Line #25 PlayingWith/SarcasmFailure


1	'''Basic Trope''': A character who normally is a DeadpanSnarker or tells irreverent one-liners is struck speechless, either by the seriousness or the sheer idiocy of the situation.
2	* '''Straight''': Tim, a detective who has been [[QuipToBlack quipping to black]] at dead bodies the whole series, remains silent when the body is [[WouldHurtAChild a little kid, suffocated with a teddy bear]].
3	* '''Exaggerated''': Tim [[HeroicBSOD breaks down crying]].
4	* '''Downplayed''': Tim gives an AsideGlance, but [[DespairEventHorizon can't go any further than that]], and it's left to interpretation what the AsideGlance means.
5	* '''Justified''':
6	** Tim is the FriendToAllChildren.
7	** [[DudeNotFunny Some things cannot be joked about]].
8	** Hey, you can't always have a quip ready whenever you need one.
9	* '''Inverted''':
10	** The normally-humorless Ted suddenly gets in a good BlackComedy-style zinger when he sees the body.
11	** The utter bleakness of the situation freaks Tim out so badly that he becomes even more sarcastic and irreverent than usual. "Looks like playtime is over! I know, I'm just unbearable today."
12	* '''Subverted''': Tim suddenly says, "Heh, you know, [[LampshadeHanging I could joke about this]], but it would be just too much to ...''[[LastSecondWordSwap stand]]''."
13	* '''Double Subverted''': [[ManlyTears Whereupon he starts weeping.]]
14	* '''Parodied''': Tim tries to get in a one-liner, only to be constantly interrupted by someone else doing it instead.
15	* '''Zig Zagged''': Sometimes Tim is speechless at particularly horrifying events, sometimes nothing escapes his wit. He just can't seem to find any consistency -- which he himself [[DeadpanSnarker remarks upon]].
16	* '''Averted''': Tim delivers a one-liner as usual.
17	* '''Enforced''': The editors ruled "DudeNotFunny" on the proposed joke, so they took it out.
18	* '''Lampshaded''': Ted, who's been normally humorless for quite some time, cracks up a little, and remarks, "Tim? Are you actually speechless for once?"
19	* '''Invoked''': Tim is assigned a case that the higher-ups know [[DudeNotFunny he won't be amused by]], just to get him to quit it with the sarcasm.
20	* '''Exploited''': Tim became a DeadpanSnarker just so that the others would be more affected by the times he couldn't crack a joke.
21	* '''Defied''': Tim is mortified by the dead child, but forces himself to keep up the caustic wit to maintain his reputation.
22	* '''Discussed''': "I don't think even Tim could possibly make a joke about this."
23	* '''Conversed''': "Watch, they're gonna make it clear the audience is supposed to be mortified by having Tim not even make a joke. Just you wait, it'll happen."
24	* '''Deconstructed''': [[StepfordSnarker Tim uses his sarcasm as a coping mechanism]], and when he realizes that he's lost the one last barricade against the trauma to which he has been witness, he has a [[DespairEventHorizon complete breakdown]].
25	* '''Reconstructed''': After a little episode when he failed to make a quip, Tim realizes that hiding behind sarcasm isn't a healthy way of coping with his stress, and tries to learn a healthier method of dealing. That doesn't mean he won't still have a clever one-liner ready for when it's actually appropriate.
26	* '''Played For Drama''': The victim is a child. Tim doesn't joke because the situation is too tragic.
27	* '''Played For Laughs''':
28	** The victim turns out be a grown man who's died in a bizarre S&M accident involving the insertion of a cucumber too far up an orifice where whole cucumbers normally should not be inserted. Tim tries to get a joke off the ground but fails because the situation is too crazy even for him.
29	** TheDitz says something so mindbogglingly stupid to Tim that all he can say is "I'm... not quite sure how to respond to that."
30	* '''Implied''': We don't actually see Tim's reaction to the murder, but a friend notes, "I wanted him to shut up, but not like ''that''."
31	----
32	Not going back to SarcasmFailure is a fantastic idea!\
33	\
34	Oh... Oh my...
35	----
36	%% Optional items, added after Conversed, at your discretion:
37	%%
38	%%

Context PlayingWith / SarcasmFailure