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Basic Trope: A character goes through an event deemed unsurvivable, but survives anyway.

  • Straight: Bob fell off a big cliff, but managed to cling to a branch before hitting the bottom.
  • Exaggerated: Bob was eaten whole by a monster, who then fell off a cliff, followed by a bunch of rocks falling on him. Bob then manages to use his knife to rip out of the dead monster's body, and with heroic strength moves the rocks aside and comes to without a scratch.
  • Downplayed:
    • Bob survives the fall, but is realistically injured and spends months recovering.
    • People go down and search for Bob, but are utterly shocked when they find him surviving Squashed Flat.
    • Disney Death
  • Justified:
  • Inverted:
    • "Bob is now in a sanctuary. Nothing bad happens there."
    • Bob dies in something most people survive.
  • Subverted: The Big Bad saw Bob fall off a cliff and assumed he died. This was a correct assessment.
  • Double Subverted: Bob didn't actually die, rather the person who fell off the cliff just happened to look like Bob.
  • Parodied:
    • The cliff was only 4 ft high, Bob sprained an ankle in the fall and it took him a while to get back up.
    • Bob falls off a cliff and, right onscreen, gets impaled on a sharp rock at the bottom. A bear comes by and mauls him into a bloody mess. Bob then reappears later completely intact like nothing ever happened and treats his experience as a minor annoyance, like it was a small bruise.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob survives the fall, but kills himself out of shame for falling before anyone learns of his survival.
  • Averted: Bob never survives anything that would make everyone think he is dead. Either he dies when he falls, or he never falls.
  • Enforced: Cliffhanger
  • Lampshaded: Alice tells Bob, who is in great pain after falling off the cliff, that the Big Bad probably won't look for him, seeing as no one could have normally survived that fall.
  • Invoked: When cornered, Bob jumps off the cliff, thinking that he could probably survive it and the Big Bad would think he wouldn't
  • Exploited: Alice, knowing Bobs skill in rock climbing, makes a stand with Bob next to a cliff, hoping that if Bob is thrown off, maybe he can escape the Big Bad's wrath.
  • Defied:
    • The Big Bad put spikes at the bottom of the cliff in case this would happen.
    • All the characters on the show can feel each other's life force and know when one of them dies.
    • "I'm pretty sure he's dead down there. But just in case, go down and check. And don't come back without his body."
  • Discussed: "The river below the cliff is very fast. It would take a lot of effort to ensure that someone who fell in was actually dead."
  • Conversed: "Jumping off a waterfall into a river is seen a lot in movies. If you tried it you would hit the bottom and die."
  • Intended Audience Reaction: The writers intended for Bob's death scene to be unquestionably fatal, but the fans come up with a way he could have survived it.
  • Played For Laughs: Bob falls off the cliff, and then rocks fall onto him, followed by a boulder, then out of nowhere a big boat. Just ask Wile E. Coyote.
  • Played For Drama:
    • Alice thinks Bob is dead, and her grief causes her to commit suicide.
    • Joe stops Alice from running over to the cliff after Bob falls over it.

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