Basic Trope: A person's failure to communicate with another character leads to problems.
- Straight: Bob doesn't tell Alice about an upcoming event, leading to Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure.
- Exaggerated: Bob refuses to tell Alice about anything of importance, and it always leads to big rows whenever Alice finds out his secrets from her other friends.
- Downplayed: The problem is something minor, and Alice is annoyed she wasn't consulted about it when she finds out, but otherwise doesn't make a big fuss about it.
- Justified:
- He tried, bless his soul, but there was a language barrier involved.
- Bob doesn't trust Alice enough to tell her his secrets, or he doesn't think it's important enough to tell her.
- Bob doesn't think Alice will believe him.
- Bob has a mental illness that makes him very sensitive to rejection, and assumes that Alice would think less of him if she knew.
- Bob (and friends) underestimated how bad Alice would take the secrecy behind her surprise birthday party.note
- Bob thought Alice had been told by Jim, who thought she had been told by Fred, who…
- Inverted: Bob tells Alice about something, and this leads to problems because Alice has such Loose Lips that it gets people killed when the wrong person hears about it.
- Subverted: It later turns out that the problem would still have happened regardless of proper communication.
- Double Subverted: ...but then it later turns out the problem wasn't inevitable after all.
- Parodied: Bob is literally unable to tell her about anything. His mouth just suddenly stops working whenever he speaks to her!
- Zig Zagged: Bob informs of her of something important one time... but keeps quiet the next time. Only to inform her of another important thing without hesitation.
- Averted: No communication failure and therefore no problems.
- Enforced: "Everyone's getting along... boring. Let's have Bob keep quiet about this, so Alice can be mad at him later."
- Lampshaded: "Why didn't you tell X about Y?"
- Invoked: Charlie, who wants to sabotage Bob and Alice's friendship, takes steps to ensure they don't communicate.
- Exploited: Charlie manipulates Alice into hating Bob due to his refusal to communicate.
- Defied: Bob makes good and damn sure to communicate all relevant information to all parties involved.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's refusal to tell Alice anything of importance drives a wedge between their relationship. It eventually crumbles due to Alice having her trust in Bob broken beyond repair.
- Bob has low self-esteem but keeps quiet about his problems, believing that others would think less of him. Without anyone to talk to, Bob's issues just worsen and eventually he breaks completely.
Back to Poor Communication Kills.
