History Main / NecRomantic

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* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': This turns out to be [[spoiler:[[BigBad Salem's]]]] StartOfDarkness. [[spoiler:After [[LivingEmotionalCrutch Ozma]] (Ozpin's original [[{{Reincarnation}} incarnation]]) died from sickness, Salem personally asked the God of Light to resurrect him, but he denied her while explaining about the delicate balance between life and death. Her next plan was to ask the God of Darkness the same thing, which he happily did no-strings-attached just to prove he can be just as worthy as his older brother, until he learned from his brother that Salem manipulated him to do so, upon which he killed Ozma as well as joining his brother in cursing Salem with [[WhoWantsToLiveForver immortality]] so that she could not reunite with her beloved in death until she learned to value the balance between life and death. Ozma would later be brought back via reincarnation by the God of Light to lead humanity into peace and unity, which he accepts hoping to reunite with Salem, until he learns sometime later that [[ThatManIsDead the woman he fell in love with is no more]]]].

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': This turns out to be [[spoiler:[[BigBad Salem's]]]] StartOfDarkness. [[spoiler:After [[LivingEmotionalCrutch Ozma]] (Ozpin's original [[{{Reincarnation}} incarnation]] died from sickness, Salem personally asked the God of Light to resurrect him, but he denied her while explaining about the delicate balance between life and death. Her next plan was to ask the God of Darkness the same thing, which he happily did no-strings-attached just to prove he can be just as worthy as his older brother, until he learned from his brother that Salem manipulated him to do so, upon which he killed Ozma]].

* Featured heavily in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist.'' Attempting to bring back a dead person with alchemy is not only strictly forbidden, but is almost guaranteed to [[GoneHorriblyWrong go horribly awry]], scar your body, kill an innocent, create a monster, etc. People (including the protagonists) try it anyway. Different than the villainous examples as all the people who try this are painted in a sympathetic light.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', [[spoiler:Obito Uchiha's motivation for siding with Madara and his Moon's Eye Plan, which involves casting a worldwide genjutsu in order to create a dream world, is essentially this. In Obito's case, this would allow him to live together with his deceased love interest and teammate (whom was killed at the hands of his former best friend no less) [[HappilyEverAfter once more]], and he's willing to set monsters loose upon villages and wage war to achieve it.]]

* Lucifer of the Divine Design arc of ''Manga/GetBackers''. He kidnapped and brainwashed children, played sick mind games with everyone, and seemed to enjoy doing it, but in the end it was revealed that he really just wanted to bring his daughter back from the dead.
* Sinner, an antagonist from the first ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'' [[LightNovels light novel]], carried around the long-past-decayed corpse of his daughter Lynthia in hopes that he would be able to bring her back to life after she succumbed to a curse. Unfortunately, he's also AxCrazy, and refuses to believe that she's even dead (until Shannon beats seven shades of hell out of him).

* [[BigBad Zeref]] of ''Manga/FairyTail'' is a deconstruction. He originally studied forbidden magic, specifically, [[spoiler: trying to bring back his baby brother [[TheHero Natsu]]]]. Unlike most examples of this trope, he [[GoneHorriblyRight succeeded]]; in fact, his [[WalkingWasteland curse]] was a divine punishment for daring to delve into and come so close to understanding ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow. [[spoiler:He gave Natsu an [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Etherious]] body, hence E.N.D., and equipped him with the potential of someday [[DeathSeeker killing him]]]].

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Anakin Skywalker turns to the TheDarkSide so he can learn how to bring his wife back from the dead. Before she's actually dead, since he had been having dreams about it. [[SelfFulfillingProphecy And then he kills her because he's evil now]].

* In ''Film/TheAbominableDrPhibes'', the title character is trying to avenge his wife's death. In ''Dr. Phibes Rises Again'', he's done that, and is now trying to bring her back using Ancient Egyptian magic (with the added bonus of getting eternal life for the pair of them). At the end of the film, he [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech explains to his nemesis]] why they're not only NotSoDifferent, but Phibes actually holds the moral high ground.

* One of the earlier film examples is probably ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'', in which the prototypical MadScientist Dr. Rotwang tries to bring his dead wife back in the form of a machine-woman (said wife also cheated on him while she was alive and died giving birth to another man's son, doubling the tragedy). Unfortunately the end result turned out a tad more evil than he probably hoped. This motivation is explained in far more detail in the novel, and is cut out in most versions of the film, leaving the viewer to assume he just likes to build evil-lady robots because EVIL.

* ''Film/TheVoid'': The leader of the cult is driven to pursue life after death because of the loss of his beloved daughter. He then makes a DealWithTheDevil with otherwordly forces to bring people back from the dead but [[CameBackWrong they turn into tortured mutants]] as a result.

