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One of the the major plot points in 2017's Jumanji is that Ruby Roundhouse has a weakness to poison. She uses that weakness at the end of the movie, when she is bitten by snakes, dies, and respawns with the Gem somewhere else.

However, isn't this irrelevant? Anyone would die from being poisoned, unless they had some poison immunity trait. She could also just suicide or die from any other reason in that situation (like running away and forcing the villan to shoot her), and would still respawn.

Was there a specific plot motif for poison weakness?

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    Not all poisons or venoms are 100% lethal, all the time. Very few are. When I get stung by a bee or wasp, it hurts, and there's some inflammation from the venom/poison, but that's it. Other people are so adverse to it that they are told by doctors that there's no point in even carrying an Epi-pen - they're dead if stung.
    – PoloHoleSet
    Commented Jan 15, 2018 at 22:04

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The world of the Jumanji game seems to make a distinction between being killed physically and being killed by a weakness.

At the very beginning, Brittany is eaten by a Hippo. It's not until she is physically dead that she is respawned. On the other hand, when Fridge accidentally eats cake, he dies by immediately exploding (the movie draws it out for comedy, but it's functionally immediate) and respawning. If we assume that Ruby did not have poison as game weakness, then what would have happened is that she would be poisoned, then die painfully as a normal human would, then respawn. Instead, she immediately implodes (idk why it was different for her than for Fridge) and respawns.

In video game terms, it equates to an instant-death condition as opposed to dying from health loss.

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  • I guess Fridge's death was meant to have the comedy effect, hence the delay (like when cartoons only fall of the cliff after they notice they're not on it anymore). I have however followed up with this question
    – BlueMoon93
    Commented Jan 15, 2018 at 14:34
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I thought this too, and my best explanation is that most venomous snake bites are not (immediately) fatal. However, Ruby Roundhouse is guaranteed to die from the snake venom due to her weakness, even if most other people would only get ill.

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I completely agree with ViggyNash's answer. To add a few points though -

  • considering the urgency and seriousness of the scene, had Ruby not had a weakness for venom, she would've died slowly, which wouldn't have been any helpful because as you recollect, as soon as she comes back and dropping down, she gives the jewel to Rock's character midair.

  • the characters death are shown differently for a reason. Fridge's death was an explosion to give a comic effect. (As he unknowingly eats the cake and in the next scene, boom!) Now in all the seriousness, had Ruby too exploded, comic effect is far away, that whole scene would've been wierd to watch for some.

Many of the games (most of them actually) have different types of death when being killed, eg. getting shot, being exploded by a grenade, etc.

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