Playing With / Ominous Pipe Organ

Basic Trope: Organ music is scary and/or associated with evil.

• Straight: The Big Bad's Leitmotif prominently features a pipe organ.
• Exaggerated:
  • The Big Bad has a gigantic pipe organ in his lair, which he uses to cast Magic Music that causes most of the conflicts in the story.
  • The Big Bad's lair is a colossal pipe organ.
  • The Big Bad's leitmotif is all pipe organ at earrape volume levels.
  • The Big Bad IS a pipe organ.
• Downplayed:
  • An organ is featured among many other instruments in the Big Bad's Leitmotif.
  • A smaller variant of pipe organ, such as the calliope or portative, is used.
• Justified:
  • The Big Bad is the head of a Corrupt Church, and his headquarters are located inside of a Creepy Cathedral, where having a pipe organ would be expected.
  • The Big Bad is a Musical Assassin, whose main instrument is the pipe organ (see "Exaggerated").
  • The Big Bad is Wicked Cultured, and too grandiose for a mere harpsichord.
  • The Big Bad is wealthy, so he has enough money to have a large pipe organ installed in his lair.
• Inverted: The religious Big Good has Holy Pipe Organ music as his leitmotif.
• Subverted: A character is introduced with scary organ music playing in the background, but he turns out to be a good guy.
• Double Subverted: Said character is actually The Mole, and the scary music was foreshadowing.
• Parodied:
  • The Big Bad orders a massive pipe organ for his lair to compensate for his shortcomings with another type of "organ".
  • The Big Bad gets yelled at for playing the pipe organ when everyone else is trying to sleep.
  • A character shoots at the organist to stop him from playing ominous music.
• Zig Zagged: ???
• Averted:
  • The Big Bad's leitmotif doesn't include an organ.
  • The Big Bad uses another instrument, such as a piano or violin, to play his evil tunes.
  • The Big Bad plays a calm, respectful music on his organ, which does not sound evil.
• Enforced: Organ music is frequently considered scary, making it a good way to inform audiences that a character is evil.
• Lampshaded: The Big Bad plays "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" by Johann Sebastian Bach, because he said that the piece of music certainly has a dark and evil feel to it.
• Invoked: Bob is not evil, but he briefly plays scary music on a pipe organ to jokingly act like a villain.
• Exploited: The Big Bad literally pulls out all the stops and plays loud organ music to make the hero go deaf.
• Defied:
  • The Big Good destroyed the Big Bad's pipe organ to prevent him from playing further.
  • The Big Bad decides that a pipe organ is too Cliché, and settles for a piano.
• Discussed: ???
• Conversed: ???
• Played For Laughs: The Big Bad turns out to be a terrible organist or plays something completely unfitting.

---

Back to Ominous Pipe Organ

---