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on tumblr. "I'm finally dead, and I still have my wallet! I knew I could take my money with me!"
— Wilbur Ross, Our Cartoon President episode "The Best People"
You know the old saying "can't take it with you"?note In fiction, that's not always true. Fiction likes to think that in the afterlife, you can enjoy all of your things just as much as you could when you were still alive.
When you die and meet people known for their affluence, like King Tut or Napoleon, they're usually portrayed as being just as affluent as they were in life, with their recognizable furniture and artwork and whatever in their Purgatory Penthouses. Various interpretations of Heaven and Hell like to portray the ins and outs as being decorated in gold and precious stones (though whether for decoration or as a twisted form of torture is relative), so the idea that there would be an economy that recognizes Earthly tender is one a lot of people in modern-day Capitalist Earth have latched onto.
Souls who find themselves in Warrior Heaven often emphasize how the people who died get to keep their armor, weaponry, and other important accouterments they had on them when they experience an Honorable Warrior's Death.
Associated with Jacob Marley Apparel, where a ghost's appearance (and whatever they have in their pockets) are related to how they died. If other people are fair game, this may lead to an Afterlife of Service. Commonly done in Artificial Afterlives meant to replicate creature comforts.
Compare/contrast Prenatal Possessions. Compare Coins for the Dead, which are often left with dead bodies under the belief they will carry over to the afterlife.
Not to be mistaken for possessing a corpse or Body Surf.
As a Death Trope, all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.
Examples:
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Art
- In Christian icons, saints are sometimes portrayed with significant items they owned in earthly life (as both a way to make them easy to identify and a symbol of what exactly they did to achieve sainthood). For example, St. Sergius of Radonezh is frequently depicted holding the monastery he founded, writers such as the Evangelists or King David are depicted with styluses, iconographers such as St. Andrey Rublev — with the icons they painted, and doctors such as St. Pantaleon — with a box of medicines and a spoon.
Comic Strips
- The Far Side: One strip depicts a funeral where a variety of material possessions — a piano, a television, a bag of gold clubs, and a dog — are being drawn out the door and into the clouds, while a woman in mourning clothes clutches at them and yells "Aaaaa! It's George! He's taking it with him!"
Films — Animation
- In Coco, during El Dia de los Muertos, the spirits of the dead are able to make ghostly copies of the offerings left on their ofrendas in the Land of the Living. This way, they can bring food and other items they enjoyed in life back to the Land of the Dead.
- Daffy Duck's Quackbusters: Daffy inherits the fortune of millionaire J.P. Cubish, but Cubish's will stipulates that Daffy can only spend it doing charitable deeds and remaining honest in business. Daffy scoffs at this, saying, "What's he gonna do? He can't take it with him." Unfortunately, it turns out he can, as every time Daffy doesn't abide by Cubish's wishes, a bit of the money disappears into thin air. Eventually, Daffy is left with nothing and is back where he started in the movie, selling stuff on the street; and when he makes a sale, Cubish takes that money as well.
Literature
- In the Richard Matheson short story "Death Ship", a crew of astronauts discover a crashed replica of their ship on an isolated planet, and investigating the site further results in them discovering their own mangled corpses. After much speculation, one astronaut realizes they've all died in a crash landing, and that they've become the cosmic equivalent of the Flying Dutchman, doomed to wander the stars in their ghostly ship for all eternity.
- Discworld:
- Men at Arms: It is established that dwarf funeral customs involve burying a weapon in the coffin for the deceased to use to fight whatever dangers they might face in the afterlife. However, when constable Cuddy is killed he is disappointed to find himself unarmed and tells Death that he's supposed to have his burial weapon, only for Death to reply that he normally doesn't meet people after their burial. It is implied, however, that Vimes put the gonne, the quasi-sentient weapon that killed him, in Cuddy's coffin so he would have a truly peerless burial weapon.
- Reaper Man reveals that it's possible to "kill" an item to briefly manifest it in the spirit realm. Mrs Cake smashes a vase so that One Man Bucket can then break the spirit version over the head of some other spirits crowding him. Death tries to have an Absurdly Sharp Blade killed so that he'll have a weapon to fight against the new Death when his lifetimer runs out — but the blacksmith can't bring himself to melt down such a beautiful piece of equipment, leaving Death empty-handed when the time comes.
