How To Resurrect A Character (and not suck!) | On Writing 

What the BEST/WORST example of resurrection you can think of? And be sure to mark SPOILERS! Check out BRILLIANT at my link brilliant.org/HelloFutureMe/ where you can learn well... whatever you choose to! That's the brilliant thing about it ~ Tim

"What makes us human?" The ability to 'Please select all images that contain a cow'

"My death has been greatly exaggerated"

Yes, Buffy's resurrection explores a whole new character arc for Buffy. She has to try and pretend to be grateful to her friends for bringing her back to life - which she realises, in their minds, they did out of love for her. But later on she confesses to Spike (a vampire who got his soul back, so he can sort of relate to her on some level,) that they actually wrenched her out of Heaven, where she was HAPPY and finally free to live her life without the burden of being the Slayer. So a part of her is angry as hell with them for ruining her shot at true happiness just because they didn't want to live without her - but another part still loves them as friends, and feels guilty for her anger and resentment towards them.

I think the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is my favorite resurrection tale. I think having the power to resurrect someone but getting overtaken by doubt and losing them again is very compelling. I think failed resurrections are even more interesting then resurrection stories because it forces you to realize that there are some things you just can’t do.

Maul in The Clone Wars is one of the better examples I've seen because it gave them the opportunity to actually flesh out his character. If you can get past the silly robot legs, I think bringing him back was worth it because we got to see better stories and more depth to that character than we got in The Phantom Menace.

28:00 this is why Buffy's resurrection hits so hard, the revelation that she was in Heaven, she was happy and complete and in peace only to be brought back to life and expected to fight again, to raise a child alone, to pay the bills that had accumulated in the months that she is been dead, and to be happy to be alive is a shock to the audience Buffy died a hero's death, sacrificing herself to save her sister and the world and her friends took away her reward, life feels meaningless to her, she is depressed and low key suicidal but because she knows they did it out of love she doesn't want to tell them the truth, insted she puts on a happy face around them and acts grateful so she doesn't hurt their feelings all the while feeling like life doesn't compare to what she felt when she was dead, she is so off her game that three idiots get the better of her and her friend dies in the crossfire

That joy on his face when he said “I’m not done with you, get your ass back in there” just warmed my heart and made me smile. Take care of yourself Tim, you’re a gift.

Re:Zero is a great resurrection story, that specifically explores the mental horrors of knowing death, its pain, and trying to avoid it for those you love.

Somehow, HelloFutureMe returned.

Palpatine's return would have mattered, had it started a quest to find out how and prevent it recurring again. To learn he is doing the force ghost thing and possessing a special clone in a darkside twist. BUT THEY DIDN'T do anything with it. Which makes it more cheap.

I love resurrection in Delicious in Dungeon, the fact that it only works in a dungeon, most adventurers died many times but it's still not a pleasant experience, that there are people whose jobs is retrieving bodies and resurrecting people, and that even though the dungeon is the one place where it's possible, it might not always work if the body has been damaged too much. It gives the show an interesting mix of stakes and also makes me wonder about the world outside of a dungeon.

Okay, suggesting that resisiting/overcoming death doesn't HAVE to be a twisted thing, and comparing it to society's advances in health, is one of the coolest nuanced philosophy-x-writing takes I've ever heard

Gandalf is a classic resurrection, but even Gandalf the white is different to Gandalf the Grey, he's more sharp, that softness seems to have gone. In comic books when Superior Spider-Man/ Otto Octavius died to help resurrect Peter Parker back into his body (over simplification) is was a satisfying redemption for that character.

Hades does a fun thing with resurrection. It justifies it. Games always give you a chance to start over or respawn, but Zagreus is literally in the Underworld so of course when he dies, he just gets sent back to his father. It's less like a big loss (unless you were having a good run) and more a source of frustration. The only thing he and the player can do is learn from their failures and keep trying.

When you opened with that clip of Poe saying "Somehow, Palpatine returned", I thought you were gonna pull a *Cosmonaut Variety Hour* and edit in Peter Griffin from _Family Guy_ saying "Who the fuck starts a conversation like that?! I _just_ sat down!"

