< Sink-or-Swim Mentor

Sink-or-Swim Mentor/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character teaches another character a skill by putting them in a life or death situation.

  • Straight: Bob throws Alice into a deep lake to teach her to swim.
  • Exaggerated: Bob throws Alice off a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean to teach her to swim.
  • Up to Eleven: Bob fires a gun at Alice several times to test her dodging skills while in the water.
  • Justified: Alice learns best under pressure, and Bob knows this.
  • Inverted: Bob teaches Alice to swim by putting her in a shallow pond with a life raft.
  • Subverted: Bob throws Alice in the lake, but the lake was shallower than it looks, letting Alice walk across the bottom.
  • Double Subverted: And then the tide comes in.
  • Parodied: Bob throws Alice, who is locked in a cage, into a pool of acid with sharks to teach her to swim.
  • Deconstructed: Alice, traumatized by the event, grows up to loathe swimming, and becomes fearful of water.
    • Bob thinks that she'll be able to overcome her problems when she's forced to. Unfortunately, he completely overestimates her abilities and she ends up panicking and drowning.
  • Reconstructed: Alice faces her fear and gets swimming lessons. Her fear assuaged, it turns out she loves to swim.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob throws Alice into a lake, but it's shallower than it looks. Then Bob pushes her backwards into a deeper part of the lake, but someone throws her a life raft...
  • Averted: Bob signs up Alice for swimming lessons.
    • Bob is Alice's swimming teacher.
  • Enforced: "The story needs some drama! Let's have Bob chuck Alice into a lake so she can learn to swim."
  • Lampshaded: "I'll be throwing you into a lake now, cause this always works to teach people to swim."
  • Invoked: "Alice, why can't you learn to swim?" "Just throw me in the lake. It'll work."
  • Defied: "Bob, I could drown." "You're right. I won't do it."
  • Discussed: "So, can you swim now?" "Yeah, but it was scary."
  • Conversed: "You know, I'm not sure Bob should have done that." "Alice learned to swim, though."

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