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SubpagesActionGirl
Adorkable
AndIMustScream
ArsonMurderAndJaywalking
Awesome
AwesomeButImpractical
Badass
BadassBoast
BadassCreed
BatmanGambit
BerserkButton
BewareTheNiceOnes
BigDamnHeroes
BittersweetEnding
BlessedWithSuck
BlindIdiotTranslation
BodyHorror
Bowdlerise
BrickJoke
CatchPhrase
Characters
CloudCuckoolander
CombatPragmatist
CrazyAwesome
CurbStompBattle
DarkIsNotEvil
DeadpanSnarker
DemonicSpiders
Determinator
Discontinuity
DisproportionateRetribution
DorkAge
EyeScream
FamousLastWords
FanFic
FirstNameBasis
FreudianExcuse
FreudianTrio
FridgeHorror
FrombadToWorse
FunWithAcronyms
Funny
GenreSavvy
GoddamnedBats
GoodBadBugs
GroinAttack
Gush
Haiku
HarsherInHindsight
Headscratchers
Heartwarming
HeroicBSOD
HeroicSacrifice
HoistByHisOwnPetard
IAmNotShazam
ItGotWorse
JerkWithAHeartOfGold
Laconic
LampshadeHanging
LargeHam
LastNameBasis
Leitmotif
LightIsNotGood
Main
MeaningfulName
Memes
MemeticBadass
MissingEpisode
MoodWhiplash
NamesTheSame
NeverLiveItDown
NiceHat
NightmareFuel
NinjaPirateZombieRobot
NoodleIncident
OhCrap
OldShame
OnlySaneMan
OurDragonsAreDifferent
OurVampiresAreDifferent
PapaWolf
PowerTrio
PrecisionFStrike
Quotes
Radar
RedOniBlueOni
Redundancy
RefugeInAudacity
RunningGag
SerialEscalation
SeriousBusiness
ShootTheShaggyDog
SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness
Spell
TakeThat
TearJerker
TemptingFate
TheReasonYouSuckSpeech
ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill
TheyChangedItNowItSucks
ThrowItIn
TookALevelInBadass
TropeNamers
UncannyValley
ValuesDissonance
ViewerGenderConfusion
WMG
WhamEpisode
WhamLine
WhatCouldHaveBeen
WhatTheHellHero
Woobie
YMMV
YouShallNotPass
ZergRush

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main index

Narrative

• Universal
• Applied Phlebotinum
• Characterization
• Characters
• Characters As Device
• Dialogue
• Motifs
• Narrative Devices
• Paratext
• Plots
• Settings
• Spectacle

Genre

• Action Adventure
• Comedy
• Commercials
• Crime And Punishment
• Drama
• Horror
• Love
• News
• Professional Wrestling
• Speculative Fiction
• Sports Story
• War

Media

• Animation (Western)
• Anime
• Comic Book
• Fan Fics
• Film
• Game
• Literature
• Music And Sound Effects
• New Media
• Print Media
• Radio
• Sequential Art
• Tabletop Games
• Television
• Theater
• Videogame
• Webcomics

Topical Tropes

• Betrayal
• Censorship
• Combat
• Death
• Family
• Fate And Prophecy
• Food
• Holiday
• Memory
• Money
• Morality
• Politics
• Religion
• School

Other Categories

• British Telly
• The Contributors
• Creator Speak
• Creators
• Derivative Works
• Did Not Do The Research
• Language
• Laws And Formulas
• Show Business
• Split Personality
• Stock Room
• Trope
• Truth And Lies
• Truth In Television

Believe it or not, Trope Namers pop up in that thing you call "the real world," too. Technically Real Life names every trope, ever.

