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As Coroner, I must aver
I've thoroughly examined her
And she's not only merely dead
She's really most sincerely dead.
-- The Wizard Of Oz, in what's not actually an example of this trope, but sums it up well
Where a major character is killed, and is not restored by a Reset Button, or the death was not All Just A Dream, or any of the other resurrection plot devices.
This can be used as vengeance against a recalcitrant actor (see also Dropped A Bridge On Him), especially on soaps such as Coronation Street or Days Of Our Lives.
This is still, of course, no guarantee against a far-in-the-future Back From The Dead, because nothing is. Even establishing that the character is Deader Than Dead.
See also: Tonight Someone Dies, Disney Death, Conspicuously Light Patch, Not So Small Role, Really Dead Montage.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- Teri Bauer in 24
- Prue Halliwell in Charmed. Also a case of being McLeaned, since she was fired and an in-story reason was manufactured why her spirit couldn't come back to advise her sisters the same way their grandmother and mother did.
- Jenny Calendar, Joyce Summers, Tara Maclay, and Anya Jenkins on Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
- Doyle and Cordelia on Angel. The personality of Fred was also permanently destroyed by an elder god taking over her body, in spite of the entire cast utilizing the resources of an interdimensional law firm to bring her back. Had the show been renewed, however, Fred and said elder god would have somehow been split apart. this may already be happening the canonical comic follow up.
- Friends: Joey angers the writers of the soap opera he is working on, and they kill off his character by throwing him down an elevator shaft. The gang is watching the show when Phoebe says "Well, maybe they can find a way to bring you back" only to be told by Joey "They said that when they found my body, my brain was so smashed in that the only doctor that could have saved me was me. Supposed to be some kind of irony or somethin'." Of course, he did eventually come back in the end, with a different -- female -- brain in his body.
- A similar plot was used decades earlier by the British show Hancock's Half Hour. In an episode where the Hancock character is a BBC radio soap star (in a parody of The Archers) the other actors are so fed up with his erratic acting style that the producer finally decides to kill him off. Unfortunately it turns out that the character was more popular than the producer thought and the BBC receives a barrage of hate mail. Eventually Hancock agrees to come back as the original character's twin brother - but only if he is given full creative control, which he then uses to kill off the rest of the cast.
- One of the interesting aspects of HBO's OZ is their frequent killing of main characters, even ones who had been well-established over multiple seasons. See Anyone Can Die.
- Babylon 5 had a particularly daring example: At the end of the fourth season, the ranger Marcus Cole gave his life to save his (unrequited) love, Commander Susan Ivanova, from certain death. J Michael Straczynski, the writer, has commented that he would have resolved that differently, had he known he was going to get a fifth season after all, and that Claudia Christian (Ivanova's actor) was going to refuse to come back for another year.
- British series Spooks" (known in the US as MI-5'') subverted Contractual Immortality in their first series. Helen, played by Lisa Faulkner, was introduced as a major regular character and was then killed off at the end of the second episode. Quite rare for British TV, and an early example of Dead Star Walking. Tom appeared to have been killed for real at the end of the second series, but the start of the third series revealed that he was Not Quite Dead. At the end of that series, Danny was killed off for real (after a series where three out of the four regulars were written out).
- Also getting bumped off fairly quickly was Wild Bill Hickock in HBO's Deadwood, after just four episodes.
- Some killings don't provoke the best of reactions from viewers. Television Without Pity writes of a recent killing on Charmed in its summaries for the latest eps: "In other news, Big Gay Chris remains dead. Bastards!"
- Any number of doctor deaths on ER, including Lucy Knight (victim of a mental patient), Mark Greene (brain tumor), Robert Romano (helicopter fell on him), and Michael Gallant (roadside bomb while serving in Iraq).
- Den Watts was Killed Off For Real years ago in Eastenders, but as proof of just how hard it is to kill a soap star, he was resurrected recently (with the Ret Con that he was hiding in Spain). But after this miraculous recovery from the choir invisible, he was finally really, really killed, and just to hammer it home to future writers not to bring him back, there was a whole arc around the disposal, discovery and then burial of his body. So he can't be brought back this time... we hope.
- Parodied in the Doctor Who episode "Army of Ghosts"; when the Doctor is flipping through TV channels, he lands on Eastenders, where Den Watts's ghost appears in the Crown Vic. Peggy, exasperated, yells, "GET OUT OF ME PUB!" at him.
- Cigarette-Smoking Man and Alex Krycek of The X-Files are examples of characters who had cheated death (usually because they Never Found The Body) so many times that their real deaths (by being at ground zero of a missile blast and shot right between the eyes, respectively) had to be made very explicit, so as to make it clear that, yes, this time they were well and truly dead. And, of course, Krycek managed to kind-of return for the Finale anyway.
- The pilot for Alias spends a fair bit of time setting up Danny as Sydney's fiancé, only to have him killed. Particularly notable as just about every main character is killed off and revived at least once.
