Basic Trope: Death of a Child is offscreen.
- Straight: Alice, the young daughter of Bob and Claire, is killed by the Monster of the Week. However, all the audience sees is the monster dragging Alice off.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is entirely Killed Offscreen. We don't even see the event that led to it - Bob and Claire simply say that their daughter got killed by the monster.
- Lots of children die in the work, but their deaths always happen offscreen; meanwhile, the audience gets to see all of the adult deaths in full detail.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is seen clearly being mauled by the monster, but her actual death is not shown.
- Alice doesn't get killed per se, but is seriously injured, which is hidden by a Gory Discretion Shot.
- Alice's death is offscreen, but there are several adult characters in the story who also get Killed Offscreen, so children aren't entirely singled out.
- Justified:
- The monster has a tendency to drag its prey off to somewhere secluded before eating it anyway.
- Alice's death was offscreen simply because other characters weren't around to witness it.
- Inverted:
- All of the adult deaths are concealed in the work, but child deaths are shown onscreen.
- David, an old man, gets Killed Offscreen.
- Subverted:
- The monster drags Alice away, but then the scene shows the monster eating her right after.
- Alice ends up surviving the attack.
- Double Subverted:
- It's not actually Alice, just an adult that happens to resemble her.
- Alice dies later on, which is shown offscreen.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: People of various age groups die in the work - some are killed onscreen, and some aren't.
- Averted:
- Alice dies, and it's shown onscreen.
- Alice doesn't die.
- Enforced:
- Actually having a child die onscreen would be too dark for the work, but they want to add some pathos in anyway.
- Actually showing the child's death requires better special effects than the producers can muster,so they don't bother.
- Lampshaded: "The kid died. We didn’t show it, for your sake, but take our word for it."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob and Claire turn the camera towards their dying daughter, because they don’t want the horror of her death to be ignored for the comfort of the audience.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "So, little Alice dies after being dragged off, but they showed the adult David being killed by the monster in full detail. I think they just don't want to show children in particular dying."
Back to Censored Child Death
