Basic Trope: A character is excessively paranoid.
- Straight: Mark thinks people in his life are out to get him.
- Exaggerated: Mark is a full-blown conspiracy theorist with paranoid delusions of a world-spanning combine that everyone but him is a part of.
- Downplayed: Mark is paranoid, but can function easily in society as long as he keeps his distance from most people.
- Justified:
- Mark has had some bad experiences with people. Trusting them is difficult and belief in conspiracy is easy.
- Mark has a mental disorder which makes him prone to paranoid thoughts.
- Mark is a narcissist who thinks everyone is envious of him.
- Mark's father drilled a paranoid mentality into his son.
- Mark's paranoia has been vindicated multiple times, leading to a belief that paranoia is the smartest choice.
- Mark grew up in an environment where mistrust of others was the norm, and carried his habits over into adulthood.
- Inverted:
- Mark is pronoid; he believes everyone is out to help him.
- Mark's paranoia is directed at himself, constantly worrying that he's out to get someone.
- Subverted:
- Mark is somewhat socially anxious... but positive experiences with a set of solid friends have sapped his paranoid tendencies.
- While Mark may seem excessively paranoid, none of it is improper.
- Parodied: Mark believes spiders are part of a worldwide web of crime.
- Zig Zagged: Mark's paranoia only applies to large institutions like government and banks, which he opposes. When it comes to people he's more or less copacetic.
- Averted: Mark is smartly skeptical of others' motives, but not paranoid.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: Mark has a bug-out bag nearby at all times for emergencies.
- Invoked: Mark is involved in a situation with lethal stakes.
- Exploited: Mark uses paranoia to excuse his bad behavior.
- Defied: Mark makes a concerted effort to think the best of people.
- Discussed: "Mark's got a lot of problems. One of them is figuring out how to dig a moat around his house."
- Conversed: Mark's friends intervene to try and talk Mark out of his paranoia.
- Implied: Mark has few friends and keeps his distance from most other people.
- Deconstructed: Mark's paranoia causes him to hurt so many other people that they form a conspiracy against him.
- Reconstructed: Mark anticipated this, and begins counterplanning to neutralize this new threat.
- Played for Laughs: Mark wears a specially designed hat at all times.
- Played for Drama: Mark's paranoid tendencies worsen despite all efforts to help him, eventually resulting in him taking a drastic step to eliminate his rivals...
- Played for Horror: When seen from Mark's perpective, everything acts and appears in such a way that it looks like at any moment that his suspicions could be correct.
Don't go back to The Paranoiac! Everybody there is out to get you!