One of my favourite resurrections is that of Jason Todd. Not because the method was especially elegant but because (unlike a lot of other superhero resurrections) it isn't just a 'blip' where he wasn't alive for a while but his death and resurrection becomes THE most salient parts of his personality and relationships. He is brought back to life, but he does not get his life back. Every facet of his existence is defined by his death, what other people did (or failed to do) because of his death and absence. This feels (emotionally) like a realistic reaction to being resurrected. Additionally, without his death and the resurrection he would be physically much worse off (coma with long term or permanent injury) especially as his method of resurrection healed his issues with childhood malnutrition as well as the peri-mortem injuries. In this, there is an element of blessing that he is unable to see as he only looks at what he lost - what was taken from him.

One of my favorite resurrection stories is probably the story of Feldon, from Magic: the Gathering. Feldon's wife died when he was away, and when he learns this, he starts searching for a way to bring her back. He learns of everything from necromancy to spirits, and more, eventually turning to artifice. He succeeds in bringing her back only to reveal that he only tried so hard because he never got the chance to say goodbye. His wife's resurrection was brief, but it got him the closure he needed.

I think you could have explored Wolverine in this essay - he is constantly being resurrected against his will. There is something absolutely tragic in the amount of physical, mental and emotional suffering that Logan goes through in the comics. He has lost everyone he loves and cannot die. He is always right on the border of his suffering making him an enlightened hero and reducing him to a mad beast.

"You don't have to kill a character" Man, I wish more folks understood this. Death is often the most boring of stakes.

The main issue for me with Palps coming back is that we're then expected to believe he's truely dead despite him being brought back with no explanation in the same movie. Maybe if he'd been brought back in a similar way to the master in The End of Time it'd be better where his body was decaying and dying & he'd need to keep taking people's life force to stay alive. Would tie into how corruptive the dark side is too

Immediately came to mind was Dark Souls and Dungeon Meshi. Resurrection in DS is especially interesting because the cost, hollowing (in which you lose your memories, motivations, etc., until becoming just a husk), is also part of the game play loop. It's notorious difficulty ties to the act of hollowing in that many people (myself included at times) just threw up their hands and went 'screw this!', not unlike a person might dying painfully, over and over again and making little to no progress (it in some ways however also ties to DS's more positive story aspects--that the indomitable human spirit CAN overcome even very difficult and bleak obstacles) especially towards a goal that seems less and less obtainable with every step forward taken. One can interpret giving up on the game completely is almost like allowing your in-universe character to go hollow. Dungeon Meshi does something very interesting in that death appears, at first, relatively cheap. My friend made a really good point in our discussion "It's been established people come back. But then as you go you get more details (they can't be revived after their soul separates, you need most of the body, you have to substitute with animal blood, etc) and then you also witness the like. Fucking GIG ECONOMY that's been created surrounding this and how people will GET YOU KILLED specifically to pick your pockets. And the fact that the lower in the dungeon you die, the less likely you are to be found." By introducing the costs piece meal, it ratchets up the tension when they finally *do* get back to their dead friend only to realize it might be too late. And, when they do resurrect her, it gets even more complicated! It's really just fantastic.

Land of the Lustrous is a really cool manga that has characters "dying" and being "resurrected" over and over again and i love how it uses this in it's characters and story

Jon Snow's resurrection in GOT holds a special place for me. After dedicating his life to an organization until his death, he gets resurrected and walks away from the organization with the words, "And now my watch is over." Brilliant.

Fullmetal Alchemist is a brilliant example of a study on resurrection, especially TV1 (even though I prefer TV2)

Westley in the Princess Bride seems to just work, thematically and mechanically.

