Basic Trope: A character likes to make unnecessarily complicated plans.
- Straight: Bob makes complex plans because they are fun.
- Exaggerated: Bob is physically incapable of making simple plans or executing someone else's simple plan.
- Downplayed: Once per Episode, Bob adds a "favorite step" to his plan that doesn't help it go along.
- Justified: Bob's plan involves working with poorly understood Applied Phlebotinum, and no one has figured out simple ways to work with it.
- Inverted:
- Simplicity addiction. Bob's plans must be five steps or fewer.
- Bob's plans are always Simple, yet Awesome.
- Bob is Too Dumb to Fool and if he cannot accomplish anything by saying "yes", "no" or smashing someone's nose in, he deems it too complicated to try.
- Simple Solution Won't Work; the complicated plan has a thousand points of potential failure, but is the only way to reach the end Bob wants.
- Subverted: After Bob explains a complex plan, he outlines a "shortcut" that makes the plan simpler
- Double Subverted: The shortcut is only one less step.
- Parodied: When Bob agrees to be part of Alice's simple plan, he suffers from complexity withdrawal.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob can't decide whether to use the simple plan, or whether the complex plan has better enough results to matter.
- Averted: Bob streamlines his plans before executing them.
- Enforced: Alice and Bob must be a feature length film, and they need more things for Bob to do.
- Lampshaded: "Always there to meet and exceed the 20 step quota"
- Invoked: Bob finds many different parts for something he is building, and is determined to make use of them.
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed: Bob adds "learn better communication" to his plan, and assigns well-defined roles to his friends.
- Exploited: David sabotages one step of Bob's plan, derailing it entirely.
- Defied: "This plan will never work, I must make it simpler"
- Discussed: Bob ponders how many steps he can handle in a plan
- Conversed: "The more steps a plan has, the funnier it is"
Back to Complexity Addiction
