Logical Extreme

This is a Trope Trope.

Some tropes have a logical extreme that:

• Fits neatly within the description of the trope
• Requires no exaggeration
• Usually has at least one example of that extreme (indeed, the Logical Extreme might be quite common, even to the point of being a Sub-Trope).

Note that sometimes a trope can have more than one Logical Extreme that fit the trope in different ways. For example, the Logical Extremes of Reclusive Artist include artists who no one knows who they are, artists who no one knows where they are, and artists whom no one knows whether they're alive or dead. In other cases, two distinct tropes can have the same logical extreme: for instance, Science Fantasy serves as the logical extreme for both soft science fiction and Sufficiently Analyzed Magic.

For obvious reasons, this cannot be used on YMMV items.

Compare Deconstructed Trope, where tropes are played realistically and sometimes by straining them in the logical extreme. See also Exaggerated Trope, which is the "Illogical Extreme", and the TV Tropes section of Literal Metaphor.

---

Examples:

• Anti-Climax Boss: Zero-Effort Boss.
• Backseat Driver: Someone who's supposed to be the passenger tries to literally drive the car by grabbing for the controls (usually the steering wheel). Truth in Television, and there are legal repercussions for doing this, namely the "passenger" would be fully responsible for whatever they cause the vehicle to do.
• Band of Relatives: Everyone in the band is related. Far from rare. Even if you narrow it to everyone in the band being immediate family (that is, parents and siblings), you have The Cowsills (mother and children), The Shaggs (all sisters), The Jackson 5 (all siblings), The White Stripes (husband and wife), Hanson (all brothers), The Bee Gees (also all brothers), The Band Perry (sister and two brothers), The Proclaimers (identical twin brothers)...
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: No Fourth Wall, The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You
• Broke the Rating Scale: A reviewer refuses to assign a rating at all. There are a number of examples of that on the trope page, often when the reviewer finds the work downright repulsive or otherwise not worthy of a rating.
• Brutal Honesty: Harshness is considered the only way to tell the truth, while any politeness/niceness is seen as a falsehood. See The Invention of Lying, a Cannot Tell a Lie setting where niceness only showed up in conversation when the titular "invention" did.
• Cast of Snowflakes: A large cast of characters given intricate and distinct tropes that separate each one of them. Well-known examples include Touhou Project and Monster.
• A Child Shall Lead Them:
  • Posthumous heir — in other words, a child is born to a waiting crown and throne (which has happened).
    • The most recent example is King Alfonso XIII of Spain, the posthumous son of Alfonso XII. There were even debates about backdating Alfonso XIII's reign to the date of his father's death, rather than the date of his birth. He was actually crowned King when he turned 16.
    • According to some sources, the Sassanid Empire managed to turn the Logical Extreme further up with an in utero coronation; King Shapur II is the only monarch known to be crowned before he was born (the crown was placed on his mother's belly). Other sources say she was ordered to wear the crown around her loins so her child would literally be born into it.
  • In Star Wars, Naboo takes it to a different extreme by making all their rulers teenagers (they retire at twenty).
  • Teenage Wasteland is where there are no adults to lead at all.
• Conviction by Contradiction: Conviction by Counterfactual Clue, when the convicting "evidence" is explained away by simply checking the facts.
• A Day in the Limelight: The main character disappears for the episode in order to keep the focus on a more minor one.
• Desperately Needs Orders: A character is The Ditherer. They need orders for practically everything in their lives rather than a particular situation or issue.
• Earth That Used to Be Better: Other planets are so much nicer that nobody lives on Earth any more.
• Everything Is Online: Brain Uploading and The Singularity.
• Evil Counterpart: Everything about the evil character from associates to hobbies is exactly equivalent to the main character, only evil. For instance Kim Newman's version of Professor Moriarty, who has Colonel Moran as an Evil Watson, the Conduit Street Comanche as Evil Baker Street Irregulars, takes "cases" that are strangely parallel to Holmes's, and in his spare time breeds wasps (evil beekeeping).
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Devil in Disguise.
• God-Created Canon Foreigner: a creator creates an entire cast of additional new characters for an expanded adaptation. See Robert Kirkman creating the characters and providing guidance for the Fear the Walking Dead, sister series to the live action adaptation of The Walking Dead.
• God Is Neutral: God is not only neither benevolent nor malevolent, but isn't even sentient and has no motivations at all, and everything He creates is entirely by accident. For instance, Azathoth in the Cthulhu Mythos.
• Humanity Is Superior: Humans are so overwhelmingly powerful over everything else in the setting they're Deities Of Human Origin or Humans Are Cthulhu. See Finding Nemo and TRON. In the former, humans are incomprehensible beings who are just as likely to save the characters as kill them. in the latter, humans accidentally created a Servant Race of sentient AI who worships them as gods, and a Digitized Hacker really does live up or down to godlike status in terms of power.
