History Main / ImmortalHero

* ''PlanescapeTorment'' follows the story of The Nameless One, who's literally immortal. With a couple of exceptions, getting killed in the game just means you'll wake up somewhere else at full health. You don't even suffer any sort of temporary penalty for dying - in fact, there are a couple of situations where you can have someone 'kill' you for profit. This is an InvertedTrope, however, as the point of the game is to find out ''why'' you can't die - and find a way ''to'' die, if possible.

* {{Superman}} is one of these, as ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'' was just a big publicity stunt after all, albeit a good-intentioned one (to illustrate why the DCUniverse needed TheCape rather than another NinetiesAntiHero). Heck, even if they had the guts to kill off Kal-L (The original 1938 Superman) they've already announced plans to bring him back.

* DCComics subverts this trope with ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', where most of the characters they've '''ever''' killed off -- including the Earth-2 Superman -- come back... as murderous zombies. Plus, they're not really back in body and soul, just a twisted echo of the person they were.

* In ''{{Solatorobo}}'' Red is sacrificed to awaken a HumongousMecha that will [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the world]], then a couple minutes later he gets back up, [[UnexplainedRecovery no explanation]].
* ''Nippon Ichi'' really likes this. They use it just about every game in the Disgaea series.

* Happens ''at least'' 4 times in ''SamuraiChamploo''. One of these even feature a long and TearJerker death sequence (the one following the "death" of Mugen), but he resuscitates (without explanation of course) soon after.

* {{Superman}} is one of these, as ''TheDeathOfSuperman'' was just a big publicity stunt after all, albeit a good-intentioned one (to illustrate why the DCUniverse needed TheCape rather than another NinetiesAntiHero). Heck, even if they had the guts to kill off Kal-L (The original 1938 Superman) they've already announced plans to bring him back.

* DCComics subverts this trope with ''BlackestNight'', where most of the characters they've '''ever''' killed off -- including the Earth-2 Superman -- come back... as murderous zombies. Plus, they're not really back in body and soul, just a twisted echo of the person they were.

* ''NipponIchi'' really likes this. They use it just about every game in the Disgaea series.

** As of 485, we ''finally'' have a named protagonist die outside of a flashback. [[spoiler: And now Yamamoto has apparently bit the dust as well]].

**** Only if you do EVERYTHING right. Remember, Ilya is an expert at Homonculi and such? It's been established in advance, in Fate route, in fact. She turns Shirou into a Homonculus in a couple of endings. What she did was save his 'soul', and transfer it to a new body. Had to pull in a character from KaraNoKyoukai to get it to work right, though.

->"[[Franchise/{{Batman}} The Bat's]] stubborn refusal to expire... is '''driving us insane!'''"

* In ''FateStayNight'', Shirou has a supernatural ability to regenerate as part of his contract with Saber that makes him live through practically anything (short of a DEAD END, of course). By the end of "Fate", we learn this is because Shirou has Avalon embedded in him, which will bring him back from literally anything given that it has magical energy left. He loses its protection in both "UBW" and "Heaven's Feel" and the amount of "was practically killed but made miraculous comeback" all but disappears.

->"Whew! Okay, kids, let's settle down and review the important information --[[BigBad Lyle is a big doofus]]. [[TheHero Poor George]] was really shot, but can't die because, let's face it, he's the hero."
-->--'''The Narrator''', ''Film/GeorgeOfTheJungle''

->"Whew! Okay, kids, let's settle down and review the important information --[[BigBad Lyle is a big doofus]]. [[TheHero Poor George]] was really shot, but can't die because, hey, let's face it, he's the hero."

* In LarryNiven's short story [[KnownSpace "Procrustes"]], nanotech-driven medical technology allows Beowulf Shaeffer to recover from being shot through the heart and decapitated.

* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', mainly Buffy herself.
--> '''Buffy''' Hey,I've died twice...

