Come one, come all, to our gallery of heroes and villains who have fallen; except this wing of the gallery has a little twist. Every one of the heroes and villains we’re about to show you have fallen in some embarrassing manner. So whether or not these characters have been caught with their trousers down, or whether they just died because reasons, here are our Top 10 Embarrassing Character Deaths.
Come one, come all, to our gallery of heroes and villains who have fallen; except this wing of the gallery has a little twist. Every one of the heroes and villains we’re about to show you have fallen in some embarrassing manner. So whether or not these characters have been caught with their trousers down, or whether they just died because reasons, here are our Top 10 Embarrassing Character Deaths.
Late post from us today, but today we’re going to check out these famous… Fictional people!
Worlds filled with fictional characters require people to fulfil every role. While we may follow the riveting adventures of school children and taxi drivers, they remain fascinated by popular characters that are only popular to them. You’ll never see a film starring these actors, nor read the works of the authors listed here, but to someone who doesn’t exist they’re very, very real.
If that made any sense, plough on gentle reader, through our Top 10 Fictional Celebrities. Continue reading “Top 10 – Fictional Celebrities”
What was once a symbol of childish innocence and the joyous revelries of youth so easily turned into an engine of death. Perhaps by design, by mistake, by technology or by mysticism, there’s nothing quite so creepy as a toy turned deadly. Despite their cuddly and fun exterior, you wouldn’t want your kids playing with these…
What was once a symbol of childish innocence and the joyous revelries of youth so easily turned into an engine of death. Perhaps by design, by mistake, by technology or by mysticism, there’s nothing quite so creepy as a toy turned deadly. Despite their cuddly and fun exterior, you wouldn’t want your kids playing with these…
Or would you?
Nothing screams in-crowd quite like a running joke. One person does or says something stupid and never gets to live it down, a weird moment of inspiration catches fire and spreads through the gang, or some reoccurring verbal tic becomes a catchphrase. Comedians know this, so do game designers, writers and artists of all types. A good gag can be brought back time and time again, recycled and replayed and somehow it only gets funnier.
Join us as we revisit some of the best recurring gags in geek culture. Ten of them to be exact. And some honourable mentions.
What can I say? We have a pattern.
M’aiq has been in so many of the Elder Scrolls games now, that he’s a bit of a running joke. But more than that, he’s actually full of rather interesting lines of dialogue, depending on how you interpret his meanings. He runs seemingly aimlessly, from place to place, just sharing his stories, which is hard to believe. He’s not exactly renowned for telling the truth, hence his title.
Only just clawing his way onto our list, M’aiq is definitely an in-joke for Elder Scrolls fans. Well, if not M’aiq himself, his great, great grandson, who is also called M’aiq. This Khajiit knows more than just a few lines of dialogue and usually runs around at quick speed. He’s worth catching up to for a quick chat, so if you find him roaming around Skyrim or even any of the other TES games, stop for a chat!
Unlikely friends in the Greendale Community College study group, sports jock and cool kid Troy Barnes and awkwardly nerdy and fourth wall breaking Abed Nadir bond over a mutual immaturity, creativity, and generally childlike view of the world. Through the various misadventures of their time at college with the others in the group they turn the world upside down, warp genres and create entire worlds. But in their downtime they host a show, Troy and Abed in the Morning.
The catchy jingle, enthusiastic “guests” and the delightful hosts of Troy and Abed in the Morning make it a cheery and oddly grounded highlight of Community’s otherwise deeply bizarre and twisted world. The fact that the boys are making the whole thing up and there are no cameras, or that the guests often have no idea what’s going on, has absolutely no bearing on whether or not they’re enjoying themselves.
Everyone who knows the original Maxis brand of Sims titles, extending out to SimCity, will be fondly remember the strange loading words of “Reticulating Splines”. Many of us to this very day are uncertain of what exactly that means, or even if it was just some crazy in-joke, starting from SimCity 2000. In actuality, it was literally made to be a nonsensical phrase intended to just make the Maxis guys laugh. Besides: It sounds cool.
Of course, The Sims is well known for one animal. No, not the pink flamingo! I can only be talking about the Llama, a majestic creature who can be used in everyday conversation. With an insult option for calling someone’s mother a Llama, there’s plenty of different options for how to use the Llama. These include dressing up as one to be a mascot for a team by the same name, bleating like a Llama being an illegal form of interrogation, rejecting a date by saying you need to wash your Llama. Yeah, Maxis are a strange bunch.