• I Am the Band:
  • A single artist who plays all the instruments, writes all the songs, and performs under a band-like moniker. For example, Trent Reznor really is Nine Inch Nails.
  • One-Man Band.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Everyone has awesome clothes, and they fit for the environment. Example: The World Ends with You.
• Just the First Citizen: When the leader of a nation holds no official position at all, but is quite firmly in charge. Example: Muammar Gaddafi, who insisted he couldn't step down from office because he held no office to step down from.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Better than a Bare Bulb, where Lampshade Hanging becomes a central part of the work.
  • Lampshading a Lampshading.
• Long-Runner Line-up: A Long Runner band that has only one lineup from start to finish, or all lineups were long-runners. This has happened a few times.
• Magic Versus Science: Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure has its eponymous team of Magical Girls fight against an Alien Invasion bent on conquering the universe.
• Magikarp Power: A Mon or character is pretty much completely useless at first, but with enough level grinding becomes a Game-Breaker and one of the contenders for the best in the game. The Trope Namer itself, Pokémon reached this in Pokémon Sun and Moon with Cosmog. It's absolutely useless in battle, even after its first evolution into Cosmoem. It has two final forms, though, and both are obscenely strong: Solgaleo and Lunala, the mascot legendaries of the game, and grade-A Game Breakers in themselves (and that's without taking into account the ability to, starting in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, fuse Solgaleo with Necrozma to create an even bigger Game-Breaker, Dusk Mane Necrozma, widely considered to be one of the best Pokemon in Smogon's Uber tier).
• Minimalist Cast: The movie or play has one actor/actress — after that, you don't have a cast. All Is Lost is an example, where Robert Redford plays an unnamed sailor in a sinking ship. Arnold Schönberg's Erwartung is an opera with only one role.
• Missing Episode: There are entire works, typically hundreds to thousands of years old, which we only know about because they were quoted or referenced in other works which did survive. The index for the collection of the Library of Alexandria contains several titles that are known only from its own (incomplete, fragmented) contents.
• No Ending:
  • "The Jewels of Nabooti" of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, in which there were a series of choices that made an infinite loop.
  • Jorge Luis Borges" wrote on Foreword to "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka about the No Ending in Kafka's novels "Amerika", "The Castle" and "The Trial".
    "The critics deplore that in the three Kafka novels many intermediate chapters are missing, but recognizes that those chapters are not essential. I have for me that this complaint indicates an essential ignorance of Kafka's art. The path of these "unfinished" novels is born specifically of The Infinite number of obstacles that stop and return to stop their identical heroes. Franz Kafka does not finish them, because the main thing was that they were endless. Do you remember the first and clearest of Zeno's paradoxes? The movement is impossible, because before reaching B we must cross the intermediate point C, but before reaching C, we must cross the intermediate point D, but before reaching D ... ''The Greek does not list all the points; Franz Kafka does not have to list all the vicissitudes. It is enough to understand that they are infinite like Hell".
• No-Harm Requirement: Rather than being an arbitrary mandate or restriction (self-imposed or not), the No Harm Requirement ends up becoming a literal requirement for success. The character can't win or solve the situation at hand unless they actively avoid using violence or causing harm.
• One-Hit Wonder: One-Book Author, the artist had a hit — and is known for nothing else because there is literally nothing else to be known for.
• Orcus on His Throne:
  • The Big Bad stays on his throne and doesn't budge, even when the protagonist is about to attack him.
  • The Big Bad puts up a competent fight from atop their Tactical Combat Throne while exerting little to no direct effort or attention.
    • The Big Bad is, itself, an inanimate throne.
• Out of Continues: Permadeath
• Oven Logic: Freefall brings you cooking with explosives! Predictable results ensue.
• Moral Guardian: Knight Templar, where the Moral Guardian will do anything to protect.
• Reclusive Artist:
  • Identities Unknown:
    • Scholars are pretty sure B. Traven died in 1969 and that he was male. As for where and when he was born, what his real name was, or whether the original language of his books was German or English, on the other hand...
    • The Residents are also unknown. Nobody has a clue who they are.
    • Graffiti artists who manage to keep their anonymity in spite of developing global fame, for example Banksy.
  • Whereabouts unknown:
    • Richey James Edwards went missing in 1995 and was declared Legally Dead in 2008.
    • Author Salman Rushdie went into hiding several years ago after a fatwa was declared against him. His location is still unknown, though he makes public appearances.
  • The logical extreme of both would be, of course, works which were published anonymously, or where knowledge of their original source has been lost permanently. Many examples exist from mediaeval times: most mediaeval painters are only known by ad hoc "names" like "Master of the Legend of the Magdalen", named after his most famous painting.
