Basic Trope: There is a noticeable power difference between two characters in a relationship
- Straight: Bob is Alice's teacher and the two are dating, despite the fact that Bob could easily blackmail her into sleeping with him.
- Exaggerated: Bob is paired with God.
- Downplayed:
- While Bob may be Alice's Bodyguard Crush, Alice can handle herself in a fight.
- Alice is a YouTube star and Bob is one of her fans.
- Alice and Bob are YouTube content creators but Alice's channel is much larger than Bob's
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob, despite their differences in power and status, treat each other as equals.
- Alice and Bob started dating long before Alice became a goddess.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Bob seems more powerful, but Alice turns out to be the long-lost heir to a vast fortune with many connections at her fingertips, which places her higher than Bob.
- Alice actually is the one with the power in the relationship, and she uses it to undermine his authority over her.
- Double Subverted: But then Alice loses that fortune, causing her and Bob to be right back at where they started.
- Parodied:
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice and Bob are also in an on-and-off again relationship.
- Alice and/or Bob keeps changing their position in power.
- Alice is rich and Bob is poor. However, Bob is a teacher and Alice is his student. Then, she is an Action Girl who can beat him into a pulp without breaking a sweat. On the other hand, he is a Manipulative Bastard who can wrap her around his finger without her noticing. And so on.
- Averted: Alice and Bob have relatively equal status and power.
- Enforced:
- The author wants to explore power dynamics and how they can affect relationships. So they ship Alice and Bob together.
- Alice is an Author Avatar and the author thinks Power is Sexy.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Alice or Bob thinks Power is Sexy and only goes for powerful people.
- Exploited: Bob blackmails Alice.
- Defied: Alice refuses to be in relationships with anyone who has power over her even if she really likes them.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Unequal Pairing, my servant.
