Basic Trope: A character gains a prominent position but finds the position has lethal drawbacks.
- Straight:
- Bob becomes King of Troperia...but the King of Troperia is thrown to a dragon if anything bad happens.
- Bob becomes King of Troperia...but Troperia is infamous for Klingon Promotions.
- Exaggerated:
- If anything bad happens, Bob will be erased from existence.
- Troperian kings rarely make it through their first day without being assassinated.
- Downplayed:
- The King of Troperia is given a severe beating if anything goes wrong.
- Some kings have been assassinated for their position, but not all.
- Justified:
- The Troperians have a deal with the dragon who lives nearby that he'll leave them alone if they feed him a steady stream of people. This provides them with a handy way to get rid of unwanted kings.
- The kingship is a tempting position, and naturally some people are going to want it and not want to be patient.
- Inverted:
- Bob is made the court shoe shiner...and finds that this means dealing with the monsters that want the shoes.
- Bob becomes King of Troperia and finds it's an awesome position with no nasty surprises.
- Bob becomes King of Troperia, and horrible tragedy ends up falling... Upon his subjects.
- Subverted:
- ...But then the monsters tell Bob that they're only attacking because the Troperians make shoe leather out of them and they'd be eternally grateful to him for his help.
- Bob's traveling companion, Alice, snoops around and finds a legal loophole in an old document created by the first king of Troperia that will prevent the old rule from coming into place.
- Double Subverted:
- Once Bob agrees to help, the monsters laugh at his believing them and kill him.
- Parodied: Being the Hall Monitor means that Bob will be thrown into a volcano.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: The kingship is no more or less dangerous than one would expect.
- Enforced:
- The executives want to do a story about Bob being a king, but keeping him as one would be story-breaking. So they have him have to flee for his life later.
- The executives want to do a story on backstabbing and so have Bob get himself into a position where Klingon Promotions are the norm.
- Lampshaded: "Wow, Bob's become a king! It seems a little too good to be true."
- Invoked: Dracone, who hates Bob, gets him into a prominent position he knows will be lethal.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Bob is offered the crown of Troperia, but he does some research into the position, finds out what happened to his predecessors, and decides not to take it.
- Bob takes the crown and makes damned sure anybody who can try to take the throne will stop thinking of it.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "This seems like those movies I've seen. Sure, it's cool to be king at first, but then you become a Human Sacrifice."
- Implied: Bob becomes king...only to find a frighteningly large number of portraits of past kings hanging in the palace.
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