Films – Animated
"J-J-Jack! But they said you were dead. You must be — double dead!"
— Oogie Boogie, The Nightmare Before Christmas
Miguel: Wait, what happened?
Héctor: He's been forgotten. When there's no one left in the living world who remembers you... you disappear from this world. We call it "The Final Death."
Miguel: W-where did he go?
Héctor: No one knows.
—Coco
"If you leave your game, stay safe — stay alert. And whatever you do, don't die. Because if you die outside your own game, you don't regenerate — EVER. Game over."
Films – Live Action
"As Coroner I must aver,
I thoroughly examined her.
And she's not only merely dead,
she's really most sincerely dead."
I thoroughly examined her.
And she's not only merely dead,
she's really most sincerely dead."
— Munchkinland Coroner speaking of the dearly departed Wicked Witch of the East, The Wizard of Oz
Miracle Max: It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo Montoya: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
Inigo Montoya: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
Literature
Meryl: They'll be all right, won't they? They'll just come back like they always did, right?
Jim: Not without bodies. Anyway, something tells me that wasn't the kind of death you come back from.
I reached into his mouth, past his gnashing teeth, and pulled out his tongue. He reached for it as I extracted it, so I handed it to him. Blood and drool flowed from his mouth and colored the red ground even redder about him. Then, one by one, I broke his arms and legs, then I broke each of the vertebrae in his backbone, moving up his spinal column with quick pinches. It didn't take long.
This is what I did in the world that people can see. In the twists of other times and spaces, I did similar things, horrible, irrevocable things, to the man. I killed him. I killed him in such a way that he would never come to life again, not in any possible place, not in any possible time. I wiped Marek Lambrois from existence. Thoroughly. And with his death, the other glims died, like lights going out, lights ceasing to exist, bulb, filament and all. Or like the quick loss of all sensation after a brain is snuffed out.
— A Dry Quiet War by Tony Daniel
The second death is the death of not being born. It is rather controversial among us, for it throws into doubt all the scientific theories currently extant about our very natures. It has been observed that if a kalachakra is aborted before consciousness in one life, the in the next, the child will not be born at all. It is the true death, the destruction of mind and body, and unlike the Forgetting, there is no coming back from it, no healing of mental pathways. It is simply the end.
—Virginia, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Live-Action TV
"The slightest accident in this stage of the proceedings and we'd all reverse instantly into antimatter. Blasted out to the other side of the universe, as a flash of electromagnetic radiation. We'll all become unpeople, undoing unthings untogether. Fascinating."
— Third Doctor, Doctor Who ("The Mutants")
"There's nothing left to 'bring back.' Miss Burkle's soul was consumed by the fires of resurrection. Everything she was is gone forever."
—Dr. Sparrow, Angel
Chidi: We're gonna set up a new kind of door, somewhere peaceful, so that when you feel happy and satisfied and complete and you want to leave the Good Place for good, you can just walk through it, and your time in the universe will end.
Tahani: You don't have to go through it if you don't want to, but you can. And hopefully knowing that you don't have to be here forever will help you feel happier while you are.
Guy: What will happen when we go through it?
Janet: Well, we don't really know, exactly. All we know is it will be peaceful and your journey will be over.
Michael: You led great lives. You earned your place here. So stay here as long as you like. Use the green doors to see and do every single thing you want to see and do. And when you're ready, walk through one last door, and be at peace.
Tahani: You don't have to go through it if you don't want to, but you can. And hopefully knowing that you don't have to be here forever will help you feel happier while you are.
Guy: What will happen when we go through it?
Janet: Well, we don't really know, exactly. All we know is it will be peaceful and your journey will be over.
Michael: You led great lives. You earned your place here. So stay here as long as you like. Use the green doors to see and do every single thing you want to see and do. And when you're ready, walk through one last door, and be at peace.
— The Good Place, "Patty"
It does present a curious curl in the metaphysics, doesn't it? If you murder a monster in Monster Heaven, where does it go?
— Castiel, Supernatural
Video Games
"Nope. Can't do it. Sorry. I reeeeeally want you all dead. And not the kind of dead where there's a possibility you might still be alive. I want you SO dead, that you'll be reincarnated as a corpse!"
— Deadpool, X-Men Legends II: Legends of Apocalypse
He's dead. If there were degrees of deadness, one could safely say that he has achieved the deadmost.
—Fallen London, when finding a certain important victim of the Vakenote .
Bioscan complete. Target Chykka has been terminated. Lifesigns are at flatline. No regenerative ability in effect. No evidence of symbiotic corpse possession. Resurrection does not appear likely.
The whole point with [V2] fucking splattering into guts and blood and nothing else is specifically so it's like: This character is so fucking dead. It's so dead as it possibly could ever be. And people are saying like: "Maybe it's alive though, maybe it comes back. Maybe someone like, reconstructs him." RECONSTRUCTS WHAT!? THERE'S NOTHING LEFT!
Visual Novels
"I'll show you. This is what it means to kill something."
— Shiki, Tsukihime
Webcomics
"He couldn't be any more dead."
— Heat Man, In Wily's Defense
"Where do you go if you die when you're already in Hell?"
"Superhell. It totally sucks there."
"Superhell. It totally sucks there."
— Goats
"If the Snarl escapes its prison uncontrolled, it won't merely kill us. It will unmake us, dissolving our existence, there will be no Afterlife for us, punitive or otherwise, just nothingness."
—Redcloak, The Order of the Stick, Strip #545
"Malack's never returning. Neither's his killer."
Web Original
If you were standing in the path of the beam, you would obviously die pretty quickly. You wouldn't really die of anything, in the traditional sense. You would just stop being biology and start being physics.
Web Video
Freeman: (Looking at a dead soldier) So what's the story on this guy? Yep. Deader than a dead... dead guy.
—Freeman's Mind, episode 11
(John McClane is jumping out of a 15th story window, falling through construction scaffolding and finally into a dumpster, all while being shot at)
Narration: 15+ story fall, with severe brain, spine, extremity, and internal organ injuries.
(Klaxon)
Caption: Super Dead: Fell Out of a Building
Narration: John McClane is super-dead.
Narration: 15+ story fall, with severe brain, spine, extremity, and internal organ injuries.
(Klaxon)
Caption: Super Dead: Fell Out of a Building
Narration: John McClane is super-dead.
And damn, grandpa hit that fencenote hard. At least there's no ambiguity here, where there's a plot twist that he's not really dead? No, he bought the farm.
—Ross Scott, Ross's Game Dungeon: The Black Mirror
Mr. Kent: And there you have it, folks. That man is dead. Very, very dead.
Reporters: Mr. Kent, if you had to come up with a word for how dead he is, what would it be?
Mr. Kent: Cadaveriffic!
Reporters: Mr. Kent, if you had to come up with a word for how dead he is, what would it be?
Mr. Kent: Cadaveriffic!
Western Animation
Krusty: Well, kids, we all know that sometimes when cartoon characters die, they're back again the very next week. That's why I'm presenting this sworn affidavit that Poochie will never, ever, ever return!
Blue-Haired Lawyer: This document conforms to all applicable laws and statutes.
(kids in audience cheer)
Blue-Haired Lawyer: This document conforms to all applicable laws and statutes.
(kids in audience cheer)
—The Simpsons, "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"
Other
"I will catch you. I will cut you down. I will bury you and plant a tree on your grave. My people will eat the fruit of that tree, not knowing it was sustained by your rotting flesh. They will tell me how good it tastes, and no one will never know.
I will erase you."
I will erase you."
—Memetic speech associated with the Villager shortly after the official announcement of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Original author unknown.
