Basic Trope: Someone cradles the person they killed.
- Straight: After stabbing Alice, Bob cradles her body.
- Exaggerated: After killing Alice seven different ways, Bob cradles her body for hours.
- Downplayed:
- After knocking Alice unconscious, Bob cradles her.
- Bob doesn't necessarily cradle Alice, but does gently lift her up as she dies.
- Justified:
- Bob is an assassin and wants to make sure nobody hears Alice's body hitting the ground. And after that, he wants to make sure nobody sees Alice lying on the floor and has to dispose of her corpse.
- Bob lashed out at Alice in anger and is just now realizing what he's done.
- Bob had come to sympathize with Alice from all the time he had spent tracking her down and learning her story. Though she still had to die, he decides that she shouldn't be alone in her last moments.
- Bob loved Alice (platonically or romantically) and killed her by accident.
- Bob had to kill Alice as a Mercy Kill and feels terrible about it.
- Bob doesn't realize he killed Alice and is trying to get her to wake up.
- Inverted: Alice cradles Bob before her death.
- Subverted: It looks like Bob killed Alice and is now cradling her body, but she's only Faking the Dead.
- Double Subverted: ...But then Bob stabs her while he's holding her and continues to hold her as she dies.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: Bob performs a fake Intimate Healing
- Averted: Bob doesn't kill or cradle anybody.
- Enforced: The executives want a good Tear Jerker and think this will work.
- Lampshaded: "You know, it's odd for you to be hugging her when you were the one who killed her."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Alice pretends to be dead so she can stab Bob as he holds her.
- Defied: Bob just lets Alice's body fall and leaves.
- Discussed: "Do you think you'd want to hug someone if you killed them, Bob?"
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Bob sits, cradling Alice, his weapon nearby covered in blood.
Back to Cradling Your Kill.
