History Main / DeathTakesAHoliday

* This is the whole plot of [[JoseSaramago José Saramago]]'s ''Death with Intervals'', which explores all the political, social and economical consequences of people not dying in a certain country - a sense of pride, crime syndicates threatening people with [[FateWorseThanDeath fates worse than death]] and the trafficking of ill people to the border so they can die, with all the international chaos that follows. Death then resumes to its reaping [[spoiler:though she begins to warn people beforehand, until she falls in love with the only man she couldn't kill. The following day, no one died.]]

** In ''Discworld/{{Mort}}'', Death takes on an apprentice (Mort) and then leaves him in charge whilst and goes wandering around the Disc trying human pleasures such as fishing, partying, and getting drunk. Naturally, HilarityEnsues...
** ''Discworld/ReaperMan'' features Death being "laid off" by the Auditors, with quite a bit of chaos resulting, including a wizard coming back as a zombie, a rash of poltergeist activity, and, strangest of all, the city of Ankh-Morpork being threatened by a living, parasitic shopping mall. Again, HilarityEnsues.
** In ''Discworld/SoulMusic'', Death has run off to forget his troubles and his granddaughter Susan must fill in, much to her annoyance. Yet again, HilarityEnsues.

->''That is not dead which can eternal lie.\\
And with strange aeons even death may die.''
--> -- '''The Nameless City, Creator/HPLovecraft'''

->''That is not dead which can eternal lie.\\
And with strange aeons even death may die.''
--> -- '''The Nameless City, Creator/HPLovecraft'''

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkLWnx3ILtQ This commercial]] shows a man surviving fatal incidents because death is busy enjoying a cold one.

* Wiki/SCPFoundation: The [[http://scp-wiki.net/end-of-death-hub End of Death canon]], created for the 2018 Doomsday Contest.

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/DiscworldII https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/death_9.jpg]]]]

* ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' episode "Styx Feet Under".

Something happens to the [[AnthropomorphicPersonification personification]] of [[TheGrimReaper Death]] such that the very concept of death is suspended. Maybe Death just decides to quit, or maybe someone "[[TailorMadePrison captures]]" Death. Maybe [[TheDeathOfDeath Death itself has died]]. Regardless of the how and why, he Reaper isn't doing his job any longer, and [[{{Immortality}} people don't die anymore]].

Something happens to the [[AnthropomorphicPersonification personification]] of [[TheGrimReaper Death]] such that the very concept of death is suspended. Maybe Death just decides to quit, or maybe someone "[[TailorMadePrison captures]]" Death.

[[{{Immortality}} People don't die anymore]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' episode "Grief" when a man traps the god of death (Anubis) by summoning him and nothing is able to die until he leaves. Anubis points out the dangers of his actions: there is still birth, but now no death to balance it out. Interestingly he got his happy ending, he trapped Anubis to try and force him to return his dead son, in the end he was happily reunited with his son, in the afterlife. A pretty sensible solution for a verse with an explicitly true afterlife.
** [[WordOfGod Greg Weisman]] regretted not actually ''doing'' anything with this concept. The episode in question had the heroes captured, perfect opportunity for the villains to try killing them only to fail when death isn't working.

* Inverted in the episode "Death Takes A Holiday" of ''Series/{{Mash}}''. While the rest of the camp celebrates Christmas, BJ, Hawkeye and Margaret are doing everything they can to keep a dying soldier alive till the next day, so his family does not to remember Christmas as the day he died. Ramming home the message that "war sucks", the doctors fail with 10 minutes to go. Hawkeye advances the clock past midnight so they can put December 26 on the death certificate.

* The trope name comes from the title of a novel that was adapted into a film of the same name in the 1930s, remade as a telemovie in the 1970s and remade again in 1998 as ''Meet Joe Black''.

%%* This occurred in a short story this troper read a few times, years ago, but can't remember the name - only that it involved a bet, Death getting stuck in some sort of special tree he needed someone's permission to get out of, and that somehow, it led to the origin of all the world's "no-good gamblers.
* Creator/RayBradbury's short story ''The Scythe'' features a man who becomes the Grim Reaper. When he learns what he's been doing he refuses to work, only to find that if he doesn't take the souls of people who are supposed to die they end up in an unconscious limbo state between life and death.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "The Last Trump" is about these. As no human could ever decide how the afterlife would be, The Chief (a.k.a God) decide that the only thing all of humanity has in common is the fear of death. When the day of the judgement finally arrive, all people stop dying and the dead ones start to resurrect.

