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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openQuestion can only be answered by "it just is"
Is there a trope for questions like this? Such as "why does 2+2=4" or "why is the speed of light 299 792 458 m / s?"
openCharacter's name is spelt wrong
Is there a trope where a character's name is often spelt wrong in the work, and one spelling is confirmed to be the right spelling?
For example: In Knights of the Old Republic, Carth Onasi's name is often spelt Carth Onassi in the subtitles.
openDarkness trope? Film
Is there such a trope for when the creator of a movie tries to get viewers to feel the In-Universe apathy the Apathetic Citizens have (not the same as Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy) so they can feel they're part of the show, not just watching it?
Edited by Merseyuser1openCats are vain
Is there a trope for this? Mainly they are seen this way because they groom themselves constantly, although it's actually more about cleaning themselves than looks.
openReluctant/desperate manipulator
The character intentionally gets into a situation to change it for the better, finds himself way over his head when things turn out to be not-so-good. He then tries to manipulate the situation to end in a way he considers just (not necessarily beneficial to himself at all) because he thinks it's the only way to stay alive and win.
note The country is in a civil war between the absolute monarchists who caused the uprisings by the way of incompetent rule, genodical fascists, and totalitarian communists. The character decides he can/should/must "fix" the country, joins the communists because the other options are worse and tries to steer them into the "right" (or at least less horrible than others) direction. The gambits and conspiracies pile on each other, he realizes he fucked up and starts to doubt his own ideology and motivations, but he's in too deep and has to resolve the situation, so he conspires with every major player (pretending to be on each's side against all the others), hoping to come out alive and free and to have the conclusion he desires come to pass (which is also authoritarianism, but the "right" kind, and involves setting somebody else up as the dictator and staying around as an "advisor"), so that the death of his friend he was forced to kill as a part of the plot wouldn't be for nothing, and to protect the guy he has a secret relationship with from being murdered by the fascists or persecuted by the monarchists
Edited by NukeliopenOrphaned justification
This is when a character sounds like they're going to defend somebody (or themselves), but trails off halfway through the sentence. I'll give a typical example format:
- Josh: You think James can find the treasure?James: Hey! I may be stupid, and easily distracted, and constantly tired...[beat]James: ...Anyway, where's the treasure?
And here's an actual example from a recent Saturday Night Live about Vin Diesel's poorly-received music career: "And look, I know a lot of people are making fun of him, and saying it’s terrible, and he should stick to acting..." [beat] [he goes on to the next joke]
EDIT to add another example from Superstore:
- Amy: I know that this idea seems really not well thought out and that it's totally naive... [beat] That's all I wanted to say.
openTiny Craftspeople?
Is there a trope for little people who complete unfinished projects in the dead of night? For instance, you're running late on a school project and about to give up, but overnight some magical little people come and finish it for you. When you wake up, everyone is like, "Woah, who did all this?? I guess we'll never know..." Like menehune in Hawaiian folklore, or Santa's elves to a certain extent. Is there a trope for this kind of thing?
openWorking on something for so long that it becomes irrelevant
Harvey Rothman invokes this concept on himself in the description of his video "Foxy Gets Hooked."
Is this Seinfeld Is Unfunny? Discredited Meme? Were Still Relevant Dammit? Doing It for the Art to the extreme?
openDoes PowerCrystal encompass non-gem magic stones?
As per the title, does it encompass, say, a world where people do magic through pebbles they carry?
openIn love after an accident
Alice almost causes an accident that would have killed Bob. She apologizes again and again for it, and it soon develops into a full-on crush. May or may not be unrequited, as Bob would have little reason to reciprocate any feelings for Alice.
openinventory stasis
Do we have a trope for the fact that items in a character's inventory are unaffected by time and other outside forces? This usually comes in the form of food never spoiling. The Mother series has a few items that avert it (eggs hatching into chicks which grow into chickens, milk that spoils and then turns into yogurt, the Healing Spring boiling any eggs you're carrying), but it seems like one of those Omnipresent Tropes where you just assume a video game works that way by default even though it makes no sense.
