->'''Yami:''' No, Yugi! You can't be dead! If you were dead, then [[Main/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] would've censored it!
->--''Main/{{Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series}}''

Certain concepts considered "too sensitive" are only ever referred to by euphemisms.

The most common example is euphemisms for death in children's shows, even in cases where a character is ''killed'', and they are rendered ''dead'', the script will never use those two words. Sometimes, the writers don't even get very creative with poetic descriptions, and will apply basic synonyms of "destroyed" to living things that we usually associate with inanimate objects. ''Hell'' is also constantly neutered; when the plot absolutely needs something similar, they often resort to calling them "Nether-something" (of course, except for [[FreestateAmsterdam the Netherlands, aka Holland]]).

Sex and certain bodily functions also receive this treatment, especially in shows from the earliest years of television. For example, in ''ILoveLucy'', Lucy was never referred to as "pregnant" despite her condition being the focus of more than a few episodes, and the two were never shown in the same bed together, despite being a married couple.

For one reason or another, children's shows also shy away from using "God." Whenever religion comes into play, it is generally replaced with [[LowestCosmicDenominator something along the lines of "the big guy"]]. This one also has its roots in ancient tradition: in Judaism, pronouncing Yahweh's name without being a trained priest is considered to be irreverent, hence the custom of saying "Lord" instead of "God".

One major exception is the verboseness of a BigBad usually makes the trope work for him.

Usually a form of ExecutiveMeddling. Compare with: GoshdangItToHeck, UnusualEuphemism. Coming closer and closer to becoming a DiscreditedTrope. When used as an actual in-world element, it's DoubleSpeak or a DeadlyEuphemism. Contrast TryNotToDie.
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime ]]

* One of the most painful examples (at least to [[{{Anime}} anime]] fans), is in ''[[{{Dragonball}} Dragonball Z]]''. Dialogue was arbitrarily changed to turn "kill" into "send to another dimension". This could get quite unwieldy: "My next attack is so powerful, it will destroy this planet and send everyone on it to another dimension!" or "Yeah, Frieza's attack sent me to another dimension, and I need you to wish me back with the Dragon Balls!" The censors initially didn't even allow the use of the next most common euphemism, "destroy". The afterlife was also referred to only as "another dimension" for a sizable chunk of the series. The censors have since relaxed; the first [[NonSerialMovie movie]] dubbed for the series, ''The Dead Zone,'' uses the word prominently. (Ironically, the heroes actually ''do'' defeat the movie's villain by [[SealedEvilInACan sending him into another dimension]].) Often a good source of comedy in any case because the replacement words are so ridiculous.
** To be fair, the afterlife as depicted in DBZ really IS for all intents and purposes just AnotherDimension the guys visit from time to time for some [[TrainingFromHell Training from HFIL]].
** The original dub of ''DragonBall Z'' changed "HELL" (which was on the T-shirts of the people who worked there) to "HFIL" -- "Home For Infinite Losers." This resulted in an odd in-congruence later on, when the [=DVDs=]' subtitles and closed captioning often referred to Hell, while the dialogue did not.
*** The beginning of the series had even more horrible mangling beyond "another dimension." Take, for example, when Nappa and Vegeta land on Earth for the first time in the middle of a bustling city. Nappa, just for the hell of it, destroys the entire city, and the last thing we see before it goes up in flames is a huge, bewildered crowd of people. The very next line is "They may have evacuated, but that'll teach them!". Yes, the entire town evacuated in ''two seconds''. Talk about [[OutrunTheFireball outrunning the fireball]].
*** That makes a lot of sense, if you interpret it as a reference to Pascal's Wager...
*** "HFIL" is still a pretty clever nickname for Hell, especially when you compare it to "the Shadow Realm."
** They also destroyed a building, lamenting the fact that it was empty because it was Sunday. One wonders how aliens are so familiar with our inferior earthling calendar...
** Then came the scene where Nappa takes out a couple of news vehicles. One, a futuristic hover vehicle, is [[HandWave handwaved]] as a robot drone, but the second, a chopper, was explicitly shown to have people in it before it blew up. So they dubbed in Tienshinhan's voice saying "It's okay, I can see their parachutes!" Given that the explosion was in plain sight onscreen, it's funny that none of the viewers could, isn't it?
*** Well Tien does have third eye...
*** Parodied on the abridged series: "Oh my God! They blew up the cargo robot! And the cargo was people!"
** [[TheParody Parodied]] in the TrappedInTVLand episode of ''TheFairlyOddParents''. Timmy tells Vicky in the ''[[DragonBall DBZ]]'' parody that she can have the magic remote "over my cold, non-moving, limited-animation body!"
** The renaming of comic-relief character "Mr. Satan" to "Hercule" may fall under this trope -- many fans consider it to be in the same class of replacements as "HFIL". On the other hand, to a Japanese audience, the name "Mr. Satan" would mostly just connote that he's trying to present himself as a gigantic badass, without any of the religious connotations. In that light, the original name simply wouldn't make sense to an American audience (Nor his adoring fans shouting that they love Satan).
*** Ironically the version aired in Latin America, where catholicism is very prominent to the point one country still mantains it as oficial religion, the name was kept and the fans of the show cheerfully call this name in events
** Also parodied in ''Buttlord GT''. Snowflake shouts, "Time to send you to ANOTHER DIMENSION!" then crushes his opponent's skull with one hand.
* Quite possibly the originator of the "send to another dimension" euphemization was ''Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs'' (an Americanization of ''Star Musketeer Bismark'') in which the villains were re-written as an extradimensional race whose members were teleported back to their own universe whenever shot.
** ...Then they came up with the even odder rule that if you shoot them in their ''own'' universe, they become human.
* ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}'' has rapidly assumed a place alongside DBZ for exactly the same reason -- every last mention of death is switched out for "send to the Shadow Realm" in the [[FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] translation. This one doesn't make sense in 3 ways. First, this can be confusing, as the original series ''does'' have a "Shadow Realm" (albeit, the "Shadow Realm" in the original was simply a pocket dimension for the Shadow Game to be held in, and those that failed the game were sent to ''another'' pocket dimension to suffer their punishment). Second, this means replacing Death with something that's basically Hell. Third, this can be quite jarring: in one chapter, Yugi was tied to a wall with [[ConveyorBeltODoom a huge buzzsaw on the other side]]. In the Japanese version, the buzzsaws would slice the first one who loses all of his hit points; in the 4Kids dub, however, these buzzsaws would send the loser to the Shadow Realm. This incident (among many others) was mocked by the [[{{Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series}} Abridged Series]]:
-->'''Arcana''': The Dark Energy Disk is totally harmless. All it will do is send your immortal soul to the Shadow Realm. Your physical body will remain unharmed.\\
'''Yugi''': Honestly, are there no depths to which 4Kids won't sink?
** This is especially sad when Yugi and Kaiba duel Umbra and Lumis. They duel atop a skyscraper and whenever a player's Life Points hit zero, the glass floor explodes and the loser plummets to his death. Umbra loses but saves his life by having a parachute hidden under his cloak. This is not addressed in the edit where apparently a parachute prevents going to the Shadow Realm.
*** And don't forget that in the first season, Kaiba says that if he falls off the tower, he might get hurt.
*** Ironically, 4Kids did NOT censor the death-by-drowning trap Marik sets in the Yugi-Joey duel shortly afterwards. Again lampshaded by the Abridged Series, when Yugi says he's fine with being sent to the Shadow Realm as long as Joey is free from Marik's control. To which Joey responds "No Yugi, you don't understand, you're ''actually going to die!''.
** One instance where the Shadow Realm replacement would have made complete sense was ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh GX}}'' Season 3... but they chose to invent something new that is too ridiculous for words. The good news is, after hearing it, you'll never complain about hearing use of the "Shadow Realm" ever again.
**Oddly enough, this carried over to the CollectibleCardGame, where one of the word systematically avoided was "death", fairly common in the original names. One of the more ridiculous workaround was the use of "Des".
***Des? Is that anything like death? Yeth.
**To be fair, the uncensored series used the "death" and "kill" so much that is was completely ridiculous. SeriousBusiness indeed...
** They also decided to rename the Black Magicians and their posse as 'Dark Magicians'.
***To be fair, Dark Magician [[RuleOfCool sounds cooler]] than Black Magician.
** In retrospect, though, they only started using the Shadow Realm as a replacement for death from season two onwards. In season one most deaths are referred to as so, like Pegasus' wife, Cecelia, and in the episode "Duel With a Ghoul", in which a fake Kaiba claims to be the real Kaiba's ghost, prompting Mokuba to say "You're lying! My brother isn't dead!". As well as Tristan seeing his gravestone and screaming out "According to this, I'm DEAD!" when he was turned into a Duel Monster and sent to the graveyard.
** Alister's brother was said to be "missing" in the dub.
*** Yes, his '''dub''' name was Alister, as in Aleister Crowley, while his Japanese name was simply Amelda. This only makes the fact that the Seal of Orichalcos resembles a Unicursal Hexagram, much, "much" worse.
** And Raphael's parents are heartless bastards that forget about their child's existence for no reason whatsoever (try and guess what happened to them in the original).
** Noah Kaiba is a prized one - he suffered from this trope twice! Firstly, in his backstory, he suffered a car accident and died. In the dub, he suffered "an accident" and "his body got inutilized" (fancy way of saying he died). Later, when his Virtual World is destroyed, the characters aknowledge him as dead (seeing as the Virtual World was not connected to any external server and, therefore, he had nowhere to run to) and even make a little funeral; the dub edited the scenes to get rid of the funeral part, and making the characters say that he probably saved himself in a backup file. [[FridgeLogic Somehow]].
** In GX, Professor Cobra's adopted son's death was changed so that he only had an unnamed disease. So a kid can't get hit by a truck, but he can have, oh I don't know, '''leukemia'''?
*** Don't forget about Edo's... I mean, Aster's father. In original show we saw his dead body lying on the ground, but in US< body was removed. Also, they changed "dead" to "gone". The really don't have a money to waste....
** In 5D's, the only way to become a Dark Signer is to ''actually die''. In the dub, [[spoiler: Carly and Divine]] fall into a purple fog instead. It should be noted that [[spoiler: Divine]] does ''not'' become a Dark Signer. This may lead to yet another DubInducedPlotHole.
**** Also worthy of mention is that in the dub, the shadow is abnormally large, making the edit far too obvious.
* And let us pass over, briefly, the dubbed [[SailorMoon Sailor Scouts]] being "captured" by their enemies and disappearing from the series until Serena "frees" them.
** Not to mention the entire point of that edit was destroyed in the first part's "Sailor Moon Says" segment, which showed Serena ''clearly'' talking to the ghosts of her "captured" teammates.
