Death Faked for You: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* At the end of ''[[Witch Hunter Robin]]'', {{spoiler|Robin and Amon}} are declared dead after an enemy base they were inside self-destructed. Doujima informs her superiors that [[No One Could Survive That]], even though both she, and the rest of the team, knows very well that the both of them almost certainly made it out unscathed. By declaring them dead, they'll be relatively safe from Solomon pursuit.

* Happens to {{spoiler|Kaoru}} in [[Rurouni Kenshin]] as part of Enishi's revenge. (The only reason Enishi didn't go all the way was because he was so traumatized by witnessing his sister's death that he gets physically ill at the very idea of harming a young woman.)

* In ''[[Claymore]]'', {{spoiler|After an attack on The Organization is defeated, several handlers find their [[Super Soldier|warriors]] hacking the body of the renegade named Phantom Miria into a bloody mass of meat with thier [[BFS|swords]]. Of course considering her [[Healing Factor]] this turned out to be the best way the warriors could protect the woman that had taken such pains not to do them harm from their superiors.}}

* In ''[[Baccano!]]'', during his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] aboard the Flying Pussyfoot, {{spoiler|Claire Stanfield}} kills a man with a similar build, hair color, and {{spoiler|conductor's uniform}} by [[What a Drag|grinding his face off on the tracks]]. He is later amused to find that the FBI mistook the defaced victim for ''him''—so amused that [http://untuned-strings.blogspot.com/2012/03/baccano-1931-grand-punk-railroad.html he allowed himself to be interviewed for his own obituary.]

 

* A ''[[Strontium Dog]]'' story ended with Johnny discovering his target was innocent, but faced with the knowledge that if he didn't claim the bounty, someone else would. He shot the perp with a stun beam, thus recording him as dying and allowing him to live free from fear of other hunters.

 

== Fairy Tales ==

* Seen as early as "[[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (novel)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]", along with other [[Fairy Tale]]s.

** "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131020110357/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/armlessmaiden/index.html The Girl with No Hands]"

 

* ''[[The Rock]]''

* The film ''[[Eraser]]'' has the main character go around faking deaths for witness protection.

* In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane fakes Dr. Peval's death in a plane crash in order to retrieve him. However, its strongly implied that he intends to do worse things to him after retrieving him.

 

* Dr. Yueh, for Jessica and Paul in ''[[Dune]]''.

* In ''[[X Wing Series|Isard's Revenge]]'', Rogue Squadron is ambushed by an Imperial warlord's forces; the new [[Red Shirt]]s get killed, everyone gets damaged to some extent, and two others [[Ejection Seat|eject]]. The damaged but still flying Rogues, fighting against numerically superior foes, get a [[Big Damn Heroes|dramatic rescue]] from another Imperial sect which politely tells them to go with them before more of the warlord's people show up. They do so. Very soon after the ''Errant Venture'' hyperjumps onto the scene, sees the mingled Imperial and New Republic debris, and assumes that the two forces annihilated each other. They recover the two survivors, allow one to pretend to still be dead, and retreat back out of Imperial territory with the horrible news. Meanwhile, the Rogues are in Isard's hands, and she wants them to [[Cloning Gambit|kill her clone.]]

* In [[Connie Wilis]]'s "Winter's Tale", "[[William Shakespeare]]" is coming home, except that Anne knows he's not her husband. She learns that her husband was lured to a tavern and murdered to pass off the body as [[Christopher Marlowe]], while Marlowe got to pass himself off as Shakespeare. Considering that prior to that, she had thought her self-centered husband had sold his identity, she is able to live with it.

* In one of the early ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' books, Zedd fakes Kahlan's execution in a way that requires ''her'' to think she's been executed. The way the magic works, everyone involved except the caster must think the execution is genuine when the spell is cast. The result is a [[Reality Warper|reality warping]] spell that makes everyone think you're dead.

* In the fourth book of ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', Cersei gets news that {{spoiler|Davos}} is dead. That is all we hear about it until the fifth book, when we see his side of the story. {{spoiler|Davos is locked in one of Manderly's nicer cells until he finds out that Manderly has killed someone in his place. Manderly's goal was to gain the trust of the Lannisters while simultaneously forcing Davos to secretly go fetch the Stark heir in exchange for Manderly's allegiance to Stannis.}}

 

* [[Nikita]] : The whole plot is based on Nikita's death being faked by division .

* At the end of ''[[Rome]]'', Titus does this with Caesar's son ({{spoiler|who was actually Titus's}}).

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'': when Vir Cotto becomes ambassador to the Minbari, fakes the deaths of ''thousands'' of Narn refugees [[Badass Bureaucrat|in order to get them safely to other worlds]].

 

* ''[[Oedipus Rex]]''. It didn't end well.

* Subverted with in ''[[The Yeomen of the Guard]]'': The plot's something of a [[Gambit Pileup]], but, very briefly, Point claiming Fairfax was dead actually forced the disguised Fairfax to set up Point's [[Tear Jerker]] ending. A little less briefly *deep breath*:

* A simpler version of the tragic type: ''Rigoletto'', in which Rigoletto discovers too late that the body in the sack isn't the Duke he hired an assassin to kill to protect his daughter... but his daughter herself, having decided on the [[Heroic Sacrifice]] approach to love.

* Tragic example in [[Aida]]: When the Egyptian soldiers come looking for Aida, Nehebka sacrifices herself while the other Nubians restrain and hide Aida.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Back to The Future]]: The Game'', Marty needs to convince Trixie that Arthur has been killed by Kid Tannen... but, for fear of the [[Grandfather Paradox]], can't actually let Arthur get killed. How convenient that {{spoiler|Kid Tannen keeps caricatures of all the people he's killed on his wall.}}

 

* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20160427 Doctor Zardeliv], whom everyone wanted to either recruit or assassinate. But the corpse was found a little too soon, and by another [[McNinja|Smoke Knight]] who knew him personally at that, so this didn't quite work.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

{{quote|'''Joe:''' Yep, he's dead. I can tell, I'm a cop.}}

* According to the ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' TV Funhouse short [https://web.archive.org/web/20111201001044/http://www.hulu.com/watch/1521/saturday-night-live-disney-vault-vt "Journey To The Disney Vault"], this was apparently what Disney did to [[Jim Henson]] after he refused to sell them his company in 1990.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Radio]]