The Call Knows Where You Live/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: In order to make it clear that The Chosen One can't avoid his destiny, people they care about are horribly killed by the enemy.

  • Straight: Ruby's destiny pits her against Queen Sangria. Ruby decides to head out of town to avoid said destiny, but The Queen attacks Ruby's Doomed Hometown and has her parents slaughtered.
  • Exaggerated: The Queen attacks Ruby's Doomed Hometown and captures her family. Over the next several months, she has them tortured, both to gain any information on Ruby that she can and simply because she can. Eventually, they're slaughtered, butchered, and publicly displayed so that everyone can see their corpses -- especially Ruby, who was getting closer to tracking down and rescuing them.
  • Justified: Queen Sangria learned of the prophecy and was trying to take Ruby out before she could accomplish anything. She missed.
  • Inverted: The Queen ignores the ancient prophecy about this destiny, until Ruby infiltrates her castle and kills her heir to the throne, Draco.
    • Alternatively, Ruby Jumped At the Call, and the attack on her hometown is the point where she first realizes how serious things actually are.
  • Subverted: Ruby, not wanting to fight the powerful enemy the old crazy guy claimed she would have to, moves herself and her entire family to another country where they live under assumed names. Queen Sangria finds herself unable to track them down.
  • Double Subverted: Until Queen Sangria's army razes Ruby's new hometown, killing her family, for entirely unrelated reasons.
  • Parodied: "But I can't leave! I have too many responsibilities here!! *A meteor destroys her Doomed Hometown in the background*
  • Deconstructed: Erik feels that the advantage of having Ruby on the side of La Résistance is more important than the inhabitants of her hometown, so he destroys the village and tells her that the Queen was responsible for it instead. When Ruby finds out later, she leaves the resistance effort.
  • Reconstructed: ...But when the rest of La Résistance learn of Erik's treachery, they oust him from his position as leader of the force and replace him with Ruby, who has now become an incredibly skilled fighter in the time she's spent rebelling against the Queen's reign. With a renewed dedication to more heroic ideals, the resistance fighters earn the respect and trust of the oppressed citizens and finally are able to depose of the Queen for good.
  • Zig Zagged: Ruby diverts the call to Jade, her best friend. While Jade is on a mission, her entire family is slaughtered by a third party not related to Queen Sangria or simply acting against her orders. Jade blames Ruby for the entire incident and decides to ally herself with Queen Sangria in revenge. Ruby must decide whether to bring her dear friend back to her side or fight her to the death.
  • Averted: Nothing bad happens to Ruby's hometown because of her adventures.
  • Enforced: "Ruby needs that really defining element of tragedy to make the audience care about her. Let's kill off her folks!"
  • Lampshaded: "Did Destiny really have to kill my family to get me to go along? Why not turning them into gerbils?"
  • Invoked: Erik implies that Sangria will kill her family if she doesn't help him.
  • Defied: The rules of engagement between Ruby and Sangria prevent them from targeting each others' families unless they deliberately join the fight.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: Ruby comes home to find the evil army tickling her family and toliet papering her home.
  • Played For Drama: Ruby's little sister Garnet was the only other survivor of the assault, but was left horribly traumatized by the experience. Ruby also gets blamed for the attack by other survivors, especially by Jade, who was in love with her older sister Sapphire.

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