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• Acquired Situational Narcissism
• All Bikers Are Hells Angels
• Artificial Limbs
• Asexuality
• Battle Cry
• Bullet Proof Vest
• Can Not Tell A Lie (from a myth about George Washington)
• Cargo Cult (natives conducting rituals to lure back the World War II supply planes; famous for Richard Feynman's lecture on "Cargo Cult Science")
• Cool and Unusual Punishment (referencing the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution)
• Dewey Defeats Truman
• Dress Code
• Drinking The Kool Aid (kinda; the substance used in the infamous Jonestown incident was actually Flavr-Aid)
• The Empire (the term which lent this trope its name originated in the Roman Empire - or rather the Republic, if you wanted to get really specific)
• Enforced Cold War
• Fighting Irish (University of Notre Dame)
• Food Fight
• Force Feeding
• Groin Attack
• Knight Templar (The Knights Templar)
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Mark Twain)
• Lima Syndrome
• Logic Bomb
• Missing White Woman Syndrome
• Mystery Meat
• Nightmare Dreams
• No FEMA Response (after the United States' Federal Emergency Management Agency, charged with helping citizens clean up after natural disasters strike)
• No OSHA Compliance (after the United States' Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with workplace safety and the like)
• No True Scotsman
• One Riot, One Ranger (motto of the Texas Rangers)
• Pandering to the Base
• Pirate Booty
• The Plague
• Plausible Deniability
• Police Brutality
• Police Lineup
• The Power of Cheese
• Prison Rape
• The Republic (from the Latin res publica)
• Recursive Acronym
• The Scourge Of God
• Snipe Hunt
• Stockholm Syndrome
• Swiss Army Appendage
• Swiss Army Weapon (after the ubiquitous Swiss Army knives)
• This Is Your Brain On Evil (from the "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" Public Service Announcement)
• Uncanny Valley
• Uncle Sam Wants You
• Unnecessary Roughness (an actual term used by NFL referees)
• Vaudeville Hook
• Vicious Cycle
• Wardrobe Malfunction (from the infamous Super Bowl XXXVIII performance by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake)
• The War To End All Wars (World War One)
• Weapon Of Mass Destruction (used to refer to any weapon of unknown nature that is very powerful)

Individuals

• The Barnum (P. T. Barnum)
• Bowdlerise (Thomas Bowdler)
• The Caligula
• Casanova
• Charles Atlas Superpower
• The Chris Carter Effect
• Cincinnatus
• Dan Browned
• The Danza (Tony Danza)
• E = MC Hammer (cross-reference to MC Hammer and Albert Einstein's theories of relativity)
• Finagle's Law
• Garfunkel (Art Garfunkel, nominally of the band Simon and Garfunkel)
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff
• Godiva Hair
• Jackie Robinson Story
• Mata Hari
• Mock Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau)
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family
• The Munchausen (Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, a.k.a. Baron Münchhausen)
• The Napoleon
• Patrick Stewart Speech
• The Peter Principle (coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter)
• The Quisling (Vidkun Quisling)
• Red Baron
• Sedgwick Speech (John Sedgwick)
• Sturgeon's Law
• Tom Hanks Syndrome
• Word of Dante

• Archimedes
  • Eureka Moment

• Aristotle
  • Intellectual Animal
  • Magic A is Magic A

• Isaac Asimov
  • Spell My Name with an S

• George Carlin
  • Seven Dirty Words

• Anton Chekhov
  • Chekhov's Gun and all of its punny subtropes

• Agatha Christie
  • Acquitted Too Late
  • Poirot Speak

• Francis P. Church
  • Yes Virginia

• Winston Churchill
  • The Eternal Churchill
  • Iron Curtain (although he apparently wasn't the first to use this phrase, he was certainly the most notable)
  • A Riddle Wrapped In A Mystery Inside An Enigma
  • Written by the Winners

• Charles Darwin
  • The Social Darwinist

• Richard Dawkins
  • Memetic Mutation

• Firmin Didot
  • Stereotype

• Walt Disney
  • Beware of Hitchhiking Ghosts (The Haunted Mansion)
  • Disney Acid Sequence
  • Disney Death
    • Disney Villain Death
  • Disney Dog Fight
  • Disneyesque
  • Disneyfication
  • Disney Owns This Trope
  • Disney School of Acting and Mime
  • Mickey Mousing

• Clint Eastwood
  • Clint Squint

• Roger Ebert
  • Hyperlink Story
  • Idiot Plot

• Mark Evanier
  • The Complainer Is Always Wrong

• Benjamin Franklin
  • For Want of a Nail

• Sigmund Freud
  • All Psychology Is Freudian
  • Freudian Couch
  • Freudian Excuse
  • Freudian Slip
  • Freudian Slippery Slope
  • Freud Was Right

• Whoopi Goldberg
  • Whoopi Epiphany Speech

• Wayne Gretzky
  • Gretzky Has the Ball

• The Brothers Grimm
  • Grimmification

• Butch Hartman
  • Hartman Hips

• Patrick Henry
  • Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

• Alfred Hitchcock
  • Fridge Logic
  • MacGuffin

• Adolf Hitler (see also: Godwin's Law)
  • Hitler Ate Sugar
  • Hitler Cam
  • Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act
  • Springtime for Hitler
  • Stupid Jetpack Hitler

