Basic Trope: A character gives a compliment that is poorly thought through.
- Straight:
- Bob tries to compliment Alice, but he struggles to think of something and blurts out that she has "a pair of very cool arms".
- Alice tells Bob that his eyes are awesome because they let him see.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob gives everyone various "compliments" of terrible quality that leave people confused.
- Alice's "compliment" is so over the top that Bob can't make heads or tails of it.
- Downplayed: Bob says "You have beautiful... hair" to Alice. Bob couldn't think of something with more substance, but the compliment still sort of works.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob don't like saying nice things about each other, so they find ways around it when they have to do it—such as using physical descriptions as "compliments".
- They're really bad at it.
- They're pressed for time and aren't given the chance to think of a proper compliment.
- Bob is held at gunpoint and forced to say something nice about a person or thing, even though he's too terrified and not given enough time to think up a decent comment.
- Inverted: Bob attempts to insult Alice instead of compliment her. The insult is "your face is shaped like a hippo's ear on Wednesdays". Alice is puzzled, as the "insult" makes no sense.
- Subverted:
- "You have an amazingly... glorious... neck. Your jewelled necklace fits it nicely!"
- Bob pauses, as if trying to think of a compliment on the spot, but then says something else because he can't think of anything sensible.
- Double Subverted:
- "Also, the necklace is so... uh... [Beat] ...jewel-y?"
- ...But despite evading saying something weird the first time, Bob ends up doing just that a minute later anyway.
- Parodied: Bob says to Alice that her nose is beautiful, just like an elephant's trunk, continuously stammering throughout the entire sentence, which is an honest to God miracle that Alice could even understand it. Alice's stunned expression at first appears to be one of being offended at the "compliment", until the Bait-and-Switch moment right after where she happily compliments him back by saying he has ten fingers of the perfect length and skin tone.
- Zig Zagged: Bob's compliments are hit-or-miss; some of them land, while others don't.
- Averted: The compliment is perfectly sensible and well thought-out.
- Enforced: Rule of Funny
- Lampshaded: "...Really? Is that the best compliment you could think of?"
- Invoked: Bob deliberately gives a low-quality compliment, because he's too lazy to bother.
- Exploited: Bob knows his compliments are weird, so he uses that to annoy other people for his amusement.
- Defied: Bob knows his compliments are weird, so he tries hard to think of a compliment that's normal enough.
- Discussed: "You must know how and when to compliment. If you don't, you'll end up praising someone's elbow... by saying it's rounded and that it lets them bend their arm. You can probably guess how well this 'compliment' works."
- Conversed: "Wow. Thanks for complimenting my non-existent mustache. I bet you excelled in social subjects in school."
- Implied: Alice mentions in passing how Bob once gave her an odd, though well-meaning comment about her ears looking great.
Back to Half-Baked Niceness, you... er... uhm... eh... mmm... Non-nattering troper. Look, that's the best I can do, okay?
