Basic Trope: A suspected witch is burned at the stake.
- Straight: Helen is burned at the stake for accusations of witchcraft.
- Exaggerated:
- Helen is accused of witchcraft for playing a children's card game involving magical characters.
- Several suspected witches have napalm and flamethrower applied to them at the stake, killing unwitting bystanders in the process. Some are real witches, but most are not.
- Downplayed:
- Helen is marked with a branding iron and exiled from her hometown.
- Both sides of a war openly use witches as shock troops and for supernatural consultation. Burning witches, via mundane pyres or fire spells, is a common pratice on both sides that witches condone.
- Justified:
- The townsfolk believe that Magic Is Evil.
- The villagers burn Helen specifically because she is practicing Black Magic rather than for using White Magic.
- Witches are particularly vulnerable to fire.
- Witches are capable from rising from the dead, but fire keeps them dead.
- Helen is The Vamp who has dealt great damage to the community with her "magical powers" of charm and seduction over men. There's no other legal way of getting rid of her but to accuse her of being a witch, for which burning is the standard punishment.
- Inverted:
- Helen uses fire magic to burn her accusers alive.
- Helen cauterizes the wounds the townspeople inflict on her.
- Helen is killed by being thrown in freezing water for being a witch.
- Exaggerated Inversion: Helen the fire witch uses a burning stake to cast her fire magic.
- Victoria is burned at the stake because she is The Witch Hunter.
- Subverted:
- The townsfolk realize Helen is not a witch and don't burn her.
- Helen the witch is sentenced to death—for murder, not for witchcraft.
- "We don't burn witches around here..."
- Double Subverted:
- But then she is caught casting spells and she is burned.
- Helen was framed by Bob, who hates witches.
- "...We hang them!"
- Parodied:
- The townsfolk start flipping out and burning people for the smallest of things. They farted? They were trying to conjure up a tornado. At a funeral for a loved one? Attempting to start a Zombie Apocalypse.
- Helen, a fire witch, is "burned" at the stake for accusations of witchcraft.
- Helen accuses Alice of witchcraft and uses magic to tie her to a stake and burn her down.
- Helen has no powers unless she's wearing a specific garment. Bob suggests simply depriving her of that garment, but nobody listens to him.
- Helen did everything she was accused of doing, but she was under Mind Control or More than Mind Control, yet she's held exclusively responsible and burned. The townspeople could find and arrange similar justice for the Greater-Scope Villain, but they never do.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Helen is burned, ostensibly to death, but it turns out after the townspeople leave her to her fate that she's Not Quite Dead or Only Mostly Dead. When they find this out, to finish the job, they hang her, but that doesn't work either. So, they try drowning, then freezing, starving, live-burying, poisoning, and beating her.
- Some suspected witches are burned, while others get different penalties.
- Witchcraft itself is legal but stigmatized. However using the herb-lore to deliberately poison someone or cursing someone without a very good reason (like self defense or the murder of their family) will get the witch burnt at the stake but so would any other poisoner. Witches do tend to get blamed for any suspected posioning or curse unless they maintain a reputation as a pillar of the community.
- Averted: Suspected witches are not burned.
- Enforced: Writers who have Shown Their Work are planning to depict a witch hanging, but Executive Meddling calls for a more "dramatic" death for the (apparent) antagonist.
- Lampshaded: "How are things in your town?" "Not bad, actually. We recently burned a witch."
- Invoked: Alice convinces the townsfolk that Helen should be burned at the stake for witchcraft when she is caught doing what they think is magic.
- Exploited:
- Alice takes advantage of the townsfolk's skeptical opinions of Helen, convincing them that Helen is a witch and no good can come of her being allowed to live among them.
- Several unfortunate and unexplained occurrences are happening within the town (e.g. drought, famine, dead or missing children and/or livestock, etc.). Taking advantage of the superstitious townsfolk, Alice places the blame on Helen by claiming that she has been using witchcraft to conjure up said occurrences, resulting in Helen being burned at the stake while Alice is commended for exposing her.
- Helen became a scapegoat and let herself be burned at the stake so that she can store up her mana through fire.
- The Corrupt Church uses the charge of "witchcraft" to get rid of the traditional shamanesses/"wise women" who are a threat to the belief system they are trying to impose upon the population, claiming such women are malefactors in league with Satan.
- Defied:
- Helen does everything she can to hide her witchcraft.
- The townsfolk refuse to burn Helen at the stake, even after she is revealed to be a witch. Instead they try to find a more humane solution.
- Alice derails accusations of witchcraft by acting offended and challenging the accuser to a duel for insulting her honor.
- Discussed: "For witchcraft, she deserves to burn." "But we're short on dry wood." "Well, then, buy or barter some from the next town." "And it looks like rain." "You're making more excuses not to burn the witch than you are finding reasons to help. Are you a witch?"
- Conversed: "That scene's rife with Artistic License – History. They didn't burn witches in early modern Europe, they hanged them."
- Deconstructed:
- Warlocks and witches once lived peacefully with Muggles, but then an accident occurred involving the use of magic, killing many innocent people in the process. In their anger, the townsfolk gathered together to have all magical beings burned at the stake, a practice that would continue over the years until only a scarce number remained within the town, hiding in secret.
- The villagers are terrible at telling the difference between a witch and a Muggle and end up killing many innocent people.
- Burning a witch turns out to always be a terrible idea. If she is an innocent you'll find your village damned for the act. If she actually is a witch you will just provoke her most lethal spells. Even if you managed to ensure she is bound and gagged the painful death will ensure her Dying Curse killing the whole town is the merciful option.
- Played for Drama: Helen really is a witch and had placed a curse on the town and its citizens. And now that she's gone, no one can reverse the curse.
Back to the main page! We have witch-burning to do!
