How do you resurrect a character while keeping the emotional impact of their death?

[MasterValkyrie]

So to make a few things clear. I have 0 plans on doing this more than once. And if I did, I would scrap them lol. And although the process to resurrect this character is easy, the cost is what's going to make it a fair trade.

I want to avoid giving spoilers, but I will provide them if needed.

[thel3tterm]

I think that cost is exactly what keeps the impact. Maybe they're back, but not quite the same. Maybe they can't experience things the way they used to, and it's barely living anymore. Maybe the cost of their resurrection was so high that characters wonder if it was worth it. Maybe they didn't WANT to come back.

Basically, make sure there's a significant downside, and that this isn't treated as some magic bullet, but a serious and difficult situation.

[Jenny-Toons]

I think a good resurrection always comes with consequences, mainly those are work against the revived character.

A lot of times, people dislike reviving characters because it feels like the stakes are not high enough. It feels like there are no consequences to death (or faking your death). So for myself, I'm all about the consequences:

What are the physical altercations of coming back to death? Can they see ghosts? Do they still keep their wounds? Are they still fully there, or has seeing death messed with their mind?

If they faked their death, let's understand the relationship between them and the other characters -- are the others going to be happy they're alive? Will they be pissed off? Or hell -- will they be angry now that they've moved on, and suddenly they're back again.

Having someone come back from the death is just has emotionally impact as having them gone. Just gotta know where to push those buttons.

[TheGentleArtist]

The emotional impact of their death stays or lingers; it shows that those affected by it were affected by it and learned something from it. It helps to not devalue the death nor the concept of death in the series. Also a little reminder and reminiscing as the steps taken towards the resurrection helps keep the impact as well.

[cherrystark]

Presentation is key. In the 1970s show "The Six Million Dollar Man", they decided to give Steve a love interest and introduced Jaimie as his "Bionic Woman". Spoilers Jaimie dies and Steve is heartbroken. Jaimie's character had such great reviews that the creators decided to give her her own spin-off, the show "The Bionic Woman".

What they did was the old "she was technically dead but we revived her" routine. When she recovered, she didn't remember Steve. Yes, the "faked death" and "amnesia" tropes are cliched but it allowed Jaimie to be established as her own person and hero instead of an appendage of Steve. I think if you do them well, it works to bring a character back without leaving the readers unsatisfied.

[Van]

Oh I'm actually planning this with one of my characters, they later come back as a ghost.
Thing is in this novel your personality completely changes and you have no memories of your previous life after becoming a ghost. They're essentially a totally different character, with a new name and all.

Their family and friends, still more acquaintance with their previous identity, have a hard time getting used to this new person. Leading the character to feel kind of threathened and alone.

Just what were they doing wrong? Who were they before? How were they "supposed" to act?

I dunno I think it's a neat idea

[WOSTR]

The impact of the death is often where a lot of the trauma starts, for example, watch a film, the villain who you're built up to not care about dies at the end, or someone who was nice enough, even the hero goes, there's no aftermath, the person wasn't vital, or the hero/mains story ended with the runtime.
We don't see the struggle afterwards of someone else picking up where the diseased left off, going through their belongings, having those awkward conversations where you let others know what has happened, seeing their seat empty, planning a funeral, putting up with multiple involved people, the group dynamics changing, plus in a work of fiction, what happened to the body?

[DiegoPalacios]

Another alternative to consider are other ways to bring a dead character back without the use of resurrection.

Maybe they can only manifest as a spirit and can only be present for a limited time.....

Or perhaps, they were turned into a zombie, a vampire or another creature....of course this could also affect their minds, maybe a hero was turned into a vampire who retains the memories but not the attachment to the main cast, and now, they are after their blood.......

It is possible that a clone of the dead character was created.....how will the clone handle the fact that it is a clone?....will he behave the same as the previous one?....will living on the shadow of the original be overwhelming?

[MasterValkyrie]

I appreciate the help. And to answer a few points.

