Never Say "Die"/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Words related to death are avoided

  • Straight: Bob is gunned down by a barrage of lasers. When his partner Alice is asked what happened to him, she replies "They destroyed him."
  • Exaggerated: Bob's entrails are violently ripped from his body and stuffed into his mouth, suffocating him. When his partner Alice is asked what happened to him, she replies "They destroyed him."
  • Justified: Despite what it looks like, the character really isn't dead.
    • The character doesn't want to say it in front of a child.
    • The stand-in word for death sounds more devastating than kill (I.E. Destroyed).
  • Inverted: A character is in a non-fatal condition, but is said to have died.
  • Subverted: The stand-in for death is scarier than a regular death.
    • One character says an obvious substitute for death, than one of the characters then asks "You mean dead?"
  • Double Subverted: The obvious substitute turns out to be the real thing.
  • Parodied: A character is very clearly about to say the word "die", but looks right at the camera and uses an incredibly obvious workaround.
    • Death was treated like swearing.
    • "Bob is DEEEEEEEEE- STROYED", said Alice in a hysteric fit.
    • Alice says that Bob is fucking destroyed beyond any fucking recognition.
  • Deconstructed: Because no one ever says die in this society, no one growing up ever learns to appreciate death, and can't understand why mommy and daddy won't come home.
  • Reconstructed: Death is explained to older children, but the word isn't used in polite company for benefit of the younger ones.
  • Zig Zagged: Death is referred to very rarely, but it just happens, there's no irony or anything to it. Still, they avoid it the rest of the time even though they've done it other times.
  • Averted: People say die when they see someone die.
  • Enforced: The show's demographic may find death too scary.[1]
  • Lampshaded: "He was destroyed. Wasted. Eliminated. Sent to another dimension. And everything else that means that thing we can't say on this network."
  • Invoked: "There's a word for what happened to him, but it's not one I'm going to use in front of the children."
  • Defied: "Can't you just say he's dead!?"
  • Discussed: "No one around here is ever willing to use the D word."
  • Conversed: "Why can't the guys on that show just admit he died?"

Back to Never Say "Die"

  1. This is more plausible than you think