The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
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What's it called when you start reading a series, and the first book is good enough, but then you realize that there are like thirty books in the series and there's no way in hell you can ever catch up, so you don't bother trying?
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Is there a trope for a character that carries around a gun or some sort of poison or any other simple and quick method of suicide, that acts as a kill switch? Simply so that they have the option of killing themselves if and when needed?
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Do we have a trope for local magic and/or superpowers? To clarify, a person has some kind of abnormal/supernatural ability, but it can only function in a specific area (usually their home, but it would be an interesting variation to see someone discover theirs by travelling).
The example that started me thinking about this is in The Chronicles Of Prydain, where the cauldron-born (are those class V zombies, btw?) are generally indestructible, but get weaker and weaker the farther they get from Annuvin. I'm sure we could find some other instances, though.
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Is there a trope where a character is perceived as weak by others, when in fact that weakness gives him a certain advantage? I'm thinking mainly of Tavi in The Codex Alera. He's the only one without a fury, but it allows him to think outside the box.
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In comic books, there are some situations where we can see aliens or foreign characters talking among themselves, with no English speaking characters around. In old works, Aliens Speaking English was enough: all characters from everywhere talk in English, and that's it. More modern comic books are aware of the trope and try to avoid it: the texts are written in English because the reader has to understand what's written there (unless it's Black Speech), but the text follows some convention that points that the characters are actually talking in another language, and the text in English is just for the reader's convenience. For example, the texts in foreign language may be tagged as <foreign text> or <<foreign text>> (for example, here◊), they may be written with a special font, etc.
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Trope needed: a family is run out of town due to racial animus. What is this trope? They aren't being chased with pitchforks or being tarred in feathered.
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I remember when reading the novella The Mist, that Mrs. Carmody seemed to sometimes know more about what was going on than she should — that there was some sort of method, no matter how bizarre, behind her madness — but it was never clear if this was actually the case, or only came across that way because she was the only person even pretending to have a clue what was going on or how to deal with it. Is there a trope for that? Am I just horribly misreading the story? Do pigeons kidnap small children?
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Needed: a trope for when the author makes a motif out of say, a character's lack of shoes.
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Is there a trope about a person breaking the rules of behavior or etiquette while in a supernatural place/magical land and being punished for it?
Like Food Chains, but in a broader sense.
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It's a book I read about a carnival that if you go there you have to ride seven rides before midnight or you become one with the carnival. It has a guy getting ready to go off to college and has to now face his fear as he rides each ride. Can't think of the name does anyone know of it?
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Ok I am trying to recall an older young adult novel. It is about village or an old kingdom tucked away in a valley. The people have forgotten about war. A couple of them one day discover they are going to be invaded by some odd cave dwelling agressors who subsist on mushrooms. The mushrooms that they eat also serve as medicine. The village/kingdom has to relearn the art of war.
The book has sveral drawings that give additional details to the story.
This is as much as I can recall about the book.
Edited by TuefelHundenIVopenNo Title Literature
What's the trope for when two similar looking, but entirely different items are confused for each other? For example, in Snuff, Vimes gets hold of a container meant to hold bodily excretions such as snot. It looks very similar to a snuff container he owns, and although it doesn't happen, he lampshades the possibility of mixing them up in an internal monologue.
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I'm not sure which kind of Double Meaning (or Stealth Pun?) this little gem is. Shadow Run 4ed "Corporate Guide" sourcebook includes a leaflet for new Aztechnology (known for a sick love for altars and obsidian knives) corporate citizens. It ends with the following: "Bienvenidos a Aztecnología! Where your hard work, devotion, and sacrifice helps ensure a brighter future for us all!" Where would it be correct to place this one?
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I'm looking for a trope that's somewhere between Translation Convention and an Infodump - where a missive and/or insert from another medium is included within either the narrative or main body of text. Does it already exist?
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I'm sure there's a trope for this. In Snuff, Nobby says something positive about a goblin girl that most people would say with irony, but he says it with sincerity.
Edited by FearmongeropenNo Title Literature
I found an example in Literature, but could be anywhere. This is a Military Trope. The young, dashing commander officer of a unit is called in by his superior with regards to an action he made during his last engagement. It was an unorthodox move that put his men at risk, but it ended the battle with minimal loss of life. After a severe dressing down, the young commander is actually promoted for his actions.
There is an example in The Mote In Gods Eye, but I've Seen It A Million Times. Any ideas?
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A female character repeatedly and willingly has sex with a male character with no birth control whatsoever, gets pregnant, yet is extremely shocked when she is pregnant. Is there a trope for this?
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I'm looking for something like a Shout-Out to a real world historical group, not a character. I'm not sure what trope fits best.
The example in question is the jeune école school from the Honor Harrington series. They are based on the real-world, French Jeune École school of naval warfare which advocated the use of small, explosive-shell firing craft to take out much larger warships. In the first book, Honor is given a light cruiser with a similarly unstoppable but semi-suicidal to use weapons mix.
The historical reference in question is thus a school of thought and not a particular person. There's got to be something better than Shout-Out since that's more pop culture oriented, and the jeune école is an important faction in the story rather than a tossed off reference.
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Is there a trope for a title taken from a book that gets its title from a book that exists within its story? The King In Yellow is the oldest example I can think of. The Manual Of Detection, The Way Of Kings and The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy are a few more recent ones.
This doesn't have to apply to books specifically, but I don't know of other examples right now.
Edited by ZaklogtheGreat
I'm having trouble deciding what trope the Artifacts from David Brin's Existence should fall under. They're foot-long egg-shaped crystals containing virtual extraterrestrial entities and are the primary movers of the overarching plot. I'm hesitant to say MacGuffin since the Artifacts actually do something, even if it's just talking to people and convincing them that they need to join them, or ignore the other Artifacts.