What character from fiction died the most?

[Bossy Monkey]

I mean I know in the Riverworld series, Richard Francis Burton committed suicide and was resurrected some immense number of times, 777 or something, but they weren't individually described in the narrative. Then again, there was that Dennis Weaver character in the Twilight Zone episode who was executed at the end of his dream every night. He could have racked up some truly amazing numbers, but the episode only included one dream and the start of the next one.

Mulder and Scully certainly seemed to die a lot. They also did the "get really old, then miraculously get young again" trick a la the original Star Trek. I think Frodo dies three times in Lord of the Rings, and I think all the other hobbits in the fellowship die at least once, not to mention Gandalf. Any thoughts? (There's always "I Died A Thousand Times" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048190/)

[Danger Mouse]

1. Duh. Kenny FTW.

[Initech]

6. Oh my god they killed Kenny! You bastards!!!!

[rcrush]

2. Duncan MacLeod

[Dr. Strange]

3. Duncan Idaho died a few times in the Dune series.

But Burton in the Riverworld series probably wins.

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. Duncan was my first thought - seems he went through quite a few hundred golas

over the 3500 years of Leto's emperorship.

[leeroysphitz]

11. And several more iterations some 1500 years later before the Bene Gesserit finally got their

sex machine in Heretics.

I'll bet he takes it.

[femmocrat]

4. Wiley Coyote?

:shrug:

[Kali]

5. I was going to say something about Riverworld

when I read your subject line. What about those cheesy scary movies with all the sequels? (I have no clue)

[Bossy Monkey]

8. Jason & Freddy were both already dead when their series(es?) started

I don't know what Michael Myers' deal was. Started out in an asylum; don't remember if he died and then came back for sequels or just escaped somehow.

[DarkTirade]

7. Resurrection Man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Man

[Xipe Totec]

10. Agrajag - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Agrajag is a piteous creature that is continually reincarnated and subsequently killed unknowingly by Arthur Dent each time. Technically, Agrajag first appears in the series in the first novel as a falling bowl of petunias which, yanked into existence miles above the planet Magrathea, only has time to think, "Oh no, not again," before crashing to the ground. The book then speculates that if it could be understood why the bowl of petunias had thought that, we would know a lot more about the universe than we do now. However, the reason behind the bowl's lament was not revealed until the third novel, Life, the Universe and Everything, when Agrajag tells Arthur that he had seen his face in a spaceship window as he fell to his doom. In another incarnation, Agrajag was a prehistoric rabbit who was killed by Arthur for breakfast and whose skin was fashioned into a pouch, which is then used to swat a fly who also happened to be Agrajag. In yet another, he is an old man who dies of a heart attack after seeing Arthur and Ford materialise, seated on a Chesterfield sofa, in the midst of a match at Lord's Cricket Ground.

Eventually, Agrajag becomes aware of his many past incarnations and wishes to take revenge on Arthur Dent, diverting his teleportation to a Cathedral of Hate. However, in the process of explaining his reasons for hating Arthur he mentions “Stavromula Beta”, where Arthur ducks to avoid a shot fired by an assassin, which then hits Agrajag instead. Arthur, never having been to Stavromula Beta, has no idea what Agrajag is talking about, and Agrajag realises that he’s brought Arthur to the Cathedral too early. Thus, any attempt by Agrajag to kill Arthur would be logically impossible. He tries to kill Arthur anyway, and once again dies at Arthur's hands, but not before setting off the explosives intended to kill Arthur by triggering a massive rockfall. Because of cause and effect and the laws of time and the universe (not to mention dramatic necessity), Arthur escapes the rockfall unharmed.

[hedgehog]

12. Jean Grey should get Honorable Mention.