** After Nephrite is killed, there's a story where Naru (Molly) meets a priest at a cemetery. The dub censored out ''all use of the word "priest",'' even referring to him with the curiously non-specific term "person" in the preview for the episode.
** Not even ''Beryl'' was allowed to die. The dub added dialog from Sailor Moon saying that Beryl was "banished back to the Negaverse" right after their final confrontation with her ''in which she is eradicated from skin to skeleton''.
* The anime series ''GundamWing'' was released on Cartoon Network in two formats, one broadcast in the afterschool hours and one at midnight in CN's post-{{Watershed}} block. The former was censored, among other ways, by changing Duo's nickname from "God of Death" to "Great Destroyer." The latter was not, and in fact even had some moderate profanity.
** Tons of fun when Relena repeatedly begs Heero to kill her throughout the first few episodes...
** This gets fantastically bad in the censored version of the movie ''Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz''. There's a flashback where Duo is planning to kill everyone in a research facility and then himself with a handgun. They simply cut out the word "kill" and replace each instance with the word "destroy," leading to the ridiculous exchange: "Are you going to destroy me?" "I'm going to destroy everyone here, and then I'm going to destroy myself!" "Then go ahead and destroy me, Duo..."
** One of the more ridiculous cases (in that it didn't even refer to death) was when Trowa gives Duo [=WuFei=] something "to pass the time" instead of "to kill time." Unlike most cases (like the ridiculous uses of stop instead of kill), it doesn't actually change its meaning, but they weren't ever referring to death in the first place.
*** Trying to edit death out of Gundam Wing at all is just a little insane. At least 10 mobile suits are destroyed each episode in a spectacular explosion. Clearly those pilots died. Also several major plot points hinged on character deaths like when the OZ organization took over the world after Heero killed all the good military people by mistake.
* At first, fans of ''{{Naruto}}'' were afraid that the dub was going to suffer from this; In the first few episodes, most instances of a character using the words "death", "kill" etc. were replaced with "destroy" (though Naruto does threaten to ''kill'' Mizuki in the first episode). Thankfully, right around the beginning of the Wave Country arc (when the real killing starts), this practice was dropped.
** The German version however really looks like 4kids went crazy with it. It goes as far as editing corpses and blood out of [[SceneryGorn a scene centered on said bodies]].
*** And let's not even start with how they're not even allowed to show swords, apparently. Zabuza's big entrance, ending with his sword sticking out of a tree and him standing on it, was edited so that ''only the handle is un-painted away, and Zabuza is standing perfectly straight on thin air.''
*** It's probably best, that we also don't talk about the fact, that Sasuke's whole backstory doesn't make any sense, because nobody can know that his clan was *ghasp* killed.
** The first ''Clash of Ninja Revolution'' game was pretty silly with this. Any death refences are replaced with "defeat" or "destroy". It makes Sasuke sound like Itachi is his rival instead of wanting to kill him. And it's strange because the previous games were okay with mentioning death.
** The ''Naruto: Shippuden'' broadcast version on DisneyXD has shown that this is in full effect for the first few episodes, as they changed Itachi's line in the first episode into "You must DEFEAT your best friend. You must DESTROY him."
** Oddly Naruto said Sakura might ''kill'' him.
*In the Lion Version of ''{{Voltron}}'', the main characters had a nearly clairvoyant ability to tell whether or not the citizens of a destroyed city or planet had evacuated, just by looking at the burned and blasted out remains of said city or planet. Just about every other NeverSayDie rule was in effect for this series (although the censors did let at least ''one'' "peasants being eaten whole by monsters" scene slip past them.)
**Whenever possible, scenes that might have involved the killing of human beings are dubbed so that the destroyed creatures were actually robots.
**Early in this series, one of the main characters (Sven, former Blue Lion pilot) is killed. Instead of saying he was killed, they say that he went back to the evil planet to help with a rebellion. It was quite confusing with everyone standing over his grave, crying, and talking about how he was really hurt and then had to go away, but he wasn't dead, really.
**When the character (in the original, a brother of the character) reappeared in the story, his absence was explained by a bout of insanity. When this second character fell from a great height while grappling with the main villain, ''his'' death was dubbed away, to the point of the main cast (with shocked expressions and streaming tears) saying "He fell into the water..." A brief voice-over informs us that he was alive, but just really badly hurt.
** The Vehicle Force Voltron also had to NeverSayDie. (Example: one of the villains is actually killed in an early episode, but in his death scene, an image of him saying "I'll be back" is spliced in) Look up Voltron on Wikipedia and you'll see how different the American and Japanese versions really are.
** A specific example from Vehicle Force is when the Voltron team befriend a young bad guy, who's then attacked by the rest of the bad guys, and trapped in a burning fighter. The animation shows that Jeff is being restrained from a futile rescue attempt, but we cut to an unconvincing scene explaining that the bad guy had set off happily to another base...
*While it didn't always shy away from the topic of death, ''BattleOfThePlanets'' included a RobotBuddy, 7-Zark-7, whose primary function was to reassure viewers that each episode's high body count was MechaMooks, unmanned aircraft, merely stunned, just pining for the fjords, and so forth. In one episode, for example, the team's mission is to rescue two captured astronauts; Zark informs us that they got away safely. But their escape is never shown on-screen, for the simple reason that in the ''ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' original, they were killed and their corpses used as bait in a trap.
* The eighth ''{{Pokemon}}'' movie has this exchange:
-->'''Kid''': "No! It's too dangerous! You'll end up destroying yourself!"
-->'''Ash''': "If I don't do this, the Tree will die!"
** ...which admittedly makes more sense in context, as when Lucario does 'this' (Use his Aura to revive the Tree), he ''dissolves'' moments later.
** When the dub was taken over by PUSA, attempts to stand apart from the 4Kids dub led to an exception when James cried that he'd "rather die" than be married to Jessie. (Of course, the ShipSinking infuriated more people than the use of 'die' pleased.)
** The fourth movie mostly averts this at the end...but refers to it as if Celebi is going to die. It was clearly already dead.
** ''Mewtwo Returns'' has the title character saying he'd rather "leave this world" than serve Giovanni.
** The second movie has this line from Team Rocket:
-->'''Jessie''': Let's not say goodbye
-->'''James''': Let's just say...
-->'''Meowth''': We're gonna die.
***In ''Master of the Mirage Pokemon,'' the virtual Mew is decompiled and his data taken (full-on ''DigimonTamers'' style!) by Mewtwo but manages to hold him back from within, allowing Mewtwo to be taken out, which sends Mew to his death ''again.'' There's a tearful goodbye as Mew fades to nothing. In the end, the ''entire VR system is destroyed.'' In other words, Mew is ''dead times three.'' It... doesn't get [[DeaderThanDead much deader than that]]. However, our heroes (and narrator) are certain that Mew survived and they'll all see him again. Uh... ''[[SarcasmMode suuure]]''.
***"If a charmander's tail flame goes out it, well, I just don't want to think about it!"
** ''Arceus and the Jewel of Life'' averts this twice.
** One of the very first episodes has the Squirtle Squad kidnap Misty. In the original, they threaten to kill her -- in the dub, they threaten to dye her hair purple. [[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]] of course, but the dub line might actually be [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment cooler]] in this case.
*** ''PokemonSpecial'' however, loves subverting this every chance it gets.
* The first deaths in ''{{Digimon}}'' were dubbed as being condemned to a dungeon in the Digiworld for eternity. This was a one-off and when more deaths (a ''lot'' more) came in the following arc, the writers treated them as such.
** However, Digimon do get reborn, with the exception of ''[[DigimonTamers Tamers]]''. The common replacement for the rest of the series is "destroy".
** One rare exception to the rule was in the dub of ''{{Digimon Adventure}}'' when Myotismon clearly says regarding the eighth child, "And when you do find him, then he must DIE!" The timing of this segment on Fox Kids however was such that it faded abruptly to a commercial at the end of the line. At the time, it was a true jaw-dropping moment, because in ''Digimon'' up to that point, as well as in all other Saban shows at the time except ''{{X-Men}}'', NeverSayDie really did mean ''never.''
*** Let's not forget during the Machinedramon arc, when Tai said that Kari almost died from a fever.
** In the English dub of ''{{Digimon Adventure 02}}'' , Ken, in a flashback wishes his brother would ''disappear''. [[{{Dub Induced Plot Hole}} Then for some inexplicable reason, his brother is taken away in an ambulance and never seen again.]]
** Actually, the same did happen in the original version, probably because little-kid-Ken was a little too sensitive to downright use the "d" word. Of course, the dub still dances around Osamu's death much more than the original does.
* When ''OnePiece'' first hit the States, it was a [[FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] property, so... death was avoided, to say the least. Kuina's death was changed to having her be beaten up by people she lost to, Belle-Mere was "imprisoned in a dungeon for the rest of her life", etc.
** Which is arguably ''more'' disturbing than plain ol' death.
** And also leads to huge amounts of FridgeLogic. Remember, the day that Arlong killed Belle-Mere, the fishmen/mermen had just arrived at Coco Village, and Arlong Park probably no more than a blueprint. In fact, the reason they killed her was because she didn't have enough money to pay the "Building Arlong Park" tax. In other words, there's be no dungeon to haul her into in the first place!
* Done to ridiculous lengths to all anime aired on German TV station [=RTL2=], who were somewhat pioneers in terms of animes but have since pedaled back A LOT. This worsened over the time, beginning with simply cutting out all blood and death scenes and culminated in censored dialogue in Digimon Tamers. Right now, the censorship policy seems to be as follows: Death has to be changed to "being captured" or "being asleep", with "Fight" being changed to - "Game!". One can imagine how ridiculous the typical Naruto episode sounds like with these changes.
**The same goes for ''DigimonTamers,'' in which there's no resurrection and dead means ''dead.'' If having someone's hand driven through your body, whereupon you give a FinalSpeech and dissolve into bits of data that is absorbed by the enemy, and your death has a ''big'' hand in the rest of the series... there's no way to turn that into "asleep," and if it becomes "capture..." well, it's workable, but the killer does [[spoiler:a HeelFaceTurn eventually]], and he'd be quite the {{Jerkass}} for [[spoiler:not letting the "captured"]] character go.
*** ''DigimonDataSquad'' is a notable exception for this. The dub is based on the Japanese version, which means that most of the US Censorship didn't make it in.
* An interesting version of this occurs in the uncut ''GGundam'' dub. Several characters die over the course of the series and more are threatened with death, and the dub doesn't try to gloss it over, instead just do their very best to not use the word 'die', and instead use a HurricaneOfEuphemisms.