- The Truth: Mr. Tulip places a lot of value on his potato because everything being fine if he has one is the main thing he remembers of his childhood religion and is upset that his partner Mr Pin betrayed him and took it. With some counselling from Death though and after he gives a sincere apology for his wrongdoings in life, he discovers to his great joy that he still has his potato in the afterlife.
- Wintersmith: Played for Laughs when the dying witch Eumenides Treason orders a ham sandwich for the road. As her spirit leaves with Death, she finds that the sandwich made it across the threshold, but the mustard didn't.
Death: Pickles of all sorts don't seem to make it. I'm sorry.Miss Treason: No relishes in the next world? That's dreadful!
- The Divine Comedy: In Inferno, this is used as an ironic punishment for those damned to the Fourth Circle of Hell. The miserly (those who hoarded wealth and possessions) and the prodigal (those who squandered them) are forced to lug around massive weights — most often interpreted as massive bags of money or other possessions — for eternity.
- In My Posthumous Adventures, Anna's departed soul wears the same cross that her body does — the fact is spelled out when demons order her to take it off and she refuses since it's her beloved mother's gift.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Dothraki funerary practices for a deceased Khal include putting all his valued possessions on his funerary pyre, as well as sacrificing his horse and his bloodriders (should any of them outlive him). When the pyre is burnt, it's believed that everything and everyone on it would accompany the Khal as he rides across the Night Lands.
- In The Unhappy Medium, it's revealed that people who die and become spirits in Purgatory can bring spiritual mock-ups of objects they had on their person. This proves to be the problem with the invention of smartphones, as the arbiters of Purgatory have all devices confiscated from new residents to keep leaks of afterlife information from making it to the living and accidentally upending society.
Live-Action TV
- Downplayed on Ghosts, both the British and American versions. Ghosts can have possessions, but only if the item was on their person when they died. Examples include a letter Thomas was to give someone, one of the feathers in Sassappis' headdress, and the candies in Carol's purse. However, if the item leaves their person, it immediately zaps back to them.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine establishes that the Ferengi afterlife involves using one's worldly goods to bid on the next life, shedding new light on the Ferengi hypercapitalist culture.
- An episode of Star Trek: Voyager dealt with an alien species that didn't believe in souls; they thought that dead people physically went to the afterlife, and thus provided them with material objects.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): Played for heartwarming in "One for the Angels". When street vendor Lew Bookman performs a Heroic Sacrifice by distracting Death from taking a child's life to balance his books (the titular sales pitch for the angels), Lew has to go in the kid's stead. Death allows Lew to take his briefcase full of wares to the afterlife and assures him that he earned his place "up there".
Myths & Religion
- In Egyptian Mythology, it was often believed that the dead could take whatever wealth they had into the afterlife, which was often entombed with them.
- Taíno Mythology: Funeral rites for caciques (chieftains) involved placing their bodies in a fetal position (suggesting a rebirth) and burying them with everything they might need in the hereafter. In some cases, this involved one or more of their wives.
- According to an urban legend, a millionaire died and left instructions in his will that he should be buried with all his money. So his widow determined how much money he had in his bank account and buried him with a check for that amount in his pocket.
Tabletop Games
- Exalted: All grave goods and sacrifices given to the dead become full-scale versions of themselves in the Underworld. Paper and wooden effigies become luxurious and possibly magical treasures, food items become neverending, and sacrificed animals are restored as loyal and virtually indestructible sources of food, fur, labour, and the like. Consequently, funerals are usually lavish affairs in order to afford the maximum possible post-mortem luxury to the dead, which in turn means that gold, gems, and other treasures and resources are about as common and valuable as rocks in the land of the dead. In fact, the grand funerals given by the Dragon-Blooded to put the ghosts of the slain Solars to rest after the Usurpation actually saved the Underworld, and through that all of Creation. In the wake of the Usurpation, the Neverborn, and their spectre armies arose and tried to overrun the Underworld, but were driven back by the ghosts of the newly dead Solars, who had been interred with their full panoplies of war and retained them as grave goods as a result.
