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{{trope}}
{{quote|''[[Trope Namer|"He's dead, Jim.]]''
''[[Department of Redundancy Department|He's gone and died.]]''
''[[Rule of Three|He's croaked off]].''
''[[Dropped a Bridge
|Julia Ecklar, ''"He's Dead, Jim"''}}
Characters (and meta-wise, the audience) are able to tell the instant another character has died even though such a determination can actually be quite difficult and mistakes are made even by experienced physicians (e.g. people [[Waking Up At the Morgue]]). How accurately depends on a few factors:
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* Whether the character ''being checked'' is [[Funny Animal|even]] [[Bizarre Alien Biology|human]]
Rarely is anyone ever just unconscious or [[Dude, She's Like, in
This, of course, is a reference to Leonard "Bones" McCoy's frequent (and frequently parodied) line in ''[[Star Trek]]'', although it could debatably be justified by various types of [[Applied Phlebotinum]].
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* eyes unblinking (either [[Dies Wide Open]] or [[Big Sleep]]), no response to anything that would rouse a person who was still alive
** [[Eye Lights Out]], if they had [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]]
** [[Partly Cloudy
* body, particularly the legs, stilling from struggling to survive/escape whatever was killing them
* no visible breathing or heartbeat (at least in non-supernatural situations)
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* A flower loses a petal and the petal makes a crashing sound on hitting the tabletop.
* Something important to the character whose life hangs in the balance falls to the ground, possibly breaking. They may [[Slow Motion Drop|drop it]] themselves.
* [[Partly Cloudy
Compare [[Bitter Almonds]], which is how people on TV can detect a specific cause of death.
{{deathtrope}}
{{examples}}
* ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]! The Second Raid'' uses the arm-drop with Yu Lan, one of the [[Creepy Twins]].▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
▲* ''[[Full Metal Panic]]! The Second Raid'' uses the arm-drop with Yu Lan, one of the [[Creepy Twins]].
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', when Asuma dies, one of the flowers Kurenai is watering back in Konoha falls off its stem.
** Other examples in earlier arcs include breaking pottery and the Hokage statues cracking. Among the fandom, flashbacks are also widely interpreted as very dangerous symptoms.
* In ''[[
{{quote|
* In ''[[Noir (
* Happens in ''[[
* When [[One Piece|Portgas D. Ace]] bites the big magma fist, his "vivrecard" (a paper imbued with his life force) burns to ashes.
* Subverted in ''[[Tiger and Bunny]]''. {{spoiler|Kotetsu}} is a bit miffed that the other heroes didn't even bother to check his pulse before concluding he was dead.
* Done briefly in ''Puella Magi Madoka Magica'' and later taken back when {{spoiler|Madoka throws Sayaka's soul gem away, causing Sayaka to lose control of her body until the gem was retrieved.}}
==
* Averted in of all things ''[[Star Trek
▲* Averted in of all things ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'': ''[[Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan (Film)|Wrath of Khan]]'' when {{spoiler|Spock dies}}. McCoy is present and is one of the two major characters tackling Kirk to stop him from {{spoiler|opening the radiation shield doors to reach a dying Spock}}. The original script had McCoy saying "He's Dead, Jim" but [[DeForest Kelley]] refused to say the line, knowing it would [[Narm|cause audiences to laugh instead of cry]]. It's left to Scotty to tell Kirk "He's dead already."
* [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney]]:
** In ''[[
** In ''[[The Lion King]]'' young Simba tries to rouse Mufasa with nudges and entreaties.
** In ''[[Beauty and
** In ''[[The Princess and
* In ''[[The Princess Bride (
** He was [[Only Mostly Dead]] anyways...
*** Could have been checking for rigor mortis, which a real corpse would have had by that point.
* ''[[¡Three Amigos!
* ''[[Star Wars]]'': when Vader is choking the Rebel, we see a close-up of his feet, but it's only to establish that Vader is holding him up in the air; his legs are never kicking even when he dies (well, at least we don't see it).
