Faking the Dead: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Sevarius:''' I was particularly proud of my death scene.

 

A character's death is faked, for one or more of the following purposes:

 

A play on the common turn of phrase "waking the dead." Contrast [[He's Just Hiding]]. Not to be confused with [[Fake Weakness]].

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' - {{spoiler|Revealed in Minagoroshi-hen that Takano Miyo, the villain mastermind, has been faking her own death for every Hinamizawa to appear as a victim of the curse.}}

** Also happens in {{spoiler|Matsuribayashi-hen, when the [[True Companions]] decide to fake Rika's death so as to make Takano think that her research was wrong and give up on it, thereby saving Rika.}}

** The most important use of this trope is in case of {{spoiler|Uchiha Madara. Decades ago he barely escaped his battle with the Shodai Hokage alive and was assumed dead. This allowed him to move about as he pleased and manipulate events as needed to suit his [[Evil Plan]]. Or at least that's what was thought until the most recent reveal that he WAS dead. The true question now is who the hell is Tobi}}.

* Quite the [[Sailor Moon/Tear Jerker|Tear Jerker]] in ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' anime-- {{spoiler|One episode revealed Minako's [[Backstory]] as Sailor V. She lived in London with a [[Onee-Sama|woman she saw as her older sister]] named Katarina and an older man named Alan who she clearly had a crush on for awhile, until one day when she went into a building to investigate a crime as Sailor V. The theif threw a grenade at her, which wrecked the building. Katarina barely escaped with her life, and Minako was alive, still hidden in the rubble, when she saw Katarina embrace Alan and realized those two were more than friends. [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy|She left and pretended she had died in the accident so those two would be happy together without her getting in the way.]] <ref>annoyingly this episode was left out of the North American dub, which would have given a lot more depth to the ditzy character the dub made Mina into.</ref>}}

* In the two-part ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' OVA ''Verbrechen ~ Strafe,'' {{spoiler|Aya and Yoji receive orders to kill Ken and Omi for refusing to complete a mission. Tipped off that the orders are fraudulent, the four stage a vicious battle which apparently ends with the deaths of Omi, Yoji, and Aya, and use it as an opportunity to get the jump on the source of the fake orders.}}

* Part of the backstory of ''[[Code Geass]]'': Lelouch and Nunnally Lamperouge are in fact disgraced royalty who faked their own deaths in order to hide in exile in Area 11 (formerly Japan). It gets used a few more times in the series, with {{spoiler|Zero declared dead at the start of R2, Nunnally, Sayoko and Guilford presumed dead after FLEIJA detonated, [[Broken Pedestal|Marianne]] revealed to have hidden in another character's body, and Suzaku "dying" in the final battle to take up the mantle of Zero}}. Your guess is as good as mine regarding {{spoiler|whether or not Lelouch is faking it}}.

* The ''[[Code Geass]]'' example is actually one of the many inspirations the show takes from the ''[[Gundam]]'' franchise. In the [[Mobile Suit Gundam|original show]], Char and his sister fake they're own deaths to go into hiding, taking on fake identities that lead them right back into the War. This formula is repeated for several other Char clones, such as [[Gundam Wing|Zechs and his sister Relena]].

 

* In the ''What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?'', [[Superman]] fakes his death by exposure by gold kryptonite (removing his powers), and walking to his death into the frozen Antarctic. In reality, {{spoiler|he only removed his powers, and became Jordan Elliot, a regular working class guy}}.

* In the DCU, the Outsiders led by Nightwing fake their death to be able to work undercover. The stratagem is blown in the One Year Later storyline, and the team then [[Hero with Bad Publicity|has to deal]] with the various consequences for [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|their actions]].

