Basic Trope: A one liner made at the expenses of someone who just got killed.
- Straight: Upon throwing a Mook into an Acid Pool, Secret Agent Bob says "Maybe he would have preferred the basics."
- Exaggerated:
- Secret Agent Bob has an entire notebook full of these, so he has one of these for every way he can kill somebody.
- Bob makes Bond One Liners every ten minutes, such as after finishing his lunch.
- Downplayed:
- Bob's one liner isn't all that witty.
- A one-liner following a Non-Lethal K.O..
- The first half of the line happens before the kill, the second half comes after.
- Justified:
- Bob is trying to impress his partner Alice, who considers these to be high-class comedy.
- Bob wanted to reply to the Mook's attempted Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
- Bob needs to intimidate the other mooks.
- Bob likes making puns or is a big snarker.
- Bob can only relax and make jokes after his enemy is dead.
- Bob is a Psycho for Hire and Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor.
- Using a Pre-Mortem One-Liner would leave Bob wide open to his attempted target's counterattack, so he opts to wait until he's sure they're dead to crack wise.
- Inverted:
- The hero about to be thrown into an Acid Pool and says "An acid pool? I'll give you one thing, Doctor Bad: as clichéd as it is, it isn't exactly a basic trap."
- Secret Agent Bob gets the jump on a Mook at the edge of an Acid Pool. Before throwing him in, he quips, "You need to learn the basics of living."
- Subverted:
- The Super-Soldier mook climbs out of the acid pool and quips "No, I wouldn't."
- After killing the mook, Bob admits he can't think of something to say.
- Double Subverted:
- The hero throws some drain cleaner at the super solider as it charges at him, who dissolves instantly and counter-quips "I was always told you couldn't get very far in life if you couldn't deal with the basics."
- He follows it with "But he'll never know that."
- Parodied:
- There is World Championship Invitational for this trope in Bob's country.
- Bob's spy training included a semester in "Murder Quipping 101".
- Zig Zagged: When Bob kills somebody, he either does one of these or ignores him and goes to town on his buddy two feet away
- Averted: Mook falls into an acid pool, hero remains silent.
- Enforced: "This movie needs more jokes."
- Lampshaded: "I'm sorry, did you just tough talk a dead body?"
- Invoked: "What would James Bond say in this situation?"
- Exploited: The mooks fill the hero full of lead because him talking gives away his position.
- Defied: "I'm not making a crack here, I'm not James Bond."
- Discussed: Bob and Alice are comparing one-liners used over their careers.
- Conversed: "Of all the puns Bob could've gone for in this scene..."
- Deconstructed:
- The hero uses it to cope with the violent deaths he encounters.
- Bob winds up caught on tape after defending himself from a mook and making the quip. It is taken makes what would look to be a straightforward case of self-defense look like a cold-blooded murder.
- Reconstructed:
- ...Not to mention the humourous and/or well-deserved ones.
- Bob's allies come to his defense, knowing him well enough to explain that he just likes to get in the last word after having to deal with something so dangerous.
- Barbara makes a point, after killing the man who murdered Bob, to make a pithy little joke about the murderer's violent demise in Bob's honor.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob's one liner is then followed with a laugh track and/or applause.
- Bob's one liner is followed by jeering and tomatoes being thrown at him, making Bob look down on disappointment.
- The Mook's ghost finds the quip funny.
- Bob was so looking forward to saying a pithy one-liner after killing someone that he wrote it down in a napkin (or any funny surfaces) and he pulls it out to read it aloud (very, very badly) when the time comes.
- Played For Drama: Bob is stressed from the fight, and he insults the person he just killed to get it out of his system. It's not even funny or clever, but it doesn't need to be. He has more important things like the mission.
- Played For Horror
- Bob's quirk of giving pithy little jokes after murdering someone is demonstrated to be proof of him being The Sociopath.
- Bob's showcase of humor in the face of murdering people is a sign he is undergoing Sanity Slippage.
- The death of the goon is too gruesome for Bob to make a joke about, and he still tries it noticeably takes him a lot of effort to think of something.
- Bob's showcase of humor after a very violent death is the moment Alice snaps.
Maybe you would've preferred to go back to Bond One-Liner.