Creator of the ASDF animation shorts, Thomas “Tomska” Ridgewell is a favourite online comedian of mine. While ASDF may be his most famous series, his life action skits are as good if not better, and his recent fascination with his horse mask has added another rather disturbing layer of comedy. Meet Mrs Johnson.
Appearing in multiple, completely unrelated videos, Mrs Johnson basically a man in a dress and a horse mask who appears long enough to spout a catchphrase “I LOVE IT”. It shouldn’t be funny, but I love the surrealism of Johnson’s appearance at any moment, and it takes one hell of a dark twist when she gets her own skit entitled “Horse”. Sounds like there’s more backstory than what has been hinted at so far. Or Tomska’s just making crap up as he goes along.
“Who you callin’ so puny he could be squished by a bug?!” – Edward Elric.
The Fullmetal Alchemist himself appears to have a running gag, well it was sooo hard to see this one coming. That’s because he is really short and due to that, various characters will allude to this. But he doesn’t like to be reminded of his physical limitations, so he will get pretty angry at anyone who dares insinuate he’s a tiny little man. After all, it’s no different to calling him a child, which he resents. He’s not.
Now, it doesn’t matter how you say it, he really doesn’t want to hear it. He won’t even accept it if you say you didn’t mean it in that way. He’s been known to psyche himself out as well, as he once crawled through some vents, stating how glad he was that he was small enough to fit in the vent, before pausing and screaming out “Aah! I just called myself a tiny little runt!” Oh Edward, we hope you never grow up.
Kudos to Parker and Stone for keeping a joke that should have worn out years ago fresh enough that we don’t hate them for dragging it out. This is a joke that has transformed, been cast aside and brought back, observed from every angle and yet… never dies.
The joke originates with a former classmate who was never present and was therefore presumed dead on a daily basis. In early seasons Kenny was killed off every episode only to respawn the very next week. This culminated in an entire season of the gang grieving his death until he spontaneously returned with no fanfare in the last episode. And now Kenny uses his powers for good.
Kenny’s immortal curse now has an overly elaborate backstory wrapped in eldritch mysteries, and looks set to take centre stage in the upcoming game The Fractured But Whole.
Wurt is a running joke in Blizzard’s Diablo franchise, but has gone further than just the Lord of Terror’s titles. He started off as a man in the original Diablo, who basically had his leg tore off by the big bad evils in the game. Then in the second and third games, you could get Wirt’s Leg as an item. In World of Warcraft, you could get Wirt’s Third Leg and in Diablo III you could also get Wirt’s Other Leg. Oo err.
Wirt has had many different legs, which have appeared over at least 5 different games, from Diablo I, II and III, World of Warcraft, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. He was also a test item in the Blizzard MOBA Heroes of the Storm. Now, don’t forget, the most important thing about Wirt’s leg is the ability to create portals to incredibly secret cow levels. They’re so secret that everyone knows about them… Because Wirt’s Leg combined with a tome of town scroll totally makes a portal.
I think we’re all a little tired of “That’s what she said”, this isn’t the 90’s any more and frankly I think we can all agree She has a dirty mouth but doesn’t have a lot to say otherwise.
Now where do you even begin with all of the jokes in Archer? Between the creative insults, the worst passwords ever, the voicemail pranks, and LAANNAAAA there’s so much to choose from. But phrasing rather escaped the show and slipped out into the real world. It’s quick, effective, and points out an innuendo far faster than She ever could, and it spread so fast that the show not only stopped using it, but made a joke out of no longer using it.
The in-jokes of Archer spring up so naturally and organically that it makes the cast feel more real, and less written. It feels like these people are living and working together rather than being thrown together in a comedic situation. And now that series 8 has begun I have to ask…
Seriously, are we not doing phrasing any more?
Bart Simpson has started up every episode of The Simpsons with a different bit of ‘detention writing’ to put up on the chalkboard of his classroom. Sometimes, these lines he has to write are just purely silly, such as not putting gum under his desk, but other times, it’ll be reference to a real life event or celebrity. He has, in the past, mentioned presidents along with big name celebrities (although they rarely specify the full name of the celebrity).
It seamlessly blends the real with the typical cartoony values that Springfield has become customary of. We don’t watch an episode of The Simpsons without thinking of those ridiculous Simpson openings, either. Bart makes up one of the two major parts that changes episode by episode, also meaning that he’s been doing this since the late 80s. Now, in 2017, we’re going to finally see the writing on the wall for Bart and his family, as it’s officially coming to an end.
This is probably the longest running gag on this list, so if you’d like to see some of these amazing jokes for yourself, check them out at Bartsblackboard.com.
