Basic Trope: Characters dispute over who gets to make the Heroic Sacrifice (or try, by force or trickery, to preclude such a dispute).
- Straight: Apollonia tells Benedict to take the healing potion, or he'll be crippled; Benedict argues that her wounds will kill her; Apollonia, that he's needed to overthrow the Big Bad. Whereupon Benedict takes advantage of how bleeding is weakening her to force it down her throat.
- Exaggerated: A group is told than unless the enormous snake eats one of them, it will ravage the kingdom. Apollonia, Benedict, Constantine, Danilo, Edmund, Florian, Gregor, Henrietta, Imogene, Jasper, and Lily all argue over who will make the ultimate sacrifice. It swiftly devolves into a ridiculous Escalating Brawl.
- Downplayed: On a rooftop during a flood, Flora tells Gregory to take the rope lift to the helicopter first, because he's hurt; he tells her that he's trained for disasters.
- Justified: Apollonia and Benedict are both Death Seekers, Glory Seekers or one of each.
- Inverted:
- Who Will Bell the Cat?
- Eviler than Thou
- Katherine and Matilda argue, each of them trying to get the other to bring back the MacGuffin and so claim the credit of succeeding in The Quest.
- Subverted:
- Constantine nobly tells his sidekick Danilo not to come on the dragon-slaying quest, and Danilo argues he's willing to risk it, when they both know the dragon is old and senile, and no real danger, and the treasure awaits.
- Constantine nobly tells his sidekick Danilo not to come on the dragon-slaying quest, and Danilo argues he's willing to risk it. In truth, Constantine is trying to get Danilo into killing the dragon so he doesn't have to deal with the dragon on his own.
- Double Subverted:
- Old and senile dragons, they both know, can breathe fire and kill.
- However, after realizing that the dragon is too dangerous for Danilo to deal with, Constantine insists to take down the dragon on his own.
- Edmund claimed that that was the real reason for the dispute, but in fact Constantine and Danilo didn't know that — and it's not true, they really did risk their lives.
- Parodied: The Black Knight Rupert breaks into the middle of the argument and shouts, "No, I shall drink the potion!" and proceeds to guzzle down two seriously wounded people's last hope of survival.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Everyone else collapses from exhaustion. Zack carries them aboard the airship and sets it off by autopilot without any argument as he leaves to hold off the enemy from getting into shooting range.
- Enforced: "We need some way to show that Danilo is brave without actually putting him in danger."
- Lampshaded: "Are we really going to argue over who gets to make the noble sacrifice?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: The Evil Sorcerer Mortimer lets Florian escape his prison cell so he will arrive in the room when Hal gets there, knowing they will argue about who risks the basilisk and give him time to escape.
- Defied: Before the adventure even starts, the party sits down and decides who will be the designated Sacrificial Lion, and rank each other by expendability to avoid further arguments.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: The group eventually becomes completely disfunctional, as heroes constantly argue who should wear the weakest armour, check if the bridge is safe to walk on or even do things like domestic chores, as everyone wants to prove themselves the most heroic, brave and humble of all. In combat, the groups members are very prone to make moronic sacrifices and mostly jump in front of each other hoping to take the bullet for somebody else instead of actually attacking opponents.
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