***Teen Titans (2003)*** In the Season 2 finale, Slade (THE most underrated TV supervillain, and by far the best version of Deathstroke ever depicted), unequivocally dies. Despite all his machiavellian scheming, he is only a human being with no superpowers of his own. So when he falls into a pool of magma, he is, as any mortal man would be, instantly incinerated. This is highlighted strongly in Season 3, which has an episode with a fake-out resurrection. At first it seems like Slade has returned from the dead in a form only Robin can see, like a vengeful ghost representing Robin's unresolved trauma surrounding Slade. It turns out at the end of the episode that the "ghost" is simply nanobots that Slade left in his mask, programmed to create an illusion of Slade in Robin's perceptions just to have one last hurrah. And that only highlights just how undeniably gone Slade is. So when Slade returns in Season 4 with fire abilities and a strange glowing symbol on his forehead, we've been primed to be skeptical. We've seen this before-- Slade can't be back, so what kind of trick is this? It turns out, it's no trick. Trigon, the big bad of Season 4, has brought Slade's soul back from the literal underworld to be his servant, a display of power that highlights Trigon's threat. At first it seems like a simple case of "jobbing", with Trigon exerting influence over Slade's very existence just to show how much more powerful he is. But as the season goes on, it becomes clear that Slade isn't just rolling over and being Trigon's minion. As always, Slade has a plan. And when Trigon transforms the world, Slade betrays his new master, siding with the Titans to reclaim his body and return fully to life. It is, in my opinion, the best-written villain resurrection arc I've seen. At no point does it feel contrived or out of place. Every stage of his resurrection is carefully planned out to ease the audience into the possibility, without ever jumping the shark. Every plot beat serves another purpose than just to bring back an old threat -- Slade doesn't even appear as a villain for the rest of the show, though it wouldn't be out of place for him to do so. His character arc is effectively over with: his goals were never to destroy the city or take over the world. All he ever wanted was to survive his own mortality, whether that be through grooming Robin or Terra to be his successor, or becoming a ghost in Robin's mind, or using Trigon to bring him back in the flesh. And in the end, he won. He was an ordinary man who, through sheer guile and manipulation, outsmarted the devil himself into giving him back his life. His arc is basically perfect, and I can't think up a better resurrection arc if I tried.

A lot of people ask about why Gandalf’s resurrection isnt treated as a horrible plot device. The answer is cost and effect. (Note: primarily working off movies here but relevant to books) Gandalf’s death leaves the fate of the fellowship uncertain. Gandalf being gone sets off a series of irreversible events including the death of another character and the breaking of the fellowship. His return also provides a powerful emotional response that makes his return affect the story as well.

The Barbossa quote you included is always so damn good. I need rewatch Curse for the millionth time

Your description of Pinocchio's being an attempt at resurrecting a dead son reminded me of the forgotten Astro Boy film. The scientist's son died, and he tried to resurrect he by creating a robot who looked identical. But Astro was a new person, a new son who wanted his father's approval, and his father soon became horrified by this "thing" he created doing the exact same thing he created him to do and acting like his dead son. Your video also reminded me of how the effects of the Resurrection Stone from Harry Potter's lore, or how (initially) macabre and disturbing Edo Tensei (Reanimation) Jutsu was treated in Naruto.

Dungeon meshi does resurrections pretty in a pretty interesting way: Souls normally leave the body just after you die, but in magical places, like the dungeons, the soul is trapped in the body until the flesh decomposes, so if your body gets recovered you are not in danger, but if for example you get dragged somewhere remote it will be impossible to be revived, the tension is not whether you can be revived, but if the healer finds your body in time or if its too late

I really like how Matthew Mercer handles Resurrections for Critical Role. In DnD, it can sometimes be trivial to resurrect, just another spell with some costly components cast by the cleric. Matt gives it a lot more stakes by involving the whole party, making them contribute to it and actually making it quite possible to fail. Resurrection scenes are some of CR's best.

Usually a resurrection is making clear that a character's story isn't over just yet. It's not that their arc must continue where it left off, but that their story can continue in a new direction in light of their death. I have a character who took his body to its limit, working alongside others with similar powers to save his home. He ended up diagnosed with cell death in the aftermath and died over time. But he was brought back with a new purpose: protect those mourning him in the shadows from things that threaten all of reality. Safe to say, I was proud of that.

In addition to the poor handling of Palps resurrection, Rian Johnson was clearly setting up Kylo Big Bad, whether people liked it or not, and that was just tossed.

