They Killed Kenny Again / Literature

• In The Zombie Knight, nearly every servant character gets their moment in the spotlight. Lampshaded by Zeff, who at one point kills off a few misguided Vanguard servants, then quickly apologizes to their reapers.
• The Cat from The Looking-Glass Wars dies repeatedly in the series, since he has nine lives.
• In a Repairman Jack story, Jack is fighting a bunch of mooks when a bomb he'd set as a booby trap went off. Chief Mook: "Oh my Christ, they must've killed Kenny!" Considering that Kenny was his nephew, the Chief Mook took it from merely business to very personal.
• In Joel Chandler Harris' original Uncle Remus stories of Brer Rabbit and company, characters sometimes were said to be actually killed by the actions of Brer Rabbit or the others. In the first volume of stories, Brer Possum burns to death during a 'trial by fire' in Brer Rabbit Nips the Butter, Brer Wolf is locked in a chest and scalded to death in The Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf, and Brer Fox is killed by a farmer and decapitated in The Sad Fate of Mr. Fox. But all are back alive again in the second volume, Nights With Uncle Remus thanks to the Negative Continuity of the stories. Brer Wolf, in particular, is done in again several times in the second volume, and again back as if nothing happened.
  • In fact, Brer Wolf is back in a later story in the first volume, How Mr. Rabbit Saved His Meat, which lampshades this. The little boy to whom Uncle Remus tells the stories to objects when Uncle Remus introduces Brer Wolf, saying that Brer Rabbit scalded the wolf to death. Uncle Remus is forced to admit that yes, that's what happened in the earlier story, and that the story he's telling now might take place before it happened or be about a different Brer Wolf. He doesn't really know — he just tells them the way he hears them. And that's his final word on the matter and he goes on with the story.
• Commissar Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) has been mistakenly reported dead so many times that there is a standing order that he isn't to be taken off the active duty list. Inquisitor Vail notes in the commentary that he is the only officer in the history of the Imperium to remain on the active duty list a hundred and fifty years after being buried with full military honors.
• In Daniel Pinkwater's Young Adult Novel, installments of the story within the story "Kevin Shapiro, Boy Orphan" are said to frequently end with Kevin's unceremonious death. Charles the Cat explains: "Kevin is indestructible. You can kill him as often as you like. He can be brought back to life in the next chapter, which usually gets told the following day during lunch."
• In the series of Clue books, Mr. Boddy was always "killed" in the final chapter. He would then explain how he survived in the introduction of the next book, usually by some silly, implausible stroke of luck (i.e., his murderer accidentally picking up a banana instead of a revolver).
• Agrajag from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is repeatedly reincarnated and is killed again every time - always by Arthur Dent, and always by accident.
  • Deconstructed: It's very very not funny from Agrajag's point of view. Learning that his supposed persecutor doesn't even realise he's doing it pretty much pushes him over the edge.
• Actually conversated in an Animorphs book, where Rachel dreams she killed the Trope Namer.
• Master Pangloss from Voltaire's Candide dies a few times.
• In Dune, cloning + Genetic Memory = poor, poor Duncan Idaho.
• Though he (usually) dies once per book and for real, Yuri Semetsky is a character who appears (and dies) in a whole lot of works by many post-Soviet authors. It started when Sergey Lukyanenko "killed" a man randomly named Semenetsky in his Autumn Visits and soon met a very real person, book seller Yuri Semetsky. Semetsky jokingly asked Lukyanenko to "kill" his avatar in his next books. The Running Gag quickly transcended to other Russian writers, and for almost two decades "killing Semetsky" has been played straight (ranging from a passing mention to Red Shirt to Heroic Sacrifice), subverted (Semetsky lives, suffers from Disney Death, is "killed" in a video game, an animal named after him (yursem) is hunted to extinction) and zig-zagged (Semetsky has Resurrective Immortality or is cloned a hundred thousand times, so he can be killed over and over again in the same book...), although now it's on its way to Dead Horse Trope.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Lord Beric Dondarrion has been known to die and be revived from time to time, including one instance in which he was nearly cut in half by Sandor "The Hound" Clegane, only to be standing upright and speaking as if nothing had happened within minutes or less.
• Journey to Chaos: "Aio" is apparently Tasio's go-to identity when he needs to have someone die. In A Mage's Power he dies to galvanize Eric. In Looming Shadow he does the same thing for Vaya. Eric wonders just how many times Aio has "died".
• Spy School: Henchmen Joshua Hallal and Dane Brammage are both assumed dead several times after fights with the heroes, but show up again later, seeking revenge.

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