Uncertain Doom / Western Animation

• Archer toys with this quite a bit. A lot of the recurring characters we thought dead like the head of the Yakuza, Conway Twitty and especially Barry are revealed to still be in the picture.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender examples:
  • Princess Yue's jerkass fiancé Hahn is last seen being thrown into the freezing ocean by Admiral Zhao after a failed Assassination Attempt against Zhao. It's unclear if he survived. Some fans have actually pointed out that the confrontation took place on the upper deck of the ship, meaning there was a solid steel deck right below them. Maybe his doom isn't so uncertain after all...
  • Because of the network the show aired on, they couldn't be as blatant as they'd have liked about Jet's death, since he's last seen badly wounded in the Dai Li's hideout under Lake Laogai. It's heavily implied that he's dying, though, as when Jet insists he will be fine, Toph says "He's lying" as the Gaang are escaping. This is referenced in the lampshade-filled episode "The Ember Island Players", when the characters see a play of their lives:
    Zuko: Did Jet just...die?
    Sokka: Y'know, it was really unclear.
  • Along the same lines are Jet's friends Longshot and Smellerbee, who are left alone with him. They are never seen or mentioned again after this scene, where they're left in an enemy base that was later destroyed. Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise shows that they survived.
• Batman Beyond: The show tends to use this a lot for its villains, in part to get past the censors and so that they could have plausible deniability to bring them back in future episodes (even if it was something no one realistically could have survived). It helps that villains are often shown returning from apparent death without any explanation.
  • The fate of the Terrific Trio from "Heroes". 2D Man and Freon were sucked into a ventilation system (the latter notably coming apart due to her body being vapor) while Magma was hit by water and solidified. Considering there were plans for 2D Man and Magma to return in the comic tie-in to restore Freon, the implication, despite how horrifying it is, is that they did not die (the only reason they didn't return was because DC was afraid Marvel might sue, since the Terrific Trio were a very obvious, and very unflattering, parody of the Fantastic Four).
  • Dr. Cuvier is turned into a grotesque amalgamation of mutilated animal parts and caught in a massive fiery explosion. His accomplices are shown being arrested by the police, but his fate is not elaborated on. The tie-in comics had him survive, although he was thought to be dead by everyone else until he showed up again.
  • Patrick the Ratboy; the barrels of toxic waste under his subterranean lair are ignited, causing an explosion so big that it travels through several city blocks of sewers. He and his rat minions are last seen frantically fleeing the flames just seconds before the explosion, but it isn't clear if they actually managed to escape. The tie-in comics show that he did indeed survive however.
  • Bullwhip kidnapped a skilled doctor's wife and promised to return her if he gave him and his friends weaponized prosthetics. The doctor eventually discovered his wife was in on the kidnapping the whole time and cheating on him with Bullwhip, but Bullwhip didn't know that he found out. Bullwhip returns to the doctor after escaping a fight with Batman and tells him to make him even more powerful and not to hold back. The episode ends with the doctor, in full Tranquil Fury, putting him under sleeping gas while lowering a power drill down. Bruce muses they probably won't be seeing him again.
  • Blight is last seen going critical overload in a Villainous Breakdown, blowing up the submarine he was hiding on, and sinking it to the bottom of the sea. However, salvage teams searching the wreckage Never Found the Body, and Batman doubts he's really gone, but it was his last appearance in the cartoon regardless since the writers thought they had done all they wanted with the character. Once again, the tie-in comics showed that he survived, but he suffered severe amnesia, although he ended up genuinely Killed Off for Real in one issue.
  • Charlie "Big Time" Bigelow is apparently killed in his second appearance when he plummets off a suspension bridge into the foggy river below. Although considering villains have survived far worse fates in the series, including in Big Time's introductory episode, where another criminal suffers a very similar fate, yet survived, it's plausible that he could have lived. It was his last appearance either way though, since his story arc had concluded.
• In Season 3 of Carmen Sandiego, two different V.I.L.E. operatives end up caught by the police and then taken away by the Cleaners: Neal the Eel and Roundabout. While V.I.L.E.'s protocols for dealing with this seem to be to just mind-wiping the captured operative and returning them to a normal life, we don't see what ends up happening to them or if there's a different protocol in place for members of V.I.L.E.'s inner circle, in the latter's case. Season 4 reveals their fates: since the mind-wipe technology was on the fritz, they're sent out on another mission to see if they can make up for their failures. Naturally, Carmen ends up defeating them; Neal the Eel realizes what's going to happen and flees on a fishing boat, while Roundabout is locked up in the dungeons of V.I.L.E.'s new base until A.C.M.E. raids the place in the series finale.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In the Grand Finale "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", the villains Knightbrace and Potty Mouth are last seen at the mercy of a Queen Tie, but it's not clear whether the Queen Tie killed them or simply turned them into accountants like what happened to Vin Moosk and Froggy MacDougal in "Operation: K.N.O.T."