* Despite being the original {{Macekre}} (in context), this was avoided entirely in ''{{Robotech}}'': no effort was made to conceal deaths, either of major characters or nameless extras. In fact, a number of major characters who survived in'' Macross'' were unambiguously ''[[InvertedTrope killed off]]'' in the ''Robotech'' version.
* The 4Kids dub of Shaman King was able to replace all the "die"s for "destroy"s, which is quite an accomplishment on an anime about ''ghosts''. The true stupid part comes when a popular saying gets censored - "What doesn't ''destroy'' us makes us stronger".
* The American dubbed version of Baldios - The Movie (renamed The Battle for Earth Station S1) goes to great pains to point out that a villain is only 'stunning' a group of guards. And then leaves in the bit where Earth's population is all but wiped out by a massive environmental disaster.
* Odd example. Keiichi, from ''HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'' never [[DeadlyEuphemism mentions]] the words "death", "killed" or "die" in Onikakushi-hen. In the manga, "killed" is implied, but most of the word is x-ed out. In the other arcs, it is mentioned heavily, [[AnyoneCanDie for]] [[{{Gorn}} obvious]] [[GroundhogDayLoop reasons]].
** Actually, he says "dead", and "killed", [[spoiler:after he's killed [[MistakenForMurderer Rena and Mion]]]], and [[spoiler:in his will.]]
** A few times before that incident too.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]

* In ''Avengers: The Initiative'', this is specifically mentioned. Cloud 9 is shocked when she blows up an enemy plane, saying that "I mean in cartoons when that happens you see the guy bail out with a parachute..."

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* The film ''{{Muppet}} TreasureIsland'' [[PlayingWithATrope plays with the trope]]: Billy Bones' death after getting the Black Spot (a) is totally overblown for comedic effect, and (b) gets a reaction of "He's dead!? But this is supposed to be a kids' movie!" along with, "Guys... we are standing in a room with a dead guy!" There's also a "character" (just a skeleton wearing a pirate hat) named Dead Tom (introduced in succession after Old Tom and Really Old Tom). This was taken further when a pirate is crying over a recently shot Dead Tom until another pirate patiently explains he was already dead. That's why he's called Dead Tom. The bereaved pirate unceremoniously drops the skeleton and moves on.
* This is spoofed in ''[[{{Ptitle36fwwzhk}} Looney Toons: Back in Action]]'', where the villainous Acme Chairman orders one of his henchmen to "Destroy the duck! And when I say destroy the duck, I mean KILL HIM! Messily and painfully!"
* Bodily functions taboo lampshade: In ''{{Pleasantville}},'' Jennifer is astonished to find the girls' room at Pleasantville High has no toilets. Apparently it exists only as a ceramic-tiled girls' chat-retreat with running water, as the Fire Department exists only to get cats out of trees. As for death . . . what's that?!
**Also lampshaded by that Reese Witherspoon's character is the one who directly or indirectly teaches the whole town about sex, most hilariously when she gives her own "mother" the talk.
* In a variation on this trope, the film ''The Pope Must Die'' (about a newly elected Pope being plotted against) was forced by Catholic outrage to change it's name to ''The Pope Must Die'''t''''' (about a ''fat''...newly elected Pope...[[SoYeah being plotted against]]). The "t" was added to the cover art as if cut from a magazine. No dieting happens in the movie.
* From ''ThePhantomTollbooth'': "He's not ticking! Oh, Humbug, his main spring's broken!" Suuure, Milo.
** Halfway justified, [[YourMileageMayVary I think]], because he is a ''watch'' dog.
* Averted in TheIronGiant. Mansley orders the army to launch a nuclear missile at the titular robot... which is standing right in front of them.
-->'''General Rogard:''' That missile is targeted to the giant's current position! ''Where's the giant, Mansley?''
-->'''Kent Mansley:''' Oh... we can duck and cover! There's a fallout shelter not far from--
-->'''General Rogard:''' There's no way you can survive this thing, you idiot!
-->'''Kent Mansley:''' You mean... we're all going to...
-->'''General Rogard:''' To ''die,'' Mansley. For our country.
-->'''Kent Mansley:''' Screw our country! I want to LIVE!
* The release of the ''LittleNemo'' movie ([=the VHS version=]) had several small pieces cut out, one of which was part of the scene where Nemo gets the incantation to activate the Royal Scepter's WaveMotionGun function. Specifically, the part where it's brought up that since Nemo is just a kid, firing the Scepter will kill him.
* TheSecretOfNIMH rather brutally averts this. The Brisby children come rather close to death (with their death actually implied up until the Deus Ex Machina saves them), and throughout the movie the whole Brisby family is worried that their brother, Timothy, might die from his sickness if he's moved; a murder plot is discussed by the movie's BigBad and his henchman; we see not one, but ''three'' vivid, onscreen deaths; and, as if that wasn't enough, the word "killed" is said just a few seconds into the movie. All of this (and more) was done to AvoidTheDreadedGRating, yet the film [[AnimationAgeGhetto ended up getting it anyway.]]
* In DropDeadGorgeous, one of the brainless bimbos talks about her previous dog, a German Shepherd who went to 'live on a farm' after attacking her. Naturally, she doesn't get that it's a euphemism.
* Completely and blatantly averted in TheLionKing. A bit surprising considering it's a Disney movie.
**Also a good explanation for the random, out of place comic relief. If it were not for that, there would have been a lot more disturbed children upon release.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* One of our favorite and most unsettling examples of this trope comes from the later [[TheWizardOfOz Oz]] books by L. Frank Baum. One of the books assures us that while you are in the land of Oz, you can't die. Fair enough. Unfortunately, this information comes ''after'' characters in the books have been chopped into pieces, beheaded, melted, and so forth and it's mentioned that you could be [[AndIMustScream transformed into an inanimate object, turned into sand, and buried]]. [[NightmareFuel And you'd still be alive and presumably conscious. Forever.]] Think about that one for a second. '':shudders:''
** Then it goes past unsettling and just becomes stupid to the greatest extent possible. Major plot points often hinge on a characters ability or inability to die. The Tin Man can't die which is why he could replace himself with Tin when he got chopped into pieces. But apparently, Wicked Witches can die if a proper residence is dropped on them or if certain liquids are poured on them.
** One of the books even features a character assembled out of discarded body parts and (seriously) "meat glue".
*** If you want to really get squicked out, there ''really is'' such a thing as "meat glue", the enzyme transglutaminase, which can be used medically, and also to make new exciting foods by welding other foods together to make things like shrimp pasta and chicken [=McNuggets=].
* Subverted in ''{{Animorphs}}'', most notably in #22. Rachel initially ''wants'' to say she's going to 'destroy' SixthColumn David, but that's a 'weasel word' and she admits to herself (and the reader) that she wants to kill him. Badly. [[spoiler:While Cassie comes up with the only safe alternative to killing David,]] Rachel is stuck struggling with her violent tendencies for the rest of the series.
** Again subverted when a family of campers gets caught up in a battle between Yeerks and free Hork-Bajir. Paraphrased:
--->'''Jake:''' Try not to get killed.\\
'''Camper:''' When you say killed, you mean killed as in "captured" or "stunned," right?\\
'''Jake:''' Unfortunately, I mean killed as in dead.
*Piers Anthony does this on purpose in his {{Xanth}} series. Instead of going to the bathroom or engaging in sexual activity, characters merely see ellipses (. . .).
*Semi-used in ''TheDarkIsRising'' series. The BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil means that both heroes and villains are universally immortal, making banishment to another dimension the favoured way of defeating an enemy.
*In ''TheLegendOfRahAndTheMuggles'', the BigBad seeks to assassinate the title character. That this is rendered as making him "sleep forever" is especially ridiculous in a story which [[AfterTheEnd begins with a global nuclear war]], though [[ParanoiaFuel one might well question the suitability of the latter for a children's story.]]
* In similar vein to the real life examples below, the ''{{Discworld}}'' brings us this saying;
--> Old necromancers never die. That's it I'm afraid. Just, old necromancers never die.
** Also, assassins don't kill people. They are "inhumed".
* Although the''WarriorCats'' series features death on a regular basis and uses words like "kill", "die" and "death" very frequently, there are a few instances when main characters are dying where death is referred to as "going to hunt with [=StarClan=]" or something similar for poetic effect.
**Similar to the ''ILoveLucy'' example above, the word "pregnant" is never used, regardless of how often characters have been pregnant throughout the series. They simply say "bearing kits" or something similar. This can be somewhat justified, because that could actually be how cats talk, similar to the series' use of GoshdangItToHeck.
**There is also when Lionblaze is trying to threaten [[spoiler:Ashfur]] and he says "I can beat you in a fight if I have to." even though it's somewhat obvious he's threatening to kill him.
**At one point, they refer to Scourge having "destroyed" [[spoiler:Tigerstar]], but they probably used that word because [[CruelandUnusualDeath saying he "killed" him]] would have been a ''huge'' {{understatement}}.
** Subverted in ''Into the Wild'':
--->'''Firepaw''': He wants to get rid of Ravenpaw.
--->'''Graypaw''': Get ''rid'' of him? You mean ''kill'' him?
* PlayedForDrama in ''ATreeGrowsInBrooklyn'', where Francie is made by her mother to cross out every instance of the word "drunk" (a frequent condition of her father) in her diary and replace it with "sick."

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''TheATeam''. Since it was classified as a children's show, you have the ridiculous premise in which the A Team amasses a massive arsenal of machine guns and weaponry, faces off against a similarly armed force, exchange thousands of retorts of gunfire - '''and no one dies'''. [[ATeamFiring Man, their aim sucked]].
*''PowerRangers'' goes overboard with this, sometimes to [[{{Narm}} (unintentionally)]] comic effect, speaking of people as having been "destroyed." In one particularly comic example, a well-known proverb becomes, "Those who live by the sword shall come to their end by the sword." Which made it all the more surprising when the pink ranger in ''Time Force'' screams that she would "not let [her fiance's] death be in vain," (though at other times, she says that he was "destroyed"). Of course, it turns out that he's [[strike:NotQuiteDead]] [[NotQuiteDead Not Quite Destroyed]].
**The most egregious example, though, was the episode of ''[[PowerRangersWildForce Wild Force]]'' in which the impostor Master Org gloats about how he killed Cole's parents. He manages to refer to it with the ''most'' contrived death-word-aversions, never using the same one twice and making what would've been a much more intense scene if they'd only stuck with the usual "destroy" into... not quite {{Narm}}, but it does sorta break the flow of the scene. You forgive it because, after all, they have this unbreakable rule that decrees they must absolutely, positively ''never'' utter any die-related word come Shadow Realm or high water... and then the new villain, in the ''very next scene,'' says "The real Master Org died three thousand years ago and is never coming back!" before announcing himself the new BigBad and tossing "Master Org" to his [[NotQuiteDead Not Quite Death,]] er, destruction. If they can use death words a ''few'' times, why not make one of them during the scene that needed it most?
