Not a Game: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"Selling books is like a game; it has rules, and you have to learn them and get serious about them ''[[Dissimile|because it's not a game!]]''"''

 

 

"This isn't a game." or "We are not playing a game." (Or sometimes "We are not playing.")

* In Jim Butcher's ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' novel ''Summer Knight'', Ebenezer, trying to get Harry to meet with the senior members, tells him this is not a game; later, the Summer Lady asks whether he thinks it a joke or game.

* In [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', Gandalf tells Pippin that "this is a serious journey, not a hobbit walking-party" after he tosses a rock into a deep pit in Moria. Earlier in the book, just after the conspiracy is unmasked, Frodo uses a similar phrase to try to convince Merry and Pippin not to come with him.

* Walter Jon Williams' appropriately titled ''This Is Not a Game'', about an [[Alternate Reality Game]] producer using her forums and players to get her out of a burning Jakarta, has the forum admins constantly reminding the players that this one is Not a Game.

* In ''[[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe]]'', when all four Pevensies swipe coats from the wardrobe to wear in snowy Narnia, one of the younger siblings suggests they could pretend they're Arctic explorers. An older sib points out that their circumstances are already exciting and mysterious enough, there's no need to pretend anything. Not quite a [[Matter of Life and Death]], but same trope.

 

== [[Other Media]] ==

 

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