Came Back Wrong: Difference between revisions

[[File:Venturestein_groovy2_4323Venturestein groovy2 4323.jpg|link=The Venture Brothers|frame|[[Sarcasm Mode|"Why, yes, Dr. Venture, I can see people just lining up for your resurrections!"]]]]

{{quote|''"Sometimes, dead is better."''|The [[Central Theme]] of '''[[Pet Sematary]]'''}}

...Well, yeah, it ''is'' possible, but [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation|you won't like the result]]. Seriously. [[Aladdin (Disney film)|It's not a pretty picture.]]

Often falls under [[Equivalent Exchange]] explaining why it doesn't work. Other times a [[Fantastic Aesop]] behind why those who've had [[Death Byby Origin Story]] can't come back. If [[Only Mostly Dead]] has also been used or the setting includes powerful [[White Magic]], it can seem like [[Sour Grapes]].

Sometimes this can happen even in a universe where coming [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]] can be done without incident, if the resurrection's not performed competently, done without [[Eye of Newt|important supplies]], or intentionally sabotaged.

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]]==

** In [[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|the 2003 anime version]], however, attempts at reviving dead people with alchemy create homunculi. Homonculi are beings with the same chemical makeup and appearance as the human that was supposed to be resurrected, but they have [[The Soulless|no souls]] or [[The Sociopath|conscience]]. As a result of having no soul they cannot perform alchemy, but instead have a single alchemy-related super power. Many of the homonculi are [[Beta Test Baddie|Beta Test Baddies]]s who have thrown their lot in with the [[Big Bad]] for the promise of a soul.

* The priestess Kikyo from [[Inuyasha]] is brought back in a clay body, but the body itself is soulless. Kagome's soul, being a reincarnation, was needed to complete the ritual, but it was interrupted so the only thing Kikyo was able to gain was the anger and hatred for Inuyasha. She then needs to feed on the souls of the dead in order to stay "alive."

* ''[[Sanka ReaSankarea]]'' presents a unique case. Rea came back alright... ''[[It Got Worse|for now]]''. It can be said that she is sliding ''towards'' this trope.

== [[Comic Books ]]==

** The wife of Mr. Freeze was put into a Lazarus Pit and revived in the last arc of the ''Batgirl'' series. It wasn't pretty. Mostly- mostly since she was ''in pieces'' at the time, and Freeze didn't wait to get everything aligned properly. The good news is, she's alive. The bad news is, she's nuts and has superpowers. Oh, and the ''[[Deus Angst Machina|really]]'' bad news is that the powers are ''heat'' based. Think on it for a sec.

* Malibu Comics's hero Gravestone had the power to come back from being killed seemingly with ease... but in truth, his soul had to ''fight his way out of the underworld'' each and every time. One story had a girl's soul tag along (without his permission), so she revived tooas well... except an ancient evil also tagged along in her, causing her to turn into a monster who kills her family.

** Subverted magnificently in an [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Avengers]]one story: the supervillain Grim Reaper turned several dead Avengers into undead beings hoping to use them against the current team... but he underestimated the power of their [[Heroic Willpower]], and they turned on him. Reaper's brother, the hero Wonder Man, even [[Lampshade Hanging|remarked]] to his face how stupid his plan had been.

** Another [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Avengers]] story had an ancient artifact called the Resurrection Stone which had to be retrieved for contrived reasons. ItOne wasfragment in two parts, onewould would animate the body, (but leave it a soulless husk) and; the other would replace the soul (in an inanimate body). The people who used the two pieces are also driven completely insane by using them.

* People injected with [[Psycho Serum|Compound V]] in ''[[The Boys]]'' have a small chance of turning back to life... as brain-dead zombies prone to soilsoiling themselves.

==[[Fan Fanfiction Works]]==

* More or less the premise of ''[[Practical Magic]]''.

