Basic Trope: A work portrays smoking as something cool people do.
- Straight: Jack works at Murder, Inc., where most people with seniority, including him, smoke.
- Exaggerated:
- Everybody Smokes at assassination company, and so do their targets.
- Jack has a lit cigarette in his mouth every moment he's awake.
- Downplayed:
- Jack used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, but he's cut down to one to two every few days.
- Jack is a very capable assassin, but his smoking is explicitly shown as an annoying trait, as many people are irritated by his smell and smoke breathing. No one complains to his face, because he is such a hardened and dangerous killer.
- Justified:
- Jack is outside the Competence Zone and wants to be taken seriously.
- It really was considered the cool and healthy thing to do in the 1950s setting of the work.
- Inverted:
- No Smoking
- Smoking makes you look like a wuss.
- Smoking Is Not Cool
- Subverted:
- Jack has just finished his first assassination, and lights a cigarette — only to be told by his superior that assassination company doesn't allow smoking for health and safety reasons.
- Jack smokes, but many comparably cool people are nonsmokers.
- The staff at assassination company don't smoke due to concerns about health. They occasionally come across poser assassins who smoke to look badass, but are completely incompetent and generally have far less stamina.
- Double Subverted: However, most people who really want to smoke usually get away with it, and Jack is one of those people.
- Parodied:
- Jack has to take a "cool test" to determine whether or not he may take up smoking.
- Smoking makes anyone who picks up a cigarette a badass but guarantees a death by something improbable and awesome.
- Jack's Healing Factor lets him absorb a full machine gun clip to the face, but still strains to keep his lungs working.
- Jack is smoking 24/7, even in his sleep. On the rare occasions where he doesn't have a cigarette (probably because someone knocked it out of his mouth), he becomes a complete loser which is accentuated by an Art Shift, only going back to his badass self when he lights another smoke.
- A character's coolness is determined by how much they smoke. The ultimate badass in the setting is also The Unintelligible because his mouth is completely stuffed with cigarettes, and he drops dead from lung disease after just one scene.
- Zig Zagged:
- Jack tries to join assassination company, but he is a chain smoker. He quits, and they let him in. Soon after, he discreetly takes it up again.
- Some assassination company employees smoke, others don't, and it's not the sole or even chief factor in determining who is or isn't cool.
- Averted:
- Jack never has anything to do with smoking while at assassination company
- Jack does smoke, but isn't cool.
- Enforced: "Jack would sure look cool if he took up smoking, wouldn't he?"
- Lampshaded: "I only smoke at work. Maybe it's just 'cause I'm cooler then."
- Invoked: After a difficult assassination, Jack lights a cigarette and says something cool — even though he's by himself.
- Exploited: Jack's target knows the best and coolest assassins all smoke, and has installed fire alarms.
- Defied:
- Jack knows one of his subordinates is considering starting smoking, and casually reminds him that smokers often end up with several different health issues.
- Jack specifically bans his subordinates from smoking — the smell will give them away and he doesn't want to die from their incompetence. Besides, he can't have them panting when he needs them chasing his quarry.
- Discussed: "Kid, you can't learn everything from movies. Smoking is like kryptonite for assassins. Or anyone who runs around a lot, really."
- Conversed: "It's amazing how you never see those adventurous types coughing or anything."
- Implied: The assassination company is one of the few businesses in The City that still adorns its offices with ashtrays, and there's a higher concentration of cigarette butts outside its doors than anywhere else.
- Deconstructed: Jack is slowed down due to his habit, and it eventually becomes the proximate cause of his early death.
- Reconstructed: The fact that Jack is so good at what he does despite that makes him even cooler.
- Played for Laughs:
So you just killed one of the most powerful and dangerous mob bosses in this city, who exactly put you up to that?
No one, he wouldn't shut up about my tobacco habit.
No one, he wouldn't shut up about my tobacco habit.
- Played for Drama: Jack does not care about the health risks of smoking because he knows he is destined for an early grave.
Smoking Is Cool, if you can quit before you get lung cancer.
