About: Stupid Sacrifice   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

We all know the trope. Everyone's caught in a life-or-death situation. One of the characters hedges their bets, steps forward so the others survive, and ends up on the "death" side of the equation. Pathos is obtained, tears are shed, etc., etc. Often a case of Writer on Board. They want this character to die, for whatever reason. There are no other alternatives, period. This situation makes it similar to Dropped a Bridge on Him; the "sacrifice" part making it "honorable", but they weren't going to make enough effort to make it the only logical way. Examples of Stupid Sacrifice include:

AttributesValues
rdfs:label
  • Stupid Sacrifice
rdfs:comment
  • We all know the trope. Everyone's caught in a life-or-death situation. One of the characters hedges their bets, steps forward so the others survive, and ends up on the "death" side of the equation. Pathos is obtained, tears are shed, etc., etc. Often a case of Writer on Board. They want this character to die, for whatever reason. There are no other alternatives, period. This situation makes it similar to Dropped a Bridge on Him; the "sacrifice" part making it "honorable", but they weren't going to make enough effort to make it the only logical way. Examples of Stupid Sacrifice include:
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:all-the-tro...iPageUsesTemplate
dbkwik:allthetrope...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • We all know the trope. Everyone's caught in a life-or-death situation. One of the characters hedges their bets, steps forward so the others survive, and ends up on the "death" side of the equation. Pathos is obtained, tears are shed, etc., etc. Except... well, did he/she really need to do that? Couldn't he have gotten out of the way of the death trap once it was smashed and about to explode? Couldn't she have just held out for a few seconds longer until help arrived? Couldn't he have just talked them all out of that? What can we say, it's pathos -- logic must be left by the wayside. The Plot Reaper has spoken. A Stupid Sacrifice is what happens when a Heroic Sacrifice has a head-on collision with Fridge Logic. It is not a Senseless Sacrifice, where someone offers themselves up as a sacrifice only for outside factors to make it useless; this is when a sacrifice occurs when anyone in command of all their logical faculties could've seen that it didn't have to end that way. Surprisingly little overlap with Martyr Without a Cause, but sometimes the result of Chronic Hero Syndrome: The Knight Templar or Well-Intentioned Extremist may make them -- and lament them as Dirty Business -- because they can't be bothered to notice that they were unnecessary. If a proposed sacrifice is nixed on the grounds it would be stupid, see Who Will Bell the Cat. Often a case of Writer on Board. They want this character to die, for whatever reason. There are no other alternatives, period. This situation makes it similar to Dropped a Bridge on Him; the "sacrifice" part making it "honorable", but they weren't going to make enough effort to make it the only logical way. If the sacrifice is stupid because it didn't accomplish what it was supposed to but was still the logical choice, that's Senseless Sacrifice, not this trope. The two tropes can overlap when a Stupid Sacrifice doesn't accomplish its goal, but it is rare. Counter Trope to Negate Your Own Sacrifice. Subtrope of Heroic Sacrifice. Compare Shaggy Dog Story. No Real Life Examples, Please. Examples of Stupid Sacrifice include:
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software