberlain pulling [[spoiler: a double-bluff cacklebladder, actually killing himself. It was ''then'' revealed to be a double double-bluff cacklebladder, and he really ''was'' alive. Damn.)]]
** It almost ended in tragedy in the second episode when Mickey shoots Danny in front of the mark using a blank, then the mark pulls out his gun and shoots Danny for real. It took some quick thinking to save Danny's life while making the mark believe that he had killed Danny and go into hiding.
* PC Nick Klein in ''TheBill'' (The UK police drama).
* Stroker and his son do this in an episode of ''{{Stroker and Hoop}}'' to throw ninjas off their trail.
*This was done at least twice on ''{{Monk}}'', the first in Mr. Monk Meets the Psychic, where Monk and the police pretend that the suspect killed his old girlfriend in order to get him to admit that he really killed his wife. More notably, in the Season 6 finale, [[spoiler:After Monk has been accused of murder, Stottlemeyer pretends to shoot Monk to death in order to keep him under the radar while he looks for the real murderer.]]
* Chuck in ''PushingDaisies''... sort of. At one point, [[FirstEpisodeResurrection she was really dead.]]
* [[spoiler: Tracy]] in ''{{Firefly}}''
** Along with Kaylee in the pilot, as part of a psychotic joke played by Mal on Simon.
** Simon and River do this in order to get into the hospital for the episode "Ariel."
* In the final episode of a season of ''{{Smallville}}'' Lana Lang fakes her death and substitutes the corpse with one of her clones (it's complicated)
* On ''{{Bones}}'', Booth takes advantage of being shot by a StalkerWithACrush to fake his own death and nab some criminal he'd been waiting years to get.
* ''{{Animorphs}}'' did this more than once. [[spoiler:When Marco's father is targeted by the Yeerks for nearly discovering Zero-space, the Ani-verse's way of explaining where their mass goes when they morph and how the aliens can travel faster than the speed of light, Marco has Erek and Mr. King, two of their android friends, use their holograms to impersonate him and his dad for when the Yeerks come to shoot them with their Dracon beams.]]
** Earlier than that, one was pulled on David: [[spoiler:He killed a red-tailed hawk that stumbled into his path, but believed he had killed Tobias, who is trapped in red-tail hawk morph. Even though this wasn't intentional on the heroes' part, they're quick to play it up and take advantage of it.]]
* ''{{Series/Heroes}}'': When [[spoiler: Angela Petrelli]] poisoned [[spoiler: her husband Arthur]] in an attempt to kill him, [[spoiler: Arthur]] survived, though in a paralyzed state, where he telepathically gave commands out to his minions and planned his revenge.
** Later used by Sylar, with the unwilling help of of a shapeshifter, supposedly to throw Noah Bennet off of his scent. However, Noah pulls it apart in record time... and runs headlong into a sadistic XanatosGambit.
* Jimmy's girlfriend in ''{{Doctors}}'', who was an undercover cop had to fake her own death at the hands of another undercover agent to make it seem like her partner was willing to kill cops and thus get closer to the heart of a drug smuggling ring.
* On character in ''{{Eastenders}}'' faked his death to find out how his girlfriend really felt about him.
* KyleXY, of all shows, recently used this: as part of a BatmanGambit to get Kyle into Cassidy's trust, [[spoiler:after having Kyle pretend to kill Jessi in self-defense for trying to kill Cassidy (it's complicated), Jessi slows her heartbeat down to two beats a minute. This is enough to fool Cassidy, who checks her pulse and declares her dead. She wakes up a few minutes after Kyle and Cassidy leave, completely unharmed.]]
* ''{{Lost}}'': Locke's father fakes his death in order to avoid the wrath of some men from who he stole money. Locke helps, after the fact.
* A ''[[ThreesCompany Three's Company]]'' episode has Jack doing this after he's threatened by a man who thinks he's trying to steal his girlfriend.
* The title character, in the first series of ''The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin''.
