Misused: The Bus Came Back

The Bus Came Back suffers from a rather large case of trope decay.

It's supposed to be when Put on a Bus is undone. For the record, Put on a Bus is when a character is written out of a story without killing them off. So The Bus Came Back would be when the character comes back.

Also note that Put on a Bus explicitly does not cover characters who died, and characters who underwent Chuck Cunningham Syndrome (Writers just forget about them or ignore them, so they vanish without traces). This is an important distinction for our discussion of The Bus Came Back because, story telling wise:

1. undoing a character death falls under Back from the Dead and might not be doable depending on the kind of work you're writing
2. Pulling a The Bus Came Back requires you to follow up on the reason the character was Put on a Bus. Since Put on a Bus is often done specifically so the character CAN return, it can also involve using elements that were foreshadowed and introduced earlier.
3. Bringing back a victim of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome requires the writer to suddenly retcon into existence why the character vanished and no one ever mentioned them. Unlike Put on a Bus there's no pre-existing plot threads to build from.

The Bus Came Back tends to be used whenever a character returns from a previous entry, even if the character never was Put on a Bus. If you have a trilogy where Pedro the Mexican cop is in the first film, which takes place in mexico, and not in the second because it's in Iceland, and Pedro turns up in the third film because it takes place near the Mexican border, is that an example? Going by the trope usage, it might as well be.

Basically, people treat any instance of "Character wasn't in a chapter/episode/game/film of a series as being Put on a Bus, and therefore any future instance where the character returns is The Bus Came Back". Works who are not tv series (So have only a few installment as opposed to a show having dozens of episodes over several seasons) seem to be vulnerable to this kind of trope decay - miss an episode of a TV Show, no one cares. Miss a movie in a trilogy? That's more noticeable.

Some example of misuse:

• Both Entries in the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt page list characters who appeared on the first game, but weren't seen again for various reasons. They weren't written, they just werent relevant to the story (Why would you expect the Lady of the Lake to turn up again? We didn't see the other witchers in the 2nd game because the game doesn't take place near Kaer Morden, which is the main place where Wolf school witchers meet, otherwise they travel solo on the road, it's their job)

From the main page:

• X-Men: Days of Future Past: Toad finally returns for his first appearance since the original X-Men movie. He was in the military, and after Mystique saves him from Trask Industries, he's working in a kitchen somewhere. (Except Toad DIED in the first film, why would he be in the sequels? Character Deaths are Explicitly not Put on a Bus - the description mentions it. And First Class was about the formation of the X Men, and Toad isn't an X Men, there's no automatic expectation he'd appear)
• Ray - Ray Charles' mother was active through much of Ray's life but the film makes it appear as though she didn't have an active role in his young development. She died before he met his first wife. In fact, Ray's life is portrayed as a rotating support circle. Different bandmates and managers guided him along different steps of the way and then he outgrew them and moved onto a new support circle. In reality, Ray kept in touch with a lot of his earlier band mates and Ahmet Ertegun (Curtis Armstrong) knew Ray until the end of his life. Once Ray dropped him as a manager, he didn't appear again in the movie though. (It's a single film. How can a character be Put on a Bus and then get The Bus Came Back IN THE SAME SINGLE MOVIE)
• All the mario entries under the videogame section are examples of character who were just present for a single entry (So not automatic reason to assume they'd show up in future ones) or just plain Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. None of them were ever Put on a Bus.
• Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell: Saints Row 2 villain Dane Vogel returns after his death in that game, as one of Hell's many residents. (Deaths are not example of Put on a Bus)
• Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U brought back Dr. Mario, who appeared in Melee but was cut from Brawl. Joining him in this regard is fellow Melee veteran Mewtwo, though he will be availiable as Downloadable Content. (I don't even know how to treat this, is Dr. Mario is essentially Mario to begin with, and again, he wasn't Put on a Bus.)

I think we have a case of a missing super trope, there's no general trope for "Character who isn't in the story any more returns in a future installment), a super trope for Back for the Finale, Back from the Dead, The Bus Came Back. Etc...

edited 9th Jun '16 7:58:41 PM by Ghilz

There is a Missing Supertrope. Go ahead and take it to YKTTW.

