Disney Death: Difference between revisions

Not to be confused with [[Disney Villain Death]], which refers to a villain falling from a very high place, such as a cliff. Also not to be confused with [[Walt Disney]]'s actual death.

* In the revival of ''[[Darkwing Duck (Comic Book)|Darkwing Duck]]'', {{spoiler|1=GosmoDuck (Gosalyn in the GizmoDuck armor)}} pulls a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to stop the [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Taurus Bulba}}, but after blacking out for a few moments, she turns out alright.

* ''[[Fables (Comic Book)|Fables]]''. The more popular fairy tale entities gain this ability. Storywise, Disney is -causing- these Disney Deaths (at least for the characters they write about). For example; Toto is seemingly eaten by a lion. This infuriates his captors ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]) not because he is dead, but only temporarily dead and thus will return in some form out of their territory.

* Arguably, the first instance of this trope is the death of Disney's ''[[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (Disney)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]''. The scene is pretty well dragged out so that you still feel like she's dead even though, if you've been paying attention, you know she's really only asleep.

* ''[[Pinocchio (Disney)|Pinocchio]]'' has a Heroic Death rescuing Gepetto from the whale. He seems gone, but surprise! He's a real boy now and fully alive.

* ''[[Homeward Bound the Incredible Journey]]'' actually has two Disney Deaths. First, Sassy the cat goes over a waterfall and is presumed dead; she is found by a kindly human and nursed back to health. Second, at the end, the old golden retriever Shadow falls into a ditch and tells the others to go on without him. They make it back to their owners without Shadow, and everyone assumes he's dead, but guess who then comes over the ridge? (In slow motion, of course...)

** And in the sequel, Chance appears to be run over by a truck, but is then shown to have ducked just in the nick of time.

* Tinker Bell in the original [[Peter Pan]]; Peter invokes the [[Ur Example]] of [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]]. (Note that Tink doesn't do this in the Disney version. It does happen in "Return to Neverland "though)

* In ''[[Once Upon a Time]]'' Regina bakes up a "special" apple turnover (she's the Wicked Queen from Snow White) to get rid of Emma, the biological mother of Regina's adopted son. Henry (the son) prevents Emma from eating it, and succumbs to the effects. Queue both his mothers freaking out and [[Enemy Mine|making a truce]] to try and save the kid...which doesn't work. In the end, Emma's farewell kiss beings the kid back ''and'' breaks the curse holding the entire town!

* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]'', Goofy is believed to have given his life to save Mickey from a falling rock, but since this is partly a Disney property, it later turns out he's okay (though not before Sora and company [[Foe-Tossing Charge|tear their way]] through an army of Heartless). Also, aside from Sora, [[We Cannot Go On Without You|whose KO'd would bring a game over,]] nobody else in your party can die for real, human or cartoon characters.

** Following that is Donald's [[Heartwarming Moments (Sugar Wiki)|Heartwarming Moments]]...where he [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|smashes Goofy's foot with his staff]] and angrily tells him to never do that again.

* Disney Deaths also sometimes come up in the company's TV shows as well. The ''[[Darkwing Duck (Animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'' episode "Dead Duck", in which Darkwing seemingly dies when he crashes through a brick wall, stretches this trope out to the whole episode's plot. It then turns out at the end that it was [[All Just a Dream]].

** Prior to that, there's the climax of the pilot, which is not only a [[Disney Death]] for Darkwing, but also, as later revealed in the second season, the episode's villain, Taurus Bulba.

* Averted multiple times in ''[[Paperinik New Adventures]]'', the series about a superhero version of [[Donald Duck]] (it was [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|a big hit in Italy. Serious.]]) where a number of secondary characters AND a main one get killed fighting or sacrifice themselves for the greater good. But it's still a Disney comic after all, so whenever violence against intelligent enemies is depicted in the foreground it is slapstick and cartoonish.

* Disney itself wasn't always stuck on this syndrome. ''[[Bambi (Disney)|Bambi]]'' is a Disney movie that stayed more or less faithful to the books from which they were made, and dead does mean dead.

* Another nice exception: ''[[The Lion King (Disney)|The Lion King]]''. Pulling a Disney Death wouldn't make sense in a movie about the cycle of life and death (not to mention inspired by ''[[Hamlet (Theatre)|Hamlet]]'', which is about [[You Killed My Father|avenging death]]); as a result, Mufasa gets killed in a massive stampede near the middle of the film, and when he dies, he [[Killed Off for Real|dies for real]].

* In the ''[[Bridge to Terabithia]]'' adaption, {{spoiler|it kept true to the source material. Leslie drowns, and doesn't come back. [[Tear Jerker|And cue the waterworks.]]}}

* Ram dies for real in ''[[Tron (Film)|Tron]]''. What? It was a Disney movie!

* [[Hayao Miyazaki]]'s ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind]]'' pulls this with Nausicäa ''herself'', who dies being launched into the air by a stampede of monstrous insects.. before said insects realize she was trying to tell them she had safely returned their lost baby, began empathizing with her and healed her, inducing a trippy hallucination/resurrection scene in which Nausicäa manages to get back to life.

* ''[[Mai-HiME (Anime)|Mai-HiME]]'' {{spoiler|pulls off over a dozen Disney Deaths in one fell swoop.}}

* In ''[[Omaha the Cat Dancer (Comic Book)|Omaha the Cat Dancer]]'', Omaha's best friend Shelly gets shot in the first issue. A couple of issues later, we find out she [[Not Quite Dead|wasn't quite dead]].

** Also, Chuck was told by his (insane) dad that his mother had died when he was young. Guess who shows up in the middle of the story?

* In [[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons (Fanfic)|Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]], Ronan is killed off twice. The first time, Madara shoots him with a bazooka at his wedding, but he revives with the help of the tears of the guests. The second time, he is shot dead by an agnostic, and Sakura revives him with da cooger's help. He lampshades it the second time, noting that he is dead "for now".

* In ''Mortality'', the first book of the ''[[Deliver Us From Evil Series (Fanfic)|Deliver Us From Evil Series]]'', [[Sherlock Holmes]] is believed to have been killed by his [[Arch Enemy]], [[Diabolical Mastermind|Professor]] [[Big Bad|Moriarty]]. It isn't until a few chapters later that the reader knows for certain that Holmes is still alive, but the heroes themselves don't know for sure until [[Inspector Lestrade]] and [[The Hero|Dr. Watson]] overhear [[The Dragon|Moran]] confirming it.

* The eponymous robot in ''[[The Iron Giant]]'' is shown reassembling himself after a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] against an incoming nuclear missile. (A rare example of a ''good'' Robot Disney Death, meaning both that it is very satisfying to the audience and that it was set up properly -- the Giant's self-repair ability was [[Chekhov's Gun|demonstrated earlier in the film]].)

* ''[[Titan AE|Titan A.E.]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|hung a lampshade on this]] when the character Gune was "killed" by an explosion and claimed, as he passed out, that he "Must have nap...". Later he returned and saved the day proclaiming, "I finished my nap!"

* ''[[DARYL (Film)|DARYL]]'' features a classic Robot Disney Death as part of its climax/denouement.

* In ''[[Lethal Weapon|Lethal Weapon 2]]'', a [[Smug Snake]] diplomat shoots the [[Mel Gibson (Creator)|Mel Gibson]] character, who falls into a pit. In response, the Danny Glover character shoots the diplomat. Then he goes down into the pit to check on Mel Gibson. And guess what? He's fine! Well, mostly fine, anyway.

* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]]'', Gaspode the Wonder Dog apparently makes a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save the Disc from the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions. In the first draft he was [[Killed Off for Real]], but this was rewritten following reader feedback, and Gaspode went on to become a recurring character. And, given the theme of the book, and the method used to revive Gaspode... possible [[Lampshade Hanging]]?

** In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Lords and Ladies|Lords and Ladies]]'', it looks like Granny Weatherwax has given her life to help defeat the Queen of the Elves. When Nanny Ogg and Magrat go through Granny's personal affects, they find an envelope with a piece of card in it: Granny's old "I ATEN'T DEAD" sign. Nanny realizes this means Granny wasn't dead, but off Borrowing (in this case, a swarm of bees).

* A good [[Mutant Enemy]] example is Lorne's head on ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' asking for the praising and extolling of his virtues. For whatever reason, his particular variety of demon can survive decapitation--the body needs to be mutilated. The bad guys didn't forget to, though--the Groosalugg, knowing Lorne was Cordelia's friend, switched his body with a soldier.

* In an episode of ''[[Sliders]]'', crooner Mel Torme helps the Sliders with their mission, only to apparently die in a car bomb. He inexplicably resurfaces at the end, though, to wish the Sliders well on their way.

* The 19th century Irish comic ballad ''Finnegan's Wake'' (which also provided inspiration for [[Finnegans Wake|James Joyce's novel of the same name]]) is about an Dublin worker named Tim Finnegan who resurrects at his funeral after some whiskey ([[Rule of Symbolism|Water of Life in Irish]]) pours over him by mistake.

* A rather nasty example comes in [[Michael Jackson]]'s ''Ghosts''. His hero, Maestro, asks the mob of kids and grown-ups (the latter wanted to run him out of town) if they still want him to leave; while only the evil mayor does, Maestro agrees to go and smashes himself into the floor, crumbling into dust before the horrified crowd's eyes and reducing one of the boys to tears. The mayor is happy to be rid of him and makes to leave, but then the Maestro (in his ghoul form) appears as a giant face in the doorway, and the mayor runs away screaming, smashing through a window. Turns out Maestro just wanted to scare everybody, and the crowd is happy... except for viewers who realize the [[Fridge Logic]] that the mayor might be ''actually be dead'' or at least horribly injured, and that the hero traumatized everybody just to trick one person who (by that point) had a darn good reason for wanting him out of town -- he'd been the victim of magical torture by the Maestro.