** An episode of Buffy did same thing essentially, with Dawn trying to bring Joyce back after she died. Buffy gets to Dawn moments too late, the ritual complete, and argues with her to undo the spell before it's too late and someone gets hurt. Their argument reveals how much Buffy was hurting too (she had been putting on a brave face for her sister's sake) and the two end up switching positions on the matter: Buffy is in tears and rushes to the door hopefully when the unseen "Joyce Thing" knocks, but Dawn undoes the spell at the last second and nobody is there when Buffy opens the door.

* Okay, bear with me. Can HeterosexualLifePartners count? I'll grant you, Necroplatonic hasn't got the same ring to it. And are you sitting comfortably? But, anyway, in the Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novel ''Interference'', [[spoiler:the Doctor discovers that after he misplaced Fitz, he ended up falling in with a group of people who are cloned after their deaths. CloneDegeneration is an intentional part of the process -- the people basically become increasingly [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]], which is supposed to make them more their true selves, etc. -- sort of like how WesternAnimation/BugsBunny hasn't got an awful lot of depth, but everyone knows who he is. The Doctor is not terribly keen on this whole thing and thinks that Fitz has pretty much been boiled down to his worst traits plus a couple brand new flaws, so he turns the copy (named Kode) back into the Fitz he knew with the help of the [=TARDIS=]. Basically, this means he tells an eighteen-year-old boy, which is what Fitz has been turned into, that he's pretty awful and should just die so he can turn into someone more worthwhile, and, for added creepiness, Sam leaves shortly before the Doctor carries this out, and he [[FromACertainPointOfView all but lies]] to her, as he evidently knows he's doing something wrong. Of course, from a {{Doylist}} perspective, it's hard to disapprove of this plot development, as it brought back an EnsembleDarkHorse and gave him [[LossOfIdentity more reason]] to be TheWoobie, but... honestly, Doctor. You killed a guy because you liked someone else better. We all agreed with your preference, yes, but you killed a ''kid''.]]

* In ''Literature/DeathTrance'', Dr Amara desperately tries to make contact with his dead wife and lead her back to the plane of the living. What he actually ''gets'' is a leyak [[note]] An Indonesian vampire/zombie[[/note]] disguised as his wife.

* In Myth/EgyptianMythology Isis tries unsuccessfully to bring her husband Osiris back to life, but fails to because his brother Set ripped his dead body apart and a fish eats the penis. Isis is by no means a villain though.

* In Myth/NorseMythology Loki has Baldr, the most well loved of the gods, killed. Frigg, Baldr's mother, then sends an emissary to Hel, the goddess of the Underworld, begging her to bring him back to life. Hel says that they can have him if they have everything in the world cry for him. Earth, sky and everything in between - in other words: it's not going to happen! The gods try though, and fail as the last person in the world they have not asked, an old giantess (often depicted as being Loki in disguise), refuses to cry. The tale is about the inevitability and finality of Death, whom even the gods can not fully control.

** Jack in ''Shadow Hearts'' was trying to resurrect his mother... and conducted experiments on orphans to work out how. The end result: a vicious monster with her face, which killed him. In many ways his section of the game is a ShoutOut to ''Koudelka''.

* Count Bleck from ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' almost has this as his motivation. However, even with all his power he can't bring his lover back, so he just decides to do the next best thing: [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum Destroy all worlds.]] Sadly, he doesn't know until it's far too late that [[spoiler: she came back already, and is helping Mario defeat him]].

* Lezard Valeth of ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'' is one of the more demented villains out there even before he discovers that valkyries are only active when the humans serving as their SoulJar are killed. So he kills a few dozen female humans and elves to make homunculi for Lenneth Valkyrie to be incarnated into (it's never made clear how many, but at least a dozen homunculi are shown, and it's suggested it takes a few of both species to make just one), all so he can woo her. [[KarmaHoudini By the end of the game, he gets away with it, too.]]

* ''VideoGame/ChaosRingsIII'' features a particular twisted subversion. SerialKiller Drei 6 wants to bring a woman back to life and has been abducting and harvesting people to create a Gene capable of resurrecting her. During the HopelessBossFight after TheReveal, he confesses that the only reason he's doing this is because [[spoiler:he ''really'' enjoyed killing her. He wants to be able to resurrect her so he can kill her over and over again.]] To twist the knife further, said woman was [[spoiler:party member Al's wife.]] Double-subverted at the very end, when [[spoiler:his sister the mod engineer]] claims that Drei is compelled to kill that which he loves, meaning he may have really loved the woman he wants to revive in his own warped way.

* In ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'', at first it appears that the entire plot [[MindScrew apparently]] revolves around Kinzo Ushiromiya trying to revive his dead mistress... who also happens to be a 1000 year-old SealedEvilInACan. KillEmAll ensues. [[spoiler:But then it's revealed that Kinzo has been dead for almost two years before the story begins, meaning he wasn't involved in any of the murders. And although he did have a dead mistress whom he loved dearly, she was not 1000 years old nor was she SealedEvilInACan.]]