One quibble: Put on a Bus is supposed to be removing characters in a way where they can easily be returned. If a character death is set up to allow for easy resurrection, why can't it be an example?

You mean like a Disney Villain Death, where they didn't really die in the first place? Then it's not Back from the Dead, so that's fine.

Of course Toad is not dead. It's in the PAST. I'm pretty sure prequels and anything related to time travel should be considered excluded from Bus-related stuff anyway, since the Bus is in relation to IN-universe time only.

Something like "Interval of absence" Would be a meta trope to cover what happens when someone is absent from some episodes because the episodes are not in chronological order to begin with (toad) or aren't supposed to form a unified plotline (I think Smash Bros is like that?).

edited 29th Jun '16 10:22:27 AM by Circeus

Disney Villain Death has nothing to do with "He didn't really die", it's that the death scene involves falling from a great height (along with any number of other cause of death such as stabbing, shoved, struck by lightning. Fire.).

I do like that as a name.

edited 3rd Jul '16 10:37:44 PM by Ghilz

Somehow, I confused a trope that usually involves falling off a cliff, with another trope that usually involves falling off a cliff. Killed Offscreen.

EDIT: Okay, okay. Turns out I was really confused. Have another that usually involves falling off a cliff. Never Found the Body.

edited 3rd Jul '16 11:38:50 PM by war877

Or you just wanted Disney Death which is yet another related trope.

The idea of Put on a Bus is that the character is still alive and well and doing his things somewhere else; it's just that the narrative does not follow him anymore. Death is clearly not the case, even if it's a death easy to undo. I would only make an exception in those works where death is simply a change of state or location (such as those works where heaven and/or hell are actual places that you can easily go to, talk with the man in charge and leave with someone from there). If the character can still be around and being himself for us spectators to see, or it is more or less credible that he's doing so outside of our view, then it may count.

Yes, there is death and there's death. I think everyone in this thread gets how it works. It's getting the average troper to figure it out that's the issue.

It looks like consensus is to make a new trope in TLP that says "characters are brought back from the dead" and afterwards clean up examples on The Bus Came Back.

...We already have that, am I wrong?

For cases of people who got Chuck Cunningham Syndrome (where there isn't even any mention of a "bus", the character is just forgotten without rhyme or reason) and then "reappears" in the narrative, that surely isn't The Bus Came Back. The question is: "What would it be, then?"

For cases like Dr. Mario in Smash Bros. skipping a game (or anyone skipping a game, really), due to it being a game, disappearance of a character doesn't have to have to do with the plot, unlike movie characters. I dunno what I would call this, though, or if this is even a thing.

Don't forget that some video games have heavy plot. Recurring characters who skip a game like this (and therefore are missing for over 3 years in real life time) might qualify for The Bus Came Back.

I know, but still, there needs to be a mention about the bus for it to qualify as The Bus Came Back.

Good point.

So, to make sure I understand, for an example to qualify under this trope, the following has to be true, in order:

• There is a character the narrative regularly follows (main, side, background).
• The character is Put on a Bus
  • The character is no longer followed by the narrative.
  • There is an in-universe explanation (college, war, etc).
• At a later date, The Bus Came Back
  • the narrative begins following the character again.
  • There is an in-universe explanation(Graduation, peace, etc).

I think I understand the confusion. Death is not a normal explanation. It "should" be permanent. Death normally removes a character from future appearances. It's the ultimate Put on a Bus, but it should always be treated as a one-way bus.

I agree with Getta, we already have Back from the Dead. How would that be different in this context? "Yes, Bob died, that's why we haven't seen him in years. But he just came back, so we're all together again."

I don't think there's really a missing supertrope. If they die, and are resurrected, It's Back from the Dead. If they're put on a bus, then the bus comes back, it's The Bus Came Back. These are distinct enough to be separate.

Back from the Dead could be just dead for 1 second or they didn't leave the plot at all when they died IE Dragonball.

An extended time dead + left the plot only to get resurrected at a later date like say what Freeza did in Dragonball Super, close to 20 years after he died, would be a different related trope to The Bus Came Back.

