Death-Before-Toplessness: Trope in its own right or blend of tropes?

I watch a lot of old adventure movies/swashbucklers. I've noticed what happens often if a female character suffers a wound in the torso (frequently a Breast Attack), often leading to After-Action Healing Drama and perhaps a Mortal Wound Reveal. Were she a man, this would be an excuse for a Shirtless Scene and/or Bandage Babe. However, the first aid she receives tends to be Worst Aid by negligence: nothing more than hand-holding or brow-mopping, because tending her properly would mean baring/handling her breasts, and that falls foul of the Nipple and Dimed rule. If she dies, the viewer is left thinking that maybe she wouldn't if someone had even tried to staunch or dress her wound.

I can think of several examples, and it applies even when the wounded heroine isn’t obvious Bandage Babe/Fanservice fodder (perhaps the hero's mother or some other older woman), or the second-string female lead, and even when the bandaging (if done properly) would cover her chest completely.

I'm not sure whether this qualifies as a trope in its own right ('Death Before Toplessness'?) or is it best treated as a sub-trope of Worst Aid. Any ideas?

cheers, Silver

Defeat by Modesty is what you're looking for.

It's not Defeat by Modesty. That's where someone can't fight on because of the risk accidental exposure, or actual exposure that makes the individual too embarrassed to continue. Nothing to do with wounds. Closest to that would be if the clothes are treated as HP.

I think it falls under Worst Aid, possibly as a subtrope. One of the types that isn't explicitly mentioned in the description is where someone wraps the bandages outside the clothing, or a variation of that. I think this is probably similar enough, although it's maybe a little too much neglect, so it would be more no aid than bad aid.

Yes, it sounds to me like a subtrope of Worst Aid, because the modesty issue isn't the patient's, it's more imposed by the film-makers/Hays Code & c. Interesting you mention the 'bandaging the clothes' one, because I've noticed that one, too, even in fairly recent films like 'Jeanne d'Arc: the Messenger', where the heroine looks more likely to risk death from infection than being burned at the stake, as she has a grubby, stained bandage on the outside of her doublet over a chest wound!

Another one is the 'useless bandaging', which is more ornamental than practical (but that also comes under Bandage Babe). I recall the antiheroine's deathbed in 'The Wicked Lady' (1945): she's wearing an off-the-shoulder nightdress, which doesn't show any bandaging at all (despite the fact she's had a chest wound). How are the dressings staying on? (It's 17C setting, so there are no elasticated bandages or sticky tape ones). Unsurprisingly, she dies after collapsing getting out of bed: probably bleeds out.

But the 'neglect-patient-rather-than-show/touch-injured-boobies' trope really cracks me up. A friend, who's a surgeon in real life, thinks it's truly bizarre. It's not remotely a sexual situation, and if you care about the injured character, you want to know that her friends are at least trying to save her, even if they may not succeed in the end.

If you have enough examples of it, you might want to consider heading over to YKTTW and try to create page for that subtrope.

I had a something like that in a fic I wrote about emergency treatment not being sexual. In that case, it was CPR, and it's based on what a friend told me about when she was in a similar situation.