{{quote| '''Gillian:''' That's OK! Jimmy was already dark and unnatural!}}

* Ripley in ''[[Alien|Alien Resurrection]]''. Ripley 8 is the most successful clone, though she's meaner than the original and has a disturbing affinity with xenomorphs. [[Body Horror|Ripley 1 through 7, on the other hand...]]

* {{spoiler|Subverted}} in ''[[Black Death (film)|Black Death]]''. Osmund's lover Averill was {{spoiler|injured, but still alive, and drugged into a death-like state so that when the drugs wore off she would be "resurrected" and the woman who drugged her would be worshiped as a miracle-worker.}} [[It Got Worse|Unfortunately]], when Osmund finds her {{spoiler|the drugs have yet to wear off completely, turning her into [[The Ophelia]] and making it seem like a case of [[Came Back Wrong]]. He learns the truth only ''after'' he [[Mercy Kill|Mercy Kills]]s her to set her free and send her to heaven.}}

** [[Retcon]]'d in his spin-off movie. Apparently, he was still normal when he was revived, as were the others. However, during a mission involving Foundation X, a girl he only knew for a day died along with a bunch of other psychics, and this apparently drove Daido to insanity and thus lead into the events of the above movie.

* The premisewhole plot of ''[[Pet SemataryRe-Animator]]''.{{context}}

== [[Literature ]]==

* The basic premise of ''[[Pet Sematary]]'' is that what you bring back is not what first died. To disastrous degrees.{{context}}

* There is a short story by Edmond Hamilton about the last man on Earth (an immortal) who tries to bring humanity back. He tries to resurrect the dead, and they,succeeds - but while they're alive (and even sentient), the newly reborn are devoid of any human emotion, even the children they bear. Then he tries to bring people from the past - and the travel makes them raving mad.

* In one of [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s more famous works, "[[Herbert West: Re-animator,]]", the title character becomes convinced that life is strictly chemical, and repeatedly attempts to bring the dead back to life. His first revived human attempts to claw its way back into its filled-in grave, and the others exhibit similar signs of madness when revived. Finally, the abominations that West hauled back from the great beyond find him, and silently tear him to pieces in front of the narrator, before leaving without a trace with West's remains.

** Demise. After drawing the Black Queen, Demise was treated with the experimental Trump cure. It seemed to work, as he survived, retaining his human shape, sanity, memory and personality, thus not fitting any of the 5five subtropes above. Demise also gained absolute regeneration, thus becoming an Ace. The only problem was apparently being conscious during death and aware of the entire process, requiring massive therapy afterwards. Now Demise can, upon locking eyes, telepathically project memories of death, which can shock, stun or kill the recipient depending on the dose.

** Crypt Kicker. His [[Superpower Lottery|Wild Card]] kicked in as he went postal, pretty much at the moment he shot himself. Crypt Kicker has kept the human shape, (debatable) sanity, personality and memory, thus not fitting any of the subtropes above, and gained the Ace ability to excretesecrete unspecified caustics and toxins from his palms. While technically immortal, he has no regenerative abilities, gradually losing parts through the books, until someone [[Mercy Kill|releases him from the mortal coil]].

* [[George R. R. Martin]] has stated his likeliking offor this trope in the past. He also uses it in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', with the red priests. Thoros of Myr is able to bring people back from the dead, and in ''A Storm of Swords'' we see him do this to one person repeatedly, who continually loses more and more of his original self in the process. The finest example of all, though, is {{spoiler|Catelyn Stark. Dead for days before she was revived and murdered under circumstances that simply scream a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|need for vengeance]], the loving mother that dies is brought back as a merciless, half-decayed killer.}}

* Subverted in ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Goblet of Fire (novel)|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]]'' with Voldemort's resurrection. His revived body is distorted and disfigured, and his soul is literally damaged, but these are due to a separate bit of dark magic and it's implied he came back pretty much the same as he was before he got blown up.

