Ineffectual Death Threats/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character makes a death threat they are never likely to carry out, and never do.
 * Straight: Bob threatens to kill Alice in a heated argument. They're both ordinary people.
 * Exaggerated: Bob threatens to kill Alice. He's her five-year-old little brother. She's 16 and studies martial arts. Supernatural Martial Arts with Charles Atlas Superpower, just for good measure.
 * Downplayed: Bob threatens to punch Alice. He Would Not Hit a Girl.
 * Justified: ???
 * Inverted: Bob murders Alice for no identifiable reason and with no warning.
 * Subverted: Bob is a Kid Samurai and menaces Alice with his katana.
 * Double Subverted: It's wooden. Wooden Katanas Are Even Better does not apply.
 * Parodied: Bob is shown working on an elaborate murder plan, while constantly gloating at Alice that her days are numbered. One night, he attacks her with a rubber squeaky hammer or nerf gun while she's asleep.
 * Zig Zagged: Bob threatens to kill Alice. She laughs him off. He mentions a way he can get his hands on a katana. She doesn't believe him. He brings it. It's wooden. Wooden Katanas Are Even Better, and it has an Absurdly Sharp Blade. Alice breaks it with a Finger-Poke of Doom.
 * Averted:
 * Bob makes a death threat he can and will back up, and it's that kind of a setting.
 * Nobody is killed or threatened with death.
 * Enforced: Bob makes a death threat. The show is a sitcom. No Cerebus Syndrome or similar.
 * Lampshaded: "Riiiight. That makes the tenth time?"
 * Invoked: ???
 * Exploited: ???
 * Defied: Bob is holding a functional and dangerous weapon when he makes the threat.
 * Discussed: "Bob said he'd kill me." "He tells me that every other day."
 * Conversed: "Sure. On that network, in that time slot?"
 * Deconstructed: Bob gets into legal trouble.
 * Reconstructed: Hilarity Sues. Cue the Courtroom Episode.
 * Played For Laughs: Bob continuously attacks Alice with Joke Items while screaming for her inevitable demise. Each time, he receives a Megaton Punch for his trouble.
 * Played For Drama: Alice becomes paranoid over a death threat Bob made when he was angry and didn't mean anything by it.

Back to Ineffectual Death Threats, or I'll kill you! *raises rubber squeaky bat*