The kind of trope which you see all the time. ALL the time.
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.
If anything, these are the proof that Tropes Are Not Bad. If these are cliche 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.
Tropes
- The Antagonist
- Anthropic Principle
- Characters
- Dénouement
- Consistency
- Fourth Wall
- Plot
- Conflict
- Rising Conflict
- The Climax
- Inciting Incident
- Narrative Beats
- Plot Device
- Plot Point
- Point of View
- The Protagonist
- Punchline
- Rounded Character
- Third-Person Flashback
- Settings
- Time Marches On
