Basic Trope: A sufficiently powerful creature can repel or destroy its weakness.
- Straight: The vampire Alice is sufficiently powerful that crosses incinerate themselves in her presence.
- Exaggerated:
- Not only that, but rivers freeze, garlic rots, silver bullets stop, holy water evaporates, stakes become blunt, the sky darkens, and every home in a mile radius spontaneously grows a “welcome home” sign.
- Alice rots an entire church down to its foundations by approaching it, and the angel sent to kill her manifests flu-like symptoms.
- Alice's very presence brings an impenetrable fog wherever she goes. The sun itself doesn't dare to wound her, lest it draw her ire.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is quite annoyed by crosses, and her aura merely forces the offender to drop the cross in question.
- A holy symbol brandished against Alice will catch alight if, and only if, the wielder is unworthy and doesn't have the purity of soul to go with the symbol.
- Alice is unaffected by holy symbols, and can easily crush a cross with her bare hands.
- Justified:
- Alice is not technically a vampire, and thus Bob is using the wrong tool for the job in the first place. The burning is just dramatic effect on the part of Alice’s ability to control flame.
- Alice is a villainous angel or the incarnation of an evil God.
- Inverted:
- Bob is so holy that the Artifact of Doom purifies itself in his presence.
- Bob the Vampire Hunter is so strong that when he comes near a vampire, their fangs break, they lose their powers, and their physical strength is brought down to that of regular humans.
- Subverted:
- It looks like this trope has occurred, but Alice had one of her minions booby-trap the cross beforehand.
- Alice isn't unholy at all. She's, in fact, just a very different kind of holy, say, a pagan goddess. Thus the Christian symbols are still destroyed as she approaches, but not by hellfire and decay but by reclamation by nature. Wooden crosses start to grow, cover themselves with leaves and take root once the priests drop them. Trees grow amazingly fast under the church and break it brick by brick, turning it into a sacred grove in a matter of minutes.
- Double Subverted: When push comes to shove and Bob improvises a cross out of two sticks, it still catches fire.
- Parodied:
- Alice doesn’t know what a cross is, and is weirded out by the vampire hunters that keep brandishing “stylized candles” at her while screaming in pain.
- Alice is so massively fat that diet food and weighing machines destroy themselves rather than bear her weight.
- Zig Zagged: Whether the cross burns or not depends on its wielder, as it’s the faith that powers it.
- Averted: Bob brandishes a cross at Alice. She reacts in the normal way for a vampire.
- Enforced:
- The author find this one of his favorite tropes, and seeks to include it wherever he can.
- Given a cross can be made with two fingers, and are readily available, the author includes this trope to prevent their vampires being too weak.
- Lampshaded: “What? You expect me to recoil from the power of 'god', when I am standing right here?”
- Invoked: Alice obsessively researches the black rituals that automatically burn crosses, in order to avoid one of her weaknesses.
- Exploited:
- Emperor Evulz hires Alice to go into the Vatican and destroy one of his biggest rivals as he is hurt by holy symbols, but Alice casually destroys them as she passes.
- Bob uses the melted remains of his former cross to make silver bullets.
- Defied:
- “Symbols are only that: symbolic. A cross will not hurt me, but nor will it destroy itself in my presence; it’s just wood.”
- “I’m not going to show her my cross! It’ll just melt, and I’ll have to buy another one!”
- Discussed: “Are the rumours true? Is she so vile that the symbol of righteousness itself tears away rather than face her?"
- Conversed: “Y’know, you would not expect a holy symbol to be a double-edged sword, but this game has other ideas.”
- Implied: Alice is not harmed by the cross at all, while Bob seems quite rattled at her sudden immunity and ends up dropping it. It’s never made clear whether the latter is due to Alice’s vampiric power or just normal levels of human panic.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob sees his cross catch fire and start to melt and instinctively hurls it away; it hits the curtains and sets the room they're in on fire forcing them to relocate their conversation.
- Alice gloats about her immunity to Bob's cross while setting it on fire, only to be brought down effortlessly with regular bullets.
- Alternatively, Bob stabs Alice with the burning cross or throws it at her, setting her clothes on fire.
- Played For Drama:
- Bob brandishes a silver cross necklace in Alice's face: Alice takes it with a cheery "Thank you!", puts it on as she comments on the craftsmanship, and then rips Bob's throat out with her fangs.
- Same as Played for Laughs, except instead of leaving, Alice and Bob decide to fight it out as the room burns around them.
- Alice wants to have a Heel–Face Turn and become a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire or Ascended Demon, but holy symbols being destroyed just by her presence even in a half-hearted manner is incredibly discouraging for her to think it could ever work.
Back to Cross-Melting Aura. And for your own good, you’ll leave your religious paraphernalia at the door.
