Basic Trope: Leaving behind a suicide method for someone to avoid a Fate Worse than Death.
- Straight:
- Bob The Fettered locks Emperor Evulz up and leaves a pistol loaded with one bullet to Evulz for committing suicide.
- Bob hands Evulz a tantō, and offers to be his second for honorable seppuku.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob locks Emperor Evulz into a blast shelter and leaves a hand grenade to Evulz for committing suicide.
- Bob locks Princess Evulz and her friend Avelyn into a hot boiling prison and leaves a pistol loaded with only one bullet, which means only one of them can be spared from being melted by the heated cell block.
- Downplayed:
- Bob gives Evulz the option to resign and be locked up for the rest of his life instead of being executed.
- Evulz leaves a mook behind with a loaded gun, intending for him to kill some enemies before dying.
- Justified:
- Bob wants to spare Evulz from life sentence.
- Bob's moral code does not allow him to kill anyone, and he needs to get rid of Evulz indirectly in order to stay true as a Technical Pacifist.
- Bob deliberately forces Evulz to kill himself.
- In the setting, honour demands that the defeated party commits suicide.
- In the setting, it's an acceptable way of showing remorse for one's past evil actions and salvaging your reputation for posterity.
- Inverted:
- Bob asks for a pistol with one bullet for committing suicide.
- When he realized he was beaten, Evulz prepared a pistol with one bullet for him to commit suicide, but Bob confiscates it so he can't escape his Fate Worse than Death.
- Subverted:
- Except the pistol is empty, Bob was planning to deliver a Cruel and Unusual Death all along.
- Evulz considers it, but even with the gun to his own head, he can't go through with it.
- Bob laughs uproariously after he returns home. He just remembered that Evulz was immune to small arms fire.
- Double Subverted:
- ...but it turns out Bob fully intended to have the pistol work, it jammed on its own.
- Evulz then asks Bob for one last favor before he goes...
- But it turns out that it only applies to point blank range, not direct contact.
- Parodied:
- Evulz asked for a gun for committing suicide, Bob gives him an airsoft gun instead.
- Bob offer the choice between the handgun and sitting in timeout for five minutes. Evulz takes the timeout, much to Bob's disappointment.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob locks Emperor Evulz and is about to leave a pistol loaded with one bullet to Evulz for committing suicide, only to change his mind for the last second and decides to give Evulz an airsoft gun every week just to mock the latter. However, upon seeing Evulz being tormented by illness and starvation, Bob can't bring himself to torture Evulz any further and finally decides to give Evulz a real gun to commit suicide.
- Averted: Bob doesn't leave anything for Evulz to commit suicide.
- Enforced: "We can't have Bob killing Evulz in cold blood, how about letting Evulz to do it himself?"
- Lampshaded: "What, you expect me to kill myself with it?"
- Invoked: Evulz asks Bob for a pistol with one bullet for committing suicide.
- Exploited:
- Evulz gleefully shoots Bob with that one bullet.
- Evulz grabs Bob and kills them both of them.
- Evulz decides to keep the pistol for his own plan.
- Bob and Evulz are co-conspirators, and it's part of a death-and-revival gambit.
- Defied:
- Bob kicks away the pistol from Evulz just to add insult to injury.
- Charlie takes away the pistol from Bob and says that Evulz should atone himself in the jail instead of killing himself.
- Evulz kicks away the pistol to show his defiance.
- Evulz gives the pistol back to Bob, reasoning that he deserves to suffer.
- Evulz asks for a pistol to "put an end to this". Bob refuses, telling him it's time to face the consequences like a man.
- Discussed:"Evulz, I gave you a pistol, you know what to do, don't you?""What do you mean by this?!""..."(Evulz pulls the trigger)"What? You really expected me to give you a real gun? Have fun with your airsoft gun! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!"
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Bob is notorious for leaving pistols for his victims, either for driving them to suicide deliberately or adding insult to injury with an emptied pistol, it finally bites back when one of his victims shot Bob.
- It's against regulations to allow your enemies the option of suicide, and Bob is chewed out for it by his superior.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob, feeling regretful for what he had done, asked Alice to give him a pistol for committing suicide, she obligated.
- Everyone at the jail had a lot of respect for Evulz before his Face–Heel Turn, and so they turn a blind eye to this offer.
- Played for Laughs: Evulz is on the verge of loss, he asks Bob for a pistol for committing suicide. Bob gives him an airsoft gun and a BB pellet in an attempt to mock Evulz, however, it turns out to be what Evulz needed: He gleefully shoots the paper target behind Bob and wins the airsoft gun competition.
- Played for Drama: Bob hands Evulz a pistol, but specifically denies him a second, so he will die as slowly and painfully as possible. After a while, Bob hands Evulz a pistol for real... but it turns out to be an airsoft gun.
Back to Leave Behind a Pistol
