Basic Trope: The villains attaching a bomb of some form (a collar more often than not) to a person to coerce them into doing things for the villains.
- Straight: Taylor gets captured by the villains, who stick a remotely detonated bomb on his back and order him to find the lost staff of Mount Schuler for them if he wants his freedom back.
- Exaggerated:
- Taylor gets a literal suitcase nuke handcuffed to his wrist.
- Taylor gets a bomb collar attached as a hall pass.
- Downplayed: Taylor gets a Shock Collar put on his neck and coerced by threats of pain rather than death.
- Justified: The bad guys couldn't find any way to coerce Taylor into working for them other than threatening his life in this way.
- Inverted:
- To deter attempts on his life, Taylor is carrying a bomb that will explode if he dies.
- Taylor is fitted with a collar that, once he finishes his task, will heal him of any injuries he had at the time.
- Subverted: After thorough examination by his Gadgeteer Genius friend, the bomb in the collar turns out to be fake.
- Double Subverted: However, he finds another bomb that the villains implanted into Taylor's body, and that one is real.
- Parodied:
- The "explosive leash" in question is an old-style ball and chain, only the ball is a Cartoon Bomb.
- Taylor gets an explosive collar put on his neck... as a part of DRM package for the new game he bought.
- Zig Zagged: It's russian roulette but with necklaces: some deploy acid, some deploy explosives, some use fire, most deploy nothing, one deploys confetti.
- Averted: The villains use something else to coerce Taylor, like kidnap and threaten his loved ones.
- Enforced: The work that heavily influenced the lead writer was Battle Royale, and he decided to include a Homage to it.
- Lampshaded: "You might have noticed that you have a collar around your neck. No points for guessing what it does."
- Invoked: Evulz works hard to invent an explosive collar, as decapitation is the only way his minions can die and hence the only way to keep them in line.
- Exploited:
- Taylor goads the bad guys into putting an Explosive Leash on him, because he wants to defuse it and turn it into a bomb to escape with.
- Someone hacks into the controls for the collars, allowing them to destroy all their hostages with a click of a button.
- Taylor hugs his neck to his would-be captor, ensuring that if his collar explodes, the captor dies with him.
- Charlie the Bomb Disposal expert is able to disarm the bomb on Evulz's gang of coerced minions. They proceed to take their revenge on Evulz.
- Defied: The main character knows the bad guys use Explosive Leashes, and keeps the phone number of the world's foremost Bomb Disposal expert in case he gets captured.
- Discussed: "What wretched company would produce such a twisted device?"
- Conversed: "The villains give out so many explosive collars it's a surprise their minions don't get one for their yearly bonus."
- Deconstructed: Taylor's collar goes off by accident, leaving him dead and the villains without their MacGuffin.
- Reconstructed: The bad guys use this measure of coercion only when their victims are considered expendable.
- Implied: Taylor has a distinctive choker which he tugs at when nervous, and it keeps beeping...
- Played For Laughs: The collar blows Taylor's head off... which survives intact and starts swearing in illegible Angrish as the body searches around for it to try and put it back.
- Played For Drama: The emotional consequences of having an explosive collar around your neck and the sheer terror Taylor experiences from it are explored in detail.
Now, you either go back to Explosive Leash, or your head goes boom. Understand?