One of the weaknesses in One Piece's storytelling is that characters the audience believe to die almost always come back when there is the slightest room for doubt. A blantant example of this is the sacrifice of Pell, who saved many lives by flying a massive bomb out from a city. At the end of the arc, he was brought back with no explanation but a wink and nod. Outside of Brooke, it's never an explicit resurrection, but it may as well be to the audience perspective. Speaking of Brooke, fantastic resurrection story: having come back to life entirely by chance, he barely keeps his sanity as he drifts in the fog on a broken ship full of his late crewmembers, living for the promise to his last friend remaining in the world.

Hey man! My favorite resurrection has to be Jason Todd! It gave us red hood!

One of my favourite versions of resurrection is in the Destiny games. "Guardians" are brought back from death with no memories of their past life, and can continue to be resurrected from that point on without issue. To me the most interesting part is, because almost everyone can constantly resurrect, there are loads of different interpretations. Some view it as a curse of immortality, others views it as a second chance, there are even a group who continuously end their lives to receive the flashes of imagery before death. Enemies of the Guardians believe they are abominations, corpses raised to fight as soldiers, with my favourite quote being "You are a dead thing made by a dead power in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill."

Really old spoilers for JJBA but I think one of the best choices for resurrections was Dio Brando in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. His return and becoming an antagonist of the descendents of his former adversary completely recontextualises an earlier part of the series, turning it from an epic to a tragedy.

When talking about resurrection the first thing that comes to mind is the Fullmetal Alchemist scene of the boys trying to resurrect their mother, its not just a tension filled scene but is also the main driving plot of the series and it's even more impactful in the 2003 version where all homunculus are resurrection attempts and directly impact how they behave and how can they be defeated rather them kill them enough times until they die that was used in FMA , which is why I always recommend people to watch both versions.

Barbossa at the end of Dead Man's Chest. Even though he's only in the last 10 seconds of the movie, and has one line of dialogue, it's such an unexpected and exciting character (re-)reveal. At World's End brings such a good character dynamic between Jack and Barbossa since we get to see some of their previous rivalry we only heard about in the first movie. It also helps that Depp and Geoffrey Rush basically live in the characters and give them such charisma. It also sets up Tia Dalma as a more important and intriguing character since she's the one who brack Barbossa back from the dead. The movie keeps the magic system deliberatly vague and mysterious

This makes me think of the currently topical Dungeon Meshi, or Delicious in Dungeon and (spoilers ahead for both the anime and manga) Marcille's resurrection of Falin. Resurrection is commonplace inside the dungeon, to the point that some characters have grown numb to the threat of death when a skilled mage in your party or roaming corpse hunters can simply bring you back. There are critical limitations to the magic, even in a dungeon where one character muses that death is "forbidden" - you need to be able to access the body, of course; the greater the damage, the more energy is required, and fresh meat like livestock might be needed to replace the corpse's blood and flesh; and if the body leaves the dungeon, the connection between the body and soul is severed and they cannot be brought back. Going into the specifics of the scene would take forever, but the resurrection is, unlike how simple and without second thought other scenes are done, framed like humanity tampering with something it should have never touched due to Marcille using black magic to bypass some of resurrection magic's usual limitations. Shadows loom over head, whispers fill the party's head, and Marcille's hair undulates like tentacles as blood burbles underneath Falin's charred, bloodied skeleton, slowly knitting muscles over her bones, pooling in her mouth and eye sockets to form a tongue and eyes. But, ultimately, this taboo act is Marcille's ultimate expression of love, breaking international law and defying the natural order of like and death to bring back the friend she watched grow from a young student to a loving and skilled magician. Marcille's use and study of forbidden ancient magic also ties to her own character's motivation and growth, too. I won't go into it further, since I believe that her story is one of the most beautiful parts of the entire series, but to her, death is the ultimate betrayal, condemning her to sorrow and loneliness. Not only is the use of black magic to defy death her greatest gift, but also rooted in her deepest desire.

