Basic Trope: A character keeps an item, often a human body part, as a morbid trophy.
- Straight: Alice, a Serial Killer otherwise known as Lady Fingers, takes the index fingers from people she's killed as souvenirs.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice keeps her victims' corpses as souvenirs.
- Alice rapes her male victims before killing them and gives birth to their children as human souvenirs.
- Downplayed: Alice keeps her victims' house keys as souvenirs.
- Justified:
- Alice is a Visonary-type Serial Killer, with one aspect of her psychosis being a compulsive need to take the index fingers of her victims.
- Alice takes the index fingers of her victims so that she can relive the crime post-mortem, as part of her desire for power and domination over the people she kills.
- Alice's victims were all massive Asshole Victims who had personally wronged her in some way; taking a trophy from their body gives Alice a sense of satisfaction at getting revenge.
- Alice has so many victims that taking mementos is the only way she can remember them all.
- Inverted: Alice keeps items taken from people who died on her watch as a reminder of her failures.
- Subverted: Many fingers are found in Alice's house, along with a set of knives...but the police eventually find out that Alice is in training as a chef and someone planted those fingers in her house to frame her.
- Double Subverted: ...Alice instead keeps teeth from people she's killed.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Parodied: Alice buys tacky commemorative plates from each town where she commits a crime. She bores the detectives silly talking about them during her interrogation.
- Averted: Alice kills someone, but leaves the body otherwise untouched or completely disposes of it.
- Lampshaded:Detective Bob: Everyone keeps souvenirs, but some are a little...creepier than others.
- Defied: Alice considers keeping souvenirs from her victims, but then rejects the idea as it would make it too easy for her to be convicted if someone found them.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Detective Bob and newbie cop Charlie come out of Alice's house after exploring it. Charlie vomits on the lawn, and when Alice's neighbor Eva asks what happened, Bob answers, "Souvenirs."
- Deconstructed: Alice's habit of taking trophies from her victims creates a distinctive signature that ultimately gets her caught; at her trial, the severed fingers found in her house are bought up as evidence of her guilt.
Oh yes, I have a fine collection of red links. Right this way, please...