Destruction Equals Off Switch/Playing With

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Basic Trope: Destroying a control panel connected to a device shuts it down.

  • Straight: Bob destroys the control panel to the Doomsday Device and the doomsday device shuts down.
  • Exaggerated: Bob, at his job at a power plant, bumps one of the control panels too hard and there's a blackout.
  • Justified: There's a safety feature that automatically shuts down whatever the console is connected to if anything happens to the console.
  • Subverted: Bob accidentally destroys a control panel. The machine shuts down. Then a recorded voice says, "secondary control on-line".
  • Double Subverted: The damage to the console went deeper than the voice thinks and the machine doesn't restart.
  • Parodied: Bob's first approach when confronted by hostile machinery is to start shooting at every control panel he can see, even ones that couldn't possibly be attached to the machine in question.
  • Deconstructed: This trope is a result of poor planning and subpar construction on the part of whoever owns the machine. Whenever the console is destroyed, it's expensive and time-consuming. There's always time to fix it, but never time to do it right.
  • Reconstructed: In light of this, future versions of the machine have cheaper, more easily repaired control panels.
  • Zig Zagged: Shooting the control panel causes the device to malfunction at random, turning on and off at inopportune times as often as it is convenient. Eventually it must be deactivated by destroying the innards of the machine but the lights on the control panel still work and it makes noise when you press the buttons.
  • Averted: Destroying the console only means that now there's either no way to shut it off, or they just have to use a different control panel.
  • Enforced: The writers have written the character into a corner and the only way to keep him from dying is to destroy a control panel to open a door.
  • Lampshaded: "Let me guess... all it took was somebody shooting the control panel?"
  • Invoked: "Quick! Shoot the controls!"
  • Defied: "I'll line the control room with consoles that are only attached to useless peripherals, and have the real one in the center of the machine!"
  • Discussed: "No matter what you've seen in the movies, remember to unplug the damn thing and not just shoot off the ON switch."
  • Conversed: "Seriously? Wouldn't blowing up the panel just mean that now they can't shut it off?"

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