Vasquez Always Dies/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A story with two action girls has the tougher less feminine action girl killed off while the other survives

  • Played Straight: Kelly and Frankie are the two action girls. Kelly is a girly girl while Frankie is a masculine tomboy. Frankie is killed off.
  • Exaggerated: Frankie is the first character to be killed off.
    • Or every single unfeminine character is killed off
    • Kelly is a frilly, girly princess, while Frankie looks like Arnold Schwartzenegger with a girl's head. Frankie dies.
  • Downplayed: Frankie survived, but is injured. Or, Kelly is just slightly more feminine than Frankie.
  • Justified: The big bad kills Frankie because he knows she's a bigger threat than Kelly.
    • Alternatively, Frankie finds herself in situations which could get her killed far more often than Kelly does.
  • Inverted: Kelly dies while Frankie lives.
  • Subverted: Both Kelly and Frankie are killed off.
  • Double Subverted: Kelly gets revived and survives.
  • Parodied: An entire army of masculine women and only one girly girl go into battle and all the masculine women are easily killed while the girly one survives.
  • Deconstructed: Kelly is actually a better and more competent fighter than Frankie who puts up her tough tomboy image to try and make people think she is a skilled fighter. When she is exposed and is nearly killed in battle she leaves to train some more and become a better fighter.
    • Alternatively, Kelly is left alone in the cold after Frankie's death - she's not as skilled as Frankie is, and now must continue their mission alone.
    • Frankie is strong but not all that brainy and relies on her muscles to do her thinking. The less physically capable Kelly has to rely on her wits a lot more so avoids traps Frankie blunders into.
  • Reconstructed: Frankie returns for the final battle but is one of the many people to die though she is able to take a good few Mooks with her.
  • Averted: Kelly and Frankie both survive.
  • Enforced: "Our audience doesn't want to see a manly tomboy survive the film instead of the sexy girly girl"
  • Lampshaded: "Maybe Frankie would have lived if she'd acted more like a girl"
  • Invoked: The big bad makes Kelly and Frankie fight each other knowing Kelly will survive.
    • "Kill the tomboy first, she's a bigger danger to us!"
  • Defied: "I am not going to end up as another tomboy that dies in favour of the girly girl"
    • "I better dress up like a girly girl. They always survive in the movies!"
  • Discussed: "If we send Kelly and Frankie in to save our friends, I'm pretty sure only Kelly will make it"
  • Conversed: "We know Kelly's going to survive this movie and Frankie will be lucky if she makes it past 30 minutes"
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