Sandbox / Enforced Trope Wick Check

Wick check for Enforced Trope. (50/50)

---

Misuse (22/50)

Forced by in-universe reasons (12/50)

The majority of these are actually Justified Tropes, a few Invoked.

1. Characters.Gears Of War Swarm: Generation Xerox. An Enforced Trope. The Hive Mind turns her mind into practically a carbon copy of her own mother.
2. Literature.Sword And Flower: Fantasy Gun Control. Enforced by the Lesser Heaven; forbidden weapons like firearms break apart upon completion.
3. FantasyGunControl.Literature:
   • Eventually averted in Jacqueline Carey's D'Angeline novels; in Naamah's Kiss, an alchemist invents the first gunpowder weapons. This is later enforced through wiping the memory of everyone who knew how they worked to stop them being used again.
   • In Diana Wynne Jones's The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, a parody of the fantasy genre, it's enforced on most tours. Gunpowder usually fails to explode, unless it's part of an ancient gun like a musket or flintlock pistol.
4. Characters.The Four Gospels: One-Steve Limit. Enforced. Since there was another Simon among the twelve, Jesus gave him the Peter nickname instead.
5. Lost.Tropes A To E: Back for the Dead:
   • Enforced by the island for Michael. When he's asked what he's doing back:
     "To die."
6. Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Ruddigore has the prosperous farmer Robin Oakapple and the poor sailor Richard Dauntless vie for Rose Maybud's hand. Rose prefers Robin, partly because his moral character is superior and partly because she's a Gold Digger, but turns to Richard when Robin's true identity is revealed, which invokes the curse that requires Robin/Ruthven to become a career criminal. When Ruthven breaks the curse with a Logic Bomb at the end of Act II, which allows him to become good again, Rose pivots back to him.
7. Literature.A Brothers Price: Family Honor. Enforced All family members are punished by the law if one steps out of line. One can get out of this by claiming that the family is estranged and was not working together, but it is automatically assumed that they did work together. After Heria and Jerin Whistler save the life of a princess, Queen Elder compliments Eldest Whistler (who wasn't even there at the time) for acting in accordance with the law, even though this endangered Jerin, a valuable boy. However, they also value their honor in the more abstract sense; Jerin's sister Corelle, when she notices that he's being courted by a noblewoman who thinks the Whistler family is beneath her, remarks that they will not be looked down on by their future sisters-in-law, and rescues Jerin from the unpleasant company.
8. Series.Legend Of The Seeker: Suicidal Pacifism. The episode "Fury" has a warlord threaten a peaceful village whose people never fight, even if threatened with death or slavery. Some of the younger ones get tired of this, however, and Richard teaches them to fight. However, it turns out they are under a magic spell which enforces this, rendering them catatonic if they act violently toward anyone else. Zedd breaks it, but they end up going berserk when fighting along with Richard. It turns out that they are descended from warriors who served a Lord Rahl, one of his ancestors, tied to his will, and went off the deep end in the same way long ago. This spell was placed on them to stop it happening in the future.
9. Literature.The Nature Of Predators: Absolute Xenophobe. The Arxur are hostile to every single federation species, but they are less so with humanity, due to them being fellow predators. Later in the story we see that this is very much an Enforced Trope for their species by the ruling powers, and not all of them agree.
10. Manga.Omamori Himari: Token Mini-Moe. Shizuku and Tama (introduced in chapter 28 of the manga). Lampshaded and enforced by Shizuku whenever another little girl appears: Character wants to be the only moe in the series
    When Himari is transformed: "There's only room for one loli in this house." (accompanied by strangling her)
    After Tama appeared: "I'm the only loli allowed in this area."
11. Fanfic.Morgan Freemans Blessings On This Beautiful Hood: Adorably Precocious Child. How Darkness and most other people see Riley, much to his annoyance. Actually enforced because of the world's TV-14 filter, so any Charisma gain by the young Riley that would usually go into seduction goes instead to his adorability. Even succubi are only subjected to Cuteness Proximity around Riley instead of wanting to bed him.
12. Recap.Game Of Thrones S 7 E 2 Stormborn: One-Steve Limit. Enforced. The episode featured the return of Nymeria the dire wolf, so of course, by episode's end, Nymeria Sand is dead.

