Basic Trope: A character is grounded for an outrageous amount of time.
- Straight: Bob is grounded for the rest of his life.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is grounded even after he dies.
- Bob is grounded for ten million years.
- Bob's parents place Bob in Cryo-Prison or manufacture another kind of circumstance that will make Bob actually be able to endure a grounding of a hundred-plus years.
- Downplayed: Bob is grounded for a year.
- Justified:
- Bob did something horrendously wrong.
- Bob's parents are sadistic and love to inflict ridiculous punishments.
- Inverted:
- Bob is only grounded for a day for a serious offense.
- Bob is grounded for ten seconds.
- Subverted: "Bob, you are grounded for the rest of...the week!"
- Double Subverted: "Actually, I just found out you did something worse, so I am extending your punishment to the rest of your life."
- Parodied: Bob is grounded for the rest of his life because he left the toilet seat up.
- Zig Zagged:
- Bob is grounded for a million years. But his parents shorten the grounding to a million seconds because it is too long. His parents than find out he did something worse and ground him for much longer.
- It's never clear whether Bob's claims that he will be "grounded for life" are exaggerated or not.
- Averted: Bob is not grounded or is only grounded for a few days.
- Enforced:
- The creator(s) of the series want Bob to have mean parents.
- "We want to make it clear that Bob's parents are thoroughly ashamed of his actions. Having them punish their son by grounding him for an unreasonably long time would be a great way to infer how peeved off they are."
- Lampshaded: "I can't believe I got grounded for THIS long!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Bob does not even allow his parents into his room while he's stuck there.
- Defied:
- Bob tries to go against his punishment.
- Bob's parents only give him groundings with reasonable durations, knowing that no wrongdoing Bob could ever do would warrant grounding him for life.
- Discussed: "Why do my parents LOVE grounding me for ridiculously long amounts of time?"
- Conversed: "Why do parents on these shows like to ground their kids for super-long periods of time?"
- Implied: Bob is sent to his room. Fast-forward 60 years, and Bob is still in his room, as a pale old man due to never going outside.
- Deconstructed: Bob is stuck in his room, and he gets depressed because he had to let go of his dreams. His friends and family think he is not alive anymore, as he has never contacted them. Bob gets pale from never going outside, and he is bored from never doing anything fun. He is sick of the gross food his parents made for him, and he grows old, weak, and pale.
- Reconstructed: Bob writes sob stories and poetry while in his room. This becomes a hobby, and he leaves his stories and poems for his siblings to acquire and publish after he is not alive anymore.
- Played For Laughs: Bob is grounded for telling bad jokes.
- Played For Drama: Bob is angry after being grounded, and he acts violently towards his parents.
- Played For Horror:
- Bob's parents only said the "you are grounded for the rest of your life" as a bit of annoyed sarcasm attached to an actual grounding. Bob is Sarcasm-Blind and a maniac and murders them in retaliation.
- Bob's parents are the kind of maniacs who, if they say "you are grounded for a million years", will shove Bob in a cryogenic booth set to unfreeze in a million years and sit back and relax while Bob goes crazy from the sensory deprivation. Or they ground him for a year… in a trap-laden Gilded Cage that would make a good Cube sequel film set and would definitely apply the "for life" part of this trope in a different, gory way.
OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH! Troper, how dare you waste time on TvTropes! That’s it, you are grounded grounded grounded grounded grounded Grounded Forever!