***The only reason they were allowed to show Cole's parents' deaths at all was because the writers had promised Fox's BS&P that they'd be resurrected at the end of the series. Then the show was sold to Disney/ABC, who hadn't seen any of the Fox-aired episodes - so Cole's parents stayed dead, in a very successful case of GettingCrapPastTheRadar.
****So Fox's logic is, it's ok for kids to think that people are dead for a few week, but if kids think that for a complete season they will be traumatized?
** The worst one I've seen is in a recent series: "I will destroy you or be destroyed trying!"
** In an episode of ''PowerRangersSPD'', a monster goes so far as to announce "I hate empty buildings!" before smashing one to pieces, assuring the audience that [[NoEndorHolocaust no one was inside to be hurt]]. There are also occasional references to various battles taking place in the "{{abandoned warehouse}} district", which just smacks of poor urban planning.
** No less than a season later in ''PowerRangersMysticForce'', we're told by the team's mentor that PluckyComicRelief Clare's mother "depleted her life force" [[SealedEvilInACan sealing the gate keeping the villains in the Underworld.]] Oddly, a later episode includes a MonsterOfTheWeek stealing people's life force, which seems to make them unconscious/zombified but quite alive, returning to normal once the monster was defeated and the life force was returned. You really have to wonder if Clare's mother is locked up somewhere in the base until she can get a life force infusion.
** This actually becomes quite an impressive accomplishment in ''PowerRangersRPM'', where they manage to ''kill off 99% of humanity'' without using the "d" word. ''Ranger Blue'' uses "die" ''twice,'' though... a record for actual life-threatening circumstances. (We did get repeated death words waaaaay back in ''Space,'' when Zhane was MistakenForDying.
** It also extends to some forms of weaponry. Power Rangers villains almost never use bombs. Rita and Zedd have used "implosion devices" that sure seemed to ''explode,'' Divatox used "detonators," and a recent MonsterOfTheWeek used "charges."
** So it was quite surprising when, in the episode with Robogoat, Goldar said Tommy was going to die.
* Soap Operas are notorious for having couples "make love" instead of "have sex"; perhaps the most egregious example was when ''GeneralHospital'''s Laura Webber recalled her ''rape'' by Luke Spencer as "the first time we made love". Pregnant women also seem to be fond of referring to themselves not as "pregnant" but as "carrying [baby's father's name]'s child," although this is starting to change.
* ''{{Charmed}}'' has "vanquish", going as far as to have an embarrassed character moan "Oh, [[SmiteMeOhMightySmiter somebody vanquish me]]!" So, so awkward.
** Actually {{Charmed}} had no qualms about using "death", "die" or "killing" as terms, such as in [[spoiler:"Prue is dead", which is repeatedly stated in the show,]] or [[spoiler:"You were dead" or likewise after one of the multiple resurrections in the course of the show]]. However, the witches prefered the term "vanquish" instead of "killing" for demons because (a) demons have no soul and (b) killed demons (as well as angels) usuall vanish completely and leave no corpse behind, probably to protect the secret of the existence of magic.
** Also, the sentence "Somebody vanquish me please" was uttered as a joke. Using "vanquish" instead of "kill" was used to emphasize the humor.
* Played with in ''{{Arrested Development}}'', when a doctor avoids mentioning whether George is dead or not. He says "we lost him," but it turns out that he climbed out the window to avoid going back to prison.
* Interestingly, ''TheDickVanDykeShow'' never used the word with regard to Laura's pregnancy (which was visited repeatedly in flashbacks), but could use it freely regarding animals, as in the 1962 episode "Never Name a Duck."
* British children's GameShow ''RavenTheIsland'' used a lot of euphemisms for the contestants "dying". "Perished" was the closest they got.
* Speaking of British children's GameShow, the hard to win ''Knightmare'' uses "death" a lot.
* Occasionally subverted on ''{{Mythbusters}}'':
-->'''Jamie''': "Genetic material?" It's ''sperm!''
** Although it should be noted that this was an expression of frustration on Mr Hyneman's part that was allowed into the edit - the use of "genetic material" in the first place was at the Discovery Channel's specific request.
*** The words "expression of frustration" and "[[TheStoic Mr Hyneman]]" in the same sentence should give a clue as to how annoying this trope can get.
**** Especially since they were allowed to say "sperm" several times in an earlier episode. (One of the myths about cola they tested in Season One was whether it would act as a spermicide.)
** They did go an entire episode of "flatus" themed experiments without once using the word "fart". But this was only because they thought that it was classier to avoid it, not for censorship.
** As well, there was the episode of sayings where they had to shine poop. Adam provides the caveat that they can't use certain words by listing them while being bleeped.
* The original series of ''DoctorWho'' was a bit weird when it came to the term ''kill''. One character might talk about killing or murder, and the very next speaker talk of destruction. Look at this snippet from second Doctor episode "Tomb of the Cybermen", which is very typical of the previous seasons at least:
-->'''Parry''': You've killed him, you murderer!\\
'''Klieg''': No, he is fortunate, I spared him!\\
'''Jamie''': Hah, you mean you missed him!\\
'''Klieg''': Silence! I could have ''destroyed'' him if I wanted to! Shall I kill them now?
--> ''DoctorWho'', "Tomb of the Cybermen"
** Seasons of ''DoctorWho'' after 1970 are more consistent, and "kill" is replaced with "destroy" in nearly every instance.
** This does not apply to the new series under Russell T. Davies' leadership, where use of words like "kill", "dead" and "murder" are commonplace:
-->'''Martha''': What did you do?\\
'''Doctor''': Increased the radiation by five thousand per cent. Killed him, stone dead.
--> ''DoctorWho'', "Smith and Jones"
* ''{{That 70s Show}}'' refrains from using the word "marijuana" or any of the common slang terms for it.
** In Season 1, not only does Kelso paint a giant "pot" leaf on the water tower, he refers to it as such multiple times. Later seasons do seem to skirt the issue - the S5 ep where they're helping Jackie move centers around Kelso's "stash."
**(Shouldn't this be on a different, non-death page?)
* In the Nickelodeon version of ''Robot Wars'', Sir Killalot was re-named Sir K.
* The famous ''{{Seinfeld}}'' episode "The Contest", about the characters competing to see who can hold off from masturbating the longest, probably only made it to air because none of them actually say the M-word. Although it's really pretty well done, as the dialogue never seems forced to avoid the term.
** The "not that there's anything wrong with that" episode very deliberately avoids using the words "gay" or "homosexual". ''{{Seinfeld}}'' leans heavily on this kind of thing.
* ''TheSarahJaneAdventures'', normally a show with a low body-count, has Sarah Jane encounter Oddbob, source of the Pied Piper myth. Naturally, when he disappears children, they don't "die", but are sent to another dimension. Since his powers have NoOntologicalInertia, his defeat frees them. But as it would be a storytelling inconvenience to deal with the reappearance of the ''hundreds'' of children he's abducted over 700 years with only three minutes of show left. So this possibility is ruled out with the explanation that the abducted children do not ''die'' but "fade away" over time. Frankly, the idea of the abducted children "fading away" seems a bit more NightmareFuel than to just explain Oddbob as a prolific alien serial killer. Especially since it wasn't afraid of using the word die in ''Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?'' when Maria tells Andrea she was meant to die and Andrea repeats the line back to her in disgust.
* In an episode of ''iCarly'', the kids have to find a bunch of newly-hatched chicks in four hours or "bad things happen".
* ''KamenRiderDragonKnight'' uses being "vented", which in the original KamenRiderRyuki meant a rider being eaten alive by his guardian monster, to explain that the defeated riders are sent to the "Advent Void," the nexus point between the mirror world and the real one, and will not be able to ever return. This seems to be one more case of replacing death with AFateWorseThanDeath.
** One episode is actually entitled "Vent Or Be Vented".
* Subverted in ''Mitchell and Webb''. "This is going to be 'Let's hope Professor Ritson meets with a little accident', all over again. We spent nine months hoping that Professor Ritson would meet with an accident before [[BigBad Leslie]] made it clear that it was an accident ''we'' were supposed to make happen!"
* Subverted (or downright averted) in the most unforgettable way in ''SesameStreet'' to deal with Will Lee's death. Lee played longtime "Grandpa" figure Mr. Hooper who was rather close to Big Bird. When Lee died, the producers decided to make it part of the show that Mr. Hooper died and they pulled no punches. Big Bird is told that Mr. Hooper died (not "passed away," not "moved on") and will not be coming back. Big Bird is confused and angry, and the adults (with actors not attempting in the least to hide their tears - many holding hands throughout) tell Big Bird that's it's okay to be sad and to miss him. One of the best moments on TV.
** Also a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for the Children's Television Workshop and PBS, and a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming for the show, despite the sadness of the moment.
* Obligatory [[BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]] example:
->Buffy: If there were just a few good descriptions of what took out the other Slayers, maybe it would help me to understand my mistake, to keep it from happening again.
->Giles: Yes, well, the problem is, after a final battle, it's difficult to get any... well, the Slayer's not... she's rather...
->Buffy: It's okay to use the D word, Giles.
->Giles: Dead. And hence not very forthcoming.
* Tinkered with in the 1990s version of ''TheTomorrowPeople'', in which the title characters literally cannot "hurt" other living beings. This is demonstrated in the "Origins" arc when recently [[NewSuperPower broken-out]] Tomorrow Person Megabyte aims a handgun at a retreating villan, but cannot pull the trigger, even though said villan just threatened his father's life.
* The forgotten ''The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo'' never lets ''anyone'' day, which, for a grown up, is jarring in a detective series. The closer the show ever got to show a character dying (or even saying the d-word, for that matter) was when a victim was attacked... and fell into a coma.
->Angie: "He was my mentor.. and now he... he is-"
->Detective Delancy: "No! No, he isn't... yet."

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]

* Similar to the Goonies example, Black Sabbath wrote a song insisting that you "Never Say Die," and named the album after it.
** Iron Savior would also like to remind you to "Never Say Die".

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* In the MageKnight minitures game, a critter is explicitly dead when its dial is turned and three skulls appear in its stat slot. In HeroClix, by the same company, there are no skulls - instead, three big red 'KO's appear, and the rules specifically refer to such as state as being 'defeated'.
* Kissing up to 1980s action cartoons, CartoonActionHour follows this trope with a captial N--unless of course, you playing TheMovie.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In Dynasty Warriors, there are "KO counts" instead kill counts.
** In both Dynasty Warriors and sister series Samurai Warriors (and, by extension, the mash up series Warriors Orochi), this can be appropriate as many defeated characters are explicitly NOT killed and instead forced into retreat.
