Basic Trope: Someone is quickly assumed to be sick because they showed one trivial symptom like a sneeze or an itchy eye even though they're actually fine.
- Straight: When Alice sneezes once, Bob thinks she must have a cold.
- Exaggerated: Alice only gets a minor tickle in the nose but Bob thinks she must have a serious case of the flu.
- Downplayed: Alice sneezes several times in a row and doesn't have a very sensitive nose. However, she still seems perfectly fine otherwise.
- Justified:
- Bob is a bit paranoid when it comes to medical issues and knows sneezing can be a sign of a cold.
- It is flu-season after all.
- Inverted: Alice has a high fever, but Bob is sure she's O.K.
- Subverted: But then Alice starts showing symptoms of illness.
- Double Subverted: Then when Bob sneezes, he thinks he's caught Alice's illness.
- Parodied: At a doctor's office, the doctor says, "Alright, who's here just because, say, you had a minor itch or sneezed once? All of you can go home, you're fine."
- Zigzagged: Sometimes Alice seems sick, sometimes not. Additionally, sometimes Bob thinks she is, sometimes he doesn't.
- Averted:
- Alice never sneezes, coughs, gets itchy or whatever unless she is sick, in which case she shows normal symptoms.
- Bob doesn't diagnose Alice as sick unless she's showing true signs of illness.
- Enforced:
- The writers want to set up a Sick Episode but failed to do the research so Alice is still essentially healthy.
- To set up Bob as a hypochondriac or a Lovable Coward who doesn't know much about illness.
- Lampshaded: "I feel perfectly fine, there are many reasons to sneeze."
- Invoked: Carol pranks Alice with sneezing powder so Bob would think she was sick.
- Exploited: Playing Sick is very easy for Alice: all she has to do is sneeze once or claim she feels a little bit itchy.
- Defied: Bob looks in a reliable book that tells you how to really tell if a person is sick.
- Discussed: "So if I only sneeze once, that's not a sign of illness, is it?"
- Conversed: "Why do these characters automatically assume someone is sick if, like, they sneeze once or something? I have a sensitive nose and am a bit clumsy so if I was in that show, I'd probably spend all my time being seen as sick."
- Implied: "So you were sneezing because of pepper? I thought…"
- Deconstructed: Alice becomes bored from having to rest when she's not sick.
- Reconstructed: She breaks Bob's rules until he's convinced she's not sick.
- Played for Laughs: Whenever Alice sneezes, coughs or whatever, Bob pulls a med kit out Hammerspace and starts performing a physical on her, to which Carol responds with "She's fine, Bob."
- Played for Drama: ???
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