Basic Trope Description: Characters give a deceased character who cannot be buried a symbolic burial by burying an object associated with the respective character.
- Straight: Alice dies. Bob buries her necklace on a cemetery.
- Exaggerated:
- Everyone who dies during the show has only a personal object of themselves buried.
- A whole load of Alice's personal belongings is put into her grave instead of her body.
- Downplayed:
- Alice dies, and Bob buries a lock of her hair.
- Alexandra was buried in a private grave, while her stage identity Alice, in the form of her iconic blazer, was buried in a public grave.
- Alexandra, age 79, is burying her iconic blazer to symbolize her retirement from the entertainment industry.
- Justified:
- There was No Body Left Behind, Not Enough to Bury, or they Never Found the Body.
- Alice was pulverized to Ludicrous Gibs.
- The funeral is only symbolic, since Alice left Earth on a Sleeper Starship. Bob knows too well that he will never see her again since her journey will last for centuries, so he says a symbolic goodbye to her.
- Inverted: Bob is going to "exhume Alice", but takes out only her necklace.
- Subverted: Bob puts Alice's necklace into her open grave, but then some pallbearers let Alice into her grave in a coffin.
- Double Subverted: Then we learn that the coffin was empty besides some bags of sand, therefore also just a substitute.
- Enforced:
- The authors want to give hope that Alice will maybe come back.
- This shall be a first hint that Alice faked her death and was only Put on a Bus.
- Averted:
- Alice's funeral doesn't happen on-screen.
- Alice receives a normal funeral.
- Parodied: Bob buries a substitute instead of Alice's body - Alice as a custom-made sex doll.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Invoked: Everyone in the group gives someone else a personal object to be buried in case of their deaths, and they promise each other to bury it in case they die and there is No Body Left Behind or there is Not Enough to Bury.
- Exploited: A funeral company sells special substitutes to be buried in case the dead person left no corpse behind.
- Defied: Bob already handed in Alice's necklace to be buried instead, but then Alice's dead body is found and can be buried.
- Lampshaded: "Alice...in case you can see us, I hope this necklace is just as good as if it would be you..."
- Discussed: Alice's relatives discuss options for her funeral in the funeral home. Since there is no body, the funeral home suggests to bury something out of Alice's personal belongings instead.
- Conversed:
- "How touching. This shows how the gesture counts."
- "I hope I won't be buried like this once."
