39,327
edits
Undeath Always Ends: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
prefix>Import Bot (Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.UndeathAlwaysEnds 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.UndeathAlwaysEnds, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 6:
[[The Undead]] are neither dead nor alive, nor do they last in that state particularly long. For whatever reason, most media showing an undead character with sentience will have said character not be undead by story's end. Sort of like Schrodinger's Zombie, they can only stay in an 'in between' state until observed in a movie.
Maybe [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|they're tired of]] [[Immortality]] and choose to end their existence or cure their undead state, or embrace it so thoroughly they confuse eternal youth with indestructibility and get cocky fighting the hero. Whatever the case, undeath does not grant one the ability to [[Staying Alive|stay alive no matter what]] ... well, undead no matter what.
Whether a vampire, lich, mummy, or rarer fare, you can rest assured that by the story's end any notable undead character will not be undead because of one of the following:
* The character accepts their death or fulfills [[Ghostly Goals|whatever duty kept them tethered]] to the world and rests in peace or ascends to the afterlife.
* The character is killed by someone else (hero, villain; doesn't matter which).
* The character, [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|unhappy]] with [[What Have I Become?|his/her undead state]], [[Driven to Suicide|commits suicide]] or convinces the heroes to slay/vanquish/exorcise him/her.
* The character kills himself or herself inadvertently.
* The character dies in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]].
Line 19:
This is an '''{{smallcaps|(Un)[[Death Trope]]}}''', so spoilers follow.
{{examples
== Anime ==
Line 85:
*** One of the oldest vampires we do see is The Master, who is apparently a few thousand years old (hence why he looks so non-human). He is powerful and seems to find a certain joy in his undeath - which seems to suggest that vampires who live past 500 are simply very rare, and not really affected by ennui. Rare because, if a Slayer is killing several vamps a night, it all adds up eventually.
**** Whedon's script notes put the Master as being a little over 600. I don't recall any reference to his actual age on screen, so I've always taken that as [[Word of God]]. Has there been anything since?
***** Nothing explicit onscreen, but in the Master's flashback appearance in the Angel episode 'Darla,' set in 1607 (almost four hundred years prior to his death, making him just a little over two hundred at the time), he already had his [[Buffy
*** Kakistos is very much implied to be much older than the Master having cloven hooves instead of feet and semi-hoof hands.
* Kai from ''[[Lexx]]'' wins a game with the [[Big Bad]] to restore him to life, but Prince goes back on his word... {{spoiler|or so we think. In the final episode of the series, he makes Kai truly alive - just so he'll lose his [[Made of Iron]] tendencies and become truly dead in the explosion when he takes out the other villains' asteroid-ship. Kai does not survive.}}
Line 100:
* ''[[The World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|The World of Darkness]]'' does this on a case-by-case basis.
** Generally, players of ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' or ''[[Vampire: The Requiem (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Requiem]]'' are going to want to keep their characters alive as long as possible, individually averting it. In the background material, few vampires are over a thousand or so years old (most of the canon characters are under 300), though this is less from ennui (the cure for that is the deathlike sleep called torpor) than from the backstabbing, predatory nature of Kindred existence.
** In ''[[Promethean: The Created (Tabletop Game)|Promethean: The Created]]'', the Created want to end their undying, unliving nature by [[Humanity Ensues|completing the Great Work and becoming human]], but frankly, [[Blessed With Suck|can you blame them?]] Even then, Mr. Verney, [[
** In ''[[Mummy the Resurrection (Tabletop Game)|Mummy the Resurrection]]'', the Undying spend time 'temporarily undead'. When they die for the first time, they're undead until they receive the Spell of Life, which returns them to true life and grants them [[Resurrective Immortality]]. Every time they die after that, their spirit spends some time in the Underworld before resurrection. It takes exceptional circumstances to finally kill them - utter annihilation or a genuine desire to die.
** The wraiths of ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion (Tabletop Game)|Wraith: The Oblivion]]'' have three options: Oblivion, and utter destruction; [[Ascend to A Higher Plane of Existence|Transcendence]], and an ambiguous fate; or remain in the Underworld. Some older wraiths have been around for thousands of years.
Line 119:
** There are also undead whose age is measured in hundreds of years, like Dalar Dawnweaver (probable founder of [[The Magocracy|Dalaran]]) and Meryl Winterstorm (founding member of the Council of Tirisfal), so it's unlikely that they'll be going away anytime soon.
*** In ''Cataclysm'', {{spoiler|Sylvanas}} decides to openly [[Defied Trope|defy]] this trope after getting killed in an ambush and experiencing [[The Nothing After Death]] that {{spoiler|Arthas}} mentioned. Once resurrected by her Val'kyr, she proclaims that she can't let herself or {{spoiler|The Forsaken}} die off.
* After being resurrected in the ''[[Shadowrun]]'' [[First
* [[Gungrave|Beyond the Grave]] is an undead protagonist, has been undead for almost twenty years (though most of that time was spent [[Sealed Badass in A Can|sleeping]]), and stays undead throughout both games. The animation ends quite differently: {{spoiler|he and Harry perform mutually-assisted suicide after realizing the flaws that led to their downfall}}.
* Anyone who is resurrected using the life crystals in ''[[The Dig]]'' is generally killed off again very quickly, from the alien wildlife (you can resurrect an alien turtle, but he'll just get eaten or explode seconds later...or if you screwed it up, he'll turn into slime) to major characters like {{spoiler|the Alien Inventor, who kills himself and seals himself inside a crystal after you're done talking to him, and Brink (as well as Maggie, if you choose to resurrect her), although Brink and Maggie's deaths are undone again at the end of the game}}.
| |||