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Danger with a Deadline
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One of the easiest, and therefore most common, ways to ratchet up the dramatic tension in an action scene is to impose a strict time limit on the heroes. There are a whole host of tropes that branch off from this concept, Race Against the Clock being chief amongst them. The reason why is obvious enough; few things raise the audience's heart rate more effectively than a race against time to disarm a bomb or accomplish some other similarly fiendish task. Sometimes, however, the heroes aren't the one with the time limit. Sometimes the enemy is the one who has only a certain amount of time, fuel, or other resource before they are neutralized, shut down, or even dead. In these cases, the heroes' goal is not to race the clock, but to stall and wait out the enemy's clock while trying to avoid being captured or killed in the meantime. The heroes are facing a Danger with a Deadline. The Danger with a Deadline trope covers situations in which an enemy poses a very real and present danger, but only poses a threat for a finite amount of time. After that time is up, the threat is either greatly reduced or completely neutralized. While the exact amount of time need not be known to either The Hero or the audience, it's generally made apparent in some way that the danger does have a deadline. This may be accomplished by dropping hints, saying so directly, or simply making it obvious enough that the audience can figure it out themselves. While this trope often appears as "the enemy is in a Race Against the Clock," it can manifest in other ways. It may be Exploited by The Hero as a means to evade or defeat an otherwise insurmountable enemy, it can be Played for Laughs by having the enemy run out of time at a particularly awkward or inopportune moment, or it can provide a scare by having the enemy set upon the heroes at the last minute only to fail by a hair's breadth. While not the most common trope in the world, it appears in almost all narrative-based mediums and still enjoys much use today, especially in cartoons and comedies. In fact, the relatively new medium of Video Games has given the trope a new lease on life, as it can be used to add layers of challenge and/or strategy to certain enemies and boss fights, or at least create some really bizarre Easter Egg situations. Subtrope of Race Against the Clock. May incorporate elements of Exact Time to Failure. See also Hold the Line and My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever, which describe strategic answers to this trope. Contrast Time-Limit Boss, Increasingly Lethal Enemy, and Stalked by the Bell, in which the enemy imposes a deadline on the heroes. See also Victory by Endurance, which describes winning by simply outlasting the enemy without any specific deadlines. As this trope often involves death or the defeat of a major enemy, spoilers are inherent this page and will be unmarked. Reader beware. Examples: |
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