That's splitting hairs. Death is usually expected to be permanent. From an in-universe or meta perspective, a one-minute difference shouldn't change the fact and expectation of death anymore than a 20 year difference. With the exception of works where revival is commonplace and easy, Gameplay and Story Segregation not withstanding (many RP Gs come to mind), when a character dies they're expected to stay dead.

I think story wise, death is death. Back from the Dead by definition covers a character's revival from the expectation they will stay dead. It covers all durations and uses of death.

I agree that these misused examples should be cleaned. That's misuse. But this doesn't warrant another trope.

Death Is Cheap is rather normal in works, death isn't expected to be permanent at all in these. People die and get rezed asap for cheap drama or it being a kids show as well. They can also show up as a ghost literally as soon as they die.

I mean Star Trek Into Darkness pulled it, someone died then Back from the Dead 10 minutes later.

Even if they stay dead they can come back via flash backs and alternate universes ie Tasha Yar in Star Trek TNG.

There is a window of time on Death Is Cheap though imo, like a season or so, after that it would be the sister trope to The Bus Came Back.

edited 29th Dec '16 9:17:20 PM by Memers

(Why do you tempt my inner Trekkie .)

I don't know. I have trouble with this because I don't like to see redundancy. If Back from the Dead covers this, which it does, then the duration of death shouldn't warrant another trope. I can see it right now on a character page, an entry for B Ft D, and a little ways down seeing the proposed sister trope, which would require B Ft D.

You're right (rare words on the internet), Death Is Cheap exists, and it does complicate things. But I still think there an expectation death is permanent. Its certainly there in-universe, but there's that moment where we ask "will they come back?" Sure, Spock may have come back after ST 2:Wo K, but that same expectation didn't pan out for Kirk in generations.

If there was say two movies between say Star Trek 2 and Star Trek 3 though it would be what I am talking about.

The character is dead and buried, completely out of the story for a long period and the actor was literally out of a job, then resurrected and brought back into the story. Now that would be the trope related to The Bus Came Back, it's not exactly that but it's related to it.

Also Kirk did come back in the William Shatner novels :) but that wouldn't be this as well. I don't know that that would be lol.

The Borg Queen would be it in talking about Star Trek examples, died in a movie and showed up years later in Voyager.

edited 29th Dec '16 10:01:48 PM by Memers

"Death is permanent" is a statement across works and real life. "Death Is Cheap" isn't a statement, but a case where "death is permanent" isn't the case in a certain work.

I believe, if a character is dead (in the narrative) then is resurrected a long time later (also in the narrative) then it's both Back from the Dead and The Bus Came Back. I don't think we need a whole subtrope that combines the two, though.

So, this discussion over whether characters coming Back from the Dead in works where Death Is Cheap should be a separate but related trope to The Bus Came Back seems to be sort of missing the point to me. The real relationship we should be looking at is Death Is Cheap and Put on a Bus; essentially that in a work where Death Is Cheap, a character dying is essentially the same as if they were Put on a Bus. If and when they're revived, it's both The Bus Came Back and Back from the Dead; nothing says it can't just be both.

In my view, rather than running up a whole new trope for that intersection, we should note in Death Is Cheap or Put on a Bus, or both, that in a work where Death Is Cheap applies, death is functionally Put on a Bus, and all of the bus tropes can apply, except maybe Put on a Bus to Hell.

With regards to character death when Death Is Cheap is NOT in effect and there isn't the same expectation that the character is available to come back, I think we've got that covered under Back from the Dead.

BTW, how would What Happened to the Mouse? relate to Put on a Bus?

What Happened to the Mouse? isn't supposed to resolve.

One of my bigger source of misuse when I wrote the OP is people shoehorning the trope when there's no expectation the character to show up in the sequels.

Alice is the protagonist in a film. She's a cop in LA. Bob is a side character, a drug dealer in LA. The second movie has Alice travel to China. There's no expectation for Bob to appear. The third movie comes around, it's set in LA and Bob is there (Or It's in Paris and Bob is conveniently ALSO on a trip there), and people will put "The Bus Came Back" on Bob's entry coz he wasn't in the second movie. I put a bunch of examples where this happened in the OP, and there's a TON more.

That or just characters who are not in an entry and no reason is given.

edited 4th Jan '17 7:38:31 AM by Ghilz