* In ''[[The Death Gate Cycle]]'', necromancy is possible with both patryn and sartan runes... but for every soul brought back untimely another dies untimely. It is implied that the sartan almost drove themselves to extinction because on one of the worlds they were bringing back everyone who died, so their brothers and sisters on the other worlds were dying in their sleep. Also, both patryn and sartan languages transfer more than just the words to each other, so the sartan who did not live on that world felt "lighter" when they spoke, and the ones who practiced necromancy made the listener feel "wrong", heavy, and sometimes cold.

* In ''[[Jonathan Strange and& Mr. Norrell]]'', Lady Pole is resurrected by a magician who made a deal with a faerie to letgive her ''half'' her life back, provided the faerie can have the other half. However, she is languid, and appears ill and exhausted, anddemonstrating does not demonstrate anyno pleasure in life or any happiness that she is alive again. She also often speaks nonsense due to a spell that prevents her from telling anyone the truth about her condition and the implications of the deal -- {{spoiler|which means she is taken into the underworld every night and forced to attend balls and dance all night long.}}.

* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' has the Cylons routinely resurrect after death in new bodies, with few to no physical or mental ill effects other than the implied trauma and disorientation. One Cylon, Number 3, even found it "rejuvenating". However, a Number 1 described the process as a white hot poker being driven into his skull. Interestingly, the only "downside" to resurrection was that it made Cylons under-appreciate life, as well as allow for some ''severe'' post traumatic effects depending on the cause of death.

** ''[[Caprica]]'', the [[Prequel]] to ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' both uses and subverts this trope. After some trauma after the death of her creator, virtual Zoe becomes generally well adjusted and fine with being an AI clone of the real Zoe and trapped in [[Cyberspace]] with the emotional support of Lacy. However, Tamara's virtual copy does not fare so well, she panics at waking up in a black void and ''not having a heartbeat''. It seems the qualifying factor here is that Zoe's technology does not cheat death, but ''create life''. Granted, life heavily based on existing people, but the mental and emotional health of the [[A Is]] seems directly proportional to how much they are treated as separate individuals to their originals.

*** More accurately, Buffy came back "wrong" only in the form of a mild physiological alteration that confused the human-harming inhibitor chip in Spike's head. Tara likened it to a suntan: a superficial change that didn't really fundamentalfundamentally alter who Buffy was.

** Another, earlier ''Buffy'' episode has her trying to convince her old friend Billy Fordham that his plan to die and come back to cure his illness won't work. He's decided on vampirism and the attempt is made to convince him he will simply die and a demon will wear his body as a meat suit.

** During ''The End of Time'', Lucy sabotages the Master's resurrection, leaving him bleeding energy and eating anything he can get his hands on, including people. On the upside, he gets quite a few super-powers out of the deal, even if they're part of the [[Cast Fromfrom Hit Points|bleeding life-force]] deal.

* This trope is the impetus for ''[[Torchwood]]'': after being killed by Daleks in ''Doctor Who'', Jack [[Came Back Wrong]] and subsequently took charge of Torchwood Cardiff. Also happens more than once to other characters, thanks to the resurrection gauntlet. Both Suzie Costello and Owen Harper are brought back from the dead with some interesting, but different, side effects: {{spoiler|Suzie drains Gwen to become permanently alive and Owen comes back with Death, but he gets better... kinda.}}

** The second (well, technically third but the second big one) time Sam came back, however, [[Soulless Shell|was definitely wrong]].

* In an ''[[XThe X-Files|X-Files]]'' episode with an honest-to-goodness [[Three Wishes]] genie, the first master wishes to be [[Invisibility|invisible]] and [[Blessed with Suck|gets killed by a car when trying to cross the street.]] When his brother wishes for him to come back alive, he appears as a shivering necrotic corpse, unable to speak. His brother wishes for him to be able to talk in spite of the genie's warning, and he screams for minutes straight. After he's all screamed out, he attempts to light the stove to warm himself, complaining he "can't feel his blood." He fumbles the matches with the gas on full blast for many minutes, and when he finally does light one the trailer explodes, killing both brothers (we hope) permanently and ejecting the genie. [[Be Careful What You Wish For]].