• Revolving Door Band: When a constantly changing lineup is inherent in a band's structure. For example, Menudo was meant to be a Boy Band, so any member who got too tall, grew facial hair, experienced a vocal change, or turned 16 was dismissed and replaced. The Vienna Boys Choir was similar.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Seen in the vaudville version of Gertie the Dinosaur, which combined animation, live-action film, and Winsor McCay live on stage.
• Satellite Love Interest:
  • When Loving a Shadow meets Shadow Archetype with a bit of The Dulcinea Effect: Nobody is more shallow than a shadow. Example: Dulcinea was a character Don Quixote invented as a Love Interest inspired in a real girl named Aldonza Lorenzo. At the first part, Dulcinea is only a pretext for Don Quixote to get into adventures, but later, he believes she is real and looks for her. (Did we already mention Don Quixote is crazy?)
  • Alternately, the love interest never actually makes an appearance onscreen, effectively serving as The Ghost. Example: Gloriana, The Faerie Queene.
• Schedule Slip: Orphaned Series.
• Science Fantasy: Most soft science fiction makes liberal use of Applied Phlebotinum which simply makes no sense from a scientific perspective, and may as well be magical. When an explanation is given, expect it to contradict physical laws because the writer either doesn't know as much about science as they think, or are disregarding it for the sake of a better story. Science Fantasy is therefore when a work actually admits this. Depending on how you look at it, it is also the Logical Extreme to Magic A Is Magic A and Sufficiently Analyzed Magic, as "classical" fantasy stories are inspired by mythology, and therefore never give any explanation for why the magic works the way it does. Again, in Science Fantasy, the setting is inspired by science instead.
  • The “One Big Lie” subtrope of soft science fiction has another logical extreme, in the Orthogonal trilogy by Greg Egan. The setting has precisely one physical law changed from the real world, in the smallest way possible (a single minus sign in an equation becomes a plus sign) but even though all other laws of physics are the same as our world, this causes everything on the macroscopic level to be so different as to be unrecognizable.
• Short-Range Shotgun: The shotgun, despite firing rounds, can only be used as a melee weapon.
  • Peacock's shotgun in Skullgirls for one of her aerial attacks.
  • Shotguns in Star Wars: The Old Republic are generally used at a 4 meter range, the same as melee attacks.
  • The Gunlance in the Monster Hunter series essentially fires blanks that do explosion damage not much farther than the tip of the weapon. As of Monster Hunter Rise, it's viable to make a whole playstyle of using the gun shells only for propelling yourself around the battlefield, and doing all of your actual damage by smacking monsters with the side of the weapon.
• Skill Scores and Perks: Go crazy and add anything you can find. Path of Exile is both famous and notorious for having what is essentially a skill forest.
• Spiritual Successor: Serial Numbers Filed Off. The new series effectively is the earlier one save a few minor details.
• Subverted Catchphrase: A Once an Episode catchphrase isn't able to be said at all.
  • Example: When The Nostalgia Critic starts his reviews, he usually says, "Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to." The subversion for the film Cool as Ice was him cracking up mid-catchphrase. Barb Wire had him say, "I remember it so you don't boobies." When he reviewed The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, however, he simply had his face buried in his hands, before saying, "I've got nothing. I have absolutely nothing."
• That One Attack: In No More Heroes III, Ohma only has one attack, but it's a One-Hit Kill.
• Totem Pole Trench: Instead of two or three people teaming up to pretend to be one person, thousands of tiny people work together to form one "person" (also a trope as well: The Worm That Walks).
• Unconscious Objector: Died Standing Up. He doesn't just rise to keep fighting while unconscious, he rises to keep fighting while dead.
• Unexpected Successor: When the very need for a successor is unexpected, or how succession itself is handled is unclear.
  • In 1841, William Henry Harrison taught the United States the hard way that a President can expire before his term does. The Constitution of the United States of America wasn't entirely clear on what would happen if a President was permanently unable to perform his duties — should just the duties devolve on the Vice President (making him Acting President), or the office itself? Making matters worse, John Tyler was not someone the Whigs wanted anywhere near the Oval Office.
  • In Dungeons & Dragons, Vlaakith CLVII is the Lich-Queen of the Githyanki. Being undead, she has no need for a successor. It's mentioned in at least one sourcebook that if Vlaakith is killed, the githyanki will be thrown into chaos.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Flock of Wolves. Everyone is an impostor or a spy.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?: Moff’s Law; instead of warning consumers not to think too deeply about a work's theme, they outright deny there's a theme to think about at all.
• Written-In Infirmity: The Character Died with Him (that is, the actor isn't just ill or injured, they're dead).

---