When a returning cameo is so good you have people on the edge of their seats in the cinema waiting for it you know you’re onto a winning formula. The face of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee keeps showing that face in as many films based on his properties as he possibly can, and he’s escalated from a quick and unsubtle look at the camera to being the centrepiece for some of the MCU’s funniest moments. We’ve seen it all from a brief appearance as Hugh Hefner to a librarian obliviously sorting through returns while Spidey and Lizard tear each other to shreds behind him.
The prevailing theory is that Stan is actually playing a recurring role rather than just popping up as a friendly face, Uatu the Watcher, an ancient being tasked with witnessing the most important events in the universe. The kind of power that would give him might explain how his presence spans the cinematic, television and animated aspects of the Marvel property, as well as popping up across the Galaxy, meaning he may well play some kind of important role in the upcoming Infinity Wars.
Throughout 2016, fans waited on tenterhooks as the grim spectre of death stalked one beloved celebrity after another, wondering with each cameo if it could be his last. Of course if he doesn’t turn out to be an actual immortal, then he’ll always live on through his works.
While many jokes will outlive their series and outreach their audience, there are a few that will remain as a calling card for those niche little groups and die-hard fans. Some just fizzle. But let us not forget them, but let us also not list every single one of them here, we’ve got a word count to keep to and nowhere near the man power to list them all. Here’s some honourable mentions.
We’ve mentioned it before and we’ll mention it again – We love abridged series, so much so that today at the GeekOut Bristol Meetup (8th April 2017), we’re hosting an abridging challenge with some great top prizes. Now that we’ve shamelessly plugged this, let’s continue with this entry.
Ghost Nappa is a character that was dreamed up from the pure stupidity that is Nappa. In the actual series of DragonBall Z, he was quite an imposing character, with a lot of seriously deadly skills (at least early in the show). After Vegeta ruthlessly despatches him, Vegeta cements himself as the real bad guy here. However, on DragonBall Z abridged, it seems like Nappa’s personality has an everlasting effect.
Out pops Ghost Nappa, complete with a theme song and all! He’s really damn annoying and he haunts Vegeta occasionally on the Namekian saga. Even in death, it seems like Vegeta can’t get rid of this once proud, but rather unintelligible Saiyan warrior.
How do you get around censorship when you really want to swear liberally? Well, a host of sci-fi series would suggest making up your own swearwords that don’t appear on any list, but Joss Whedon’s verse had a rather cunning addition to its backstory that allowed for as much cussing and grotesquely creative insults as you could want, all able to be shown to an American audience during dinner, because it’s all in Chinese.
So it may not be hilarious, but it’s a running bit that adds flavour to an awesome world and deepens its history. When Mal launches into a long string of unintelligible syllables we all know what’s going on, and can’t help but imagine that somewhere there’s native speakers in the audience either covering the ears of the children in the room, or wincing at Nathan Fillion’s wooden and badly pronounced delivery.
Some jokes outstay their welcome, get old, and get stale. And yet somehow you guys never seem to tire of our Top 10’s. That’s fine, we love making them, probably more than you guys enjoy reading them. And just like every week you get to pick which Top 10 we discuss next week.
What jokes tickle your funny bone no matter how many times you hear them? What are your favourite running gags? Tell us in the comments or Facebook, Twitter or Reddit.
Hey, you there, I see you like our Top 10’s! That’s great, but we need your help now. We are thinking of writing up our Top 10’s as an eBook. Interested? Let us know what you would like to see in our Top 10 eBook!
Black Friday celebrates the end of the Great Depression in the 1930’s, an American holiday that – like so much of America’s culture – has made it’s way to the UK because of how staggeringly profitable it is, but I’ll come down from my political high horse before I get the urge to ride into the sunset yelling Viva la Revolucion!
Alongside some pretty huge deals on great titles, Steam are also running their own award ceremony as voted for by the gamers. So while you pick up a stack of games for a fiver, take some time to nominate some of your favourite titles and get another pointless badge for doing so. Why not? It’s nice to give back occasionally. Here’s my picks for the categories: Continue reading “Steam Awards and Autumn Sale”
Trick or treat! Don your outfits and go a-gathering, alongside some of the finest of theatrical traditions and human habits, the desire to adorn ourselves in the appearance of another for the fun of it. Geeks are perhaps the most enthusiastic when it comes to taking to the sewing machine and the welding torch in pursuit of a new outfit.
Join us fare and geeky folk, as we celebrate those times when our favourite characters have donned new duds, assumed new guises and costumed themselves from boot to scalp. Welcome to the Top 10 characters in costumes.
