Tropes listed pertain to maturity. Exact counterpart to Immaturity Tropes.
See also Teenage Tropes, Youngsters, Adult Tropes, and Elders for their associated maturity levels, and Aging Tropes.
Compare Intelligence Tropes, as intelligence is another sign of maturity, though not always.
Tropes:
- Acting Your Intellectual Age: Intelligent children act a lot like adults.
- Affably Evil: Despite being an evildoer, the villain still has a very polite demeanor.
- Age-Stereotypical Food: Maturity indicated by eating "grown up" foods, especially when used for child characters.
- Anti-Villain: A villain who is mature enough to realize what they're doing is wrong, but doing it anyway for noble reasons.
- The Atoner: An antagonist makes up for their mistakes by repaying their victims with kindness.
- Benevolent Boss: A boss who is very well-mannered and treats their employees with respect.
- Big Brother Instinct: A character acts defensive towards an innocent character as though they are their sibling (or are).
- Big Good: The most powerful member of the good guys.
- Bittersweet 17: A 17-year-old who is in their Coming of Age.
- Brainy Baby: A baby with newfound precociousness.
- Brutal Honesty: Telling the honest truth, regardless of its hurtfulness.
- Bully Hunter: A character does not take kindly to bullies, and will not tolerate their behavior.
- Child Prodigy: A child with precocious intellect.
- Closer to Earth: A black character who is grounded to reality.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: A mature character who has to keep their not-so-mature partner in line.
- The Comically Serious: A mature character is brought into absurd situations, much to their reluctance.
- Coming-of-Age Story: Main character matures into adulthood over the course of the story.
- The Conscience: A character who serves as another's moral compass.
- Cool Big Bro / Cool Big Sis: An older character who is admired by a younger one like they are they're brother or sister.
- Deadpan Snarker: Responding to silliness with sarcasm to show that you don't return the favor.
- Designated Parents: A couple of a group who act like adults, bordering on Team Mom and Team Dad.
- The Dog Bites Back: An Extreme Doormat or Butt-Monkey finally stands up for themselves.
- Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity: The more competent you are, the more physically adult you are.
- Enraged by Idiocy: Having no tolerance for nonsense.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Malicious people have limits as to how far they're willing to go.
- Everyone Has Standards: Someone's flaw has a limit.
- Forgiveness: Getting on better terms with someone following their mistake.
- Good Is Not Dumb: A heroic character who is also intelligent and reasonable, averting Good Is Dumb.
- Good Is Not Soft: A heroic character who is kind to others, but acts downright cruel to evildoers out of protection.
- Good Parents: Parents who want what's best for their children, lay down acceptable discipline, and rarely dip into abusive or pushover territory.
- Graceful Loser: An antagonist or opponent who is willing to accept defeat.
- Grew a Spine: Finally catering to yourself after a long period of doing things for others.
- Grumpy Bear: A character with a cynical persona is the most serious, while living in a peaceful, rose-colored world.
- Heel–Face Turn: A villain joins the forces of good out of moral reasons.
- Heel Realization: A villain realizes how evil they were and becomes regretful as a result.
- Humanity Is Infectious: A non-human entity picks up human qualities after spending some time being around humans.
- I Hate Past Me: When a more experienced character meet their past selves and regret their previous actions.
- It's All My Fault: A character realizes the error in their ways and thus starts to grow up and take responsibility for their actions.
- Jade-Colored Glasses: A Naïve Newcomer becomes more aware of the world's cynicism and as a result becomes more experienced.
- Jerkass Realization: You realize how much of a jerk you were, now you become wiser.
- Jerk-to-Nice-Guy Plot: A plot where a character starts off as a jerk, but events make them nicer.
- Maturity is Serious Business: The more mature a character acts, the more seriously they'll be taken.
- Morality Pet: A villain or jerkass's only hope.
- Most Writers Are Adults: Fictional kids behaving like adults.
- Older and Wiser: An experienced, old adventurer has valuable lessons for the new generation of adventurers.
- Only Sane Man: The character is the only mature person among their immature peers.
- Psychologist Teacher: A teacher who solves all of their students' problems.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: An authority figure whose kindness and problem-solving skill makes them admirable.
- The Reliable One: Someone who's always there when their friend needs them.
- Save Our Students: A teacher strives to improve the futures of students who attend a horrible school.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Sophisticated language.
- The Smart Guy: The intellect of the Five-Man Band.
- Stern Teacher: A teacher who is mature to the point that they will not stand for their students' immaturity and nonsense.
- The Stoic: Someone who's seen it all and maintains a default calm and indifferent persona.
- Fiery Stoic: When Playing with Fire.
- Straight Man: A mature character serves as the foil to the Plucky Comic Relief.
- Team Dad: A surrogate father of the group.
- Team Mom: A surrogate mother of the group.
- Teen Genius: A teenage prodigy.
- Token Adult: The character is the only adult member of a team of young characters.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: A character who is more intelligent and rational than expected from someone their age.
- Women Are Wiser: Women are portrayed as more mature than men.
