Line #20 PlayingWith/ChainedToARailway


1	'''Basic Trope''': The villain ties a sympathetic character to the railroad tracks as torture or attempted murder.
2	* '''Straight''': The [[DastardlyWhiplash moustache-twirling]] Bob chains [[TheIngenue innocent barmaid]] Alice to the rails when she rejects him and threatens to leave her there unless she agrees to marry him.
3	* '''Exaggerated''':
4	** Bob chains Alice to the rails for criticizing [[TheHero Charlie's]] suit, feeling it's an EvenEvilHasStandards moment.
5	** Bob chains Alice to the rails alongside Carol, Diane, Eve, Francesca, Gillian and Hannah.
6	* '''Downplayed''': Bob dangles Alice from a tree over the tracks.
7	* '''Justified''': Alice has magic powers she could use to free herself but she cannot use them if she is touching cold iron.
8	* '''Inverted''':
9	** The virtuous Alice chains the evil Bob to the rails.
10	** Bob ties Charlie's priceless toy train to a street right before a marathon.
11	* '''Subverted''':
12	** Bob chains Alice to the rails... but the train hasn't run on that line for at least a decade.
13	** The train driver sees Alice tied to the track and promptly brings the train to a grinding halt.
14	* '''Double Subverted''':
15	** ...but the disused line is next to a busy highway, and while Alice is distracted, she is run over by a car.
16	** ...but then the front end of the train breaks off from the friction and falls on top of Alice.
17	** [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Trains take awhile to stop.]] The train driver also has very poor eyesight. As a result, the train doesn't stop in time, and Alice is brutally run over anyway.
18	* '''Parodied''':
19	** Bob chains Alice to a miniature railway and little electric trains bump harmlessly into her body.
20	** On a train journey into town, Charlie sees the track liberally strewn with helpless tied maidens.
21	** Bob can't find a spot to tie Alice to the tracks because other villains go there first with their victims.
22	** Announcements at the railway station say that the train will be delayed due to maidens tied to the track. Everyone acts as if this is a regular nuisance, like signaling failures.
23	** Alice is stripped naked and tied to a pole near the tracks. When the train arrives, the passengers notice her and take photos of her.
24	* '''Zig-Zagged''': The train gets put into reverse before reaching Alice. Then starts going forward again. Then backward again. Then forward again...
25	* '''Averted''': Bob does not tie Alice in such a way as to leave her in the path of something that could run her over.
26	* '''Enforced''': "We love these Old West cartoons. Let's do a ShoutOut to them."
27	* '''Lampshaded''': "I love tying people to the railway tracks; the classics are always the best, I tend to find..."
28	* '''Invoked''': Bob always wanted to be an evil enough villain to actually tie someone to the railroad track.
29	* '''Exploited''': Bob ties Alice to the tracks to distract Charlie while he sets about on another evil scheme.
30	* '''Defied''': Bob glances at a railroad track and instantly decides against putting Alice to such an obvious and overly dramatic death.
31	* '''Discussed''': "Well, you're just a regular [[CardCarryingVillain Snidely Whiplash]], ain't ya? Whatcha gonna do next, [[TemptingFate tie me to some tracks somewhere]]?" [Cue GilliganCut.]
32	* '''Conversed''': "Railroad, maiden. Maiden, railroad. What else is he supposed to do in that sort of situation?"
33	* '''Implied''': Only the engineer's cab is visible when the train passes through. A call from the conductor in the back mentions body parts trailing behind the train.
34	* '''Deconstructed''':
35	** Bob is a {{Yandere}} who keeps Alice tied to a disused rail line near his home so that she cannot run away from him.
36	** It's pointed out repeatedly that (InUniverse and out) it's a DeadHorseTrope ''because'' of such things as ''WesternAnimation/DudleyDoRight'', and so anybody who tries it is [[YouWatchTooMuchX inevitably going to be mocked as having seen too many episodes of it]].
37	* '''Reconstructed''':
38	** Alice is the daughter of a railroad baron who fired Bob and left him homeless, so he is murdering her in this way to symbolically injure her father.
39	** As Alice points out (while appropriately [[DastardlyWhiplash dressed like Snidely Whiplash]] as she ties down Bob because yeah, she ''[[NerdInEvilsHelmet loves]]'' ''Dudley Do-Right''), sure, you think it's a very old-fashioned, [[BondVillainStupidity overly-theatric]], stupid and boring way to kill someone, but have you ''[[{{Gorn}} seen]]'' what happens when a 950-ton bundle of rolling steel the size of the Chrysler Building (which ''can't'' stop on a dime, by the way) rolls over a living being at 80 miles per hour? No? You're going to in about a minute. Play nice, now...
40	* '''Played for Laughs:''' "I'm going to TIE you to the RAILROAD TRACK!!" "What, again?"
41	* '''Played for Drama:''' Bob chains Alice to a railway and makes the murder look like a suicide, causing despair in Alice's family.
42	* '''Played For Horror:'''
43	** Alice is unable to get out of her bindings and can only spend the last two seconds of his life screaming as the billion-ton hunk of steel tries, quite futilely, to stop in time...
44	** Alice's death is shown with extreme {{Gorn}}.
45	----
46	Go back to ChainedToARailway, my pretty, or else!

Context PlayingWith / ChainedToARailway