->"[[{{Batman}} The Bat's]] stubborn refusal to expire... is '''driving us insane!'''"
-->--'''Two-Face''', ''[[Film/{{Batman}} Batman Forever]]''

* In ''MassEffect2'', Commander Shepard is killed in the opening of the game, but is rebuilt by Cerberus. Enforced in the finale; although Shepard can suffer PlotlineDeath at the end it's considered a NonStandardGameOver rather than a proper, canon ending. You can't use such a save for ExtendedGameplay and you can't carry that particular save over into MassEffect3.

Amına Kodumun Cocukları Siz Kimin Adını Kimden İzinsiz Kullanıyonuz...

->"Whew! Okay, kids, let's settle down and review the important information --[[BigBad Lyle is a big doofus]]. [[TheHero Poor George]] was really shot, but can't die because, hey, let's face it, he's the hero."
-->--'''The Narrator''', ''Film/GeorgeOfTheJungle''

->"[[{{Batman}} The Bat's]] stubborn refusal to expire... is '''driving us insane!'''"
-->--'''Two-Face''', ''[[Film/{{Batman}} Batman Forever]]''

So you're watching a series and the good guy has just killed his enemy. He finally has that epiphany about his major personality conflict, collapses from his wounds, and as his eyes slowly close, reflects on his life and entrusts everything to his friends. You think this may well be it for him...

...but it's not the first time this happened to him in the series, and TheMedic manages to reach him to heal his wounds in time. The enemy, on the other hand? He's dead, gone for good and forgotten after the end of the arc.

Death is inevitable in real life and common in fiction. While it tends to happen more often to the bad guys than the good guys, most works of fiction with life-and-death conflicts between good and evil have at least a few casualties on both sides.

But not all series do this. Some authors believe that no heroes or characters who would be considered "good" should die, and bring the heroes back from circumstances where an evil character would have perished, while ensuring that none of the heroes are KilledOffForReal. For whatever reason, the writers may not want to kill off good characters, possibly because the work may not fit a tragic death scene, or because they want to use them later.

This trope can often cheapen the impact of character deaths on a show, as it becomes hard to believe that a character is not coming back when they have come back before. It sometimes leads to HesJustHiding when a character seemingly dies, and in series with those tropes, people who make those claims are often right.

Note that series that included as examples should have multiple instances of good-aligned characters seeming to be dead and being brought back, in addition to few or no good-aligned character deaths.

Compare InvincibleHero, where the character never even '''loses''', and DeathIsCheap, in which this trope tends to apply to villains as well as heroes. JokerImmunity is this applied to villains.

'''As a DeathTrope, all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''

