A Million Is a Statistic/Playing With

Basic Trope: A single death of an important character matters more than the deaths of thousands of Red Shirts and Mooks.
 * Straight: Through the span of the work, countless Red Shirts and Faceless Goons bite the dust at the hands of heroes and villains alike, and no-one bats an eye. But when Alice is killed in cold blood by Emperor Evulz, all her teammates are suddenly devastated, and mourn her loss for days.
 * Exaggerated: Emperor Evulz orders entire planets of innocent civilians destroyed, and the most the heroes do is shake their heads and move on. Yet when Alice falls into a coma, the rest of the heroes grieve for weeks.
 * Downplayed: The heroes do sometimes think about the many people (whether it be Mooks or Redshirts) who died because of necessary actions or Emperor Evulz, but then realize that, to defeat Emperor Evulz, some must lose their lives. They just couldn't deal with Alice's death the same way.
 * Justified: Rule of Empathy
 * Inverted: The Dead Have Names
 * Subverted: ???
 * Double Subverted: ???
 * Parodied: "A bunch of armies wearing red shirts just died?" "Don't worry, We Have Reserves!" "Wait, Alice just died? OH GOD!"
 * Zig Zagged: ???
 * Averted: The heroes empathizes for Alice just as much as the others.
 * Enforced: The creators wanted to emphasize how important Alice is to her teammates.
 * Lampshaded: "It's strange, isn't it? We've seen so many armies and citizens killed, and killed many villains ourselves... but none of their losses matter to us nearly as much as Alice's does."
 * Invoked: Emperor Evulz realizes this trope and kills one of the most loved member of the Five-Man Band, in order to make the others vulnerable.
 * Exploited: Same as above, but Emperor Evulz does it accidentally and later exploits the heroes' reaction.
 * Defied: ???
 * Discussed: ???
 * Conversed: ???
 * Deconstructed: ???
 * Reconstructed: ???
 * Played For Laughs: ???
 * Played For Drama: ???

Back to A Million Is a Statistic.