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A major character is seemingly killed, leaving the story permanently. However, the dramatic tension falls flat because we know these kind of events are very seldom permanent because we would have already heard that the actor has quit or been fired. Even if a character does somehow die, it is very unlikely that they are Killed Off For Real, and are probably Not Quite Dead.
Guest stars and minor characters introduced in the last couple episodes, on the other hand, are very mortal. Not to mention anyone wearing a Red Shirt...
See also: Like You Would Really Do It, Joker Immunity and Contractual Boss Immunity. Contrast Anyone Can Die.
Examples:
- A bait-and-switch subversion: Spooks (AKA Spooks) introduced Lisa Faulkner as a regular, but her character Helen was brutally and unceremoniously killed off in the second episode, a move aimed to illustrate straight away that this was in fact going to be a series where Anyone Can Die.
- The season finale of The X Files where Mulder supposedly killed himself; since David Duchovny was signed for another season and a movie, it was pretty obvious that he wasn't actually dead.
- On Doctor Who, the Daleks, as a race, seem to have contractual immortality. Every time you think they're all dead, another one turns up from a parallel universe or something. (Naturally — they are the most popular bad guys on the show, and preserving the species is just under extermination of other lifeforms in terms of priority.)
- Due to the "regeneration" trick, the Doctor himself both is and is not contractually immortal — the actor can be shuffled off at any time, but the character himself is destined to survive death again and again, with nigh-endless possibilities for heroic self-sacrifice followed by the fun of getting to know the new incarnation. (We're only three regenerations away from the Time Lords' stated limit of thirteen bodies, which may go quickly if they all want out as quickly as Eccleston did (this isn't likely though, considering that David Tennant, the current actor, went into acting specifically to play the Doctor [Sorry, Tennant will take his final bow Christmas 2009]), but Russell T Davies has been quoted as saying: "We'll have to find a way around that...").
- Shouldn't be too hard to find, seeing as the Master has gotten himself a new set of regenerations twice by just possessing someone, (or with a little help from the Time Lords) the second time he did so he was just an urn of ashes. They've already dropped a few possible hints as to the Doctor's regenerations not being so finate. In "Family of Blood" he is referred to as being ancient and forever, in legends he is referred to as the lonely God.
- Captain Jack in Doctor Who and the Spin Off Torchwood has the ultimate Contractual Immortality. He's immortal. (Truly immortal. Complete with a healing factor that would put Wolverine to shame.)
- Reinforced by the end of Season Three where we learn he was known as the Face of Boe, and as the Face of Boe died in the episode "Gridlock", it's possible that we already know exactly how long his immortality will last for. However, it's generally played more as a joke than a plotline to be followed up with any seriousness, and is treated as little more than a "theory".
- Mary-Jane of Spider-Man is very unlikely to ever get Killed Off For Real, as the fans have made it very clear on several occasions that they wouldn't approve. The writers and editors have sometimes spoken of being afraid of what might happen if they ever tried it. Aunt May may not be so lucky, having "died" and come back once already. However, recently they did the next worst thing and magicked Peter's relationship with her out of existence.
- Three words: Jean Fucking Grey
- On the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Commander Adama is shot by a Cylon sleeper agent at the end of the first season, and spends the next four episodes in critical condition before making a surprise return at the end of the fourth episode. There is never any question that Adama won't survive, even when he has to have emergency surgery to restart his heart.
- Kara Thrace does this as well, but due to the specific nature of her death, which is enshrouded with plenty of mysticism, it was quite obvious that she would return from the dead soon enough (Or would she?). However, this created a very tense atmosphere for several episodes, when the fans weren't absolutely sure that the character wasn't Not So Invincible After All.
- Laura Roslin is probably the worst example. While she does eventually die, the otherwise-good episode Revelations resorts to the kind of science-fiction Techno Babble miracle-cure it was intended to avert to keep her alive.
