History Main / DeadToBeginWith

* ''[[http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/search/label/I.%20Chapter%20One The Zombie Knight]]'' is a {{Web Serial Novel}} which starts this way. It opens with the protagonist meeting a grim reaper and realizing he has no body, not even a ghostly one.

* In ''BillAndTedsBogusJourney'', the heroes spend most of the film as ghosts trying to stop evil robotic duplicates of themselves from messing up the timeline. Along the way, the duo travels to Heaven and Hell, and infamously [[ChessWithDeath play for their lives against Death]] in not just chess, but also [[BestOutOfInfinity Twister, Battleship, and other games]].

* ''TheWishList'' by Eoin Colfer is about a girl who is exactly 50% good and 50% evil, so she's sent back to Earth when she dies and has to do good deeds in order to try to get back into heaven (mostly by helping the old man she was robbing when she died complete the titular wish list).

-->-- ''YuYuHakusho'', episode 1

* ''YuYuHakusho'' starts with a boy. The boy's name is Yusuke. He's 14 years old, and is supposed to be the hero of the story, but oddly enough, he's dead. However he's not supposed to be, caught the universe by surprise with an unexpected HeroicSacrifice. So he's being allowed to earn his way back to life.

* ''YuYuHakusho'' starts with a boy. The boy's name is Yusuke. He's 14 years old, and is supposed to be the hero of the story, but oddly enough, he's dead.

* Nick in ''Film/{{RIPD}}''.

** A common (and until recently very plausible) fan theory, though, was that the main character ''does'' in fact die when Urahara is restoring his powers, since his Soul Chain was cut in the process. And that since then, Ichigo has been using his own corpse the way a normal Soul Reaper uses a gigai, and doesn't know the difference. Since he normally has the modsoul Kon (who was specifically designed to animate corpses) use his body when he's not in it, the lack of a pulse wouldn't be noticed either. This theory was made quite a bit less likely after Ichigo lost his powers again. A 1-year {{timeskip}} shows that he's aged normally, which a corpse presumably couldn't do.

** He dies ''again'' later.
** Technically Kurama died before the story started, too, and Hiei pretty much dies in a storyline toward the end. Kuwabara only ever has near-death experiences, and once he fakes it. It's just a thing these guys do.

** It's more like if you live a life without letting fear stop you from doing what's right.

* Variant in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': The Nac mac Feegle believe that ''this'' world is their Valhalla, thus explaining their riotous behaviour as they've already got to paradise...
** In ''Reaper Man'', Windle Poons' storyline concerns his posthumous experiences as a zombie.

* Somewhat inverted in a child story ''Land of Oblivion'': the protagonists are pretty much alive, but they are TrappedInAnotherWorld, where everybody else they encounter is actually a dead person from our world.

* ''Series/AshesToAshes'': The setting turns out to be a police officers' purgatory. (Don't say you weren't warned about spoilers!)
** And so, retroactively (though it was apparently planned from the start), ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}''.

* Of the case of ''Series/BeingHumanRemake'', Sally starts off dead and confused about how she died. As the story progresses, she eventually finds out how she died, as well as a few perks of being a ghost.

* One level into ''VideoGame/{{Geist}}'', your character is parted from his body and spends almost the remainder of the game as a [[BodySurf body-snatching ghost]]. Still partially subverted, as his actual body isn't dead yet. He doesn't learn that for a while, though.

* Sissel from ''VideoGame/GhostTrick''. [[spoiler: Though he's not the dead guy he thinks he is.]]
** And Ray, who we first meet as a ghost possessing a lamp. [[spoiler: And Yomiel.]]

* In ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', the player character died some time before the start of the game, but because they are marked with the Dark Ring, they come back to life every time they are killed. And they will die. [[NintendoHard A lot.]]
** There's a specific reason why every single advertisement and the game's tagline tells you to Prepare to Die.

* ''Webcomic/SlightlyDamned'''s [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Rhea Snaketail]] [[http://www.sdamned.com/2004/03/03142004/ suffers from this]]; she gets better. [[MindScrew Kind of.]] She doesn't seem particularly upset by this for very long though. "Whatever. I'm getting used to dying."
** When she died, her marginally negative karma got her sent to the boring-but-harmless Ring of the [[TitleDrop Slightly Damned]], which is where she met her ally Buwaro.

** Jade's Grandpa and [[spoiler: Aradia]] were both killed before the story began. However, due to [[AnachronicOrder Weird Time Shit]] and [[spoiler: [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghost-hood]]]], Grandpa was able to save John from some monsters and pick up his granddaughter[[spoiler:'s dead body]], while [[spoiler: Aradia]] becomes one of the most important characters in the troll's session [[spoiler: and later [[BackFromTheDead comes back to life]] and [[CameBackStrong ascends to godhood.]]]]
*** Jake's dreamself was similarly killed before the start of Act 6.

** Though most of the minor recurring characters lived until at least the middle of their introductory arcs. [[GrimReaper Jack]] himself and the other sins and angels were dead long before the first arc however.

* ''AshesToAshes'': The setting turns out to be a police officers' purgatory. (Don't say you weren't warned about spoilers!)

* Frank in ''Film/{{Ghost Town}}''

* The main plot of TheNightsDawnTrilogy kicks off when dead people start possessing the living, with a few of them becoming relatively prominent characters.

