Basic Trope: Cremation prevents resurrection and necromancy.
- Straight: Cremation prevents corpses from rising as zombies.
- Exaggerated: Cremation prevents even speaking to the dead's spirit. With their body burned they have no tie to this world.
- Downplayed: Cremation reduces the odds that a body will rise but won't prevent it altogether.
- Justified:
- Resurrection or necromancy requires there to still be a body present, and incinerating the corpse is simply the most readily available method of disposal.
- The zombies are Technically Living Zombies that spread by spores. High heat destroys the spores or renders them nonviable.
- Inverted: Cremation makes resurrection and necromancy easier.
- Subverted: Bob burns the corpse to keep it from rising again. Five minutes later it turns into an undead anyway.
- Double Subverted: The undead then takes two steps and collapses into a pile of ash.
- Parodied:
- A vampire is sneaking up on Bob. Bob inadvertently picks that exact moment to light up a bong and the vampire runs away screaming.
- Those who were terminated from their job for misconduct or poor performance cannot be raised unlike those terminated for pure financial reasons.
- Zig Zagged: Fire makes some forms of resurrection impossible, others harder, and some actually easier. A phoenix for instance can resurrect a corpse up to a week old - or indefinitely if it was cremated before then although it prevents necromancy without infernal influence.
- Averted: Fire has no effect on whether or not a creature will return from the dead.
- Enforced: The special effects team was feeling under-appreciated so the producer found them a justification for that flamethrower they wanted to build.
- Lampshaded: "Kill It with Fire and get necromancy proofing thrown in for free!"
- Invoked: The necromancer makes his intelligent undead weak to fire as a way of ensuring he has control over them.
- Exploited:
- In the exaggerated example, a seance is interrupted when a person immolates the ghost's physical body to banish them and prevent them from passing on their secrets.
- In a Zombie Apocalypse, it becomes standard fare to carry around a means of self-immolation in case of impending death. This cuts down the spread of zombies, making them easier to wipe out.
- Defied: The necromancer raises undead fire elementals, knowing that most people use fire to kill the undead, knowing that using fire on his undead will strengthen them.
- Discussed:Alice: Hey, Bob, what's with the flamethrower?
Bob: It's so I can burn people's corpses so they won't come back as zombies. - Inverted: Burning the body won’t stop it from rising again, so the corpse has to be frozen instead.
- Conversed: "You know how in zombie movies they always burn dead bodies so they won't come back as zombies?"
- Implied: In a universe in which Death Is Cheap, a character is killed by fire and never makes a subsequent appearance.
- Played For Drama: Bob wanted to be buried on the family plot, but thanks to the Zombie Apocalypse Alice has to cremate him instead and gets very distraught over not being able to fulfill his wishes.
- Deconstructed: Someone accidentally burns down their house burning a body.
- Reconstructed: A wizard or scientist invents a quick-burning, small flame that will burn bodies and swiftly burn out.
Quick! Get the flamethrower before they link back to Fire Keeps It Dead! ... Too late.