* Well, let's state the obvious. [[Jesus]] dies and comes back. Maybe it was handled in an incredibly gory and un-Disney like fashion, but He does come back. Twice.

** There are also less obvious miracles. Lazarus, Tabitha, and the daughter of Jairus were all resurrected, thus making their first deaths Disney Deaths.

* In an episode of ''[[The Shadow]]'' called "The Blind Beggar Dies, The Shadow suspected that Spike and Marty were setting a trap for him, so he stood behind them and use "ventriloquism" to make his voice sound like it was near the door, tricking them into thinking that they killed him.

* In ''[[Warhammer]]'' and ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' this is basically what happens to the named characters in most narratives accompanying games - they are knocked out, sent through accidental warp portals, teleported away just before death, badly wounded but recovered by medics after the battle, temporarily banished to the Realm of Chaos or any number of fates that can be recovered from. It even makes it clear in the rules that casualties don't automatically equate to dead. When a character is [[Killed Off for Real]] it's usually a major event or storyline progression and doesn't stop them being used in historical refights, but this is strongly tempered with [[Status Quo Is God]] (as well as the fact that if the characters stay alive, people will [[Crack is Cheaper|keep buying the models]]),

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker]]'' has this with Paz. Even though she was ejected from an exploding Metal Gear Zeke that she hijacked into the Caribbean Sea, Paz can still be seen in the Personnel files. Snake even hints at the possibility that Paz survived, as he noted to Chico in a briefing file that she took scuba gear with her when she was ejected.

** And Snake at the end of ''MGS 2'''s first act, Raiden in ''MGS 4'', as well as Big Boss himself earlier in the series.

* ''[[The Smurfs]]'': At least two examples:

** "Stop and Smurf the Roses": Chlohydrous, annoyed at the Smurf's beautiful woodelf (and mute) friend, Laconia, sets out to kill Laconia by destroying her very life source: flowers. Indeed, Laconia does "die" after Chlohydrous casts a spell, growing sick as the flowers die off in groups. The other Smurfs do come to rescue Laconia (along with Papa and Natural), but even after they defeat Chlohydrous, it may be too late for Laconia. The other Smurfs prepare for Laconia's funeral, laying her on a lilypad ... but then, she is revived after Papa Smurf reverses Chlohydrous' spell.

* A "[[Crosses the Line Twice]]" computer-add showed how horrible a businessman's life was before he got his new computer, including a staff member shouting "Business is terrible!" before jumping out though the window, and being called that his wife left him and his dog died. After he gets his computer, his wife calls him that she's back and the dog was pretending, and the businessman comes back in a wheelchair and bandages, saying how business is picking up.

* Done with bears in ''[[The Far Side (Comic Strip)|The Far Side]]''. In the middle of a funeral, the "corpse" sits up and berates the mourners, "I was hibernating, you idiots! Don't you ever check for a pulse?"

* Near the end of the ''[[Animaniacs (Animation)|Animaniacs]]'' movie ''[[Wakko's Wish (Film)|Wakkos Wish]]'', Dot gets hit by one of King Salazar's cannonballs and [[Died in Your Arms Tonight|dies in Yakko's arms...]] then she says "I'm feeling better now" right when Wakko reaches the wishing star. Yakko says her acting lessons must really be paying off....

* ''[[Kung Fu Panda (Animation)|Kung Fu Panda]]''

* Many characters in ''[[Monty Python and The Holy Grail]]'' receive what ought to be fatal blows, only to keep on coming. Most memorably seen in the Black Knight ("It's [[Only a Flesh Wound|just a flesh wound]]!"), but repeated in variations throughout the movie by other characters ("I'm not dead yet!")

* In ''National Lampoon's [[Loaded Weapon 1]]'', the Jon Lovitz character (modeled after the [[Joe Pesci]] character in the ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'' films) dies early on, only to return a few scenes later. When asked how he got back, he replies, "I thought this was the sequel!"

* In ''[[Muppet Treasure Island]]'', [[Tim Curry|Long John Silver]] tells Samuel Arrow, played by safety fanatic [[The Comically Serious|Sam the Eagle]], one of the boats may not be safe, and tells him to go out to sea to make sure it is safe. He then tells Kermit (The Captain) that he was lost at sea. He comes back some time later and tells Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo "Not to trust that Silver fellow."

{{quote| '''Gonzo:''' Now he tells us....}}

[[Category:Writer Cop Out]]

[[Category:Disney Death]]