• Harry Houdini
  • Elimination Houdini
  • Karma Houdini
  • Idiot Houdini

• Jack the Ripper
  • Jack The Rip Off

• Chief Joseph
  • I Will Fight No More Forever

• Joan of Arc
  • Jeanne d'Archetype

• Jack Kirby
  • Kirby Dots

• Stanley Kubrick
  • Kubrick Stare

• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
  • Lamarck Was Right

• Bruce Lee
  • Bruce Lee Clone
  • Don't Think...Feel
  • Funny Bruce Lee Noises

• George Lucas
  • George Lucas Throwback

• Carl Macek
  • Macekre

• Harpo Marx
  • Harpo Does Something Funny

• Abraham Maslow
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer

• William Topaz McGonagall
  • Giftedly Bad

• Frederich Mohs
  • Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness
  • Mohs Scale of Sci-Fi Hardness

(both named for the "Mohs scale of mineral hardness")

• Marilyn Monroe
  • Marilyn Maneuver (you know the one!)

• Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Also Sprach Zarathustra
  • Eternal Recurrence
  • God Is Dead
  • He Who Fights Monsters
  • Nietzsche Wannabe
  • Übermensch

• Richard Nixon
  • Scandalgate
  • Nixon Mask
  • Richard Nixon the Used Car Salesman
  • Silent Majority

• Barack Obama
  • Hopemongering

• Laurence Olivier
  • Money, Dear Boy

• Sam Raimi
  • Fake Shemp

• Grigori Rasputin
  • Ra Ra Rasputin
  • Rasputinian Death

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Eat the Rich
  • Rousseau Was Right

• Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • The Ahnold

• Andy Serkis
  • Serkis Folk

• Yakov Smirnoff
  • In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You

• J. Michael Straczynski
  • Traveling at the Speed of Plot
  • Wham Episode (and derived from that, Wham Line)

• * Jack Thompson
  • Murder Simulators

• Bruce Timm
  • Timm Style

• Yoshiyuki Tomino
  • Kill 'Em All

• Mike Tyson
  • The Tyson Zone (coined by sports writer Bill Simmons)

• Mae West
  • Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

• Joss Whedon
  • Jossed

• Robin Williams
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar
  • I Call Him "Mister Happy"

• Ted Woolsey
  • Woolseyism

• "Weird Al" Yankovic
  • Weird Al Effect

Organizations

• 7-Eleven
  • Gigantic Gulp (taken from its "Big Gulp" line of beverage holders)

• Adobe
  • Gaussian Girl (from a Photoshop feature)
  • We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future

• Apple Inc.
  • Everyone Owns a Mac
  • Everything Is An iPod In The Future
  • iProduct
  • iSophagus (Cross-reference to a Sluggy Freelance strip)

• The BBC
  • BBC Quarry

• Capcom
  • Capcom Sequel Stagnation

• Coca-Cola Company
  • And a Diet Coke
  • Bite The Wax Tadpole (allegedly)

• Discovery Channel
  • The World Is Just Awesome

• DreamWorks Animation
  • Dreamworks Face

• ESRB
  • Rated M for Manly (cross-reference to the video "Counter-Strike For Kids")
  • Rated M for Money

• Ford Motor Company
  • Every Car Is a Pinto
  • Everybody Owns A Ford

• Fox News Channel
  • Fox News Liberal

• Fortune Magazine
  • Fiction 500

• General Mills
  • Lucky Charms Title
  • Magically Delicious
  • Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!

• Hasbro
  • Tonka Tough

• Hershey's Food Company
  • Get the Sensation (from a commercial for York Peppermint Patties)

• id Software
  • God Mode

• Kellogg's
  • Follow Your Nose (catch phrase of Froot Loops mascot Toucan Sam)

• LEGO Group
  • Built With LEGO
  • LEGO Genetics

• McDonald's
  • Egg McGuffin (a play on their Egg McMuffin)

• Microsoft
  • Fan Service Pack
  • Heroic BSOD
  • Heroic RROD
  • Wingding Eyes
  • Wingdinglish

• Motion Picture Association of America
  • Avoid The Dreaded G-Rating

• Nintendo
  • Nintendo Hard
  • Older Than the NES
  • Super Title 64 Advance

• PBS
  • Viewers Like You

• Praetorian Guard

• Ronseal
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin

• SNK
  • SNK Boss

• Studio Gainax
  • Gainax Ending
  • Gainaxing

• Studio Ghibli
  • Ghibli Hills

• Texas Instruments
  • Inappropriate Speak And Spell

• Time Warner Corporation
  • Alphabet News Network (for CNN)

• Unilever
  • Bad Humor Truck
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin

• Verizon
  • Can You Hear Me Now?

Places

• Space Brasilia

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Other Media

Trope Namers