In short,
tropes which have
Wikipedia articles. In long:
Here on
TV Tropes, we tropers dedicate ourselves to cataloging recurrent patterns in fiction. Everyone knows that; it's the name of the game. Other sites deal with
tropes, too, though none of them are as exhaustive as
TV Tropes, which is perfectly normal. However, there's
one site that takes it too far: it's supposed to a free world-class encyclopedia, yet it's wasting time talking on and on about
cliches in fiction. And that's
our job. Isn't that a waste of bandwidth? Perhaps so, but the practice is a lot more common than non-tropers would think.
The truth of the matter is Wikipedians do it for a variety of reasons—the
trope may be common enough for scholarly interest, it may say something about psychology, or it may simply just be one of those many
Silly Things
Wikipedia does. On the other hand, it might also be because
TV Tropes has fallen victim to the
Law Of Wiki Expansion, and the topic really is one that best fits in a general-interest encyclopedia. In any case, it's beneficial to
TV Tropes; the more pages on
tropes there are on
Wikipedia, the more people will be led to our site.
Not to be confused with
You Are Not Alone, or the
idea of other intelligent life in the galaxy.
Examples
- 2½D [1]
- Absent-Minded Professor [2]
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Mithridatism
- Alien Autopsy [3]
- Alien Space Bats [4]
- Alpha Bitch [5]
- Anal Probing [6]
- Anime Fan Speak: Glossary of anime and manga
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Anthropomorphism
- Antihero [7]
- Bag of Holding: Magic satchel
- Bathos and Narm share one under the former's name. [8]
- Big Bad [9] (They even link to the trope)
- Big Dumb Object [10] (They link back to us!)
- Bed Trick [11]
- Brain in a Jar: Brain in a vat
- Brand Name Takeover [12]
- British Royal Guards Queen's Guard
- Byronic Hero [13]
- The Caper: Caper story
- Cassandra Truth: [14]
- Changeling Tale: Changeling
- Cheesy Moon: The moon is made of green cheese
- Chekhov's Gun [15]
- Chewbacca Defense [16]
- Clip Show [17]
- Comic Book Time: Floating timeline
- Cosmic Egg: World egg
- Deflector Shield: [18]
- Development Hell [19] (Again, they link back)
- Distressed Damsel: Damsel in distress
- Double Entendre [20]
- Droste Image [21]
- Dynamic Difficulty Dynamic game difficulty balancing
- Dyson Sphere [22]
- Earworm [23]
- Everything's Worse with Snowclones: Snowclone
- Evil Eye [24]
- Evil Laugh [25]
- Fanservice [26]
- Fictional Political Party List of Fictional Political Parties
- Final Girl [27]
- Foreshadowing [28] (Though it is a common literary term.)
- Four is Death: Tetraphobia
- Freaky Friday Flip: [29]
- Freemium [30]
- Freudian Slip [31]
- The Gadfly: Social gadfly
- Gallows Humor [32]
- Gaslamp Fantasy [33]
- Gaslighting [34]
- Gentleman Detective [35]
- Gentleman Thief [36]
- GIFT: Online disinhibition effect
- Hammerspace: [37]
- Hand Waving: [38]
- Harsh Vocals: Death Growl (but the intro lists harsh vocals as a variant)
- Hazmat Suit: [39]
- Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: Metal umlaut
- Here There Be Dragons: Here be dragons
- Hime Cut [40]
- Honey Trap: Honeypots in espionage fiction
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold [41]
- I'm a Humanitarian: Cannibalism in popular culture
- The Principle of Evil Marksmanship covers these three tropes:
- Indian Summer [42]
- Inherently Funny Words [43]
- Isometric Projection [44]
- Jewish Mother: Jewish mother stereotype
- Jumping the Shark [45]
- Kaiju [46]
- Kawaisa: Cuteness in Japanese culture
- Knight Errant [47]
