Flatline Plotline: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A character or group of characters make it so they [[Death Is Cheap|die]] for a certain amount of time (often times by simulating a [[Hollywood Heart Attack|heart attack]]) and then are revived. Sometimes this is so they can have an out-of-body experience or [[Near-Death Clairvoyance|see if there's an afterlife or become a ghost for a certain amount of time.]] Sometimes this will result in their nightmares becoming [[Your Mind Makes It Real|real]] or sometimes it's a plot for one of the characters to kill another without getting [[Karma Houdini|caught]]. May be part of a [[Faking the Dead]] plot.

 

 

 

 

{{examples}}

 

== Anime ==

* In ''Descendants of Darkness'', during the King of Swords story arch, {{spoiler|Muraki does this as the ultimate alabi}}.

 

== Comic Books ==

* In ''[[Elf Quest]]'' there's a scene where Leetah the healer confronts death by bringing herself to its very brink. It's a huge risk because she aims to revive herself at the exact split-second before she dies. {{spoiler|But it's a flashback story so we know she lives.}}

* One of Batman's plans in [[The Dark Knight Returns]].

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Flatliners]]'', the [[Trope Namer]].

* In ''Ghost Town'', Ricky Gervais's character briefly becomes one of the ghosts he sees.

* ''[[The Frighteners]]'': Frank Bannister does it to experience afterlife first-hand instead of communicating with it, as he did as a medium.

 

== Literature ==

* Terry Bisson's short story ''Necronauts''. The main character is an artist hired to produce paintings of his experiences during the NDEs.

* ''God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian'' by [[Kurt Vonnegut]], is a series of interviews with the dead conducted by a reporter getting repeatedly nearly killed by the Doctor.

* In ''[[Stardoc|Beyond Varallan]]'', {{spoiler|Cherijo}} does this in order to break up with {{spoiler|Xonea}} (since that's about the only way one ''can'' back out of a Jorenian engagement). Justified in that {{spoiler|not only is she [[From a Single Cell|essentially immortal]], but}} it's decidedly rough on her.

 

* The [[A-Team]] does this at the start of the last season, by getting shot by a firing squad with replaced, nonlethal bullets.

* The ''[[Medium]]'' episode "Things to Do in Phoenix When You're Dead" had a doctor doing this so he could {{spoiler|travel as a ghost to see rich people doing bad things and then blackmail them}}.

* An episode of ''[[Tru Calling]]'' called "Haunted."

* In an episode of ''[[Sliders]]'', the team lands on a world where the Egyptian dynasties never ended, and people are conducting afterlife experiments by temporarily killing test subjects. Naturally, one of our heroes gets caught up in it.

* ''[[Fringe]]'' keeps dancing close to this line.

* This was on an episode of ''[[Smallville]]''.

* Parodied in an episode of ''Upright Citizens Brigade''; Anton is trying to improve his chess-playing skills by hooking himself up to a machine that briefly renders him clinically dead every time he makes a bad move. It doesn't work out well.

** To figure out why the people in a town have stopped dying, Sam and Dean decide to try astral projection so they can see ghosts and reapers.

** In ''Appointment in Samarra'' {{spoiler|Dean has himself temporarily killed so he can contact and make a deal with [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] According to the man conducting the procedure he has a 60% success rate}}.

* ''Diagnosis Murder'' had an episode featuring this trope - where a group of medical students {{spoiler|induced cardiac arrests in themselves and then gradually increased the amount of 'flatline time' on each occasion to try and make themselves more resistant to death. Then one of the medical students decides to murder another by not reviving him and it goes on from there....}}

* The TV miniseries ''House of Frankenstein 1997'', featuring various horror-staple monsters, had a scene where a man carries a dying wolf (his werewolf girlfriend) into the ER and forces the doctors at gunpoint to attend to the animal. He lays her on the operating table, then insists that they ''let her die'', at which point she reverts to human form. They rush to resuscitate her; upon awakening, she remains human and is cured of the curse, as it's the ''wolf'' that died.

* In a season 3 episode of ''[[Sanctuary]]'' Will has himself flatlined in order to make connection to a certain abnormal running amok at the time. This is presented as a last resort after performing a Bollywood-style dance fails.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* The limited-run ''Orpheus'' RPG by White Wolf was all about this trope. The titular corporation flatlined its agents through cryogenics, who would become ghosts and be able to interact with the spirits of the recently deceased on behalf of well-paying clients.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'': Both played with and parodied. The parody is when a security officer states that being dead for a year is a popular tax-dodge.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]''

** Lastly in ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' it is possible to lay among a group of corpses after a battle and play dead. This usually causes any passing guards to ignore you.

 

** Dracula was pretty pissed when he learned that Benjamin didn't even experience the true afterlife because the service of Purgatory was so slow. The elixir kicked in right after he finished his meal, as Death came to make him move on.

*** ...So he tried to get Dr McNinja to do it because he's already faced death and gotten out of it. Dr McNinja claimed that [[Gatling Good|they were]] [[Only a Flesh Wound|Only Flesh Wounds]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* In an episode of ''[[Justice League]]'', [[The Flash|Flash]] tricks a captor by speeding up his heart rate until it ''looks'' like he's flatlined.

 

== Real Life ==

* Nikki Sixx is famous for flatlining and then resurrecting.

 

[[Category:Artistic License Biology]]

[[Category:Plots]]