History Main / ResurrectionDeathLoop

** It's eventually revealled that this has been the unfortunate fate of Lorraine Maillard. Following the events of ''VideoGame/ThePark'', Lorraine is forcibly implanted with one of the Bees, and unlike the player characters, the experience is anything but pleasant: quite apart from the MindRape of having an unwilling Bee bonded to her, the process of being killed and resurrected "chips away at you," until Lorraine believes that the process is taking something vital from her. Worse still, given that she's in the same line of work as the players, she is doomed to spend most of her time dying horribly. Already having hit the DespairEventHorizon post-''The Park'', the resurrections leave her even ''worse'' off - to the point that she embarks on a thirty-year quest to disable her Bee and stay dead. Then, of course, [[CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption you screw the whole thing up]] and reactivate her Bee, [[UnwantedRevival bringing her back to life against her will]].

* This is actually a gameplay mechanic in ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment,'' in which the [[NoNameGiven Nameless One]] can die as much as the player needs or [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential wants]]; by the start of the game, he's CoveredInScars and the trauma of the many deaths he's suffered has left his mind in a rather fragile state.
%%* Arkane Studios' upcoming game, appropriately titled "Deathloop", is about an assassin caught in a time loop. Every day, one of eight administrators flips the switch to test the giant 'time windmill', which malfunctions completely, causing the world to rewind back to the day before and wiping the memories of almost everyone. The assassin's goal is to find a way to kill all eight in a single iteration, by manipulating remembered events to get them all together for one big family shootout. The catch is, there's another assassin aware of the endless loops, [[LivingForeverIsAwesome and she doesn't want to leave]].

* The main concept of ''[[LightNovel/REZero Re:Zero]]'' is all based around this. The main character, Subaru, is cursed with going back in time whenever he dies, keeping his memories. And, being a completely mundane human with no special talents in fighting or magic, he dies quite often. While this does take its toll on him and wears his sanity down, he does put it to good use in order to overcome the problems, trying again and again and trying till he does succeed in his intentions, badly mentally scarred as it leaves him.

* In ''VideoGame/Portal 2'', the [[spoiler: AI Chell killed in the first game, GLaDOS,]] comes back to life and talks about her "black box quick save feature", which forced her to relive the last two minutes before her destruction.

* [[BigBad Kronika]]'s [[https://youtu.be/v-HWrB1fHJY?t=34 Fatality]] in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11''. She telekinetically rips you apart, [[TimeMaster rewinds your corpse a few seconds]], and rips you apart again in a different way. [[NonStandardGameOver This continues forever]] until you choose to try again or quit.

* [[BigBad Kronika]]'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1dszHDRJvE Fatality]] in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11''. She telekinetically rips you apart, [[TimeMaster rewinds your corpse a few seconds]], and rips you apart again in a different way. [[NonStandardGameOver This continues forever]] until you choose to try again or quit.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Hilda}}'': The entire plot if season 2 chapter 4 resolves around 2 rivalling clans of Vikings, who have been trapped in one of these loops for centuries without realizing it. Every night, one clan of vikings kill another to claim a medallion that will remove their fear. By the next day, the medallion's original owner has resurrected the first clan, who no longer remember dying or having the medallion, and repeat the process. Hilda and friends finally break the loop by the end of the episode.

* Enforced in ''Film/EdgeOfTomorrow''. When William Cage kills a unique Mimic, it's blood sprays all over him and dissolves him, and he awakens the day before the battle. From that point on, no matter when he dies, he starts at the same point again, accumulating the necessary skills and strategies he's learned from each "life" in an attempt to completely destroy the Mimics. However, why this trope is enforced is that any time he gets injured and ''doesn't'' die, he risks losing this ability. [[spoiler: Which is exactly what happens before the climax, and how Rita lost it sometime before the film's events began. Even worse, the Omega ''also'' has it, and is implied to have used it countless times before to ensure every victory the Mimics ever had against humanity.]]

* In ''VideoGame/Portal 2'', the AI she killed in the first game, GLaDOS, comes back to life and talks about her "black box quick save feature", which forced her to relive the last two minutes before her destruction.

