Aversion cleanup: Instant Death Bullet

A vast majority of the "examples" of this trope are actually aversions. I briefly considered wiping them, but very little of the examples section would actually be left afterwards. If the order of frequency of the effects of being shot as described on the page itself is actually correct, we should be able to do much better at coming up with actual examples than this.

Also, perhaps we should add a note to the How To Write An Example page cautioning against adding long lists of aversions. Tropes Are Not Bad, and there's no need to entry pimp a work by pointing out that it doesn't use a trope, even if the trope is unrealistic.

That's ridiculous. I looked, and every single example seemed to start with "Averted in...". This is something I would expect from a parody of TvTropes, where a trope is described but there are no examples provided. I thought we had moved past this.

I think the problem here is that Instant Death Bullets are very common, but only apply to mooks. Anyone interesting is usually given a prolonged death scene, for drama. Anyone who gets killed interesting is a minor character, and doesn't make a very interesting example. I was surprised to see Star Wars listed as an aversion because the clones kept shooting the jedi until they stopped twitching. Most characters are killed instantly when shot.

Maybe we should point out that the trope is omnipresent in regard to mooks and point out that it doesn't usually apply to main characters, so they should not be listed as aversions.

We could make it one of the tropes where we only list aversions, I think there's a few of those around, but let me double check before I stick my foot in my mouth again.

There are (Statistically Speaking is one,) but I don't think this is omnipresent enough to justify it, especially since as jebuz points out, it applies almost exclusively to mooks.

edited 28th Nov '10 10:14:39 PM by Desertopa

Perhaps rewritting it to be mook specific and breaking off aversions for heroes and the like?

Well I think this trope being mook specific is rather People Sit On Chairs its literally everywhere. Listing the aversions on Mooks would be good or listing Instant Death Bullet's on people above mooks.

But Aversions on characters with Plot Armor ect...no.

edited 29th Nov '10 12:33:57 AM by Raso

Maybe we should just list when it applies in important characters? If the hero drops dead with a single bullet it worth a mention.

Also list the aversions but only when it applies to mooks.

• Fantasy Gun Control: "...aversions and subversions only..."
• Missing Backblast: "This trope is so common that only aversions and subversions should be listed..."
• Real-Time Weapon Change: "...examples should be limited to notable forms and aversions"

Didn't look very hard, just turning up a few examples of aversions only. Also recommend keeping it really simple, only one rule (and not two, as in "straight examples of main cast, and averted examples of mooks"). "Aversions and subversions only?" "Notable forms and aversions?"

edit: Oh, lots of examples, maybe soft-split the examples into "straight examples of important characters" (because of course someone with Plot Armor will survive the gunshot) and "averted/subverted/notable examples of mooks" (because it's unusual for a mook not to be instantly killed by one shot, and be notable enough for a troper to want to add it).

edited 29th Nov '10 1:46:32 AM by rodneyAnonymous

Can we PLEASE get a much better description? The current one takes wading through several paragraphs on how this trope is unrealistic when we can sum it up in one or two lines.

Part of the problem is that if a scene plays Instant Death Bullet straight, its usually also averting Death Is Dramatic, and ends up there.

I really like this idea, although I agree there's a point that playing this trope straight for main characters is an aversion of Death Is Dramatic. I certainly support limiting the aversions on this page to mooks or other non-Plot Armored characters.

Okay, wrote a new intro and cut some of the cruft on Sandbox.Instant Death Bullet. I think it would be better if someone could come up with one that sounded like a commercial.

edited 29th Jun '11 3:44:06 AM by Deboss

Deboss: I like the write up in general it shortens the article and trims off information that might be better suited to useful notes.

We could trim it more and have it just explain how the Instant Death Part applies to mooks, is averted in certain cases for mooks, or applies to heroes specifically as noted earlier in the thread. Or any other variations that we can use.

Take all the factual information and lay it out in a useful notes secution about the effects of fire armrs on living people.

edited 2nd Jul '11 9:11:52 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Fair enough. I didn't think it was worth a Useful Notes, but if you think so. I was thinking UsefulNotes.Deadly Wounds or something.

Well the reason I say that is the information is useful especially if you want to add some realism to a story and accurate information is very handy. Somewhere on my user page there are links to a host of related information on weapon injuries. Combine that with the information on the page we can write up a nice useful notes page.

But also by simplifying the trope and cutting out all the stuff that is not directly part of the trope we can hopefully get the page back under control after the examples are cleaned up.

edited 3rd Jul '11 3:19:17 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Okay, I'm going to try and coalesce some of the data. I'm not going to link it in the page until I get it all pretty and what not. I'll start a YKTTW for it.

YKTTW.

Had a brain fart, I'll come back to it when I get my thoughts ordered.

Bump.

Nothing about this trope involves People Sitting On Chairs. Playing it straight for mooks or averting it for main characters is nearly omnipresent, but Omnipresent Tropes are not the same as People Sitting On Chairs. The latter is about things that don't add to the story! When mooks or main characters get shot, that's clearly something that adds to the story.

I like the idea of removing the omnipresent-type examples, though. No aversions for main characters, no played-straight examples for mooks. But could we enforce that?

I think so?

This raises another question, should there be an index for subversions-only pages? Invulnerable Knuckles is another one.