* The English translation of FinalFantasyVI was forced to avoid explicit mention of death.
** Wait, they couldn't mention death in a game where the world just about ''[[WallBanger dies?]]''
*** Not to mention the fact that [[spoiler:Leo's]], [[spoiler:Gestahl's]], and, if the player is bad with fish, [[spoiler:Cid's]] deaths are major plot points.
**** Other characters ([[spoiler:Banon, Arvis, the non-Mog moogles]]) simply aren't mentioned again whatsoever after the world is ruined.
*** One dungeon is the ''tomb'' of Setzer's girlfriend, Daryl. In a flashback she states that Setzer can have her airship, the Falcon, if "anything happens to her" (something, of course, does: after she goes missing, the wreck of the Falcon is found "in a distant land" - although given the context of the quotation, it arguably has a greater impact without "died", but this Troper digresses).
**** You even get to ''see'' Rachel's preserved corpse, and hear the story of her death, but again, no d-word.
* ''FinalFantasyXI'''s flavor of [[MegaManning blue magic]] involves "[[PoweredByAForsakenChild absorbing the essences]]" of foes who use the proper moves.
* ''FinalFantasyIV'' is possibly the most egregious example, in the censored version. To name one example, a character sacrificing himself by jumping off an airship and blowing himself up with explosives tells the others he'll be back.
** Because ''he does come back''. [[spoiler:The only playable character who actually dies in FinalFantasyIV is Tellah. Cid, Yang, Palom and Parom all survive their [[HeroicSacrifice Heroic Sacrifices]].]]
* The words "death", "dead" etc. were formally banned from all Nintendo games for many years as part of their policy for family-friendly content, back in the early days. Abandoned in recent years, of course, though the ''Zelda'' series in particular still insists on describing enemies as being "defeated" after you slice the hell out of them.
** Oddly enough, the one game in the series to specifically instruct you to "slay" an enemy is the child-friendly ''Wind Waker''.
*** Aside from the cel-shaded art style, what makes ''Wind Waker'' "child-friendly"? This is a game where [[spoiler:Link stabs Ganon '''in the head.''']]
**Death was referred to many times in ''Ocarina of Time'' and ''Majora's Mask.'' It mostly referred to how Ganondorf murdered people and when Link's mother died, as well as the inevitable doom of the people in Clock Town. One easter egg has you breaking into the swordmaster's dojo, only to find him whimpering about how he doesn't want to die. Also no way to avoid the subject when a dungeon like the Shadow Temple is brought up.
**Hell, Ikana Canyon in ''Majora's Mask'' is basically one long aversion of this trope.
** [[{{TheLegendOfZeldaCDIGames}} You DARE]] [[{{LargeHam}} bring LIGHT]] [[{{MemeticMutation}} into my LAIR?!]] [[{{CanonDiscontinuity}} YOU MUST DIE!]]
** The NES ''{{Friday The 13th}}'' game [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar got around this]]:
---> [[HaveANiceDeath "YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD. GAME OVER."]]
** The Angry Video Game Nerd mentions this, saying that it's the most hurtful thing in a Nintendo game, and then recites what he thinks should be the game over screen if it had a sequel.
---> You're dead. Your Friends are dead. Your fucking pets are being skinned alive. Your mom's a fucking whore. The whole world hates you. You're going to hell. Live with it. Game over.
* ''CityOfHeroes'' uses the ambiguous "arrest" or "defeat" to let the players decide whether their heroes use lethal force or not. This is subject to much LampshadeHanging in fan works and sometimes the game itself. Yes, you can "arrest" people with a katana or giant lightning bolts, apparently.
** The manager of the Monkey Fight Club insists "The monkeys ain't kilt! That's de-feat-ed!"
** The developers seem to have become more lenient over the years, though - there are obvious instances of characters outright dying, and plenty more where it's left easy to assume. Although there is one character that some players seem to wish ''had'' died in the first appearance, considering the result when they returned.
** CityOfVillains uses this more classically a lot of the time, even when contacts are telling you to use lethal force. You are, after all, a VillainProtagonist.
** More specifically, all the game's system messages ever say is "defeated." What "defeated" means is subject to context if the particular story involving the "defeat" chooses to elaborate. Some elaborations involve capture and interrogation, some involve death and killing, and some involve the defeated character "teleporting away." There is no default stance given to what a generic "defeat" should mean, however.
* MegamanBattleNetwork uses "Delete" as one would use death (although it does refer to computer programs), but does use "die" when referring to humans.
** Killerman.EXE, a shinigami-styled assassin Navi, cries, "''Jigoku ni ochi na!''" ("Fall into hell!") as he buries his scythe in his victims. The English adaptation switched this to whispering "Sweet dreams" in the victim's ear. Hell, the guy himself is an example; the translation changed his name to "[=EraseMan=]". Yeah, we're buying that.
*The man who created {{Pokemon}}, Satoshi Tajiri, wanted his series to focus on the collecting potential of the Game Boy's Link Cable, instead of the violent nature of many an RPG, hence why the Monsters don't die in battle, only faint. That didn't stop Team Rocket from murdering Marowak in the original games, even in the English versions. Your Rival even points out this difference when you fight him in Pokemon Tower.
**In PokemonMysteryDungeon, rated [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar E for Extreme Technicality]], this seems to be part of an overall pattern of very thinly veiling all manner of [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel terrible, terrible things]]. This could actually make the game ''more'' disturbing, since it ends up reading like the characters are too innocent to come to terms with what's happening to them enough to talk about it straight-forwardly.
* ''MegaManStarForce'' never uses the verb, neither to humans nor to aliens. They also never use destroy, but some really poetic terms ("not among us anymore" or "he/she is in Heaven") or the sentence is never completed ("If you keep doing this, she will..."). In a part of the game, "die" is replaced by "hurt", creating a [[{{Narm}} very stupid]] dialogue:
-->'''Geo''': "W-W-W-Wait a sec!! If you do that, you'll hurt the other guys, too!"
-->'''Mega''': "Then what do you suggest? Leave them be and let them cause an (car) accident and get hurt that way?"
** In the third game the translators really had no choice, as [[spoiler: such a high number of characters die (they mostly [[IGotBetter get better]])]], yet they still danced with euphemisms quite a bit. When [[spoiler:Ace dies]], "kill" and "die" are used freely, repeatedly in the mourning dialogue. When [[spoiler:Luna dies]] though, it's NeverSayDie to the rescue.
*''{{X-Men Legends}} II'' turns all villain defeat (except for the giant bugs, which splatter) into a NonLethalKO, which isn't always plausible (tossing someone into lava, for example.) Discussion of death isn't toned down, though.
**This is the ''Marvel Universe''. It is a physical impossibility for a person to stay dead there, so it's not as lunatic as it might first seem.
*The ''{{Kingdom Hearts}}'' series uses this trope oddly. When in Disney worlds, the words "kill" and "death" can be used freely... by everybody EXCEPT the main characters. In the game's "real" storyline though, the words are completely forbidden, often being replaced by "destroyed", "finished", "defeated" and "sent to Oblivion".
**The main exception to this rule was in the handheld KingdomHearts Chain of Memories. After battling Riku Replica in the "Reverse//Rebirth" mode (playing as Riku), he talks about his own death as he fades, even asking where his [[OurSoulsAreDifferent heart]] will go, or whether it will just disappear. Thanks to that the remake got a 10+ rating (surprisingly, the original GBA game didn't have trouble with that - possibly because that rating didn't exist then).
***If the remake wasn't rated 10+ for that, it would be for another scene involving this trope. Vexen never actually ''said'' die - but Axel probably wasn't doing the game's rating any favors when he cut off "I don't want to [die]" by ''[[KillItWithFire setting him ablaze]]''.
**The whole "Never Say Die" thing is even written into the story. Even if [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the world is consumed by darkness]], the people living there don't die. Some of them become summon crystals, while the rest fall dormant until their world is restored. Even the people taken by the Heartless don't really die - when Sora "kills" a Heartless, it's heart is cleansed and set free, and can return to its previous owner.
**It gets even worse once it's not clear what the characters are even saying any more. Consider this: In KH2, a major subplot is Sora trying to find Riku. He knows he's alive about 3/4s of the way through the game, but then the evidence dries up. Near the end, he fights with a vision of Roxas, who tells him he "defeated" Riku. Once the fight's over, this sends Sora almost into a parnoid attack. But wait: that was just a vision, and Roxas hasn't existed for most of the game. That means he can't possibly be using "defeated" to mean "killed" since Riku is still alive after that and even the player knows it. That means, in the Kingdom Hearts world, "defeated" isn't censorship, but worse: the word actually does mean both "killed" AND "defeated", and no can ever figure out which you mean without an explanation.
***Sora doesn't know who Roxas is, just that he's a member of the Organization. Since the Organization had shown themselves willing to use lethal force, fearing for Riku's life if he lost to one of them isn't much of a stretch. On the other hand, it is pretty likely that the characters would still use the euphemisms if censorship wasn't an issue.
**Before one of his boss battles, Axel claims he'll "make it all stop". Larxene occasionally tells Sora to "Vanish!" during her boss battles. When Xemnas merges with Kingdom Hearts, he ask for the power to "erase" Sora and his friends.
* In ''TheWorldEndsWithYou'', everyone and everything that you fight gets [[DeaderThanDead "erased,"]] although this makes sense after you learn how your characters get there in the first place.
** That could work for TheWorldEndsWithYou, but Square-Enix has been using "erased" as a euphemism more and more often. In FinalFantasyDissidia, [[spoiler: Kuja asks Zidane to erase him after Zidane defeats him in Shade Impulse,]] and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days uses it several times in its Secret Reports, [[spoiler: mainly in the context of Axel talking about how he doesn't want to erase either of his friends.]] At this point, I think they just like the sound of it.
* The first English localization of ''ActRaiser'' did this to the extreme. In a very obviously god simulation with world-changing whims and angels who report to you, the localization tried hard to completely ''erase all notions of this'' in the text. God became "Master", temples became "shrines", prophets/seers became "fortune tellers", and other thoroughly unconvincing euphemisms. The game itself, though, was one of the best god sims of its time, and remained this good in English, the transparent ExecutiveMeddling notwithstanding.
* Averted in ''DragonWarrior'': "Thou art dead". "Death should not have taken thee".
* A bizarre variant of this appears in Mass Effect. Characters say die all the time (Though one common enemy battle cry is, [[LargeHam "I WILL DESTROY YOU"]]), and human enemies are gunned down by the truckload. However, whenever you or another character kills someone during dialogue, the camera will almost always focus on the gunners face, a shot is heard, and thats it. The victim is NEVER seen killed during dialogue options. If you tend to skip dialogue, it's possible to even skip the killing scene, leaving you confused as to what just happened.