- Wraith: The Oblivion: Items that are invested with a significant quantity of emotion and are then destroyed create echoes of themselves known as "relics" in the Shadowlands, the first layer of the Underworld, the level that mirrors the living world. These are the only objects that exist solely in the Shadowlands rather than being a reflection of the living world except for the ghosts themselves. These relics then exist for a length of time determined by how much emotion was invested in them before fading away, so a front door key (important to someone but only really on a practical level) might only last a few months while a treasured childhood toy could be around for years and a cultural icon beloved (or hated, the emotion doesn't need to be positive) by thousands or millions even after being destroyed could be effectively eternal. The usefulness of relics varies, mind you; relic cars are not uncommon but good luck finding any relic petrol.
Theatre
- Ride the Cyclone: In the original version, Ricky Potts appears in limbo with his crutches, even though he no longer needs them. As soon as he realizes this, however, he tosses them away. Mischa also still has his phone, though he is annoyed he can't access wifi.
Visual Novels
- Discussed for laughs in Sex Advice Succubus. When the ghost girl Chloe wonders how she can have sex with a living partner, Qmin may jokingly suggest a ghost dildo, and Chloe will point out that nobody makes those. If you continue down this path, Qmin will wonder if a person who died with a dildo would keep it as a ghost, then suggest killing someone in order to get a ghost dildo.
Web Animation
- Charlie the Unicorn: Norwell obtained the ghost of a keyboard by stealing it from a musician that he accidentally scared to death.
Web Videos
- Discussed in Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Vegeta's spirit appears in Goku's consciousness to give him a Rousing Speech... only for Goku to stop him and ask why he's naked. Vegeta says you don't bring clothes with you after death, but Goku says that he did; he even kept his weighted clothes despite not dying with them on. Vegeta then realized that he got pranked by King Yenma.
Vegeta: That lying red motherf*cker!
Webcomics
- Freefall: As part of the Day of the Dead celebrations, it's traditional to burn paper replicas of objects (such as money or cars) to send them to those in the afterlife. One robot burns a paper replica of himself, under the belief that it will get him into the afterlife just in case he doesn't have a soul.
- Irregular Webcomic!: One character brings digging tools (and horses!) with him into the afterlife so he can try digging his way out. As it turns out, all inanimate objects that ever have or will exist (including robots) go to the afterlife (at least, they do when the entire universe is destroyed all at once).
- The Order of the Stick: Horace Greenhilt has a copy of the family's ancestral blade in the afterlife. He explains to his grandson Roy that this is because the afterlife in the setting depicts people as their idealized selves, and Horace thinks of himself as a swordsman wielding the special sword. Roy doesn't have his own copy because he still thinks of the sword as his grandfather's, not his own.
- Slightly Damned: Items that you are buried with can appear with you in the afterlife. It is tradition to bury a person with a coin placed in their ear so they can pay Death to take them across the river so they don't have to swim to their destined afterlife. A person's favorite possessions can also randomly appear with them when they go to the afterlife, which is how Heaven's library has books from the world of the living.
Western Animation
- The Rivera Family Ancestors in the El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera episode "The Grave Escape" all still possess their mystical super empowering artifacts even as Calacas in the Land of the Dead. The villainous members each have their mech-suits, the heroic ones all possess their own version of the Bronze Boots of Truth (the current Rivera hero — White Pantera — being the current wearer), and the original El Tigre has the current El Tigre's magic belt-buckle.
- Played for Laughs in the Our Cartoon President episode "The Best People". When Kellyanne Conway has Trump's cabinet drink a cocktail of Diet Coke concentrate and pills, they find themselves in a hallucinatory spirit plain. Wilbur Ross concludes that they are dead and is overcome with joy that he still has his wallet.
- In The Real Ghostbusters episode "You Can't Take it With You", terminally ill Rich Bastard Mr. Tummell builds a tunneler into the spirit plane to try and send all of his worldly possessions (and some of his servants) into the afterlife so that he can keep all of it for himself. Not only does he find the thought of his possessions being given away abhorrent, but he ignores his scientist's worries about the environmental effects of his device, and the dimensional hole left in the atmosphere unleashes a horde of ghosts on the city. The Ghostbusters reverse the polarity on the machine and fix the damage, with Mr. Tummel, his skyscraper, and the invasion of ghosts being sucked back into the spirit realm. Even better, all of the money and treasures he had sent into the spirit realm was displaced back in the living world when the building is sucked in, leaving Mr. Tummel alone in his home on the other side without his wealth.