- We all knew that Superman was not going to stay dead when the monster Doomsday murdered him. However the storyline itself was not meant to be considered permanent; it was more of a window for the reader to see what the DCU would be without Superman. This was followed up by four "impostor" Supermen who simply could not match up to the original in terms of personality or experience. The story was a way of showing readers, who had apparently grown sick of the "big blue boyscout" that a Superman who was a murdering vigilante or a hip teenage punk just would not work, and that the only one that does work is the tried and true original.
- Speaking of Superman, readers should have never been worried about young Clark Kent (aka Superboy) during his adventures with the The Legion of Super Heroes since Clark has to live to adulthood for the Legion to even exist.
- Batman, in a shocking lack of Genre Blindness, stayed with the corpse of Ra's al Ghul through cremation just to make sure he stayed down. ...So yeah, it's confirmed he'll be coming back in a few issues.
- Video game examples:
- Wily. Zero. Sigma. Oh, like you didn't see that coming.
- Bowser. Ganondorf. Ridley.
- Though in Ganondorf's case it's less a case of never dying and more a case of everyone being reincarnated.
- No, that's just Link and Zelda. Ganondorf actually is immortal.
- Nope. Four Swords Adventures proves that Ganondorf is reborn just like Link and Zelda, and Ocarina of Time states that a new Gerudo male is born once every one hundred years.
- Nope. Ganondorf is the same guy. He does get resurrected into a new body sometimes, but it's still him.
- As for Ridley, well, the canon isn't pretty clear on him. There are only three Ridleys in the entire series to be confirmed as being the same (Metroid I and both Meta-Ridleys).
- Diablo. You kill him in the first game. In the second game, he's hijacked the body of the original character. So you kill him AGAIN, and destroy his soul stone to make him Deader Than Dead, and "Uber Diablo" gets summoned by some heretofore unseen demon lady as part of a special event. Why do heroes even get out of bed in the morning? And of course there's the much anticipated Diablo 3.
- In the PSX game Brigandine published by ATLUS, a character from the country Norgard, Noie, is said to have a fatal illness from which she will surely die... eventually. However, the game is time based and the characters age as the game progress, Noie however, NEVER dies until you finally beat the game, so it's possible to get her to a really ripe old age before she truly kicks the bucket.
- Kane from the Command And Conquer series is a textbook example of this trope. Not only has he survived three apparent "deaths" over the course of the series, he has been active from the 1950s through the mid-21st Century while seemingly not aging a day. And he may be several centuries older than that - one theory says that Kane is in fact none other than the biblical figure of Caine, who, it is said, was forced to wander "in the Land of Nod" without ever aging. Kane himself encourages this rumor (without ever confirming or denying it).
- Events in C&C3 confirm that Kane is not human - the Scrin have preexisting records of Kane and no knowledge of what species he is. Additional evidence (such as surviving a number of different superweapons at point blank ranges) gives him either type I or type III immortality.
- Is Mario the only one that can use 1up shrooms? And lately Bowser hasn't been killed but instead seems to somehow just barely survive.
- Pokemon's Team Rocket has become way too popular at this point to give up chasing Pikachu and let Team Magma and Aqua or Galactic take the stage. And those explosive blastoffs would kill anyone else, but they always manage to crash on the ground painfully, but alive.
- Literary example: In the very beginning of A Wizard of Earthsea it is said that the book is about the youth of Ged, Archmage and Lord of Dragons. During the book he is in mortal danger more than once, but the fact that he is neither of these things yet takes away some tension.
- Lampshaded in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Agjarag complains to Arthur Dent that Arthur killed him in Stavromula Beta. Since Arthur has never been to any such place, he knows that he is practically immortal. Until he ends up in a night club called Stavro Muller Beta, where the author immediately drops a bridge on everyone. And we mean everyone.
- Except Zaphod. And Elvis.
- Steve Bacic's characters in Andromeda. He's killed in the first episode as Gaheris Rhade, but comes back a few episodes later Telemachus Rhade, the genetic reincarnation of Gaheris. Later, when Tyr leaves, he replaces Tyr as The Big Guy.