* In ''[[Fear Itself (Comic Book)|Fear Itself]]'', {{spoiler|[[Bucky Barnes]], the current [[Captain America (comics)]]}} had apparently been killed off while fighting Sin, the Red Skull's daughter. However, as revealed in a post-series epilogue....{{spoiler|Bucky did survive the brutal attack and his death was faked by both [[Black Widow]] and [[Nick Fury]] in order to convince Steve Rogers to become Captain America once more, as well as to allow Bucky to deal with remaining Winter Soldier-esque sleeper agents without any trouble. How? A well-placed Life Model Decoy and the Infinity Formula did the trick.}}

 

* This is the setup for ''[[Double Jeopardy]]''. A husband frames his wife for his murder so that he can run off with his wife's friend and the life insurance money while evading his creditors. When confronted, the husband has the audacity to claim that he intended to fake his suicide. That may have been believable, except for the blood and knife and the radio message claiming his wife was trying to kill him.

* Happens in ''[[Dark Knight Trilogy|The Dark Knight]]'' with {{spoiler|Jim Gordon; the Joker also pulls this off at one point, but the audience knows it's clearly a trick from the beginning.}}

* In ''[[The Usual Suspects]]'', it's part of [[Dirty Cop|Dean Keaton's]] [[Backstory]] (and one of the reasons Agent Kujan [[Inspector Javert|has such a hard on for him]]). He was [[Never Found the Body|presumed dead long enough]] to dodge a murder rap. And while he was dead, every witness against him [[Make It Look Like an Accident|died under suspicious circumstances]].

* ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]'' has {{spoiler|the Autobots}} doing this when they realize that {{spoiler|Sentinel's demand for them to leave Earth in exchange for peace}} was a trap. What they do is {{spoiler|send up the ship with no one in it, so when Starscream destroys the ship, everyone including the Decepticons believe they are dead, allowing them to take on the Decepticons by surprise.}}

* In ''[[Cars 2]]'', secret agent Finn McMissile uses a set of decoy tires to pretend that he's been torpedoed by the enemy.

* ''[[The Incredibles]]:'' Mr. Incredible hides behind the skeleton of Gazerbeam to escape Syndrome's seeker robot - the robot scans the skeleton, assumes it's him, and flies off to report his demise.

* ''[[Finding Nemo]]'': Nemo pretends to be dead in order to get flushed down the toilet and back to sea. {{spoiler|Not only does it almost not work, it happens just as Marlin arrives, leading him to think his son really is dead.}}

 

* {{spoiler|The Judge}} in [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''[[And Then There Were None]]''

* This is how Arthur Conan Doyle brought [[Sherlock Holmes]] back in "The Adventure of the Empty House" (1903) after previously attempting to permanently kill him off in "The Final Problem" (1893).

* Happens in the [[X Wing Series]] time and time again. Mostly, it's the Rogues managing to escape death and taking advantage of everyone's assumptions until they can come back triumphant, but {{spoiler|Asyr Sei'lar instead goes back to her homeworld to fight her species' [[Planet of Hats|Hat]] of political treachery}}, and then there's {{spoiler|Isard}}. The survival of the Rogues is believed by one minor Imperial character to be a fake - he believes that they really have died each time, and were replaced by clones.

** Another book in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] has a birdman who really wants to quit the criminal business and return to his homeworld, but he's fairly high up in the criminal syndicate Black Sun, and [[Resignations Not Accepted]] something like that. His underlord even hints that if he tries, his world will suffer. In the same book, Darth Vader gives a character the terrible choice of betraying his friend, one of the last surviving Jedi, or having the plateau where his people live bombed from orbit. Both of them are eventually thought to have been caught in a nuclear blast, and both of them take advantage of being thought dead.

** {{spoiler|''Not completely...'' It actually killed one of Voldemort's last horcruxes, which was in Harry, permitting his final defeat.}}

** Janus Thickey disappeared leaving only a hasty [[Oh Crap]] A Lethifold's Killing Me note. His family went into mourning until he was found living with the landlady of a local inn. It may be related that the hospital's ward for long term spell damage is named for him.

* In ''The Leper of St. Giles'' by [[Ellis Peters]], [[Brother Cadfael]] discovers that a mourned crusader is still alive, but had his Saracen captors falsely report his death from battle-wounds. In reality, the unfortunate warrior had contracted leprosy and didn't want anyone to see or pity his disfigurements.

* A tactic employed in self-defense by {{spoiler|the Count}} in ''[[A Night in the Lonesome October]]'' by [[Roger Zelazny]], to avert a potential assassination.