The word Avatar is the rebirth of a divine teacher. I think Avatar the last Airbender and Avatar way of water handled its resurrected characters well. In last Airbender the Avatar is one soul but reborn as many different people with different personalities throughout history. Similarly in the way of water the character Kiri is a reborn version of Grace Augustine, also losing the original memories in the process but still retaining that "soul". Resurrection works best when the character is completely different but their core remains.

Gotta give it to Buffy when they ripped her from heaven and then found out through song in the musical episode

'Glitch' (Australian TV show) is an interesting/unusual one. Essentially, a few random people from a single small-town graveyard all come back to life, with no known cause. Rather than delve into how/why someone brought them back, it instead focuses on how these resurrected individuals adapt to the changed world around them. Some died only a couple of years ago, and so try to regain their former life, whilst others died ~100 years ago, and struggle to find meaning in this modern world. 'Bobiverse' (book series by Dennis E. Taylor) is also fascinating. Essentially, a guy signs up for cryonics, dies, and is awoken a century later as an uploaded mind that has been placed in command of a Von-Neumann probe. Without giving too many spoilers, it is an interesting exploration of what it means to be human (let alone an individual), and his responsibilities in a world so different from his own. It's definitely amongst my favourite book series, so I'd highly recommend it - especially to fans of 'The Martian' and other technically-minded sci-fi works.

"Somehow Palpatine returned". This line was just hilarious to me. Like the writers weren't even trying lmao😂

Never in a million years did I expect to see a Stargate clip on this channel. It's so rare to find anyone who's actually watched it.

You absolutely HAVE to watch Buffy, I just know you're gonna love it

I quite liked the resurrection in The Lazarus Effect. I can't remember if they explicitly said as much, but I distinctly remember coming away from the movie feeling as though it wasn't "something else" they brought back in their lover/friend's body, it was that their soul never *should* have been brought back and what death/hell might rightfully do to someone.

tbh as much as Supernatural is an example of death is cheap for the main characters, it also, EVERY time, makes things worse, that they're willing to bring each other back. Or that the angels want someone alive. It's a constant escalation because of back and forth resurrections, burning the world down for each other.

One of my favorite resurrections in fiction is (JoJo spoilers ahead) Bruno Buccellati in Golden Wind. The character who revived him, Giorno Giovanna, has the ability to give life to inanimate things, including (apparently) corpses. But there's a catch - it's impossible in JoJo's universe to bring back a soul once it has passed on. The only reason this worked was because Bruno's will to survive and protect his team kept him anchored to his repaired but slowly-decaying body. This part of the arc is a zombie story, but not really a horror story. It's a bittersweet tale about how some outcomes cannot be avoided, but there is still meaning and beauty to be found in facing your fate head-on. But it also shows that Giorno's conviction is so strong that it inspires people who had given up hope, and in the end, Bruno repays that hope by sacrificing himself to help his team one last time. Also, the OST that plays when Bruno ascends to heaven breaks my heart every dang time.

🎶 There was no pain, No fear, no doubt, 'Til they pulled me out, Of _heaven._

like how no one is complaining that Bucky came back, because he was drastically changed and his being there had a large impact on the story and other characters relationships. Bucky being the winter soldier is almost a more tragic fate than being dead, unless Steve can do something about it. Unlike the modern 'people like this charecter and they make money so we'll bring them back' that just makes everything feel cheap. Bucky's return added tention, the other kind removes it.

Honestly when it comes to death and resurrection, you could probably make a video only about Fullmetal Alchemist and Brotherhood and get nearly the exact same conclusions at least in my opinion

I had avoided spoilers for Rise of Skywalker when waiting to see it. I'll never forget the moment I read that opening scroll... "Um, what?!" I was so angry and confused and betrayed. How could anyone think that was a good idea with how unconnected Palpatine was to Eps 7 & 8? PS: You should totally watch Buffy. You'd love it.

Falin's resurrection in Dungeon Meshi is probably the best one I've seen so far, the exact mechanisms of how and why it works are clearly explained, and very neatly tied into the other themes of the story. Also, there are significant consequences for it later in the story.

My personal favorite is Slade’s resurrection from Teen Titans. His new life comes with conditions, he’s a slave to a demon king. Gave him a unique dynamic in that the prideful villain usually in control of everything had to take orders and obey. That and the powers he got made him distinct from his earlier version.