** The bones in his neck being crushed sorta drove the point home.
* ''[[
* ''[[I'm Gonna Git You Sucka]]''. After a man is shot multiple times, sad music starts to play. When the [[Heroes]] ask his girlfriend how he is, she says "He's dead! [[Sorry I Left the BGM On|Can't you hear the music?]]"
* In ''Carry On Up The Khyber'' a soldier appears to be dead so they pull a sheet over his face. He then sits up and goes: "That's right, suffocate me!" then dies for real.
* Rather [[Egregious]] at the end of ''[[Green Street]]'', since it's averted another time in the same film: one character gets glassed in the throat, and his mates drag him out of the fight and speed to the hospital, y'know, like you would - but another one, at the climax, gets beaten to a bloody pulp, and those very same mates stand around grieving ''while he's still breathing''. Maybe [[British Accents|the accent]] [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping|annoyed them too]].
* Used in the movie version of ''[[Clue (
* ''[[Transformers (
* The falling-and-shattering-object version was used twice--''with the same object''
* The "arm falling" version occurs in ''[[The Matrix]] Reloaded'' when the Keymaker dies. Somewhat justified in that his chest was full of Agent Smith's bullets at the time.
* In ''Dead Man Walking'', the titular dead man walking [[
* The Walden Media ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]'' film plays with this trope, as many of the lords they encounter are pretty obviously dead (skeletal remains and such). The hilarious thing is that Caspian can recognize all of them ''immediately'', even though some of them have no features left to recognize them. Either the guy ''really'' did his homework, or he ought to be the lead in ''CSI: Narnia''.
* ''[[Spider-Man (
* ''[[In Like Flint]]''. Flint can tell whether a man is dead just by holding and looking at his face briefly.
==
* [[
▲* [[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]] tends to use the "really obvious injury" method of determining death. One example:
▲{{quote| "He could still be alive," said Cohen defiantly.<br />
"He is ''dead'', Cohen. Really, really ''dead''. Alive people have more ''body''." }}
** Parodied in ''[[
** In "[[
** And then
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[
* Played with in [[
* Justified in ''[[Percy Jackson
* In ''Relentless'', the trope is subverted. Daniel tells Grant to stop freaking and grieving for the Genius Loci group because [[Appearances Are Deceiving]] and ''dead bodies do not bruise''.
==
* ''[[Star Trek:
▲* ''[[Star Trek the Original Series|Star Trek]]'' of course is the [[Trope Namer]]. And the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] is the Tricorder, which may be more accurate; but Bones didn't always use it before declaring, "[[He's Dead, Jim]]".
** On occasion, Bones ''would'' give a more detailed description, such as "his neck was broken" and "every cell in his body's been disrupted".
** ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' -
** In a ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode, while visiting a planet, Neelix bends over a native woman, who's just been struck down, and declares her dead. This may be the worst Star Trek offense. Neelix is an alien to this world, is not a physician and doesn't even have a tricorder.
*** Though he's at least native to the ''quadrant'', so he might have encountered her species before.
** Ironically, there's also two examples that are more like "I'm Dead Jim", and "You're Dead Jim", but [[Plot Armor|obviously]] both [[Unexplained Recovery|get better]] by the end of the given episode.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'', "Turn Left", The Doctor's arm hangs off the stretcher, the sonic screwdriver falling to the ground.
** In "The Big Bang", the Doctor meets a future version of himself, who plops down. The Doctor then declares him "dead", our group goes off, and the future doctor then proceeds to (off camera) wake up and fix things when no one is looking.
* ''[[
** It's worth noting that Mal knows Kaylee is fine, he's just playing a cruel joke on Simon, who's partially responsible for her shooting and has been threatened with death should she fail to recover.
** ''And'' averted it the other way around in ''[[
** A straight example in ''[[
*** Actually Simon slows down after seeing the expression on Mal's face, and then goes to check {{spoiler|Book}}. It's easy to miss as the camera focus is on Mal and Simon's just working in the background.
* The villain in the Season 2 opener for ''[[Chuck]]'' holds Sarah up by the neck. The viewer sees legs kick for a minute, and then they stop.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' applies this trope most generously:
** The overwhelming majority of Sylar victims suffer the obvious grievous injury either via Sylar's [[Signature Style]], or some other violent means.
