The Final Temptation/Playing With
Basic Trope: The villain shows the hero a peaceful, adventure-free life, with at least the implication that if the hero would just stop being a hero, the vision could come to pass.
- Straight: Bob shows Alice a possible world in which Alice, instead of being an adventurer or heroine, turned out to be a normal civilian.
- Exaggerated: The alternate world's Alice never left her idyllic little village in Mary Suetopia, which was never destroyed, and her life is practically perfect as a result.
- Justified: Bob has godlike powers which only Alice can threaten, and he wants her out of his hair. What better way to do it than to offer her a peaceful and easy life?
- Inverted: Bob offers the farmer Alice a job as an adventurer and explorer.
- Subverted: Bob's offer is a joke, and Alice laughs at it...
- Double Subverted: ...but Bob says, "This time I'm serious, Alice. Would you like to go live as a normal farmer, and put all this behind you?"
- Parodied: Alice has been established as loving the adventure and the fighting, and laughs off Bob's eloquent arguments for how she'd be happy as a civilian with "What, give up this exciting quest in favor of a boring, overrated normal life? Bob, really, you should lay off the drugs."
- Deconstructed: The painful adventure has taken its toll on Alice, who just wanted to be normal anyway, and she takes Bob's offer. Without Alice to oppose him, Bob can finally Take Over the World[1]. Alice doesn't even get to enjoy her peaceful life, as her new home is destroyed by Bob's army and she is taken as a slave.
- Reconstructed: Alice has every reason to want to continue her quest. Bob made it personal, had members of Alice's family killed, destroyed everything or nearly everything that Alice held dear. Why would she back out now, at her opportunity to take revenge?
- Zig Zagged: Alice thinks Bob is joking, but he isn't, and the offer stands. She temporarily refuses Bob's offer anyway, until he shows her his power, and then she surrenders and accepts. But the fulfillment of the offer takes place in a Lotus Eater Machine, and she ends up running into Charlie, Dorothy, and Edward, all of whom are missing out on something they found during the adventure, which causes Alice to break out of the Lotus Eater Machine with pure willpower, at which time Bob gives her the same offer, promising that this time it's real and not an illusion.
- Averted: Bob doesn't offer Alice any such chance.
- Enforced: The author wants to note Alice's development from the kinda wimpy person she was at the beginning to a courageous heroine, and feels that the best way to do it is to have her affirm her acceptance of her role as an adventurer.
- Lampshaded: "Let me guess, Bob, you're going to offer me a chance to go home and be a farmer or something, even now when I'm about to beat you to a pulp?"
- Invoked: "I can see that Alice wants to go home and live a normal life. If I offer her that, maybe she'll leave me to my world-conquering."
- Defied: "I'm not offering Alice a chance to go home. She wouldn't accept anyway."
- Discussed: "Foreman Bob, if I may?" "Yes, go ahead Senator Frederick." "How likely do you think it is that Alice will accept your offer?" "Not very likely, Frederick, but it's an easier way to solve our problems than bloodshed, and probably better for my public image.
- Conversed: "Ugh, here it comes." "Here what comes?" "The part where Bob shows Alice the peaceful life she could be living if she'd just stop fighting. Heroines like Alice never accept, so why do villains keep offering it?"
I'm sure you can see it. The life you could be living if you would just go back to The Final Temptation, and stop trying to defeat me.