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{{trope}}
{{quote|Five fucking campaigns of fighting this insane elf, [[Love Makes You Evil|motivated by love]] and heartbreak [[The End of the World as We Know It|to destroy the world]] and overthrow the will of the gods to bring her husband back, because SOMEONE just HAD to hit on the elf chick.|/tg/}}
The [[Necromantic]] is a character who became a villain (or was marked as one) because they really, really want to bring a loved one [[Back From the Dead]].▼
▲The
Unfortunately, they don't live in a world where people are [[Only Mostly Dead]] and [[Death Is Cheap]]. Nope, in their world, resurrection is [[Immortality Immorality|breaking]] the [[Scale of Scientific Sins|laws of Man and God]], making their goal more of a [[Tragic Dream]] than anything else. Thus, they delve into mysteries [[These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know|Man Is Not Meant to Know]] and things [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|quickly go downhill from there]]. Often they're willing to make a [[Deal with the Devil]] or bargain to free the [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] for this. [[Love Makes You Evil]] is often involved somewhere down the line.
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Often the [[Replacement Goldfish]] is either the first step in the process or a fallback. They may become a [[Living Doll Collector]] if they keep the resulting monstrosities around as if they were fine.
Compare [[Mummies At the Dinner Table]], [[A Love to Dismember]] for when the whole "death" thing isn't that big a deal. If the resurrected keeps his or her mental faculties, it becomes a [[Resurrected Romance]]. Closely related to [[Immortality Immorality]], though that one may focus on keeping death from occurring in the first place. Not to be confused with [[I Love the Dead]].
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
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* Featured in ''[[Chrono Crusade]].'' Azmaria's foster father adopted her in the hope that he could use her [[Healing Hands|Healing]] [[Magic Music|Voice]] to bring his wife's soul back to a body he reconstructed for her after she died in [[World War I]].
* Precia Testarossa of the first season of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' was attempting to resurrect {{spoiler|her daughter. She tried creating a clone named Fate, but Fate having her own personality enraged her.}}
* Ironically subverted in ''[[Wild
* A story arc in ''[[The Slayers|Slayers NEXT]]'' features a wizard making a pact with mazoku in order to resurrect his lover. He succeeds, but she awakens in a zombie-like state [[Mercy Kill|begging to be sent back]]. Needless to say, things do not end well.
* Lucifer of the Divine Design arc of ''[[GetBackers]]''. He kidnapped and brainwashed children, played sick mind games with everyone, and seemed to enjoy doing it, but in the end it was revealed that he really just wanted to bring his daughter back from the dead.
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* Faust VIII, a [[Heel Face Turn|former villain]] from ''[[Shaman King]]'', was a perfectly ordinary, handsome, cheerful young doctor before the death of his wife in a botched robbery. Now his ultimate goal is to use his necromancy to achieve his goal of reviving his wife's spirit, using corpses (including his wife's and their dog's) as weapons.
** Although, for a sort of subversion, his goal is not seen as horribly evil as it usually would and it really isn't. It is just his mind and personality that got really crushed with her death, but that has nothing to do with his necromantic powers. The act of resurrecting someone is even called "True Necromancy". The only problem is that on his own, he's not capable of resurrecting her. He eventually {{spoiler|quits and decides to die for good to join up with her.}} At least [[Pragmatic Adaptation|in the Manga.]]
*** In the anime, if I recall properly, {{spoiler|he did get her back. But Anna resurrected her, not him.}} They were reunited in the manga too, although {{spoiler|he ends up dying to "truly be with her"}}
* In [[D.Gray-man]], the Millennium Earl gets people who are grieving for the recent death of a loved one to allow him to resurrect the dead person. Although the mourner is not the necromantic per se, the person nevertheless allows the dead loved person to be twisted into a demon-servant just so they can live again.
* This is the motivation of antagonist Fei Wong Reed in ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' and ''[[
* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', the guy who made Mewtwo was a Necromantic. In order for Giovanni to fund his efforts to clone his dead daughter, he had to make him a [[Super Soldier]] as well.
* In [[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]], the entire plot [[Mind Screw|apparently]] starts in order for Kinzo to revive his dead mistress... who also happens to be a 1000 year-old [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]. [[Kill'Em All]] ensues.▼
* After Yuki's {{spoiler|parents}} die in ''[[Future Diary]]'', he decides to win the power of God in the survival game and bring them back to life.
