Basic Trope: A person wears nothing but a barrel, frequently as an indicator of poverty.
- Straight:
- Alice loses all her money and clothes in a game of poker and has to wear a barrel to cover herself up.
- Alice is locked out naked outside and covers herself with a barrel.
- Exaggerated: The barrel itself has holes in it and barely covers her.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is in her underwear underneath the barrel.
- Alice is in a skimpy swimsuit under the barrel.
- Alice fashioned the barrel into a wooden chestplate and kilt.
- Alice still has her clothes and is simply wearing the barrel over them.
- Justified:
- The casino provided Alice the barrel so she won’t be arrested for public indecency (and they won’t get in trouble in association).
- Alice found the barrel and covers herself up with it.
- Inverted: The wealthy wear barrels to signify their opulence.
- Subverted: Alice McFingal is just frugal in how she armors herself.
- Double Subverted: Alice would have saved herself a lot of repeated purchases had she bought real, lasting, armor.
- Parodied: A barrel appears out of thin air on Alice's body whenever she takes off her clothes.
- Zig Zagged:
- Averted: Barrels aren't used at all whether the situation involves nudity or poverty.
- Enforced:
- "We wanna show how badly Alice blows her money, and having a character wear nothing but a barrel is essentially the universal indicator that they're poor as hell."
- "The censors won't let us show Alice naked, but we have to have some indicator that she's lost her clothing. Our only option would be to have her try to wear something else in place of her clothes, and the most appropriate item would certainly be a barrel."
- Lampshaded: "This isn't very dignified or comfortable. I can't believe the penalty for losing all my money is wearing this barrel."
- Invoked:
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- Brittany finds Alice and gives her extra clothes so she won’t have to wear the barrel.
- Brittany finds Alice and steals her barrel, leaving her naked.
- Discussed: "How the hell can poor people stand wearing these heavy wooden containers instead of clothes?"
- Conversed: "You'd think that if she couldn't afford clothes that she couldn't even afford to wear a barrel, given how much those things can cost."
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played For Laughs: Alice gets thrown at someone by Donkey Kong.
- Played For Drama:
- Someone takes photos of Alice in the barrel.
- Someone attempts to take the barrel off Alice and rape her.
- Implied: Alice just got home naked. A barrel is seen outside her home.
Well, you lost all your clothes, so here's this Bankruptcy Barrel so you can cover up and not get arrested for public indecency.