** This may have something more to do with limited character animations than being kid friendly though. The game can animate a battle with AI and such, but likely can't render expressions properly for a dramatic execution.
** There is one scene in which someone is (graphically) shown dying in dialogue: [[spoiler:Saren, if you have enough Charm/Intimidate to talk him into committing suicide. He says a few final words, puts his pistol under his mandibles and blows the entire left side of his head off. A few seconds later, one of your team-mates puts an insurance shot into his [[NotQuiteDead mangled corpse.]] Not for the squeamish.]]
* Nobody dies in KingdomOfLoathing, they just get 'Beaten Up', a condition that lasts 3-4 gameplay turns. You can assume NPC's also suffer the same fate, since the end of combat is usually described as simply, "You win the fight!" But if the combat ends on a Disco Bandit's face stabbing combos, a "FATALITY!" is announced.
* Oddly inverted in the ''{{Kirby}} Super Star'' sub-game "The Revenge of Meta Knight"--Meta Knight clearly says "PrepareToDie!" before dueling Kirby, yet in the EnhancedRemake, he says "Prepare to meet your doom!"
* Played for laughs in SuperPaperMario. [[NoFourthWall Death is replaced by "game over" and kill by "end the game"]].
** And getting resurrected by Jaydes is called a "continue". Even the hilarious fourth wall breaking dialogue cannot hide the game's pretty dark undertone though.
** Played straight in ''MarioAndLuigi: Bowser's Inside Story'', though, where seemingly every use of "die" or any of its derivative forms is replaced with "KO". Vaguely [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] at one point, where ExpositionFairy Starlow asks an enemy character if they've got a "KO wish".
* In [[{{Mother}} the]] [[{{Earthbound}} Mother]] [[{{Mother3}} series]], defeating enemies will render them to "become tame, stop moving, return to normal, disappear, or defeated".
** [[JustifiedTrope Justification]] occurs though that some things such as moving records, lamps, and street signs would "stop moving" and return to normal, non-animated/living objects.
** Of course, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou mind that trees, space orbs with big grins, atomic robots, and ufos tend to explode after you beat them and severely injure everyone]].
* With the original [[SugarBowl ultra cartoony and sweet]] SpyroTheDragon, all the characters would faint or disappear. Sure there was exploding sheep, but each villain was essentially restricted to one mention of death. The trope gets subverted with the ''Legend'' games, in which [[NightmareFuel death and darkness are something you shouldn't play with]].
** Of course, that gets a bit of a spoof when [[spoiler: Ignitus dies and becomes the next Chronicler]], replacing the one before him.
*** And where did the original Chronicler go?
*** [[WildMassGuessing perhaps he just burned up?]]
* ''MetalGear Solid'' for GBC. Hoo boy. Let's start by stating this is a game about terrorists trying to start a nuclear war. It contains a scene where [[spoiler:a minor character is killed out of the blue by exploding handcuffs]]. It contains another where the BigBad graphically discusses a rape-murder and avoids those specific words.
* Played for laughs in Mario Super Sluggers, where a Magikoopa who Bowser charged with guarding a lighthouse confuses sayings each time you challenge it. (for example "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man angry and hungry for pies."). If you fail his challenge and talk to him he'll attempt to use the expressions "Never say die" and "live and let die" only replacing the word 'die' with 'bye.' When a Lakitu attempts to correct him, he interrupts the correction and the challenge begins.
* The French version of ''TalesOfSymphonia'' is a funny example of this when you understand English, because while the text is in French, the voice acting is still in English. So you ''hear'' "killed" and ''read'' "destroyed/eliminated/disposed of/badly hurt". They toned down some of the stuff Zelos says, too...
* In Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean MMORPG, you are asked to "defeat" a certain type of enemy, even if "defeating" means whacking them with a cutlass, shooting them, throwing grenades at them, or what have you.
* New Super Mario Bros Wii's instruction manual quite glaringly refers to "blunder" and "make a mistake" rather than death. [[WallBanger It still says you "lose a life" though.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Animation]]
* A BonusStage episode in which Joel learns, from the book ''Do-It-Yourself Standards & Practices'', how to retool the show for a child audience, we hear this exchange (words in brackets being obviously dubbed):
--> '''Phil:''' Wh--... what just happened?
--> '''Joel:''' It's been a week, dude. You came back from the [hurt] after I [destroyed] you and sent you to [Hades]. That stuff was, uh, cut... for, uh... time.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Webcomics ]]
* One of the oddities of language in {{Erfworld}} is the use of "croaked" instead of "dead" or "killed" (and "uncroaked" instead of "undead").
** However, this is clearly done by the characters and not the author, because Parson ''does'' refer to it as death and takes note of how completely inappropriate death seems in this otherwise cute and cuddly setting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]
* Subverted in the ''SpongebobSquarepants'' episode "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost", Spongebob and Patrick believe they have accidentally killed Squidward (really just a wax model of Squidward). Spongebob, on the verge of tears, says "Patrick, I think he's... pushing up daisies!", to which Patrick nonchalantly responds, "Oh, I thought he was dead."
** Another subversion is done in a similar manner on an episode of ''My Gym Partner's A Monkey''.
* Shego clearly infers this when, pointing a laser at Kim and Ron, snarks "They don't send mail where you're going."
** Averted in Drakken's Demise, Falsato Jones isn't really trying to kill Kim, but lead her into a trap.
* An episode of {{Animaniacs}} has the Warners escaping from a boring man, exclaiming "Free at last, free at last, thank G-" at which point they are cut off by the man reappearing.
** Another episode featured Slappy Squirrel guarding the apple in the Garden of Eden. She claims she was given the job by "Mr. Big".
**One of my favorites is the first Rita and Runt cartoon, where the two are in the pound. Rita says "Ah what difference does it make, soon we'll be sleeping the 'big sleep'." Runt states that he could use a nap, to which Rita snaps "They're gonna gas us you buffoon. We'll be dead!"
**Parodied (and also a great comment on Disney's "for kids" movies) in one of the funniest Slappy the Squirel shorts "Bumbie's Mom" where Slappy and Skippy see "Bumbie" and Skippy freaks out when Bumbie's mom is shot and killed. Throughout the entire episode Slappy tries to explain that no one dies in cartoons and that Bumbie's mom is alive. Skippy continuously replies "Bumbie's mom...she's...waaaah!" Slappy finally takes Skippy to see the "actor" that played Bumbie's mom and he feels better...then on the plane ride back they show "Old Yellow" and Skippy starts crying when they shoot Old Yellow the dog. Slappy then just says "Ah fade to black already!"
* ''GIJoe'' is infamous for having characters ''always'' parachute out after enemy aircraft are shot down, even from helicopters. A writer on the series has noted that the closest they could come to death was mentioning "casualties."
** Thankfully averted to the extreme in the GIJoe: Resolute storyline, which opens up the very first scene with a ''dead guy with a knife in his chest lying in a pool of his own blood.''
* ''TeenTitans'' used every synonym in the book in the second season finale episode "Aftershock", which felt especially awkward with the dark dialog and tone the episode set.
**The BigBad in the series was only ever referred to as Slade; in the comics he's more usually called Deathstroke the Terminator. Oddly, they didn't have any problems with the names "Killer Moth" and "Brother Blood."
*** Well, "Deathstroke the Terminator" sounds like he's CompensatingForSomething...
*** You mean being a total BadAss with an [[AwesomeMcCoolname awesome name]]?
*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint You clearly missed the point, didn't you?]]
** Likewise in season four finale "The End". Slade saying "I don't even expect you to live" is probably the closest the series ever came to an aversion of this trope. But he's not even able to directly address [[spoiler:his own currently undead state, when his mask is knocked off to reveal a skeletal face]].
* Subverted in ''TheRenAndStimpyShow'' episode "The Big House": Ren and Stimpy end up in the pound, and Ren freaks out after realizing another inmate that was taken away to be "put to sleep" got "the ''big'' sleep". When Stimpy ask what "the big sleep" is, Ren leans towards him as if to whisper in his ear, but ends up shouting:
-->'''Ren''': It's ''death!!!'' Death, you idiot! You know what dead is?! It's what we'll be if we don't get out of here!
** Also Ren often threatened to kill Stimpy if he made him really angry, like he said in one episode "You sick little monkey, if you ever do that again I'll kill you!".
* Various examples in ''SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'', known for its particularly heavy censorship. Semper had to have Mary Jane and the Green Goblin fall through an interdimensional portal instead of to their deaths. It is stated that the Punisher's family, rather than being gunned down, was simply "caught in a crossfire between rival gangs," and the same applied to the wife of the Destroyer. Uncle Ben simply "tried to stop the burglar that broke into his house, but the burglar was armed." At one point, when the Goblin returns after seemingly perishing, Spider-Man says, "You?! But I thought you were--" and the Goblin cuts him off with, "I'm not.. but you'll soon be!"
** ThePunisher when appearing on the show was said to use "lethal force", but the words "death" and "kill" never appeared. He's also shown using [[WhereDidTheyGetLasers goofy laser guns]] just like everyone else.
** Morbius the Living Vampire drank "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_plasma plasma]]", not blood (he was also modified to use suckers in his hands rather than biting people).
** Interestingly enough, Venom constantly commenting to Spidey on how "We will destroy you" didn't lose any of its effectiveness, most likely due to the manner in which he delivered it. He eventually became a very popular character in the show despite his few appearances.
***It's still effective because it might actually be accurate. Venom hates Spider-Man to the point that simply killing him would never be enough. He wants Spider-Man alone, friendless and broken before he dies.
** The worst example, though, was Carnage, a particularly brutal serial killer who became popular in the comics as part of the DarkerAndEdgier late 80's/early 90's. It's stated that he was a vicious criminal before becoming super-powered, but the word "killer" is never used. After becoming super-powered, he is recruited by the alien-god-thing Dormammu to drain the life force from people to power him up, bringing him into this world. Draining people only leaves them near death, and naturally, when he's defeated, all this life energy is returned.
** It's worth mentioning that ''TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' mostly averts this.
***Interestingly, ''TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' has actually had fewer death references than the 90s series, and no deaths (other than backstory ones) thus far. However, there's less [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdlerizing]] in other areas. The 90s series wasn't even a little bit shy about DeathByBackstory, and also had the clone Mary Jane and Hydro-Man die (a TearJerker of a scene, actually) as well as the real Mysterio (by choosing to stay behind in the CollapsingLair with his lover, who ''deliberately initiated'' the collapse because, to her, death was preferable to remaining disfigured.) It contained far more deaths than some shows that were braver when it came to using the word.
