How to solve the "death is cheap" problem?

Speaking only of fantasy stories...

Some authors have the luxury of not being forced of resurrecting by higher ups, no matter what. Like J.K rowling (and even her used the resurrection stone/ limbo to temporarily bring them back)

But what if your character becomes too popular/ you regret killing him/her/it? How can you bring back some characters and keep it believable when you do it for real?

tl:dr how to bring back some characters without making death seem cheap?

edited 30th Apr '15 10:23:02 PM by RPGLegend

You make the process extremely difficult. You build a storyline around that character's resurrection, and then you justify the hell out of why that character had to come back in-universe.

And you show that it makes rehabilitating after multiple broken limbs look like a picnic.

You don't bring them back and have them bouncing around afterwards, you bring them back (after great effort) and then have them convalesce for a long period or have to go through lengthy rehabilitation - building up strength etc - to become healthy/fit again after having been killed.

And that's just the physical side. What are the psychological/spiritual ramifications of having been killed then brought back.

Depending on the circumstances surrounding their death, they may have issues - fears, anxiety, anger etc.

I don't. It's explicitly impossible under the rules of the world of the story. It's possible to get really close to dying and get healed, but once someone gets confirmed to be dead nothing can bring them back.

But honestly, there are only three ways to do that one without making it cheap: give the to-be-resurrected characters something that makes it possible for them to get resurrected and cannot be obtained by just your average person or by anyone else—like them being of a different race, not really human, or them having some special blessing that can only be gotten when it is gifted (or something like that) if that stuff exists in the world of your story—and make it clear that they have it before they even die, have the resurrection something that can happen but requires sacrifice high enough that most people wouldn't think of resurrecting anyone (and be consistent with the price of it), or never make it clear that they'd actually died and instead have them be only nearly dead and then spend time recuperating off-screen. Obviously, all of those require planning ahead.

edited 1st May '15 3:10:43 AM by Kazeto

If the character is really so popular that people are clamouring for their death to be reversed, then pretty much any form of resurrection would be acceptable. Because really, who cares whether it's "believable"? The fans get to have their precious character back, which is all that matters to them.

No, it still has to make sense. You can try to resurrect Sirius Black with a Hand Wave all you want but I'll look at it as bad writing, and writing badly on purpose is sacrilege

edited 1st May '15 9:50:42 PM by nekomoon14

This. Very much. I don't care how much I liked the character, if it was brought back by Hand Wave just to please the fanbase and it didn't make sense in the context of the story, I'd feel "cheated" and be very pissed off.

Here's some Ideas

• Friend's Clone: The group discovers a clone of the dead character made by neutral or villainous means. They have to reinvest their trust in this new character, or are even unaware this isn't the real person they knew.
• Villainous Resurrection: The bad guys bring back the character for their own use. The friends of said character try to reacquire him or bring back his memories to let him join again.
• Dangerous Resurrection: The main characters can bring the dead back, but at a very heavy cost, which might even cause another villain to appear, make a character do an act they would never allow themselves to do, or even force the group to split between two sides.
• Reincarnation: The character returns in a new vessel, be it a body or an heir to their soul. Something grand like a divine guardian can bring them back but they are slightly altered in a way to allow both new and old character development.
• Earn their Revival: One of the characters goes through a massive ordeal to brin back the character (such as travelling through hell to bring them back, or venturing into the soul realm)
• Earned their Own Revival: the character's soul tries to earn their resurrection in the spirit/under world, and most pass trials or defeat a great foe to come back.
• Punishment by Life: An evil omnipotent villain uses the dead character as a living puppet, and brings them back for sadistic entertainment. If the Main Characters can free him, they'll have him back, or suffer the same fate if they fail.
• Two Came Back: If the character is brought back into the story, a villain that was previously defeated comes back, or a new evil arises.
• Back For A Night: They are allowed back, but only for a limited time, putting more urgency in their actions as wasting time could mean permanent death.
• Vampiresque Revival: They are brought back to life, but in order to remain alive, they must commit heinous actions like vampirism, murder or something else to remain that way or they degrade and die.
• Dial-Up Revival: They are alive (sometimes). Usually used humorously, they are alive but like a shaky internet connection they cease to live for awhile and must be revived once again.
• Room Mate Revival: They are brought back to life, but only if they allow another consciousness to inhabit their body, or their consciousness can inhabit another's body.

