Basic Trope: Vultures and other scavengers watching a character symbolize the fact that they are likely to be doomed.
- Straight: After Bob is stranded for a while, vultures start surrounding him awaiting his death.
- Exaggerated: Bob is surrounded by a multitude of scavengers, even ones that aren't usually found in the setting he's in.
- Downplayed: Bob is in danger, and a single vulture starts following him.
- Justified: The vultures are desperate for food and are looking for an easy source.
- Inverted: The vultures actually help someone instead of waiting for them to die.
- Subverted:
- Bob is worried that the vultures surrounding him will try to eat him, but they actually pick him up and rescue him instead...
- As the vultures circle above him Bob notices that they are more interested in each other than him (assuming they even know of his presence), seems it was just a case of him coincidentally walking underneath their mating dance.
- Double Subverted: ...although it turns out that the vultures just wanted to drop him from a high height in order to kill him easily.
- Parodied:
- People have been waiting for Bob to die for a while, and as a result he's always surrounded by a group of scavengers.
- Vultures somehow come out of nowhere whenever someone is in danger.
- The vultures are anthropomorphic in some way, and tell Bob "If You Die, I Call Your Stuff".
- Zig-Zagged: The (likely anthropomorphic) vulture wants both food and companionship. So he circles both dying people and healthy people, wanting to gulp up the remains of the former and start conversations with the latter.
- Averted: Scavengers are not a sign that anyone is in danger.
- Enforced: "How can we tell that Bob is in danger out here in the desert?" "I know, add a few vultures that are waiting for him to die!"
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob brought a gun with him. When the vultures start circling, he shoots them and eats roasted vulture for dinner.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Circling Vultures