** It should be noted that, unlike most examples, {{spoiler|he is told this is perfectly possible, and what's more is that he also intends to bring ''everyone'' back to life, not just his parents. Well, everyone who died in Royale at least.}}
*** Oh, and {{spoiler|it turns out Dues was lying, it isn't possible to bring someone back to life, only their body. Though if you are dead set on it, you can always go back in time and try to save them.}}
* Subverted in ''[[One Piece]]'' with Doctor Hogback. After going through something of a motive rant that looks like he's using this as an excuse for his start of darkness, he reveals he doesn't actually ''care'' about Cindry's personality and just liked her pretty face anyway. He prefers her in her new zombie form, completely subservient to his every command.
* Though not for the same romantic overtones, Mikado of ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' was hinted at wanting the Power of the Gods to bring back the daughter he loved. {{spoiler|except that, when he'd first made the attempt, she was alive.}}
==
* One of the ultimate goals of comic book [[Super Villain]] [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Dr. Doom]], along with the destruction of nemesis Reed Richards and the conquest of Earth, was the resurrection of his beloved mother (or at least, saving her from hell). Ultimately, he was able to do so, but only by forcing his mother to renounce her love for him. No wonder he's always so pissed.
* Cicada from ''[[The Flash]]'' was killing people the titular hero had saved to gather enough energy to bring his wife (whom he had murdered, only to feel remorse) back from death.
* Mr. Freeze's attempts to bring his wife back from the dead succeeded when he put her in a Lazarus Pit... Until she [[Came Back Wrong]] with eternal pain, insanity, and fire-manipulation powers. Now, she is Lazera, constantly hating Freeze for bringing her back.
* When ''[[X-Men]]'' villain [[Psychic Powers|Quentin Quire]] came back to life the first time, the first and only thing he did was dig up the body of his crush, Sophie Cuckoo, and seek out the Phoenix to bring her back as well. She woke up, took one look at him, and immediately dropped dead again out of spite, while her sisters telepathically mocked him.
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* Gillian's insistence on trying to resurrect her accidentally-poisoned boyfriend in the 1998 film ''[[Practical Magic]]'' is the catalyst for a ''lot'' of later trouble for both her and her sister Sally.
** Of course, this is less about wanting her beloved back and more about trying to avoid a murder charge; Sally accidentally killed him by giving him a dose of belladonna to keep him from trying to kill Gillian.
* The plot of ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy
** For the simple fact that he didn't die and go to the afterlife like her, he was cursed with undeath. Meaning his soul remained in that dried-up piece of jerky that passed for a body, bound to protect the Book of the Dead. Which those foolish Americans stole. Also, he was eaten alive by scarabs. You try to rest in peace with that going on.
* The trope is touched upon in the 1994 adaptation of ''Frankenstein''. Frankenstein resurrects his dead bride, to horrific effect, as she is a stumbling, barely-aware reanimated corpse.
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* [[Elric of Melnibone]], in the novels of [[Michael Moorcock]], makes a pact with Arioch, Lord of Chaos, and accepts "control" of the runeblade Stormbringer in order to win back his lover Cymoril, who had been kidnapped and ensorcelled by his cousin and rival Yyrkoon. Ironically enough, the fact that Stormbringer is an [[Artifact of Doom|evil soul-devouring demon-blade with a mind of its own]] means that he ends up {{spoiler|killing her with it against his will}}.
* In "[[The Monkey's Paw]]" (by W. W. Jacobs) a series of [[Literal Genie]] moments culminate with the protagonist's child being wished back from the dead after an earlier wish (for a sum of cash) resulted in his death (for which the parents received the exact sum wished for as an insurance payout). The mom is in denial that that their son may [[Come Back Wrong]], but the dad is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to use the last wish to put him back in his grave before he even makes it back to the house.
** An episode of Buffy did same thing essentially, with Dawn trying to bring Joyce back after she died. Buffy gets to Dawn moments too late, the ritual complete, and argues with her to undo the spell before it's too late and someone gets hurt. Their argument reveals how much Buffy was hurting too (she had been putting on a brave face for her sister's sake) and the two end up switching positions on the matter: Buffy is in tears and rushes to the door hopefully when the unseen "Joyce Thing" knocks, but Dawn undoes the spell at the last second and nobody is there when Buffy opens the door.▼
* In [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Pet Sematary]]'', the protagonist tries to bring his cat, then his son, and finally his wife back to life by burying them in the titular cemetery. [[Too Dumb to Live|Some people simply do not learn]]. The point is that it really works, [[Came Back Wrong|but the resurrected are changed, and not for the better]]. Sometimes, dead is better.
