"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
Not to be confused with Nightmare Fuel, which is a popular page that describes various audience reactions; nor tropes used in FEAR, though a few below are; nor The Fear Index, even though this is one.
Compare Horror Tropes, Anxiety Tropes, Weakness Tropes. Contrast Bravery Tropes.
Tropes
Related:
- Absurd Phobia: Somebody's fear just doesn't make any sense.
- Acrophobic Bird: A character who can fly never flies up even when they need to.
- Adorable Abomination: A demon or whatever is cute.
- Adult Fear: A fear that a sensible adult should be afraid of.
- Afraid of Blood: A character is, well, afraid of blood.
- Afraid of Doctors: Someone is afraid to go to the doctor.
- Afraid of Needles: Someone is afraid to get an injection.
- Afraid of Their Own Strength: Somebody is afraid of their own powers because he or she knows that they could hurt or kill people but they're a pacifist.
- Anger Born of Worry: Somebody is in danger. Another person worries. When the endangered person is out of danger, the worrier gets mad at them.
- Anxiety Dreams: Somebody is afraid that something will happen, and then they have a nightmare where it happens.
- Appeal to Fear: The idea that something bad will happen if you disagree.
- Author Phobia: An author bases the scary parts of a story on something they're scared of themselves. Is Trivia unless it's used In-Universe.
- Bat Scare: A group of characters are searching, then disturb a bunch of flying creatures that fly into their faces and startle them.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Wetting/soiling oneself out of fear.
- Cathartic Exhalation: After a scary moment, a character takes a breath, implying that they held their breath.
- Cat Scare: Somebody is startled by something but it turns out to be harmless.
- C.A.T. Trap: Being put in a scanning machine is scary!
- Claustrophobia: Fear of being trapped in a small or enclosed space.
- Cowardly Lion: A fearful action hero.
- Cowardly Mooks: Villainous background characters in a video game that run away upon seeing you harm one of them.
- Cowardly Sidekick: A brave main character's sidekick is timid.
- Cower Power: Hiding behind another person upon believing that one is in danger.
- Daylight Horror: Something evil attacks in the daytime.
- Deer in the Headlights: A scared character stops moving.
- Defanged Horrors: Something designed to scare kids, but not adults.
- Delayed "Oh, Crap!": Someone tells another person something. The other person later realizes that it means they're doomed.
- Dirty Coward: A character is cowardly which negatively impacts others.
- The Dreaded: A villain or Anti-Hero whose main trait is that all or most of the good guys are scared of them.
- Face Your Fears: Somebody has to face something they're afraid of.
- Fake Kill Scare: Someone pretends to kill another person in order to scare someone else.
- Fearless Fool: Somebody is not afraid when they logically should be, so they do something dumb.
- Fearless Undead: The Undead don't get scared.
- Fear Is the Appropriate Response: The hero freaks out instead of fighting the danger.
- Fear of Thunder: Being afraid of thunderstorms.
- Fearsome Foot: A scary character approaches and we get a closeup of their foot squashing something.
- Flat Scare: Somebody is already scared, so when a character says something like, "boo!", they freak out.
- Fright Death Trap: A murderer tries to kill someone by scaring them in a way that would lead to them falling into their trap and dying.
- Girls Are Really Scared of Horror Movies: All women are extremely scared of horror movies.
- Hope Is Scary: Somebody despairs, then starts to have hope but it scares them.
- Hyperventilation Bag: A scared character breathes into a paper bag.
- "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Someone tries not to watch something that's scaring them.
- I Know What You Fear: Someone has the power to know what somebody else is afraid of.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: It's scary to use the word "love" to express affection to someone you're not related to, because it may imply romance.
- I'm Not Afraid of You: A character that relies on fear is defeated by another character stating they're not afraid of them.
- Ironic Fear: A character is scared of something that someone with their abilities/species/job/etc shouldn't be.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: One or more children watch a horror movie and freak out.
- Knees Knocking Together: When a character is so scared their limbs shake in fear.
- Lovable Coward: A good, fearful character.
- Miles Gloriosus: An alleged soldier who claims to be a real daredevil but freaks out when put in real danger.
- Mirror Scare: A reflection is used to reveal something scary.
- Missing Child: An adult tries to find a child who went astray.
- The Mob Boss Is Scarier: A criminal is too scary to inform or offend.
- Mortality Phobia: The fear of death.
- Motivated By Fear: Using fear to motivate somebody into doing something.
- Neverending Terror: Someone is scared by realizing they'll be in danger forever.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: Somebody has been mistreated by somebody else, then they stop being afraid of them.
- Not Afraid to Die: Somebody is not a Death Seeker, but isn't scared of dying either.
- Nothing Is Scarier: A lack of something is scary.
- Oh, Crap!: Someone realizes they're doomed.
- "Oh, Crap!" Fakeout: A character fakes an Oh, Crap! moment to fool the opponent. While the character isn't actually scared, the opponent may be to finding out about the trick.
- "Oh, Crap!" Smile: Giving an awkward smile upon realizing you're in trouble.
- One Episode Fear: Somebody is scared of something in particular but only for one episode.
- Orphanage of Fear: An orphanage where the orphans are treated horribly.
- Outscare the Enemy: Trying to defeat an enemy who's scaring the heroes by scaring them.
- Panicky Expectant Father: When a woman is in labor, the dad freaks out.
- Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Someone is not asexual, but they're celibate because they're scared to have sex.
- Paranoia Gambit: Someone tries to make someone else paranoid.
- The Paranoiac: Someone who's paranoid all the time.
- Performance Anxiety: Being afraid of performing under pressure.
- Pregnancy Scare: A woman's afraid she might be pregnant.
- Previews Pulse: A chord used in trailers to build up drama.
- Properly Paranoid: Somebody is paranoid but they're right, they just don't know it.
- Primal Fear: Something pretty much everybody is afraid of on instinct.
- Reactive Continuous Scream: Someone is startled by another person, they scream, the other person screams, which makes the first person scream again and so on.
- Rule of Scary: Something doesn't make sense, but it's scary, so they threw it in anyway.
- Scare Chord: A sudden sound used to invoke fear in the audience.
- Scare Campaign: A political ad which claims the other one is scary.
- Scare Dare: Children explore a scary place at night on a dare.
- Scare 'em Straight: Trying to get somebody to do or not do something by showing them scary things that might happen if they do the opposite.
- Scary Shadow Fakeout: Somebody is scared of a shadow that looks like a monster but it turns out it's really a normal object.
- Scary Teeth: A character has disturbing-looking teeth.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: A man who sounds like a woman or a child when he screams.
- Security Cling: Someone grabs hold of another person in fear.
- The So-Called Coward: Somebody is called a coward but really they're just a pacifist.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: A power that makes people scared.
- Tears of Fear: Someone cries because they're scared.
- Technophobia: Fear of modern technology.
- Terrified of Germs: Someone's extremely afraid of germs.
- Terror Hero: The hero exploits the villain's fear/s.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: A character is afraid of monsters under the bed/in closets/etc.
- Victory Through Intimidation: A group of people and neither of them fight because they're too scared.
- The Villain Knows Where You Live: The villain produces proof that they can find the hero, scaring the hero.
- "What Do They Fear?" Episode: An episode centered on finding out what the characters are afraid of.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: A character has this one thing they're scared of.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: A scared character's eyes widen and their irises shrink.
- Worrying for the Wrong Reason: Someone expresses worry, and another person tells them that they should be worrying about something else.
- You Can Panic Now: The media uses an article to scare people.
- Your Worst Nightmare: The villain invokes nightmares in the hero.
You were very brave, facing them all...
