Basic Trope: An object that inspires desire and obsession to a murderous degree.
- Straight: The Amethyst Albatross has a long history of being stolen, smuggled, auctioned, and tearing apart more than one group of friends / allies over ownership.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob were Happily Married until they receive the Amethyst Albatross, at which point they bitterly divorce over who gets to put it on their night-stand.
- Downplayed: The Amethyst Albatross is beautiful, valuable, and has a centuries long history; some shady incidents are to be expected.
- Justified: The Amethyst Albatross is part of the Requisite Royal Regalia of a kingdom, whoever owns it has a claim to be king or queen.
- Inverted: Nobody wants the Amethyst Albatross, the history of death and calamity surrounding it makes any sensible person want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Those who steal or murder to get it quickly find it too "hot" to sell and links them to every past murder, making them desperate to offload it cheap.
- Subverted: The whole movie is spent with Alice chasing Bob and fighting him to steal the Amethyst Albatross. Once Alice finally wrestles it out of Bob's hands, she smashes it on the floor— Alice never wanted the Albatross, she just wanted to destroy Bob's most prized possession out of revenge.
- Double Subverted: Once Bob leaves defeated, Alice leans down and dusts off a small cylinder in the wreckage of the Albatross, a treasure map. The real reason she wanted Albatross was for the map, the revenge was just a nice bonus.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob spend the vast majority of the movie in a Spy vs. Spy series of wacky hijinks over the Albatross. Near the end, Charlie decides to have a laugh at the expense of both by hiding the Amethyst Albatross in an art gallery full of near perfect replicas, which he is smashing Gallagher style with a mallet as they frantically try and find the real one.
- Zig-Zagged: Everyone chases after the Amethyst Albatross, but that's just a cover story, it has a secret compartment to ferry messages between spies, only there's Colliding Criminal Conspiracies because the Albatross really is valuable to different groups for religious and political reasons, and they'd kill to get it. However, that's all thanks to a rival spy agency fabricating an auction guide, history and religious texts, to make it harder for their rivals to move information.
- Averted: The Amethyst Albatross is built up as a storied artifact of attraction— and the heroes walk right past it to the truly valuable items in the Dragon Hoard.
- Enforced: The Amethyst Albatross was carved out of mystical amethyst by a warlock with a cursed lattice style, whoever sees light shine through it is immediately hypnotized into wanting it.
- Lampshaded: "Why can't the beautiful gem sculpture just be valuable for it's own sake, and not a greed plague?"
- Invoked: Bob makes the Amethyst Albatross irresistible by hiding state secrets inside, starting a legend it grants wealth and power, and getting a witch to curse it to be irresistible just for good measure.
- Exploited: Bob knows everyone will chase after the Albatross— so he uses the distraction to steal the Jade Jaguar, Obsidian Owl and Sapphire Snake. Which, while not as valuable, won't be nearly as hard to steal or sell.
- Defied: Alice holds the Amethyst Albatross, the focus of all her desire, for which she just murdered Bob— and with great effort throws it into the sea. Though it won't bring Bob back, she's no longer willing to let it cause harm in the world.
- Discussed: "Oh, look, a beautiful artifact that draws the eye with a history of theft and violence in it's wake. I'm sure we won't have to steal it, or foil it's theft."
- Conversed: "At this point, they need to hide the damn thing in a monastery staffed by blind monks or something, the damn thing is a menace."
- Implied: The museum curator, Denise, notes the Amethyst Albatross certainly seems cursed to be desired, stolen, and cause anguish, but it's been safely in the museum for a decade— to Alice and Bob, who are there to steal it, and each plans to backstab the other.
- Deconstructed: An artifact with the kind of history of the Amethyst Albatross, magical or not, becomes so infamous nobody wants anything to do with it anymore, so no one will buy it, making it worthless to anyone with a smidgen of sense and willpower. Support groups, psychologists and hypnotists are frequently employed to help people recover or cope with the attraction it generates. Attempts to destroy it becomes as common as attempts to steal it. Even when the former seemingly inevitably become the latter, a weird good guy version of Evil Only Has to Win Once comes into play for the world to be free of the artifact.
- Reconstructed: The fact it is desirable makes it desirable in a meta sense; no one would care about the Amethyst Albatross if it weren't wanted so badly. Bob fakes its destruction and in that way removes the "curse", at least from everyone except him, and when he dies, no one else will know it still exists.
- Played for Laughs: Charlie hangs the Amethyst Albatross from a rope in front of a hamster wheel, and Alice and Bob are helpless but to run towards it, giving Charlie free electricity.
- Played for Drama: No one ever resists thieves taking the Amethyst Albatross from them, because they are usually too filled with regret over those they hurt to get it to really enjoy it anymore.
- Played for Horror: Charlie walks in to find Alice and Bob dead, having murdered each other over the Amethyst Albatross. Charlie chuckles and wipes some blood from the Albatross— and discovers it's actually made of Aquamarine. It is literally so drenched in blood it looks purple. As he looks into the statues eyes, they seem to glow with an inner light, and he realizes— it's still thirsty.
You know you can't resist... going back to Artifact of Attraction.
