Cold Sniper/Playing With

Basic Trope: A sniper who is emotionally detached, grim, and determined.

• Straight: Gustav is the sniper on the hero's team. He is emotionally detached, and lives farther down the scale than all of his allies.
• Exaggerated: His side just suffered a massive, massive loss, and they lost the war and they're all going to die horribly. Gustav doesn't bat an eye.
• Justified: Sniper doctrine (hell, any sort of killing) -- detach yourself from the enemy. You're often alone or with a spotter, too.
• Inverted:
  • Gustav is positively batshit bonkers.
  • Or he's a Hot-Blooded Boisterous Bruiser who knocks back a pint every time he scores a headshot.
  • Or he's a Friendly Sniper.
  • Or he's actually kind of nervous and high-strung when people, friend or foe, are within twenty feet of him, but functions well as a sniper because it keeps him away from the bulk of the combat and lets him work alone.
• Subverted:
  • Gustav is set up as a Cold Sniper, but upon meeting him the protagonist learns he's a Friendly Sniper.
  • Or, when Alice meets him, he's cold and distant, but that's because he's a Sugar and Ice Guy.
• Double Subverted: Gustav is set up as a Cold Sniper, but upon meeting him the protagonist learns he's a Friendly Sniper...in social situations. When he's later seen in combat, he's utterly cold and remorseless (which is possibly why he's relaxed and friendly outside of combat; it just doesn't get to him at all).
• Parodied:
  • Henry who regularly destroys enemy aircraft with a single shot of a rifle laments failing the sniper test numerous times for not being stoic enough.
  • Gustav is normal. He's just from a particularly cold place.
• Deconstructed:
  • Gustav is a war criminal and an unquestioning lapdog for his side, which regularly commits genocide.
  • Or he's suffering from PTSD... and eventually cracks.
• Reconstructed:
  • That's just enemy propaganda.
  • "If I had PTSD, I would have been shipped home."
  • Gustav is a sociopath, so he doesn't feel anything when he kills people. But he knows he should stay out of trouble too.
• Zig Zagged:
  • When heroes meet Gustav, he is very cold... but that's because his girlfriend ditched him. His mood swings rather unpredictably from that point on - sometimes he's The Stoic, sometimes Nice Guy, sometimes Hot-Blooded, sometimes a wangster, sometimes Jerkass.
  • Gustav is cold towards non-snipers because he feels unable to relate to them and their experiences as opposed to his own, and vice versa. As such, he comes off as cold and distant to them. With fellow snipers, because he is able to relate to them better he is a lot more convivial. His mood varies depending on who he is with.
• Averted: Snipers are just like every other soldier.
• Enforced: "I think we need The Stoic for our True Companions, and it also seems to be missing characters effective at long range. Hmm."
• Lampshaded: "Oh, that's Gustav. Don't try to make him change his expression - never works."
• Invoked: Gustav convinces some villagers to spread the rumor that he's a heartless bastard to scare the enemy soldiers.
• Defied: "I'm not the Terminator with a sniper rifle. C'mon, I'll introduce you to the rest of the squad."
• Discussed: "Are all snipers that emotionless?"
• Conversed: "Five bucks says the guy with the scoped rifle is a hardass."
• Plotted A Good Waste: Gustav is cold not because of stereotype, but because the author is making a point about the horrors of war.

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