Forced by limited video game options (8/50)

This is actually But Thou Must!

1. Characters.Hearts Of Iron: We ARE Struggling Together. While nominally represented as either Democratic or Communist in-game, Republican Spain is in fact represented by at least four ideologically different factions, two of which representing two radically different schools of communism, with a Democratic and and Anarchist faction working very loosely with the others and in loose pairs of Stalinists and Democratic republicans, and Anarchists and anti-Stalinist Communists, all of whom have irreconcilable differences that will boil over within a year. This is actually enforced in-game via missions making nominally allied factions within the Republican side split off and declare war on both the Nationalists and the other Republican faction, and unlike the Nationalists who can potentially avoid their civil war, there is no way to avoid the Republican civil war.
2. VideoGame.The Hanged Man: Path of Most Resistance. The only correct route for escaping from Ed (even encouraged by the map in the lobby) takes you through all of the previously visited buildings even though just descending to the 3rd building's lowest floor would get you straight to the lobby and thus is actually shorter (completely bypassing buidings 2 and 1). You're forced to take the "correct" route by Ed jumping you on the lowest floor of Building 3 and suddenly moving thrice as fast.
3. VideoGame.Pilotwings: Character Select Forcing. Present, but only lightly enforced in 64. Each class of pilot works best with a specific vehicle (Light = Rocket Belt, Medium = Hang Glider, Heavy = Gyrocopter). While it's not impossible to do well by, say, placing Lark (the lightweight male pilot) in a Gyrocopter, matching up the right character with the right vehicle does make it a fair bit easier.
4. VisualNovel.Echo: Fantastically Indifferent. Enforced when Chase begins to freak out about the situation they're in leading to a dialogue tree where the only option is "Everything is fine." in order to calm them down.
5. Suspiciously Small Army: An Enforced Trope in The Complete History Of America Abridged, since there are only three actors in the cast. This is played with when the two men in George Washington's "small army" each appear to be only four foot tall, due to a misreading of "minute men."
6. VideoGame.Dynasty Warriors Online: Player Versus Environment / Player Versus Player. For a Dynasty Warriors game, it has plenty of both. It's almost an Enforced Trope for both. Almost. Aside from quests and Kunlun, there will be a commander type enemy somewhere. In order to upgrade your weapon you have to beat enough mooks senseless in order to get flasks (hollowed gourds)that allow upgrades, and then you can use those upgrades to beat the commanders (the player character type enemy but it may be computer controlled) senseless next. Commander don't have to be faced directly, but in challenges of skill, who can beat the most mooks fastest, as well.
7. VideoGame.Super Mario Maker 2: Checkpoint Starvation:
   • Like in the first game, this is enforced before you can upload a course online - you first have to clear it once from the start to the goal without dying (and subsequently from each checkpoint to the goal) to confirm that the course can actually be cleared.
8. VideoGame.FNF Free Download: Cast of Expies. As with most "overhaul" mods, every character in this game is based on their corresponding FNF character. However, this one is unusual because it's not an Enforced Trope - usually, overhaul mods are forced to follow the characters' patterns because of certain traits in the original game being hardcoded, but Free Download was made from the ground up, leaving only the creator's desires to make everyone an Expy. Enforced by game code limitations.

