Basic Trope: Offering hospitality is a duty, and both guest and host must behave themselves.
- Straight:
- When the stranger Andrew arrives at his mountain top home, Lord Bertram lets him stay.
- Conrad realizes that his host Dieterich had fought with his cousin, but remains peaceable.
- Exaggerated: Lord Bertram finds out that his guest is a man who has seduced his wife, murdered his daughter, and stolen his chicken and has proclaimed his intention to torture Lord Bertram to death publicly. Lord Bertram gives him a feast, empties his bank account to provide entertainment, and then spends the rest of his life in miserable poverty. Meanwhile, the guest, out of malice, kills Lord Bertram's favorite hunting dog.
- Downplayed: Lord Bertram is only obliged to give the guest enough to rest for a few days and move on.
- Justified:
- In Lord Bertram and Andrew's culture there is a common understanding that a man in need should always receive lodging by those able to give it, and people who fail to uphold this duty is to be spurned by anyone else.
- In Conrad and Dieterich's culture the Sacred Hospitality is a kind of Diplomatic Immunity, and it is upheld for the same reason: In a conflict the two warring parties should always have the option to find a solution through diplomacy, without fearing that one side will take the other side's negotiators as prisoners or worse.
- Inverted: Andrew and Lord Bertram are duty bound to never show hospitality to each other.
- Subverted:
- Conrad remains civil to his host Dietrich, even though Dietrich has fought Conrad's cousin... until Dietrich sleeps, whereupon Conrad smothers him in his bed.
- Yes, there's a custom of mandatory sacred hospitality... along with a long list of exceptions and loopholes, letting hosts (or guests) choose at their leisure whether or not it is mandatory in a given situation.
- Alternately, a host who finds out someone is known to be a poor guest or has bad blood with the family is well within rights to refuse shelter, because others know the temptation for EITHER party to break hospitality rules is going to be fraught.
- Double Subverted: Conrad considers smothering Dietrich in his bed, and even lingers outside his door, but cannot bring himself to do it.
- Parodied: Lord Bertram has to put up with Andrew's ridiculous whims.
- Zig Zagged: Lord Bertram sets up an elaborate gauntlet so that few ever reach his door, finding his hospitality obligations unpleasant, but if someone survives to make it to his door, he provides the expected aid... Then puts his guests through a similar gauntlet once they leave his care, to discourage more visitors.
- Averted: Nobody asks Lord Bertram for shelter.
- Enforced:
- The creator has had bad experiences with strange people staying in their house and wants to prevent it from happening again.
- The novel is historical fiction, in a culture that took hospitality seriously.
- Lampshaded: "Of course you may stay. It is my duty to provide food and shelter."
- Invoked: A King Incognito asks shelter from Lord Bertram as a Secret Test of Character.
- Exploited: Lord Bertram is magically bound to accept generous hospitality. Rather than risk his potential world shattering power he is kept in an endless string of dinner parties, balls, retreats, and other engagements.
- Defied: Lord Bertram refuses to offer hospitality to anyone, no matter who they are.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Lord Bertram has been previously established as disliking Andrew, but he's hospitable to him for some reason.
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