Usually the result of Never Found the Body. The family/friends/authorities decide that a missing person is indeed deceased, and life can go on. Often leads to a ...

When a character who is alive is mistakenly believed to be dead. Quite often includes the character being shown his own death certificate.

When a character is killed, their killer or another character may make a point to check their pulse or do some other direct action to their body to confirm ...

A character is presumed dead and the entire cast is crying over them. Next thing you know, the character is alive, wondering why everybody else is crying ...

A fanfiction trope in which a character appears to be dead, only to return later, alive and well. Comparable to a deathfic, only non-permanent, "presumed dead" ...

The Dead All Along trope as used in popular culture. You probably thought these characters were alive. NOPE! They're not. They're dead. A character is dead; ...

When someone is on the hunt for a missing person but finds out that the person is no longer alive—either recently deceased or long dead.

A character shows up alive to their own funeral, whether through deliberately faking it, being mistakenly declared dead, resurrection, or Time Travel.

The character is in fact being written out and will be presumed dead indefinitely. However, they leave themselves an out without closing the door in case the ...

In Wild's End an alien machine is blasted with a shotgun and presumed 'dead.' It soon reactivates and kills again. In the Overpopulation At The End of ...