I liked the death and resurrection of Luz in TOH, because it started with an act she’d only do because of the development she’d helped foster in Collector, and the resurrection happened because of her just being her kind self to King, it was a thanks and attempt to attone for what the Titan did to Collector.

In Dungeon Meshi there is both the easiest and least impactful deaths possible in fiction, the ones where there are only material costs to ressurection, and small ones at that, but also the kind that reveals the character of the one doing the resurection and that causes huge problems afterwards. Despite the nigh-inconsequential deaths, hardly more impactful than being knocked unconcious is most non-grounded fiction, it doesn't feel like danger is gone from monster encounters, etc. This is of course because the tone isn't that dark, and the light ressurection mechanics are in harmony with that. Maybe also, because it plays into the worldbuilding of the dungeon as a special place, with different rules from the surface.

I think good example of ressurection is in Summer Time Rendering and Re:Zero where ressurection is basically used as a mean of timeloop but having consequences in case of STR or hit on psyche in terms of ReZero

I feel called out. 0:03 perhaps I should put down the phone and take a nap.😅

I would have to say I really loved the resurrection in "Pet Cemetery". The anguish in grief, and the horror and fear of what you've done because of your grief.

2 characters I thought about. First obviously, Goku. He's died so many times, its just a hassle to come back to the living, but the tension is in the side characters or planets getting destroyed. Also Asura from Asura's Wrath. He dies multiple times, coming back thousands of years later only seeing how the earth and humanity has gotten worse, forcing him to fight even harder to save it and his daughter.

It would be interesting to have a story where someone dies, a whole lot of suffering is done to avenge them, to "right the wrongs that led to their death" or to make their death mean something. Then they are ressurrected and uterly disgusted at the things that were done. Now the people who did all of this have to contend with their actions, feeling they may have been for nothing. Especially if ressurrection was always a choice, but they didn't know about it, for some reason? Or they may actively fight against this ressurrection, looking to kill the returned character, to keep their actions meaningful and to avoid being confronted about them.

This version of Pinnocchio makes me think of Astroboy's premise. Astroboy himself is probably based in the OG Pinnocchio

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m also very happy that I can. I think one of the best resurrection stories I’ve experienced lately is actually the newest expansion to Destiny 2. In Destiny 2: The Final Shape a character who has been dead in the franchise since 2018 was resurrected. And their resurrection actually had a huge impact on the story.

For all the writers faults, the resurrection of Durnik in Eddings "Belgariad" was significant and quite well constructed.

There's another novel series (-turned-anime) called Re:Zero where the main character starts the story with a "Return By Death" ability he has no control over except that he knows if he dies, he will return to a previous point in time. This point in time "updates" and he never knows when or how. Of course, dying isn't pleasant, and he sometimes carries phantom pains for a time, confused or driven insane by the state of the death he just experienced. There are a few times he somehow gains the courage (or rather, the desperation) to kill himself, and it is first played as without consequenceーhe simply resets and nothing bad comes of itーbut we later see him commit suicide to reverse the loss of a very precious character, only to wake up again moments before he stabbed his own throat, unable to go back and save this character. Af'ter that, he goes through a trial that reveals to him the possibility that every world he dies in goes on without him, and that killing himself comes with extreme consequences for those he leaves behind. When he finally meets the one supposedly behind the ability, he nearly breaks and tries to tell them that he will use the power as much as it takes to achieve his goals, but the character then tells him to stop sacrificing his life as if it is cheap. This is a major turning point in the series, where several events culminate in the main character finally seeingーnot understanding yet, but seeingーhis own self-worth. The whole series is about mental health and self-love, and I love it to bits.

One show that I think handles this very well is Re:Zero. I have many issues with it, but the way it handles resurrection is not one of them. Returning to life infinitely at the cost of an unknown amount of time or connections to those around you, forgotten, unable to ever tell anyone that you've seen them die. It's brilliant, and only serves to heighten the stakes of the show.

