Playing With / Mauve Shirt

Basic Trope: A character expected to become Cannon Fodder is given enough significance that they're somewhat safer.

• Straight: Bob, one of the security staff in Space Trek, gets enough lines that, while not nearly as important as other characters, he's usually a lot safer than most of comparable rank.
• Exaggerated: Bob becomes elevated to main character status and given Plot Armor.
• Downplayed: Bob gets a few lines and is left alive after a horrible attack so the audience can see the impact it had on him, but he fades into the background after that.
• Justified:
  • Bob's existence is vital to the plot (whether of a single episode, an arc, a season, or even the series as a whole.)
  • Bob has become an Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Bob and the (voice only) deck-12 security commander who reports to the chief of security on the going-ons of that deck have, through fans recognizing them as having the exact same voice, become the same guy
• Inverted:
  • Bob starts out as a major character, but by the end he's faded from the limelight so he can get killed off.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?
• Subverted: Bob is given screen time and even a few lines, but killed off anyway.
• Double Subverted: But his passing is mourned intensely by other characters and fans alike.
• Parodied: Just before the battle, Bob changes the color of his shirt. While others are killed off, he's OK.
• Zig Zagged: Some Red Shirt types are killed off, others are treated better.
• Averted:
  • Bob is an ordinary Red Shirt.
  • Bob is a main character and already has Plot Armor.
• Enforced:
  • Pandering to the Base if Bob is an Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Wanting to re-humanize the Red Shirt Army.
• Lampshaded: "Bob's the only survivor. Again."
• Invoked: Bob works his way up through the ranks.
• Exploited: The main characters send Bob on more missions because of his partial Plot Armor.
• Defied: Anyone Can Die
• Discussed: "Wow, ordinarily, he'd be toast!"
• Conversed: "He must be important."
• Deconstructed: A general becomes paralyzed with fear and regret because he makes emotional connections with his Red Shirts and they inevitably die. As a result, he loses several battles key to winning the war.
• Reconstructed: The general comes back and turns the war around, using his fear of losing his Red Shirts as an impetus to improve his battle strategy to keep as many of them alive as possible.
• Played For Laughs: Bob is The Scrappy.