Not a Game/Playing With

Basic Trope: A Stock Phrase used on allies not taking things seriously enough.

• Straight: When Jill offers to show Jack how to use the MacGuffin, he cracks a joke; she says this is Not a Game.
• Exaggerated: Jill snaps this when Jack laughs or smiles or does anything unrelated to The Quest.
• Justified: Jack really is that frivolous, but he's necessary; Jill has to try to bring him around.
• Inverted: Jack tells Jill that she shouldn't take what is a game so seriously.
  • Alternatively Jack tries to convince the three year old Jill that evacuation is a game so that her panicking doesn't cause further problems.
• Subverted: Jill tells Jack that an actual game is Not a Game.
• Double Subverted: Except that the game can be deadly, and is used to settle disputes, so it's not appropriate to treat it as a game.
• Parodied: Jack has this as a Catch Phrase and ends up using regardless if it's an actual game or if Jill is taking it seriously.
• Deconstructed: Although the situation the group is in is very serious and dangerous, Jill takes her mission too seriously causing her to always snap at Jack who only wants to lighten the mood so that everyone doesn't go insane. This causes the group to dislike Jill and Jill herself suffers emotionally from all the undue stress she takes on.
• Reconstructed: The group doesn't take the mission seriously enough, with Jack being the worst slacker of the bunch. Jill needs them to be focused to complete the mission so has to constantly tell them to take their jobs seriously.
• Zig Zagged: ???
• Averted: Nobody says the line.
• Enforced: "We need some conflict between Jack and Jill -- let's establish that Jill takes this much more seriously than Jack does."
• Lampshaded: (in a Video Game) "This is not a game!" *Aside Glance by other character*
• Invoked: " - and now, you're going to tell me it's not a game."
• Defied: "Don't you dare tell me that this isn't a game! I know dammit!"
• Discussed: ???
• Conversed: ???

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