* In the first episode of ''ShakuganNoShana'', Yuuji finds out that he's a Torch; a temporary replacement for the real Yuuji, who has been killed and consumed by a Rinne. Under normal circumstances, he would be [[CessationOfExistence erased from existence]] [[RetGone entirely]] once his flame burned out. However, he happened to carry a [[ClingyMacGuffin Treasure Tool]] within him called the 'Reiji Maigo'[[hottip:*:translated to the 'Midnight Lost Child']], which replenishes his [[LifeEnergy Power of Existence]] at every [[WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve midnight]], meaning that, even if his real self is dead, his Torch still carries on.

* ''{{Unsounded}}'': Duane died after [[spoiler:Succumbing to his wounds in a vain attempt to defend his daughter from Crescian assassins.]] [[OurLichesAreDifferent Six years later, he's one of the protagonists of the story.]]

* ''{{Unsounded}}'''s resident (unintended) lich Duane Adelier died six years before the beginning of the story.

This trope covers stories set partially or wholly in the afterlife, a genre sometimes known as "Bangsian fantasy". Whether the characters are hanging in FluffyCloudHeaven, Struggling to survive against Hideous Demons in a FireAndBrimstoneHell, [[NearDeathClairvoyance ghosts stuck on the mortal world]], mortals who are TrappedInAnotherWorld before their time, or whatever, they're here to answer the question "Now that we're dead, [[SoWhatDoWeDoNow what do we do for an encore?]] Unless, of course, they have another question: "WhodunnitToMe, and how can I stop them from murdering anyone else?"

* The adventure game ''GrimFandango'' takes place in an afterlife based on the Día de [[strike: los]] Muertos, Aztec mythology, and FilmNoir. Oddly, it works.

* In the PC game ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest'', you start off knowing that everyone in the game has died, and you have to piece together the clues to find out what happened and why. This is more complicated than it sounds, since you are the titular seventh guest, you are also dead, and only by completing the game can you save yourself from damnation, because your soul was sold.

* ''{{Painkiller}}''. You die in a car accident and then hunt demons in purgatory and hell. With shotguns and stuff. [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation And a gun that shoots shurikens and lightning.]]
* ''WorldofWarcraft'', if you roll a Forsaken Undead and/or Death Knight. Your death occurs before you begin playing. If you play a Forsaken Death Knight, you died 2 times. Once as a human, then as a Forsaken.
* ''KnightsInTheNightmare'', and ''how''. With the exception of the protagonist, death is a requirement to be recruited; hell, it would be easier to list cast members who ''aren't'' dead when you meet them.
* ''TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks'' is a borderline example. The bad guys remove Zelda's soul from her body; most people can't see her soul and her body is lifeless. The plan is to then house a monster's spirit in her body and thus control Hyrule.

* The ''Revenant'' mod for NeverwinterNights and the ''Dark Avenger'' mod for NeverwinterNights2 both revolve around the deceased player character trying to work out the circumstances surrounding his/her death.
* Sissel from ''GhostTrick''. [[spoiler: Though he's not the dead guy he thinks he is.]]

* Ash in ''PhantomBrave''. All of the other Player {{Mook}}s are dead to begin with too, since Marona's ability is to see and recruit ghosts to her side.
* In ''RuleOfRose'' [[spoiler:''the entire cast'', including your beloved CanineCompanion are DeadToBeginWith, and the purpose of the entire plot is for the protagonist Jennifer to come in terms with it.]]
* In the first ''LegacyOfKain'' game, Kain is murdered in the first playable scene, and spends the rest of the series as a vampire. In ''Soul Reaver'', Raziel had been killed, brought back as a vampire, and then killed ''again'' before the game itself actually begins.
* In ''DarkSouls'', the player character died some time before the start of the game, but because they are marked with the Dark Ring, they come back to life every time they are killed. And they will die. [[NintendoHard A lot.]]

* LeChuck from the Monkey Island series died before the events of the first game. Even though he has human disguises it's because he's a Ghost/Demon/Zombie.
* All the Prinny characters in he {{Disgaea}} series. Prinnies are human souls that did something bad in their previous life and must work in the Netherworld to pay off their sins. Most notable example is Fuka in Disgaea 4, who kept her human body. She has no idea that she is really dead even while other characters keep telling it to her over and over again. She thinks her appearance in the Netherworld is AllJustADream.

* ''SlightlyDamned'''s [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Rhea Snaketail]] suffers from this; she gets better. [[MindScrew Kind of.]] She doesn't seem particularly upset by this for very long though. "Whatever. I'm getting used to dying."

* One level into ''VideoGame/{{Geist}}'', your character is "killed" and spends almost the remainder of the game as a [[BodySurf body-snatching ghost]]. Still partially subverted, as your actual body isn't dead yet.

** Going to play devil's advocate and say...not entirely true...the theory is still sound because [[spoiler: he was technically HALF dead to begin with thanks to his dad. So Ichigo has always been a unique case from the start one could argue. He could just be a really rare case that as long as his soul is still in his body after he lost his powers-that all he needs to stay alive and keep the body to move and age...like his dad has obviously done. And he probably is in a gigai...still.]]

->''"This boy's name is Yusuke. He's 14 years old, and is supposed to be the hero of our story...but oddly enough, he's dead."''

* Schwarzwald from ''Anime/TheBigO''.

* Richard Matheson's novel ''WhatDreamsMayCome''

* ''WhatDreamsMayCome'', based on the novel, where RobinWilliams plays a dead man who literally travels to Hell and back to save the soul of his wife after she commits suicide.

->''"Marley was [[TropeNamer dead, to begin with.]] There is no doubt whatever about that."''
-->-- '''Creator/CharlesDickens''', first line of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol''