Basic Trope: Swimming after dark? You are so dead.
- Straight:
- Alice takes a swim after nightfall and gets eaten by a shark.
- Bob goes to the pool to swim a few laps after nightfall and drowns.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice has been swimming for much of the day. However, as soon as the sun goes down, she's eaten by a shark.
- Bob has been swimming for weeks, but the first time he takes an evening swim, he drowns.
- When night comes, everything in the ocean instantly dies. Along with Alice, billions of dead fish float to the top of the water.
- Downplayed:
- Alice suffers, but narrowly survives, a shark attack while swimming in the twilight.
- Bob has a near-drowning experience while swimming in a lighted pool at night.
- Justified:
- Sharks are more active and harder to see at night.
- During the day, Bob is surrounded by people who can help him if he starts to have cramps or other trouble. At night, he's alone and has no one to save him if necessary.
- Inverted: Lots of people swim at night with no problem, whereas Alice gets killed by a shark during the day.
- Subverted: After being warned against swimming at night, Alice does so anywhere. There's some ominous music … but nothing happens.
- Double Subverted: But the next night, Alice goes again with a false sense of security, and a shark attacks her.
- Parodied: Bob goes swimming at noon with the sun high in the sky, but soon there is a total solar eclipse and he promptly drowns.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice and Bob go swimming at night several times and come close to dying sometimes, while there are other occasions when they're in no danger at all — until they get unlucky one night.
- Several characters go swimming at night when a shark attacks them. Alice and Bob are among the survivors, while Amy and Ben are eaten.
- Averted:
- No one in the story goes swimming at all.
- Alice and Bob take a romantic night swim with no ill consequences.
- The sun never goes down, ever.
- Enforced: The author wants a death scene in the water and can't rent the spot during the day.
- Lampshaded:Alice: Swim all you like in the day, but stay out once the sun sets.
- Invoked: Kyle steals a shark from the aquarium and pours him into the ocean at 8:00 PM; right before Alice goes skinny dipping.
- Exploited: A serial killer kills night swimmers, knowing nobody will find their deaths suspicious.
- Defied: There are 24-hour lifeguard shifts to rescue night swimmers.
- Discussed: "Why is it that Alice keeps dying only when she enters the ocean at night? It's daytime and I've already spotted 4 sharks around her.
- Conversed: "Samantha; if you were in a horror movie, you would be so dead right now."
- Implied:
- There is a pool of blood that only appears at moonfall.
- Every night, a new corpse is discovered at the bottom of the coast.
- Deconstructed: Due to the constant deaths that occur at night, the beach gets closed at 3:00 PM. When Alice tries to swim, she gets arrested.
- Reconstructed: Alice was already in the water during the time of her arrest, the shark eats her before she could be put in the car.
- Redeconstructed: The shark gets put in the car instead under charges of homicide.
Make sure you go back to Night Swim Equals Death before the sun goes down.
