Basic Trope: A character makes a death threat they are unlikely to carry out, and never do.
- Straight: Bob threatens to kill Alice in a heated argument. They're both ordinary people.
- Exaggerated: Bob threatens to kill Alice. He's an ordinary person. She's a CIA agent and studies martial arts. Supernatural Martial Arts with Charles Atlas Superpower, just for good measure.
- Downplayed: Bob threatens to punch Alice. He Would Not Hit a Girl.
- Justified:
- Others do not know that Bob is unable to carry out the threat. Bob is hoping no one is going to call his bluff.
- Bob's Alzheimer makes him forget arguments (and the resultant threats he made) within an hour.
- Inverted: Bob murders Alice for no identifiable reason and with no warning.
- Subverted:
- Bob is a Kid Samurai and menaces Alice with his katana.
- Bob makes these threats so often that no one takes him seriously... until he eventually follows through on one.
- Double Subverted:
- It's wooden. Wooden Katanas Are Even Better does not apply.
- He threatened to make her disappear from the face of the Earth. The expectation was mortal injury and terror. He instead hacked into the county's database and turned Alice into an Unperson.
- With an insane triple subversion, Bob actually executes Alice personally and burns up her corpse. NOW she's wiped off the face of the Earth.
- Parodied: Bob is shown working on an elaborate murder plan, while constantly gloating at Alice that her days are numbered. One night, he attacks her with a rubber squeaky hammer or nerf gun while she's asleep.
- Zig Zagged: Bob threatens to kill Alice. She laughs him off. He mentions a way he can get his hands on a katana. She doesn't believe him. He brings it. It's wooden. Wooden Katanas Are Even Better, and it has an Absurdly Sharp Blade. Alice breaks it with a Finger Poke of Doom.
- Averted:
- Bob makes a death threat he can and will back up, and it's that kind of a setting.
- Nobody is killed or threatened with death.
- Enforced: Bob makes a death threat. The show is a sitcom. No Cerebus Syndrome or similar.
- Lampshaded: "Riiiight. That makes the tenth time?"
- Invoked: Bob is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain and it's the only kind of threat he can deliver.
- Exploited: Bob threatens Alice,and even though he's not likely to go through with it, she can still use it to have him arrested.
- Defied:
- Bob is holding a functional and dangerous weapon when he makes the threat.
- Bob is holding onto Alice's throat and is choking her when he makes the threat.
- "You know, that line in 12 Angry Men about how people only say "I'll Kill You!" if they truly mean it is bupkis. It was proven bupkis in that same film, half an hour later." "When I say it, I always mean it."
- Bob makes his threat. The moment Alice oversteps her boundaries again, Bob kills her instantly.
- Bob charges at Alice screaming "I'll Kill You!". After a hefty demonstration of Bob's Unstoppable Rage (it takes ten people to hold him down, every time they let go Bob tries to charge Alice, every attempt at knocking Bob out only means they buy time until he wakes up and charges again, and every restraint is ripped apart or Bob just tries to drag himself towards Alice, and this crazy circus lasted four hours until the cops arrived and they had to struggle too), Alice is pretty sure that Bob wants her dead and she better go away and pray Bob never finds her.
- Discussed: "Bob said he'd kill me." "He tells me that every other day."
- Conversed: "Sure. On that network, in that time slot?"
- Deconstructed: Bob gets into legal trouble.
- Reconstructed: Bob is able to prove that he would not have been able to carry the threat out anyway (such as threatening to kick Alice's ass and then pointing out he's in a wheelchair and doesn't have any training that would allow him to compensate for that) and that Alice could've easily been able to assault him without him being able to defend himself.
- Played For Laughs: Bob continuously attacks Alice with Joke Items while screaming for her inevitable demise. Each time, he receives a Megaton Punch for his trouble.
- Played For Drama: Alice becomes paranoid over a death threat Bob made when he was angry and didn't mean anything by it.
- Played For Horror: Bob screams that he will get revenge as Alice is tearing him apart with a chainsaw. They are not only ineffectual, they are an incredibly pathetic attempt at being Defiant to the End.
Back to Ineffectual Death Threats, or I'll kill you! *raises rubber squeaky bat*
