History Main / GhostlyGoals

* ''School Zone'' has almost entirely Type 2 ghosts. [[spoiler: With the twist that they're only Type 2 because the school's rumors paint them as such -- because everyone else has forgotten who they really were and what they really wanted, so have they. They can move on if someone remembers them, although this only happens to one of the ghosts before the manga's end.]]

** In the radio version of the book (but not the book itself) the ghost of Michael Wenton-Weakes' mother [[spoiler: must tell someone that she was murdered by her son before she can move on. It doesn't take long.]]

* In ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'', Gordon Way is killed while leaving a message on an answering machine; his spirit lingers until he is able to finish the message, hampered by only barely being able to manipulate the physical world. [[spoiler: While the ultimate villain of the book is a billion-year-old alien ghost trying to manipulate people into time travelling and preventing him from accidentally destroying his people's colony mission, which would erase humanity from existence.]]

* Sai's (the ghost who possessed [[TheProtagonist Hikaru]] and who latter became his {{Mentor}}) goal in ''Manga/HikaruNoGo'' is to keep playing Go, and more precisely reach the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms Divine Move]](a.k.a The Hand of God).

* A few of the pre-GenreShift, manga-only arcs of ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' involve this sort of thing--one involves a student who committed suicide after the pressure of his entrance exams got to be too much. To atone, he's trying to help two friends who are being forced to compete for a scholarship. One gets a little jealous and accidentally invokes some kind of occult spell, and her friend comes pretty close to getting killed. Interestingly, there is a part where the one girl is trying to find the other, and the ghost ''does'' tell her exactly where to go, but since he's a ghost, she only hears him subconsciously, and thinks "Maybe I should go this way..."

* The various ghosts in ''Discworld/WyrdSisters'' are unable to move on until their unfinished business has been resolved. In the case of Verence, this means getting revenge on Felmet and seeing his son on the throne. It's implied that most of the others have been haunting the castle for so long they've ''forgotten'' what their unfinished business is. And it's probably mostly getting revenge on a murderer who's actually one of the other ghosts, so it's all a bit pointless.

* In ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1337 SCP-1337]] is mismanaged from being a Type A into a Type B. The ghost of a murdered woman [[BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts repeatedly hitchhiked]] to her graveyard and left behind a possession the driver would feel compelled to return to her parents, which would then vanish. Rather than trying to find out how to set her to rest, they just told her parents they were trying to and had SCP agents patrol the small area where she was active so they'd be the ones picking her up. Then the researcher in charge of the project decided that [[{{Jerkass}} killing her parents, demolishing her old house, and destroying her grave marker]] would leave her without anywhere to go, and remove the relatively minor inconvenience caused by her activities. Unsurprisingly, this instead resulted in royally pissed off ghost, who after [[KarmicDeath butchering the researcher responsible]], expanded her range and shifted from harmlessly hitching rides to killing people who didn't stop for her.

* In E.W. Hildick's ''Ghost Squad'' series of juvenile mysteries, most ghosts are Type A, although the goals in question aren't necessarily specific ones; the ghost may just be too concerned about a person, place, or thing to leave it behind. Type B ghosts are called "Malevs", and several of them are antagonists in various books.

* Happens in the ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' episode "Dead Man Dating", when Piper falls for the ghost of a handsome Chinese-American man. She and the sisters must help him with two goals: punish his murderer and retrieve his (the dude's) lifeless body before the Chinese spirits of the dead come for his soul. They succeed, and after a tearful goodbye the girls watch him cross the bridge to the afterlife.

* ''Manga/CorpsePrincess'' does have actual ghosts bound to the world by regrets, but the important thing are the shikabane themselves. Ghosts are tied by weak attachments and couldn't resurrect their corpses, shikabane could. Upon raising themselves, they seem to have something of a period before turning into horrible monsters that will do anything to fulfill their attachments to the world (ie:disembowel someone who gets in the way of their dream to keep singing) during which females can apparently become contracted and stay mostly human. The big bads are different but who cares about them anyway?

* In ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1337 SCP-1337]] is mismanaged from being a Type A into a Type B. The ghost of a murdered woman [[BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts repeatedly hitchhiked]] to her graveyard and left behind a possession the driver would feel compelled to return to her parents, which would then vanish. Rather than trying to find out how to set her to rest, they just told her parents they were trying to and had SCP agents patrol the small area where she was active so they'd be the ones picking her up. Then the researcher in charge of the project decided that [[{{Jerkass}} killing her parents, demolishing her old house, and destroying her grave marker]] would leave her without anywhere to go, and remove the relatively minor inconvenience caused by her activities. Unsurprisingly, this instead resulted in royally pissed off ghost, who expanded her range and shifted from harmlessly hitching rides to killing people who didn't stop for her.

* The boy's [[InvisibleToNormals "imaginary friend"]] in ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaoVpVXcZsA Missing Halloween]]'' is revealed to be a Type A in the end. [[AdultFear She was a little girl who died alone in the middle of a forest after getting caught in a bear trap]], and all she wanted was for someone to find her body.

* The one ghost we [[NothingIsScarier sort of]] encounter in ''[[VideoGame/TheSecretWorld]]'' haunting the Black House in Kingsmouth is violently temperamental and savage, and quelling her is part of a quest. It turns out that she was [[spoiler: lynched by the townsfolk on false charges and just wants her ashes to be scattered in the sea so she can finally escape the town that persecuted her.]] The mission debriefing flavour text for the Templar faction implies that all ghosts in the setting are similar:

* The ghost in ''Film/TheDevilsBackbone'' wants [[spoiler: his murder uncovered. He ends up [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome avenging it himself]].]]

* Recurring ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' character, St. Jiub the Eradicator, can be met as a spirit in the [[SpiritWorld Soul Cairn]] in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'''s ''Dawnguard'' DLC and is very much a Type A. He offers a sidequest which involves recovering the lost notes he needs to write his opus, telling the tale of his [[HeroOfAnotherStory rise]] and [[TheAtoner atonement]] from being a prisoner at the beginning of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' to [[LegendaryInTheSequel earning his status as a saint]]. Once finished, he'll ask you take it back to the mortal world so his legend may live on.

[[IThoughtItMeant Don't confuse this]] for when a character's goal is to become a ghost -- that's more along the lines of MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning.

[[IThoughtItMeant Don't confuse this]] for when a character's goal is to become a ghost- that's more along the lines of MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': [[spoiler:The deceased Luteran Pastor]] needs to stick around until all the Rash-transformed souls belonging to her fellow [[spoiler:Christians]] have reached the afterlife. Since many these souls are stuck in one location and need to travel to a specific place to get help in doing so, this may take a while.

* Subverted in ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura''. [[spoiler: Touya finds a girl who looks like Sakura and is stirring mischief around. He believes at first that it's Sakura, yet soon he realises with his PsychicPowers that she ain't Sakura... and then he thinks it's a ghost who has taken a human form and goes along with whatever plan she has as he wants he to fulfill this. She's actually a Clow Card who's doing mischief to pin it on the real Sakura, but once Touya confronts her and [[ArmorPiercingQuestion asks her]] what are her GhostlyGoals (which unmasks her to him), [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone she shows remorse]] and allows herself to be sealed by Sakura.]]

-->'''Betsy:''' Why not?
-->'''Ghost:''' My name is Theodocia.
-->'''Betsy:''' Oh, God. I'll let him know.

--> '''Husband:''' So... you, um... you know who killed you?
--> '''Ghost:''' Oh, yeah, I don't even really care about that anymore. I just, y'know, had to get outta there.