# Characters Brought Back to Life **URL:** \ **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:** 3
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/41 "2023-10-31T02:28:56Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Phoenix Rising-The Many Deaths of Days of Our Lives Stefano DiMera](https://soaphub.com/days-of-our-lives/phoenix-rising-the-many-deaths-of-days-livesstefano-dimera/) Coming back from the dead is an in-joke on _Days of Our Lives_. Characters often comment that it’s just normal in Salem, especially when they have to explain this to a newcomer. Pretty much every major character has “died” at least once. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/42 "2023-10-31T02:33:49Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > McCoy in “Shore Leave.” > Scotty in “The Changeling.” > Chekov in “Spectre of the Gun.” Don’t forget Shaxs, who is brought back with no explanation; which is the entire point. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > doesn’t pretty much the entire stable of DC heroes meet this test Are Martha and Thomas Wayne the DC version of the Uncle Ben rule? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/43 "2023-10-31T04:16:51Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Dying and coming back to life is a necessary attribute of serving on the Enterprise. Every single time they use a transporter… ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/44 "2023-10-31T07:26:21Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > > [@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. I must admit, I don’t know it first hand, it was just something I thought I’d heard referenced elsewhere, and then a quick search said it was implied JR shot himself at the end of _Dallas_ but then they brought him back in another series? ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/45 "2023-10-31T07:32:45Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > 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. Don’t forget Henry Wu and John Hammond - also killed in the novel but granted a stay of execution in the film series (Hammond in _The Lost World_ and Wu in _Jurassic World_ . Although if memory serves, Hammond is still stated as dead in the sequel novel? Funnily enough, the lawyer Genarro and the gamekeeper Muldoon suffer exactly the opposite fate. They live in the novel but are disposed of in the film. PS I can’t believe I forgot Spock! ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/46 "2023-10-31T08:59:56Z")
I always wondered if the film had been more true to the book and killed Malcolm if the plot of the Lost World would have had Allen and Ellie doing research at the titular island, would have made a lot more sense. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/47 "2023-10-31T09:10:15Z")
In terms of characters being brought back that actually creates MASSIVE plot problems. Police Captain Albert Wesker in the Resident Evil games. In Resident Evil 1 he’s revealed to be actually a mole planted in the police force by the evil Umbrella organization, and his purpose was to lead the S.T.A.R.S. team to fight Umbrellas secret weapon, the Tyrant monster to see if it would actually stand-up against well armed opponents. Unfortunately for Wesker he gets killed by his own creation and died in the very first game unfought. By the 4th game Capcom realized the character was just too cool to die like a chump in the first game, so they bring him back in Code Veronica but explain his sudden appearance by saying his death was actually intentional, and dying activated some previously unknown and unmentionable super zombie virus that allows you to to run fast, dodge bullets, and have super strength. The problem this immediately brings up and still hasn’t been answered is, why did Umbrella waste all their time making the Tyrant program if they already had this super soldier serum? Wesker is literally the most powerful person in the entire game series, and he had access to whatever gives him these powers well before the story started? It makes everything from the Tyrants to Mr. X to the Nemesis project completely moot. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/48 "2023-10-31T09:59:06Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I always wondered if the film had been more true to the book and killed Malcolm if the plot of the Lost World would have had Allen and Ellie doing research at the titular island, would have made a lot more sense. The second novel was a big letdown after the first, and the first film. I own a first edition of it from when it was released as I loved the first so much, I thought it might be worth something these days but apparently not. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/49 "2023-10-31T11:44:12Z")
I should clarify that I’m looking for cases where a character was so popular that the author or other creators had to bring them back, even though the character had been undeniably killed, which is usually a bar against such revivals, Thus Ayesha, and arguably Holmes, and many of the cases listed here. But Jon Snow’s death was a foreseen part of the Song of Ice and Fire. The multiple deaths in Star Trek:TOS were not intended to get rid of a character that they felt they had to bring back to popular acclaim. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/50 "2023-10-31T11:54:10Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > What happens when a character is so popular they have to bring him or her back, but they’ve very definitely been killed? Well, fans don’t care. If you’ve taken away one my favs, bring him back! I don’t care how flimsy the explanation may be! LOL ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/51 "2023-10-31T11:56:51Z")
In the original Elmore Leonard story Fire in the Hole, and in the Justified pilot based on it as originally filmed, Givens shoots and kills Boyd Crowder. Happily, they realised that a show that had not only Walter Goggins, but Walter Goggins and Timothy Olyphant facing off against each other, was infinitely better than a show which had neither of these things. So a hastily filmed end scene showed a living Boyd being put in an ambulance, and Givens being mildly rebuked for not shooting to kill. This is writer/producer led rather than fan-led, but otherwise fits the “I don’t care, I like him, bring him back” ethos. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/52 "2023-10-31T14:22:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I should clarify that I’m looking for cases where a character was so popular that the author or other creators had to bring them back, even though the character had been undeniably killed In the original pilot of ER, the character of Carol Hathaway (played by Julianna Margulies) died of suicide. Test audiences HATED that for her, nurses complained that it presented nurses in a bad light, and advertisers thought the relationship between her and Doug Ross was critical to the success of the series. Producers decided that she should recover from the attempt and Margulies was signed for the series. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/53 "2023-10-31T17:00:24Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > > [@terentii](#): > > > > > [@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. > > I must admit, I don’t know it first hand, it was just something I thought I’d heard referenced elsewhere, and then a quick search said it was implied JR shot himself at the end of _Dallas_ but then they brought him back in another series? Right. He supposedly shot himself at the end of the last show of the series (the Devil made him do it, literally), but we didn’t see it happen—we only heard the gun being fired. Freeze frame, cut to black. So the question of whether he survived was left open until the reboot a few years back. I have to admit, though, that Larry Hagman (and most of the aged members of the original cast) looked like death warmed over in the reboot. I wasn’t at all surprised when he died in the show and in real life shortly after it debuted. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/54 "2023-10-31T19:37:20Z")
Every last trace of Dalek DNA in the entire **multi** verse was destroyed in “Journey’s End”; but the Daleks were just too iconic to stay dead. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/55 "2023-10-31T19:46:35Z")
The character of “Robin Scorpio” on _General Hospital_. Played by the same actress for about 20 years since she was a child. They most definitely killed her off in a lab accident a few years back…and the fans started boycotting the sponsors and protesting ABC. Guess who came back to life? ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/56 "2023-10-31T20:30:11Z")
My favorite line from the movie _Soapdish_ regarding bringing a character back: “ **He was decapitated!** ” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/57 "2023-10-31T20:53:02Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’m looking for cases where a character was so popular that the author or other creators had to bring them back, even though the character had been undeniably killed Not killing off a character, but sort of vaguely similar: L. Frank Baum wanted to quit writing books about Oz, so he ended the sixth Oz book (_The Emerald City of Oz_) with a note that it would be the last. > [@](#): > > The writer of these Oz stories has received a little note from Princess Dorothy of Oz which, for a time, has made him feel rather disconcerted. The note was written on a broad, white feather from a stork’s wing, and it said: > > "YOU WILL NEVER HEAR ANYTHING MORE ABOUT OZ, BECAUSE WE ARE NOW CUT OFF FOREVER FROM ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD. BUT TOTO AND I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU AND ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN WHO LOVE US. > > “DOROTHY GALE.” > > This seemed to me too bad, at first, for Oz is a very interesting fairyland. Still, we have no right to feel grieved, for we have had enough of the history of the Land of Oz to fill six story books, and from its quaint people and their strange adventures we have been able to learn many useful and amusing things. > > So good luck to little Dorothy and her companions. May they live long in their invisible country and be very happy! However, due to popular demand and financial pressures, he revived the series. > [@](#): > > Through the kindness of Dorothy Gale of Kansas, afterward Princess Dorothy of Oz, an humble writer in the United States of America was once appointed Royal Historian of Oz, with the privilege of writing the chronicle of that wonderful fairyland. But after making six books about the adventures of those interesting but queer people who live in the Land of Oz, the Historian learned with sorrow that by an edict of the Supreme Ruler, Ozma of Oz, her country would thereafter be rendered invisible to all who lived outside its borders and that all communication with Oz would, in the future, be cut off. > > The children who had learned to look for the books about Oz and who loved the stories about the gay and happy people inhabiting that favored country, were as sorry as their Historian that there would be no more books of Oz stories. They wrote many letters asking if the Historian did not know of some adventures to write about that had happened before the Land of Oz was shut out from all the rest of the world. But he did not know of any. Finally one of the children inquired why we couldn’t hear from Princess Dorothy by wireless telegraph, which would enable her to communicate to the Historian whatever happened in the far-off Land of Oz without his seeing her, or even knowing just where Oz is. > > That seemed a good idea; so the Historian rigged up a high tower in his back yard, and took lessons in wireless telegraphy until he understood it, and then began to call “Princess Dorothy of Oz” by sending messages into the air. > > Now, it wasn’t likely that Dorothy would be looking for wireless messages or would heed the call; but one thing the Historian was sure of, and that was that the powerful Sorceress, Glinda, would know what he was doing and that he desired to communicate with Dorothy. For Glinda has a big book in which is recorded every event that takes place anywhere in the world, just the moment that it happens, and so of course the book would tell her about the wireless message. > > And that was the way Dorothy heard that the Historian wanted to speak with her, and there was a Shaggy Man in the Land of Oz who knew how to telegraph a wireless reply. The result was that the Historian begged so hard to be told the latest news of Oz, so that he could write it down for the children to read, that Dorothy asked permission of Ozma and Ozma graciously consented. > > That is why, after two long years of waiting, another Oz story is now presented to the children of America. This would not have been possible had not some clever man invented the “wireless” and an equally clever child suggested the idea of reaching the mysterious Land of Oz by its means. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/58 "2023-10-31T21:15:48Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Are Martha and Thomas Wayne the DC version of the Uncle Ben rule? Ra’s al Ghul used the Lazarus Pits to bring them back, I guess with the hope that it would demotivate Batman. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/59 "2023-11-01T01:16:12Z")
In the pilot of _Hill Street Blues,_ Mick Belker died. Charles Haid was only planning to be on the one episode and had another pilot in the works. But the network liked the character and the other pilot wasn’t picked up, so they added a line that he managed to pull through. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322/60 "2023-11-01T01:39:32Z")
Mick Belker? I think you mean Andy Renko, no? 🤔 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-brought-back-to-life/992322.md?page=4)