Basic Trope: A good being has been sealed away.
- Straight: A good guy gets sealed away.
- Exaggerated: A legion of 777 noble and powerful angels, any one of which could resolve the conflict alone, are sealed away.
- Downplayed: ???
- Justified:
- The Big Bad was either not powerful enough to kill her, or otherwise doesn't have the power to do so, and so decided to do the next best thing: Seal the hero away and try to make sure that no one ever finds him/her.
- The hero realized that the bad guy had only been taken out temporarily, and would eventually return. So the hero seals him/herself away so he/she will still be around when the bad guy does return.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- The good guy sealed away discovers by accident that they could get out any time, but didn't realize the box wasn't locked.
- The Ragnarok Proofing didn't work, and by the time the new heroes find it, the good that was sealed away is now dead and/or useless.
- Double Subverted: ...and then it turns out that the room the box was in is in itself a much stronger seal.
- The team's resident wizard brings the good guy back to life with stronger powers.
- Parodied: A five-year-old discovers a legendary hero trapped in one of those plastic containers you get from gum-ball machine-type dispensers.
- Zig Zagged: The utterly benevolent entity was sealed inside the magical can because, unbeknown to him/her, he/she is actually, matryoshka-style, the Person-Shaped Can for some horrible evil. Specifically, something so abominable that even the villain that sealed him/her in is scared of it.
- Averted: There is no Sealed Good in a Can
- Enforced:
- "These guys are too low powered to take on the Big Bad. They'll need backup. Send them after it as a MacGuffin and let them do some Level Grinding on the way."
- The heroes can't beat the God of Evil, let the have a God of Good on their side.
- Lampshaded: "Dude, maybe Sir Goodnik got sealed away with the same spell. We find him, and maybe we can shove the evil wizard back into the box?"
- Invoked: "Let's seal away that righteous do-gooder in that trash can!"
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Anything evil enough to seal away this force of good would make sure it's not just a sort of peaceful eternal sleep. The force of good has been living in a nightmare world that would make Cthulhu wet himself in terror for the last thousand years, and has gone completely insane as a result. When the heroes do let it out, it eats them and goes on a murderous rampage before realizing what it's done - and kills itself.
- Reconstructed:
- Anything evil enough to seal away this force of good would make sure it's not just a sort of peaceful eternal sleep. The force of good has been living in a nightmare world that would make Cthulhu wet himself in terror for the last thousand years, and has been severely traumatized as a result. When the heroes let it out, it babbles incoherently and hugs them before breaking down in tears. With the help of the heroes, the entity slowly regains its sense of identity and purpose and helps in the fight against the bad guys.
- The sealed good was imprisoned in a horrible nightmare world but has been spending the centuries fighting for his life day in and day out. As a result, the Sealed Good in a Can is now ten times as Powerful he was when he was sealed away from all that fighting and is now more than a match for the Big Bad who put him in there.
- The sealing put the hero in a Convenient Coma.
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Sealed Good in a Can