Ah Faust, we’ve mentioned this guy in a much older Top 10, where we spoke about his rather large scalpel. No innuendos, he really does have a large scalpel, which is bigger than an anchor. Faust was an incredible doctor, if a little unhinged, but an incident saw him go from an insane doctor to basically a shell of his former self. At least, that was the case until he realised the world needed his medical genius and thus, he stepped back into the world.
The weirdest part, is after he was sane again, he decided that he didn’t want the world to see his face. So, he donned his paper bag – which is all he’s seen out in public in. Now, Faust only gets the tenth place, but that’s simply because all of his costume is just his doctor’s attire and then a paper bag on his head. But, without that iconic paper bag, he just wouldn’t be Faust now would he?
A MOBA is usually free, which means that to monetise their games, they need to add something the fans will like. So, they often add in skins. A skin doesn’t affect the way the game is played, but is just a nice little visual change for the gamers. People who genuinely love the game they’re playing are more than willing to part with some cash to put their favourite characters in a bizarre outfit, because who doesn’t love seeing the Hindu Giant of Sleep in pyjamas as pictured above?
This is a very vague entry, hence the low placing on our list, however MOBAs are filled to the brim with costumes. Whether you play League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Awesomenauts, Smite or any other MOBA, you’ll no doubt understand where we’re coming from on this front.
Straight away, I bet you’re thinking “What on earth is this guys deal”? And in all truthfulness, there’s a very simple explanation for the odd teddy bear head he wears. Jinnosuke, or Jinno for short, is an android who wears a teddy’s head as a way to disguise the fact he looks so similar to the Afro Samurai himself. Oh that and the fact that this guy is a freaking android.
The best part about this bear costume is the complete transformation Jinna goes through. When wearing the bear costume, he’s known as Kuma, which of course is basically Japanese for bear. Antagonistic, but sympathetic, this is an incredibly well fleshed out character who deserves to be mentioned. Plus, the style of this show is through the roof. Well worth checking it out if you haven’t, but be warned: It’s graphic.
Peter Dinklage is a massive nerd, and it’s awesome. If it’s not enough to know him as the crowd favourite from Game of Thrones then you can get a slice of the Half-Man as a berserker in LARP comedy Knights of Badassdom, alongside Summer Glau, Danny Puddi and Brian Posehn (and a handful of lesser-known names). Our heroes don their costumes, take to the forests, and get ready to beat the living hell out of one another with foam and latex weapons.
Ahh, but all goes terribly wrong when somebody reads from a “prop” book they brought from home for some convincing looking rituals for the XP and accidentally summon an actual demon. Either way, this is not your normal costume drama, not by a longshot, it’s a heavily armoured and fully armed costume comedy that’s about the pros and cons of taking things too far.
This series addresses the very worst aspects of humanity and shines a big light upon them, all against the backdrop of a child’s ability to see things in the most direct fashion, and also through the lens of make-believe. We have seen the team play as ninjas, (twice) fantasy archetypes, and superheroes. We could have gone with the fantasy characters as they’re the basis for The Stick of Truth, but between the legend of Mysterion, his tireless war with The Coon (and The Fractured, but Whole coming soon) we decided to go with the super-heroes.
The band of foul-mouthed nine and ten year olds have fashioned their identities from what they know and what they have to hand, that’s why we have heroes such as Tupperware, Toolshed, the Human Kite, and Mintberry Crunch. In the middle of all of this is Mysterion, the undying hero born of occult practices, and The Coon, who is Cartman.
This one depends on exactly which version of the minions you follow. If you’ve watched the prequel to the Despicable Me series then the Minions have lived forever, adapting thematically to whatever dark overlord they attach themselves to, high collared capes for a vampire, linen kilts and gold for pharaohs, and for pirates whatever looks cool. Gru’s demands being mostly for hardware means they’ve switched to dungarees, but no doubt the future holds something new.
But the original film clearly shows designs for the minions on Gru’s wall, meaning that he designed them for a purpose, and every costume change is done for a reason. They adapt to changing situations, like cleaning, fires, and the dark with a quick change of costume (or luminosity), and it’s a habit that’s getting worse now there’s adorable kids in the house.
Hah, this is great. Somehow we’ve gotten a staple childrens show into a Top 10, but when you think about it, the Scooby Doo villains are the ultimate cosplayers (Unless we count the next one on this list, but bare with us here). These are characters who are often depicted in their normal human forms at an earlier point in the episode, before being chased around by Scoob and the gang and then revealed.