- Kraken and Leviathan [48] and [49]
- Leitmotif [50]
- Lite Creme: Sensational spelling
- Loose Lips: Loose lips sink ships as well as Wikipedia is in the real world
- Loudness War: [51]
- MacGuffin [52]
- Magic Carpet [53]
- Magical Girlfriend [54]
- Magical Negro [55]
- Magnum Opus [56]
- Mammy [57]
- Man-Eating Plant: Carnivorous plants: Cultural depictions and Man-eating tree
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl [58]
- Mary Sue [59]
- Meaningful Name: Aptronym
- Meme [60]
- Metal Scream: Screaming (music)
- Microtransactions [61]
- Min-Maxing [62]
- Miranda Rights: Miranda warning
- Moe Anthropomorphism [63]
- Mondegreen [64]
- Money To Burn: Money burning
- Monkeys on a Typewriter: Infinite monkey theorem, Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture
- Monster Clown: Evil clown
- Most Tropers Are Young Nerds: Wikipedia:Systemic bias, much more of a problem there than here
- Munchkin: Munchkin (role-playing games)
- Nazi Hunter [65]
- Network Decay: Channel drift
- Nice Jewish Boy [66]
- Noble Savage [67]
- Nose Art [68]
- No True Scotsman [69]
- Nouveau Riche: [70], see also Parvenu
- Obfuscating Insanity: Feigned madness
- Occult Detective: Occult detective fiction
- Opinion Myopia: False consensus effect
- Patchwork Story: Fix-up
- Percussive Maintenance [71]
- Plot Device [72] (With reverse-link back to TV Tropes)
- Plot Hole [73]
- Portable Hole: [74]
- Powered Armor: Powered exoskeleton
- President For Life [75]
- Prison Ship [76]
- Pyrrhic Victory: [77], also Cadmean victory which is virtually the same.
- Rags to Riches: [78]
- Ray Gun: [79]
- Raygun Gothic [80]
- Red Herring [81]
- Redshirt [82]
- Ring of Power: Magic ring
- Robinsonade [83]
- Ruritania: [84], also Ruritanian romance for the related genre
- Saw A Woman In Half [85]
- Scandalgate: List of scandals with "-gate" suffix
- Scatting: Scatting and Non-lexible vocables in music
- Schrödinger's Cat: Schrödinger's cat in popular culture
- Scunthorpe Problem [86]
- Screwed by the Lawyers (Tragedy of the anticommons; also applies to patent law, land ownership, leasing issues, etc.)
- Sdrawkcab Name (Ananym)
- Self Immolation [87]
- Sea Monster [88]
- Shaggy Dog Story [89]
- Shark Tunnel [90]
- Shipping [91]
- Short Runners List of television series canceled after one episode, though that's a little more restrictive.
- Situational Sexuality: Situational sexual behavior
- Snipe Hunt [92]
- Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome [93]
- Solar Powered Magnifying Glass: Burning glass
- Spontaneous Human Combustion [94]
- Starcrossed Lovers: Star-crossed
- Streisand Effect: Streisand effect
- Supercouple [95]
- Synchro Vox [96]
- Sweeps Week Lesbian Kiss: Lesbian kiss episode
- Switched at Birth [97]
- Tastes Like Chicken [98]
- Tetris Effect [99]
- The Thirty-Six Stratagems [100]
- This Is a Work of Fiction: All persons fictitious disclaimer
- Tickle Torture [101]
- Tin Can Telephone [102]
- Tontine [103]
- Tsundere [104]
- Tuckerization [105]
- Turtle Island: Aspidochelone
- Unconventional Formatting: Ergodic literature (although our definition is much more broad)
- Unobtanium [106]
- Unreliable Narrator [107]
- Vaporware [108]
- Very Special Episode [109]
- Video Phone [110]
- Visual Pun [111] (They link to this trope)
- Walk and Talk [112]
- Walk This Way [113]
- Wet Sari Scene [114]
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Bambi effect
- William Telling: Shooting an apple off one's child's head
- Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Suspension of disbelief
- World Building [115]
- Yamato Nadeshiko [116]
- Zero-G Spot Sex in space