The character being resurrected is still the same person, both mentally and spiritually. The only downside is that she remembers how she died, so she can still feel the pain from time to time. But thanks to the process, she actually gains an immunity to poison and toxins. (She was stabbed through the chest by a poison covered spear.) I won't get into the specifics of the process. (Unless y'all want).

The price is not something as great as gathering 7 star-studded balls. Cough Cough But it comes pretty close. The character paying the price is forced to break a promise that he made to his sister right before she died in his arms. So for him specifically, this price is worse than death. There is more to it, but this is the gist of it.

In the 1970s show "The Six Million Dollar Man"

My mom loves this show. But I've only watched it with her a few times.

[Kiweevil]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[AmysGames]

Gonna disagree with the general consensus here, but I don't think there necessarily needs to be lasting negative consequences for the resurrection itself. But I do think that the resurrection needs to be difficult to achieve.

For the death to have emotional impact, in my opinion, there needs to be a grieving period. Time for the other characters to struggle with the loss, and wonder what they're going to do without that deceased character. Maybe the characters know that there's a way to revive them, maybe they don't find out until later, but it has to be something that takes them a lot of time and/or effort to achieve. Not to mention that they need to make the decision that reviving this character is worth the effort.

That being said, having lasting consequences afterwards definitely adds to the emotional impact. The consequences don't even have to be for the revived character, necessarily—for example, maybe bringing the character back requires sacrificing the life of another character.

[AVXP]

Aside from all the other great answers - is the cost of resurrections for your future stories and for you, as a creator.
Once you bring someone back, you remove ANY stakes for any future death-
since you might just decide to bring them back at any point.

Why would any reader feel anything about a death if you can reverse it and/or even succumb to reader pressure.
It breaks reader's trust and unless you left a ray of hope- something that hints at a possible return, you lose all emotional credibility.

About the only thing that can get away with that is a Soap Opera, where returning actors (no pun intended) can be celebrated - not characters, but the actors that play them.

In wrestling, too many heel turns and flip flops makes the character random.
Too many deaths become random too. lol

[HGohwell]

I think time and frequency are two important things. One of my favourite mangas consistently does fakeout deaths to the point where I genuinely wonder if anyone going "omg they're going to die" is reading the same show. No one dies outside of minor characters and backstory. Which is fine, they could have high stakes and make me worry about the character without ever killing one off, but the constant "they're dead, grieve for them, oh wait no they're not" gets tiresome. If you want to emotional impact of a fake out or undone death, don't over do it or it becomes a joke or worse boring. Like any trope, the more it's done, the more desensitized your audience becomes to it.

And also the time between the death and the reveal/ressurection. If it's next chapter/update, your reader hasn't had time to process it or the impact. And just good writing. YGO series do this quite well, actually. Most YGO seasons will "kill off" pretty much their entire cast in the last season to prove how scary the big bad is, and these scenes can be heart wrenching, even knowing that they're all not really dead and will come back. Good, emotionally impactful writing is good emotionally impactful writing, even knowing the stakes of lack of. But also, when YGO does it, those characters won't be back until pretty much the end of the season which can be the better part of a year for some of these shows and the amount of time they're "dead" for helps it feel less like a throw away thing. I know these characters are coming back, it doesn't stop me crying over the scene.

So I think generally, the death should still feel like a death and be written like a death and should have the impact of a death, however that impacts the characters. And the same, I don't think resurrections should feel cheap either. Think about any other situation where you lose someone. A break up or losing a friendship, things just don't automatically go back to how they used to be when you meet that person again and I think a resurrection should be similar. Yes, you're character might be happy they're back, but we process things while we're grieving and it can change people and make you look at your relationship differently. And now that person they've come to terms with no being here is here again.

And that's not going into how near death or actual death experiences can change people. I can't remember which show it was, but I saw a show with a bunch of characters who couldn't die. One became ridiculously reckless and carefree only to have it hit her too late that can't die doesn't mean can't even up in awful situations while another was developing PTSD from all his deaths that he came back from.