* Trace's backstory in ''Webcomic/TwoKinds''. he goes insane from the BlackMagic required to even try the spell, and begins to slaughter people left, right, and down the middle. He gets so evil that it [[DeusExMachina takes a god to stop him]] (the beastman god, incidentally. trace going mad was all part of the human god's plan).

* In ''Webcomic/QuentynQuinnSpaceRanger'' this turned out to be the cause of the attempted killer's motivation in the "Murder on the Sapphire Star" arc. [[spoiler: Sebak was trying to replicate his dead wife Anippe from 50-year old medical scans and then overwrite the clone's brain with a 30-year old brainscan taken just before her death. Unfortunately Anippe's digital copy freed her biological copy and she attacked him.]]

* ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'': In "Why a Gorilla?", a young Dr. [=McNinja=] is sent to investigate vampire attacks in a jungle city inhabited by especially intelligent gorillas. It turned out that [[spoiler: the gorilla vampire had been destroyed long ago, and the bodies supposed to have risen as vampires has been stolen by a gorilla doctor whose wife had died and who was keeping her from being all dead in a way that required attaching parts of other gorillas to her body, creating a gorilla FrankensteinMonster. Dr. [=McNinja=] later reflected that even though he was supposedly keeping her alive via a variation of LightningCanDoAnything, it was probably really because of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve. Anyway, she was [[TorturedAbomination quite angry]] when she woke up.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'', [[WoobieDestroyerofWorlds Charmcaster]] tries to do this [[spoiler:to resurrect her father. Unfortunately the only way she knows of to bring back the dead is to [[DealWithTheDevil buy his life from a]] GodOfEvil. And the price is ''all 600,000 souls in her home dimension''. [[UnwantedRevival It doesn't end well.]]]]

** There's also ''The Chain of Aforgomon''. Calaspa ''could'' have had his beloved's body reanimated or her spirit called back by magic easily enough...but that wasn't good enough, was it? He just ''had'' to actually ''turn back time'' for an hour to when she was still alive...yeah. [[CaptainObvious That didn't end so well.]]

* Some of Music/TypeONegative's songs have shades of this or ILoveTheDead, but ''All Hallows Eve'' is explicitly about making ADealWithTheDevil to resurrect a loved one.

* The film of ''Film/PetSematary''. See Literature, below.

* Inverted in ''Series/{{Charmed}}''. There's a dead Necromancer who wants to bring ''himself'' back to life to be with the woman he loves.

* [[BigBad Zeref]] of ''Manga/FairyTail'' is a destruction. He originally studied forbidden magic, specifically, [[spoiler: trying to bring back his baby brother [[TheHero Natsu]]]]. Unlike most examples of this trope, he [[GoneHorriblyRight succeeded]]; in fact, his [[WalkingWasteland curse]] was a divine punishment for daring to delve into and come so close to understanding ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow. [[spoiler:He gave Natsu an [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Etherious]] body, hence E.N.D., and equipped him with the potential of someday [[DeathSeeker killing him]]]].

* This turns out to have been the reason why [[BigBad Zeref]] of ''Manga/FairyTail'' originally studied forbidden magic. Specifically, [[spoiler:he was trying to bring back his baby brother [[TheHero Natsu]]]]. Unlike most examples of this trope, he [[GoneHorriblyRight succeeded]]; in fact, his [[WalkingWasteland curse]] was a divine punishment for daring to delve into and come so close to understanding ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow. [[spoiler:He gave Natsu an [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Etherious]] body, hence E.N.D., and equipped him with the potential of someday [[DeathSeeker killing him]]]].

* Featured in ''Magna/ChronoCrusade''. Azmaria's foster father adopted her in the hope that he could use her [[HealingHands Healing]] [[MagicMusic Voice]] to bring his wife's soul back to a body he reconstructed for her after she died in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.

* This turns out to have been the reason why [[BigBad Zeref]] of ''Manga/FairyTail'' originally studied forbidden magic. Specifically, [[spoiler:he was trying to bring back his baby brother [[TheHero Natsu]]]]. Unlike most examples of this trope, he [[GoneHorriblyRight succeeded]]: [[spoiler:By giving Natsu an [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Etherious]] body, hence E.N.D]].

* [[Literature/TheElricSaga Elric of Melnibone]], in the novels of Creator/MichaelMoorcock, makes a pact with Arioch, Lord of Chaos, and accepts "control" of the runeblade Stormbringer in order to win back his lover Cymoril, who had been kidnapped and ensorcelled by his cousin and rival Yyrkoon. Ironically enough, the fact that Stormbringer is an [[ArtifactOfDoom evil soul-devouring demon-blade with a mind of its own]] means that he ends up [[spoiler:killing her with it against his will]].