* This is the whole plot of [[JoseSaramago José Saramago]]'s ''Death with Intervals'', which explores all the political, social and economical consequences of people not dying in a certain country - a sense of pride, crime syndicates threatening people with [[FateWorseThanDeath fates worse than death]] and the trafficking of ill people to the border so they can die, with all the international chaos that follows. Death then resumes to its reaping [[spoiler:though she begins to warn people beforehand, until she falls in love with the only man she couldn't kill. The following day, no one died.]]

* Literature/TheBible includes a reference to this, making it OlderThanFeudalism. In this case, it's during the fifth plague of Revelation, where the people are tortured by locust demons for five months.
-->During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them. - Revelation 9:6
** Of course, the Bible also speaks of God putting an end to death, and this is clearly established as being a good thing. Then there's the somewhat strange verse where Death gets sent to Hell.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Although TheGrimReaper's existence hasn't been confirmed InUniverse ([[AllMythsAreTrue yet]]), this is basically the goal of Kumori in ''Dead Beat''. Harry himself is intelligent enough to realize this is a horrible idea.
* In ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', this shows up in the second book, although it's more like "Death Gets Kidnapped." [[spoiler:Gaea bound Thanatos, the Greek god of death, to allow monsters to keep escaping the underworld; a side effect of this is that no one dies.]]
* In Mikhail Uspensky's ''Kogo za smertyu posylat'' (''Who's to be Sent after Death''), Death is kidnapped by BigBad Miroyed, and everyone stops dying. Creatures still can be hit, maimed, and burnt to ashes, but will neither bleed nor feel the pain, and even the ashes of a man will still be able to live in some manner. People in fact feel like undead, and want the Death back. When finally Zhikhar, TheHero, rescues the Death, which turns out to be also the Live, things go back to normal, and [[spoiler:everyone who got hurt during Death's absence, dies. Therefore, instead of being praised for saving the world, Zhikhar is hated as if he ruined it.]]

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]

* ''Series/InLivingColor'' had this happen in a ''literal'' sense, with JimCarrey playing TheGrimReaper [[http://youtu.be/xczQ5c26pWs at a beach resort]]. He meets with a couple who [[KillEmAll goad him into showcasing his powers]], and HilarityEnsues.

If someone else has to take over for TheGrimReaper, it's a case of SubbingForSanta.

At first this seems [[LivingForeverIsAwesome wonderful]], but eventually the {{Aesop}} rears its (sometimes [[{{Anvilicious}} ugly]]) head. [[WhoWantsToLiveForever People injured beyond repair and in excruciating pain aren't given release, or the threat of overpopulation is mentioned]], or people abuse their newfound {{immortality}}, or the writers just flat out say [[CosmicKeystone reality itself will collapse.]] The heroes either ask Death to return, or else free Death from whatever force has contained it. If the heroes themselves got rid of death, they'll discover TheProblemWithFightingDeath is you just can't win. Death may levy this as [[EnemiesWithDeath punishment]] for some [[ScaleOfScientificSins crime against the natural order,]] and make it worse by coupling it with AgeWithoutYouth.

* In a [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons']] Halloween special, Homer kills Death after trying to save Bart from him. Lisa mentions that there is now a world without death, and then cue scenes around Springfield of people not dying when they should. Homer then puts on Death's cloak for fun and accidentally becomes the new Grim Reaper (Possibly an AffectionateParody slash Hallow'een version of TheSantaClause). ''HilarityEnsues''

* How the 9th ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' game ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'' happens, basically. Every 60 years, a surge of death happens for whatever reason, which presumably requires the [[TheGrimReaper shinigami]] to work overtime. [[TheGrimReaper Komachi]] just happened to be slacking off this time around, leading to all the souls she wasn't escorting to the afterlife to start manifesting as flowers.

* The trope name comes from the title of a novel, that was later adapted into a film of the same name in 1934, starring Frederic March and Evelyn Venable, remade as a telemovie in 1971 starring Creator/MonteMarkham as Death, and remade again in 1998 as ''Film/MeetJoeBlack''. ''Film/MeetJoeBlack'' avoids the trope by having Death explain that for him, killing people is just like "making a decision while shaving in the morning". The film ''Film/DeathTakesAHoliday'' leaves the trope intact.