The most iconic part about Scooby Doo is how all of these villains run around, often sporting the most ridiculous of costumes. From zombies and ghosts, to full on swamp monsters, these guys and girls are the ultimate cosplaying baddies. Put a costume on these evil men and women who just want Scoob and gang to go away, turn into fully enraged devils in their own rights.
Did you ever cosplay as someone and fantasize about possessing the powers that they wield? Well fantasize no more… well, less, this is a videogame not an upgrade. Your characters scoot around the neighbourhood, gathering sweets and treats from the neighbours, making new friends, uncovering strange mysteries and saving your sibling with the powers granted to you by whatever you’re wearing.
Tim Schafer’s knack for simple yet brilliant ideas transformed into games shines through in this cross between an RPG and an arena-fighter. Your cardboard box robot suddenly becomes a Gundam-scale killing machine fully capable of toppling the monsters that stand in your way. Or adopt the guise of a noble knight and become a champion against the darkness. Or french fries, a unicorn, or the entire solar system. Hallowe’en was never this good.
The truly valorous seek to become symbols of what they stand for, to become something memorable, something immediately recognisable that inspires others to become something better than they are. Some people just really want to be superheroes, people like Dave Lizewski, who has taken it upon himself to beat up the villainous sort while wearing a distinctive costume he made out of a cheap wetsuit.
It does at least serve as an inspiration to others, and after a tragic death makes him the city’s premier hero, suddenly dozens of costumed vigilantes come wriggling out of the woodwork. The extra armour isn’t much of an upgrade, especially as he can barely feel pain as it is, and he still looks kinda dumb, but that look becomes something of a flagship that the others can rally too. It’s not about hiding who he is, or becoming who he was always meant to be, it’s about doing what’s right, and making a point about it.
Hardly surprising that the number one pick for us had to be Tanooki Mario; an iconic costume for Mario. Much like the aforementioned cosplay qualities of the Scooby Doo villains, once Mario gets inside of this very warm and snuggly looking Tanooki costume, he’s on his way to gliding all around the place like a madman. Plumbers don’t always fly, but when they do, they do so in a Tanooki outfit.
Now, this gets our number one slot because of just how popular this outfit is. From people cosplaying Tanooki Mario, to people who build whole Mario Maker levels around the Racoon Mario costume (Which granted isn’t Tanooki, but shares many similar properties), this is a well known and well loved outfit.
Not all of our costumed crusaders are good, not all are bad. Not all of our costumed characters do it for a reason, some do it as it’s confidence building. These are parallels to real life costumery which is why we love the Halloween spirit of Trick or Treating. These next two deserve a nod, for they’ve taken costuming to a different level.
James beat out Mimikyu for the Pokemon slot, but of course James often doesn’t wear a costume because he wants to be loved. Instead, he wears a costume as a form of disguise. However, it’s sometimes he wears an outfit that’s just so over the top that the party instantly say “But this is Team Rocket again!” Honestly, why won’t Officer Jenny listen to Ash and his friends from time to time?
Regardless, James appears alongside Jessie and Meowth, as well as their rather amusing companion Wobbuffet. James isn’t afraid to cosplay and crossplay, making him a braver man than most. Besides, when you have legs like those, who wouldn’t want a chance to show them off?
Nathan Fillion has made no small point of how much he loved Firefly, how much he misses it and resents its’ cancellation. In his biggest role following he took as many opportunities as he could to drive that point home, most memorably during a brief moment in one Hallowe’en episode, that makes it to the honourables section purely because it is just that brief.
As Richard Castle emerges from his costume change, you’d swear he was the spitting image of Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Serenity, the resemblance is uncanny. Not the first time he’s worn the outfit too, as his daughter comments on his having worn it about five years ago (harr harr, because of when the episode aired, how deliciously nerdy). It’s one of many such references throughout Castle, but it’s easily the least subtle.
That is all for our sartorial selection, now get back into your day to day threads – be they clothing or forum – and get back to work. Before you wander back into normality, take the time to help us pick out a list for next week.
Ok, don’t dress it up, how did we do? What do you make of our little ensemble? Did we miss any of your favourite characters playing dress-up, or alternative outfits? Let us know on our Twitter, Facebook and Reddit pages. And join us next week for another fantastic Top 10.
Nineteen seasons, one movie, and a computer game, following the offensive adventures of four young boys living in a small town in Colorado. Matt Stone and Trey Parker really know how to make money out of construction paper, memories of school, and delivering morals and important messages in the most politically incorrect way that they can possibly conceive.