Examples Are Not Arguable (1/50)

1. Ermine Cape Effect: Relena from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing zig-zags this; during the period where she's Princess of her own nation, she swaps between a fancy Victorian outfit and the same school uniform worn by the students she teaches. When she gets made Queen of the World by Romefeller she's only ever seen in the same dress, but this could be seen as an Enforced Trope since she's supposed to be a figurehead. Speculating if the trope applied

Real Life examples (1/50)

1. It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Germany's greatest defensive tactician of 1943-44, General Gotthard Heinrici, was famed for an almost psychic talent for predicting when a Soviet Combined-Arms Army was about to begin a Breakthrough-Offensive Operation in his sector — which he humbly and somewhat misleadingly attributed to the trope of suspicious silence. In fact, it derived from close observation of previous Soviet bombardment schedules. ^note  In this period, Soviet offensives were always preceded by earth-shatteringly large artillery barrages on all known and suspected German artillery, AT, and machine-gun positions — but due to the inexperience of the gunners, they tended to be too formulaic and whenever they were forced to rush offensive preparations they often re-used bombardment schedules from previous offensives. By taking note of these tendencies, Heinrici was able to repeatedly withdraw troops from their positions and then rush them back in time to conduct a stronger defense from prepared positions against the assault by the Soviet Combined-Arms Army's assault guns + tanks + infantry. Heinrici's 'talent' faded as his opponents' skills and repertoire grew, but he had one final success during the Berlin Offensive of April 1945, when Georgy Zhukov was demoted from the Strategic role in which he excelled to Operational command of the 1st Belorussian Front. As always when he had taken Operational command, Zhukov tried to use a Boring, but Practical preparatory bombardment — and was outfoxed by Heinrici, giving Ivan Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Front a two-day head start in the race for Berlin. In the note, Real Life doesn't have a creator (in the fiction sense) who can intentionally use a trope.

Correct use (18/50)

Forced by out-of-universe reasons (18/50)

