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Anime and Manga
Yuusuke (mourning): I'm sorry, Kuwabara... it's all my fault...
Kuwabara: Okay! I think you've done enough groveling for one day! Though, it is pretty entertaining. Reporting for duty: Captain Faker! That's me!
Yuusuke: ...Wah... why's that dead guy walkin' around!?
Kurama: Yes, well... I tried to inform you, but you were too engrossed in your speech.
Yuusuke: But... the heart! And the finger-poking!
Kurama: You're a moving public speaker, by the way.
Kuwabara: Okay! I think you've done enough groveling for one day! Though, it is pretty entertaining. Reporting for duty: Captain Faker! That's me!
Yuusuke: ...Wah... why's that dead guy walkin' around!?
Kurama: Yes, well... I tried to inform you, but you were too engrossed in your speech.
Yuusuke: But... the heart! And the finger-poking!
Kurama: You're a moving public speaker, by the way.
— YuYu Hakusho (English version)
Films - Animated
Bloat: What's happening?! Why is he [a fish] playing dead?!
Gil: He's gonna get flushed down the toilet! He's gonna get out of here!
Gil: He's gonna get flushed down the toilet! He's gonna get out of here!
Films - Live Action
"When they touch down, we'll blow the roof, they'll spend a month sifting through rubble, and by the time they figure out what went wrong, we'll be sitting on a beach, earning twenty percent."
— Hans Gruber, Die Hard
Sarah: [at Marvin's funeral] He looks so lifelike...
Frank: That's because he's not dead. He does this all the time.
Frank: That's because he's not dead. He does this all the time.
— RED 2
"Dean Keaton was dead. Did you know that? He died in a fire two years ago during the investigation into the murder of a witness who was going to testify against him. Two people watched Dean Keaton walk into a warehouse he owned just before it blew up. They said he went in to check a leaking gas main. It blew up and took all of Dean Keaton with it. Within three months of the explosion, the two witnesses, they were dead. One killed himself in his car; the other fell down an open elevator shaft. Then six weeks ago I get an anonymous phone call saying I could find Dean Keaton eating lunch at a restaurant with his attorney, and there he is. Now, because he never profited from his alleged death, and because we convicted someone else of the murder we tried to pin on him, we had to let him go. He was dead just long enough for the murder rap to blow over, and then he had lunch."
— Agent Dave Kujan, The Usual Suspects
Literature
"I should've gotten up an hour ago, but I didn't. You want to know why? Because I'm dead. Well, not really dead; I'm just pretending I'm dead so I don't have to go to school. If I can convince Mom and Dad that I'm dead, not only would I have pulled off one of the greatest practical jokes of the century, but I'll get off going to school for the rest of the year. Maybe even the rest of my life."
[...]
"I thought, 'If my dog is smart enough to do it, why not me?'. All I've gotta do is lie here without breathing or blinking. When I say, 'without blinking', I mean 'blinking when no one's looking', and when I say, 'without breathing', I don't mean 'not breathing at all;' that would be silly. I mean just taking a tiny breath every so often; just enough to keep me alive."
[...]
"I thought, 'If my dog is smart enough to do it, why not me?'. All I've gotta do is lie here without breathing or blinking. When I say, 'without blinking', I mean 'blinking when no one's looking', and when I say, 'without breathing', I don't mean 'not breathing at all;' that would be silly. I mean just taking a tiny breath every so often; just enough to keep me alive."
— Andy, Andy Griffiths' Just Series, "Just Tricking", "Playing Dead"
In an hour or so, once I was out of sight of land, I would lower my sails and wait for a Bug fighter to come lift me off the deck. The engine backwash of the Bug fighter would capsize the boat. Or I might put the Taxxon pilot to the test and see if he could ram the low-slung boat. That would puzzle the humans. Either way, my body would never be found.
The husband, the son who belonged to the voice inside my head, they would think I had died. The human woman named Eva, the husk, the human shell I lived in, would cease to exist as far as any human knew. I would be given the inevitable superstitious send-off. A ceremony, but there'd be no body to put in the grave.
Eva's human mind would still be with me, of course. Still blubbering and weeping and begging, no doubt. But I had written the book on human infestation. I would have no difficulty controlling this woman.
— Animorphs: Visser
Ballistic: Coil's dead.
Skitter: Do we rea—lly have to maintain this charade?
Ballistic: Coil went to a lot of effort in putting together his grand plan. He died in a blaze of glory and violence, just like he wanted. Do you really want to spoil that by going on about how he’s still alive?
Skitter: Do we rea—lly have to maintain this charade?
Ballistic: Coil went to a lot of effort in putting together his grand plan. He died in a blaze of glory and violence, just like he wanted. Do you really want to spoil that by going on about how he’s still alive?
