Basic Trope: Lava is portrayed as red-dyed water that is boiling.
- Straight: In Larry Loves Lava, lava looks like a recolored version of water, and has all of water's properties. Larry can easily swim in the lava by donning his Lava Suit, and can move around as if the lava is no more viscous than water. He can also see clearly in the lava, through a cherry tint.
- Exaggerated: Larry can swim in the lava naked. He can also sail across the lava lakes in a wooden boat.
- Downplayed: Lava instantly kills anyone who touches it; however, Convection, Schmonvection is still in effect, and the lava is far less viscous than it should be.
- Justified:
- Larry has Dishing Out Dirt or Playing with Fire powers, and can manipulate lava to act in the way he wants it to.
- Lava is so hot for whatever reasons (alien planet in a tight orbit around its star, etc.) that it's as viscous as water.
- The lava in question isn't the usual silica-based lava, but rather carbonate-based lava, which is much less viscous.
- Inverted: Water is portrayed as blue or clear lava, just at a more cooled temperature.
- Subverted: Larry is surprised to find that while in the lava, he can't see clearly at all, and it's almost impossible for him to move.
- Double Subverted: Turns out that was just the Lava Suit malfunctioning. The lava actually acts just as Larry expected.
- Parodied:
- Larry can drink the lava as if it really was Kool-Aid.
- Emperor Evulz surrounds his evil lair with an evil moat of evil cherry Kool-Aid.
- Zig Zagged: Larry finds that lava does not act at all like he expected. However, that was just the suit malfunctioning. But then it turns out that he really was swimming in Kool-Aid, and real lava is far more realistic. However, he is able to overcome that problem with a few upgrades to the Lava Suit.
- Averted: Lava behaves how it does in Real Life.
- There is no lava in the setting.
- Enforced:
- "Creating realistic lava would require too much CPU power. Let's just recolor some water and make the player take damage without a special suit."
- "Hmm. We need a cool lava level. Any ideas?" "Oooh! What about moving platforms of rock on the lava, that you have to jump on!"
- Lampshaded: "Why does this lava act so unlike lava? It looks as if it's strawberry-flavored!"
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz thinks that real lava will be too inconvenient for his evil moat- after all, there's convection to worry about. He fills his moat with a much more manageable lava-substitute instead.
- Exploited:
- Larry knows that Evulz's lava doesn't act like lava, and happily sails across in his wooden boat.
- Larry had his suit to swim across Evulz's lava moat. What he wasn't prepared for was the lava sharks.
- Defied: Evulz replaces the "lava" with real lava once he realizes how easy his moat is to cross.
- Discussed: "Are you sure this is safe? I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to sail across lava this easily."
- Conversed: "That's not the way lava works! Don't these people know that lava is molten rock?"
Back to Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid.