- Scrubs - Nurse Laverne is killed off in season six, as the show's creator thought it was the final year of the show. When Scrubs was renewed for a seventh season, the actress that played her returns as "Nurse Shirley."
- Class clown and school mascot J.T. was killed off for real in an episode of 'Degrassi The Next Generation''. The strange part is that it occurred in an episode that revolved around a drunken house party, with no buildup whatsoever.
- By the end of the HBO series The Wire, many of the antagonists are either dead or in prison. Even well-known main characters like Omar Little and Stringer Bell were killed off. When an actor died from natural causes (and was playing the role of a policeman), the show would have a scene where all the characters who work in the Baltimore Police Department stage a wake at an Irish pub for them.
- Supernatural - Even if they do appear afterwards, their mother Mary, their father John, Sam's girlfriend Jess, all the psychic children in the Second Season Finale and Bela (Word Of God that she's never coming back) have all been killed off for real.
- Most deaths on Lost are of this variety. The exceptions are Charlie's Disney Death and Shannon's All Just A Dream death in season 1, plus a few Not Quite Dead villains since, but all of these have later ended up Killed Off For Real. Due to flashbacks and apparitions, most characters have appeared at least once after their deaths, which gives the writers the luxury of writing "real" deaths but still using the characters and actors when they'd like to.
- The majority of the cast of The Sopranos, including the vast majority of the mafia characters of any prominence. Of the mob-level characters who make the main cast, you can more or less count the number who are still alive by the series' end on two hands.
- In the final episode of Captain Power And The Soldiers Of The Future, Jennifer dies when the Power Base self-destructs. Even though there was a fairly blatant angle for her to come Back From The Dead (The very last thing we see of her is Blastarr aiming his digitizer -- a device which can save humans to disc for archival -- at her), the Word Of God is that not only did she die, but she already had massive internal injuries from the preceding scene that would have killed her even if she hadn't been blown up. Had the series been renewed, much of the following season would have dealt with Captain Power's failure to cope with her death.
- In period drama Upstairs Downstairs, Lady Marjorie Bellamy sails to visit family in America on April 14, 1912. She's on the Titanic.
Film
Western Animation
- Thanks to Media Watchdogs and the cultural osmosis of a certain comic book trope, being Killed Off For Real in American children's programming is so rare, it's hard for some to grasp. Jet's fate on Avatar The Last Airbender, despite being tragically obvious, was surrounded by speculation that he somehow survived. They just don't do that in kids' shows! A SciFi.com interview with the program's creators
 , however, has confirmed this character was indeed Killed Off For Real.
- In the third season, Combustion Man is also Killed Off For Real.
- Parodied in an episodes of The Simpsons. Moe gets a facelift and becomes handsome, and is awarded a role on a Soap Opera. After reading a new script that says he dies, he retaliates by revealing all of the major plot twists in the show for the next year on air (the show was filmed live, apparently). The director than angrily informs him that his character wasn't being killed off and that that page of the script was a dream sequence.
- In Robotech, the episode, "Goodbye Big Brother," should have made it obvious to this troper what was going to happen with Rick Hunter's brother, Roy Fokker, but the usual standard bowdlerization of 1980s television animation made assuming that the show would choke rather obvious. When the show actually followed through and killed him off, it showed this was no ordinary animated series on North American TV. Of course, Moral Guardians raised a fuss and complained that it was bad for children.
- In The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, while the show's other main villains tended to get the No One Could Survive That treatment in their last episodes -- and since the show didn't get a third season, it's probably safe to say that they're gone for real -- Ezekiel Rage had an established tendency to cheat death. Therefore, just to be sure, he got sent back to prehistoric times and blown up by a nuclear bomb, leaving a skull behind for good measure. Deader Than Dead? Deader than dead.
Anime
- A notable anime example is the death of LTC. Maes Hughes in Fullmetal Alchemist, whose irrefutable death by gunshot was prominently featured in an episode aptly titled "'Words of Farewell". To further drive the point home, his funeral was shown in the same episode. The movie has an alternate Hughes, but it's an Alternate Continuity which takes place in another reality (namely, a fictionalised version of our own).
- Just about everyone in Soukou No Strain.
- Martian Successor Nadesico kiled off Akito's friend and enthusiastic mecha pilot Guy Daigoji early on, and teased his return several times. The only time he ever appeared again was in an hallucination, and it wasn't Akito's. The character that did come back was a minor backgrounder. Another example of the show's recurring theme, "life is not like Super Robot anime".
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann contains what is quite possibly a tribute to this in that it kills Simon's enthusiastic mecha pilot friend and inspiration Kamina off in episode 8, with similar repercussions for the main character.
- At least in his case, everybody gets to hallucinate him later.
- Hyo Imawano, at the end of Project Justice. This, however, was necessitated by the death of his voice actor.
- Kekkaishi's Gen, much to the surprise of... everyone.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: depending on which ending you choose, either Kaji and Kaworu, or the entire human race except for Shinji and Asuka. Maybe.
