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Hero Must Survive vs. We Cannot Go On Without You

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Anorgil Since: Dec, 2010
#1: Oct 11th 2024 at 6:47:44 PM

Both of these tropes mean "If a specific character dies, it's game over." As I understand it, Hero Must Survive applies specifically to strategy games, and We Cannot Go On Without You applies to other types of games, such as RPGs.

However, there does not seem to be enough difference between strategy games and RPGs to justify the existence of two different tropes. In Fire Emblem, for example, both tropes are listed for the exact same reason.

Therefore, I recommend merging Hero Must Survive and We Cannot Go On Without You into a single trope. At the very least, I would like an explanation for why strategy games are different enough from other types of games that their examples of Hero Must Survive wouldn't qualify as We Cannot Go On Without You, or vice versa for RPGs.

Edited by Anorgil on Oct 11th 2024 at 6:57:29 AM

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#2: Oct 11th 2024 at 8:45:18 PM

Here's a full list of 11 works that reference or are referenced by both tropes, resulting in an overlap of 16%:

Edited by eroock on Oct 11th 2024 at 5:47:11 PM

MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#3: Oct 12th 2024 at 3:16:08 AM

I previously talked a bit about this on the duplicate tropes thread. My interpretation is that Hero Must Survive applies to individual missions, not the whole game, and has preserving the "hero" unit as an explicitly stated objective, rather than a passive condition. Also, according to We Cannot Go On Without You's description, Hero Must Survive allows you to leave the "hero" unit out of the fighting where that's not necessarily possible in RPGs.

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