Live Action TV
"Let them keep believing I'm dead. So much the better. It was the chicken man. That coward sat up there in the north while his paramilitaries came into my home... my home, Uncle! Screw Bolsa, screw Eladio. I'm coming north. I'm going to hurt him. Hurt him like you taught me. And then I will kill him."
— Lalo Salamanca, Better Call Saul
"If you help me get [Blake] I'll see you officially listed as dead. There's no one as free as a dead man. "
— Servalan, Blake's 7, "Hostage"
Fiona: How do you know this guy who hired you?
Michael: We worked together in the Balkans, '91-'92. It was a crazy time. He seemed somewhat sane in comparison.
Fiona: And now he kills for a living.
Michael: He made some poor choices before his death. [Fiona stares at him] Fifteen people watched Larry walk into an oil refinery just before it blew. Apparently that was his way of taking an early retirement.
Michael: We worked together in the Balkans, '91-'92. It was a crazy time. He seemed somewhat sane in comparison.
Fiona: And now he kills for a living.
Michael: He made some poor choices before his death. [Fiona stares at him] Fifteen people watched Larry walk into an oil refinery just before it blew. Apparently that was his way of taking an early retirement.
Video Games
"By the time your adversary races towards your 'body' to frisk you for cash and pull gold fillings out of your mouth, you'll already be behind him, poised for the killing blow."
— Dead Ringer advertisement, Team Fortress 2
Webcomics
Agatha: It's a perfect plan! They do think I'm dead!
Zeetha: There is a serious flaw in this "perfect plan"—one that could ruin everything. You're not really dead. Now are you?
Zeetha: There is a serious flaw in this "perfect plan"—one that could ruin everything. You're not really dead. Now are you?
Web Original
"Oh wow. He could still be among us. Have you witnessed any pensioners in your post office queue smoking on a cigar the size of Jonah Falcon and braying like an ejaculating donkey?"
— Stuart Millard, "Jimmy Savile and David Icke - All the Pieces Matter"
David: Lutessa walks into her own office to find Lionel Luthor, who has, somehow, managed to, OFF CAMERA, reinstate himself as head of LuthorCorp, even though the other Lionel Luthor's body is I'm pretty sure a known quantity, and he's a Lionel Luthor from an alternate universe.
Chris: Okay, look: the last thing I want to do is start nitpicking the reality of Smallville, but seriously: A dude who has been dead for four years suddenly comes back and is immediately just handed the keys of all the stuff he used to own? ...I'm all for boring parts happening off-camera, but when "Oh, I faked my death" is what you consider to be a believable cover story for what's actually going on, I'd like maybe a tiny explanation of how it went down.
David: Let's be fair here: Lex Luthor has used that as a legitimate excuse in the comics at least two or three times. But yes, at least a single scene of some BS law would have made me feel better, absolutely.
Chris: Okay, look: the last thing I want to do is start nitpicking the reality of Smallville, but seriously: A dude who has been dead for four years suddenly comes back and is immediately just handed the keys of all the stuff he used to own? ...I'm all for boring parts happening off-camera, but when "Oh, I faked my death" is what you consider to be a believable cover story for what's actually going on, I'd like maybe a tiny explanation of how it went down.
David: Let's be fair here: Lex Luthor has used that as a legitimate excuse in the comics at least two or three times. But yes, at least a single scene of some BS law would have made me feel better, absolutely.
— Chris Sims and David Uzumeri on Smallville ("Beacon")
Smallville ("Beacon") Western Animation
"Everyone thinks you're dead. Isn't that great?"
— Sokka, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Batman: Look: a piece of clay left behind when they took his body away. Watch. [zaps the clay with electricity, clay starts shapeshifting]
Alfred: Electricity has no effect on it?
Batman: Exactly. [scene cuts to the morgue. Mortician uncovers Clayface's body] I wouldn't be surprised if the body they took to the morgue was a shell. [Clayface's "body" cracks and crumbles to dust, shocking the mortician] Don't forget: first and foremost, Hagan was an actor. He said it himself, Alfred. He called a "scene". Maybe the greatest scene of his career. A death scene so real, it fooled us all.
Alfred: Electricity has no effect on it?
Batman: Exactly. [scene cuts to the morgue. Mortician uncovers Clayface's body] I wouldn't be surprised if the body they took to the morgue was a shell. [Clayface's "body" cracks and crumbles to dust, shocking the mortician] Don't forget: first and foremost, Hagan was an actor. He said it himself, Alfred. He called a "scene". Maybe the greatest scene of his career. A death scene so real, it fooled us all.
— Batman: The Animated Series, "Feat of Clay Part 2"
"The old me was dead, and I'd faked a car crash to prove it."
"And the prize for faking his own death goes to... Andy Larkin!"
— Woman in Andy's Imagination, What's with Andy?, "Playing Dead"
