This Was His True Form/Playing With

Basic Trope: The shapeshifter transforms back to true form upon death.
 * Straight: Maxine, the werewolf, gets shot in the head with a silver bullet and turns to her human form upon death.
 * Exaggerated: Maxine, which as been transformed into a grotesque, incomprehensible and massive bio-weapon is finally destroyed by the army with a tactical mini-nuke. However, as her mutated parts crumble away, her lifeless, but cleansed of corruption, human body emerges from it without a single scratch.
 * Downplayed: Maxine, the vampire, loses her fangs, her skin recovers her tone and her previously pitch-black hair returns to her original color after her heart is impaled by a stake.
 * Justified: Maxine's transformation is a psychoactive power; once her brain functions ceased, she could no longer sustain the change.
 * Inverted: Maxine, the shapeshifter, gets shot in the head and starts to erratically change shapes before dying as an amorphous amalgamation of all the forms she even took.
 * Subverted: When Maxine drops dead, for a moment it looks as if she were returning to her human form, but the process suddenly reverses and she dies as a full werewolf.
 * Or: Maxine dies on a transitory form between human and werewolf.
 * Double Subverted: ...However, when the doctors check back her body to perform the autopsy, she has finally reverted to her human form.
 * Parodied: After Adonis Narcissus dies by tripping with a Banana Peel, all the plastic surgeries and the bodybuilding he did on himself starts to undo, revealing the goofy appearance he had before becoming a film super-star.
 * Zig Zagged: ???
 * Averted: Maxine gets shot in the head with a silver bullet and dies in her werewolf form.
 * Enforced: The actress that played Maxine under the werewolf makeup wanted to show her real face at least once, so that fans could recognize her to ask her for autographs and stuff.
 * The authors wanted it to be harder for the heroes to reveal that werewolves are real.
 * Alternatily, this is in place to hold up the Masquerade.
 * Lampshaded: "It would be easier to kill werewolves if they didn't transformed into something so similar to us when they perish. It makes me feel sick."
 * Invoked: The anti-werewolf weapons work by attacking the anomalous cells, effectively destroying the mutation but killing the subject in the process. This is useful to identify those carrying The Virus in order to find the source.
 * Exploited: Maxine was mode locked into her werewolf form as result of a powerful curse/virus/etc. However, now that her body has reverted to her original state, her friends can try to revive her as a human.
 * Defied: Maxine doesn't want her killers to find out her human identity, because that would compromise the safety of her werewolf comrades; so she either rigs her body to be obliterated as she dies or with her last strength she finds an impromptu way to destroy it.
 * Discussed: ???
 * Conversed: ???
 * Plotted A Good Waste: Prior to Maxine's death, the characters thought that the metamorphosis into werewolf was irreversible, but this phenomenon indicated there must be a way to undo it, therefor, they could find a cure for their transformed comrades.
 * Played For Laughs: After Maxine drops "dead", her former "enemy" (and Hopeless Suitor!) embraces her naked body as he cries an exagerated stream of tears. But suddenly she says: "I'm not dead you frikkin idiot! And take your hands off me you creep!" before punching the lights out of him.
 * Played For Drama: After Maxine is mortally wounded in a fight against an enemy werewolf, she looks for her brother Maximus in order to apologize for the crimes she committed while she was a mindless beast. He watches her sister returning to her original, but now horribly maimed, as she passes away in his arms.

Back to This Was His True Form