# Examples of this cliche - how you know a character is doomed! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 10, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411 "2012-03-10T22:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/1 "2012-03-10T22:12:10Z")
Can’t think of a good title for this one, basically I’ve got a promotion at work and I have a few working days left before making the move. Its kind of a running joke that I’m reluctant to talk about the move because it seems almost too good to be true that I’m leaving the department I’ve worked in for nearly five years _(I still enjoy the work and the people but just fancy something new)_ and I don’t want to jinx myself. Someone joked that I don’t want to be like the veteran cop in the movies talking about his last day on the force or like the soldier in a war film showing around a picture of his sweetheart back in the states and talking about what he’s going to do when the war’s over, a nigh-certainty the character is doomed! What other examples of this cliche are there? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/2 "2012-03-10T22:16:40Z")
The criminal who’s reformed and is going legit, but gets pulled back in to do one more job for his buddy b/c he owes him. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/3 "2012-03-10T22:24:29Z")
You don’t want to be the one having sex or doing drugs (even drinking) in a horror movie. Or the black guy. You don’t want to show any form of illness, even a light cough on a period drama. You are doomed if you do. If you are part of a group of scientists trying to find a legendary monster / save the world from destruction / investigate some ancient ruins, try to be the smiling, bright-eyed idealist, not the smug cynical type. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/4 "2012-03-10T22:26:31Z")
If a chick coughs in front of a bathroom mirror and opens the cabinet to show an array of medicine bottles and then dry swallows a couple of pills and winces, you know she is checking out early. Bonus points if she teaches the stuffy, uptight hero the value of spontenaity and the joy of living in the moment by doing stupid random shit like dancing in fountains. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/5 "2012-03-10T22:44:35Z")
Red Shirt. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/6 "2012-03-10T23:02:09Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > Red Shirt. Oh man, if we didn’t have a style-code at work I would _totally_ start wearing that! 😃 Thanks everyone! ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/7 "2012-03-10T23:07:19Z")
Depends on genre. On the old detective shows, being a recognizable celebrity, but not a regular cast member, and showing up in the first scene, usually meant you were a goner. This was lampooned on _Police Squad_, where people like Florence Henderson would get killed during the opening credits. I used to be a security guard and got sensitized to how rent-a-cops and security personnel in general got killed off early and often. _Mimic_ had a black, pot-smoking, security guard who predictably died in about 5 minutes, as I recall. _Star Trek_ was famous for killing off security guys. TV/movie Hookers tend to get killed, which has some basis in reality, I guess, if the show is about serial killers. Oddly, _Natural Born Killers_ had the cop, not the serial killers, waste a whore for no reason. Horror movies like to make the victims incredibly stupid. “Hey, haunted house. I heard people get killed here every twenty years on this exact night. Let’s have a naked dope party.” So you could tell your coworkers that you feel like “the time Florence Henderson played a lobotomized teenage pot-smoking black hooker who was moonlighting as a security guard.” (I got called away in the middle of writing this and fully expect to be ninja’d at least once. These are pretty obvious examples. I don’t care.) ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/8 "2012-03-10T23:57:29Z")
Alone in the house, you hear a strange noise in the attic. Or basement. Of course you get up to go investigate. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/9 "2012-03-11T00:00:25Z")
2 days from retirement ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/10 "2012-03-11T00:06:09Z")
If you just bought a boat to live out your retirement and named it “Live 4 Ever”. From The Simpsons. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/11 "2012-03-11T01:25:09Z")
The minute you hear someone cough…might as well call the undertaker now. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/12 "2012-03-11T01:47:23Z")
Old war movies: showing photos of your girl back home. Or talking about what you plan to do when the war ends ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/13 "2012-03-11T01:50:33Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > …like the soldier in a war film showing around a picture of his sweetheart back in the states and talking about what he’s going to do when the war’s over, a nigh-certainty the character is doomed! One of the pilots in Red Tails did that and I wanted to shout, “Oh, come on, you have got to be kidding me!” ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/14 "2012-03-11T01:57:52Z")
The GI who has his orders to go home tomorrow. ANY person who says, “I’ve done this before. I know how.” The obnoxious guy, who hates everyone, and everyone hates him. The young, baby-faced kid, fresh off the farm, who won’t even swat a fly. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![audit1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/15 "2012-03-11T04:21:53Z")
IF your are the old mentor to the hero, your days are numbered. You will get to give one last piece of advice, while giving your last breath. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/16 "2012-03-11T04:40:05Z")
> [@randwill](#): > > If you just bought a boat to live out your retirement and named it “Live 4 Ever”. > > From The Simpsons. They also, awesomely, dubbed it retirony. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/17 "2012-03-11T05:15:17Z")
Here’s the TV Tropes entry on retirony: > **[Retirony - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retirony)** > > AKA: "Died with X days left until retirement". Retirony is a portmanteau of retirement and Irony, though how much of the latter it has is up for debate. Retirony is a way to make the audience feel sorry for a character's death without having to … ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/18 "2012-03-11T05:43:09Z")
“Hey, did you know your nose is bleeding?” “Wha…hmmmm… that’s strange.” ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/19 "2012-03-11T06:34:59Z")
> [@audit1](#): > > IF your are the old mentor to the hero, your days are numbered. You will get to give one last piece of advice, while giving your last breath. Conversely, if you are the fresh-faced rookie paired off with a grizzled,seasoned veteran, and you are eager to make your mark, you are likely to buy it. Especially if you have a wife at home with your child on the way. It’s gonna be your one & only child. In murder mysteries, never, never, NEVER _call_ the detective and say “I know who did it. Meet me at [such & such place.]” The detective will arrive to find you dead with a bullet between your eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411/20 "2012-03-11T06:43:44Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Old war movies: showing photos of your girl back home. Or talking about what you plan to do when the war ends Not limited to _old_ war movies: _Act of Valor_. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-this-cliche-how-you-know-a-character-is-doomed/615411.md?page=2)