You can't generalize on how people will behave. Even basic survival instincts are frequently (and humorously!) subverted in Real Life; and Hidden Depths or a Mysterious Past mean characters have a lot of leeway to act Out of Character. However... there are many things people are still unlikely to do, especially when previous characterization has given them some measure of an attribute in contradiction to their new behaviour.
Below are a list of tropes relating the different ways characters break Willing Suspension of Disbelief by pulling a 180 and doing really weird, nonsensical and/or stupid things. Why does this happen? Two reasons: the author sucks, and drama requires them to.
Tropes
- All Is Well That Ends Well: Something bad happens, but it all works out. Because of it all working out, the character who the bad thing happened to isn't annoyed.
- Angst? What Angst?: A character doesn't seem sad or suffer psychological trauma despite the bad things they've been through.
- Artificial Atmospheric Actions: Background characters doing things in video games that are supposed to look realistic but instead look unrealistic.
- Character Check: A character starts to act out-of-character but then does something which signifies they're back to normal.
- Character Derailment: A character suddenly and inexplicably changes personality.
- Characterisation Click Moment: A character shows the starting points of gradual personality change that would later define them.
- Compressed Vice: A character suddenly gets the (usually very exaggerated) flaw out of nowhere which dissapears without a trace after the end of act or story.
- Conflict Ball: A character starts a conflict for weak or out-of-character reasons.
- Conforming OOC Moment: A character behaves unlike their usual personality in a group action.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: A person loses their morality when they become a Cyborg.
- Distress Ball: A plot resolves around a character ending up in danger and needing rescuing, but the character gets in trouble in the first place by doing something dumb and/or out-of-character.
- Easily Forgiven: Someone forgives another person, even when what the person being forgiven did was very evil.
- Everybody Do the Endless Loop: A cartoon character dances in a stilted way due to being repetitive and/or not fitting the music.
- Going for the Big Scoop: A reporter willingly goes right into danger to get a news story.
- Hero Ball: A hero who is shown not to be dumb or absent or uneducated but makes a bad or dumb-seeming decision anyway.
- Idiot Ball: A character does something stupid or foolish even though they're not dumb and they have the information necessary for them to know it's a bad idea.
- I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: A villain says that they would never reveal information, all the while revealing it (like "I'd never say that the answer is X")
- Little Professor Dialog: Children using big words.
- Otaku Surrogate: In a work with an Improbably Female Cast, a woman acts like a stereotypical fan of shows similar to the show she's in.
- Out-of-Character Moment: A character does something that goes against their usual personality.
- Pain Mistaken for Sex: Someone screams or moans in pain and another person thinks the screamer is having an orgasm.
- School of No Studying: A work is set in a school but the characters are hardly ever seen studying.
- Smart Ball: A character suddenly appears much smarter or more knowledgeable than their usual selves.
- Thinks of Something Smart, Says Something Stupid: A character says something stupid, even though they came up with something better to say.
- Undercover When Alone: An undercover character keeps acting even when they're by themselves.
- Villain Ball: A villain does something just to be evil which ends up being foolish and defeating them.
- Violation of Common Sense: Doing something idiotic and suicidal that no sane person would do and be rewarded for it.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: Someone betrays another character but is welcomed back instantly.
- What an Idiot!: A YMMV page where viewers call a character an "idiot" for doing something perceived by them as foolish.
