Basic Trope: Divine entities or sacred objects bring danger to humans.
- Straight:
- Alice picks up the Holy MacGuffin. Her hand gets badly burned and falls off.
- Alice sees God and her eyes melt out of her head.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is burned Deader than Dead the instant she sees the Holy MacGuffin.
- At the moment her fingers touch it, Alice's entire family dies, the whole city she is in goes up in blazes, and her hand melts.
- Alice is an angel, a goddess in her own right, or some other type of supernatural being, and she's still in danger.
- Alice is not safe, despite being Pals with Jesus.
- Alice destroys the universe by coming into contact with it.
- Downplayed:
- Alice picks up the Holy MacGuffin and gets a painful (but not seriously damaging) shock, making her drop it.
- Alice reaches for the Holy MacGuffin and her hand gets zapped by Some Kind of Force Field, making her back away.
- Alice ends up with a little bit of bad luck.
- The Holy MacGuffin is very measured in its responses. If someone wants it for a cause that isn't good or important enough, it rejects them by becoming too heavy to lift. A thief who attempts to steal it will get an injured hand that only recovers with good deeds for their troubles, while a murderer or someone with foul intents will be outright struck down.
- Alice touches the Holy MacGuffin and she finds herself naked on the spot. It's embarrassing, but at least she isn't injured.
- Justified:
- The Holy MacGuffin is to be handled by only the High Priest, which Alice is not.
- The Ax-Crazy Holy MacGuffin is dangerous to most humans, except those of exceptionally noble character, because Humans Are Bastards.
- Alice wanted the Holy MacGuffin for less-than-noble reasons. (Maybe just because it looks cool, maybe to usurp the power of the resident Priest King, maybe to relieve herself in, whatever.)
- The Ax-Crazy Holy MacGuffin is just inherently dangerous; either it's radioactive or is otherwise Hair-Trigger Explosive.
- Alice herself is evil; only those on the side of good may handle the Holy MacGuffin safely.
- God Is Evil
- Alice fits the criteria to use the item. However, divine power can be dangerous for mortals to use, thus its use requires some form of willing self sacrifice to use.
- Inverted:
- Alice touches the Holy MacGuffin and is instantly cured of her illness or injury, or even brought Back from the Dead.
- A satanic artifact offers many health benefits.
- A satanic artifact kills whoever touches it, whether they are good or evil.
- Subverted:
- If handled reverently and respectfully by a believer, the Holy MacGuffin is safe and/or lucky.
- Nothing happens to Alice even though "everyone knows" that touching the Holy MacGuffin is dangerous.
- The MacGuffin isn't truly holy, just a dumb and powerful artifact. Real holy ones aren't harmful to undeserving people.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice does not follow that faith, and/or wants it for the wrong reason(s), and gets blasted.
- But she returns home to find Bob dead.
- Parodied:
- Alice touches the Holy MacGuffin and suffers Amusing Injuries. Like an idiot, she keeps touching it and suffers more Amusing Injuries.
- The Holy Golden Porcupine receives this treatment. The "dangers" are caused by those who handling it being stupid. They walk into it, trying to grab it by spikes instead of its base, or hugging it.
- Zig-Zagged: Some handle the Holy MacGuffin with no problems, some only get a bit of minor bad luck, some get more serious bad luck, and some suffer grave illnesses or injuries, or die.
- Averted:
- Alice doesn't touch the Holy MacGuffin.
- Or she does, but is not harmed by it.
- Enforced: Rule of Drama
- Lampshaded: Alice touches the Holy MacGuffin and goes up in smoke. A dumbfounded Bob asks:"What the heck? How could something that innocuous-looking be so dangerous?"
- Invoked: God cursed the MacGuffin to stop it falling into the wrong hands.
- Exploited: The tour guide says an ancient Curse is put on it, to deter people from touching it.
- Defied:
- Alice decides that it would be disrespectful to take it and to treat an object that's considered sacred like it was nothing, so she leaves it alone.
- Alice sees the corpses of the previous ones who attempted to claim it for use in noble purposes that weren't good enough for it. Outraged at their deaths, she destroys it with explosives to prevent anyone from being harmed by it again.
- Discussed: "I hear it's cursed. You sure you want to take it, Alice?"
- Conversed: "They're just saying that in the show so no one will steal it."
- Implied: Alice mysteriously disappears after touching the Holy MacGuffin.
- Deconstructed: People refuse to worship a god whose artifacts can kill them.
- Reconstructed: Holy artifacts are deliberately kept away from any wrongs hands, unlike wicked artifacts which deliberately made publicly accessible and tempt anyone with promises of riches and power.
- Played for Drama:
- Alice was the best member of her team at something very important, and after her contact with the Holy MacGuffin puts her out of commission, the rest suffer.
- Following Alice during her convalescence and longer-than-expected recovery is the point of the story.
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