When have you liked a character returning from death?

[Djinn]

When a character in a tv/film/comic/book series dies and for some reason they are brought back, even if it is contrived, cheapens the death, or makes no sense. Have you ever liked it when they were brought back?

 

[Emma]

Of course I've liked it. It all depends on how it is handled. Sci-fi and fantasy can make a return more interesting without needing it to be contrived. I suppose it's a given this is a spoiler thread.

The returns from death I liked the most were ones where the person didn't just act all casual about the death and forget it ever happened. Buffy did this a couple times pretty well. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis did this with two major long term deaths. Both characters had a hard time dealing with what happened.

 

[Mellow Ezlo]

Although he didn't really "die", I've always liked Gandalf's return. It's pretty unexpected (assuming you haven't read the books), and then we get this grand reveal that he's suddenly all powerful and it's awesome.

Jack Sparrow's return was cool too. Opposite to Gandalf's return, we knew this one was gonna happen from the end of the movie in which he dies. Then we find him in Davy Jones's locker to find he's gone crazy and hallucinates copies of himself. It's funny and I love it.

 

[DJ Twitch]

I always hated it, I mean I can tolerate it if this character is a god, demon, or some other entity that death doesn't normally apply to, or better yet if it was a character I liked and felt that I didn't have a proper goodbye to, but even then...

The cheapness of death in all sorts of fiction tend to induce apathy from me. When death is not the invincible predator that permanently takes everyone, it gives me the feeling that nothing really matters in the story and death is nothing but a source for cheap drama (which, if done particularly poorly, will make character death annoying.)

I don't believe bringing characters back from the dead is a crime, but I believe the undermining of death's impact is an amateurish mistake that can easily drain interest from me.

 

[VikzeLink]

Dragonball...

 

[Dan]

I think Dragonball and the majority of super heroes are out of the question.

For me It would probably be Kenny from Telltales's Walking Dead. He didn't actually die but his fate from the first game was left ambiguous. Kenny is a flawed character and a little too redneck for my taste, however he does have his charms and when I found he was alive and well in the second season I literally cried my eyes out as he was the last survivor from the original group.

 

[Dio]

Ganon of course.
Captain Barbossa in Dead Man's Chest.
Midna in Twilight Princess.
Gandalf in Two Towers.
Imhotep in The Mummy Returns.

 

[Leo_night_elf]

Kenny from South Park.

 

[Emma]

I always hated it, I mean I can tolerate it if this character is a god, demon, or some other entity that death doesn't normally apply to, or better yet if it was a character I liked and felt that I didn't have a proper goodbye to, but even then...

The cheapness of death in all sorts of fiction tend to induce apathy from me. When death is not the invincible predator that permanently takes everyone, it gives me the feeling that nothing really matters in the story and death is nothing but a source for cheap drama (which, if done particularly poorly, will make character death annoying.)

I don't believe bringing characters back from the dead is a crime, but I believe the undermining of death's impact is an amateurish mistake that can easily drain interest from me.

Well not every death is supposed to mean anything. If it's just a bad guy they need to stop, their death doesn't necessarily mean anything. So coming back from that death can't "cheapen" a death that had no value in the first place. Like Barbossa in Pirates. Death is a necessary plot element that has to come up, but not every single death means something. And not every reversal of death would be undermining.

Cases where it would be, would be where that death meant something for the story. Like Titanic. If he just showed up on the boat and they reunited happily ever after it'd have robbed all the emotional impact of the sinking. With no real loss, it never would have resonated with the audience properly.

There also is the case of Kenny from South Park where the deaths and reversals are played for laughs.

And then there are the deaths where the means of returning are not trivialized or where already part of the lore. The Mummy is a perfect example. Imotep returns in the second movie the exact same way he did in the first one. So nothing is undermined there. And there was a degree of character development. Revenge became part of his motivation. And as for sci-fi deaths, there usually already exists viable ways where someone can come back. In almost every case though it's usually not the exact same person, but some identical or near identical duplicate. A counterpart from an alternate universe, a clone, a copy from another timeline, or in the case of artificial characters, they are repaired or given a new body.

 

[Beauts]

Lot's of people in The Vampire Diaries have technically come back from the dead. In terms of people who were actually technically dead, I liked when they brought Jeremy back (both times) from the dead and when Bonnie became the anchor between our world and the other side, therefore making her technically alive again. I suppose I also count when Bonnie and Damon came back from the prison world, although I don't think that 'technically', they were dead that time.

Also, Harry Potter technically comes back from the dead during Deathly Hallows.

Also, Barbossa! And Jack Sparrow, I suppose, when he comes back from the Locker.

 

[Mipha]

Gandalf. His return was always pretty cool.

Ganon of course.
Captain Barbossa in Dead Man's Chest.
Midna in Twilight Princess.
Gandalf in Two Towers.
Imhotep in The Mummy Returns.

Midna died?

 

[Zonda]

I think everybody expected Cortana to be brought back in Halo 5, but by god if there was ever a cheap, rushed plot that would be well below par by even the standards of Fan Fiction, that would be it.