Markup View

Author: Thecommander236

Jan 8th 2013 at 9:22:18 AM

"I need to sit down." "You are sitting down." "Oh."

That would be playing it for comedic value. Hmm, I think I need a second opinion on that the other point you made. It's still dramatic if a once healthy young man turns into an old infirm gentleman. For instance, in Bioshock's good ending [[spoiler: Jack dies after a time skip while weakly grabbing at the air. In a very touching moment, the hands of his adoptive daughters come into the picture and hold on to his hand until he dies. At least four of the women are wearing weddign bands.]]

Also, in many action shows, there are times when a hero falls over into a sitting position mid-fight. You then hear the supporting cast yelling for him/her to "please get up" and "keep fighting or you'll die". What isn't this trope is just sitting down because you had a rough day at work or you just did a few casual miles running. Heck, sitting down after a race may not even count if the athletes casually catches their breath and just go sit down. Now collapsing on the ground like the athletes at the Modern pentathlon during the 2008 Summer Olympics would make more sense. Literally, every athletic in that event collapsed on the ground instead of trying to stand up and breath like you are supposed to. Heck, the American athlete who won was far enough ahead that he didn't need to place in the last event at all, so he went as slow as possible without looking like a non-professional and he STILL collapsed as well.

What also wouldn't be this trope would be falling due to Insta-Kill shot and falling over dead. What could be this trope is being wounded in a way that forces you to sit down (voluntarily or not). For example, in the Starcraft visual novels this was a moment where a young psychic helped a marine kill a zergling. The marine was mortally wounded. He told the kid to play hide and seek right after he sat down and that he'll start counting. The kid listens to him and runs away crying while giving one look back. The marine, sitting there, starts counting loudly to sooth the kid as much as possible... and in the background is a huge pack of zerglings coming right for him. If that isn't a dramatic sit down, I don't know what is.

Then there are combinations. A villan gives a great HannibelLecture. The hero is standing there shocked. Then the villan Flash Steps and the hero collaspes on his ass even if it's a flesh wound. Even if it isn't an injury that would make him unable to stand up. Bonus points if he doesn't even get up to fight back. See where I'm coming from here? I'm trying to be thorough, not vague. Possibly though, I could separate the trope into Dramatic Sit Down and RROD Sit Down (would need a better name if examples included examples of dying/infirm people being barely able to even WALK to the chair).