Basic Trope: A character who is clearly still living is asked if they made it out of a situation alive.
- Straight: Alice is telling a story of a dangerous adventure. Bob asks Alice if she survived.
- Exaggerated: When the story gets to a dark point, Bob insists that there's no possible way Alice could have survived. To Alice.
- Downplayed: Alice is in pristine condition. Bob asks her if she was badly hurt.
- Justified:
- They are in a setting where one can die and then live to tell the tale afterward.
- They are in the afterlife. Asking how someone died is perfectly reasonable.
- Bob is The Ditz.
- They are in a setting where one can die and then live to tell the tale afterward.
- Inverted: Alice is dead, and Bob is asking her corpse if she survived.
- Subverted: "Oh man... did you die?" "Actually, yes." Turns out Alice is undead now!
- Double Subverted: "Wait, wait, the undead aren't real in this setting." "Oh? ... Oh, right. I guess I didn't die."
- Parodied: "And then I stubbed my toe, and —" "OH MY GOD DID YOU DIE?" "What? No! I just tripped and —" "DID YOU DIE THEN?" "I'm not dead! I didn't die at any point!"
- Zig Zagged: Alice has memory problems and resurrection and/or undeath are possible in the setting, so she genuinely doesn't know whether she died or not, and keeps updating as the story continues.
- Averted:
- Bob doesn't ask, because the answer is obvious.
- Alice wasn't or didn't tell a situation that risked her life.
- Enforced: "Our Invincible Hero isn't allowed to die, but the Licensed Game we're making needs a failure condition. Put in a Framing Device, and whenever the player dies, add a little kid asking if the hero seriously died, and the hero admitting that wasn't how it actually happened."
- Lampshaded:
- "No, I lived. I even got to recount the tale afterward."
- "Yes, I died, OF COURSE I SURVIVED, YOU IDIOT! If I died, I wouldn't be here talking to you, now, would I?!"
- Invoked: "So there I was, totally surrounded. No way out. Now I know you have one question on your mind. Go on. Ask it."
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "Did you-" "I'm not letting you finish that sentence because I can't bare such stupid questions."
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Played For Laughs: Bob asks Alice if she survived. Alice goes quiet for a moment, pats herself down to confirm that she is, in fact, alive, and responds with a Dope Slap.
- “Did he kill you?” “Sadly, he did. But I survived!”
- Played For Drama: Bob asks Alice if she survived. Alice responds, "No. I didn't."
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