* Dr. Mordenheim, the Frankenstein [[Expy]] in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' novel of the same name. Despite the fact he lives in a ''[[Dungeons
** Given that resurrection magic in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' novels has a high probability of the intended resurrectee [[Came Back Wrong|Coming Back Wrong]], can you really blame the guy for not trusting it? In addition, before he was brought to Ravenloft, he lived in a world where magic was largely unknown and was replaced by technology.
* An interesting twist occurs in the Edgar Allen Poe story ''Ligeia,'' in which a morose nobleman is pining over the loss of his first wife. {{spoiler|The twist is that he does nothing, while the spirit of his first wife poisons and takes over the body of his still-living ''second'' wife.}}
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* ''The Last Incantation'' by [[Clark Ashton Smith]] plays with this: the ancient necromancer ''thinks'' the lover he resurrected was brought back wrong somehow, as she's somehow less beautiful than he remembers, but as it turns out, the spell went off without a hitch. ''He'' has just grown too old and twisted to love her the way he did when he was young.
** There's also ''The Chain of Aforgomon''. Calaspa ''could'' have had his beloved's body reanimated or her spirit called back by magic easily enough...but that wasn't good enough, was it? He just ''had'' to actually ''turn back time'' for an hour to when she was still alive...yeah. [[Captain Obvious|That didn't end so well.]]
* Okay, bear with me. Can [[Heterosexual Life Partners]] count? I'll grant you, Necroplatonic hasn't got the same ring to it. And are you sitting comfortably? But, anyway, in the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novel [[Eighth Doctor Adventures|''Interference'']], {{spoiler|
* In ''Johannes Cabal: Necromancer'', {{spoiler|this is the primary motivation of the title character}}.
* Hurwood's attempts to bring back his dead wife with voodoo magic kicks off the plot of [[Tim Powers]]' ''[[On Stranger Tides]]''.
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* {{spoiler|Karl Kreutzfeld}} in ''[[The Lost Room]]'' wasn't out to destroy the world and didn't think it would actually happen as a result of his plan. Nevertheless, he might have unmade all of reality in his attempt {{spoiler|to bring back his dead son}} had not the protagonist intervened.
* Done repeatedly in (wait for it) ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', such as the would-be Dr Frankenstein who rebuilds his dead older brother, only to have him demand a mate.
▲**
* Shows up in a season 2 episode of ''[[Supernatural]]'' by way of an ancient Greek resurrection spell.
* In [[The Film of the Book|the short lived TV show]] based on ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', Bob was once a human wizard. He was cursed with existing as a spirit entity residing in his own skull because he brought back his dead wife.
* The main character of ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' disconnected himself from normal social interaction partly for fear of becoming this trope - he was worried that if someone he loved were to die, he would, in his grief, bring them back at the cost of [[Equivalent Exchange|taking someone else's life]], so he largely avoided forming relationships for most of his life.
** Nevertheless, it's happened more than once- as a child, Ned brought back his mother, and the cost of the father of Chuck, his true love. Years later, when Chuck was murdered, Ned brought her back, knowing, and accepting, someone would die in her place. Then, {{spoiler|Chuck tricks Ned into bringing back her father permanently.}}
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* This is a fairly common theme in Native American legends, though it is generally the hero doing it. (Still never seems to work out well, though.) Expect [[An Aesop]] about how we're supposed to accept death, mourn, then move on.
* In [[Egyptian Mythology]] Isis tries unsuccessfully to bring her husband Osiris back to life, but fails to because his brother Set rips his dead body apart and a fish eats the penis. Isis is by no means a villain though.
* In the Armenian folktale of ''Ara the Handsome'', Ara is the king of Armenia and the most handsome man in the land. The Queen of Assyria, Semiramis, hears about how handsome he is and asks him to marry her, but he refuses because he already has a wife. Angry, Semiramis declares war on Armenia and orders her soldiers to bring Ara back alive. However, Ara dies in battle. Semiramis attempts to resurrect him by calling upon wolf spirits to lick his wounds and heal him, but the sorcery is unsuccessful.
== Tabletop Games ==
* Many [[RPG
* [[Mad Scientist|Dr. Darius Hellstromme]] from ''[[Deadlands]]''.
== Theatre ==
* A cast of TSR employees at GenCon 1999 performed a ''[[Ravenloft]]''-themed dialogue skit, "One Piece At A Time", that employed this trope. A female [[Mad Scientist]] attempted to resurrect her dead fiancee by keeping his [[Brain In a Jar|disembodied head alive]], murdering people, and surgically reassembling him from their salvaged body parts. Being a ''Ravenloft'' story, [[It Got Worse]].