- At the finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 2 Angel is run through with a sword and sucked through a portal into hell. However, David Boreanaz stays on as a regular character in Season 3, even appearing in the title sequence. They try to Mind Screw the audience by having him appear in dream sequences but theres never any doubt that he'll be back from hell soon. And sure enough...
- Hell, this is even used with Buffy herself, when she sacrifices herself in place of Dawn, then is brought back by a spell.
- And when Angel leaves Sunnydale for his own Angel spinoff, he comes across a group of lawyers who quite literally have immortality written into their contracts with the demonic Senior Partners.
- Lampshaded and given a Double Subversion in the webcomic Bob And George. Bob and George can't die because their names are in the title of the comic, and they are aware of this. Later, when the plot calls for one of them to be killed off, the title of the comic itself changes in order to allow it to happen. They come back anyway.
- Lampshaded in the Xanth series of novels; main characters are guaranteed a happy ending (eventually), because that's how magic works.
- Sort of averted in Cable & Deadpool. After Cable and Deadpool have a falling out in issue 35, Cable appears less and less in the comic until his heroic sacrifice in issue 42. Cable does return from the dead, but not in this series; the title remains Cable & Deadpool, but most of issues 35 to 50 concern Deadpool
annoying encountering many other Marvel guest stars.
- A fictional character who literally has Contractual Immortality: RA Salvatore's Dungeons And Dragons character, drow (dark elf) Drizzt Do'Urden, won't die as long as Wizards Of The Coast thinks they can milk more money from novels about him.
- Rincewind the cowardly loser wizard (oh, sorry: wizzard) in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. Rincewind craves nothing such much as a boring eventless life, but unfortunately he keeps stumbling into adventures filled with horrible monsters that want to tear him limb from limb and people with pointy weapons and other misunderstandings. Rincewind's only discernible talent is running away very fast, and pleading for mercy in several dozen languages. All right, two talents. His ongoing survival has been linked to the fact that he is a
plaything champion of the Goddess of Luck and Chance.
- Why did you have to say the Lady's name?
- Much of his survival in the first two books is due to a sentient magic spell lodged in his noggin. It wants to live just as much as Rincewind. He managed to cast the spell in The Light Fantastic, and since then he's been surviving through a little cunning and a lot of running.
- Pratchett has also said that Granny Weatherwax is essentially immortal, due to the likely fan reaction if she dies.
- Amelia of The Slayers seems to end up grievously injured in order to demonstrate the evil of the villains, but given that her voice actress is always signed on for full seasons (and given that the fans would revolt were she to actually die) she is profoundly unlikely to ever actually be in anything resembling true mortal peril.
- Daniel Jackson is an embodiment of this trope. No matter when he dies, he always comes back. Always. Its not only been joked about in the show. O'Neill, when he learns the ship Daniel was almost definitely on exploded while in space, just says "Nope, I'm not buyin' it." Sure enough, guess who's back by the end of the episode.
- Likewise, the tendency for the Goa'uld to keep coming back makes the team reluctant to say they're definitely dead.
- Let's face it. There's no longer any suspense about Wolverine in any of the X-Men comics. The powers that be at Marvel have got it into their heads that he's the star of the show, and therefore he'll never be written out of the books in any fashion. While other X-Men may be Put On A Bus, have bridges dropped on them, Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence, or make a Heroic Sacrifice and be gone until a writer decides to use them again, it's a safe bet that Wolverine's not going anywhere. At least as long as Marvel believes they can make lots of money off of him.
- It helps that he's functionally immortal. He's been hurled into the sun and nuked before.
- Star Trek The Next Generation: It was obvious that Data wasn't dead in The Most Toys. Seeing the shuttle explode, however... was still pretty convincing.
- As was that time when they found his head buried in a cavern under San Francisco, having apparently been there for five centuries. Which was creepy as hell, to boot.
- Technically, since that was the end of the season, he could have died and the actor just not contracted for next season, which makes it more plausible. Related: It seems obvious now that Picard would survive The Best of Both Worlds, but Stewart's return for season 4 was not confirmed at that point and the producers feared he would leave; if he hadn't returned, he really would have died in the second half.
