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{{Analysis}}{{trope}}
== Male Death is More Numerous ==
When it's time for a character to hit the big one, either by a freak accident or by [[Heroic Sacrifice|nobly sacrificing]] himself, writers go about the situation as if it were a pickle jar: get a man to do it. If [[Kill'Em All|the entire cast has to die]], men will go first. However, this phenomenon is much more noticeable with extras; if large amounts of anonymous people have to die to demonstrate the severity of a threat, they will be men. Armies of [[Mooks]] are almost always populated solely by males.
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== Death as [[Emotional Torque]] ==
Because the victimization of female characters has more emotional impact with audiences, their deaths are often used to drive plots, motivate protagonists and present touching denouements. Male characters may also serve this
When the nameless masses die off, a character will often comment that the villain killed innocent women and [[Children Are Innocent|children]]. Male deaths seem to be considered regrettable but not nearly as tragic, as though men are automatically considered to be [[A Real Man Is a Killer|combatants]] who died in battle - even if they were actually innocent bystanders who had absolutely no chance to defend themselves. Sometimes villains will defend themselves by saying that they only target men, as if actions that result in the death of men are morally neutral. (Note that being [[Kick Them While They Are Down|wounded, disabled or very elderly]] trumps being a man, as it takes one out of the "combatant" category.) [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl]], [[Wouldn't Hurt a Child]] and [[Would Not Shoot a Civilian]] are closely related tropes.
A male character can elevate himself to the status of a female extra through sympathetic
== Death as [[Gorn]] ==
Media in which death is unrealistically
The more realistically brutal a work's portrayal of death is, the more the death toll will skew toward adult men. Part of the dramatic impact of these deaths is in watching a human body being dismembered, brutalized, hacked apart or otherwise treated like a piece of meat. However, mainstream audiences generally do not want to see this happen to sympathetic characters, which excludes women and children by default.
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A subset of this trope relates to the treatment of male vs. female bodies. It is more acceptable to show all aspects of male death, from brutal mutilation to the corpse itself. It's also more acceptable to [[Due to the Dead|manhandle or disrespect a male corpse]]. Lighthearted jokes from morticians, detectives and coroners are more common with male rather than female corpses.
On the other hand, and related to the above "Death As [[Emotional Torque]]" point; a woman's [[
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There are a ''lot'' of related tropes:
* [[Always Save the Girl]]
* [[Closer to Earth]]
* [[Disposable Woman]]
* [[Damsel in Distress]]
* [[Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male)]]
* [[The Dulcinea Effect]]
* [[Her Heart Will Go On]]
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