Basic Trope: A character needlessly decides to sacrifice himself/herself, for instance to protect someone else from something that won't affect the character being protected.
- Straight:
- Alice throws herself in front of Eve's flamethrower to protect Drake Flame, a being made of fire, who can easily survive a flamethrower.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice decides to sacrifice herself to defend Drake Flame from a flamethrower despite the fact that fire only makes him stronger.
- All the Muggles team up to stop a fire attack from hitting Drake Flame.
- Not only is Drake Flame immune to fire, but the flames are so fast and massive that Alice's sacrifice would've done absolutely nothing to protect him either way.
- Even if it were necessary to protect Drake from the flamethrower, Alice has multiple superpowers she could have used instead (and survived), such as generating shields or conjuring enough water to put out the fire.
- Downplayed:
- The flamethrower would have hurt Drake Flame badly, but couldn't have killed him.
- Alice doesn't die, but is severely injured for nothing.
- Justified:
- Alice did not know that Drake Flame is immune to fire.
- Alice was a Death Seeker who was simply using Drake as an excuse to get killed.
- Alice saw someone being attacked with a flamethrower, so her Chronic Hero Syndrome made her act on impulse to save the target. She remembered too late that fire can't hurt Drake anyway.
- Alice's code of honor demands that she try to protect anyone who is being attacked, and she's prone to putting Honor Before Reason.
- Inverted: Drake Flame fails to "sacrifice himself" to defend Alice from an attack involving fire.
- Subverted:
- Drake finds out shortly thereafter what Alice already knew — the flamethrower spits hellfire that can hurt him.
- Alice does not die; she proves to also be tougher than she seems.
- Double Subverted:
- But he still survives a blast of hellfire it later in the battle.
- Alice does need life support, and the plug eventually gets pulled.
- Parodied:
- Alice sacrifices herself to defend Drake Fire Magma-Burn Heat Fireheal of the Fire Immunity clan from an attack involving fire.
- Alice jumps in front of a bouncy ball thrown at Drake by a 6-year-old. She does take the hit for him, but the fall kills her.
- Zig Zagged: Alice throws herself in front of a flame attack to save Drake. He was immune to fire. But this was magical fire. That Drake still happened to be immune to. Alice survived the attack anyway. But she has to stay in the hospital.
- Averted: Alice does not sacrifice herself when not needed.
- Enforced:
- Alice's stupidity led to her becoming The Scrappy, so it's decided Alice will die by being stupid.
- It's felt that every major character death should be a Heroic Sacrifice so the fans won't get upset and think a character died pointlessly. When there's no logical scenario to make this happen to a character that's supposed to be killed off, they decide to make a fake one and hope the fans don't notice.
- Lampshaded: "Alice, can you hear me? I'm immune to fire, why did you think I needed protection from that attack?"
- Invoked: Eve, knowing that Alice is stupid, attacks Drake Flame with fire to kill Alice.
- Exploited: Drake uses the incident as an example on how Eve is a murderer, but fails to mention just how Alice wound up getting hit.
- Defied: Drake Flame is also faster than Alice, tosses her aside, takes the hit, and gives her a long lecture later.
- Discussed: "Man, is she really gonna sacrifice herself to protect him?" "It seems that she is going to."
- Conversed: "Dude, why she would sacrifice herself? It's not a good idea at all!"
- Implied:
- Drake and Alice go to a fight. Moments later, only Drake comes back, while we see some ashes flying in back.
- Drake Flame carries the burnt remains of Alice while saying "How stupid..." .
- Deconstructed: Alice was an important member of the Five-Man Band, but then she sacrificed herself, so other members of the Band must deal with it.
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice is established as a Too Dumb to Live character who keeps dying and inexplicably returning later. In this particular episode, she dies by sacrificing herself to protect Drake Flame from fire, an element he had just told her he's immune to.
- Alice's death is played for Black Comedy (Alice ends up as Sweeping Ashes, Eve makes a Bond One-Liner about Alice being "roasted" for her stupidity, etc.)
- Played For Drama: Alice dies needlessly to protect Drake from a flamethrower. Drake doesn't have the heart to tell anyone that Alice died for nothing, so he decides to pretend he's not actually immune to fire — a lie that leads to more trouble later...
- Played For Horror: All Drake Flame can do is watch helplessly as Alice suffers a painful death for nothing.
Back to Stupid Sacrifice