* In ''[[Detectives in Togas]]'', his family fakes Caius' burial. [[Artistic License History|(But the Romans cremated their dead...)]]

* In the ''[[Knight and Rogue Series]]'' Michael gets {{spoiler|Rosamund}} listed as officially dead so his father won't interfere with her love life.

 

* Numerous people in ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'', so much that fans are suspicious of those who ''are'' supposedly [[Killed Off for Real]].

* Jack shooting {{spoiler|Nina}} in season 1 of ''[[24]]'' on the demands of the terrorists, and {{spoiler|Jack himself}} at the end of season 4.

** His fake killing of {{spoiler|Nina is especially a nice touch, as she had no clue what was going on; and it was not revealed to the audience, or ''her'' for that matter, that Jack managed to slip a flack-jacket onto her. Surprisingly, she gets over it pretty quick.}}

** And she was then whisked away into WitSec, not to be seen again for five seasons. [[Les Yay|Olivia's]] expression: made of pure [[Tear Jerker]].

** The franchise has also used this ruse while [[Lying to the Perp]], as when a rapist is accused of murder so he'll ''insist'' that he'd left his victim alive. Only after he's said this on tape do the cops reveal she didn't die from her injuries after all.

* Stroker and his son do this in an episode of ''[[Stroker and Hoop]]'' to throw ninjas off their trail.

* This was done at least twice on ''[[Monk]]'', the first in Mr. Monk Meets the Psychic, where Monk and the police pretend that the suspect killed his old girlfriend in order to get him to admit that he really killed his wife. More notably, in the Season 6 finale, {{spoiler|After Monk has been accused of murder, Stottlemeyer pretends to shoot Monk to death in order to keep him under the radar while he looks for the real murderer.}}

** Along with Kaylee in the pilot, as part of a mean-spirited joke played by Mal on Simon.

** Simon and River do this in order to get into the hospital for the episode "Ariel."

* ''[[Kyle XY]]'', of all shows, recently used this: as part of a [[Batman Gambit]] to get Kyle into Cassidy's trust, {{spoiler|after having Kyle pretend to kill Jessi in self-defense for trying to kill Cassidy (it's complicated), Jessi slows her heartbeat down to two beats a minute. This is enough to fool Cassidy, who checks her pulse and declares her dead. She wakes up a few minutes after Kyle and Cassidy leave, completely unharmed.}}

* ''[[Lost]]'': Locke's father fakes his death in order to avoid the wrath of some men from whom he stole money. Locke helps, after the fact.

* The title character, in the first series of ''The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin''.

* ''[[Happy Days]]'': A two-part episode has Fonzie running afoul of a bunch of [[The Family for the Whole Family|comic gangsters]] after he discovers a stash of [[Counterfeit Cash]] inside a hearse he's repairing. He stages his own death and funeral to try and throw them off his trail.

** And {{spoiler|the Ring director (and some Mooks)}} did it to hide the fact that {{spoiler|Shaw}} had turned traitor, and also to gain some unwitting help from their enemy. This one used squibs, and they were quickly revealed to be alive.

** In the fourth season, one episode has Chuck figuring out the best way to draw out Casey's old team in order to find out more about his missing mother. {{spoiler|The plan in question? To have Casey pretend to be dead, complete with the guy in a catatonic state to add authenticity to the "funeral".}}

* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[My Name Is Earl]]''. Earl had been in a relationship with a [[Naive Everygirl]] after a hookup at a Halloween party. But, when things began to get too serious too fast, Earl faked his own death to avoid hurting her feelings. (Her current boyfriend got the idea from Earl and did it, too.) Later that episode, the woman in question faked her own death to get back at Earl for yelling at her about being an [[Extreme Doormat]]. (Thus marking the point where she becomes more assertive than ever before.)

* Lois of ''[[Lois and Clark]]'' had [[Superman]] freeze her using his superbreath as a ploy to get a villian.

* Halfway through Season Six of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', {{spoiler|Crowley}} is seemingly [[Killed Off for Real]], but a few episodes before the season finale, it's revealed that he faked his death with help from {{spoiler|Castiel}} so that he could continue his plans under the Winchesters' noses.