** Claire has personally exhibited the grievous injury indicator, the glassy eyes indicator, and the no pulse/heartbeat indicator, sufficiently that she [[Waking Up At the Morgue|woke up on the autopsy table]] once, thanks to her power.
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* ''[[True Blood]]'' another which likely will use this trope liberally, has the glassy-eyed stare and/or grievous bodily injury methods so far.
* ''[[Dexter]]'' tends to use the grievous bodily injury method and the glassy eyed stare. But it also subverts the trope because the titular [[Anti-Hero]] is meticulous in his methods.
* In an episode of ''[[3rd Rock
* Subverted in the first season of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''; a vampire (a crazy one, to be sure) bashes a civilian's head against a hard metal surface and declares him dead, but he's only stunned. Also, in season three, Cordelia gets impaled by a pipe, sad music is played and we cut to a funeral. Then Buffy and Willow walk by talking about how Cordelia will be fine.
* Kai from ''[[Lexx]]'' claimed to be "good at determining the state of death. It was a required function for assassins of the Divine Order."
* ''[[
** Well, they were little piles of white dust. You would have to stretch things a bit to get one of them to be [[Only Mostly Dead|alive]].
* ''X-Files'': Though [[Agent Scully]] is a physician, she seldom tries to resuscitate any victims of the [[Monster of the Week]] even if they were conscious only seconds before.
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** This makes a little sense in the "Proving Ground" episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', when one of the rookies shoots a guard at the SGC, as the four are scared, thinking that the base has been overrun. Of course, had they checked his vitals, they would've figured out that he's only pretending, given that the whole thing is a test (all bullets have been replaced with blanks).
** It should be noted that neither SG-1 nor Sheppard's team normally travel with a medical expert. While each member has, presumably, received first aid training, this may not qualify them to declare someone dead unless it's obvious from injuries.
* The ''[[
** ''[[Torchwood: Miracle Day
*** Anybody designated Category 1 would have died before "the miracle" that has prevented people from dying when they ordinarily would have, so we have lots of people with grievous bodily injuries who ''aren't dead''
*** Captain Jack Harkness, who was, until "the miracle", temporally locked, has a flashback to his time in the 1920s during which he is repeatedly shot, stabbed, and beaten to death just to see him revive again.
==
* Chagal in ''[[Tanz
▲* Chagal in ''[[Tanz Der Vampire]]'' is rather disappointed when his beautiful victim Magda goes limp and doesn't move right after he's bitten her. Then again, he ''had'' just bitten her; if anybody'd realize instantly that she was dead, it'd be him.
== Video Games ==▼
* In ''[[Mega Man X]] 4'', after Zero accidentally killed Iris he realized she was dead after calling her name and trying to shake her back to consciousness. Sadly, the english version of this scene is [[Narm]] thanks to the bad acting.
** This scene was redubbed by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf-JE2FKD-k Zero's voiceactor from Megaman X8]. It loses its narm, but X8 Zero does a much better job with it.
* ''[[
** Another one that may or may not count is in the Lungfishopolis level. When Goga - I mean, Raz, as a [[Attack of the 50
{{quote|
'''Raz:''' Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
'''Lungfish:''' We are all prepared to die for the resistance, Goggalor. }}
** Humorously, Raz sees the dead lungfish briefly clutch at the air before going back to being dead.
*** And is about to point this out, but the other lungfish continues to talk. [[Reaction Shot|Raz's]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|face.]]
* ''[[Beyond Good
* ''[[Wing Commander (
* ''[[Halo]] 3'' used the "body goes limp" method for the death of Miranda Keyes. And Sgt. Johnson.
** To be fair, she has just been shot in the back with exploding needles while not wearing any armor. Also, the sensors in Master Chief's [[Powered Armor]] may be good enough to detect vitals.
* Subverted in ''[[Fate/stay
* If you have Elanee in your party during the scene in Jerro's Haven in [[Neverwinter Nights 2]], she can tell that {{spoiler|Shandra}} is dead from across the room. Despite the fact that this is a universe where [[Death Is Cheap]] and you should logically be able to just resurrect her.
