Death Is Cheap: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' and its sequels are notorious for playing this trope to death. Everybody and their grandmother dies and is resurrected at some point. Much of the show is in fact motivated by collecting the Dragonballs to be able to wish somebody back to life. By the time ''Dragon Ball Z'' ended, only Mr. Satan the [[Fake Ultimate Hero]] and a few gods ''hadn't'' died at least once. Counting ''GT'', [[Overshadowed by Awesome|Krillin]] died ''four times''.

** Prior to the Namekian Dragon Balls, a person could only be restored once, as the same wish couldn't be granted twice.

** In season five, it's made a little less cheap: Though death isn't permanent, there is no guarantee that the reborn Mon will remember its prior life, in most cases being very unlikely. And ''then'' Kurata figures out how to make a Digimon [[Deader Than Dead]].

** Digimon's reliance on this trope causes a huge [[Player Punch]] when it's brutally subverted in Digimon Tamers. A Leomon dying became memetic after this instance. However, it soon becomes apparent that this particular Leomon won't be coming back at all.

** It still ''hurts'' though.

* In ''[[Kinnikuman]]'', Choujin who have died can come back by completing certain trials in the afterlife. Thus, it is entirely possible for a character to be graphically killed off then show up in the next story arc with no-one batting an eye. Note that this doesn't work for those who die of old age, though.

* The last third or so of the chapters in ''[[Shaman King]]''. Can we say [[Just for Pun|overkill]]?

* [[Cory Doctorow]]'s ''Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom'' takes this trope to its logical conclusion by having everyone take resurrection for granted. Thus, the narrator (Julius) is killed early in the novel and spends the rest of the story fighting back against those he believes responsible for his murder. He theorizes that they timed his death carefully so that he'd be out of commission at the exact point when his enemies were putting a plan into effect, since obviously if they killed him too early he would be alive again at by that point.

** And in both that book and [[Ken MacLeod]]'s ''Newton's Wake'', resurrection is so automated that other medical skills have atrophied or been lost; it's easier to get a new body than to fix the one you have. Like consumer electronics today.

* In ''[[Dragaera]]'', it's a relatively simple process to become "revivified" after death. It's fairly expensive, however, and some circumstances can make it impossible. Assassinations among the Jhereg criminal organization often do not take. In the first novel, Vlad even claims that someone might be assassinated as a warning to back off, though this level of cheapness is not carried over into subsequent novels.

* The ''Takeshi Kovacs'' novels by Richard K. Morgan take place in a largely post-death world where a person's consciousness is housed in a chip in his brain, called a "stack." When his body dies, his chip is inserted into a new one. Bodies, now called "sleeves," are bought and traded like garments. In the first book of the series, a centuries-old magnate hires the hero to find out how his previous sleeve was murdered.

* Invoked, subverted, and [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] to hell and back in ''[[Lexx]]''; many of the characters who die in the second season return with seemingly no explanation in the third season, but it becomes increasingly apparent as time goes on that the planets the Lexx is orbiting at the time are, in fact, the afterlife. When the Lexx [[It Makes Sense in Context|blows up the afterlife,]] they all move to Earth. When the Lexx blows up the ''Earth,'' too, it seems as though everyone is finally [[Killed Off for Real]], simply because there is no more afterlife to be resurrected from. Subverted again by Kai, who dies in the first scene and ''stays'' dead, but animate, through the whole series. In the finale, when a [[Deal with the Devil]] backfires, he's brought back to life for real...just in time for an event he can't possibly survive.

** This means that there are in fact three versions of most characters: the original versions, the Fire and Water versions, and the Earth versions.

{{quote|'''D'Anna:''' Do you have any idea what you're accusing me of?

'''Baltar:''' Yes... intentionally killing yourself over and over so you can download over and over. Death is just a revolving door, isn't it?

* Played with in ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]''. In the original campaign, this is averted: party members who lose all their HP simply suffer a [[Non-Lethal KO]] (unless the entire party is KO'd) and revive at the end of the fight. Despite being based on D&D rules (see [[Tabletop Games]], above), three friendly characters suffer [[Plotline Death]] and [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|can't be resurrected]]. Possibly justified by the setting requirements for resurrection: you have to be willing, and there can't be anything keeping you back.

** Played straight in the second expansion ''Storm of Zehir''. KO'd party members will bleed out and die if left unattended, but resurrecting them is as easy as traveling to the nearest temple and paying for a ''resurrection'' spell (or keeping a good stock of Coins of Life handy, consumable items that cast ''resurrection'').

 

== Web Animation ==

** Kevyn found one way of bringing back someone from very definitely final death {{spoiler|via [[Time Travel]]}}... and the author made it very clear that it was a one-shot deal when the unique wormgate used to make it happen exploded after use.

* ''[[Spacetrawler]]'' hasn't used this trope (yet), but the author comments on it in [[The Rant]] below [http://spacetrawler.com/2010/12/14/spacetrawler-102/ this page]. He points out that sci-fi has so many ways to bring mortally wounded or dead characters back that an author who wants to permanently kill a given character needs to disintegrate them on-screen (at the very least) to convince the audience that they're dead.

* ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella]]'' has moments like [http://nonadventures.com/2011/07/23/the-long-con/ this]:

{{quote|'''Wonderella''': ...Apparently a lot of 'em are dead now.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Just for Pun]]

[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]

[[Category:Resurrection Tropes]]