Omnipresent Tropes

"Moe feels like it's always been there. Sure, there was a time when we became more aware of it, and many believe it's a trend that's come and gone, but it hasn't gone anywhere. It's just slipped between the cracks and taken over a huge part of the identity of what anime is today. The influence of moe is in almost every genre of modern anime."

— Gigguk, "The Moe Anime Revolution"

The kind of trope which you see all the time. ALL the time.

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Some of them are intrinsically vital to storytelling itself; they're so ubiquitous, you don't even think of them as tropes until they're pointed out to you. Some are Acceptable Breaks from Reality—unrealistic tropes that are intrinsic to the escapist appeal of fiction, and would seriously detract from it if they were averted. Then you have the ones which are not necessary by any means, but look like the most natural thing in the world—timeless classics which for centuries have driven stories forward, held audience breaths and become legends. You sit through the work expecting them, even looking forward to them; come the Establishing Shot, the first thing you ask yourself is "Where's The Hero?". If we were to list every single example of these tropes, the pages would go on forever; as a result, several of them only allow examples of the trope being played with and not just used.

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If anything, these are the proof that Tropes Are Tools. If these are Cliché then so is nigh on every single work in the history of fiction. Thus Omnipresent Tropes are pretty much immune from becoming Discredited, Dead, Undead or Forgotten.

Not to be confused with Universal Tropes, which are used in all types of media, but need not be ubiquitous. If a trope is omnipresent, but only within a specific genre, you may be looking at a Necessary Weasel.

Contrast Not a Trope and People Sit on Chairs. Compare No Trope Is Too Common. See also: Cut to the Index and Laws And Formulas.

For most of these tropes, listed examples are limited to Aversions and Inversions, or are definition-only, as listing straight examples would be overly numerous.

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Tropes

• The Antagonist
• Anthropic Principle
• Background Music
• Black Dot Pupils^note Most Comic Strips and Western Animation shows use black dots to represent eyes.
• Characters
• Character Death
• The Climax
• Common Time^note Far and away the most common time signature of music.
• Conflict
• Consistency
• Contrived Coincidence^note An unlikely event happens in the plot but, despite its low chances, it's not acknowledged on because it's necessary for the plot to move forward.
• Dénouement
• Emotional Torque
• Eternally Pearly-White Teeth^note No matter the setting or time period, an actor's teeth will look pristine.
• Evil Virtues
• Fantasy Gun Control^note No matter how advanced a fantasy world is, firearms do not exist in it.
• Final Boss
• Fire Is Red^note Fire being red is universally acknowledged shorthand that makes it look more bold.
• Fourth Wall^note The implied barrier between the fictional world and the viewing audience.
• The Good Guys Always Win^note Good triumphs evil is the rule, not the exception.
• Happy Ending
• Heroes
• Hero Protagonist
• Hit Spark
• Inciting Incident
• Infinite Stock For Sale
• Missing Backblast
• Narrative Beats
• Nobody Poops^note Going to the bathroom usually doesn't happen in fiction.
• Official Couple^note Any romantic pairing established in the canon of a work
• One Steve Limit^note Characters in the same work will not share names, not even first names.
• Plot
• Plot Device
• Plot Point
• Point of View
• The Protagonist
• Punchline
• Recurring Character
• Rising Conflict
• Rounded Character^note Characters with complex motivations and personalities.
• Settings
• Sympathetic P.O.V.^note Used in any work where the Hero Protagonist is the Point of View character.
• Theory of Narrative Causality^note The events in a story happen because the plot said they should.
• Third-Person Flashback^note Flashbacks are not in first-person point of view, as they should logically be, but in third-person to facilitate conveying what's going on.
• Three-Month-Old Newborn^note In live-action television, portrayals of birth make use of three-month-old babies instead of actual newborns for practical reasons.
• Time Marches On^note The pass of time affects how stories are perceived in several ways.
• Villain Antagonist
• Villains
• Water Is Blue^note Water is easier to both animate and be seen by the audience when it is tinted blue.

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