* ''HappyDays'': A two-part episode has Fonzie running afoul of a bunch of [[TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily comic gangsters]] after he discovers a stash of CounterfeitCash inside a hearse he's repairing. He stages his own death and funeral to try and throw them off his trail.
* Done by Lytton in DoctorWho. His unit comes under fire (with weapons that kill you outright without any obvious damage) and everyone falls down. After the attackers move on, he gets back up, uninjured, and leaves.
* In [[Charmed]], Phoebe, Piper, Paige, and Leo faked their deaths to lead a normal life in the same house, raising the same kids, but with magical disguises and magically created ID. It didn't last too long.
* Happened in {{NCIS}} a couple of times:
** Agent Fornell [[spoiler: faked his own suicide to find a mole in the FBI, and clear his own name.]]
** Agent Gibbs [[spoiler: faked being shot, as part of a sting against a crooked ATF agent.]]
* In ''Malcolm in the Middle,'' Hal is recognized by a woman who thought he was dead. Years ago, he faked his death--involving blowing up a phone booth--to avoid repaying her the $400 he'd borrowed from her.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Theater ]]

* {{Shakespeare}}'s ''RomeoAndJuliet'' and ''MuchAdoAboutNothing'' -- thereby making this OlderThanSteam.
** Not forgetting ''A Winter's Tale'' in which Hermione apparently fakes her own death for ''sixteen years'' just so she can pose as her own statue (voluntarily or [[TakenForGranite otherwise]]) and come back to life in front of her husband and now grown-up daughter.
* ''Wicked the Musical'', where [[spoiler:Elphaba pretends to melt, but goes down a trapdoor instead to wait for Fiyero... who, by the way, is the Scarecrow. She sings a final refrain with Glinda and vanishes to another land with Fiyero, leaving Glinda to beleive that she DiedForReal. (Glinda did not realize she had back-up on the refrain) As Fiyero says "She can't know. No-one must know." Oh, by the way, before she carries out this charade, she makes Glinda promise to never try and clear her (Elphaba's) name so that Oz will stay peaceful under Glinda's rule and the people won't turn against her.]] ''Whew.''
** Note that this is not what happens in the book version of ''Wicked''. In the book, Elphaba [[spoiler:meets exactly the same end as in the original ''Wizard of Oz'' movie -- [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready Dorothy flings a bucket of water at her, and she dies.]]]]
* In ''AngelsInAmerica'', Roy Cohn pulls this trick on the ghost/hallucination/whatever of Ethel Rosenberg, who happily pushes the nurse's call button—only to have Roy spring back to life and gloat at her about falling for it. Subverted [[spoiler: almost immediately, when the monitors Roy's hooked up to flatline, and he [[KilledOffForReal dies for real]].]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In ''SuikodenII'', the main character's not-quite-biological sister fakes her own death in order to avoid distracting him from his important task of ending a war -- she's tired of all the fighting and wants to leave the war behind, but knows that he'd never leave her alone if he knew she was still alive. All this only happens in the [[MultipleEndings good ending]], however -- if you make even the slightest misstep, before ''or'' after her apparent "death", she was actually KilledOffForReal.
* Solid Snake fakes his own death in ''MetalGearSolid 2'', in order to escape being witch-hunted as a terrorist. Interestingly enough, he does this by dressing up the corpse of his [[EvilTwin identical twin]] and presenting him to the authorities. Thus, later in the game, when the body is exhumed for a DNA test, it passes as genuine.
* In ''MetalGearSolid 3'', Snake carries a CyanidePill he can use to fake his death in front of enemies. "Dying" will fool every enemy and boss ''once'', and popping back to life in front of them will scare them enough that you can get a cheap hit in; the only boss this doesn't work on is the one that taught you this trick.
* Pulled by [[spoiler:the entire Global Defense Initiative]] in the first ''CommandAndConquer'', goading the Brotherhood of Nod into going on the offensive. Even the player gets suckered into it.
