Playing With / Enemies with Death

Basic Trope: For some reason The Grim Reaper, or an Anthropomorphic Personification of some other concept intrinsic to existence (or the ending thereof), takes a serious dislike to The Hero and has it in for them.

• Straight:
  • Bob is an enemy of Death.
  • Bob is an enemy of the Shinigami.
• Exaggerated:
  • Bob is an enemy of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
  • Bob is an enemy of the avatar of the Heat Death of The Universe.
• Downplayed:
  • Bob and death don't like each other and will go out of their way to trip each other up, short of finishing each other off.
• Justified:
  • Bob upset The Plan Death made for something or someone.
  • Death dislikes Bob for making their job harder or even impossible (like saving lives, cheating death or becoming immortal).
  • Death's boss orders him/her to antagonize Bob.
  • Bob kills lots of people, making Death overworked and frustrated.
  • Bob, age 4965, has cheated Death too often.
• Inverted:
  • Bob is Pals with Jesus.
  • Bob has tea with Cthulhu.
  • Bob doesn't fear the reaper.
  • Bob is an enemy of the Anthropomorphic Personification of Life.
  • Bob is pals with Death. Yeah, that's just morbid.
  • Alternatively: Bob and Death are enemies... But it's Bob who is the aggressor, and Death is just trying to do his job.
  • Death is overworked so he forms a partnership with Bob to create an expanding community of happy immortals so he has fewer souls to collect.
• Subverted:
  • Turns out that Death antagonizes everyone, and Bob just has an inflated sense of self-importance.
  • Bob and Death are Vitriolic Best Buds.
• Double Subverted: But Death especially hates Bob.
• Parodied:
  • Death offer to settle the whole thing with a game of... Dissidia. Then it turns out that Death is one of those "Stop Having Fun" Guys (pun intended).
  • Death is Bob's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis.
• Zig Zagged: Sometimes Bob fight Death like there is no tomorrow (possibly literal, shall Bob ever lose), the other day they went to watch football match together.
• Averted:
  • Death is equally apathetic toward all beings.
  • Death kills Bob with a finger flick.
• Enforced: It's one of those feel-good stories where The Hero spits on Death's face and wins. Unlike in, you know, Real Life.
• Lampshaded: "Hope your insurance policy is up to date!"
• Invoked: Bob bluffs his way out of a room full of assassins by noting that they'd have to be pretty stupid to "steal" a kill from Death itself.
• Exploited: Emperor Evulz set up a deal with the devil Death to destroy Bob. Or with Bob to destroy Death, whichever is more profitable for him.
• Defied: Death's boss has a "stay away from this guy" policy regarding Bob.
• Discussed: "Death won't kill ya, oh no, it likes to toy with you. No "sweet release", just oodles of agony before the curtain call."
• Conversed: "Y'know, if Death is explicitly out to kill this character, why don't they just appeal to some 'Life' entity or even God to even things out? It's hardly fair."
• Deconstructed: The Problem with Fighting Death.
• Reconstructed:
  • Bob goes with one (or more) of the suggested solutions in the above trope page, and it/they works!
  • Bob is enemies with a particular psychopomp, but there is a limit to what that psychopomp can actually do about it. Killing Bob with its scythe in combat is fair game, but simply cutting the thread of his life is not, and once Bob is dead, the psychopomp must treat him as it would any other dead soul.
• Played For Drama: Death hates Bob, but just killing him outright wouldn't do much for him... that'd put Bob's soul in his hands for only a short while. Instead, he torments Bob by killing all of his loved ones; friends, family, pets, anybody Bob would hold dear. And if this is enough to have Bob Driven to Suicide? Death just won't take him. Bob will be miserable and alone forever.

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Are you sure you want to go back to being Enemies with Death? It might not be worth the trouble, you know.

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