----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' the villains drop like flies, but not a single hero has died yet, no matter how severe their injuries. Many of them are defeated and severely wounded and often given what appear to be death scenes, but are brought back later. A good example is the Soul Society Arc, where ''no one with a name'' really dies (The only person to even have the appearance of being killed was Aizen, who is subsequently revealed to have been FakingTheDead), despite fights to the death happening all over the place, and there being 46 deaths caused by Aizen's OffstageVillainy.
** As of 485, we ''finally'' have a named protagonist die outside of a flashback. [[spoiler: And now Yamamoto has apparently bit the dust as well]].
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' has this trope mostly present in Part I, as Sasuke, Choji and Neji survived their DisneyDeath scenes, but this is balanced somewhat by the fact that most of the major villains also make it out, bar the FiveBadBand, {{Mooks}} and, crucially, the one exception of BigGood Sarutobi who dies fighting a surviving BigBad. Then it's played with in Part II, where several noteworthy good characters die and several more appear to do so. Gaara gets [[ResetButton brought back]] at the [[HeroicSacrifice cost of another's life]], the heroic sacrificer Chiyo staying dead. Several appear to be KilledOffForReal only to not be in the Pain arc, while Jiraiya and [[HeelFaceTurn redeemed Akatsuki member Konan]] really do die trying to take down respective [[BigBad Big Bads]].
* The only "good" character who dies in ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' without being brought back to life or revealed to have been FakingTheDead is reluctant ally Murota, who is eaten by the Gourmet, while most of the heroes' opponents die after being defeated. Genkai dies at the end of the series, but only in the manga, and of apparently natural causes.
* Happens ''at least'' 4 times in ''SamuraiChamploo''. One of these even feature a long and TearJerker death sequence (the one following the "death" of Mugen), but he resuscitates (without explanation of course) soon after.
* The ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara'' anime got fairly bad at this: While the first season killed off a large amount of {{Sacrificial Lion}}s and wounded a few secondary characters, none of the main cast died. And most of said Sacrifical Lions had an UnexplainedRecovery in the show's second season.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* {{Superman}} is one of these, as ''TheDeathOfSuperman'' was just a big publicity stunt after all, albeit a good-intentioned one (to illustrate why the DCUniverse needed TheCape rather than another NinetiesAntiHero). Heck, even if they had the guts to kill off Kal-L (The original 1938 Superman) they've already announced plans to bring him back.
** Unlike many other titles, the Superman books were published continuously through the years, so there was no character left behind in the past to be reintroduced in an aged form from "Earth-Two." Kal-El was invented to fill the slot in "Earth-Two" for Superman.
* DCComics subverts this trope with ''BlackestNight'', where most of the characters they've '''ever''' killed off -- including the Earth-2 Superman -- come back... as murderous zombies. Plus, they're not really back in body and soul, just a twisted echo of the person they were.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* In Brent Weeks' ''Literature/TheNightAngelTrilogy'', Azoth/Kylar dies at the very end only to be brought back by the black Ka'kari. [[spoiler: This becomes a major plot point, however, when it's revealed that every time he comes back, someone he loves dies.]]
* In LarryNiven's short story [[KnownSpace "Procrustes"]], nanotech-driven medical technology allows Beowulf Shaeffer to recover from being shot through the heart and decapitated.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'''s Captain Jack Harkness. No matter what happens to him, shooting, stabbing, falling from heights, buried alive, explosions, having his life force sucked out... a stray javelin, he keeps coming back because he's a fixed point in time and space.
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': [[IdiotHero Peter Petrelli]] and [[GoodThingYouCanHeal Claire Bennet]]. Nathan survived being shot and getting caught in a nuclear blast before dying for real.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' is especially notorious for this, as many of the party members are thought to be dead at various points, but most return during the BigDamnHeroes moment at the end of the game, or even earlier than that. Tellah is the only one who stays dead.
** Tellah's also the only one that you see die onscreen. Even [[spoiler: Cid]] has the courtesy to leave you behind before [[spoiler: exploding himself to seal the gate between worlds]]. [[spoiler: The twins]] being TakenForGranite doesn't stick, although how it is that Tellah couldn't fix the problem but the master from Mysidia could is just sort of [[HandWave Hand Waved]]. A player-friendly version of NoOneCouldSurviveThat is in full play, apparently
** The twins return is [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]; They previously ''resisted'' attempts to turn them back from stone because then the DeathTrap would kill everyone. When Baron is no longer under evil influence and the trap is turned off, they no longer resist and any attempt to fix them works.
* In ''VideoGame/StarFox Assault'', General Pepper's ship being taken over by Aparoids presents you with a Shoot The Dog (literally) scenario, but Peppy manages to save Pepper. Peppy, ROB and the Star Wolf Team make Heroic Sacrifices in the invasion of the Aparoid homeworld, and all of them survive.
* In ''FateStayNight'', Shirou has a supernatural ability to regenerate as part of his contract with Saber that makes him live through practically anything (short of a DEAD END, of course). By the end of "Fate", we learn this is because Shirou has Avalon embedded in him, which will bring him back from literally anything given that it has magical energy left. He loses its protection in both "UBW" and "Heaven's Feel" and the amount of "was practically killed but made miraculous comeback" all but disappears.
** He wouldn't die if he was killed.
*** Because he is a massive [[SaveScumming Save Scummer]]!
*** So he made a HeroicSacrifice... and became a puppet? What the...
**** Only if you do EVERYTHING right. Remember, Ilya is an expert at Homonculi and such? It's been established in advance, in Fate route, in fact. She turns Shirou into a Homonculus in a couple of endings. What she did was save his 'soul', and transfer it to a new body. Had to pull in a character from KaraNoKyoukai to get it to work right, though.
* In ''MassEffect2'', Commander Shepard is killed in the opening of the game, but is rebuilt by Cerberus. Enforced in the finale; although Shepard can suffer PlotlineDeath at the end it's considered a NonStandardGameOver rather than a proper, canon ending. You can't use such a save for ExtendedGameplay and you can't carry that particular save over into MassEffect3.
* ''PlanescapeTorment'' follows the story of The Nameless One, who's literally immortal. With a couple of exceptions, getting killed in the game just means you'll wake up somewhere else at full health. You don't even suffer any sort of temporary penalty for dying - in fact, there are a couple of situations where you can have someone 'kill' you for profit. This is an InvertedTrope, however, as the point of the game is to find out ''why'' you can't die - and find a way ''to'' die, if possible.
* In ''{{Solatorobo}}'' Red is sacrificed to awaken a HumongousMecha that will [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the world]], then a couple minutes later he gets back up, [[UnexplainedRecovery no explanation]].
* ''NipponIchi'' really likes this. They use it just about every game in the Disgaea series.

