If I Can't Have You/Playing With
Basic Trope: One character loves another and, upon being rejected, tries to kill them.
- Straight: Bob loves Alice a great deal... so when she instead picks Charlie, he kills her for her "betrayal".
- Alternately, Bob instead kills Charlie for trying to "steal" her away from him.
- Exaggerated: Alice smiles at one of Charlie's jokes. Bob burns her alive.
- In the second case, Alice tells Bob that she likes Bob as a friend, but doesn't love him. Bob decides to kill everyone except Alice with the intent of kicking off an Adam and Eve Plot.
- Justified: Bob has been betrayed by the people he cares about his entire life, and after he learns that Alice isn't interested in him, he finally snaps.
- Inverted: Alice breaks up with Charlie to be with Bob, and Bob kills her for hurting Charlie.
- Subverted: When Alice picks Charlie, Bob declares that her happiness is more important to him than his own...
- Bob is a Stalker with a Crush, but Alice finds that to be romantic, and Everybody Lives.
- Double Subverted: ...Except he was lying and slits Alice's throat in her sleep, but at least wanted her to die happy.
- ...Alternately, Bob is a Magnificent Bastard and the entire thing was a ploy to impress Alice with his apparent maturity, and he patiently waits until a few weeks after the wedding, before quietly arranging for Charlie to have an "accident" and die, before immediately going to comfort Alice in her loss, knowing that the Second Guy Wins.
- Except that Alice realizes just how far Bob is willing to go, and is so terrified of being killed that she plays along with it.
- Deconstructed: ???
- Zig Zagged: Bob is a Stalker with a Crush who borders on Yandere. At first, Alice appears to be Squicked out by this behavior, but then turns out to be a Nightmare Fetishist who finds it endearing. Except that she doesn't take his threats seriously. After a drunken one-night stand with Charlie, she wakes up to find Bob standing over them with a butcher's knife and a Slasher Smile. Turns out he's understanding enough to let Alice live because she was drunk and wouldn't have cheated on him were she sober... but then he goes berserk on Charlie for "tempting/corrupting her". This firsthand evidence of Bob's psychosis disturbs Alice so deeply that he rejects him out of sheer terror, this time sending him completely over the edge...
- Averted: Alice and Bob have a healthy relationship.
- Alice cheats on Bob, and he does nothing more drastic than break off the relationship.
- Lampshaded:
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Bob: "If you don't fucking love me Alice, I swear I'll kill you! No one deserves you in here but me!" |
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- Invoked: After Alice "rejects" Bob, he declares, "If I Can't Have You, NO ONE WILL!!!"
- Discussed: "Ever notice how Bob starts fingering that knife whenever Alice is chatting with some other guy?"
- Conversed: ????
- Played For Laughs: ????
- Played For Drama: ????
Alice, love, you're going back to If I Can't Have You? Well, that's fine then - wait, you're going to another Trope, aren't you? How DARE you betray me?! If you won't edit me, then... I WON'T LET YOU EDIT ANOTHER TROPE IN MY PLACE!!!