I just don't have enough words to express my enthusiasm for this video!🤩

Final Fantasy 14 finished its' first major saga in the last expansion, which talked a lot about the question of accepting mortality. A kind of precursor species in that game with godlike creation powers was similar to one example you mentioned: Death existed for them, but only as a choice, as a social norm (though not strict requirement) after one had "completed their life's work" by serving on the ruling council. This is painted as a kind of complacency, which left them both desensitized to the lives of their mortal creations and fundamentally unable to handle the loss of control that mortality entails. A calamity they inadvertently cause nearly destroys the world, and the survivors' willingness to go to any extreme and to undo the damage rather than accept it and move on sparks the story into motion, with them serving as antagonists. It's not about anyone coming back 'wrong' per se, but rather the idea that any other life will become acceptable collateral damage for those who see themselves as above mortality. It's a story very firmly on the side of mortality being something we have to accept to have a reason to live. I don't personally agree that it's the end-all be-all take on that question, but it does a great job inspiring a will to make the most of the life we have, for those of us in the real world who (at least for now) have to accept death as an inevitability.

Tim, we love your passion. Have a good one.

One of my favorite resurrection scenes: the bit from the newer D&D movie. When MC decides to *not* use the resurrection stone to bring back his wife (mother of his child) but instead brings back his friend, who’s been there for his daughter’s whole life and helped raise her. (Edit: oh hey there it is! 4:30 😂)

Perfect timing with this video! A PC died at level 1 in my Pathfinder 2e game last week and the party decided they would seek out a way to resurrect her. It has been SO difficult coming up with a semi-logical way for level 1 character to get that done. I figure the only person they know of who might be able to pull this off is her mortal enemy, the Hand of the King. He would jump at the chance to get his enemy to owe him one but I'm having trouble figuring out what he might want from her. In my mind there should be a social cost from owing the Hand for doing this and also a spiritual cost from being pulled back from the afterlife that will become increasingly obvious with time but doesn't take away player agency.

Oooo, this just gave me an idea for a character who is revived and is now so terrified of dying again that they will do anything to prevent it. . .

Another great video, and I feel like your humour improved even more. Thanks !

Great video! I have a player in my D&D campaign who plays a cleric, and she just asked an important NPC whether they wanted to be resurrected or not before bringing them back to life. I oght to reward her for that as the GM!

emesis blue is my personal favorite take on this topic (spoilers below, please go watch it) I love the way it explores the experience of the afterlife for the characters, having to wait an eternity before being able to be revived. Most of the time, the characters don't remember the afterlife once they come back, but sometimes they do and having to literally wait forever with nothing to do drives them to madness.

Delicious in dungeon does this very well, feels like a game and makes death feel weird

I like having the bookshelf in the background. It was something that helped me keep looking at the screen picking out all the nerd references I related to. Please never stop making videos. Take breaks when you need and do retire when you feel you've said all there is for you to say, but let that be a long time to come. And bring the bookshelves back (optional)

With the whole, "someone has to pay the price", I like when someone else sacrifices their life to bring someone back. In the gran scheme of things, we still lose someone and the grim reaper is satisfied. Like an old mentor using up their life force to resurrect their young student, an animal familiar using their magic to bring their soulmate back, a robot letting their their hard drive be overwritten by the mind of another robot

It's worse than just a resurrection. It's pulling a massive, galaxy-threatening force, complete with ships, logistics, men, and complex battle plans totally out of your arse.

The primary antagonist in Arcane defines himself by his near-death experience, and repeatedly tries to make it as important to everyone else as it was to him. The most important death in the series is probably going to be undone, but they're so solid about their writing and characters that if anyone can pull it off it will be them.

I’m gonna bring this up since I’ve never seen people bring it up; In the first two canons of Stars Wars, Palatine came back. Sometimes it was cloning, other times it was “force ghost possessions” or something, but he did come back. In hindsight we should have guessed he would have come back, but it’s not on us to guess, the movies failed to foreshadow it entirely. I think the Rai trilogy failed because they were going from movie to movie, there was no planning ahead whatsoever, no rough scripting or anything, and Palpatine being resurrected was a symptom of that, not a cause of why the movie sucked.

