# Characters Brought Back to Life
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [October 30, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322 "2023-10-30T16:50:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/1 "2023-10-30T16:50:12Z")
A companion to the thread about non-aging characters. What happens when a character is so popular they have to bring him or her back, but they’ve very definitely been killed?
Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, to his great satisfaction, but the public still wanted him. So he brought out the novel _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, which took place _before_ his precipitation into the Reichenbach Falls. But they wanted more, so Doyle , stating that fortunately “no one had pronounced on the remains”, brought him back by having him not actually be dead.
The same can’t hold true for the other participant i that wrestling match at the Falls. Professor Moriarty was “really most sincerely dead.” That didn’t stop him from showing up alive in _The Valley of Fear_. There’s no time for the events of TVoF to take place during the course of _The Final Problem_, so either Moriarty, too, escaped, or else Watson wasn’t accurate in his recounting of events.
The first character in literature I am aware of who undeniably was killed and reduced to ashes, yet came back again, was Ayesha from H. Rider Haggard’s _She_. Eighteen years after the events of _She_ he resurrected her by mystical means. She went on to appear in two more novels, but they were both flashbacks, which didn’t require her resurrection.
I’m told that Dr. Fu Manchu got killed off in one of Sax Rohmer’s books, but was resurrected, as well. Well, he had that Elixir of Life, after all.
Ygor, the twisted-necked almost-hanged shepherd from the Universal horror movies, played by Bela Lugosi, was clearly killed at the end of _Son of Frankenstein_. But he showed up alive, without explanation, in _The Ghost of Frankenstein_. I could buy the Monster being resurrected after falling into a sulfur pit – he’s a monster, after all. But Ygor, while he could survive a hanging, seemed less likely to withstand be shot at close range. Especially a shooting that would convince the monster that Ygor was dead. It’s possible that Ygor was made of sterner stuff.
The Wolfman definitely died at the end of _The Wolfman_, bbut got revived when a couple of graverobbers had the bad luck to open the tomb during a full moon. The Wolfman revived, bringing poor Larry Talbot with him.
House of Frankenstein brought back Dracula by having the stake pulled out of his skeleton – a trick used in Columbia’s _Return of the Vampire_ about the same time. Dracula dissolves under sunlight at the end of HoF, but is inexplicably back for _House of Dracula_, only to get sunlit again. At the end of the movie, Tsalbot is cured of his Lycanthropy (and of death, one assumes).
But in _Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein_ Talbot has lycanthropy again, and the twice-sunlight-immolated Dracula is back, too. All of the monsters apparently meet their ends at the movie’s conclusion, since they never re-appeared in any of the Universaal films in their old guises. Two comedians succeeded where others had failed.
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### Author:  [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/2 "2023-10-30T17:02:14Z")
Does Kenny from _South Park_ count?
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/3 "2023-10-30T17:08:08Z")
Paul Sheldon had to bring Misery Chastain back to life or Annie Wilkes would have done God-knows-what to him.
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### Author:  [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/4 "2023-10-30T17:31:35Z")
James Bond (the literary version) was killed off at the end of _From Russia With Love_.
Harold Bishop, a character in Australian soap opera _Neighbours_ disappeared (fell off a cliff?) and was brought back as a ratings-booster.
JR was brought back after _Dallas_.
Birdperson was revived as a cyborg, or something like that, in _Rick and Morty_.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/5 "2023-10-30T17:43:42Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#):
>
> James Bond (the literary version) was killed off at the end of _From Russia With Love_.
Yeah, but Sherlock Holmes, they decided it wasn’t permanent. He recovered from his bout with tetrodotoxin
Bill the Cat, of couse, got cloned and resurrected.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/6 "2023-10-30T17:48:11Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> the twice-sunlight-immolated Dracula is back, too.
Something must have been really wrong with him as you could see his reflection in a mirror.
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### Author:  [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/7 "2023-10-30T17:50:05Z")
In _Jurassic Park_ (the novel) Ian Malcolm dies. No ambiguity, he’s good an dead. Passed on. No more. Ceased to be. Expired and gone to meet his maker. A stiff. Bereft of life. Resting in peace. Pushing up daisies. His metabolic processes were history. Off the twig. Kicked the bucket. Shuffled off the mortal coil. Run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. An ex-Ian.
