Undead Dead Characters

Hello! 

There are some tropes in books that I just hate. Love triangles, the chosen one, orphans… you get the idea. And then comes along the most annoying trope ever. 

A beloved character dies a dramatic death. The protagonist (and reader) goes through some very tear jerking scenes. The reader and main character recover and move on. Then, a few scenes later, that character reappears! Surprise! 

Ahhh. Dead characters that weren’t actually dead. Dead characters that miraculously survived a predicament where they should have died. Dead characters that (in some cases, mostly concerning dead parents) didn’t come back until decades after because of a *reason* 

The weird thing about this trope is that I desperately want to like it. Who doesn’t want a beloved character to come back again? When a character comes back, it’s a bittersweet moment. Does anyone else experience this? I want this character to come back to life. But when they do, I also hate it. The only true way for them to come back to life is to read the first book again. 

So, why do I hate this trope with a burning passion? 

It just makes no sense.

Most of the reasons for why a character miraculously stayed alive are barely believable. I got switched with someone else. I hid under a train. So right from the beginning, I think, “Um… okay? I’m glad you’re back and all, but seriously, we saw you die.” (In some cases we held your dead body and buried it) 

A lot of the time, the cometh-back-to-life-character is a long lost parent or relative. Somehow they survived something like an epic train crash, but is there a reason they stayed away from their loved ones for 10+ years? True, some reasons are more believable than others.. I had to stay away so I wouldn’t get caught. But a lot of the reasons just don’t seem very plausible. *cough *cough I couldn’t face you. I thought you would be better off without me.

It undermines the tears.

I am a crier. I cry during most any emotional scene. At the end of Mockingjay, while watching Wonder. When I watched the 2019 Little Women, while listening to Hamilton, Hadestown, Les Miserables. Yeah, the list goes on and on. 

Let’s imagine that a beloved character dies. During the aftermath, there are some very tear jerking scenes, so the reader cries, or (If you somehow don’t cry) at least feels sad and emotional. That scene is remembered as being really well written, maybe even one of your favorite scenes of the book. 

And then said character saunters back in, and suddenly they are alive and well! Hooray! Dry your tears, they are back! But then when you think about or reread your favorite scene of the book, the heartwrenching part, it’s suddenly lost meaning because the character didn’t die.

Why weep and cry over a character if they aren’t actually dead? If the character is brought back to life, the tear-jerking, meaningful, emotional scenes lose almost all meaning. 

Le Example:

Spoilers for Season 3 of Stranger Things 

Okay, I was bawling my eyes out at the end of Season 3 of Stranger Things. The scene with Hopper’s letter just kind of made me disintegrate into pieces. Of course, Hopper couldn’t be dead. He was Hopper. He couldn’t just die. Only the side characters that were kind of annoying died. 

Naturally, my family started thinking of theories of how he could still be alive (and the end credits scene?) They came up with conspiracy-like-theories, searched on the interwebs, and went to some extreme lengths to figure out if Hopper was still alive. 

This is what inspired this post. During all of this, I wanted Hopper to come back. There was no way anyone could get stuff done without him. When the Season 4 teaser came out, I was super excited. He wasn’t dead after all! But then I thought back to the infamous letter scene. Even though that scene tore me up inside, I loved it. But now if he’s alive, what is that scene worth? Will I cry again while watching it? 

So this turned into a miniature rant/ramble about characters dying. But seriously, I really do hate this trope, and some writers and readers I’ve talked to about it agree. Maybe I hate this trope so much because I really want to like it? 

What do you think of this trope? What is your least favorite trope in general? I hope you all have a great day! Until next time! 

-Hannah 

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