Basic Trope: Contestants in a Reality Show or Game Show leave for reasons unrelated to the competition.
- Straight: Alice, a competitor on Survival: Farside Island, leaves because of a family emergency.
- Exaggerated: No one ever gets Voted Off the Island, because they all leave due to family emergencies, illness, injury, etc.
- Downplayed:
- Alice sits out a few of the competitions due to food poisoning she got when attempting to cook food for herself in the last round.
- Alice injures herself, but it's not serious enough to be evacuated so she just needs to rest herself.
- Alice is punished not by being ejected but by having to sit out of competitions for awhile.
- Justified:
- Alice's husband Bob back home had a Hollywood Heart Attack, and she needs to be back home to help him recover, take care of the kids, etc.
- Alice became ill or injured during the competition, and The Medic deemed her too ill or too badly injured to continue.
- Alice was caught trying to cheat, or sabotage the other contestants, in a program where doing so is not allowed.
- Alice presents some kind of danger to her teammates or rivals, such as getting handsy with one of her teammmates in a way that makes them uncomfortable or unsafe.
- Inverted:
- Despite reasons that would contribute to a Non-Gameplay Elimination, Alice asks to be Voted Off the Island instead - thus she is eliminated as normal.
- Alternatively, Alice remains in the competition.
- Subverted:
- Alice is Voted Off the Island by her teammates.
- Alice contracts food poisoning, but comes back for the next competition.
- Alice receives a call from the hospital, stating that Bob is there. Bob tells her not to worry about him, that he'll have neighbors look after things, and that Alice should finish the competition, something she's dreamed of since Junior High.
- Alice's request to leave is denied. It's not like she can leave the island without the studio's help; she's functionally their prisoner until the game's over.
- Double Subverted:
- It's not because of her skill at the competitions, but because of politics and drama amongst the contestants.
- She doesn't do so well, and The Medic determines that she's too sick to continue, and arranges for her to be sent home.
- Alice begins to worry about Bob, and to feel guilty about not being there for him, so she informs the judges that she'll be forfeiting the competition, and they arrange for her to go home.
- In desperation, Alice starts doing things so that they'll have to kick her off, such as blatantly cheating to no apparent advantage.
- Parodied:
- The whole group leaves for various personal reasons, and soon enough, there's no contest at all.
- Alice provides a lame excuse for leaving.
- Zig Zagged: Some of the contestants leave for gameplay-related reasons, others for personal reasons.
- Averted:
- Alice is Voted Off the Island for losing a competition.
- Alice stays on the show until the very end, and wins the contest.
- Enforced: ???.
- Lampshaded: "Alice will be leaving us due to a family emergency."
- Invoked: Alice receives a message delivered to her from one of the behind-the-scenes people. It's a phone call from Troperville General Hospital, where Bob is hospitalized following a Hollywood Heart Attack. Alice feels she should be back home to take care of Bob and the household.
- Exploited: One of Alice's teammates makes it look like she did something egregiously wrong, so that she'll be kicked off the show.
- Defied: Alice decides she's going to stay, and finish out the competition; she might never get to do this again, after all. Neighbors can look in on Bob and the kids.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Non-Gameplay Elimination