** [[spoiler:[[MagnificentBastard Kane]]]] also pulls this off in CommandAndConquer 3; announcing his return by [[spoiler:[[VillainousBreakdown flipping out and ordering the player to nuke Sydney, Australia]]]]. And at the end of Kane's Wrath, [[spoiler:Nod apparently pulled this off until Kane's XanatosRoulette finally pays off]].
* In ''FireEmblem: Path of Radiance'', [[spoiler:Oliver]] is presumed dead after battle. In ''Radiant Dawn'', he turns out to have been hiding for three years.
** Ditto [[spoiler:the Black Knight]], although to be fair, they NeverFoundTheBody. Still, they [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dropped a]] [[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] ''[[DroppedABridgeOnHim tower]]'' on him; NoOneCouldSurviveThat!
* In ''Curse Of MonkeyIsland'', Guybrush Threepwood needs to convince a local inkeeper that he is a member of the Goodsoup family and then feign death in order to cash in his life insurance policy (which only requires him to present his death certificate, regardless of wether or not he's actually alive) and gain admission to the Goodsoup family crypt, which technically isn't the cleverest way to go about doing either of those. His means of faking his death aren't that clever either: [[spoiler:he mixes medicine with alcohol and passes out. [[NonstandardGameOver And then the credits roll]]. [[FissionMailed Okay, not the REAL credits]].]]
* In ''{{Hitman}} Blood Money'', [[spoiler: the Agency sets up a false death for 47 so that he can get close to the mastermind of the [[ContractOnTheHitman plot to kill him]] that drives the main plot of the game. When Diana gives him a kiss, she's administering the antidote for the drug that she used on him (though if you let your life bar go down all the way during the "credits," it's GameOver for you)]].
* This trope is a major gameplay element in the mediocre shooter ''{{Haze}}'': Mantel Corporation mercenaries have a drug called Nectar injected into their bodies which gives them superhuman abilities and alters their brain chemistry to make them more useful for Mantel. One way they do this is trying to avoid PTSD by making Mantel troops incapable of seeing dead bodies. Once a soldier, friendly or enemy, dies, they become incapable of perceiving them. This is extremely easy to abuse once you make the inevitable switch to the anti-Mantel rebels; with the push of a button your character pretends to die, and the bad guys literally forget that you're there.
* The original ''[[{{Unreal}} Unreal Tournament]]'' had the ''feign death'' feature. This would later return in [=UT3=].
** This was taken from TeamFortress.
* ''ArmyOfTwo'' allows you to use the "Feign Death" command if your mercenary is getting hammered with a lot of incoming fire. This generally causes the enemy to direct their fire at your partner, giving you either time to (slowly) heal or a chance to spring up and go for cover. Naturally, the enemy will only fall for this once per encounter, and keep shooting you if you try it again.
* In Halo, The Flood will try to pull this on you. Dropping dead to the ground only to jump to their feet moments later. It can be difficult to tell when they are genuinely dead due to this, and the only real way to ensure they are is to watch them for a moment or punch/pump them full of lead.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other ]]

* Martin Gardner (renowned recreational mathematician - yes, it's a real job) did this to the character Dr. Matrix in his column in Scientific American. Dr. Matrix, an agent for the CIA, was disguised as an Arab named Abdul Abulbul Amir in order to assassinate a KGB agent named Ivan Skavinsky Skavar. They dueled on the shores of the Black Sea, and fired simultaneously; Ivan died instantly, but "Abdul" was only knocked out, and the CIA paid two natives to confirm his death.
* [[spoiler: Dr. William Griffin]] in ''{{KateModern}}''
* Parodied in ''TheSpiderCliffMysteries''. After surviving an explosion, Barlow suggests doing this. Crystal tells him it's a stupid idea.
* Pulled with appropriate magnificence by Dr. Blackgaard in the ''AdventuresInOdyssey'' episode "A Name, Not a Number". The scene where he reveals himself to his unwitting accomplice is priceless.
-->'''Blackgaard''': Actually, once I got out of the morgue, I'd never felt better in my life...
