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Anime/Manga
Either out of love or foolish curiosity, human transmutations are attempted, and when these attempts all backfire, a different life is created. A being that has its own body and mind but no soul. That is how the damned are born! That is a Homunculus!
— Wrath, Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)
Comic Books
This isn't the future. Look at them. Look at their eyes. You made them monsters! [...] These things aren't alive. You perverted our people's bodies. It isn't right. They move but they don't talk and they aren't really alive.
— Supergirl, Supergirl (Rebirth) #3
Superman: There's a dead child inside that room. Nobody is injecting anything into anyone.
Supergirl: It could save him.
Superman: It could turn him into a monster.
Supergirl: It could bring him back to life!
Superman: What kind of life? Not the life he knew before. Whatever gets up from that bed, if it gets up... It won't be human.
Supergirl: It could save him.
Superman: It could turn him into a monster.
Supergirl: It could bring him back to life!
Superman: What kind of life? Not the life he knew before. Whatever gets up from that bed, if it gets up... It won't be human.
Film — Animated
I can't bring people back from the dead. It's not a pretty picture! I DON'T LIKE DOING IT!
— The Genie, Aladdin
Literature
What had most disgusted the searchers of Arkham was the thing they noticed when the monster's face was cleaned - the mocking, unbelievable resemblance to a learned and self-sacrificing martyr who had been entombed but three days before - the late Dr Allan Halsey, public benefactor and dean of the medical school of Miskatonic University.
To the vanished Herbert West and to me, the disgust and horror were supreme. I shudder tonight as I think of it; shudder even more than I did that morning when West muttered through his bandages,
Yun said nothing. He looked at them with a faint, beatific smile. His skin had the glow of a healthy adventurer back from a successful trip, neat stubble lining his jaw. His eyes twinkled with the same warm mischief Kyoshi remembered so well.
None of this kept a blinding, nauseating sense of wrongness from pouring out of his body. People had always been drawn to Yun like metal to a lodestone, and Kyoshi had been no exception. But he'd changed. There was something essential missing from the otherworldly being in front of her. Something human.
The boy she'd loved had been replaced by a hollow scaffolding, wind blowing through its gaps. The nearby customers who'd so far tolerated her strangeness recoiled away from Yun like he was a rotting corpse, scraping chairs over the floor in their haste to create distance. They couldn't bear to be near him.
Live-Action TV
Morden: I've been out of circulation. Spent the last few years doing some exploration out on the rim.
Security: Find anything interesting?
Morden: (smiles) Yes.
Security: Find anything interesting?
Morden: (smiles) Yes.
He isn't our dad, OK? This... this thing crawling around in our dad's skin, he is violent, dangerous... he's killed two men that I know of. I have no doubt that he killed Wilkins. Have you seen Kyle around lately?
— Ward Meachum to Joy on their father Harold, Iron Fist (2017)
Language will come back to you. So will your instincts. But everything else...I'm afraid it wasn't worth keeping anyway.
— Alexandra to Elektra, The Defenders (2017)
It's just, this whole "mysterious resurrection" thing...always has one mother of a downside.
You came back wrong.
— Spike to Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Music
She's a creation made by evil hands
She slept in her grave for a thousand years
But in this night of violent tears
He brought her back to life again
He created an angel just for himself
He gave her beauty, he gave her life
But she couldn't live without a soul
So she faded away again
She slept in her grave for a thousand years
But in this night of violent tears
He brought her back to life again
He created an angel just for himself
He gave her beauty, he gave her life
But she couldn't live without a soul
So she faded away again
— Blutengel, "The Oxidising Angel"
I thought I could bring the dead back
A broken shell rusted red with age
I gave him power, a new heart
It filled too quickly with his rage
I think that I heard the Red Song again
He wants revenge
A broken shell rusted red with age
I gave him power, a new heart
It filled too quickly with his rage
I think that I heard the Red Song again
He wants revenge
— The Megas, "Gamma Unchained"
I finally learned what torture means
You sent my first born back to me
And put a gun in his dead hand
It’s time I take an eye for mine, old friend
You sent my first born back to me
And put a gun in his dead hand
It’s time I take an eye for mine, old friend
— The Megas, "(I Want to be The One) To Watch You Die"
Ghost Johnson: 𝅘𝅥𝅮 Hey grandma come back to life 𝅘𝅥𝅮
Deep Voice Man: "Oh my GOD, SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANY SKIN!!! AAAAHH!!!".
Ghost Johnson: No refunds.
Deep Voice Man: "Oh my GOD, SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANY SKIN!!! AAAAHH!!!".
Ghost Johnson: No refunds.
— Super Ghostbusters, "Ghestbest"
Tabletop Games
The preacher told me about the time Jesus called out, 'Lazarus, come forth.' Now I have to wonder what it was that walked out of that tomb, and what happened after.
— John Ash, Promethean: The Created
Video Games
Nyssa: Go back to [Ra's al Ghul]. Destroy that foul machine. And let the... thing that was once my father finally die.
Batman: I'm no killer.
Nyssa: He's already dead! He has died a thousand times! And every time the Lazarus Pit restored him, he came back worse. More hateful, more crazed!
Batman: I'm no killer.
Nyssa: He's already dead! He has died a thousand times! And every time the Lazarus Pit restored him, he came back worse. More hateful, more crazed!
You are a dead thing made by a dead power in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill. You do not belong here. This is a place of life.
— Ghost Flower, Destiny
Something is wrong with me. I should be dead.....but I'm not.
— Michael Afton, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location
"Eternity was promised, but the Tomb Kings awoke to unlife. No longer beatific sovereigns. Their kingdoms as decayed as their bodies. The glory of Khemri, lost, forgotten."
— Total War: Warhammer II about the Tomb Kings
"Never wish to see a dead loved one again. In this day and age, they'll come back to see you."
—Mylo, Wynncraft
Webcomics
When you died, I buried you in that creepy ancient cemetary.
And you came back different.
Which is good, because you were kind of a dick, orginally.
And you came back different.
Which is good, because you were kind of a dick, orginally.
Western Animation
Oh, you got to talking with Ra's, huh? Does it make it easier for you to think my little dip in his fountain of youth turned me rabid? Or is this just the real me?
Real Life
"If you come back from the dead, you don't have the same value system, I think."
wow okay i'm sorry that you find me so unsettling and hard to be around because i look almost exactly the same as i did before i died but something just isn't quite right and my personality isn't the same as i was in your (honestly pretty unfaithful and self centered!) memories of me and you're kind of starting to regret raising me from the dead. as if it's my fault [eye-roll emoji]
like aww did somebody think that everything would just go back to normal and nothing would change? is someone upset that they have to make an effort to get to know me as i am and not as i was? that must be so hard for you. well you know what they say, you can dig me up but you can't just bury me again if you don't like what you reanimated!
like aww did somebody think that everything would just go back to normal and nothing would change? is someone upset that they have to make an effort to get to know me as i am and not as i was? that must be so hard for you. well you know what they say, you can dig me up but you can't just bury me again if you don't like what you reanimated!
—Tumblr user gayarsonist
