Death Is Not Permanent/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A video game attempts to explain why your death is not permanent.

  • Played Straight: The Hero's squad's engineer shows him a complicated piece of machinery that will revive him behind friendly lines in the event of his death.
  • Exaggerated: ...and then proceeds to explain exactly how it does that, claiming that it is so fast and efficient that you may not even notice you've died prior to respawning.
  • Downplayed: ???
  • Justified: The mission The Hero is about to embark on is known to be dangerous and death is unavoidable.
  • Inverted: If you die in the game, you cannot play it again until you start a new save file.
  • Subverted: The machine runs on Applied Phlebotinum, and The Engineer has no idea how it works...
  • Double Subverted: ...until an ambassador from a race of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens visits the battlefield and explains it, allowing The Engineer to alter and improve its design by integrating Earthly technology.
  • Parodied: The machine is a massive Rube Goldberg device incorporating elements of steampunk, cyberpunk, alien technology, and a hamster running on a wheel.
  • Deconstructed: Use of the machine is protested heavily by people who believe that using it is tampering in God's domain, and there's a discussion of a law being enacted to outlaw its use.
  • Zig Zagged: The machine is notoriously unreliable, and only works half the time.
  • Averted: The machine is not shown.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: "So...basically, the machine lets me respawn?"
  • Invoked: The machine is half complete when The Hero sees it, and he only has access to it once The Engineer completes it.
  • Exploited: The enemy is aware that this machine exists. When The Hero is killed, they're able to take control of it and force him to respawn behind enemy lines, where they easily capture him and hold him as a prisoner of war.
  • Defied: The Hero is a Death Seeker, and refuses to use the machine when given the opportunity.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

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