Basic Trope: In the horror genre, the supernatural hates rulebreakers.
- Straight: Bob hears legends about vampires, but throws his garlic necklace away and curses out the old lady who gave it to him. Consequently, Alice the vampire attacks and drains him.
- Exaggerated: Bob hears every single one of the local legends, but refuses every single protective item he receives and mistreats the villagers to boot. Every horror instantly descends on him to do its worst.
- Downplayed: Bob hears legends about vampires but takes his garlic necklace off midway through the night. After a few hours, he's attacked by Alice the vampire and barely manages to fend her off.
- Justified: Since everyone knows how to defend against her, Alice is starving and desperately looking for anyone who is vulnerable.
- Inverted:
- Alice the vampire hears that humans roam around a certain wilderness in the daytime, but laughs it off. She gets staked there by a wary villager.
- Bob dismisses the legend and gets rid of the garlic necklace. It then turns out that garlic actually attracts vampires and he is the only one who survives, because he broke the rules.
- Death by Genre Savviness: Bob actively follows the rules to a T; He's the first one on the chopping block.
- Subverted:
- The villagers never go out without a garlic necklace and a clean conscience, but good-for-nothing Bob goes out without a garlic necklace and survives.
- While a vampire stalks him in the background, Bob considers throwing off his garlic necklace, but ultimately decides against it.
- Alice MAKES the rules, and changes them so she can attack Bob anyway.
- Double Subverted:
- ... However, he only survived because a vampire hunter who did follow the correct rules happened to pass through the area. After she leaves, he tries it again and gets slaughtered.
- After nothing bad happens for a little while, Bob does take it off and the vampire kills him.
- Parodied:
- The rule in question is to stay off the grass.
- "The horror" is Seven Minutes in Heaven with vampire Lena the Hyena. Bob makes clear he would prefer to have his neck torn open and blood sucked dry over that.
- Zig Zagged: Bob uses a garlic necklace to escape Alice, but gets eaten by a Werewolf anyway.
- Averted: Bob attempts to use a garlic necklace to fend off Alice, and it doesn’t work.
- Enforced: The author is trying to write a cautionary tale about the importance of rules.
- Lampshaded:Charlie: These rules are your shield. Break them, and you'll end up dead.
- Invoked: The vampires deliberately encourage the breaking of tradition among humans to make them easier meals.
- Exploited: By only attacking people without garlic, vampires can invoke Blaming the Victim. The more people are blaming the victims, the less likely it is for someone to get the idea to take up Torches and Pitchforks and wooden stakes against the vampires.
- Defied: When Bob brushes off the old lady's advice, she straight-up kidnaps him to make sure he'll be safe from the vampires, and then shows him a captive vampire as proof.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
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