Basic Trope: Something happens to invalidate a hero's efforts just when they think they've won.
- Straight: Hiro, Ichigo, Kowalski and Farah rescue Bella from the thugs who kidnapped her. They take her home, then continue on their way... only to learn that she died shortly thereafter.
- Exaggerated: The heroes rescue Bella and she gets home safely... only for the whole town to get burned to the ground, and for her to get burned alive. What's more, her hometown happened to be near the border of two kingdoms, and its loss sparks off a bloody war between them.
- Downplayed: They rescue Bella, but she has been poisoned and collapses soon afterwards. She's still alive, so they have a chance to save her, but they'll have to act quickly.
- Justified: The thugs who kidnapped Bella were actually working for Upper-Class Twit Priston; his father had her killed to keep the truth from coming out.
- Inverted: Bella has been both kidnapped and poisoned. The heroes are unable to rescue her, but manage to get her an antidote.
- Subverted: One of the thugs is Not Quite Dead and tries to pull a Taking You with Me on the unarmed Bella, but Farah runs him through before he can attack.
- Double Subverted: ...At least, it looks like she cut him down in time. But then... "Bella! You're bleeding!"
- Parodied: A character insistently attempts to rescue someone who is clearly already dead, despite protestations from the other characters. On discovering that they're dead, they mourn the corpse's "death" as if they were Not Quite Saved Enough.
- Zig Zagged: As the heroes are rescuing Bella, one of the thugs spitefully tries to kill her before his death. Farah kills him, but Bella turns out to have been wounded anyway. However, Kowalski manages to heal her, and they get her home safely. Then her village is attacked... but she escapes... but gets captured by the raiders responsible for torching her hometown...
- Averted: Bella is rescued and returned home without her life being in any additional danger.
- Enforced: Bella's actress unexpectedly left the show and they had to quickly writer her out following her rescue.
- Lampshaded: "So...Bella died. Was rescuing her for nothing?"
- Invoked:
- The kidnapper injects Bella with something and lets the heroes "rescue" her, because the potion will turn her into an undead minion a few days later and her being back home will allow him to make the best use of her.
- The kidnappers' goal is to break Hiro's spirit. Being too late to save Bella would hurt him- but saving her, only for her to die in his arms minutes later? Much, much better.
- Exploited:
- Defied: When Bella is rescued, Kowalski makes sure she's not dying before they bring her home.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Awesome, they saved her!" "Don't get too excited, this is just the kind of show to have some random mook nobody noticed shoot her out of nowhere."
- Intended Audience Reaction: Bella was a likable Mauve Shirt who befriended Hiro and his friends, and her abrupt death comes as a real shock to them. Looking into why she died, they learn that she was looking into some suspicious circumstances on her own, providing the plot hooks for a new arc.
- Played For Laughs: Bella never dies, but is a Butt-Monkey Doom Magnet.
Dang. Just when we thought this page was saved from getting cut, "request" still demanded to have it cut.
