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{{quote|''[[Undead Author|None cometh from thence]]<br />
''[[Death Amnesia|That he may tell us how they fare]].<br />
''Lo, [[Can't Take Anything
''Yea, [[You Can't Go Home Again|none returneth again that is gone thither]].''|"The Song of the Harp-Player" ([[Ancient Egypt|Ancient Egyptian]] poem)<ref>Just to be clear, this translation [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|dances around the topic]] a little; the original was inscribed at a tomb.</ref>}}
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== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
** 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}}.
** The [[Fullmetal Alchemist (
*** Actually subverted somewhat in the 2003 anime. The homunculi were actually the deceased brought back by human transmutation, just...not totally themselves. Also, Alphonse managed to bring back Edward, who had just been killed by Envy, back from the dead using himself as the philosopher's stone. Ed managed to bring Alphonse back using himself and ended up in our world instead of dead while Alphonse was brought back with his human body.
*** It can be said that the whole 2003 anime is Ed and Al learned exactly what level of [[Equivalent Exchange]] is required to return life to the dead. Ed figures out that it requires an exchange of body, mind and soul. In other words, a full human being for a full human being.
* ''[[Ojamajo Doremi]]'' falls into the latter category of this trope.
* This is the general rule for [[
** 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.
** Of course, it really comes down to the wording. No coming back from the dead, but having your [[Reality Warper]] boyfriend convince the universe to ignore your death and proceed normally achieves a similar effect, if only temporarily (a thousand years, give or take). Just ask [[
* ''[[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.
** Until Shippuden reveals that resurrection is ''[[Equivalent Exchange|extremely]]'' [[Equivalent Exchange|costly]], but doable with the right ancient knowledge, limited to the recently deceased, and possible only for [[Deus Ex Machina|the one guy with the God Mode ocular jutsu, the Rinnegan.]] Which means don't expect it to happen again.
*** 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''.
* One of the rules in ''[[
* Technically, this holds true in ''[[
** ''[[Mirai Nikki]]'' works like this too.
* ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'', being a [[Deconstruction]] of the previous Digimon series, works this way. There is no village where data forms in eggs, loose data won't sometimes coalesce into ghosts, and absorbing another Digimon's data only makes you stronger (and, in some cases, gives you access to their attacks) and doesn't allow the previous mon to live on inside you. So when Digimon die, they die for good.
* While [[D
== Comic Books ==
* For decades, the unbreakable rule in comics has been that only three characters ever stay dead - [[Captain America|Bucky,]] [[Batman|Jason Todd]] and [[Spider
* ''[[
** 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.
* At least in principle, in ''[[Elf Quest]]'', death is permanent. Sort of. Elves can still make contact with their dead through the Palace and endless flashbacks.
* This is what [[Chris Claremont]] intends for his book ''[[X
* 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 ==
* Magic in ''[[
* ''[[Harry Potter (
** Also, in ''Deathly Hallows'', we find out about the Resurrection Stone. However, it's implied that bringing people back using it makes them miserable and that they aren't there in spirit.
*** They weren't ''alive''; they were basically slightly more solid ghosts.
*** i.e. Solid, real people, just pale, cold and sad.
** Not to mention that it [[Driven to Suicide|drives the living to suicide...]]
* ''[[The Belgariad]]'' mentions this as a specific restriction of the Gods; they are not permitted to undo death (even though it's within their power) at the risk of setting off [[Divide
** Garion did not have the Orb when he resurrected Horse. The fact that he performed it while in the meeting place of the Gods may have helped, though.
* In ''[[Memory,
* The book ''Fire Sea'' of [[The Death Gate Cycle]] has a few. The Sartan have begun using necromancy to raise the dead, but the raised dead are not very smart and can do only simple tasks. This ritual can only be done after waiting at least three days after death, for the soul to have time to leave. If the ritual is performed before then, the soul is trapped and a lazar is created. They retain their intelligence but are trapped between life and death and must suffer endless pain and torment. And if those aren't enough reasons to just say no, it's discovered that whenever you bring someone back to life, someone else in the universe dies.
* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'': While many things can be Healed with the One Power, death is considered final. Other ailments once considered unhealable have since been Healed, but the series goes out of its way to establish a finality with regards to death. There are a few loopholes that can be abused, but none of them are practical:
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== Live Action TV ==
* After John Locke supposedly comes back from the dead in ''[[Lost]]'', Ben Linus is amazed, and says that, although he's seen many amazing things on the island, he's never seen someone come back from the dead. Turns out it's the smoke monster, not John Locke. Sayid also comes back from the dead, but then apparently he's possessed or infected by something, but then he gets better. Maybe.
* Despite the numerous times things come back from the dead in ''[[
** There's also still a terrible price to be paid as it is revealed later that bringing Buffy back destabilized the magic of the Slayer line, leaving it vulnerable to being completely wiped out forever. Zombification seems to be a relatively easy magical process though (several novices pull if off multiple times in both dead. Necromancers are the one real exception, as their mastery of death allows them to come back from fatal wounds.
* 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 ''[[
* By the [[Magic
* There are very, very few ways to resurrect someone as they were pre-mortem in [[New World of Darkness
* In ''[[
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* The first ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' game and remake gives you a staff that can bring back ''one'' slain party member. As of the remake, most players use it to perform the Tiki/Falchion Bonus Chapter trick. The second game was much more lax, having springs on the map that revived characters, but they had limited uses. The fourth game also has a one use staff (that can be repaired for a very hefty price) that revived the dead.
* In [[Dragon Age]], one of the cardinal rules of magic is this. Even bringing someone back from the brink of death can be [[Your Days Are Numbered|problematic]]. There are walking corpses and other zombies, but these are usually just dead bodies possessed by demons (which is why the [[The Church|Chantry]] advocates cremation).
** There ''have'' been two cases when the recently killed people were brought back: {{spoiler|Wynne and Evangeline de Brassard in ''[[All There in the Manual|Dragon Age: Asunder]]''. In both cases, however, it was the work of a very powerful spirit, who may or may not be [[The Maker]] himself, and the end result is more akin to [[Living
* This is true for [[Video Game/Hoshigami|Hoshigami]] until late in the game unless you can craft a Coinferm that can resurrect the dead.
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* ''[[Clan of the Cats]]'' goes with the [[Equivalent Exchange]] version: either someone has to die, or the world has to be changed for the better on a very broad scale; the one time it was accomplished was by ending a [[Elves vs. Dwarves|magical cold war]].
* 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 ''[[
== 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 ''[[
{{quote| '''Goliath:''' If there's any justice in this world or the next, he's with his son, now.}}
* ''[[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.
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