Basic Trope: Someone stops the party from going to a certain area, and they must do something before he or she is gone.
- Straight: Bob blocks the path, preventing Hiro from entering the town.
- Exaggerated: Bob hired the whole town of people just to serve as human roadblocks, preventing Hiro from entering the town.
- Downplayed: Bob blocks the path during the daytime, making the area he blocks only accessible in the nighttime.
- Justified:
- Bob is one of the City Guards, his duty is to secure the town.
- This is Bob's Secret Test for Hiro to test his strength and faith.
- Bob is the Gunman hired by Captain Chekhov, he will soon become important later on.
- Bob is just sleeping.
- Bob needs an ambulance, stat! Hiro would be doing more harm than good if he moved him to safety.
- Inverted:
- Hiro himself blocks the town gate, preventing Bob and the rest of the townsfolk from entering the town.
- It is the gate itself blocking both Bob and Hiro.
- Bob is needed to operate the draw bridge. Until he arrives Hiro can't enter the town.
- Subverted:
- Bob takes some rest and leaves the gate alone.
- Hiro picks up Bob and throws him away.
- Hiro outright kills Bob with a knife and open the gate.
- Double Subverted:
- But then Bob goes back to the town gate, and blocks Hiro from leaving the town.
- Alice replaces Bob and blocks the town gate.
- Hiro is supposed to kill Bob in order to progress.
- Bob resurrects himself and continues his path blocking duty.
- Parodied: Bob takes path blocking as his career and causes trouble to Hiro over and over again.
- Zig Zagged:
- Averted:
- There is no one blocking the path.
- There is no NPC in the entire story.
- There is no path.
- Enforced: The developers employ Bob to block the path in order to keep the story in order, or preventing Hiro from entering Early Game Hell state.
- Lampshaded: "Why am I even staying here? It's no good blocking the path."
- Invoked: Hiro hires several people to block the city gate.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz hires tons of people to block every single space of Hiro's hometown, even his bedroom.
- Defied:
- Hiro stabs whoever blocks the path.
- Bob says "I don't think you should go this way until you've done such-and-such, but if you really want to pass I won't stop you."
- Discussed: "Bob, I have a task for you, stay at the city gate to block Hiro from even entering the town, until he did what he's suppose to do."
- Conversed: "Out of my way, are you a human roadblock or something?"
- Deconstructed: Because Bob denies Hiro access to the village, Hiro is unable to get there in time to stop a massacre.
- Reconstructed: If Bob had let Hiro pass before he was ready, he would have gotten himself killed prematurely.
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