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Interrogating the Dead (view source)

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== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Baccano (Light Novel)|Baccano]]!'', [[Ax Crazy|Ladd]] laments the fact that he can't do this to a dead comrade.
{{quote| '''Ladd:''' [[Chewing the Scenery|You poor faceless bastard!]]}}
 
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== Films -- Animation ==
* [[Sinestro]] does this in ''[[Green Lantern: First Flight (Animation)|Green Lantern First Flight]]'', reanimating a crook he executed to question him on the location of the Yellow Element.
{{quote| '''Crook:''' Where...<br />
'''Sinestro:''' You're in the morgue. You're dead.<br />
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== Films -- Live-Action ==
* ''[[G.I. Joe: theThe Rise of Cobra (Film)|G.I. Joe the Rise of Cobra]]'': Breaker stabs two needles in the sides of an dead assailant's head claiming that he can scan the mind for about three minutes after death. The guy is eaten by nanomachines before he can reveal anything more than a single image.
* ''Film/Hellboy''
** In the first movie, Hellboy dugs up corpse Ivan and reanimate him to have a guide in the Russian cemetary.
** In ''Hellboy II: The Golden Army'', Dr. Krauss uses his magic gas stuff to briefly reanimate one of the Tooth Fairies for interrogation.
* ''[[The Princess Bride (Filmfilm)|The Princess Bride]]''. Miracle Max uses a bellows to allow a mostly dead Westley to reveal that his motivation for living is "true love".
* A shinto priest allows the victim to speak through him by magic and give his version of the murder in ''[[Rashomon]]''.
* In ''[[The Sixth6th Day]]'', the mind scan used to imprint clones with their donors memories also works on corpses for a few hours after death. As well as imprinting clones, the recordings can also be reviewed via computer, seeing through the eyes of the donor.
* In ''[[Dark Star]]'', dead and cryogenically frozen Commander Powell can still be asked for advice.
 
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== Literature ==
* ''Journeyman Wizard'' by Mary Frances Zambrano has the heroes perform a Questing (the magical version of this), only to bring back the deceased's vengeful ghost instead.
* Played for laughs in a ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'' story, "Theatre of Cruelty", in which it's mentioned that the existence of [[Our Zombies Are Different|zombies]] mean that the victims are sometimes the key witnesses in their own murder.
* In the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] novels, Technomages have developed a technique to extract memories from dead brains with nanotechnology. [[Nausea Fuel|It's not pretty.]]
* ''Heretics of [[Dune]]'': An Ixian Probe can scan the mind of a recently dead person. Taking the drug "shere" will prevent a probe from working long enough for the brain cells to die and become unreadable.
* ''[[Necroscope]]'': Harry Keogh can converse with murder victims due to his clairvoyance. There are also various vampire necromancers that bind souls to corpses so they can torture the truth out of them.
* Strange does this with some enemy soldiers in the Napoleonic War chapters of ''[[Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell]]''.
* ''Speaking with the Dead'' by Elaine Cunningham (''[[Forgotten Realms (Tabletop Game)|Realms of Mystery]]'' anthology), [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|as one can guess]] is about this with a "little" twist.
* In the novel [[Eisenhorn|Xenos]], Inquisitor Eisenhorn and Commodus Voke attempt to interrogate the high level psyker they kill. The psyker turns the interrogation into a portal to the [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|warp]], sending multiple daemons to attack the gathered Inquisitors.
* This is, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the key tricks of [[Johannes CabaltheCabal the Necromancer]], later to be [[Johannes Cabal the Detective]].
* In the ''[[Nightside]]'' series, Walker [[Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?|gets pretty sick and tired]] of people reminiscing about the time he invoked this trope, using his Voice to question a dead body.
* There are various ways to do this in ''[[The Dresden Files (Literature)|The Dresden Files]]'', most of them against strictly-enforced rules. Rules enforced with pointy objects and angry wizards. Molly does one of the legitimate ones, on what turned out to be the victim of a succubus. Awkwardness ensued for the watchers. Most of those other ways tend to involve Necromancy, and invite Wardens to come and behead people.
* The so-called "mechanical educators" in [[EEE. E. "Doc" Smith]]'s [[Skylark]] series can be used to read dead minds, as long as they're relatively intact and haven't been dead for more than a few hours.
* The first chapter of ''[[Greg Egan]]'''s Distress features police with a technology that briefly brings back people from the dead, used to aid in solving murders.
 