== Toys ==
* The storyline for ''[[Transformers Generation 1|Transformers:]] [[Kiss Players]]'' feat--[[Lolicon|no, wait!]] [[Squick|Come]] [[Canon
== Videogames ==
* The ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' series uses this trope in just about every game, thanks to the recurring plot element known as the Emigre Manuscript, a book with instructions for raising the dead.
** The main plot of the first game, ''[[Koudelka]]'', revolved around the game's villain trying to resurrect a loved one. It does not turn out well.
** Jack in ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' was trying to resurrect his mother... and conducted experiments on orphans to work out how. The end result: a vicious monster with her face, which killed him. In many ways his section of the game is a [[Shout-Out]] to ''Koudelka''.
** The ''hero'' tries this in ''Shadow Hearts: Covenant'', despite being well aware of the above two examples. The best thing you can say about the result is that it doesn't try to kill him at least.
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* The {{spoiler|Second Chapter}} of ''[[La Pucelle]]: Tactics'' involves {{spoiler|A man turned monster who is that he can bring his dead wife if he finds a heart just like hers... by ripping out those of the living}}.
* This is the protagonist's motivation for slaying the Colossi in ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]''. In the process, he {{spoiler|nearly unleashes a surprisingly honest ancient evil being on the world in a [[Deal with the Devil]] (said "Devil" more or less keeps his word, and even warned the protagonist of the consequences several times), and is turned into an infant.}}
** ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]'' is pretty gray, really. Dormin (the aforementioned {{spoiler|ancient evil}}) is really more bitter then actually evil, whereas {{spoiler|the knights who reseal him at the end are implied to have caused this whole mess in the first place by killing the woman the protagonist spends the game trying to resurrect}}.
* ''[[Fire Emblem]]: The Sacred Stones'' has two, {{spoiler|Lyon and Orson}}. {{spoiler|Lyon}} becomes possessed by [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] when he attempts to use said can to revive his late father, who is revived as a soulless zombie. He promises {{spoiler|Orson}} that he'll revive his wife if he does a [[Face Heel Turn]]. By the time he gets his "wife" back, he's too crazy to [[Mummies At the Dinner Table|notice she's just a reanimated corpse.]]
* {{spoiler|Mithos Yggdrasil}} from ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' spent '''four thousand years''' trying to revive {{spoiler|his dead sister Martel. He succeeded. Only to have her reject his actions for the past four millennia and be sent back to the dead five minutes later. He didn't take that well.}}
** At the end of the sequel, ''[[Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World]]'', Richter {{spoiler|tries to bring his old friend Aster back from the dead by making a deal with the demons of Niflheim.}}
** The tradition continued in ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]''. {{spoiler|As a child, Jade accidentally killed his beloved schoolteacher, Professor Nebilim. He tried to revive her by making a perfect copy of her body, but the Replica Nebilim ended up as [[Came Back Wrong|an insane, bloodthirsty monster]].}} Subverted in that this particular Necromantic is a ''good'' guy, even if his loyalty to the party can be ambiguous sometimes. {{spoiler|[[Mad Scientist|Dist]], on the other hand...}}
* Fairly early in ''[[Bullet Witch]]'', you discover that the events leading up to the
* Lezard Valeth of ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' is one of the more demented villains out there even before he discovers that valkyries are only active when the humans serving as their [[Soul Jar]] are killed. So he kills a few dozen female humans and elves to make homunculi for Lenneth Valkyrie to be incarnated into (it's never made clear how many, but at least a dozen homunculi are shown, and it's suggested it takes a few of both species to make just one), all so he can woo her. [[Karma Houdini|By the end of the game, he gets away with it, too.]]
** This comes up a bit differently in the prequel, ''[[Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria]]''. In this one, {{spoiler|a [[Timey-Wimey Ball|time-travelling]] Lezard, who had abandoned his body by the end of the first game, reincarnates ''himself'' to attempt a [[Xanatos Roulette]] to get Lenneth to travel back in time and basically attempt the same thing again.}} This time, though, [[Smug Snake|the perpetrator gets his comeuppance]].
* This happens in one of the endings to ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'' to {{spoiler|James, who, throughout, the game gathers several artifacts as part of a ritual to return his wife, Mary, back to life.}}
** The antagonist to [[Silent Hill 4]] isn't so much attempting to resurrect a loved one, as {{spoiler|transform an apartment into what he thinks of as his mother}}.