* A non time-based version in ''Series/{{Preacher}}'', in which angels of Heaven, upon being killed, are instantly returned to Earth in new bodies moments later. It doesn't really become this trope until "Sundowner", in which Jesse, Deblanc and Fiore take on seraphim Susan; the three angels kill each other over and over again during the fight, leaving the room positively full of their corpses.

* The main concept of [[LightNovel/REZero Re:Zero]] is all based around this. The main character, Subaru, is cursed with going back in time whenever he dies, keeping his memories. And, being a completely mundane human with no special talents in fighting or magic, he dies quite often. While this does take its toll on him and wears his sanity down, he does put it to good use in order to overcome the problems, trying again and again and trying till he does succeed in his intentions, badly mentally scarred as it leaves him.

%%* Arkane Studios' upcoming game, appropriately titled "Deathloop", is about an assassin caught in a time travel project gone horribly wrong. Every day, one of eight administrators flips the switch to the giant 'time windmill', causing the world to rewind back to a set moment with only a few (constantly murdered) people remembering that the project screwed up. The assassin's goal is to find a way to kill all eight in one loop, by manipulating remembered events to get them all together for one big family shootout. The catch is, there's another assassin aware of the endless loops, [[LivingForeverIsAwesome and she doesn't want to leave]].

** In ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', [[spoiler:Rika is forced to [[GroundhogDayLoop repeatedly experience the two weeks before the festival]], which always ends with her being tortured to death and waking up in the past like nothing happened, all part of Hanyuu's desire to defeat Miyo Takano. Fortunately, she doesn't remember her final moments, and she is ''usually'' put under anesthesia before being killed. ''Un''fortunately, this means that she does not know who it is who kills her. And she still keeps all the memories from before her death, meaning she has experienced over a century from her perspective. Her "mental lifespan" is about to run out, and she will soon stop thinking unless she successfully breaks the loop.]]

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* [[ArcVillain Diavolo]] from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' is struck by this in the final fight of Part 5. After receiving a thorough CurbStompBattle by the newly awakened [[EleventhHourSuperpower Gold Experience Requiem]] he also begins to be constantly affected by Requiem's 'back to zero' effect, which in his case means he constantly dies over and over, always in a different way. Nobody else notices it, and he can't ever escape from it, making it both this and AFateWorseThanDeath.

* Kurou Sakuragawa from ''Manga/InSpectre'' possesses the prophetic power of a Kudan, which allows him to see the ebb and flow of the future whenever he is near death. He can then latch onto a specific path of the future from his vision, creating an odd version of a SelfFulfillingProphecy where that path becomes the one true future. He also possesses the nigh immortality of a mermaid, meaning that whenever he is killed, he will just get right back up and live in the future he just created. In the Nanase story, he and main character Kotoko make the most use out of this to find a way to defeat the Steel Girder Nanase phantom, by having Kurou fight the phantom bare-handed and using each of his deaths to create a future where the phantom is finally destroyed. Unfortunately for them, the phantom iteself was created by Rikka Sakuragawa, Kurou's cousin who possesses the same prophetic powers as he does, and who goes so far as to kill herself multiple times to create a future where the Nanase phantom lives.

->''"Live. Die. Repeat."''

* [[ArcVillain Diavolo]] from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' is struck by this in the final fight of Part 5. After receiving a thorough CurbStompBattle by the newly awakened [[EleventhHourSuperpower Gold Experience Requiem]] he also begins to be constantly affected by Requiem's 'back to zero' effect, which in his case means he constantly dies over and over, always in a different way. Nobody else notices it, and he can't ever escape from it, making it both this and AFateWorseThanDeath.

Any form of immortality is usually seen as either [[LivingForeverIsAwesome a blessing or as a strength]], at most a CursedWithAwesome situation, but not with these characters: ''these'' characters, due to fate, a curse, or just plain old bad luck, are destined to die and come back to life - only to die again. And again. And again. And again. [[OverlyLongGag And again.]]

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* A goddess in Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins was cursed to spend eternity being repeatedly resurrected as a human. Every time she regains her memories, she dies within three days and is reborn immediately as a new infant. [[spoiler: Elizabeth is her 107th reincarnation.]]