* Happens a few times in ''[[Airwolf]]'' Both Moffett and Hawke use a trick that involves firing the ADF missiles at just the right time to make it appear that Airwolf has been blown up. Then they activate the "whisper mode" and ambush the opposition.

* Frequently happened on ''[[Highlander (TV series)|Highlander]]'' as a result of the immortal nature of many characters.

** They get killed and their killer drops his guard, not knowing his victim will resurrect.

* In accordance with the original Doyle canon (see Literature above), this trope appears in the ''[[Sherlock]]'' episode "The Reichenbach Fall".

* For the last half of season six of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', {{spoiler|Prentiss}} was believed to be dead by the rest of the team except for {{spoiler|Hotch and JJ}}, [[Death Faked for You|who were the ones who set it up that way]].

* So ends ''[[House]]'', with the doctor allowing the world to think he died in a burning building to avoid going back to prison, and instead spend time with a dying Wilson.

 

* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: In ''[[Electra]]'', Orestes' plot to murder his mother and step-father relies on lulling them into a false sense of security by sending a messenger stating Orestes died in a chariot race. Electra is devastated by the loss until the moment her brother reveals himself.

* [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', ''[[Henry The Fourth Part 1]]'' and ''[[Much Ado About Nothing]]''.

** Note that this is not what happens in the book version of ''Wicked''. In the book, Elphaba {{spoiler|meets exactly the same end as in the original ''Wizard of Oz'' movie -- Dorothy flings a bucket of water at her, and she dies.}}

* In ''[[Angels in America]]'', Roy Cohn pulls this trick on the ghost/hallucination/whatever of Ethel Rosenberg, who happily pushes the nurse's call button?only to have Roy spring back to life and gloat at her about falling for it. Subverted {{spoiler|almost immediately, when the monitors Roy's hooked up to flatline, and he [[Killed Off for Real|dies for real]].}}

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Mafia II]]'', Henry has to kill Leo Galante to get into the Falcone crime family. Vito tries to get Leo out before Henry can whack him, but when Henry catches them and learns the facts, Leo offers to take the bullet. Vito leaves the kitchen, there's a gunshot, and Henry walks out, telling him "You owe me big for this one." Vito then drives Leo to the train station so he can leave Empire Bay.

 

* Veithel of ''[[Juathuur]]'', before the beginning of the story.

* {{spoiler|Agatha}} in ''[[Girl Genius]]''. The unusual part is that given both circumstances and the [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20050131 habits during lifetime], it may double as a bizarre form of the funeral honours to the unfortunate who became their substitute corpse. {{spoiler|Scamming the overlord of Europe into thinking she's the Heterodyne heir would be really hard to top.}}

** In Zeetha's opinion, however, this "perfect plan" [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20050207 had a flaw].

* In ''[[Beyond the Canopy]]'', Greliz and Jojo plan to do this as part of a confidence scheme. They organize a prize fight and serve as bookkeepers for the gambling. Their plan is to fake a fire before the fight ends, escape to the caves underground with all the gambled money, and then blow up the building after them—convincing all onlookers that they and the money went up in smoke.

* In ''[[Spacetrawler]]'', Dmitri uses holograms to make his attempted assassin (and the government that hired her) believe the assassination was successful.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[Gargoyles]]'' has Sevarius faking his own death as part of Xanatos' plan to turn Talon into an [[Unwitting Pawn]].

* In one episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'', Quagmire marries a woman he barely knows, realizes he made a terrible mistake, and tries to break it off. When she reveals herself to be unstable, the guys help him fake his death so as not to end up with a Fatal Attraction case on their hands.

* The second season of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' ends with [[Healing Hands|Katara]] pulling [[Kid Hero|Aang]] back from the ragged edge of death after the latter was struck down by Azula. Come the third season premiere (three weeks of unconsciousness later)...

{{quote|'''[[The Smart Guy|Sokka]]''': Yep, the whole world thinks you're dead! (''stands up and raises his arms triumphantly'') Isn't that great?!}}

** There's also Zuko at the end of the first season—he survives an assassination attempt in which his ship is completely destroyed, but he and Iroh pretend that he did die so that he can stow away on one of the ships to the North Pole and catch the Avatar there.

