Sink-or-Swim Mentor/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character teaches another character a skill by putting them in a life or death situation.
 * Straight: Bob throws Alice into a deep lake to teach her to swim.
 * Exaggerated: Bob throws Alice off a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean to teach her to swim.
 * Up to Eleven: Bob fires a gun at Alice several times to test her dodging skills while in the water.
 * Justified: Alice learns best under pressure, and Bob knows this.
 * Inverted: Bob teaches Alice to swim by putting her in a shallow pond with a life raft.
 * Subverted: Bob throws Alice in the lake, but the lake was shallower than it looks, letting Alice walk across the bottom.
 * Double Subverted: And then the tide comes in.
 * Parodied: Bob throws Alice, who is locked in a cage, into a pool of acid with sharks to teach her to swim.
 * Deconstructed: Alice, traumatized by the event, grows up to loathe swimming, and becomes fearful of water.
 * Bob thinks that she'll be able to overcome her problems when she's forced to. Unfortunately, he completely overestimates her abilities and she ends up panicking and drowning.
 * Reconstructed: Alice faces her fear and gets swimming lessons. Her fear assuaged, it turns out she loves to swim.
 * Zig Zagged: Bob throws Alice into a lake, but it's shallower than it looks. Then Bob pushes her backwards into a deeper part of the lake, but someone throws her a life raft...
 * Averted: Bob signs up Alice for swimming lessons.
 * Bob is Alice's swimming teacher.
 * Enforced: "The story needs some drama! Let's have Bob chuck Alice into a lake so she can learn to swim."
 * Lampshaded: "I'll be throwing you into a lake now, cause this always works to teach people to swim."
 * Invoked: "Alice, why can't you learn to swim?" "Just throw me in the lake. It'll work."
 * Defied: "Bob, I could drown." "You're right. I won't do it."
 * Discussed: "So, can you swim now?" "Yeah, but it was scary."
 * Conversed: "You know, I'm not sure Bob should have done that." "Alice learned to swim, though."

Back to Sink or Swim Mentor