* In the ''SilverSurfer'' animated series, Thanos is the primary antagonist. In the comics, Thanos has a crush on (the embodiment of) Death, a plot which carries over into the show. Death, however, is called "Lady Chaos" for television purposes.
* Partial aversion: For its first two seasons, ''[[{{X-Men}} X-Men the Animated Series]]'' gleefully ignored this rule, happily using "die" and "kill" willy-nilly, with a character actually being killed in the series pilot. With the beginning of the third season, "destroyed" became the synonym of choice, in the style of Saban Entertainment's other NeverSayDie works (Beast even once said "Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do and..." in a manner ''very'' reminiscent of the ''{{Spider-Man}}'' series). Even after this point, though, the series certainly broke some rules with Nightcrawler's introductory episode, in which the character would repeatedly refer to God by name and give deep, meaningful testimonies in regards to His works(ironically, Fox execs said they HAD to...unless people thought Nightcrawler was a devil). In the "Phalanx Covenant" two-parter (well into the more heavily-censored part of the series), Magneto was even allowed to say "Thank God!"
** Which is weird, considering that the Hellfire Club's name was changed to the "Inner Circle Club"...This grand tradition has also apparently been carried on in ''WolverineAndTheXMen''.
* In the ''Bratz'' DVD "Genie Magic", Cloe (one of the 4 Bratz) is annoyed at two of the regular boys for scaring the girls during a slumber party and says, "I wish you would croak." Their new friend turns out to be a genie, and a LiteralGenie at that, as she turns the boys into frogs. One of the other girls gets cut off while explaining what Cloe really meant.
* ''{{Rugrats}}'' unabashedly used the word "dead" in the episode when Chuckie's pet potato bug died -- of course, the babies' grasp of death is only that it's "when you sleep for a long time... like forever." -- but eventually shied away from it. For example, in the Passover special, the 10th plague on Egypt is called "''taking away'' the first born."
* ''El Tigre'' expresses the most common usage of the trope in current American cartoons. While they use the word kill passively, "I was nearly killed," they skirt away whenever it calls for directly: "Are you sure this isn't apart of some sinister plot to destroy me?/She tried to get close to me, to ''destroy'' me." Basically you're not generally going to hear the statement, "I kill you" in an American cartoon today.
* Similarly, ''DannyPhantom'' used the word kill plenty of times for humor and occasionally for intense situations, but swapped it out for the word "[[TotallyRadical waste]]" whenever it called for direction. The many uses of "destroy" are understandable, since, even though OurGhostsAreDifferent, it would sound strange to refer to killing a ''ghost'' (especially since that's not how he gets rid of them).
* While the cast of ''Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light'' would do the whole "destroy" thing, they interestingly also commonly used the word "slay", which - given the neo-medieval basis of the story - is fairly appropriate.
* Averted in ''{{Gargoyles}}'', most memorably at the end of "Hunter's Moon: Part One", where [[spoiler:Goliath -- the hero, mind -- makes a baldfaced vow to hunt down and ''kill'' the Hunters after they mortally wound his daughter.]] (Series creator Greg Weisman had to fight for this one.)
** On another note, Xanatos actually said "Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot through Hell." once, though it helped the use was poetic and not profane.
*''ThePowerpuffGirls'' played this trope straight even to ''cockroaches'', which are not killed but "squished, smashed, stepped-on," etc. In the same episode, a cockroach-based villain is thrown from his cockroach mecha to splat on the pavement below...
-->'''Blossom''': Oh noooo! It's definitely not okay to squish a person!
** Fortunately, it was just a robot.
* Parodied in an episode of ''FamilyGuy'' where Meg says that her class is performing ''DeathOfASalesman'', but because they aren't allowed to say "death", the ending just has everyone dancing around with sparklers.
* Another surprising Disney aversion: ''DarkwingDuck'' uses "kill" and "death" quite regularly. One of the most notable aversions is the episode "Just Us Justice Ducks, part 2", where they use the word "kill" several times in the span of a few minutes. "Let's kill Negaduck!" "Kill Negaduck, kill Negaduck!" "Kill who?" "[[SpotTheImposter I'm Darkwing Duck, HE'S Negaduck!]] Kill him!" "You thought he was me? You were going to kill ME!?" "Didn't we already kill Darkwing Duck?"
** A particularly shocking instance, not just because of the sincere loathing behind it, but because it was the {{Pilot}} of the series, was the end of "Darkly Dawns the Duck, part 2." A defeated Taurus Bulba, standing a few feet away from the self-destructing Ram Rod, grabs Darkwing and suspends him by the collar. As Darkwing tries desperately (but futilely) to escape, Bulba delivers the brutal line: "I underestimated you once, Darwking Duck, but now you simply ''DIE''." Cue the Ram Rod exploding and destroying about a third of Canard Tower along with it.
* From the ''{{Inhumanoids}}'' premiere miniseries: "If his friends release him, we're ended."
* In the {{DCAU}}, also called the Diniverse, this was amazingly averted, throughout both ''JusticeLeague'' series but perhaps most prominently in the ''SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Late Mr. Kent," which not only features plenty of references to death and killing, but ends with a actual execution just as the credits roll.
** ...A sad, sad ''example'', however, would be the ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Off Balance," where agents of Talia al-Ghul's Society of Shadows quite clearly each use a gaseous CyanidePill--their dead eyes staring into nothingness--and in the very next scene Batman tells Gordon that they'd used the gas "to erase their own minds." Suuure they did.
*** This was possibly a bit of a TakeThat to the censors at Warner Brothers. In the DVD commentaries, both Timm and Dini state that since they were not allowed to kill off any humans, they freqently tried to come up with things that were inherently more disturbing than outright death. In this case, the bad guys essentially [[NightmareFuel lobotomized themselves]].
** Assassins carrying pills for "erasing their minds" is later brought back up during ''BatmanBeyond,'' actually. At least they're consistent.
*** Speaking of ''BatmanBeyond,'' Terry [=McGinnis=] shows a consistent willingness to use lethal force in the heat of combat, throwing barrels of nerve gas or jabbing his enemy with syringes full of mutagen if that's what it takes to get him out of a jam, and rarely if ever losing much sleep over leaving a villain to die in a sinking ship or exploding building. The series does, however, make a point of the fact that he would never kill in cold blood.
* Avoided in JemAndTheHolograms, usually in reference to late Emmett Benton and late Jacqui Benton, the parents of Jerrica Benton and Kimber Benton. In "Out of Past", Emmett wrote that it's been one week since the death of his wife. One exception is Pizzazz threatens to "kill" Kimber Benton when she see Kimber with her own dad, Harvey Gabor in the climax of "Father's Day".
* ''{{Invader Zim}}'' is a good example of this in a few episodes. One being the episode "Bestest Friend" after Zim "gives" Keef his brand new robot eyes, it ends with Keef being attacked by a squirrel, falling off a house and subsequently exploding. However, according to the DVD commentary, Jhonen had to give him the line, "So you don't like waffles?" at the end, implying that he was still alive. Another good example is "Hamstergeddon", where Zim turns the class pet hamster into a heartless (but cute) killing machine; as it shows the giant hamster stomping on people or people getting squished by giant debris as they are too distracted by its cuteness (the whole episode is a homage to the ''{{Godzilla}}'' movies). Even at the end of the episode, a [[http://badbadrubberpiggy.com/caps/template-zim-caps.php?img=/images/caps/iz13/large/iz13-01048.jpg disclaimer]] appears at the end. Whether this was Jhonen doing a TakeThat at Nickelodeon, or if Nick executives told him to make a disclaimer at the end is unknown.
*** They told him to put the line in, but they didn't say ''how'' the line would sound. By giving it the echo effect not only does it remove the "I'm OK!" impression, but it sounded like he was talking from beyond the grave, making it even MORE creepy than beforehand.
** Another incident similar to "Bestest Friend" happened in the episode "Game Slave 2", where Dib's sister Gaz mercilessly hunts down a gaming nerd named Iggins because he took the last Game Slave 2 (a handheld gaming system that was rightfully hers in the first place). At the end of the episode where Iggins finally gives the Game Slave 2 to Gaz and restores the natural order, the elevator that he's in plummets him to the ground (he's at the 50th floor as the elevator plummets, so you pretty much know that he's dead). However, Nickelodeon also found this to be too violent, and made Jhonen change it at the end, so Iggins emerges from the wreck all A-OK (though interestingly, Jhonen thought the idea of Iggins surviving the 50 story drop and being alright was hilarious).
** Ironically subverted in the episode "Hobo 13":
--->'''Zim:''' *upon seeing [[ChewToy Invader Skooge]]* Skooge?! But I thought The Tallest killed you!
--->'''Skooge:''' Yeah... [[IGotBetter but I'm okay now!]]
**(complaining about the extinct martians) "I hate them! And i hope they (kicks martian skull) di- oh. oh-oh-yeah..."
* This trope is mostly averted in ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'', notably in previews of [[GrandFinale its final episodes]]: "I guess I don't have a choice, Momo. I have to kill the Fire Lord." It was still awkwardly in partial effect for much of the third season, including the beginning of the finale. On the other hand, given the specific contexts in which the word "kill" was avoided, it could be interpreted as the (young) characters themselves following the trope in order to assuage their own consciences.
** To be fair, Aang ''is'' a very naive & optimistic twelve/thirteen-year-old, and an effective Buddhist; it's really in his character to not want to kill another human (though apparently Vulture-Wasps are fair game)
** ''Avatar'' seems to relish in kid-friendly-on-screen-death; for example, a prison commander throwing a high-ranking subordinate off a prison barge and into the ocean for the hell of it, the Blue Spirit throwing one guy off a fort, and [[JerkJock Hahn]] getting thrown off a boat in the middle of a battle [[CasualDangerDialog between sentences]]. And then there's ''this'' [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome exchange]]:
---> '''Captain:''' Princess, I'm afraid the tides won't allow us to bring the ship into port before nightfall.\\
'''Azula:''' I'm sorry, Captain, but I do not know much about the tides. Can you explain something to me?\\
'''Captain:''' Of course.\\
'''Azula:''' Do the tides command this ship?\\
'''Captain:''' I'm afraid I don't understand.\\
'''Azula:''' You said "the tides would not allow us to bring the ship in." Do the tides command this ship?\\
'''Captain:''' No, Princess.\\
'''Azula:''' And if I were to have you thrown overboard, would the tides think twice about having you smashed against the rocky shore?\\
'''Captain:''' No, Princess.\\
'''Azula:''' Well, then, maybe you should worry less about the tides, who've already made up their mind about killing you, and worry more about me, who's still mulling it over...