It’s been a while since I bought something in a Steam sale, I mostly just sit, browse the options and think long and hard about my bank account, but £7 for South Park: The Stick of Truth? Worth it! I got chance to break into it over the weekend for an hour, and emerged again three hours later. Much like films, television has had a fairly conflicted relationship with computer games, but I am already in awe. Continue reading “First Impressions – South Park: The Stick of Truth”
It’s grisly, it’s over the top, it’s explosive, it’s gory and frankly it’s unnecessary. We love it! When a character’s heights of violence have become so visceral and excessive that it’s borderline funny in how exaggerated it is, then the character becomes something truly and ridiculously memorable.
It’s grisly, it’s over the top, it’s explosive, it’s gory and frankly it’s unnecessary. We love it! When a character’s heights of violence have become so visceral and excessive that it’s borderline funny in how exaggerated it is, then the character becomes something truly and ridiculously memorable.
Grab yourself a mallet and a big bag of dynamite, and join us in a blood party of epic and stupid proportions as we count down through our Top 10 of gratuitously violent characters, but be forewarned because while we try and keep things civil around here the characters listed do not. Some of the content may be bloody, brutal, and even unpleasant.
Don’tcha just love it! Continue reading “Top 10 – Gratuitously Violent Characters”
When the going gets tough the tough get going, leaving behind a motley band of wet rags and shaking leaves. Not cowards as such, just people smart enough to know which end of the stick they’d be handed if they followed suit, or at least with enough wit to be concerned about the endless array of terrifying possibilities.
As the tough vanish behind the hills and into adventure, we round up those who have lost their nerve, those with a little too much on their mind, and those who are far too worried about the future to care where they land on the list of Top 10 Nervous Characters. Continue reading “Top 10 – Nervous Characters”
It’s Easter time! Therefore, it’s time to celebrate in the only ways we know how. With a Top 10 that’s very Easter themed – You could have chosen rabbits, or the more literal Easter Eggs, but no, you guys chose for our Top 10 list of Characters Who Came Back From The Dead. In some ways, I guess we should be thanking you for this one, as it’s not only topical, but it made us think.
It’s Easter time! Therefore, it’s time to celebrate in the only ways we know how. With a Top 10 that’s very Easter themed – You could have chosen rabbits, or the more literal Easter Eggs, but no, you guys chose for our Top 10 list of Characters Who Came Back From The Dead. In some ways, I guess we should be thanking you for this one, as it’s not only topical, but it made us think.
Some of the characters in the list are incredibly well known, some of the entries may actually shock you. Don’t worry though, we’ve got the defibrillator at the ready to resuscitate any of you who may need bringing back during our list. But don’t worry: When there’s an end, there’s always the chance of rebirth. No Isaac from The Binding of Isaac fame, you’re not on this list.
Aha, so you thought you killed off the AI of the Portal series in the first game, well think again you puny meatbag. GLaDOS makes a very dramatic exit at the end of the first game, where you are destroying the very cores that make her… Well her! GLaDOS is truly the reason the Portal series was able to continue, not Chell.
Coming in at number 10 only, because although it certainly was good to see her return from the “dead”, it was never truly confirmed that you killed her (even though it seemed like you had), plus the moment Portal 2 was announced, we all knew she’d be back. Plus, if nothing else, she gets a nudge onto the list for her beautiful singing voice. Ellen McLain, the voice of GLaDOS, is also a downright lovely individual who we had the pleasure of meeting and listening to at last years Kitacon Invasion.
Frieza’s name was known all throughout the galaxy as the most fearsome warrior of all. He was able to level whole planets, barely using any effort at all. This intergalactic terrorist would incite fear upon those who gazed eyes on him, as well as having a rather flamboyant fighting force (Ginyu Force) at his disposal. Frieza seemed like he had it all, until he was cut into a million pieces, had parts of his body disintegrated and then left for dead on planet Namek. Talk about having a rough day.
But then, very shortly after the Frieza/Namek saga was over, we went back to Earth and lo and behold, Frieza returns! This time, he was on Earth! What ever could the world do– Oh, okay, a guy from the future comes along and in one slash with a sword manages to do what took Goku and friends what must have been eight episodes. Still, Frieza wasn’t finished there – Well he was, until very recently. Last year, in the film DragonBall Z: Resurrection ‘F’. This time, he seems to not be a robot, but golden! Now you’ve seen his true final form? Possibly?
This one was incredibly shocking and highly controversial. In fact, I’m not going to make and mistakes about it: I somewhat grew tired of Family Guy a while back. There’s only so much that you can take of what is effectively just constant running gags, which grow staler than a loaf of bread that you’ve left for only five minutes on a table in the Sahara Desert. I might be being rather descriptive of how stale some of the jokes can get, but there’s one thing this series did really well. It hit all of us right in the feels.
