Fighting a Shadow: Difference between revisions

So you think you're hot stuff, eh? You actually did it, you [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|punched out Cthulhu.]] You drove the [[Hit Points]] of that [[Physical God]] or [[Eldritch Abomination]] down to zero, and it [[No Body Left Behind|vanished]].

 

 

This isn't to say there wasn't some accomplishment here. At the very least, he's gone for now. In some cases this can mean peace for years. And in some...days. Better spend that time researching a way to make him [[Deader Than Dead]] or at least find a way to [[Sealed Evil in a Can|seal him in a can]] so that he can't rise again to threaten the land.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

** Evangeline uses her "Boss"-level powers to freeze and completely shatter the Demon God that was released during the Kyoto Arc, nevertheless Konoka's father and the other priests still had to reseal it; presumably it would regenerate otherwise.

** Albireo Imma uses a more or less indestructible magical projection of himself to guarantee himself a spot in the finals of the Tournament Arc. The only ways to defeat it are to dismiss the projection, or attack his physical body (which is several miles away). Nobody except Kaede (a ninja who uses similar body replication techniques) figures out what he's doing, and admits that she can't really do anything about it.

** It should be noted that ANY Vandel can use this trick, and while the shadow may be weaker, the shadow of an extremely powerful Vandel is much more than even an experienced buster can handle.

* Type one used straight and played with in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': the twelth Angel, Leliel, appears as a floating, apparently unkillable orb over Tokyo-3, disappearing and reappearing at will. {{spoiler|Turns out its "shadow" is the real angel.}}

 

== Card Games ==

* In ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' Doctor Manhattan is treated as a [[Physical God]], but towards the end of the story he's revealed outright to be one of these when {{spoiler|Ozymandias disintegrates him; he simply comes back moments later (the first thing he learned to do with his new form, as he points out) with a new body and very, very angry. "The world's smartest man means no more to me than the world's smartest termite" indeed.}}

* This happened to [[Atomic Robo]] in the Shadow from Beyond Time, where the titular creature kept coming back. Eventually, Robo meets with his fellow time displaced selves inside of the shadow and they detonate a quantum bomb that destroys the creature at all points in time simultaneously.

** Actually, it has been stated several times over the decades that this is what he's got going, not just in ''[[Final Crisis]]''. [[Grant Morrison]] is just the guy who ''remembered'' he could do this, while many other writers seem to have forgotten. As an aside, the avatars of Darkseid in previous stories seem to be more like clones than this trope, since they specifically say they are ''not'' Darkseid and often talk about him in the third person ([[Third Person Person|and not the way Darkseid usually does]]), to the point where they say they are not as great as him. Though in all other senses they are Darkseid and naturally still consider themselves superior to everyone else, and still think and act and behave like he does. The ''real'' Darkseid, for the record, was stuck on the Source Wall for millenia, and had ''never'' shown up before ''[[Final Crisis]]'' except in flashbacks to his younger, usually less powerful self.

* Nekron, as of the ''[[Blackest Night]]'' can inhabit any dead body.

* In [[Magnus]], the title character ends up battling one of these.

* Driving the HP to 0 of the Demonlord Tagazin, in the 10th Book of the ''[[Lone Wolf]]'' series "The Dungeons of Torgar" does not kill him; it just sends him home. In fact, the Remake of the series feels obliged to point out that even if you roll a [[One-Hit Kill]] with the [[Infinity+1 Sword]]; no, he's not dead. You later fight him on his home turf in a later book; where he can be destroyed permanently.

 

== Mythology and Religion ==

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Something to consider before taking on the [[Bonus Boss]] in the [[Expansion Pack]] of the second game of ''[[Baldur's Gate]]''. You can kill the avatar of Demogorgon instead of [[Sealed Evil in a Can|sealing it]]; but this will mean it will come back soon. [[Sadistic Choice|But this would also save the souls of fallen but redeemable monks...]]

** In ''[[Temple of Elemental Evil]]'', killing the Avatar of Demigod Iuz gives you a special addition to the ending where it's mentioned he did return; but the time away meant his plane is in tatters and he's afraid of your party. Also, whether one either drives the Demon Princess Zuggtmoy back to the Abyss for 66 years upon 0 [[Hit Points]] or [[Deader Than Dead|permanently destroys her]] depends on what actions you take.

*** [[Lampshaded]] (like [[Troperiffic|everything else in D&D]]) in the ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0399.html here].

** [[The Icewind Dale Trilogy|Drizzt Do'urden the iconic Dark Elf hero]] once killed such a demon, and the being scoffed at him. A [[We Are as Mayflies|human might be dead by old age]] and safely in the afterlife by the time the demon returned, but an elf has a good chance of still being around in the turn of a century or two.

** Somewhat like the example with Outsiders, the Astral Projection spell sends the targets' souls into the Astral Plane. If they travel to another plane, they form physical bodies when they arrive, but killing that body simply drives the soul back into the original body waiting in suspended animation where the spell was originally cast. To actually kill the characters, either their original bodies must be destroyed, or the nearly unbreakable silver cord connecting the body to the soul must be severed.

