Basic Trope Description: A character was shot, and now they are subject to a surgery to get the bullet out of their flesh.
- Straight: Bob is shot. Doctors then pull the bullet out of his flesh in a surgery.
- Exaggerated: Bob is shot with over a hundred bullets, and the doctors take every single one out in a surgery.
- Downplayed: Bob gets a side wound by a gunshot barely missing him, and the wound is mended afterwards.
- Justified:
- It is a historical war setting in which such operations were in fact the best thing to do when someone was shot.
- There were genuine medical reasons.
- The bullet has some sort of poison/venom on it.
- It's an explosive bullet, so it has to be removed before it can explode.
- Inverted: To prevent Bob from bleeding out, a surgeon inserts a bullet into his body to block the blood stream.
- Subverted: Bob is shot, and the surgeons gather around him to take the bullet out. But after a second look, they decide to leave the bullet where it is, since the tissue can very well heal around the bullet and the bullet itself will presumably not be a pain.
- Double Subverted: Then the bullet becomes painful for Bob, and they have to get it out in another operation to finally free him from the pain.
- Enforced: Rule of Drama
- Averted:
- Bob isn't shot, but stabbed.
- The bullet is left were it is from the beginning.
- Zigzagged: Some characters who are shot get the bullet out, others don't.
- Parodied: The doctors have this reaction to a pellet from an airsoft gun getting stuck in Bob's bellybutton.
- Invoked: Bob's head surgeon has learned this as standard practice when someone is shot and orders his underlings to do so.
- Exploited: Bob's enemy among the surgeons advises so to take Bob out for a while with an infection.
- Defied: "What are you, crazy!? Getting the bullet out's gonna make him bleed worse, and he'll DIE from too much blood loss!"
- Lampshaded: "He was shot, you say?! We Have to Get the Bullet Out!!"
- Discussed: "We Have to Get the Bullet Out!!!" "Are you sure with that?" "Yes, see?!" "I don't see why..."
- Conversed: "Isn't pulling the bullet out gonna make it even worse?"
- Deconstructed: Bob nearly bleeds out, and the wound gets easily infected. He doesn't die from the bullet, but from the operation.
- Reconstructed: There were genuine medical reasons that made "getting the bullet out" the needed option.
- Implied: Bob's surgeon speaks with his girlfriend Alice after the operation and shows her the still-bloody bullet.