In my setting, resurrection is an elaborate process with 3 steps:

Body: Using extremely sophisticated magic surgery, you can repair deceased cells and get them up and running. Just do this to all 72 trillion cells in your patient.

Mind: At this point, you've just got them from dead to technically alive but in a coma or at least seriously brain damaged. Next step is to get a powerful telepath who knows a lot about the patient and help restore the patient's memories and personality.

Soul: You see, the problem is that just doing steps 1 and 2 doesn't technically resurrect a person so much as recycle their body. If you wake your patient up at this point, they develop a new soul. They're actually a new person who just looks and acts like the old person, and was made out of the same material as them. Not a serious problem for most purposes, as the new person has all the skills and character as the last (IE, your new resso-wife will love you just as much as your last one). The big problem is that the new person has a different destiny than the old one. Where as the old person might have become a violinist if they had survived, the new person might become a soccer player.

In order to obtain a soul, you should politely ask whatever deity that person followed. If said god decides to help, they'll have to search for the soul of the patient. If they're lucky, their soul is standing around waiting in purgatory, which they can just pluck it and give it to you. If the soul is in heaven or hell, it isn't going anywhere (as hell is basically Cessation of Existence and a soul in heaven has completed its destiny, and is immovable even by most gods). If the soul reincarnated, things become more complicated....you could kill the reincarnated person in order to retrieve their soul, but that's...well, homicide.

All in all, it's much easier to just get a new person.

Sure as hell makes fucking then "waiting" for 19-25 years look like the easy route.

Obviously the means by which the dead can be revived should be split into seven parts, which are scattered all over the planet, and will again scatter, and deactivate for one year once the revival is done.

Oh wait...

By that, I actually meant "hire someone else/find a new friend" rather than make a baby, but sure.

edited 4th May '15 2:03:16 PM by Protagonist506

No, my point was, if you're already prepared to warp your own work just to appease your most vocal fans, why do you care so much about it "making sense"? You're already pandering to others instead of pursuing your own creative goals, and the people you're pandering to - the people who want you to drop your own plans and cater just to them - evidently don't give a damn about your creative integrity in the first place.

edited 6th May '15 1:52:34 AM by Tungsten74

He did specify he also regrets killing the character, it's not only to appease the fans. I think you're black-and-whiting a bit too much this "creative integrity" thing. °°

As for the actual question... well, it depends on the kind of work it is. If it's an episodic story, it's easier to bring back characters. Still, it's very risky for the believability of any future deaths. If it's not an episodic story... you need to consider very carefully the impact that this undeath will have on the characters and the later parts of the plot.

Also, I think the method used in-story doesn't really matter that much. Any reader ever will see the twist for what it is. Just make sure it's not easily repeatable.

Even if this wasn't a fantasy story, it doesn't take much to throw a "I needed to fake my death for reason X" plot. Again, this has a chance of working only in episodic stories though, and at most once or twice.

edited 6th May '15 8:20:03 AM by Cozzer

Have them get hit with a Fate Worse than Death after they return.

Resurrection Sickness, Came Back Wrong, Reapers / the R.I.P.D., etc. Death may be a door, but there's a bouncer and a cover charge.

edited 8th May '15 5:08:23 PM by dvorak

I agree, broadly.

You could go the Sherlock Holmes route and bring them back in a new story, so you don't have to worry about the effect it has on the story you wrote where s/he died.

Or you could just treat it as a reboot. Terry Pratchett explains away continuity problems by talking about different timelines, for example. If you want an in-story explanation, that could do.

edited 9th May '15 3:37:31 AM by editerguy

Since nobody's yet suggested it: if this is such a problem, why is it necessary the character die in the first place?

Maybe this is an episodic thing and the character's death has already been released. It's what I assumed, at least.