** What makes the scene hilarious is the [[Comedic Sociopathy]] of it all: rather than thinking to ''help'' Homer, all his co-workers think that all they have to do is say "Oh no! He's hit the rocks!" "Don't worry, those beavers will save him." "Oh no! The beavers are taking his clothes!" No one thinks to, you know, move and ''help'' him.

** Bart ''tried'' something like this, as well, but the [[Blind Without'Em]] Milhouse unintentionally shoves the real Bart off of the cliff instead of the dummy. He, of course, didn't suffer the fate of the Homer dummy.

* In ''[[Johnny Test]]'', Johnny and Dookie get overworked as their alter egos, Johnny X and Super Pooch. Ultimately, the only way to get out of the mess is to convince the town they're dead. They try once on their own, only to fail, so they get Susan and Mary to help them, disguising themselves as alien supervillains and making it look like they've vaporized the two. Susan and Mary actually seem to enjoy this...

* ''[[Top Cat]] and the Beverly Hills Cats'': When it seemed [[Big Bad|Mrs. Vandergelt's butler]] would finally get her fortune, it was revealed she had faked her death.

* {{spoiler|Rhinox/Tankor}} does this for a while in ''[[Beast Machines]]'' in order to be able to further his own agenda. {{spoiler|Too bad for him that Megatron figured it out...}}

* ''[[Superfriends]]'' episode "Dr. Pelagian's War". Dr. Ansel Hillbrand fakes his death in a deep sea diving accident to allow him to prepare for his enviroterrorist activities as Dr. Pelagian.

* Philomena, the Phoenix pet of Princess Celestia does this in an episode of [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]. Unlike most examples, Philomena is just doing it to be a jerk to Fluttershy

 

* Martin Gardner (renowned recreational mathematician - yes, it's a real job) did this to the character Dr. Matrix in his column in Scientific American. Dr. Matrix, an agent for the CIA, was disguised as an Arab named Abdul Abulbul Amir in order to assassinate a KGB agent named Ivan Skavinsky Skavar. They dueled on the shores of the Black Sea, and fired simultaneously; Ivan died instantly, but "Abdul" was only knocked out, and the CIA paid two natives to confirm his death.

* Parodied in ''[[The Spider Cliff Mysteries]]''. After surviving an explosion, Barlow suggests doing this. Crystal tells him it's a stupid idea.

* Pulled with appropriate magnificence by Dr. Blackgaard in the ''[[Adventures in Odyssey]]'' episode "A Name, Not a Number". The scene where he reveals himself to his unwitting accomplice is priceless.

{{quote|'''Blackgaard''': Actually, once I got out of the morgue, I'd never felt better in my life...}}

 

* This is an actual crime, called "pseudocide" (literally 'pretend murder').

* [http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/update_suicide_really_is_painl.php Reported by Talking Points Memo].

** Also the [[wikipedia:John Darwin disappearance case|John Darwin case]]. Found out after a Google search.

* The police sometimes use this tactic to nab suspects. In one case, a woman hired a contract killer (actually an undercover cop) to kill her husband. The police then faked his death, providing photos and "evidence" in order to fool the wife into incriminating herself.

** In Russia where political and business-related assassinations are unpleasantly common, this is a very common tactic for the local police.

* Many kinds of animals fake their own death as a last resort to protect themselves from predators. For some reason, many hunters won't eat what is already dead.

* There had been a myth saying that [[Everything Is Worse With Bears|if cornered by a Brown Bear]], a human should play dead to escape it, for bears would not eat corpses. [[Right for the Wrong Reasons|Although it works]] in [[Real Life]], as people with knowledge of the wild can tell, bears and other carnivores ''can'' and ''will'' scavenge corpses and can easily tell the difference between a still man on the ground and a dead one. The true reason behind the playing dead issue is to convince the bruin you're not a threat: if the beast sees the potential opponent stays down and does not move, will examine it for a little and then move away to more useful things like searching for food.

 

{{reflist}}