* In ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' (created by [[Bryan Fuller]]), the dead people that Ned brings touches come back just as they are - even if they've been, for example, rolled over by a cement mixer. The fruit that he touches seems to come back as it was freshly picked, so perhaps what matter still exists is returned, in freshness at least, to how it was as a living organism.

** ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' (also created by ''[[Bryan Fuller]]'') does the same thing with freshly reaped souls. If they haven't been reaped before death they keep the damage, and can feel it all. Being found and touched beforehand ensures a painless death. George found out that she couldn't run away from her job when the man she was supposed to reap remained conscious during his autopsy.

== [[Music ]]==

** [[Ravenloft]] exploits [[Came Back Wrong]] on every spell, with the recipient of the spell having a very good chance of being possessed by something suitably blasphemous.

** In ''The World Of Darkness'', particularly inthe [[New World of Darkness|more recent]] game-lines]], there are a number of different ways to bring a recently deceased person back from the dead. ''None'' of them result in a mentally- or spiritually-sound being. Here's a quick run: you can make a Revenant out of them, but that gives you a zombie with a supercharged case of OCD. You can try [[Vampire: The Requiem|Embracing]] them, but now they're a vampire and, since you Embraced them ''after'' death, their reflection/shadow has come loose and become a separate being that hates them. Making a [[Promethean: The Created|Promethean]] out of them opens the door to a laundry list of problems.<ref>(Not the least of which is that the "resurrectee" is [[That Man Is Dead|actually a whole different person]]. The previous occupant / soul is gone, the Promethean is a wholly new being)</ref>. A [[Geist: The Sin Eaters|Geist]] can haul someone back if they were [[I See Dead People|the right sort]] and [[Near-Death Experience|enough wiggle room exists,]] but it's ''never'' for free. And finally, the least harmful of all of these, a [[Hunter: The Vigil|Benediction]] that resurrects the very-recently-slain... leaves them with a permanent mental illness.

*** In the [[Old World of Darkness]], there was at least one method that would return the deceased, no matter how long they were dead, with no side effects. The catch? The ritual to do so requires fighting the avatar of the literal [[The Grim Reaper|God of Death]]. Guess what happens if you lose. Another option was to have a soul-shard happen across the recently deceased and make a deal.; Thisthis one got[[Came themBack Strong|brought them back better than before,]] as one of [[Mummy: The Resurrection|the Amenti]], the Reborn. No matter how often they died again, they could resurrect without a hitch (well, barring the waiting period). The OWOD was a bit kinder on this front than the NWOD.

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (Tabletop Game)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]'': When players [[Never Say "Die"|destroy]] or [[Devour the Dragon|Tribute]] monsters, they either go to the [[Only Mostly Dead|Graveyard]] or are [[Deader Than Dead|Banished]]. As such, many card effects rely on bringing back said monsters from either location. ''Monster Reborn'' and ''Call of the Haunted'' were [[Back Fromfrom the Dead|pretty straightfroward]], but later cards ended up playing every aspect of this trope. The most common types are [[Empty Shell]] and [[Damaged Soul]], where a monster's ability to act is limited, or else becomes "dangerous" to the player. Some cards even resurrect your monsters ''on the opponent's side''.

** Even if he did have a reason, it would have to be a reason ''internally consistent with the narrative'' -- e—e.g. the [[Care Bears]] couldn't appear out of a cloud of butterflies and revive her with the [[Power of Friendship]] -- or—or else the Dark Presence could come in through ''that'' [[Plot Hole]] instead. {{spoiler|This is why Alan has to resort to a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save Alice and the town -- a straight [[Happily Ever After]] wouldn't be consistent with the darkly-toned horror story that led up to it.}}

** Also in ''[[Strange Journey]]'', : {{spoiler|Commander Gore is killed shortly into the mission, but restored as an "Ubergestalt" by the "Mothers" of the Schwarzwelt. It seems like it's this trope all over, what with his mindless gaze, otherwordly presence, and obvious manipulation by the goddesses... until you break him loose from the mind control and not only does he regain his humanity, but he gains supernatural brilliance over the Schwarzwelt and mankind's future}}.