* In ''[[The Journeyman Project]]'', once you hear a [[Flatline]]-like tone, You're Dead, Gage.
* At the end of ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'', when Big Boss drops his cigar in the cemetery.
* At the end of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
* In the intro to ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo-Tooie]]'', Banjo tells Mumbo that Bottles is not merely "unwell" at the very moment the mole's ghost can be seen (by the player, at least) departing his body.
* Sometimes averted in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' because of glitches. Normally, when you or your target die, the health bar changes from (say) "42/1337 Health" to "Dead". But sometimes a packet drops and you'll see a dead monster as alive, or yourself as dead after being resurrected. In the former case, you can't loot the corpse; in the latter case, you can't attack or cast spells.
==
* Done from at least a ''kilometre'' away in ''[[
{{quote|"Does he... does he have the X's in his eyes?"}}
▲* Done from at least a ''kilometre'' away in ''[[Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'', [[Painting the Fourth Wall|thanks to the comic's art style.]]
* ''[[Pibgorn]]'': [http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2009/09/22/ As ruses go, this is very convincing.]▼
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'': [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0316.html She's dead, Jim.]▼
▲* [[Pibgorn]] [http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2009/09/22/ As ruses go, this is very convincing.]
▲* [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0316.html She's dead, Jim.]
== Western Animation ==▼
* In ''[[Futurama]]'', one of Fry's characteristic gags (one of the few that didn't revolve around his [[The Ditz|collossal]] [[Cloudcuckoolander|stupidity]]) was announcing "He's dead," whenever the cast came across a body. ''[[Star Trek]]'', incidentally, is a frequent subject of parody and [[Shout-Out|shout outs]] on the show.
** There's also a flashback scene in one episode with Leonard Nimoy narrating how Trekkies were executed by being flung into a volcano, with the men performing the duty saying "He's dead, Jim" after each death.
** Parodied another time when Bender/Coilette had to fake his/her death in order to get out of marrying Calculon:
{{quote|
** And again when the cast was attempting to recreate the final episode of [[Show Within a Show]] "Single Female Lawyer".
{{quote|
'''Dr Zoidberg''': My god, he's dead. }}
* When Optimus dies in ''[[Transformers:
** Other than the debates if Starscream turns grey or not before crumbling to ash, no one else that dies in the movie changes color. So only important or extremely popular Transformers go monochrome apparently.
*** Actually, Prowl and Ratchet's nearly-monochrome appearance makes it hard to tell, although we do see Prowl's red head-crest fade to black as his head rears back. Ironhide is still clinging to life as the camera cuts away, just before Megatron delivers the deathblow, so he wouldn't be faded. As for Brawn, Wheeljack, and Windcharger, who are all shown still in full color, however... it's not helped through a possible animation error in "Call of the Primitives" that shows Windcharger, a definite animation error in "Carnage in C Minor" that shows Brawn alongside a miscolored Huffer and an unidentified Constructicon, and the Japanese-only sequels that show Wheeljack alive and well. (Further mucked up in that Prowl is also seen in ''The Headmasters'', despite being name-checked among the dead in "Dark Awakening"!)
** ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' shows dead Transformers grayed out as well.
** This is also shown with Hot Shot in the [[Alternate History|alternate past]] scene in ''[[Transformers Armada]]'': "Drift". Earlier, after sacrificing himself to block the Hydra Cannon blast, Optimus turns white (along with [[Eye Lights Out]]) before crumbling into dust. In the penultimate episode, Sideways also experiences [[Eye Lights Out]].
* In
== Real Life ==▼
* Averted in many jurisdictions in [[Real Life]]. Many do not allow first responders to declare someone dead [[Chunky Salsa Rule|unless it's blatantly obvious, like decapitation or decomposition]]. Otherwise, the responder has to do the standard lifesaving procedures (CPR and the like) until a certified doctor can declare the person dead.
** And even then, protocol is for the patient to have no heart beat or respiration for at least a full minute - and to be at close to or above normal body temperature. As noted, the [[Chunky Salsa Rule]] does apply.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Death Tropes]]
[[Category:Rule of Perception]]
▲[[Category:Hes Dead Jim]]
|