I am SO excited to see you touch on Harry August - that book is not nearly as widely known as it deserves to be. Such an original and interesting take on resurrection and time loops.

Hey Tim, are you ok?😛 But seriously, I hope you're ok, Tim sensei 🥺🙏

My favorite resurrections are Catherine Foundling’s rule-of-three resurrections in A Practical Guide to Evil.

This might be the best video of yours I've seen; it also makes me feel a lot better about a ghost scene down the road in my one webcomic. Thanks for the tips!

Ah, sweet! I was waiting for this exact video cause I found almost no videos on this writing subject! This is gonna be great for my game story

highlyhighlyhighly recommend Tamsyn Muir's The Locked Tomb series (Gideon the Ninth). It's set in a space empire ruled by necromancers, with their Emperor literally being a god that resurrected the entire galaxy. Everyone in it is tied to necromancy in some way whether being a necromancer themselves or Involved, and they have very different ways of tackling grief and love with their necromancy. It's a hilarious series but it has a lot of heart and depth in its characters and world, so I absolutely recommend it, especially if you're a fan of Yoko Taro's stuff. It's very gorey tho so head's up lol

One of the best resurrection I have seen is actual in manga/anime Yu Yu Hakusho - the demon Yoko Kurama - as Suichi Minamino or just "Kurama" as the other characters call him - The whole bought back with functioning memory of what you were but born again from infancy and thus more or less being re-raised, thing creates for some interesting soul searching especially if you were and still remember being a sociopath, but this time around developing a conscience creates some FASCINATING character study, of a teen who has learned to be a good person but still remembers all the moral short-cuts and the advantages still available if he lets go of the lessons his new mother raised in him, and the totally ingrained love even his dark side has for her where if you touch her, Sociopath Kurama will come back and go full unblinking torture on you. Character stuff aside, the world establishes that reincarnations DO happen, it's not a plot contrivance, this demon just had to possess a fetus to be reborn because he was so weak and dying fetus was all he could possess, thus insuring his own resurrection with self-reincarnation. It's something technically any demon could do, but why would they want to possess something dependent on a human mother? So the world rules aren't fudged to get the situation. -------- I will spare details for spoilers here, but the resurrection i detest the most is from Immortus for Avengers 200.... To those who know... YOU KNOW! Aside from the awful, AWFUL way things done to Ms. Marvel, why would you need to be reborn and then create a machine to make sure your quantum state stuck in the new body? Doesn't make sense, I mean, if you are going to *[[* *censored* *for* *spoilers* *and* *nerd* *rage* *]]* and take over the baby in the first place why would the baby/new body need to be stabilized, also, if he can just do this at any time, why wouldn't he just try again? The comic never bothers to tell us.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape spoilers Cayde was an extremely interesting case because the community knew he had to die again by the end of the expansion, but while he WAS there, he was a very interesting example in how those who gave grievance already might react to a loved one coming back, tearing open old wounds and dragging people back to lament

I think Emesis blue is a pretty good story centered around resurrection and how the characters loses their humanity everytime they come back from the dead

Something that often gets forgotten when discussing "somehow palpatine returned" is that ep 7 set up two big villains for the sequel trilogy - kylo ren and snoke, and then ep 8 killed off snoke and gave kylo a redemption arc. there was no way that the sequel trilogy could have had a satisfying ending after that. although I personally think ep 9 should have completely undone the kylo redemption arc and have him as main villain instead of bringing back palpatine

I think a really good example of resurrection done right is Zane from Ninjago and his season 4 character arc.

My absolute favourite resurrection story is The Brothers Lionheart by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. It's so good.

Loved this!

The best resurrection hands down is Wei Wuxian's in MDZS. Tim, It'd be amazing if you give a try to the novels and then tell us what you think! Btw there's no spoiler here, resurrection it's literally the first word in the novels iirc. The whole book start with that.

Immediately thought; shadow of Colossus

LOVE this thumbnail! drew me in before i even realized it was a video from tim!

def a topic that bring me to tears ( I should prob stalk to a therapist about, this and a litany of other things).