A Real Man Is a Killer/Playing With
A Real Man Is a Killer: In order to be a real man, you must kill a living being.
- Straight: Andy is seen as a lesser man until he kills an animal when hunting.
- Exaggerated: Andy is seen as a lesser man until he manages to kill the entire population of a zoo and/or an entire village populated by an enemy tribe.
- Downplayed: Andy is seen as a lesser man until he can squash a bug that's bothering him.
- Justified: Andy is member of a primitive tribal society that exist as hunter-gatherers.
- Killing is difficult and unpleasant work. Prestige in the community is part of the pay for those who engage in in it when called on. As this job is usually given to men it is naturally assumed that a real man is a killer.
- Inverted:
- Subverted: Johnny kills a lion and drags the corpse back to his tribe/group/family to prove his virility. Said tribe/group/family condemn him for being so desperate for collective approval that he'll kill a living being in cold blood in order to get it.
- Double Subverted: ...So Johnny joins a tribe/group/family that does consider him masculine for his killing prowess.
- Parodied:
- During every weekend, a gaggle of Jerk Jock fratboys descends on the city to kill various animals, take the bodies back to their frathouse and prove their virility to their brothers.
- Andy is seen as a lesser man until he swats a fly.
- Deconstructed:
- See Parodied, but Played for Drama.
- Alternatively, this trope causes a Non-Action Guy to feel so emasculated that he commits a murder in order to prove himself to other people.
- Alternatively, Alex ponders over the various fatalities he's committed, and questions whether or not they were justifiable. He feels immense guilt and suffers a Heroic BSOD.
- Reconstructed: See Justified; the social arrangements of the group the work focuses on have a legitimate need for male members that are competent with killing.
- Zig Zagged: Billy kills a deer in order to prove his manhood. However, the deer comes back as a zombie and kills Billy for revenge. Billy's tribe then praises the zombie deer for its masculinity and killing prowess.
- Averted: Killing is not seen as a rite of passage into manhood.
- Enforced:
- The work is intended to promote very old notions of what masculinity entails.
- The fanbase believe this trope and want to be badass, so the author simply provides them some Wish Fulfillment.
- Lampshaded: "Man up, pussy! You're a pathetic little worm until you grow a pair and kill someone! That's right, if you can't pull the trigger, your dick might as well not be there!"
- Invoked: Andy sends himself out on a mission to kill the biggest bear in ther forest in order to display his masculinity.
- Exploited: The speech under Lampshaded is given by a Drill Sergeant Nasty that wants to motivate his troops to kill.
- Defied: "I will not kill an innocent creature just to prove I'm a man."
- Discussed: The story takes place at a University and this trope gets discussed in an Anthropology class.
- Conversed: ???
Until you kill this back button, you'll never be a real man.