Playing With / Anyone Can Die

Basic Trope: Nobody in a particular story is safe from death. Not even the main characters.

• Straight: Anybody, even the main characters, can die in a story.
• Exaggerated:
  • Everyone dies at the end.
    • A Class Z apocalypse occurs.
  • Characters Dropping Like Flies.
• Downplayed:
  • Anybody can die, except main characters die less often, and if they do, they get a dramatic death.
  • Anyone can technically be "killed", though it's not necessarily permanent.
• Justified:
  • Anybody can die in real life, so it makes sense for that to continue into the story.
  • The setting involves war or mass murder.
• Inverted:
  • Tonight, Someone Dies.
  • Everybody Lives.
  • Nobody Can Die
• Subverted: At the beginning, many characters were just introduced to die... but then it stops and everybody else lives in the end, aside from a few Red Shirts.
• Double Subverted: It looks like everybody's going to live, but some of them end up dying in the end anyway.
• Parodied:
  • The story is just about people standing at a bus stop, but some of them die anyway.
  • Even The Narrator can die, ending the story instantly, though if there's a replacement narrator to take control, the story is rerailed.
• Zig Zagged: At first the main characters have Plot Armor, but then some major characters die... and then they get their Plot Armor back again, everybody surviving a war even though many RedShirts kick the bucket. However, at the end, in the climatic battle with the Big Bad, two more important characters die at his hands.
  • or Death Is Cheap plays it's role.
• Averted:
  • Red Shirts die, but main characters have Plot Armor.
  • Improbable Infant Survival is applied to child (and occasionally teenaged) characters.
  • Nobody Can Die.
• Enforced: "We need to make this feel real! Let's kill off some main characters!"
• Lampshaded: "You know, usually heroes like us don't die. I guess this is a bad day, then."
• Invoked: The Big Bad goes out and actively kills the people he considers his greatest opposition.
• Exploited: For some reason, the Big Bad knows the main characters have no Plot Armor, so he waits for them to find him and then kill them.
• Defied: A character is aware that anyone can die, and so he runs away from the place of the conflict in hopes he won't be killed instead of keeping in the background ''or'' fighting the big bad.
• Discussed: "Don't be so reckless. Just because you want to stop Emperor Evulz doesn't mean you're immortal."
• Conversed: "It's funny how in stories, the heroes never die, but in reality... well, I believe we all know that Anyone Can Die."
• Played For Laughs: The characters start a betting pool revolving around who's gonna get killed off next.

---

Back to Anyone Can Die.

---