* ''[[Fable]] 2''<nowiki></nowiki>'s [[Big Bad]], Lord Lucien, begins researching the Spire to bring back his dead wife and daughter, but over the ten-year time skip after the introduction, he becomes much more power-hungry. The game also features a side-quest where a man is tracking down the body parts of Lady Grey (from the last Fable game) in order to resurrect her because he's fallen in love with her.
* In the [[Lego Battles]] game for Nintendo DS, one of the story modes involves playing as an Evil Wizard in control of an army of [[Dem Bones|skeletal mooks]]... who turns out to be just after the pieces to a magic staff that can resurrect his dead girlfriend. In a partial subversion, he actually manages it at the end, although she [[Came Back Wrong]] repeatedly, including coming back as a crab, a robot and an angry pirate.
* This is the main motivation of {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]], Infel}}, in ''[[Ar tonelico]] II: Melody of Metafalica''. Unusually, it's [[Resurrected Romance|a total success]], but the whole experience is taken as proof that [[Humans Are
** Success? What success? {{spoiler|Nenesha is [[Deader Than Dead]] because you shattered the blue crystal thingie in the [[Final Battle]].}}
* This is the reason why the Dark Presence takes on Barbara Jagger's form in [[Alan Wake]], coupled with a case of [[Came Back Wrong]]. Partially subverted as Thomas Zane wasn't evil.
* Played with in ''[[Touhou]] 7''. The goal of [[Cute Ghost Girl|Yuyuko]] [[The Necromancer|Saigyouji]] is to resurrect the one sealed under Saigyou Ayakashi, believing that it's someone dear to her. {{spoiler|[[Identity Amnesia|It's actually her very own self, and she briefly resurrected]]}}. However, the one who enabled Yuyuko to pull her [[Spring Is Late|crazy scheme]] was Yukari, to bring back Yuyuko's memory of her. Neither Yuyuko nor Yukari got away unscathed.
* ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' has a [[Serial Killer]] with this fixation. {{spoiler|Hawke's mother is his final victim.}}
* [[Tactics Ogre|Nybbas "Love is eternal" Obderhode.]]
* Lady Vayle, the Necromantress of ''[[Dragon Fable]]'' and ''[[Adventure Quest Worlds]]'', was into necromancy to try to bring her brother [[Back
* Rue (a heroic example) in ''[[Threads of Fate]]'' spends his path looking for a legendary artifact which may have the power to bring his dead guardian back to life. In his route, {{spoiler|he succeeds with ''no'' negative effects}}.
* In the iOs game ''[[
* [[Shout-Out]]: ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines|VTMB]]'' has a quest named
* Malistaire, the former teacher of the death school, from ''[[Wizard 101]]'' plays this to a T. After his wife dies he [[Jumping Off The Slippery|leaps off the slope]]. Even when the ghost of his wife begs him to let her go, he believes she's just an illusion. He also takes the nice step of that his way of resurrecting her has the side effect possible side effect of [[The End of the World as We Know It|destroying world]]. {{spoiler|After he dies he apologizes to her and the two of them go to rest in peace together.}}
== Visual Novels ==
* Josef Capek's loved one in ''[[Shikkoku no Sharnoth]]'' died during a seance and he's trying to bring her back to life with magic.
▲* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'', the entire plot [[Mind Screw|apparently]] starts in order for Kinzo to revive his dead mistress... who also happens to be a 1000 year-old [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]. [[Kill'Em All]] ensues.
== Western Animation ==
* Let's not forget Mr. Freeze from ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|B:TAS
** And revenge on a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] for pulling the plug on his first attempt.
* The archaeologist in ''[[Gargoyles]]'' who imprisoned Anubis to get his son back. He learned his lesson after that. {{spoiler|They were reunited. In the afterlife.}}
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* In ''[[Jack (webcomic)|Jack]]'', this happened the first part of the arc ''[http://www.pholph.com/whole_arc_viewer.php?id=5&sid=1316 Two for You]'', though the male protagonist isn't shown as being especially evil for doing it.
* In ''[[Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden]]'', {{spoiler|Donatello}} fits this role as he {{spoiler|performs unpleasant experiments in hopes of bringing Splinter back to life.}}
* Trace's backstory in ''[[
== Real Life ==
* In a bizarre real-life instance of this, in 1930 [[w:Carl Tanzler|Carl Tanzler]] (AKA Count Carl von Kossel, among other names)
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Undead Index]]
[[Category:Villains]]
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