Basic Trope: Your loved one turns into a monster and you have to kill them.
- Straight: Alice and Bob are fighting a group of vampires when Bob gets bitten and begins to show signs of turning. Alice reluctantly stakes him.
- Exaggerated: Alice has had to stake every person she's ever even slightly cared about, because vampires, werewolves, zombies, and other monsters keep turning them.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob are fighting a group of vampires when Bob gets bitten and begins to show signs of turning. Alice uses a ring of garlic and other wards to keep him contained.
- Justified:
- Alice knows Bob wouldn't want to live as a vicious monster with no morality.
- When Bob turns, he becomes a threat, whether to herself or others. Alice dare not risk having that threat around.
- Bob has explicitly requested he be put down should he start to turn into a monster. Alice is reluctant, but she does fulfill his request.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob are fighting a group of vampires when Bob gets bitten and shows signs of turning. The vamped-out Bob then turns on Alice and kills her.
- Subverted:
- Alice and Bob are fighting vampires when Bob gets bitten and starts to show signs of turning. Alice is about to stake him when she hears about a possible cure and simply traps him with garlic instead.
- Alice suddenly decides can't bear to live without Bob no matter the cost... so she allows herself to be turned as well.
- Double Subverted: ...But the cure doesn't work. Alice reluctantly stakes the fully transformed Bob.
- Parodied: Bob dyes his hair red to see if he likes it. A horrified Alice treats him like he's transformed into some terrible monster and tries to "put him out of his misery."
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: No one in the story transforms into a monster.
- Enforced: The author wants a dramatic Tear Jerker scene.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Dracone the vampire kidnaps and bites Bob and then leaves him for Alice to find.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Bob uses copious amounts of Heroic Willpower to become a Prohuman Transhuman to fight off the monstrous tendencies and remain a good guy so that Alice won't have to do that.
- Bob kills himself to not have to force Alice to do it (and become even more traumatized).
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
[sniff] You ready? You'd better redlink Staking the Loved One now.
