Get It Over With/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character demands that his foe finish him off.

  • Straight: A character, unable to fight, demands that his opponent stop toying with him and kill him, which has the opponent either kill him or (more often) say that he will spare him.
  • Exaggerated: Jack demands it after bruising himself tripping over a rock -- and from the rock.
  • Justified:
    • The character knows he's doomed and is exasperated with the wait.
    • The character begging to be killed actually wants to die.
  • Inverted: The character pleads for mercy.
  • Subverted:
    • The character demands this, but when his opponent goes to do it, grovels.
    • The opponent simply ignores him.
  • Double Subverted: The opponent gets him medical attention because he's out of his head with pain.
    • The opponent was waiting for The Medic, so he can save the character.
  • Parodied: The character demands it in a paintball tournament.
  • Deconstructed: The character was more motivated by panicked fear of becoming a prisoner or a long death than courage.
  • Reconstructed: Well, it would have been A Fate Worse Than Death, and pain hurts.
  • Zig Zagged: The character makes a speech about the value of life and the value of honor, leaving the foe very confused as to his desire. Foe makes a move to kill the character, to which the character screams "Wait don't do that!" Foe begins to walk away, and the character again pleads "You're going to just leave me? Please! I'd rather die now!"
  • Averted: Characters all die without being incapacitated.
  • Enforced: "If he doesn't die on the battlefield, the logical option is to have him taken prisoner and tortured, and we can't get that past the censors."
  • Lampshaded: "I can't believe I'm really going to say this, but please kill me now."
  • Invoked: "Ah, this is the point at which you tell me to kill you, because you do not want to hear about it."
  • Defied: "I never will ask you for anything, Dark Lord -- even my own death!"
  • Discussed: "If I had to peg you, I'd say you're the type who's very big on honor. If I ever take you prisoner, you'll just tell me to kill you already. I suppose I should respect that."
  • Conversed: "You don't even have to ask me that. This is real life; I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't out to kill you." Gunshot

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