The very controversial episode of Brian’s death, aptly named Life of Brian, was actually somewhat hard to watch. The video above shows the clip of Brian’s death, so a small warning goes out to you – It’s a little bit brutal. The episode managed to handle the death of a main character really well. It didn’t resort to wacky humour about it, but instead, it felt as if the series was about to lose a sense of what it was – Same as how many of us feel whenever we lose someone or a pet that’s so near and dear to us. This episode stirred so many people, that a change.org petition was started and eventually Brian’s death was ret conned, proving the character was indeed loved and would have been sorely missed.
I wonder how Family Guy would look today if they kept the replacement dog..?
The films series that just won’t die features one of our all time favourite immortal nemeses, the masked slasher Jason Voorhees. While the film franchise has limped, sagged and very nearly collapsed under the burden of abuse from varying directors there’s an underlying character to the mighty butcher of rampant teens, generally lying under the surface of a lake, but he’s seen as something of a representation of puritanical oppression. Not a lot oppressing him though.
The source of his immortality has never truly been explained, mostly that a series of flukes, assorted magicks (with a “k”) and prolonged periods of time spent in suspended animation have all contributed heavily to his prolonged existence so that he may foreshorten that of others. Trips to Hell and outer-space can’t hold him back, not even failed titles, spinoffs, or lousy versus films can keep him from rebooting.
It was either him or Ghost Rider, it’s always a tough call when you have two incredible characters who have been offered a deal from the devil, and while we can forgive Nicolas Cage for a rather… different interpretation, we still love Spawn just that little bit more.
Maybe it’s the vast array of powers, challenging Malebolgia himself to mortal combat, OH! and Mortal Kombat! Al Simmons is just a more awesome character, a grim silhouette in the stereotypical stormy night that casts every bit as much fear as the flaming skull of vengeance, who also got a legendary cartoon series to boot. But what about his return from death? If you read his entry in the Top 10 Unfortunate Heroes you’ll know it’s not a happy tale, it’s a hellish contract born of a need for revenge, and to save the life of the one he loves, but it slowly becomes a mission, a duty to the forces of light born on the shoulders of a very dark soldier.
In a tale of epic struggle against what is effectively overcoming the unspeakable ultimate evil, Harry Potter makes it onto our list as a surprising entrant. After all, he manages to defeat Voldemort*, doesn’t he? So how can it be that The Boy Who Lived who ended up being The Boy Who Died Then Came Back To Life Again Or Something? Well, it’s all down to the details in this one, but Harry does indeed die.
He is a Horcrux, one that Voldemort himself accidentally created. The irony was that Harry had to kill himself in order to destroy one of the Horcruxes. Hey, everything in this series was entwined in some way, even the Golden Snitch that Harry was given by Dumbledore makes a very important appearance during this part. When Harry dies however, a lot of the story really comes together here. The Horcruxes are falling very quickly at this point and of course, time to go and defeat Voldemort once and for all.
*Or y’know, Neville Longbottom, the series whipping boy, is the one who ends up beheading the snake in a rather amazing scene in the films, but whatever!
Solomon Grundy
Born on a Monday
Lives for a week, a tale of tragedy that takes us a total of seven days and – in the case of Cyrus Gold – ultimately ends in reincarnation. You see, the immortal Grundy from the DC universe is an ancient and wealthy banker from days of yore whose carriage sinks into a peat-bog that supposedly contained one of DC’s infamous retcon devices, a Lazarus pit. The rejuvenating properties infuse Grundy, leaving him incapable of permanent death, or even coherent thought.
The pits are known to damage the mind and soul of those they help, whilst making the body incredibly powerful. To someone with the self-discipline or narrative importance of Ra’s Al Ghul the effects can be mitigated with rigorous self control and suitable sacrifice. For Solomon Grundy, it leaves a mindless giant capable of crushing a man with a shrug. Batman actually enjoys Grundy for the chance to cut-loose and get to some real damage dealing, despite the fact that the giant is reborn far larger and stronger than before.
He does rather lack some of the guile of Batman’s better villains, being incapable of articulating much more than the one rhyme that was skipping through his head as he suffocated to death in the mystic swamps.
Although some credit must go to Captain Jack Sparrow for being dragged back from the locker against his somewhat shattered will, someone had to step up who knew how to get to the other side. And as it happens Jack recently killed someone who’s as good as he is at not staying dead for long.