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== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'': Ned can revive the dead by touching them once. Touching them a second time kills them again. He uses this to glean information from murder victims to help the team start their investigation.
* ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' occasionally has the Torchwood team use a gauntlet that can revive the dead for about a minute to aid the investigation. It's a piece of [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]] they acquired before the series begins and they don't have the first clue how it actually works.
* ''[[Fringe]]''
** Walter Bishop has developed a technique to extract information from a corpse, provided the body has been dead for less than five hours. It is implied that William Bell is capable of doing this as well.
** ''Fringe'' likes this trope. As well as providing the page quote, they have used the aforementioned technology to interrogate two people, sent the protagonist into a dreamstate to interrogate the mental ghost of her partner formed after a telepathic conversation, ''and'' used the "[[Eye Remember|the eyes store the last thing you see]]" version.
* In ''[[Mad TV]]'' there is a skit that parodies ''[[CSI (TV)|CSI]]''. The victim, who was clearly murdered by the knife sticking out of his back, is straddled by the lead investigator, grabbed by his collar, and shaken while the lead investigator says, "HOW DID YOU DIE?"
* Miles on ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'' can detect a dead person's last thought and determine how the person died, as long as he is near the body.
* ''[[Charmed (TV)|Charmed]]''
** One episode features an evil spirit that possesses one of the sisters after killing its previous host. The demon who was pursuing the spirit finds the previous host's body later in the episode and uses his powers to momentarily ressurect said host in order to learn the identity of the spirit's new host. Once he has the desired information, the dead previous host is unceremoniously re-killed.
{{quote| '''Host:''' ''(notices the knife sticking out of his chest)'' How am I still alive?<br />
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' has the third-level clerical spell ''[http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/speakWithDead.htm Speak with Dead]''. Although it actually draws information from an "imprint" left on the body rather than truly bringing them back to life. It allows you to ask one question of the dead person per two caster levels (up to 10 for a max-level cleric).
* Certain [[Vampire: The Requiem (Tabletop Game)|Discipline]]/[[Mage: The Awakening (Tabletop Game)|Spell]]/[[Geist: The Sin Eaters (Tabletop Game)|Manifestation]]/what-have-you in ''[[New World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|New World of Darkness]]'' are designed around this trope. This is generally the domain of the Sin-Eaters, though.
* ''[[Exalted (Tabletop Game)|Exalted]]'' has several ways of doing this, most of them involving summoning up ghosts. One notable thaumaturgic ritual requires you to remove the flesh from the skull, use bronze wire to fix the jaw in place and [[Squick|ritualistically make out with it]] for a few minutes before you can interrogate it.
* Wereravens in ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Tabletop Game)|Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' have the unique ability to absorb the last sight of the dead by [[Squick|eating their eyeballs]]. Among other uses, it lets them find out what killed the poor sap. Allegedly, this is an acquired taste.
 
 
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* There's a scene in ''[[Zork Nemesis]]'' where you have to cut the head off a corpse, then mount it on a machine so you can ask it questions.
* In ''[[Video Game]]/Arcanum|[[Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura]]'', you can summon spirits of dead people. Some will have side-quest-relevant info, but most will only complain about the pain (which, as you discover later, is main-plot-relevant!).
* The Nameless One from ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' can do this once he learns the Stories-Bones-Tell ability.
* The party ends up assisting a Necromancer in interrogating a dead goblin early in ''Icewind Dale II'', garbling information about an incoming attack. Unfortunately, you're always [[Take Your Time|just too slow]] to do any good with the information.
* Done with magic crystals in ''[[Pathways Intointo Darkness]]''.
* The ''[[Constantine (Film)|Constantine]]'' videogame has a mission in which John uses necromancy to learn about the final moments of a murdered angel.
* ''[[Trouble in Terrorist Town]]'' has gathering information from corpses as a major part of its gameplay and the main way to find out who's the traitor. They provide the living innocents who died, what weapon was used to kill them, how long since they died, [[Eye Remember|the last person they saw]], what their last words were, and anybody they killed.
* A subplot in ''[[Diablo III]]'' involves you contacting a the spirit of a long-dead mage for information. {{spoiler|But he refuses to answer your questions unless you help bring him back to life.}}
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== Visual Novels ==
* ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)|Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]]''
** The arrest of Yanni Yogi is based on testimony from a spirit medium channeling the murder victim.
** And in the third game, you get to cross-examine a ghost using the same method.
* Atsuki Saijo of ''[[Lux -Pain]]'' can read thoughts, and though quite risky, this includes the last thoughts of a deceased person.
 
 
== Web Comics ==
* Kore the dwarven paladin use Speak with Dead in ''[[Goblins (Webcomic)|Goblins]]'' on the dead goblin fortuneteller Young-and-Beautiful.
* ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|The Order of the Stick]]'':
** Parodied when Xykon needs the help of a dead goblin to find his keys.
** Played straighter later, when Durkon casts Speak with Dead on a deceased {{spoiler|Draketooth clan member}}. The end result is still humor at the Order's expense, since a dead brain takes the questions very literally.
* It also shows up in ''[[Casey and Andy (Webcomic)|Casey and Andy]]'' while they are visiting a fairly ''D&D''-ish world, but the target turns out to have a special "Zealot" prestige-class that enable him to resist the post-mortem interrogation.
{{quote| '''Zealot:''' [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Bite... my... ass...]]}}
 
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