Basic Trope: Criminals steal people's organs, with no explanation for what they intend to do with said organs.
- Straight: Bob wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, a note next to him telling him that he should seek medical attention, due to having lost a kidney.
- Exaggerated:
- The note is a Long List naming several organs Bob wasn't aware he could survive without, and several organs he'd never heard of before.
- The organ thieves steal Bob's entire body, leaving him as a Brain in a Jar.
- Downplayed: Bob wakes up feeling woozy and food and drink by his side after his blood was stolen in his sleep.
- Justified: The criminals are professional surgeons who weren't able to find the organ their patient needed by legitimate means.
- Inverted:
- Bob wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, a nearby note telling him that he now has three kidneys somehow.
- A frost elemental wakes up in a bathtub full of kidneys, a nearby note telling it that it's missing a few pounds of ice.
- Subverted: Once Bob freaks out after reading the note, his college roommates jump out and shout "You just got pranked, bro!" and reveal that he in fact has not lost any body parts.
- Double Subverted: ...but then the next day the friend wakes up in a bathtub full of ice with a missing kidney.
- Parodied: Bob the piano storeowner wakes up in a tub full of ice and finds one of his musical organs was stolen from his shop. He wonders why the jerks decided to put him in a tub of ice.
- Zig Zagged: Bob wakes up and finds he has a cybernetic heart replacing his own - the thieves did it so it is merely aggravated assault instead of first degree murder. The entire reason for bothering was organic organs became a status symbol. Ironically helped him because he couldn't afford the surgery and had a defective heart anyway meaning he inadvertently scammed the organ thieves.
- Averted: Bob never wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, and never loses any organs.
- Enforced: "They just released another Friday the 13th movie, so next episode should probably have a plot that cashes in on the slasher horror hype going on right now."
- Lampshaded: "What in the world did they want my kidney for? They could've at least tried asking first!"
- Invoked: Alice pulls a "Kick Me" Prank on Bob, the paper reading "STEAL MY ORGANS".
- Exploited: A health insurance company starts offering protection against organ theft.
- Defied:
- The would-be thieves refuse to take from unwilling donors.
- "To keep the organs usable I would need hospital grade medical facilities worth millions. If I had that then I could get a loan and run a hospital and make way more. Given that I don't own a hospital already attempting it would just be serial killing."
- Discussed:Carol: "Bob's out cold. What should we-"
Dave: "Ooh, can we take his kidney?"
Carol: "What?! NO!" - Conversed: "What exactly do all these organ thieves on tv intend to do with the organs they steal?"
- Deconstructed: Bob dies of hypothermia before he even wakes up, and the thieves' patient rejects the organ since they never bothered to check Bob's blood type or if Bob had any kind of issues (AIDS, dangerously high cholesterol or borderline kidney failure from being The Alcoholic, etc).
- Reconstructed:
- The thieves steal from hospital patients already undergoing surgery for other reasons, and make sure the organs are compatible first.
- In a Cyberpunk setting it isn't the organs themselves they are after but the protein scaffold to grow a healthy one from their tissues. This also solves issues about needing hospital grade facilities to harvest the organ as they can get away with a bit rougher handling.
- Played for Laughs: Bob wakes up and causally asks someone where his kidney had gone off to.
- Played for Drama:
- Bob's organs are harvested and taken hostage. Bob spends the rest of the story dying by inches.
- Bob's organs are not harvested (he only gets some minor cuts sewn up and his friends pretend his organs were actually taken). Bob's reactions either lead to it becoming a Deadly Prank or a full police investigation and said friends being arrested for (what the law labels) assault, leaving them with a major My God, What Have I Done? moment.
- Played for Horror:
- Bob gets his kidney harvested by a kidney-eating Serial Killer.
- The procedure is extremely bloody, messy and kills Bob. For bonus horror points, Bob wakes up halfway through the procedure and the agony leaves him screaming his lungs out during his final minutes.
