Follow TV Tropes

Following

Playing With / Never Found the Body

Go To

Basic Trope: A character dies (or apparently dies), but no remains are found.

  • Straight: Alice knocks Bob off a cliff. Charles wonders if Bob is really dead, because while anyone's survival would be unlikely in said situation, Bob's corpse was never found.
  • Exaggerated: This happens to every character who is killed off during the show's run.
  • Downplayed: Bob is in an explosion and apparently dies. Alice finds his left hand, but no other remains come to light.
  • Justified:
  • Inverted: Diane attempts to bring Bob Back from the Dead. She never finds him, and wonders whether the spell failed or Bob simply reappeared on the other side of the planet.
  • Subverted:
  • Double Subverted:
    • It turns out to be the body of Bob's identical twin brother, Eric. The real Bob is still unaccounted for.
    • The man claiming to be Bob is an impostor.
  • Parodied:
    • Bob dies of a heart attack, and his body inexplicably vanishes before Charles' eyes.
    • Every time anyone dies, they fall off a cliff or into a body of water, no matter how improbable such a feature would be in the environment; none of the bodies are ever found.
    • Bob has come back after so many No One Could Survive That! situations where they Never Found the Body that no one believes he's dead even when his corpse is clearly visible on the ground in front of them.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • There is Not Enough to Bury, just Bob's hand. However, a thorough search of the area fails to turn up the rest of Bob's body and no obvious place for it to have disappeared to.
    • Years later, Alice Finally Found the Body and lays Bob to rest. But Bob's family is unconvinced and has the body exhumed, and the DNA test reveals the body to actually be that of Danny, Bob's best friend who went missing while searching for Bob's body.
  • Averted:
    • Bob's corpse is found, confirming that he is dead.
    • All deaths take place in the presence of at least one living character.
    • Everybody Lives.
  • Enforced: Bob's actor quits, but the executives are concerned that he may return later. They order the writers to "kill" Bob without proving that he is, in fact, dead.
  • Lampshaded: "Great. We'll never find the body in these mountains. For all we know, Bob could still be alive."
  • Invoked: Bob fakes his death by jumping off a cliff into the ocean.
  • Exploited: Alice decides to push Bob off a cliff, to make it less likely that his body will be found.
  • Defied: An extensive search is conducted.
  • Discussed: "No, we found Bob's body. It was a long search, but we found him."
  • Conversed: "So they never found Bob's body, did they? I wonder if he's really dead."
  • Implied: It is not stated how Bob died, but an empty coffin is shown at his funeral.

Do you think the main page is really dead? I hear they Never Found the Body.

Top