- The same in an episode where Picard was supposedly killed in a meaningless bar fight. Much to the dismay of his crew.
- Like many other Merchandise Driven shows, the characters in Transformers have Contractual Immortality ... but as soon as their toys are discontinued, that immortality expires. Most of these characters are then killed off or just disappear never to be seen again. Of course, fan favorites like Optimus Prime and Megatron can still come Back From The Dead.
- Subverted by Lost, where main characters have a tendency to die as suddenly as any Redshirt.
- But don't forget the multiple flashbacks and flashforwards and god knows what else. Hurray guest stars! Or something. Heck, the latest one (Jan 20, '09) had Ethan, a character who died years ago in real time (but just months in island time).
- Libby died before we ever found out what her flashback where she was in a mental institution was even supposed to mean...and we still haven't.
- Oh come on, we all knew Jack, Kate, and Sawyer weren't going to die.
- We also "knew" that Charlie and Locke were too major to die, but there you go.
- In Episode 50 of Full Metal Alchemist, entitled "Death", in the very last scene, just after the climactic reveal that Envy is the failed human transmutation of Hohenheim's first son and thus Ed's step-brother in a way, he kills Ed by stabbing him through the heart. This Troper was too wrapped up in the moment to notice, but sure enough, in the very next episode, he's back, as Al pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save him. This trope is invoked again as Ed, in turn, does a Heroic Sacrifice to save Al, but instead of dying as he should have, went to the other side of the gate, fully intact except for his newly restored limbs reverting to automail.
- Technically half-brother.
- Jack Bauer in 24. He's died twice (sorta), but keeps coming back to foil terrorist plots.
- Onikage from the Tenchu series.
- A rather literal example shows up in Phantom of the Paradise, when Winslow Leach (AKA The Phantom) is pushed to the Despair Event Horizon by his employer, Swan, and stabs himself to death- only to wake up minutes later, unharmed. It turns out the contract he signed earlier in the film "terminates with Swan," and until then, Winslow will never die. Oh, and Swan's under contract too.
- Pretty much anyone who survives the Fourth Heaven's Feel did so for obvious reasons.
- Heroes has had a couple neat subversions: Niki Sanders was Killed Off For Real, with the actress staying on the show thanks to the reveal that she was one of three clones. One of the clones was killed a year later, thanks to the promise that there's another Ali Larter out there. Also, Nathan Petrelli was really killed and had his place taken by an amnesiac, permanently transformed Sylar.
- Actually, Traci Strauss is still alive. Thats shown at the end of the episode where she supposedly died and she's been back this season.
- Subverted in Saw - the Jigsaw Killer character is dead for real, but he left behind a bottomless pit of tapes to supplement actor Tobin Bell's continued flashback appearances for infinite Xanatos-planning-based retcons
- Lampshaded in Alias by Jennifer Garner. After the first season finale left Sydney's handler needing an injection of adrenalin to survive, she gave in interview in which she mocked the cliffhanger, saying that Michael Vartan had a 5-year contract, so his character wasn't going anywhere . Ironically, the character really was temporarily killed off in the fifth season.
- Does Lucy's death in the TV show ER count as a subversion? This troper remember reading an issue of a tv guide-esque magazine that came out the week Be Still My Heart aired in which it revealed that Kellie Martin had asked to be written out of the show. Needless to say, the only true surprise in the cliffhanger of the episode was that the producers actually had her die instead of just writing her off.
- Cloud Strife at the end of the remake of FinalFantasyVII Advent Children, Advent Children Complete. Anybody who has seen the original movie already and/or played Dirge of Cerberus knows that he can't die or else there will be a TIME PARADOX. Even so the movie attempts a half-assed fake death scene where he winds up getting shot a few times in the back. He pretty much just walks it off.
- Lampshaded by the AE character Zorbak in his articles in the spin-off Ezine. He's constantly talking about the contract being the only thing that keeps him around.
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