But in _The Lost World_ Malcom is the main character. His death is the first book is waved away, with Malcom saying something to the effect of “My death was reported, but those reports were inaccurate” or some such, and then it’s simply never mentioned again.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/8 "2023-10-30T17:55:45Z")
Suprised that no one has mentioned Jesus yet.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/9 "2023-10-30T17:56:35Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> Something must have been really wrong with him as you could see his reflection in a mirror.
I pointed this out on my webpage, complete with a photo from the film.
> **[Vampires and Mirrors](https://srichardwilkcom.wordpress.com/vampires-and-mirrors/)**
>
> The September 1964 issue (#30) of Forrest J. Ackerman’s monster-culture magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland published a list of the powers of Dracula. It was a pretty impressive and specific list…
It’s too bad, because in _House of Dracula_ three years earlier he very definitely does NOT appear in a mirror.
And that mirror had to have been DELIBERATELY placed in A&CMF – there’s really no reason for it to be there.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/10 "2023-10-30T18:10:11Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#):
>
> JR was brought back after _Dallas_.
I seldom missed an episode of _ **Dallas** _, and I don’t recall JR ever dying, much less being resurrected.
You may be thinking of his brother Bobby or their father Jock, both of whom were allegedly brought back from the dead. It didn’t work out so well with Jock, though. A lot of people thought **WTF???** when he was revealed to be an impostor.
In a slightly different example, Margaret Houlihan mentioned her late father in an early episode of _ **MASH** _, but he was brought back to life in the form of Andrew Duggan a few seasons later.
_ **MASH** _ was never big on continuity. Hawkeye went from having a mother and a sister to being motherless and an only child by the end of the series.
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### Author:  [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/11 "2023-10-30T18:10:25Z")
Dan Connor on the two _Roseanne_ shows.
Agent Coulson in the MCU (killed in _The Avengers_ but then wait no he wasn’t for the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show).
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/12 "2023-10-30T18:12:45Z")
Galahad in **The Kinsman series**. He was killed on screen in the first film and brough back through some technology magic in the sequel.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/13 "2023-10-30T18:16:30Z")
And apparently no one dies for good in the **Fast and the Furious** franchise (Letty, Han, Giselle)
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/14 "2023-10-30T18:21:15Z")
**The Simpsons** apparently killed off Dr. Marvin Monroe (as revealed by the mention of a “Dr. Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital”), but he showed up many seasons later explaining that he’d “been very sick.”
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/15 "2023-10-30T18:35:02Z")
It has been said that the only Marvel Comics character to stay dead was Peter Parker’s uncle Ben.
In David Morrell’s novel _First Blood_, Rambo dies at the end. In the Stallone movie, he survives. When they made the sequel, Morrell adapted the screenplay into a novel. He insists that it was an artistic decision. One suspects that it was a very artistic paycheck.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/16 "2023-10-30T18:41:57Z")
> **[Unexplained Recovery - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnexplainedRecovery)**
>
> This trope occurs whenever a character is last seen with a serious injury, a situation that no one could survive, or was flat-out clinically dead; and then is returned in full health with no real explanation for their recovery. And Death Is Cheap …
“I got better”
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### Author:  [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/17 "2023-10-30T19:05:55Z")
I seem to recall a number of characters in LOST who died but appeared again later, and not always in flashbacks.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/18 "2023-10-30T19:20:40Z")
Spock died, came back to life and lived to be 161 year old.
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### Author:  [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/19 "2023-10-30T19:59:04Z")
_Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker_
"Somehow, Palpatine returned. "
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/20 "2023-10-30T20:08:29Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#):
>
> Spock died, came back to life and lived to be 161 year old.
And I’ve never forgiven them! All those other movies? Dead to me! DEAD.
What’s the point of Kirk learning the lesson that we can’t cheat death forever, that our actions have consequences, that we all have to face death, just to turn around one movie later and say “oh he was only _mostly_ dead. Carry on!”
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