Basic Trope: A character dies in the original work, but not in the adaptation based on it.
- Straight: General Drake gets killed by Bob in the novel via Disney Villain Death. In The Movie, Drake survives and escapes.
- Exaggerated:
- Drake falls for several hundred feet and hits the ground onscreen, yet this merely makes him sway as he slowly gets up and wanders off.
- In the novel, Drake is killed before he is introduced in The Movie.
- Downplayed:
- In the novel, General Drake dies. In the movie, he's severely injured and put into a month long coma, but survives with Four-Fingered Hands as a result.
- In the video game, General Drake can be spared or killed at the player's discretion. In the movie, General Drake is spared.
- Drake technically survives and will outlive everyone but he is stuck in the void for all eternity.
- General Drake still dies in both sources, but he stays alive longer in the movie.
- Justified: Drake landed in such a way that he survived.
- Inverted:
- Death by Adaptation.
- In the novel, General Drake was dead from the start but was brought back to life. In the movie, he remains dead for the entire film.
- Subverted:
- Drake survives his original Disney Villain Death, but merely dies later on in the story when Emperor Evulz says to him "You Have Failed Me" and shoots him.
- Drake appears to have survived after a fall from the cliff. Drake shows up and kills Emperor Evulz only to remove the helmet and reveal Alice inside his repaired armor instead of being a Damsel in Distress like the original.
- Drake Sr. was killed in the novel, the Movie features Drake Jr.note
- Double Subverted:
- Drake survives despite the gunshot wound.
- Parodied: The writer literally walks onto the scene and pulls a bouncy castle out of nowhere to break Drake's fall.
- Zig Zagged:
- Drake undergoes several No-One Could Have Survived That moments as the story progresses, which definitely weren't there in the original.
- Drake's death scene is filmed, but cut, and finally makes it into the DVD special edition.
- Averted:
- All deaths in the novel are left in.
- No one dies in the original or the adaptation.
- Enforced:
- Executive Meddling and/or the author: "The book's fans liked Drake. Perhaps they'll like the film more if we keep him alive?"
- Some elements of the plot are adjusted for a Pragmatic Adaptation in such a way that the character's death ends up needing to be modified. For instance, the events that lead up to him being killed never happened or the method used to kill him is rewritten as ineffective.
- The author realized that the death made no sense in the book and decides to correct it in The Movie.
- Drake was an Ensemble Dark Horse who's death was hugely unpopular with the fan base, to the point where a lot of people simply stopped reading afterwards. The adaptation needed to avoid the same backlash.
- The adaptation is aimed at children and Never Say "Die" is in full effect.
- The writer regretted killing Drake off in the original and decided not to for the adaptation.
- General Drake was generally considered a waste of a perfectly good character in the source material. The adaptation spares him in order to put him to greater use.
- Lampshaded: Emperor Evulz turns to Drake and asks in obvious puzzlement: "Shouldn't you be dead by now?"
- Invoked: Drake did something to save himself from death. For instance, if the original gave him a Disney Villain Death, then he seizes something to break his fall in the film.
- Exploited: Drake's survival is used by another character. For instance, Bob uses it as a chance to interrogate him.
- Defied:
- Bob tries to kill Drake once he realizes that Drake survived.
- Alternatively, Bob places mines at the bottom of the cliff to make doubly sure that the Disney Villain Death works.
- Discussed: Bob and Charlie notice in surprise that Drake survived, and Charlie tells Bob that they should go and kill him.
- Conversed: A Genre Savvy character says: "Oh, they always save the popular characters in the films. If they die in the book, they survive in the film."
- Deconstructed: Now that Drake is still alive, he's free to influence the plot in new ways such as going after Charlie and killing him or some other character that didn't die in the source material. Thus, his being Spared by the Adaptation results in Death by Adaptation for a different character.
- Drake survives the events that originally killed him...only to suffer A Fate Worse Than Death later on, making him wish he did die prior. As a result, his later appearances see Drake becoming a Death Seeker.
- Reconstructed: Bob decides to Take a Third Option and defeats Drake a second time, but this time captures him and leaves him imprisoned.
- What was thought to be a Fate Worse than Death for Drake turns out to be a blessing in disguise for him, and after his torture is done, his life actually starts to improve, and he earns his happy ending.
- Played For Laughs: A scene after the credits reveals Drake at the bottom of the cliff, patting himself in disbelief and yelling "Ha ha! I survived!"
Back to Spared by the Adaptation
