All Deaths Final: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

You're in a universe where Magic and/or Phlebotinum are commonplace. The gifted few can do anything you can think of: stop time, create energy, fly... but they can't raise the dead. Simply trying is usually suicidal and taboo. Expect the [[Eccentric Mentor]] to go into full-tilt grim mode if someone mentions it. It's pretty common for an idealistic hero to contemplate attempting this anyway, usually giving up after deciding that some things are better left alone; if they don't, something usually [[Came Back Wrong|comes back wrong]]. Alternatively, bringing someone [[Back From the Dead]] is possible, but due to [[Equivalent Exchange|the nature of the power at work]] it's almost never done. (If people are still usually resurrected in this kind of world, it tends to be a very big deal.) This is usually an [[Author's Saving Throw]] against trivializing Death in a world where it would otherwise be a minor inconvenience.

 

 

Compare [[Death Is Cheap]]. See [[Killed Off for Real]] for when this is applied to individuals. Possible subtrope of [[Equivalent Exchange]]. Contrast [[Deader Than Dead]] where only certain types of death are final. See [[Final Death]] for the video game version.

 

{{examples}}

** It gets a bit more complicated. Al wasn't just "payment". Al's body was taken by Truth, but since a soul cannot be created with alchemy, Al's soul was put into the thing that was created. The transmutation that took Ed's arm was used to transfer the soul into a more stable host, the armor.

** The series eventually ends with Ed learning what it'll take to bring an entire human back out from the other side: {{spoiler|his Alchemy -- his own internal connection to Truth}}.

* This is the general rule for [[CLAMP]] series, even in a world like ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' where you have otherwise massively powerful magic at work. (In fact, the denizens of that world attempting to break said rule is what kicks off the massive [[Gambit Pileup]] that we're just starting to get a peek at now.)

** This is one rule that CLAMP has set in stone, actually, and the breaking of it during the Tsubasa [[Non-Serial Movie]] was a factor in their abandonment of the original anime adaptation.

* ''[[Naruto]]'' has generally followed this line of thought. When a character has been shown to really and truly die, they stay dead. When they don't, it was usually a [[Not Quite Dead|blatant fake-out]] of some kind.

*** The cost is arguable, as a person who was already exhausted could revive a large number of people. And it's even cheaper to revive a person as a zombie, apparently with their thoughts and memories intact, though without an independent will, as done by Orochimaru. [[Equivalent Exchange|Note that the Zombie method requires you to KILL someone.]]

* In ''[[Toward the Terra]]'', the Mu can read thoughts, perform astonishing feats of telekinesis, fly through space unaided, teleport, and do all manner of fantastical mutant stuff. But once a character is dead, they are ''dead''.

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[PS238]]'' followed this trope, until it brought a Mostly Dead character back to life.

** Canonically, the extremely rare ability to restore the dead marks someone as a "Messiah" class healer, which causes all kinds of ethical problems.

* Supposedly this is now true for the [[DC Universe]] following the events of [[Blackest Night]], [[Comic Book Death|We'll see how long that lasts.]]

** It did not.

* This is what [[Chris Claremont]] intends for his book ''[[X-Men Forever]]''.

* When [[Joe Quesada]] took over as Editor-in-Chief of [[Marvel Comics]], he instituted a "Dead means dead" policy. It didn't last very long because, by his own admission, it was like closing the gate after all the horses have already escaped.

 

== Literature ==

* Three different magical characters in ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'' have said that they can't bring back the dead: the Blue Fairy, Rumplestiltskin, and the Genie have all said it's impossible for them.

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''[[Exalted]]'', the titular Exalted, chosen of the gods, are ridiculously powerful and can quite literally [[Beyond the Impossible|do the impossible]]. But there's still absolutely no way to bring back someone from the dead, except as a ghost. This is clearly stated throughout the game line, a book even breaking [[Kayfabe]] and explaining that it's because being able to come back from the dead as if nothing happened is a very effective drama-killer.

* There are very, very few ways to resurrect someone as they were pre-mortem in [[New World of Darkness|The World Of Darkness]] and all have huge risks involved, slim chances of success and a high chance of [[Came Back Wrong|coming back wrong]] or driving the person insane. Oh and they're held by groups or societies who are unlikely to share them out, and may try to kill you just for knowing about them.

* In ''[[Ars Magica]]'' Raising the dead (in a manner other than the classic zombie) is a boundary that Hermetic magic can not overcome. The closest thing is a costly ritual that gives the dead body a simulated life. And in the best it dissolves into a puddle or becomes a shadow without a will (The spell name is The Shadow of Life). At worst a demon possesses the body or the creature becomes a psychopathic murderer who hates the living.

 

 

* ''[[Errant Story]]'' touches on this in a particularly humorous fashion.

** It`s used [[Tear Jerker|more seriously]] later on.

* At the start of the third incarnation of ''[[Road Waffles]]'', [[No Fourth Wall|the author]] warns the main character that [[Anyone Can Die]] at any time, and no one will come back, killing some talking birds to make the point. True to his word, she dies anticlimactically about two-thirds of the way into the strip, trying ([[Senseless Sacrifice|and failing]]) to save her original [[Foil]] while the rest of the cast regroups.

* This is the case in ''[[Drowtales]]''. Getting killed or possessed by a demon is both fatal - in the latter case the demon may retain some of the memories or personality of the body. Bodies can be reanimated, but as one character [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]], it's just an empty shell with [[Magitek|golem technology]]. Exceptions exist to some degree - one secondary character cheated death via magic, and a major plot character may be entirely resurrected.

 

== Western Animation ==

* The Genie in ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' lists trying to bring back the dead as one of the three things he can't do, having apparently been wished into perpetrating one too many [[Came Back Wrong]] incidents.

* An Egyptian man in the ''[[Gargoyles]]'' episode "Grief" enlists the help of [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|The Pack]] (minus [[Heel Face Turn|Dingo]]) in a bid to summon [[Egyptian Mythology|Anubis]] to bring back his deceased son, who had been killed in a car accident two years prior. It takes absorbing Anubis and becoming an avatar of death for him to learn that this cannot be done, and so he performs a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] in order to save all present from the collapsing tomb; it's implied that he didn't survive.

* ''[[Transformers Prime]]'', according to [[Word of God]]. So far every every death has stuck, since the mindless robot zombies don't count as being "alive". Fans are taking bets on whether or not this will hold true regarding Optimus Prime's [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_many_deaths_of_Optimus_Prime tradition] of dying and resurrecting (sometimes more than once) in every continuity.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]