Basic Trope: A character understands that they must sacrifice their own life, but still feel distraught over having to die.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz promises to spare Alice's friends if she offers her life to Emperor Evulz. She begins to have a mental breakdown over having to die.
- Exaggerated: Alice, and only Alice, must accept a Cruel and Unusual Death at the hands of God or else the entire universe will implode. Immediately, she bawls like a child and enters a severe emotional breakdown as she is dragged to her fate.
- Downplayed:
- Alice must risk a quick death to save her friends, an she remarks wishing to see her family one last time.
- Alice willingly walks into her death, but is nearly overcome by fear and must force herself to go through with it.
- Justified:
- Being willing to sacrifice yourself for the greater good does not mean you will face death bravely.
- Alice, like most of us, may be living with regrets.
- Alice is not willing to sacrifice herself and is being forced to.
- Evulz is a Torture Technician and will make Alice regret her decision if she doesn’t already.
- Inverted:
- Alice is perfectly content and willing to sacrifice herself to Evulz
- Evulz offers to return Alice's friends if she beats him in a game of Rock Paper Scissors, and she asks why, as she was perfectly willing to die.
- Jamal sacrifice himself to Evulz, Alice asks him why and begins to have a mental breakdown, since she doesn’t want him to die.
- Subverted: Alice hesitatingly decides to sacrifice herself to save her friends, and accepts it.
- Double Subverted: ... but as everybody leaves, they hear cries for help drowned out by a mangled scream of pain.
- Parodied: Alice is literally at the gates of Heaven, guaranteed an amazing afterlife by Saint Peter himself, and is still anguishing over not wanting to die.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- There is no sacrifice.
- Alice willingly sacrifices herself, with no second thoughts.
- Enforced: Alice's actor specializes in horrifying, convincing deaths and emotional performances so she auditioned as Alice knowing she’d do one of two.
- Lampshaded: “This isn’t fair. Why do I have to die?”
- Invoked: The author wanted to state through his work that, despite the fact that someone may be willing to sacrifice themself, or understand that they have to, death is painful and can be very horrific.
- Exploited: Evulz chose to kill Alice knowing she’d be the least willing, simply to erode the moral of the heroes.
- Defied: Hiro manages to Take the Third Option so nobody has to die.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to I Don't Want to Die
