The nose can say a lot about a fictional individual's characterization, as well as being a quick and visceral way to reflect both internal and external damage.
The following is a list of tropes dealing with the noses of characters and creatures, including tropes relating to their sense of smell or sneezing.
Sub Index of Face of the Index.
Tropes:
Action-related:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: A character does something affectionate (i.e. gently tapping it, kissing it, etc.) to another character's nose.
- Nasal Weapon: Using one's own nose as a means of attack.
- Nose Tapping: When a character taps their nose, they "know" something.
Appearance-related:
- Gag Nose: A character has a comically bulbous nose.
- The Noseless: A character who doesn't have a nose.
- Nostril Shot: A close-up view of a character's nostrils.
- Sinister Schnoz: A villain with a pointy nose.
- Sizable Semitic Nose: Jews, Arabs, and other Semitic peoples are depicted with large, hooked noses.
Comedy-related:
- Nose Nuggets: Jokes about boogers and/or snot.
- Snot Bubble: A bubble of snot from one nostril that inflates and deflates in sync with the breathing and/or snoring of sleeping characters.
- Spraying Drink from Nose: Forcing milk or another drink or liquid out of one's nose during laughter.
Injury and sickness-related:
- Congestion Speak: When a character in a written work has a stuffy nose, their dialogue replaces certain consonants.
- Deadly Nosebleed: Dying person bleeds from their nose.
- Inconvenient Itch: A character has an itch they can't scratch.
- Nasal Trauma: Something unpleasant happens to a character's nose.
- Nosebleed: Nosebleeds equal sexual attraction.
- Nose Shove: Pushing objects into one's nose.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Powerful psychic abilities cause epistaxis.
Odor-related:
- Anticipatory Breath Spray: A character anticipating a kiss makes sure their breath doesn't stink.
- Clothespin Nose Plug: Using a makeshift nose plug to block out a bad smell.
- Evil Smells Bad: Evil beings smell awful.
- Follow Your Nose: A character flies to a smell that goes to their nose.
- Good Smells Good: Good beings smell wonderful.
- Humans Are Smelly: Humans always smell bad to other species.
- The Nose Knows: Super powerful smelling abilities.
- Perfumigation: A character creating or wearing perfume, cologne, or other kind of scent which they think is great, but it actually draws reactions of revulsion from others.
- Perverted Sniffing: When a character audibly sniffs another character, indicating they have an unhealthy and often very creepy attraction to them.
- Signature Scent: A character with a smell that instantly identifies them.
- Smells of Death: A character who's either dead or close to dead will smell bitter, dirty, or rotting.
- Sniff Sniff Nom: Sniffing something before biting, eating, or licking it.
- Stinky Flower: A flower that smells bad.
- Visible Odor: A visible, sometimes color-coded, smell.
- Wilting Odor: A smell so awful it degrades the environment.
Sneezing-related:
- Anti-Sneeze Finger: Someone puts their finger near their nose to try and prevent themselves from sneezing.
- "Aww"-choo: Sneezes that sound and/or look cute.
- Couldn't Find a Tissue: Blowing your nose on something definitely not meant to be a tissue.
- Freeze Sneeze: A character sneezes from being cold.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: A character sneezes at the worst possible time.
- Pepper Sneeze: Inhaling pepper makes you sneeze.
- Sneeze Cut: You sneeze when you are mentioned or talked about elsewhere.
- Sneeze Interruption: A joke or plot point about someone being interrupted by a sneeze.
- Sneeze of Doom: A character's sneeze is damagingly powerful.