* [[spoiler: Dumbledore]] and [[spoiler: Voldemort]] in ''AVeryPotterMusical'', only one of whose fake deaths is actually explained.
* [[spoiler: Lear Dunham]] in ''BrokenSaints''. Rare variation in that [[spoiler: the faked death is part of backstory, not a depicted event.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Truth In Television ]]

* [[http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/update_suicide_really_is_painl.php reported by Talking Points Memo]].
** Also the recent [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Darwin_disappearance_case John Darwin case]]. Found out after a Google search.
* The police sometimes use this tactic to nab suspects. In one case, a woman hired a contract killer (actually an undercover cop) to kill her husband. The police then faked his death, providing photos and "evidence" in order to fool the wife into incriminating herself.
** In Russia where political and business-related assassinations are unpleasantly common, this is a very common tactic for the local police.
*In matters of national security, or if the person's life will be in ongoing danger because of their testimony, the FBI may go as far as staging a closed-casket funeral for someone who is going into the Witness Relocation Program.
* Marlowe, sometimes theorized to be the "real" Shakespeare, is also sometimes theorized to have faked his own death. Even though a coroner confirmed the ''knife in his skull.''

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* BugsBunny does this on a regular basis. Usually this causes his pursuer to feel remorse and go into a crying fit, only to have Bugs "come to life" and give him a kiss on the nose or something equally impudent.
** The most unique form of faking death in this cartoon was ElmerFudd using a MagicHelmet to strike the rabbit with massive lightning. Elmer Fudd felt remorse for killing the rabbit, but BugsBunny showed he was alive by [[NoFourthWall breaking the fourth wall]].
* In one episode of ''FamilyGuy'', Quagmire marries a woman he barely knows, realizes he made a terrible mistake, and tries to break it off. When she reveals herself to be unstable, the guys help him fake his death so as not to end up with a Fatal Attraction case on their hands.
* [[TheIncredibles Mr. Incredible]] hides behind the skeleton of Gazerbeam to escape Syndrome's seeker robot - the robot scans the skeleton, assumes it's him, and flies off to report his demise.
* ''JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' did this as well with Green Arrow taking a nerve relaxant so that he appeared to have been killed in the illegal Metabrawl at Wildcat's hands, to show the aging fighter what he could unintentionally do if he continued fighting in it.
* The second season of ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' ends with [[HealingHands Katara]] pulling [[KidHero Aang]] back from the ragged edge of death after the latter was struck down by Azula. Come the third season premier (three weeks of unconsciousness later)...
-->'''[[TheSmartGuy Sokka]]''': Yep, the whole world thinks you're dead! (''stands up and raises his arms triumphantly'') Isn't that great?!
* In ''TheSimpsons'', Homer has a dummy of himself made and tosses it off a cliff into a river where it falls over a waterfall, has its limbs crushed by rocks, is attacked by beavers, and ultimately is sucked into a turbine while his coworkers watch in horror... in order to get out of an afternoon of community service.
**Bart ''tried'' something like this, as well, but the BlindWithoutEm Milhouse unintentionally shoves the real Bart off of the cliff instead of the dummy. He, of course, didn't suffer the fate of the Homer dummy.
** What makes the scene hilarious is the ComedicSociopathy of it all: rather than thinking to ''help'' Homer, all his co-workers think that all they have to do is say "Oh no! He's hit the rocks!" "Don't worry, those beavers will save him." "Oh no! The beavers are taking his clothes!" No one thinks to, you know, move and ''help'' him.
** The episode "Bart the Fink" has Krusty the Clown faking his death to [[InsuranceFraud collect on an insurance policy]] after the IRS strips him of his assets.
* The boys force Butters to do this in the ''SouthPark'' episode "Marjorine".
* In ''TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', [[spoiler: Norman Osborn (AKA Green Goblin)]] pulls this off in the final(?) step of his 2 season long XanatosGambit.
* It was just revealed in ''{{Metalocalypse}}'' that [[spoiler: Charles Ofdensen]] did this, for reasons currently unknown.
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