Basic Trope: A character dies, and their hat (or something else they owned), is found in the wreckage.
- Straight: Alice searches the wreckage of a building for Bob, but only finds his hat in all the rubble.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob personally hands his hat to Alice before running into a burning building.
- Before the Big Bad finishes Bob off, he removes Bob's hat himself and throws it aside, cutting to only his hat as his scream is heard off-screen.
- Bob is the victim of a murderer who leaves his hat behind as a clue in their grand scheme.
- At Bob's funeral, Alice leaves his hat at his gravestone.
- Downplayed: Alice is sobbing over Bob's lone hat, assuming the worst. He's right behind her, however, and is wondering what she's so sad about.
- Or he's bummed that his hat's all beat up.
- Justified: Bob's hat is a Living Hat, and manages to take itself off of Bob's head before he dies. The camera cuts to its reaction to Bob's death.
- Parodied: In a play, Bob makes his death as incredibly hammy and as possible by throwing his hat to the ground. A spotlight shines on his hat as you hear his body hit the ground.
- Inverted: Hat Damage
- Subverted:
- Alice is trailing behind and is shocked to see Bob's hat in tatters, caught in a trap. Bob turns the corner, showing that he was safe all along, and simply used his hat as bait for a booby trap.
- Before Bob rushes into a building to make his Heroic Sacrifice, his hat falls off his head. He then doubles back, grabs his hat, and then rushes back in.
- Bob drops his hat before rushing into a building that is about to explode. After he has successfully evacuated everyone in it, he picks his hat back up and puts it back onto his head as the building explodes behind him.
- Averted: Bob holds his hat tightly to him before his death.
- Zigzagged: It's not Bob's hat, simply an identical one. It then cuts to him in a casket in the next scene. But then he rises and yawns, commenting on how good of a nap he had, putting his hat on his head.
- Enforced: The show's got a sponsor from a hat company, and they use Bob's death as a way to get the hat in the limelight.
- Alternatively, they want to show the viewer how durable the hat is.
- Lampshaded: "All I found was his hat."
- Deconstructed: Bob's signature hat is a helmet with straps, so it shouldn't make sense for it to have easily come off of Bob's head.
- Reconstructed: The helmet's straps were broken.
Back to Dead Hat Shot here. Oh, hey, you dropped thi‒
