Smoking Is Cool/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A work portrays smoking as something cool people do.

  • Straight: Jack works at Murder, Inc., where most people with seniority smoke.
  • Exaggerated: Everyone at Murder, Inc. smokes, and so do their targets.
    • Jack is always smoking.
  • Justified: Jack is outside the Competence Zone and wants to be taken seriously.
  • Inverted: No Smoking, or smoking makes you look like a wuss.
  • Subverted: Jack has just finished his first assassination, and lights a cigarette--only to be told by his superior that Murder, Inc. doesn't allow smoking for health and safety reasons.
    • Jack smokes but lots of just as cool people are nonsmokers
    • The staff at Murder Inc don't smoke due to concerns about health. They occasionally come across poser assassins who smoke to look badass, but are completely incompetent and generally have far less stamina.
  • Double Subverted: However, most people who really want to smoke usually get away with it, and Jack is one of those people.
  • Parodied: Jack has to take a "cool test" to determine whether or not he may take up smoking.
    • Smoking makes anyone who picks up a cigarette a badass but guarantees a death by something improbable and awesome.
  • Deconstructed: Jack is slowed down due to his habit, and eventually dies due to it.
  • Reconstructed: The fact that Jack is so good at what he does despite that makes him even cooler.
  • Zig Zagged: Jack tries to join Murder, Inc., but he is a chain smoker. He quits, and they let him in. Soon after, he discreetly takes it up again.
  • Averted: Jack never has anything to do with smoking while at Murder, Inc..
    • Jack does smoke, but isn't cool.
  • Enforced: "Jack would sure look cool if he took up smoking, wouldn't he?
  • Lampshaded: "I only smoke at work. Maybe it's just 'cause I'm cooler then."
  • Invoked: After a difficult assassination, Jack lights a cigarette and says something cool--even though he's by himself.
  • Defied: Jack knows one of his subordinates is considering starting smoking, and casually reminds him that smokers often end up with several different health issues.
    • Jack specifically bans his subordinates from smoking - the smell will give them away and he doesn't want to die from their incompetence. Besides he can't have them panting when he needs them chasing his quarry.
  • Discussed: "Kid, you can't learn everything from movies. Smoking is like kryptonite for assassins. Or anyone who runs around a lot, really."
  • Conversed: "It's amazing how you never see those adventure-y types coughing or anything."

Smoking Is Cool, if you can quit before you get lung cancer.

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