• Danny Phantom: The final fate of Vlad Plasmius. He's last seen getting hit by the Disasteroid, which was made of an anti-ghost material that would hurt him on touch. Word of God claims he survived and was taken by aliens.
• Famous Fred: While in the book, Fred is confirmed to be dead, in the cartoon short, it's a little more ambiguous. He still got the cat flu, and he appeared dead, and was even apparently buried, yet Kenneth is under the impression that Cats Have Nine Lives and Fred still has one left. At the end of the short, a ginger and white cat is seen walking away, though that may have been a different one.
• Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes: The penultimate episode, "Doom's Word is Law", ends with Doctor Doom getting caught in an explosion. It isn't clear whether or not he survived. While Johnny does mention Doom as if he were still alive in the final episode "Scavenger Hunt", one can make the argument that Johnny simply wasn't aware that Doom was killed.
• Final Space:
  • The Gatekeeper of Bolo's mind. What happens to him following Bolo's death in Season 3 is unclear.
  • Mooncake in the cliffhanger ending of Season 3. He's violently drained of his powers by a corrupted Ash whilst the rest of the Team Squad reluctantly escape, and it's unknown he's dead or he's merely de-powered and marooned in Final Space. Eventually, Olan Rogers confirmed on Twitter that Mooncake is alive, but imprisoned.
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: The Five-Episode Pilot of the DiC Entertainment continuation had Serpentor turned into an iguana and chased by the Dreadnok Gnawgahyde when Cobra Commander regained control over Cobra. Because it was mentioned that Serpentor's transformation was temporary and he is never seen or heard from again in the series, it isn't clarified whether Gnawgahyde had killed Serpentor or if Serpentor managed to evade the Dreadnok and merely never returned because of the experience giving him shame and disgrace.
• Justice League Unlimited: Invoked at the end:
  Batman: I doubt that either of them^note Lex Luthor and Darkseid died.
  Superman: We saw it this time.
  Flash: You saw it last time, too.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Invoked in the Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon Gee Whiz-zzzzzz; as Wile E. Coyote falls for the last time, he holds up a sign asking that the cartoon end before he hits. As the screen begins to Iris Out, he holds up a second sign saying "Thank you."
  • In the gangster spoof Racketeer Rabbit, Hugo takes Bugs Bunny "out for a ride". Bugs Bunny comes back without Hugo.
• My Little Pony 'n Friends:
  • In "The End of Flutter Valley, Part 10", the witches were last seen being blown away by the Flutter Ponies, but it's never specified where to or what was done with them.
  • In "The Ghost of Paradise Estate, Part 4", it's unclear what actually happens to Squirk and Crank — the receding floodwaters drag them away into a maelstrom and down a hole, but their actual fate after that is unclear. It's not shown if they died, but they don't return to bother Dream Valley ever again.
  • In "The Revolt of Paradise Estate, Part 2", Beezen is last seen being chased down by his angry and animated wand, and it's not shown what happens to him afterwards.
• The Simpsons: In "Marge vs. the Monorail", the plane Lyle Lanley is on unexpectedly lands in the town of North Haverbrook, whose inhabitants he'd previously scammed, and is immediately attacked by a mob of the townsfolk who come onto the plane when it touches down. Since he makes no more appearances afterwards, not even as a cameo (save for a flashback in a clip episode), it's entirely possible that he was killed, but this is never made explicit. Though if he did die, it would be hard to call his fate undeserved.
• Skull Island (2023): In the season finale, it's uncertain whether or not the Rock Bug that Kong throws at the Kraken survives being violently slapped out of its trajectory by the Kraken's tentacle, and falling into the sea a good distance by the Rock Bug's standards away from the shore.
• South Park:
  • Season 14 ends with Cartman pulling a You Have Failed Me moment by slowly approaching a helpless Butters with a deadly allergen. At the time, many fans seemed to legitimately believe that Butters was Killed Off for Real, though Season 15 quickly disproves that.
  • "Dead Kids" ends by revealing, in a deliberately anticlimactic way, that Stan got shot off-screen. Again, you had fans either seriously or jokingly talking about his death, though one week later we see he just has his arm in a sling.