1. Arthur.Tropes E To M: The "no hitting" Aesop in "Arthur's Big Hit" was portrayed as one-sided so that children wouldn't justify hitting each other, and talk things out instead. PBS prides itself on discouraging violence on its children's TV shows.
2. Series.The Untamed: Adaptational Romance Downgrade. In the novel, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are explicitly a romantic couple, including getting married in the end. The Untamed couldn't outright depict them as being in a romantic relationship, an Enforced Trope due to Chinese censorship laws around depicting homosexual relationships onscreen. It instead presents them more as Heterosexual Life-Partners. That said, there's a lot of romantic subtext around their relationship and they refer to each other with terms like "close companions" or "soulmates", so they can easily come off as a same-sex couple with plausible deniability to get past the censorship.
3. Sharp-Dressed Man: Enforced for The Beatles in their pre-Yellow Submarine days — they all dressed alike, and they all looked impeccable, with matching haircuts, suits, and shoes. Left to their own devices, things were a little different; Paul kept it up, but Ringo and George leaned heavily on the dandy side, while John, more often than not, was a raging slob.
4. Recap.Eddsworld Saloonatics: Cast of Snowflakes. Enforced. Since the artists for this episode thought the show's characters looked too similar, they made all of them look very different from each other here.
5. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome.Game Of Thrones: "Winterfell": As the Golden Company commander points out, elephants make excellent war beasts, but aren't suited for long sea voyages, meaning no elephants for Cersei. As noted in real-life, elephants were Awesome, but Impractical. This was an example enforced by having to blow the CGI budgets on the dragons, the same thing that led to the Starks' direwolves disappearing from the show.
6. Good Princess, Evil Queen: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
   • For most of the show's run, the only character bearing the title of "Queen" was Queen Chrysalis, the villainous leader of the Changelings, a race of shapeshifting emotion-eaters. Every other female monarch (Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Twilight Sparkle) bears the title of "Princess". This was an Enforced Trope, as Celestia was a queen when the show was being planned, but Hasbro asked the creator to make her a princess because children viewed princesses as good and queens as evil.
7. Film.The Bigamist: Sleeping Single. Maybe there's a reason why Harry cheated on his wife! Although this was an Enforced Trope at the time due to The Hays Code, it's thematically appropriate in this film to demonstrate that Harry and Eve's marriage has gone stale. In one scene he actually gets up and sits on her bed in what is implied to be a desire for sex, but she blows him off.
8. WesternAnimation.The Jungle Book 1967: Excuse Plot. Enforced: Walt Disney specifically told the story artists to not read or follow the book, and even chewed them out when they had concerns over the simplistic story, saying the characters and entertainment were more important. Floyd Norman, who worked on the film, summed it up on his blog:
   "With Pixar's string of successful movies it became popular among animation buffs to quote the familiar mantra, story, story, story. But, I remember it was no less than Walt Disney himself who chewed us out back during the development of "The Jungle Book." Because we thought we had legitimate concerns about the films' simple plot line. Well, we caught the wrath of the Old Maestro head on. "You guys worry too much about the story," Walt shouted. "Just give me some good stuff." And, what was that good stuff Walt Disney was talking about, you ask? Fun, humor, entertainment. In a word, Walt was speaking of gags. "The Jungle Book" didn't need a more involved story line because we already had great characters to work with. Let the humor come out of the situation, the characters, and the story will take care of itself."
9. Amateur Cast: This was Enforced on Lucha Libre Femenil, as rival promoters of Monterrey against the existence of an all women's promotion tried to starve LLF of talent, but soon defied, as the promoter was already a successful businessman who decided to fly in talent from beyond the state of Nuevo Leon and beyond the Mexican boarder not long after deciding that wasn't enough.