* This is averted so much in ''{{Chowder}}'' that a full length, half-hour, ''[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment 22 minute]]'' episode, "Dinner Theater", revolves around a '''murder mystery dinner'''.
** Not to mention an episode about Gazpacho trying to help Chowder to the "other side" because he thinks he ''murdered'' him.
* Almost completely averted in the show ''TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'' as well.
** No, this trope ''is'' completely averted. It even uses death as ''humour'', much like ''{{Chowder}}'' except a tiny bit darker and creepier. And it's ''hilarious''.
* Averted ''twice'' in the Ruby-Spears Megaman episode "Ice Age"; Iceman supposedly kills Megaman at one point ("He's as dead as an old flashlight battery!"), only to exclaim later, "Megaman! But...you're ''dead!''"
* The Legend of Zelda animated series had an interesting one. Something like "One more blast and you'll be '''de-energized''' Ganon!"
** Though there was one time where Ganon actually was defeated, with the same result as with his minions -- he just gets transported into the Evil Jar, and will presumably free himself in the near future to wreak more havoc. On that note, another episode begins with Ganon attacking Hyrule Castle and trying to zap Link into the Evil Jar, though a convoluted series of events makes only his body go there, with his spirit left behind. As Zelda mourns the apparent loss of the hero, Link's spirit remarks "Gee, you'd think I was destroyed or something!" So apparently a fall in combat has different consequences for good and evil.
* On the most recent FairlyOddParents movie, Cosmo and Wanda's newborn son has been kidnapped by H.P. and Anti-Cosmo. Wanda tells them, "If you so much as lay a hand on our baby, I'll ''destroy'' both of you!" It ''did'' sound a bit forced, but was worth it to hear her threatening to single-handedly murder them.
** However, just like the DannyPhantom, Timmy has talked about worrying about dying or getting killed before.
* On the GarfieldAndFriends musical episode, "The Man Who Hated Cats", Garfield overhears the titular man singing about a cat he owned when he was young who ran away. He sings, "Foo-Foo had fled/I wished I was..." and starts sobbing.
** A U.S. Acres segment parodying the poem "Casey At the Bat" includes a quip about the fans chanting " 'Kill the Umpire!' long and low/But you cannot kill a person/On a TV cartoon show."
* ''WinxClub'': An S2 episode shies away from explicitly saying that the Trix had killed one of the Specialists [[spoiler:Prince Sky]], settling for having one of the Winx check for a pulse and say he doesn't have one. The [=4Kids=] dub takes things further, by having the Trix explicitly say a couple times that they've put the Specialist in a 100-year deep sleep (NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat, [[PragmaticAdaptation because of what happens next]]), while strangely still keeping in the pulse bit.
* Averted by ''StarWarsTheCloneWars'', in which death is not only mentioned, but also frequently ''happens''.
* The ghost monsters in the ''PacMan'' animated series always talk about how they're going to '''chomp''' the eponymous character ([[JustifiedTrope this is justified]] by having them actually bite him whenever they have the opportunity to do so).
* The 2003 series of ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' has a slight variation. "Die" is sometimes said, otherwise replaced with "perish" or "pass away". However, this is rather "Never say ''kill''" as they only use "destroy" or "slay."
* 10-year-old WordGirl is never "almost killed," since it's an educational kids show. Still, "Is this the end for WordGirl" is repeated a few times. A villain proclaims "Good-Bye, Word Girl!" as his robot is commanded to "Crush" her. She's almost "Done For," "Finished Off," "and Defeated." And since this is a show about vocabulary, I'm guessing they'll find other ways to carefully explain how she was almost killed.
*In ''TransformersGeneration1,'' death words are used frequently, but death happens infrequently (until the movie, which is nearly a KillEmAll so [[MerchandiseDriven new toys can replace the old]]. The season following the movie didn't kill off any known characters, though one disastrous battle saw the destruction of several ships known to be manned.) Later series use them less, prefering 'scrapped,' 'taken offline,' etc but are more likely to have a death [[KilledOffForReal stick]]. Rattrap's {{catch phrase}} is a sardonic "we're all gonna die," but when someone's actually believed to be dead, "scrapped" or "destroyed" is ''much'' more likely to be used when referring to their condition.
** In ''TransformersAnimated'' "offline" seems to be the primary euphemism for death, but it's still not exactly the same: the series MagneticPlotDevice is still able to bring you back from that.
*** Then it's averted when it comes to a human in the premiere of the third season when Prime tells Ratchet to [[spoiler:get Sari out of her SuperpowerMeltdown with his EMP]] and Ratchet flat out says "...that could kill [[spoiler:her]]!"
* ''AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' plays this trope ''literally''; at one point, when Sonic and Tails are rushing toward a wall, Tails says "It's a dead end!" Sonic replies, "Hey, Sonic the hedgehog never says dead!" In general, the show tended to avert this, but that was just a really weird incidence.
* Averted oh so very hard in {{Batman the Brave and the Bold}} where death and dying are mentioned on a pretty routine basis. Pretty shocking given how much LighterAndSofter this show is compared to its predecessors.
** In the pilot Batman mentions how the scarab was passed on to Jaime after the last Beetle died... or retired. Since then we've seen Bruce Wayne's parents murdered, two other Blue Beetles die, Wildcat having an onscreen heart attack, Jonah Hex sentenced to death, and Master Wutan dying after being shot with a poison dart. In a recent episode, a villain causes a tidal wave that hits a crowded beach. Apparently there are only two survivors.
*** Actually, I'm pretty sure the other people were shown escaping.
****They aren't. The wave goes all the way past the beach and into the parking lot, and the man and boy that survived only did so by hanging on to a palm tree.
***** Even though it's only an illusion, when Psycho-Pirate seems to kill the Outsiders, it's pretty shocking, especially when you see Batman's absolutely horrified reaction.
******Not to mention the previous Blue Beetle, Ted Kord's, explicitly mentioned death through flashback.
* Completely averted in RockosModernLife in the one where Filburt's myna bird Turdy is accidentally killed by Heffer through means of crushing and suffocation as he jumped on top of him and farted Rocko says "Heff he's dead!, you killed him, he was under our watch and we killed him what are we going to tell Filb?"
* In the ''Ben10'' episode "Kevin 11", Ben actually says "Hundreds of people will be killed!" when Kevin rigs 2 trains to collide. Unusual in that the protagonist(especially for a kids' show) is seldom the one who says the K word.
** Its SequelSeries, Ben10AlienForce, tend to avert this a few times in the last few episodes of Season 2.
* MegasXLR speaks out of both sides of it's mouth on this issue. The villainous Warmaster Gorath using media acceptable words like "Destroy" and "Eliminate", while Coop freely and frequently rants about how the MonsterOfTheWeek tried to ''kill'' his friends, all the while Jamie pleads about not wanting to ''die''.
* ''SamuraiJack'': Averted [[LargeHam with gusto]] by Aku in Episode XXX, ironically titled "Jack and the Zombies".
--> ''"Samurai, samuarai... ''why WON'T'' '''YOU DIE?!'''"''
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]
* Note this quote, popular among some computer programmers:
-->"C programmers never die. They are just cast into void."
** One should note that this language most likely invokes General Douglas [=MacArthur=]'s famous speech to Congress, notably the line "Old soldiers never die. They just fade away."
*** Wishful thinking for said C programmers: for a pointer to "get cast into void", means that, although its size as reported by the environment is zero, it still has a name recognizable by the program, and it can be reconverted into something usable later in the program. Just compare with going out of scope. ''That'' is being dead.
**** Err, nope - thats wrong. We talk about VOID not VOID POINTER here. VOID means there are zero allowed values. VOID POINTER means it is a pointer to any possible data type. You cannot give a name to a "void value" in C. The declaration "void *p;" works and declares a pointer to ANY datatype; but the declaration "void v;" wont be accepted, as VOID has zero allowed values. Therefore void can only be the type of an expression, such as "(void)0" for the empty expression, or "(void)f(a,b)" for a function f with parameters a and b, of which the return value is ignored.
*** For what it's worth, old Java Programmers never die, they just become eligible for garbage collection.
*** The number of annotations here speaks volumes as to the sort of people who frequent this site
*** Also in this vein, old Latin teachers never die, they just decline. [=MacArthur=]'s "old soldiers" line, though he undeniably made it famous, was from a ballad - he even mentions it in the speech.
****Old soldiers never die; the young ones wish they would... as the [=WW1=] song goes.
*****Old generals never die, only their [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean privates]].
****Old statisticians never die; they just get broken down by age and sex.
****Old principals never die, they just lose their faculties. ''[[http://twitter.com/intmath/status/1496777024 a Twit]]''
****Old musicians never die; they just [[IncrediblyLamePun decompose]].
****Old movie producers never die; they just fade to black.
* Some gamers invert this by referring to everything that takes something out of the game as death. Even in pen-and-paper roleplaying games, it's not uncommon to hear "[[NonLethalKO unconscious]]" referred to as "dead".
**Pokèmon is a perfect example of this: when their HP is drained to zero, Pokemon faint, to be easily revived later. Yet players near-universally refer to their pokemon "dying" because they weren't levelled up enough, or of easily "killing" another trainer's group, despite the concept of actual Pokemon death existing, at least in Red and Blue's Lavender Town.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdos Paul Erdos]], a very famous and highly eccentric mathematician, had a very unique vocabulary, where people who stopped doing math had "died", and people who actually died had "left".
* Freshman in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets are not allowed to say the words die or death. If they do and are caught doing so, they are typically forced to do push-up.
* Real Life EMT/Paramedic training averts this hard. You're not supposed to use euphemisms like "passed away" or "no longer with us" when delivering the bad news to family members, as it raises stress by equivocating and hedging around the reality of a loved one's death.
** Fine with "no longer with us", as said loved one may just have been transferred to Mercy General or somesuch, but... "passed away"? That's pretty much ''dead'', isn't it? Along with "six feet under", "kicked the bucket", "called home to the Lord", "bought the farm", "ceased to be" and sundry others.
*** But what if you say [[MontyPython this is an ex-patient?]]. But then perhaps they will reply it's just resting...
* Inverted in Unix[=/=]BSD[=/=]Linux operating systems: processes may be merely sleeping, defunct (aka zombies) and may be killed. For the curious, a process becomes a zombie because its parent process hasn't destroyed it properly.
* When a Roman consul announced an execution, he said 'They lived' or some grammatical variation on that to avoid directly mentioning death.
** For the sake of clarity it should be noted that in Latin, the perfect tense indicates that an action is now complete, so to say "Marcus Tullius Iucundus lived" would be the equivalent of saying "Marcus Tullius Iucundus has finished his life."
[[/folder]]
----
<<|CensorshipTropes|>>
<<|DeathTropes|>>
<<|LanguageTropes|>>