Basic Trope: Established but minor characters are used to get killed off for the sake of establishing casualties.
- Straight: In the Crisis Crossover The Invasion, there are approximately five casualties: Amazing Man, Dr. Awesome, Lady Badass, Alice Good, and Bob the Warrior. All of these characters are considered relatively minor and are only included in the story to provide casualties. Meanwhile, none of the A-listers die.
- Exaggerated: There are one hundred casualties in The Invasion, and all of them are C-listers.
- Downplayed: While some of the casualties are C-listers, some major characters also die in the mix.
- Justified: The heroes are just too important to the world to die, and the C list characters agree to sacrifice themselves to protect them.
- Inverted: The Five-Man Band the viewers were following for the first season are now killed off, but all the minor ones survive and now they have to pick up the pieces the original five left off in season 2.
- Subverted: It looks like the C list characters are being used just to sell the threat, but their actions eventually end up saving the day and they are hailed as the true heroes.
- Double Subverted: ...but they're still all dead, and the world soon forgets them.
- Parodied: The hero declares to his team that not all the heroes will survive this day, and many sacrifices will need to be made... as the camera pans away from the main cast to a whole bunch of heroes we've never met before, all looking distinctly worried.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Characters die, both major and minor.
- Nobody dies.
- Enforced: "This event needs casualties! No one's going to miss these losers, so we can kill them off! And we can always bring a few back in the event someone does complain about their deaths."
- Lampshaded: "Wait, who are these people who died again?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: The villain uses the deaths of the less well known heroes to portray the major heroes as overly privileged and willing to let their lessers die for their victories.
- Defied: The minor characters realise that they are the most likely to die, and decide to work together to avoid this fate.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to C-List Fodder.