Would be a sister trope to Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat.
openWhen "Darker and Edgier" is taken too far
This is my first post here. Go easy on me, pls.
This is the polar opposite of when the devs become darker, but still stick to it's original style (Oddworld: Soulstorm, Jak 2). Basically, the developers try too hard to be "edgy" and "adult" and push the trope to the limits. The hero is now an anti-hero, the atmosphere is gritty and hopeless, use metal soundtrack and spice it up by using swear words way more times than usual and a lot of innuendos (for example, Shadow the Hedgehog. compared to the other games, this game is like Max Payne!).
They pretty much abondon their original fanbase. The fans don't like the shift, but they continue it anyways, as if they're trying to say "fuck off, kiddo. We're adults now!".
Is this trope available on this site? Thanks.
openI and Me are good friends
What's the trope for when someone meets a clone or other duplicate of themselves and becomes friends with them?
Edited by BootlebatopenBad Guy Killed by the Thing He Said Was Safe? Film
No idea where to look for this, I'm just wondering if there's a TV Tropes trope for the situation where the bad guy/stuffed shirt has been insisting all along that The Deadly Thing is actually fine, everybody's just worrying about nothing, don't listen to The Hero because they just don't have the guts for this work, etc., and then The Deadly Thing, completely predictably, kills or tries to kill the bad guy and/or stuffed shirt. I'm having a hard time coming up with an example from fiction, actually (I'm sure it's obvious that President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis brought this to mind.) To be clear, at the time I'm writing this, it's Sunday, October 4, and the President is reported to be recovering at Walter Reed with the possibility of discharge on October 5, although the doctors' weird evasions are making a lot of people wonder if the public is being given a true picture.
openPlace of unhappiness
A location where little or none of its residents are happy, for whatever reason(s).
openLost something special plot
The cliche character loses something, they can't find it, they cry, they find it, episode ends
openVictory Through Moral Defeat
A problem is solved through a way that leaves the solver feeling guilty.
Nothing as bad as inducing My God, What Have I Done?, more along the lines of "I took the easy way out", "I didn't solve the problem, but I managed to pull out of it, and that makes me feel selfish", etc.
- Prospective parents swear they won't use T Vs/computers/tablets as automated babysitters and find themselves doing just that in order to have even five minutes of peace and quiet.
- Alice tries to help a foreign exchange student out, but the guy's English is so bad she has no clue what he wants, and ends up just leaving him on the steps of the police station in the hopes someone there will understand him.
- A teacher gets a special needs kid in her class who has frequent breakdowns. She ends up putting him in his own corner so that he doesn't disrupt the rest of the class (and when called out on it, says she didn't get any training on this and it's the parents' responsibility to find a school with the facilities and staff adapted to their kid).
- A new user on a forum who very much wants to participate ends up causing so much unintentional trouble he's simply banned despite not acting out of malice, just because no one wants to deal with him.
openHistory tropes?
Not a question about any specific work, but usage of a trope.
On some film pages, I've seen Broad Strokes used for films that are historical in setting (i.e. Real Life history) or a biography.
Broad Strokes is "the details are different, but the story still took place", but when should Artistic License – History be used instead for these sort of things on entries where it's a history-related work?
I'm not talking about Alternate History -based series, but more series that focus on real history, e.g. Mini Series or films.
openYou're the last person I want to hear that from
A trope for when a character complains about something in another character that would apply more to the former than the latter (i.e. a narcissistic character telling another character that they're full of themselves)?
Is there a trope for workplace situations where there appears to be no one in charge? Not like the place is falling apart without one, but just an inexplicable absence of an authority figure?
Example, I was watching Lucifer on netflix, and it occurred to me that aside from season 3, and the pilot episode, there was no Captain or Lieutenant in charge of the detectives. No one to assign cases, or chew out the detectives when they went off book, and absolutely no mention like "the lieutenant isn't going to like this"