• Star Wars Rebels:
  • "Through Imperial Eyes": Lieutenant Lyste is framed as being Fulcrum by the real The Mole, Agent Kallus. He is last seen being dragged away while protesting his innocence. Kallus says that treason by an Imperial officer is punishable by death. At the end of the episode, Thrawn deduces from other evidence that Kallus is actually Fulcrum, but he and Yularen keep this a secret in order to Feed the Mole, leaving the unfortunate Lyste's ultimate fate uncertain.
  • "Family Reunion -- and Farewell": Thrawn himself suffers this when Ezra has a fleet of Purrgil forcibly drag his Star Destroyer into hyperspace, destination unknown. Ezra was onboard as well and is implied to have survived, but there is no word on Thrawn's status and whether or not he's still around for rescue.
• Star Wars Resistance: The last time we see Commander Pyre in the Grand Finale, he's been knocked out and left in a burning hanger on a Star Destroyer. Said ship blows up not long after, but we're not shown if Pyre was still onboard or woke up and evacuated offscreen. The other half of the Big Bad Duumvirate, Agent Tierny, is quite explicitly shown to die, while Pyre's fate is left more ambiguous (albeit leaning towards dead).
• Superman: The Animated Series: The boat that Bruno Mannheim is fleeing in gets swamped, but not destroyed, by the explosion, leaving his fate unclear.
• Super Mario World: The second-to-last episode, "A Little Learning", ends with King Koopa trapped in his bedroom which is rapidly flooding with lava. His only appearances in the finale, "Mama Luigi", are in flashbacks. Since this was the last Animated Adaptation based on Super Mario Bros., this makes Koopa's ultimate fate unknown.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003):
  • In "Sons of the Silent Age," the flashback scene shows over a dozen merpeople revolting against the Y'Lyntians, but only five journeyed to Manhattan. It's unclear whether the other merpeople all died or if they went elsewhere in their own small groups. The merwoman speaks as if her race's survival depends on her eggs hatching, but she could have just meant her specific tribe.
  • The ultimate fate of the Utrom Shredder's Foot Elite is left in the air. They manage to live far longer past the "City At War" story where they originally died in the source material but during the fifth season, they're taken down by the Tengu Shredder during the "New World Order" two-parter and are never seen again, not even during Fast Forward or Back to the Sewers. Whether they died or not is never adequately answered.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): During the Season 4 finale, Baxter Stockman is demutated by the Turtles, and last seen knocked out by Mikey before the Shredder sets his mansion on fire with a Molotov cocktail. He's not shown amongst the surviving members of the Foot in the next season, but his death remains unconfirmed.
• Total Drama World Tour ends with the characters fleeing from Chekhov's Volcano, with Heather in particular about to be crushed by a rock. A lot of fans hated this, especially since a new cast had been announced for the next season, though The Cameo in the first episode proves that the Gen 1 cast survived. However, this trope happens again at the end of Total Drama All-Stars, and this time we really don't know what happened to about half of that season's contestants.
• Transformers: Animated: Ultra Magnus is last seen lying on the ground badly beaten after Shockwave's attack on him. While he's later mentioned to have been put on spark support, it's not clear if he pulls through or succumbs to his injuries. For what it's worth, The AllSpark Almanac states that he eventually dies, but whether the Almanac should be taken as canon is debated.
• The Venture Bros.
  • Red Death leaves minor villain (but major jerkass) Blind Rage in a situation like this after giving his history lesson on the "gentleman villain" — he's left tied to a train track on a railroad bridge that a train is coming down. Whether the train's coming down the track he's tied to is never made clear; Red Death suggests it might be coming down his track or some other, and he leaves before the audience can tell.
  • Red Mantle and Dragon's backstory heavily implies that the two are actually Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper respectively, who were kidnapped prior to getting on the plane that killed them in real life. What this says about Ritchie Valens (who was also on the plane that killed them) in this universe is unclear.
• The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald: The fourth video "Birthday World" ends with Professor Pinchworm being chased by his own robot dog Cogster after the destruction of his Babe-O-Matic Ray turns himself into a helpless toddler while Ronald and friends are restored to their normal ages. Since he isn't seen again afterwards, it's unclear whether Pinchworm made it out of Cogster's pursuit unscathed or met his demise.
• In Winx Club, three of the Season 4 antagonists, Ogron, Anagan, and Gantlos, are frozen, and then fall into a crevice. It is unclear whether they suffered a Disney Villain Death or simply remain frozen forever at the bottom of the abyss.

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