Basic Trope: The prejudice a character displays towards another was taught to them through outside societal means.
- Straight: Bob and Alice shun the non-human Gorgoth Jake when he tries to befriend them because their families taught them his species is aggressive and hostile.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob and Alice try to murder Jake when he so much as approaches them, believing the lies spread about the Gorgoth by propaganda.
- Bob and Alice were taught from elementary school that the Gorgoth are enemy invaders that will eventually attack their homeland. It only takes a single fight at the dinner table to start an intergalactic war.
- Downplayed: Bob and Alice don't shun Jake at all, but their families are repeatedly trying to turn the duo against Jake due to their own misguided beliefs about the Gorgoth.
- Justified:
- Jake's species is in fact aggressive and hostile and he just got done trying to kill the duo, validating the suspicions their families already had of him.
- Bob and Alice have been subject to some flavor of Mind Control; their perception of him aligning with the racist views of those that warped them.
- The Gorgoth recently made peace with humanity after decades of war Bob and Alice's parents had to live through, the stories they're told souring Bob and Alice's view of Jake and his race.
- Subverted: Bob and Alice don't directly shun Jake, but believe the misinformation spread about the Gorgoth by their families; leading to frequent stereotyping and needless quarreling...
- Double Subverted:
- ...Only for Jake to grow tired of trying to convince them and reveal himself as the general of a Gorgoth armada about to assault Bob and Alice's homeland.
- Parodied: Bob and Alice's families lie to the duo and say that Jake's people have really poor hygiene in an attempt to split the kids apart. Their lies only grow weirder and oddball from there.
- Zig Zagged: Bob And Alice were taught that the Gorgoth are evil and hostile. But the duo are really nice and give Jake a chance. The rest of the Gorgoth aren't as friendly, which in turn fuels more paranoia.
- Averted: Bob and Alice's families both welcome Jake, an interplanetary Gorgoth refugee, with open arms and understanding.
- Enforced:
- Bob, Alice and Jake are the main characters of a family drama called Parallel Lines, which has a Prejudice Aesop as its cornerstone. Thus, more than a few episodes center around the trio having to combat the inevitable fallout of characters acting on preconceived notions conditioned into them about other races.
- The show is about what allowed the Nazis to rise to power, exacerbating the stigmatization of Jews was one of them.
- Lampshaded: "Your folks've been saying some strange things about my people lately. I hope it doesn't cause misunderstandings between our races."
- Invoked:
- Bob and Alice befriend the polite Gorgoth Jake. This angers their families, who knowingly flood Bob and Alice with misinformation and stereotypes, brainwashing the duo into treating him coldly.
- A terrible prophecy about Jake's people is the cornerstone of Bob and Alice's society. Bob and Alices' families react with hostility when the duo question things.
- Exploited: An outside force is deliberately pitting the two races against each other using already-present stereotypes and miscommunications to drum up dissent. Both species start showing Fantastic Racism toward the other side teaching their children the "other ones" are bad. Jake and the duo are caught in the middle and left confused.
- Defied:
- Bob and Alice call their families out on their blatant racism and aren't buying any of the rumors surrounding Jake's people.
- The Gorgoth host a meeting in which they clarify and explain away all the rumors being spread about them, bridging any gap between them and humans before it becomes an issue.
- Discussed: "You guys don't actually believe all that stuff your folks were saying about my people, do you? We're not some force of evil."
- Conversed: "I remember that old character-arc where everybody hated Jake's people all of a sudden. They spouted a bunch of rhetoric and suddenly Bob and Alice're giving him the cold shoulder."
- Implied: Bob, Alice and Jake are at the center of a major misunderstanding. The human and Gorgoth families are suddenly much colder toward each other. Bob, Alice and Jake's friendship appears to weaken as a result; the trio more conflict-prone than before.
- Inverted: Jake's people are warmongers that have recently undergone a collective Heel Realization. To that end, the Gorgoths make up various positive things to say about humans in attempts to teach their children to be kinder towards them, resulting in Jake having an overly-idealized, inaccurate view of human beings when he makes contact with Bob and Alice.
- Played for Drama: Bob and Alice were taught from a young age that the Gorgoths were a violent, aggressive race. Jake is an exception and is met with icy distance when he tries to befriend the two. It seems like he's slowly winning them over until a misunderstanding ensues and Bob and Alice act on what they were taught about the Gorgoth; hurting Jake as a result. All parties are shell-shocked by what happened and try to compromise their own worldview with those of their families.
- Played for Laughs:
- Bob and Alice's families attempt to incur mistrust between Bob, Alice and Jake by enacting wacky schemes and Self Fulfilling Prophecies to make Jake's people look bad. The human families' antics get the attention of Jake's family, who decide to teach the humans a lesson by briefly Becoming the Mask to expose what's happening to Bob and Alice. The pranking collapses through a comedy of errors and everyone comes together by laughing at the absurdity of it all.
- Bob and Alice are repeatedly warned of Jake's people by their families, who are portrayed as crazies barely cognizant of the real world. Their attempts to interfere in the trio's friendship are pathetic at-best and treated as a source of entertainment; everyone else's bonds only getting stronger as the human antagonists constantly fail Dick Dastardly-style.
- Deconstructed: There was once a conflict between Humans and the Gorgoths until peace was eventually achieved. However, Fantastic Racism doesn't go away, leading to a time of retaliatory quarrelling lasting years. Bob, Alice and Jake take note of the cycle and that it needs to stop. They attempt to plead with their respective families, who were themselves taught that the other side was an enemy. They fail to get through to them until a major battle between the species' occurs that forces all sides to confront the gravity of what they're doing. The sides don't suddenly unite, but do slowly thaw towards one another generationally.
- Reconstructed: The Human-Gorgoth feud has devolved into the stuff of legends centuries later. A cataclysm occurs as a long-term consequence of the fighting from long ago; bringing the full story of what happened in ancient times to the public eye. People are confused and not entirely sure how to handle the revelation: Some lash out at the other race while some remain indifferent, yet the majority of folks are simply confused and awaiting closure of some sort. Alice, Bob and Jake's respective descendants see the writing on the wall and immediately work to solve the issue; their solidarity preventing catastrophe and stabilizing relations. The transition back to normal life isn't entirely perfect and small bits of dissent remain, but the aesop both races learned long ago ultimately shines through and whatever future awaits the races is presumed a healthy one.
We were Taught to Hate the abridged version, because it has too little information.