- Misuzu in Air, in one of the most heart-wrenching anime scenes ever devised (the word "goal" will never hold the same meaning anymore to anyone who has seen it). The fact that she might be reincarnated or freed from her curse does not diminish the fact that Misuzu herself is gone for good and leaves behind her immensely grieving adoptive mother, Haruko.
- This is basically an inviolable rule in the CLAMP universe. If a person dies, there is absolutely NO way to bring back him back to life EVER. In some mangas is it also hinted that not even gods have the power to bring the dead back to life.
Videogames
- After coming Back From The Dead some 20 times over the course of the Castlevania series, Dracula is destroyed for good in the beginning of the game Aria of Sorrow. Of course, he tries to reincarnate, but Soma Cruz (the would-be reincarnation) wants nothing to do with it, and thus Dracula stays dead. People argue about to what level Soma is Dracula, but it's kind of a meaningless argument, as the games following it are all set before Aria.
- Final Fantasy VII is popular for the sad, emotional death of one of your main party members Aerith, where she is suddenly stabbed right through her back by the main villain Sephiroth. Although there are many rumours about resurrecting Aerith in some way created by fans, the only way to do so is through some cheating device (which invariably messes up your game anyway). May be spoilers but... surely you've heard of this by now.
- Despite Aerith's death being the most popular permanent death of a party member in Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy IV is actually the first to have the death of a regular party member, whereby Tellah dies after casting the ultimate magic Meteo to defeat Golbez. In a title positively dripping with I Got Better, this is a little jarring.
- In Final Fantasy VI Shadow can die for real if you don't wait for him on the floating continent
- Final Fantasy V features Galuf, killed by the villain Exdeath. However levelling him up all this time is not in vain, as he imparts all his knowledge into another character who takes his place.
- Final Fantasy X sets you up to think this is going to happen to Yuna. In the end, Yuna lives (obviously, since she's the star of the sequel), but both Tidus and Auron really do die for real.
- Tekken has several cases of this, especially after the time skip and Ogre attacked and absorbed several characters' abilities, with suspicions that he killed them for good. But most characters later were brought back in the latter installments, thereby setting up that the only one Killed Off For Real were Jun Kazama and the original King. Not to worry, they got their successors all right (Asuka and the second King).
- Armor King was another case where at first, he's thought to be Killed Off For Real outside the Ogre interference (Marduk killed him), but he reappeared in Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection. However, his personality is rather different, raising predictions whether Armor King really came Back From The Dead, or it's Armor King's successor and the first Armor King was really Killed Off For Real.
- Nearly all Roguelikes (Nethack,ADOM,Angband) do this to your Player Character; it's a foundation stone of their gameplay. You've been building this person up, sometimes for weeks at a time, tortuously gathering all the Mac Guffins, imagining their pitched battles, their little victories and close shaves. Then they run afoul of Everything Trying To Kill You. It might be running while holding a cockatrice or being one-shotted by a dragon turtle. All that progress? Lost. Their equipment? Deleted. Either way, you're never,ever seeing them again.
- However, you can see your old characters again in Nethack. Randomly, the level they died on might reappear as a "bones level" with all the character's equipment intact. Note that the character's ghost, now-feral pet (if they had one), and killer will be there as well.
- Crawl doesn't preserve equipment, the state of the level or the responsible monster on character death, but it does feature player ghosts, and they completely outclass those found in Nethack. For one thing, they retain all spell-casting capabilities of the character. Accordingly, ghosts of high-level spellcasters are among the most dangerous monsters you can encounter in the game.
- Warhammer 40000 had this happen to an entire race as part of a retcon.
- Zato-1 from Guilty Gear. His voice actor died, and they didn't want to use anyone else for the character, so they killed him off. Doesn't stop people from saying he should return. Conveniently, his character story involved being menaced by a psychic parasite he gained as part of a bargain to trade his eyesight for power, so they had said parasite kill him and take over his body, writing him out of the story, but keeping his moveset and sprite in the game.
Literature
- Some Harry Potter fans hoped for Sirius Black to come back after his death in the fifth novel, as evidenced by many fan fictions. He didn't.
- The same could also be said for Dumbledore, despite much fan speculation to the contrary.
- Commander Root in Artemis Fowl.
Comic Book
- In a subversion of the very trope named after him, the Joker eventually got this treatment in the DCAU. Yes, having proven himself as much of a survivor as his counterpart in the comics, every bit the "no one" in No One Could Survive That, The Movie of Batman Beyond took the big leap and put him down once and for all - killing him twice in the same movie just to make sure. (In just a bit of a cheat, the event occurs at the far end of the universe-at-large's history, allowing him to show up in stories taking place earlier; Justice League took advantage of this.)
- "Nobody stays dead except Bucky, Uncle Ben, and Jason Todd." Of course, since that saying was coined, both Bucky and Jason Todd have found themselves resurrected. But Uncle Ben works, since an Alternate Universe version of him appeared and die.
Webcomics
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