* In ''[[The Sims|The Sims 2]]'' and ''[[The Sims 3]]'', a botched resurrection will end up zombifying a Sim.

* In ''[[Ultimate Spider-Man]]'', [[Deadpool]] was a serious, [[Fantastic Racism|mutant-hating]] mercenary who hunted mutants on live TV, and dies at the end of his story arc. He comes [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]] in ''[[Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions]]'' as a crazy, 4th wall-breaking mercenary who trades his hatred of mutants for a sense of humor. For fans who disliked Serious!Deadpool, this was [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|Came Back Right]].

* In ''[[The Dig]]'', Brink is resurrected with an alien crystal, but slowly turns into an obsessed shadow of his former self. Maggie, seeing this, asks Boston not to use a life crystal on her if something were to happen.

* Death knights in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' clearly [[Came Back Wrong]] (or rather, were ''deliberately'' brought back wrong) ''somehow'', but seem to overlap multiple categories.

{{quote| '''[[Elite Mook|Marshal Redpath]]:''' I'm a monster, don't look at me!}}

*:* Note that an [[Alternate Character Interpretation|alternate interpretation]] of the "Rotbrain" is that they've come back wrong in a different way: without the blind devotion to the Forsaken that undead player characters possess.

* Some versions of ''[[Rogue (video game)|Rogue]]'' allow you to resurrect as an undead character, only faintly able to derive sustenance from normal food and chowing down on dead enemies instead.

* ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'s''* Raiden is a less extreme example than most, but according to Fujin, he should have been resurrected as a blank slate. Instead, he comes back [[Darker and Edgier]].

* In ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', Grissom is killed by Ashley. Because zombies in this game are random dead souls who get trapped in random dead bodies, he could have become just another monster... but he gets trapped into his ''own'' dead body by accident, making him fully conscious and horribly disturbed at his own undeath.

** A variation occurs with Tarvek's sister Anevka, given a mechanical new body plugged into lifesupportlife support with what remained of her own. However, Anevka still died, albeit slower than she would have normally, but, as she weakened, the machine itself took on her personality. By the time she was dead, the machine thought she was Anevka and had no idea that anything (such as the death of the real Anekva) had happened, and everyone believed the same, except Tarvek, who knew the truth. The mechanical Anevka eventually became conniving and self serving, culminating in killing her father after his attempts to restore the Other "almost" killed her. No word yet on whether this cold-hearted behaviour was a result of being a clank or being an accurate copy of a member of the Sturmvoraus family.

* White Mage's attempt to revive Black Belt in ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]''. [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/11/10/episode-622-now-shut-up/ And how].

* ''[[Rusty and Co.|Rusty and Co]]'' [http://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-19/ managed to] invert this (White Knight looked better [http://rustyandco.com/comic/39/ as a wight]).

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20140209181849/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4198 the young Baby Blue tried to raise a dove right.] [[Satan]] intervened to bring it back as a diabolic thing.

{{quote| It's not a pretty picture. I don't like doing it!}}

** One of Dean's clones was rejected (meaning Doc casually flushed him into the sewer) for being extremely disfigured. The clone survived, and used the skins of all of the previous dead clones (apparently Doctor Venture just dumps them in a mass-grave on the compound) to make a [[Film/Silence Of The Lambs|Dean suit]] for himself. When he runs out of skins, he attempts to murder the current Dean so he can finish the suit and replace him.

* [[Big Bad|Van Kleiss]] from ''[[Generator Rex]]'' is able to come [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]] as long as he's in contact with the [[Gray Goo|nanite]]-rich soil of Abysus. After he's seemingly [[Killed Off for Real]], the nanites of Abysus go berserk, and when Rex is brought in to solve the problem, he's coerced into activating a machine designed to resurrect Van Kleiss. This time, however, the resurrected Van Kleiss' Evo condition is curable, and Rex is able to strip him of his powers.