Basic Trope: Two or more people pull weapons on one another simultaneously, causing a stalemate.
- Straight: During an argument in a Wild West saloon, Alice and Bob stand up and point guns at each other.
- Exaggerated: Every single person in the room stands up and points guns at one another simultaneously. One guy even points a gun at himself.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob point water pistols at each other and neither wants to get wet.
- Justified: Alice and Bob drew their guns in response to the same jilt, and have fairly equal reflexes.
- Inverted: Back-to-Back Badasses
- Subverted:
- Alice and Bob suddenly stand up... and order some more drinks before sitting down again.
- Alice's partner Charlie backs up Alice with a *Click* Hello.
- Alice points out that Bob's gun is empty.
- Double Subverted:
- And a few seconds later, they pull their weapons for real.
- Then Bob's partner Diane does the same to Alice.
- Bob then points out that he has a another gun in his other hand.
- Parodied:
- Alice pulls her gun, but Bob's gun is caught in its holster. Alice puts her gun away and helps Bob with his holster so they can have a standoff.
- The many parties in a standoff point increasingly ridiculous weapons at each other. What started with Alice brandishing a sword ends up with Zack readying to throw a cream pie.
- Zig Zagged: Multiple parties join the standoff giving advantage to one side, only for someone else to join the other side bringing the balance back. Eventually a neutral party threatens both sides with a bomb.
- Averted:
- They stand up as if for a standoff but instead start to brawl.
- Either Alice or Bob manages to get the gun out first and shot the other person.
- No one tries to attack anyone else.
- Enforced: The argument and standoff is inserted by executives despite it having no relevance to the plot.
- Lampshaded: "Oh, come on. Just once can't one of us gain a proper upper hand over the other?"
- Invoked: Felicia, a Manipulative Bitch who wants Alice and Bob to be dead, paid the bouncer not to take their guns and set up the argument hoping the two would kill each other.
- Exploited: During the standoff, George, the Big Bad, who was stealing money from the barkeep when the standoff began, makes off with the money, with everybody else too distracted by the standoff to notice him.
- Defied:
- Alice and Bob deliberately leave their guns at the door so they won't pull them on one another.
- Alice or Bob shots the other person, not caring about being shot, due to having a Bulletproof Vest or considering killing them worth dying for.
- Alice or Bob brings overwhelming firepower to this standoff. The other person accepts that there is no way of winning that doesn't involves getting machine-gunned to pieces.
- A third party kills the both of them while they're busy keeping each other covered.
- Implied: Alice and Bob come back from one of their "conversations" with gun muzzle-shaped bruises on their faces.
- Discussed: "Here, we just call it a standoff, señor."
- Conversed: Bob and Alice are just watching a movie in which this happens and argue on whether or not the trope has gotten overplayed or if it is still cool.
- Deconstructed: A moment after they both pull their guns, Alice decides "Screw this" and shoots Bob.
- Reconstructed: Alice can't do that; she knows Bob's reflexes are good enough that she'd get a bullet too if she tried that.
- Played For Laughs:
- Mr. Harleson is a teacher living in modern times. When he sees two students, Isaac and Keith, having an argument, he gives them guns and tells them point the guns at each other and just stand still and generally do nothing at all. This goes on for the rest of the day.
- Alanna "Flash" Young, Bob's Big Sister Bully, pulls out a hand grenade or some bizarre gadget that looks menacing and orders Alice and Bob to put a sock in it. For further comedy points, Alice and Bob will question Flash where the hell did she got the hand grenade/bizarre gadget and Flash will say "I don't know” or show that the thing that looks like a weapon plucked from the dead fingers of an Ork is an over-complicated ice cream scoop.
- Played For Drama: During the standoff, Alice/Bob accidentally shoots and kills Bob/Alice.
- Played For Horror:
- Alice and/or Bob are Ax-Crazy psychos.
- The standoff is the moment that the "A House Divided" trope activates in the middle of something more serious like a zombie invasion. Alice and Bob's decision to try to kill each other in a moment when they needed to focus elsewhere gets them both killed.
Back to Mexican Standoff
