Basic Trope: Everyone sequentially dies as the story progresses.
- Straight: Alex, Bella, Charlie, Diane, Elijah, Fiona, and Georgie are on a quest. Georgie dies first, at the paws of a tiger. Then Fiona dies from falling off a cliff. Then Elijah gets killed by some mooks. Then they fight Evulz the first time, they lose, and Diane and Charlie die. Then they have to fight Evulz again, and Alex dies. By the time the MacGuffin is retrieved and the quest is complete, Final Girl Bella is the only one left.
- Exaggerated: Everyone in the village dies one by one until Bella's the only one left.
- Downplayed:
- Georgie, Fiona and Elijah die sequentially, but Alex, Bella, Charlie and Diane live.
- The characters leave the story one by one until there is only one is a small group left
- Justified:
- The villain has been sending disasters the heroes' way to kill them, but everyone is going out of their way to protect Bella.
- Or, Bella is smarter and a better fighter than all of the others.
- Or, they've been killing all the others one by one as they become a threat (i.e, Georgie discovers martial arts and they send the tiger, Fiona gets superpowers and then gets pushed off a cliff, etc). Bella is an idiot and never becomes a threat.
- The villain isn't able to attack the entire party at once, and so kills each member one at a time instead.
- Inverted: The party starts as just Alex and Bella, and people join as the quest continues.
- Subverted: It seems like everyone is dying and Bella's the only one, but in fact they've just been taken by a less important villain and Bella can get them out.
- Double Subverted: ...and when she does, they all start dying one by one from the poison the villain gave them while they were in there.
- Parodied: When they die, they return as annoying ghosts who follow Bella around in a conga line.
- Averted:
- The entire party stays alive until the end.
- Only Georgie dies.
- Enforced:
- The fandom hates the other characters and only likes Bella, so they kill off all the others in the order of how much fans hate them.
- The author wants to keep the audience on their toes, wondering who will survive.
- Lampshaded: "Everyone's dying, one by one. Who will be next?"
- Invoked: Evulz kills the questers one by one to lessen Bella's faith in her ability to complete the quest.
- Defied: Another, less evil villain kills them all at once to spare Bella the pain of watching them die one by one.
- Exploited: An old witch offers to sell Bella an immortality elixir, knowing she'll be more interested in taking it because everyone's dying.
- Implied: When the questers leave the village, there are seven of them. When they are shown stopping at another village, there are six, sans Georgie. When they stop in another village, there are 5, sans Fiona. This goes on until only Bella returns to the home village.
- Deconstructed: Bella's grief for them becomes too much for her to cope with, and she sinks into depression, never finishing the quest.
- Reconstructed: Bella gets therapy, then goes back to kicking butt.
- Played for Laughs: Bella's friends all die in hilarious ways. Georgie's butt gets eaten, Fiona falls into the Bottomless Pit of Cheese, Elijah gets killed by angry corn people, Diane and Charlie's heads randomly fall off and explode in glitter, and Alex trips over a piece of gum and cracks his skull.
- Played for Horror: It's a serial killer who is killing Bella's friends, and they must live in paranoia waiting for the killer to get them next.
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