10. UnintentionallySympathetic.Western Animation: Skeletor from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983). He was meant to be the Big Bad, but he lost so often and had such terrible employees that viewers and even some of the writers started to feel bad for him, even when he was trying to do horrible things. Kids would actually send in letters asking if the showrunners could let Skeletor have a win or two, just to Throw the Dog a Bone. This is why later episodes included more Enemy Mine episodes; the writers decided to give Skeletor a few victories at fan request, but the only way the censors would allow it was if he helped He-Man defeat a mutual threat.
11. WebVideo.Life SMP: Helmets Are Hardly Heroic. No one on the server wears a helmet. Enforced in that one of the rules of the server specifies that no one is allowed to wear one, presumably so they're more recognizable in others' videos. Tango is executed by firing squad in Season 1 for violating this rule.
12. Low-Speed Chase: Mystery Science Theater 3000 does this a lot, as it seems that many low-budget movies didn't have the budget or influence to get permission to cordon off roads or exceed the speed limit. For an example specific to the show rather than the movies, in the episode
13. Wrestling.Andre The Giant: Squash Match. Several, often of the handicap variety^note Andre vs. 2 or 3 guys at once. This was an Enforced Trope during his early tours of the US. Since his English was limited, he was put in handicap matches with his traveling partner Frank Valois (who would call all the spots), and a small job guy (who would take all the moves after receiving his cues in English from Valois).
14. ComicBook.GI Joe IDW: Canon Foreigner. Quite a few; the most notable are Brainstorm, Helix, Mad Monk and Hashtag. Enforced in volume 5, as writer Aubrey Sitterson was made to turn a character he intended to be a new version of classic Joe Big Ben into a new character, Spitfire.
15. Literature.The Phantom Of The Opera: The Moral Substitute. Erik is Don Giovanni done right: While Don Giovanni (and all versions of the Don Juan legend) is The Casanova who never cared if he hurts the women he claims to love and is sent to hell at the finale of the opera only to please the Moral Guardians who insist that Don Giovanni must be punished so the audience would not do this cool thing, Erik (who is Don Giovanni's Fanboy) who's also abusive to Christine while claiming to love her, but after breaking Christine’s spirit and successfully blackmailing her into being his wife, lets her go with Raoul by his own will after Christine let him kiss her.
16. BrokenAesop.Live Action TV: Police, Camera, Action! is a British Edutainment show where An Aesop is an Enforced Trope, but the message about "Don't drink and drive" starts to ring rather hollow when he talked about it in three episodes; the episode "Police, Camera, Action!" in December 1994 where he openly admitted to being convicted of drink-driving on screen, "International Patrol" in April 1996, and then in "Under the Influence" an episode made in 2002 but not aired until 2006, considering that he was later prosecuted for drink-driving in 2003 (causing a four-year Series Hiatus and a three-year The Shelf of Movie Languishment for the series). It was little wonder that he ended up Demoted to Extra in the 2007 Soft Reboot, then was no longer a presenter for the 2008 Drink Driving Special, with Gethin Jones taking over for the short-lived 2010 Soft Reboot. Enforced by the type of media.
17. Characters.My Hero Academia Civilians: Casting Gag: Tameda's hair color and style give him a passing resemblance to Natsu Dragneel, the protagonist of Fairy Tail. It's unclear if this was meant to be a direct Shout-Out to the series or just coincidence, but either way, Funimation saw an opportunity to enforce this by casting Todd Haberkorn, Natsu's English voice actor, as Tameda's English voice.
18. Literature.Nikki Heat: Cast of Expies. Enforced due to being a defictionalization of a fictional novel series that is Inspired by… In-Universe true stories. Jameson Rook is an Author Avatar of Rick Castle, Nikki Heat is a Hotter and Sexier version of Kate Beckett, Missing Mom backstory and all, and Those Two Guys Raley and Ochoa are based on Beckett's sidekicks Ryan and Esposito. And that's just the core cast. Said more clearly, the Nikki Heat novels are tie-ins to the Castle (2009) TV show that are defictionalized versions of the novels of same name that the title character writes during the series. According to the show, he bases his characters on Beckett's detective squad, so therefore the IRL Nikki Heat books had to also have a Cast of Expies.

