Basic Trope: A character kills their mother.
- Straight: Alice kills her mother Carol.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice dedicates her entire life to killing her mother.
- Alice kills her stepmother, then her biological mother, then her foster mother, then her fairy godmother, and so on.
- Downplayed:
- Alice wounds her mother, but does not kill her.
- Alice watches her mother fall to her death instead of saving her.
- Alice drives her mother to suicide.
- Justified:
- Carol is an Evil Matriarch who has orchestrated the killing of many innocents; Alice is the only one who can stop her.
- Alice killed her mother in a freak accident.
- Carol has already murdered her other children. Alice knows she's next unless she kills Carol first.
- Inverted:
- Carol kills her daughter Alice.
- Alice revives her mother Carol.
- Subverted:
- It turns out that Alice was framed for murdering her mother.
- It turns out Alice was brainwashed into killing Carol.
- Double Subverted:
- Yet evidence proved that Alice did indeed kill her.
- Alice actually allowed herself to be brainwashed to find an excuse to kill Carol.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice does not kill her mother Carol.
- Enforced:
- The author wants to defy the Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas trope and plans to have the main villain to kill their own mother just to show how evil they are.
- The writer, who did not get on well with her mother for years, writes a work about a protagonist trying to kill the mother to escape her controlling, abusive behavior.
- Lampshaded: "What have you done, You Monster!?! She was your mother!"
- Invoked: Empress Evila corrupts Alice into killing Carol.
- Exploited: Empress Evila kills Carol, then frames Alice for the murder with the intention of making everyone hate her .
- Defied:
- "You are my mother. I would never kill you no matter what you've done."
- Alice hates Carol, but she refuses to kill her, not because it's wrong, but because she doesn't think she's worth the trouble.
- "Knowing that you will end up wrinkled and decrepit and ill and miserable is enough for me, mother. I'll get much more enjoyment from watching you slowly rot to death than putting you out of your misery."
- Discussed: "Killing one's mother is sick." "Yes, but sadly it's a thing that exists".
- Conversed: "I'm not sure if the fans would accept a villain killing their own mom." "Doesn't matter. Matricide is a thing that exists, just like Patricide. Fans will have to deal with this fact from Real Life."
- Implied:Bob: Have you been visiting your mom lately?
Alice: Mind your own business. I don't like going to the cemetary anyway. Plus I never liked her. - Deconstructed: Society (even criminals) label Alice as the ultimate scum of humanity for killing her mother, conveniently forgetting that Carol was hardly a good person herself, especially the fact that Carol murdered Bob and Bill, her twin sons that Alice failed to protect at the time.
- Reconstructed: Alice comes to the conclusion that she no longer cares what society thinks about her and feels her deed was Worth It.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice lives with the guilt over killing Carol.
- Alice murdering Carol was a beginning of her journey to evil.
- Alice and Carol have a nasty argument over a longstanding disagreement between them;. After they exchange a few heated words, Carol slaps Alice hard. She became eventually remorseful for this, and as she attempts to apologize to Alice , Alice grabs a knife and stabs her mother to death out of pure rage. Knowing that she has committed a heinous crime and realizing that she can't turn back from it, Alice leaves town and all she has behind without a second thought, determined to start over somewhere else so she can eventualy forget what she did.
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