* The [[White Wolf]] game line ''[[Scion]]'' makes use of the Titans as enemies; here portrayed as various primordial or elemental concepts (like darkness, or fire, or fertility) existing as semi-conscious entities the size of entire dimensions. The Titans, being so alien as to not be able to interact directly with the world in any meaningful way, create various Avatars to deal with problems. [[All Myths Are True|This is how the plot explains the existence of multiple primordial titan stories from different pantheons]] (Surtr, the Norse fire giant king, and Prometheus being two titans associated with fire are actually two Avatars of the Greater Titan of Fire, Muspellheim). Suffice to say, the literal avatars of fire or light or water are extremely powerful. Also, if one successfully KILLS one (actual death, not just reforming-later-death) it irrevocably alters the nature of the concept represented by the Avatar. Killing the Frost Giant Ymir wasn't a great idea as it caused the Ice Age to instantly end and flooded most of the world.

** If you go to its roots, every daemon is effectively an avatar of its respective god, with a smite of personality depending on how strong it is (the Greater Daemons are effectively embodiments of the gods' overall personalities, but with their own sentience, while the Daemonic Beasts are effectively mindless), and can be absorbed back into the gestalt whole at a whim. So you aren't so much fighting the shadow of the daemon as the shadow of the god in millions of different avatars (which shows just how powerful the Dark Gods are, considering the strength of your average daemon). On the other hand, the Daemon Princes, who were once mortal, can considered to be this trope played straight - their bodies are comprised of warp energy and, if defeated, they are forced to return to the Warp for a few millenia while they pull themselves together enough to reconstruct their bodies.

** The C'tan Stargods can be considered a variant of this. They are immense Energy Beings that normally absorb radiation from stars and are unable to interact with physical objects. The Necrontyr gave them bodies of living metal in which they could manifest and interact with mortals. Destruction of the body does no harm for the C'tan but prevents them from doing much until they get built a new one.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', Sephiroth manages to do this in a number of ways, though he doesn't have any inherent quality of always surviving death. The first times you see him in the game (when you can't fight him, and the characters wouldn't be up to it anyway), it's actually his real body but Jenova's stuff, so killing it almost certainly would not kill him. When you finally get to him for the [[Final Boss]] fights, you have to kill two physical [[One-Winged Angel]] forms in a row. After that, he was still hanging out in [[The Lifestream]] or something and pulled Cloud in to a mental battle. Even after being defeated, he still refuses to be dispersed in the Lifestream like a normal dead person, but instead eventually (in ''Advent Children'') sends out three avatars (who are separate persons from him) to look for what's left of Jenova. When they find it, one of them uses it to transform into Sephiroth, whom Cloud kills again. After ''that'', he's presumably gone for good.

** The Sephiroth in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' is apparently a more straightforward example, an embodiment of Cloud's inner darkness who will always return after being defeated by him. Cloud's fighting his own shadow, in a way. Okay, maybe it's not that straightforward.

* Midway through ''[[Shin Megami Tensei II]]'', you fight against YHVH, aka God. Except it's not the real one, it's just a false image unconsciously created and empowered by the archangels. In the end, if you're not choosing the Lawful path, you fight the REAL one. And even if you win, He says He will not truly be defeated - as long as there are people praying to him, he will return.

** The same holds true to any demon or god in the series. Killing them doesn't stop them from showing up in any of the other games, or even later in the same game. (Often it gives you [[You Kill It, You Bought It|the right]] to [[Summon Magic|summon]] them as [[Mon]]s.]]

* Parodied by ''[[RPG World]]''. The [[Big Bad]] knows that the band of heroes is going to storm his fortress, so vacates it and leaves a Shadow of himself behind to fight them. The good guys ''know'' that it's just a Shadow, but Hero insists on defeating it anyway.

* In ''Digger'', when Shadowchild {{spoiler|meets with and eats [[Sweet Grass Voice]], this might be part of why [[Sweet Grass]] was quickly defeated}}

* The Bloodgrem from ''[[El Goonish Shive]]''. It can't be killed, only "un-summoned", and it can always be summoned again.

 

== Western Animation ==

* This is how the Avatar in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' normally works: the Avatar's existence is mostly in the spiritual world; and reincarnates into one person at a time. This trope is actually inverted when in the Avatar State; by pulling all of itself into the physical world, the current Avatar wields tremendous power, but if he should die while in the Avatar State [[Deader Than Dead|he'll have no way of reincarnating]].

* The death of anyone in ''[[Transformers]]'' who is considered to be a "multiversal singularity" is considered to be this, so don't count {{spoiler|Unicron, The Fallen, or Vector Prime}} out just yet. Mind you, it is an [[All There in the Manual]] thing and within their series, there is nothing to hint their survival - ''when shown to be completely destroyed.'' (Blow Unicron up but leave the head? He'll be back.)

** To specify, they are both extremely hard to actually ''kill'' rather than weaken, and, once you ''do'' actually kill them, it doesn't stick. They've long since learned the ins and outs of cross-multiversal existence, and periodically spend time in reverse-time universes, which basically allows them to save their e Spirit game and resume from there when a physical body kicks it, as the consciousness just jumps to the concurrent body in the reverse-time universe, which retroactively becomes their "true form", despite having been a past/future self a few minutes ago. So, essentially, they revive themselves by telling causality to ''suck it''.