[[/folder]]
----

* In LarryNiven's short story [[KnownSpace ''Procrustes'']], nanotech-driven medical technology allows Beowulf Shaeffer to recover from being shot through the heart and decapitated.

* {{Superman}} is one of these, as his death was just a big publicity stunt after all. Heck, even if they had the guts to kill off Kal-El (The original 1938 Superman) they've already announced plans to bring him back.

** In fairness, the writers of "The Death of Superman" never made it a secret that they were going to bring him back. It was pretty much to illustrate why the DCUniverse needed ''[[TheCape Superman]]'' rather than another NinetiesAntiHero.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': Peter Petrelli and Claire Bennet. Nathan survived being shot and getting caught in a nuclear blast before dying for real.

* All Mechies in ''StationeryVoyagers'' are implied to be nigh-immortal. Unless you destroy their [[SoulJar S-chips]], which is hard to do. "Putting them down" and "[[Film/BladeRunner retiring]]" them when they [[FaceHeelTurn go bad]] means [[SealedEvilInACan putting their S-chips in a freezer]] so they can't be inserted into a Mechie body. Therefore, Pextel getting trashed battling Cybomec in the MechanicalLifeforms equivalent of {{Gorn}} is but a DisneyDeath. Stella-Marie and Technitel, Philidrio, Caloride, and Ribando-Cybomec are likewise only mentally vulnerable. DeathIsCheap, as villain Mechies can come back too.
** Laura with the Crimson Owl powers is a CameBackStrong ContractualImmortality that works a little like [[Literature/TheBible Sampson's Nazarite status]]. So it's especially stupid for villains to keep trying to kill her. [[VillainBall But they can't resist]].

* In Brent Weeks' ''NightAngelTrilogy'', Azoth/Kylar dies at the very end only to be brought back by the black Ka'kari. [[spoiler: This becomes a major plot point, however, when it's revealed that every time he comes back, someone he loves dies.]]

* The ''SengokuBasara'' anime got fairly bad at this: While the first season killed off a large amount of {{Sacrificial Lion}}s and wounded a few secondary characters, none of the main cast died. And most of said Sacrifical Lions had an UnexplainedRecovery in the show's second season, [[spoiler:and in the case of Nagamasa, the movie]].

* ''FinalFantasyIV'' is especially notorious for this, as many of the party members are thought to be dead at various points, but most return during the BigDamnHeroes moment at the end of the game, or even earlier than that. Tellah is the only one who stays dead.

** As of 485, we ''finally'' have an even semi-important protagonist die outside of a flashback. [[spoiler: And now Yamamoto has apparently bit the dust as well]].

* In ''{{Bleach}}'' the villains drop like flies, but not a single hero has died yet, no matter how severe their injuries. Many of them are defeated and severely wounded and often given what appear to be death scenes, but are brought back later. A good example is the Soul Society Arc, where ''no one with a name'' really dies (The only person to even have the appearance of being killed was Aizen, who is subsequently revealed to have been FakingTheDead), despite fights to the death happening all over the place, and there being 46 deaths caused by Aizen's OffstageVillainy.