Basic Trope: A character expresses intense frustration by banging their head against a desk, wall, or some other nearby item.
- Straight: Alice is helping Bob with math, but even after hours of labored explanations, he still doesn't understand basic fractions. Alice, frustrated, slams her head against the table.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is helping Bob with math, and his first question is "What are fractions?" Cue headdesk from Alice.
- Alice slams her head into the table so hard that she breaks it.
- Bob says something stupid in his office, and all his co-workers headdesk simultaneously.
- Alice's repeated head-desking leaves telltale dents in pretty much everything she owns.
- Downplayed:
- Frustrated, Alice leans her head on a desk, but doesn't bang on it.
- Alice places a cushion on her desk before hitting it with her head.
- Alice makes the headdesk jerking motions against empty space.
- Justified: Alice can't think of a better way to express her anger.
- Inverted: After hours of fruitless tutoring, Alice grabs Bob's head and bangs it against the table.
- Subverted:
- After hours of fruitless tutoring, Alice prepares to bang her head against the table ... then takes a deep breath and tries yet another explanation.
- Alice starts by beating her head against the wall, but then decided to beat her head against Bob's head instead.
- Double Subverted: When Bob still fails to understand, Alice surrenders to temptation and proceeds to headdesk.
- Parodied:
- When Bob tells Alice he doesn't know what time it is, she proceeds to bang her head against every piece of furniture in the room.
- Alice headdesks against thin air.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice's reactions to frustration have no consistency — one minute she'll calmly accept a missed deadline, the next she'll headdesk at a missed phone call.
- Averted: Alice and Bob are starring in a training video teaching tutors how to help troublesome students calmly.
- Enforced: Alice is a Sit Comic famous for her exaggerated headdesks.
- Lampshaded: "Excuse me, Bob, I need a bang-my-head-against-the-table break."
- Invoked: Alice is hoping that her headdesk display will motivate Bob to study harder.
- Exploited: Bob deliberately says something stupid, knowing that Alice will headdesk.
- Defied: Alice knows that headdesking won't help Bob understand her explanations, so she use other methods to channel her anger, such as buying a stress ball.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Gee, how does Alice stay alive with all that headdesking? It's like she's got an iron skull or something."
- Implied: After training Bob, Alice has a headache.
- Deconstructed: Alice hits her head so hard she incurs a concussion, or even worse, a brain hemorrhage or even death.
- Reconstructed: Alice gets brain therapy and learns to express her frustrations in less life-threatening ways.
- Played for Laughs: Alice hurts herself hilariously by her headdesking at Bob's intransigence.
- Played for Drama: Alice dies from her injury ... and still, Bob doesn't understand his math.
- Played for Horror: Alice starts banging her head against her desk with absolutely zero warning, showing the audience how psychologically unstable she is.
Back to Head Desk