Legitimacy unclear? (8/50)

Chosen (but not forced) for out-of-universe reasons (7/50)

1. Characters.Doctor Who Seventh Doctor: Fun Personified: Subverted. He was originally Enforced into this character type as a Lighter and Softer reaction against just how much Bloodier and Gorier the show had got during the Sixth Doctor's run. He spent the first season playing the spoons, doing magic tricks, being a figure of delight and whimsy and battling Camptacular comedy enemies with the loosest continuity yet. Script editor Andrew Cartmel was finally able to make his mark with his next season, introducing 'comedy' monsters but playing their effects in a dark and serious way (like the Kandyman and the Killer Clowns) and revealing the Doctor's apparent silliness was Obfuscating Stupidity, and Seven became one of the most alien, manipulative, and dark Doctors of the lot. When the series got cancelled the Expanded Universe picked him up and used him to codify all of the "Dark Doctor" tropes that the revival series later handled on-screen - like a serious examination of the Omniscient Morality License, Angst? What Angst? and the psychological profile of someone who'd do that much Dirty Business. In the New Adventures books, there's even a line that he doesn't play the spoons any more because he's too busy toppling empires. Going Lighter and Softer is a reason to use that trope, but does nothing indicates it was forced. If it was, the example ought to specify that the audiences or the execs didn't like the Bloodier and Gorier direction and were pressing for a change.
2. Series.Holly Hobbie 2018: Every episode there was a moral of some sort, but this was because it was forced into the show for its teen demographic, in such a way that Holly had to learn a moral. Aesops are part of the genre, but it appears they freely chose to write a show of that genre.
3. HumiliationConga.Live Action Films: At the end of the movie UHF, the Big Bad R.J. Fletcher is in the middle of his plea for mercy (after an Engineered Public Confession reveals his contempt and hatred for everyone in the city) when a street bum buys up the last few shares of Channel 62, allowing them to pay off Uncle Harvey's (the owner's) gambling debt and save the station from Fletcher's takeover. Fletcher threatens to sue Uncle Harvey, who just brushes him off. An FCC official then walks up and reveals that he heard Fletcher's Engineered Public Confession and revokes his station's broadcasting license. Pamela the news reporter he had insulted earlier puts a camera on the "worthless slobbering pig" and reports on his humiliation. Then, an old lady who watched his Evil Gloating on her own TV gives Fletcher a knee to the crotch. Finally, the bum shows up and thanks Fletcher for giving him the extremely rare and valuable penny that he then sold and used the money to buy the outstanding shares and a Rolex - the same one Fletcher had demanded his son get him earlier in the film; at this point, Fletcher starts crying. Meanwhile, just as he had done earlier, Fletcher's wimpy son gets tripped into a puddle of mud by Noodles. Weird Al said that he had to restrain himself from having Fletcher's Briefcase Full of Money open over the crowd. He also notes in the commentary that he can't stand when movies build up your dislike for a character and then wimp out on their comeuppance, so he made sure Fletcher got hit as hard as possible. The creator chose to include it for personal taste.
4. PlayingWith.Blind Idiot Translation: Imposed: Both examples are used deliberately by the creator. No one enforces them.
   • The translators actually don't care about translation quality and want to make the audience laugh with "translations" which barely make sense.
   • The translation is an example of some of the pitfalls of translation that the main work educates on.
5. Rose-Tinted Narrative: Gone with the Wind. romanticizes the antebellum United States South. Due to many people in the South not being that far removed from the War or Reconstruction. The creators were influenced by the popular culture and beliefs of the time.
6. Characters.Titan Academy The Organization: Hate Sink. You know about what makes you hate the school system and trying to make students miserable? Alan embodies it to the fullest and milks a lot of the Corrupt Corporate Executive tropes for all it's worth. Pretty much an Enforced Trope, since the show originally is lighthearted with No Antagonist, a hateable antagonist like him is practically a necessity to give a lot more tension. A seemingly creative decision — it could have remained a No Antagonist story if they so chose.
7. Non-Action Guy: Red Dwarf. Arnold Rimmer. Justified Trope at first, since he's just an intangible hologram, but even after getting a "Hard Light" upgrade in Series Six, he remains a feckless, neurotic coward. Also, there's some Hypocritical Humor here, because he is constantly reading about and admiring soldiers and other military heroes. A seemingly creative decision.

ZCE, who knows (1/50)

1. Characters.Spore: Animals Lack Attributes. Enforced Trope for obvious reasons.

More than one case in a single wick (2/50)

One correct, one wrong (2/50)

1. Shoo Out the Clowns:
   • Enforced by Babylon 5, which operated under a standing order from J. Michael Straczynski that any animal sidekicks, funny robots, cute kids, or hotshot pilots were to be brutally killed off as soon as physically possible, if they appeared at all. This was not a bluff; the one time executives tried to add a snarky pilot to the cast, he was immediately and horribly killed in his first episode, while a cutesy kid appeared in another episode almost solely to die a tragically avoidable death. Correct use.
   • This tends to happen in Danganronpa around Chapter 3 or 4:
     • In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Ibuki Mioda, one lighthearted, cheerful and fairly humorous student, is murdered in the third chapter, as a sign that the game is getting significantly darker. This is even an Enforced Trope, as her killer lampshades that it's precisely because of her carefree, quirky personality that made her so well liked and her death was intended to plunge everyone into despair. It then happens again almost immediately in Chapter 4, which sees the deaths of both Nekomaru Nidai and Gundham Tanaka — who, while not as peppy in-universe as Ibuki, were basically the last two sources of comic relief for the audience thanks to their Large Ham personalities. The final two chapters are much darker, with all the remaining characters being relatively serious by nature and understandably traumatised given the circumstances. This is just a justified trope
2. PlayingWith.Shoddy Knockoff Product: Required Idiom:
   • The director wants to deliver a stealth PSA about these kinds of devices. Chosen (but not forced) for out-of-universe reasons
   • The show still had Sorny products laying around when Panasonic started sponsoring the show, this trope was one way to justify the cost savings of still using them instead of over-asking Panasonic for products to use. Correct use.