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* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' episode "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho162ProtectAndSurvive Protect And Survive]]," the Doctor is revealed to have trapped two [[EldritchAbomination Elder Gods]] in the form of an elderly married couple and imprisoned them in a GroundhogDayLoop PrisonDimension based on the BadFuture they hoped to create: a global thermonuclear war. On every single iteration, the prisoners will have to endure the same fear and pain the real couple would have experienced in the days following the nuclear bombardment, before dying of radiation sickness; they then restart the loop on the day before the war, set to do it all over again until they learn their lesson. By the start of the story, the punishment has been going on for over a century. Unfortunately, things go a bit awry when Ace and Hex end up landing the TARDIS there by mistake - allowing the prisoners to subject ''them'' to the same torture.

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* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent Heaven Sent]]," the Doctor eventually realizes that all the skulls he's been finding around [[PsychologicalTormentZone the castle]] have belonged to him, courtesy of a CloningGambit he's been using in an attempt to escape without having to confess to [[HumanoidAbomination the Veil]]. Being a clone, he doesn't remember any of it... up until the final realization hits home, and he remembers '''everything.''' [[HeroicBSOD The discovery almost breaks him]], but with a little encouragement from his (currently) ImaginaryFriend, he willingly subjects himself to fatal injuries at the hands of the Veil for his one chance to make a ''little'' bit more progress opening an escape route. Then, mortally wounded and in great pain, he laboriously drags himself back to the teleporter he arrived in, and [[HeroicSacrifice uses himself as a fuel source]] to create a fresh copy of himself from the hard drive. And he has to do ''all'' of this - the fear, the confusion, the grief, the awful realization and the agonizing injuries - for every iteration until he can finally open his escape route.
->'''The Doctor:''' How long can I keep doing this, Clara? Burning the old me... to make a new one...
* In the penultimate episode of season one of ''Series/DoomPatrol2019'', Mr. Nobody traps the Doom Patrol in a loop where they keep fighting (and losing) the same battle over and over, getting killed every time.

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* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' episode "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho162ProtectAndSurvive Protect And Survive]]," the Doctor is revealed to have trapped two [[EldritchAbomination Elder Gods]] in the form of an elderly married couple and imprisoned them in a GroundHogDayLoop PrisonDimension based on the BadFuture they hoped to create: a global thermonuclear war. On every single iteration, the prisoners will have to endure the same fear and pain the real couple would have experienced in the days following the nuclear bombardment, before dying of radiation sickness; they then restart the loop on the day before the war, set to do it all over again until they learn their lesson. By the start of the story, the punishment has been going on for over a century. Unfortunately, things go a bit awry when Ace and Hex end up landing the TARDIS there by mistake - allowing the prisoners to subject ''them'' to the same torture.

* In ''Film/HappyDeathDay'', Tree is repeatedly murdered by a masked killer on her birthday and must prevent her own death in order to end the time loop. She goes through a similar ordeal in the sequel so she can return to her proper universe.

* In ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', the episode "Here We Go Again" has Zari getting put in a GroundHogDayLoop, so that each time the ship explodes, time resets itself. Zari uses each of these resets to find the source of the explosion and to investigate each of her teammates to discover who the culprit is. They finally discover that Time Agent Gary used a device to trigger the Time Loop, while the bomb was revealed to be a souvenir planted by Damien Darhk. However Gary's device gets destroyed, leaving no more resets, so Zari performs a HeroicSacrifice to shield everyone else from the bomb with her powers. It's all revealed to be a SecretTestOfCharacter by the ship's BenevolentAI to allow Zari to bond with the Legends.

* In a ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Treehouse of Horror special, Sideshow Bob finally kills Bart, and becomes a university professor afterwards. However, he soon finds killing Bart was the only thing that ever gave him satisfaction and finds a way to bring him back. Sideshow Bob then uses it to continuously revive and kill the boy over and over again to relive the happiest moment of his life.

--''Claimed by Tropers/AnotherEpicFail as per Administrivia/UpForGrabs policy.''

Any form of immortality is usually seen as either a blessing or as a strength, at most a CursedWithAwesome situation, but not with these characters: ''these'' characters, due to fate, a curse, or just plain old bad luck, are destined to die and come back to life - only to die again. And again. And again. And again. [[OverlyLongGag And again.]]