* Mr. Freeze from ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' ([[CanonImmigrant and later the comics]]), who turned to crime for funds to cure his sick, cryogenically frozen wife... and of course revenge on the CorruptCorporateExecutive who pulled the plug on his first attempt.

* Malistaire from ''VideoGame/{{Wizard101}}''. He was originally a passionate and caring individual who was arguably [[CoolTeacher Ravenwood's most popular teacher]], but when [[TheLostLenore his wife, Sylvia, passed away from disease]], he went insane and became convinced he could bring her back if he simply gathered enough power. He was eventually driven to [[spoiler:summoning the Dragon Titan, one of the most powerful beings in the Spiral, because he was confident that he could control it and command it to resurrect his wife]].

* Malistaire from ''VideoGame/{{Wizard101}}''. He was originally a passionate and caring individual who was arguably [[CoolTeacher Ravenwood's most popular teacher]]. but when [[TheLostLenore his wife passed away from disease]], he went insane and became convinced he could bring her back if he simply gathered enough power. He was eventually driven into [[spoiler:summoning the Dragon Titan, one of the most powerful beings in the Spiral, whose army laid waste to his home world of Dragonspyre]].

* Malistaire from ''VideoGame/{{Wizard101}}''. He was originally a passionate and caring individual who was arguable [[CoolTeacher Ravenwood's most popular teacher]]. but when [[TheLostLenore his wife passed away from disease]], he went insane and became convinced he could bring her back if he simply gathered enough power. He was eventually driven into [[spoiler:summoning the Dragon Titan, one of the most powerful beings in the Spiral, whose army laid waste to his home world of Dragonspyre]].

* Malistaire from ''VideoGame/{{Wizard101}}. He was originally a passionate and caring individual who was arguable [[CoolTeacher Ravenwood's most popular teacher]]. but when [[TheLostLenore his wife passed away from disease]], he went insane and became convinced he could bring her back if he simply gathered enough power. He was eventually driven into [[spoiler:summoning the Dragon Titan, one of the most powerful beings in the Spiral, whose army laid waste to his home world of Dragonspyre]].

* Hawk Moth's ([[spoiler:or rather, Gabriel Agreste's]]) motivation in ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' is undoubtedly this, though it's currently unconfirmed whether [[spoiler:his wife]] is dead or simply missing. [[spoiler:Given that there is a secret room underneath the Agreste manor containing a coffin, and it sounds like something is banging on the inside of the coffin trying to get out, it's possible she may be ''un''dead]].

** Nevertheless, it's happened more than once- as a child, Ned brought back his mother, and the cost of the father of Chuck, his true love. Years later, when Chuck was murdered, Ned brought her back, knowing, and accepting, someone would die in her place. Then, [[spoiler: Chuck tricks Ned into bringing back her father permanently.]]

* ''Franchise/ChaosRings'' ''III'' features a particular twisted subversion. SerialKiller Drei 6 wants to bring a woman back to life and has been abducting and harvesting people to create a Gene capable of resurrecting her. During the HopelessBossFight after TheReveal, he confesses that the only reason he's doing this is because [[spoiler:he ''really'' enjoyed killing her. He wants to be able to resurrect her so he can kill her over and over again.]] To twist the knife further, said woman was [[spoiler:party member Al's wife.]] Double-subverted at the very end, when [[spoiler:his sister the mod engineer]] claims that Drei is compelled to kill that which he loves, meaning he may have really loved the woman he wants to revive in his own warped way.

* Many {{Tabletop RPG}}s have these.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

*** In the anime, if I recall properly, [[spoiler: he did get her back. But Anna resurrected her, not him.]]

* ''VideoGame/BeyondTwoSouls'': [[spoiler:Nathan Dawkins]] slowly becomes obsessed with bringing his wife and daughter back from the dead after he lost them in a tragic car accident. He eventually found a way to partially faze them back into the mortal world, which clearly left them in a state of constant agony, but he's too delusional to admit this to himself even after Jody uses her powers to let him talk to them. [[spoiler:He then decides to shut off the containment field on the Condenser, which would cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt by merging the realm of the dead with that of the living.]]

* ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'': In "Why a Gorilla?", a young Dr. [=McNinja=] is sent to investigate vampire attacks in a jungle city inhabited by especially intelligent gorillas. It turned out that [[spoiler: the gorilla vampire had been destroyed long ago, and the bodies supposed to have risen as vampires has been stolen by a gorilla doctor whose wife had died and who was keeping her from being all dead in a way that required attaching parts of other gorillas to her body, creating a gorilla FrankensteinMonster. Dr. [=McNinja=] later reflected that even though he was supposedly keeping her alive via a variation of LightningCanDoAnything, it was probably really because of ClapYourhandsIfYouBelieve. Anyway, she was [[TorturedAbomination quite angry]] when she woke up.]]