It took a large crew and a whole lot of persuading to get Sparrow back from death, Barbossa made one sweet deal and came striding back to enjoy some juicy apples and revenge… juicy, juicy revenge. During his captaincy of the Black Pearl he got dangerously close to death before Sparrow and Turner finished the job, but as it turns out Tia Dalma/Calypso has a soft spot for the old sea dog.
More and more we’re seeing film series leave us with cliffhangers to drag us back to the cinema, but in this incredibly short scene there was more excitement drummed up for the third instalment of the trilogy than in any other series – at least that I’ve ever seen. Who knew a pair of boots would be such a welcome sight?
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
Well, I guess Gandalf the Grey was right – The Balrog certainly didn’t get to pass Gandalf and his temper tantrum of turmoil. It ends up that Gandalf shouting those immortal words would also be Gandalf the Grey’s last. The whip reaches up, lashes around the leg of Gandalf and pulls him down… Well okay, it wasn’t his last, as he manages to call everyone fools because they aren’t flying. I mean for crying out loud, Hobbitses can’t even fly, Gandalf, you senile old guy.
Ahem, I digress. Later in the film, Gandalf makes a very lovely re-appearance, as Gandalf the White. Apparently, when this wizard dies, he manages to fall into a vat of Vanish Stain Removal. Enough joking though, Gandalf’s death was not in vain – He comes back way better than ever before and it’s one of the franchise’s most iconic moments.
Are you really surprised? Seriously?
Kenny infamously dies once an episode in early seasons of the world’s most even-handedly offensive cartoon series, it became the most widely known running gag in a series for a decade, and had a generation learning how to swear loudly in the face of death. They attempted to kill Kenny off permanently in an attempt to kill a joke they’d grown sick of, before demurely bringing him back in the same off-hand fashion they’d been doing for years.
As time progresses we learn that in fact Kenny’s parents conducted some strange ritual with elder beings to cause him to be reincarnated constantly, a superpower he uses to become the cloaked immortal hero Mysterion. In fact one of the most harrowing episodes of South Park was the episode in which we learn of how alarmingly aware of his immortality Kenny is, holding a gun to his head and screaming “Remember this time! You have to remember!”, but no one ever does, no one can mourn a child who never dies.
Bastards.
Everything comes to an end, but not the characters in our Top 10 list! Well some of them kind of do, but they don’t all simply end there. But the below extra characters are also known for their ability to just come back from the dead. At least they’ve got a chance to redeem themselves in our Honourable Mentions list!
Depending on the version of Dracula that you look into, this vampire seems to just never stop dying and coming back to life. Interestingly, the state of how vampires sleep in the story of Dracula is known as “Death-Sleep”, as the vampires appear to be dead with their eyes wide open during their slumber, so if we take that into account as well, then hey, Dracula dies every damn night. But that’s not exactly true now is it?
I mean if we look at the Castlevania series, the amount of times Dracula has legitimately been killed is quite staggering – Yet he always manages to come back for some rather unspecific reason. “Oh we resurrected him”, “oh we’ve got to kill him again.” Who knows why he thinks it’s a good idea to keep fighting the Belmonts, but hey, Dracula has to have something to do in his unlife, right? I guess having a hobby is good enough in his world.
I had the most terrible dream, I was plummeting to my death, nothing but darkness and my own echoing screams, and then suddenly I was assaulted by descending numbers. I don’t think they reached zero because I woke up somewhere near where it all took place. I’m almost reluctant to try and make the leap again… but the world will not save itself, and I don’t see anyone else around here who isn’t trying to kill me.
From the Hyperion New-U stations in Borderlands to the wave of bloody carnage that ends every successful run in Super Meat Boy, we’ve grown all too accustomed to the ability to just get up and try again. Perhaps the return of the roguelike owes itself to our newfound nonchalance in the face of death, because it can be hard to make death something to be feared, while at the same time allowing the player to get straight back into the fray without the tedium of starting from scratch.
From an allotted maximum number of lives, to money and experience penalties, defeat is not without its sting, but that doesn’t make it any less funny when your character dies and walks it off.
Oh we slayed this list! But lo and behold, when one goes down, it simply comes back within a week’s time much like Solomon Grundy. But now it’s time for you to decide what our list will be returning as next week. It’s time for you to help us pick next week’s iteration of our Top 10 list.
As always, thanks for reading our list. We love writing these and as they are still thoroughly well received, we’ll keep doing these until you guys say “stop with the Top 10 lists!” Let us know what you thought – Are these characters deserving of this list? Do you think we’ve missed any characters that deserve a special mention? Would you have reordered this list in any way? Please leave your comments below, or over on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for always being excellent!
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