[ble]

I hate when they resurrect someone basically for free, like dragon ball Z or most western comic books that just negate everything to go back to the status quo.

I agree with those that say is better if it has consequences. For example, naruto had some resurrection jutsus, but at least they cost one life in exchange, either the caster or someone else. This means is not something that can be spammed.

Or other media resurrect a character, but they never came just as they were, maybe now they are half-demon, or their mind is changed.

[domisotto]

I prefer very specific consequences, such as love interest had moved on or children refusing to accept the resurrected character as their parent, or all of their memories being gone and NOT restored, and their relationships rebuilding very differently, etc. Or someone else had to die in their stead, and they have to live with that sacrifice.

I guess, it could also be a permanent deformity that makes them truly unattractive, such as a smell of decomposition and rotting flesh sticking to them permanently or a coating of maggots or something else that causes revulsion.

Finally, resurrection can be short-lived for a clearly defined task with an exact deadline. This is a borrowed time, and it makes it poignant.

[franzvanderlinde]

I would say the character would have changed so much (physically, personality, etc) they can't really go back to their former life and needs to move on (sort of Lelouch from Code Geass)

[DualDragons]

Yeah, there need to be consequences. Pretty much what everyone else already mentioned.
The only example I can think of at the moment that do this interestingly are the reanimations in Naruto. While they are resurrected shinobi they still are not the same as their prime counterparts and they are controlled by the jutsu caster who revived them.

[AmazementComics]

I'd like to offer a suggestion that may have not been mentioned in yet. You could always go the route of creating an alternate universe version of said dead character and have them assume the role of their universal counterpart. DC Comics did this with Superman during the last year of the New 52 run. Essentially, Superman was dying of Kryptonite poisoning, and with some dimension meddling, the Superman from the pre New 52 era and New 52 Superman teamed up to defeat an overpowered Superman clone.

The New 52 era Superman passes on, and in his place, the pre New 52 Superman took his place. There are repercussions because this "old" Superman has no recollection of this Superman's life, so the other heroes treat him a little differently. You could copy an example like that and that would technically be "resurrecting" your character. I don't that's downplaying or cheapening the impact of death in that respect either.

[borzoiteeth]

As much as I'd love to go into details of what I do- I must admit that I and many others overthink this element. Because most fiction isn't aiming for that kind of "realism" and want that kind of escapism. There are too many countless big works that do resurrection cheaply and it has not stopped anyone from loving the works. Warning next paragraph for a 30+ year old spoiler-

Spock died in a cool film called Wrath of Khan. Spock then returns in The Search for Spock and overall most people would consider that film a meh. Despite this, Wrath of Khan is still beloved. The following films after Search are not considered weaker for having Spock back like nothing happened. Voyage Home, the film right after Spock's return is just an outright comedy and is also considered one of the best Star Trek films.

People love Spock so much and his dynamic so important to the cast people just hand wave how meh his return was. Wrath of Khan is still recommended and praised. People will mention how Spock's death and funeral still makes them cry. As much as I consider myself harsh on resurrecting characters I too handwave Spock's fumbled return.

So I would say the real answer is make the death super cool and have it happen to the character the audience apparently cannot live without. People can and will forgive plot fumbles in exchange for the promise of more fun stories.

[UniqueFAYS]

Lots of tears, drama, and slaps never hurt anybody (despite the irony). I don't know in what context this character is resurrecting in, but whenever a lot of heartbreak and pain has occurred from their death, it is best to demonstrate just how much that death has impacted the other characters, by doing do, even if the character is resurrected, it will make it hard for them to be accepted back into the newly built reality of the other characters. I would assume they all moved on and built new lives so to backtrack in such a way will always cause emotional conflict and old wounds being torn open back up. Just make it a big, dramatic ordeal, death is never easy, but it's worse when apparently the person isn't actually dead. Resurrections are always ridiculous since they play with everyone's feelings so pay respect to those feelings and address them fittingly.