It’s a common moral in tales of folklore and fantasy: Do not disturb the dead. No matter how powerful of magic you possess, it is always inadvisable to go against the laws of both nature and the divine by attempting to reverse the irreversible. Even if you do manage to bring someone back from those Plutonian shores, they are never quite the same. Yet, as humans with a complicated relationship to mortality, it is natural for us to grieve the absence of those we love and to long to bring them back to life. Countless tales of Gothic and horror literature are here to remind us exactly why those thoughts should remain just a fantasy and not be acted upon. Here are just a few of my favorite examples of stories that warn against raising the dead:
