Basic Trope: Someone sees conspiracies behind everything.
- Straight: Alice believes that an Ancient Conspiracy is still at work, plotting behind the scenes to take control.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice believes that everyone and everything in the world is part of some sort of conspiracy, and that all these conspiracies are interconnected.
- These days the line between straight and exaggerated is becoming more and more blurred, as many who believe in said ancient conspiracy do not just believe they are evil and corrupt, they believe the whole world is evil and corrupt. For some it is a valid way of seeing the world, sort of a conscious or self conscious Tall Poppy Syndrome on a mass scale.
- Downplayed: Alice believes in a conspiracy that, while not widely believed, is still taken seriously as an alternative view by many people.
- Justified: Historical research has proven to Alice time and again that power conspiracies did happen in the past in pretty much every country of the world. So there's no logical reason to exclude the fact that there may be some currently at work.
- Inverted: Alice rejects conspiracies that are almost universally accepted to have happened.
- Subverted: Alice begins talking about how everything is not how it seems, but then she puts it down to incompetence rather than conspiracy.
- Double Subverted: ...but then she mentions how this is all a front for the real conspiracy.
- Parodied:
- Alice believes in an Ancient Conspiracy that is plotting to steal everyone's shoes.
- Alice has spent years making popular TouYube videos ranting about how "They" are silencing her. Not even one of them has ever been removed.
- Alice's theories constantly contradict themselves and each other.Alice: 9/11 was an inside job! Also, the twin towers never existed!
- Alice's theories are plain absurd and constantly get basic historical facts wrong.Alice: After the Soviets faked Hitler's death, he went to South America and stayed there for a couple of decades until he decided to move to the US. How did he evade suspicion? By dressing up as JFK, of course! Then he was joined by Elvis, who had also faked his deaths, and Osama bin Laden, and they faked the moon landing together!
- Zig Zagged: Alice tells Bob about her theory, then says that she was just joking, then later admits she only said that in case Bob was "one of them".
- Averted: Alice does not believe that any conspiracy ever happened anywhere and at any time in history.
- Enforced:
- The director of the film believes in the conspiracy depicted, and insists that Alice be the same.
- Because of how outlandish conspiracy theories can be, Alice is made a conspiracy theorist because they are an acceptable target.
- Lampshaded: "Let me guess, Alice, the rodeo clowns work for the Illuminati?"
- Invoked: Bob is a Conspiracy Theorist, and persuades Alice to come around to his point of view.
- Exploited: The Illuminati knows that folks like Alice, while correct, are not likely to be credible. So, they plant just enough evidence to make sure everyone knows Alice is the crazy one.
- Defied: "Never attribute to malice or conspiracy what is better explained by incompetence. If the right hand knew what the left was doing, this crime scene wouldn't have been so sloppy."
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Everyone starts to think that Alice is moronic and mentally unstable.
- The various manipulative tactics used by professional conspiracy theorists to gain converts are put on display.
- By showing how a conspiracy are manipulating people and events behind the scenes, Alice accidentally feeds much more horrific conspiracy theories such as Ancient Aliens, Antivax, Climate Change Denialism, Genocide Denialism (of various kinds), Operation Terror, Qanon, White Genocide, ect.
- Reconstructed: Even if Alice isn't proven correct, her conspiracy theories are never without reason. She spends time doing a lot of research before coming to any conclusions.
- Played For Laughs: There really is a sinister cabal ruling the world from the shadows; however, its members are all ordinary humans, while Alice insists that they are aliens.
- Played For Drama:
- The Conspiracy is revealed to be real, but only to the audience. Will Alice have what it takes to stop it on her own?
- Alice falsely accuses Charles of being part of an Ancient Conspiracy, which leads to her followers harassing him (or worse).
- Alice creates an organization of people to counteract the Conspiracy, working in the shadows to keep the world from falling under 'their' control. The only issue is that there is no Conspiracy...or at least there wasn't before Alice formed hers.
- Alice gaslights Bob and preys on his mental illnesses in order to “awaken” him, isolating him from his friends and attempting to convince him that the people trying to get him professional help are actually trying to silence and brainwash him for “them”.
- Alice cuts ties with her friends after becoming convinced that they are “in on it”.
- Played For Horror:
- Alice is a Serial Killer convinced that her victims are part of an elaborate plot against her.
- Alice forms a group of similarly-minded individuals and leads them on a a killing spree of alleged agents of the conspiracy (whether it's some delusion brought upon by coincidences or Alice taking revenge on minor slights depends on what is scarier at the moment).
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