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 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.
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. Otherwise, they are likely to also be Overdosed Tropes that you will see linked all over the site.
Tropes that are essential building blocks of almost every story:
- Anthropic Principle: Certain things must happen in a story, or else there would be no story.
- Characters: The people in a story.
- The Climax: The highest point of tension in a story.
- Conflict: The concept of what opposes what in a story.
- Consistency: Any rules, events, settings, or characters that have been established within the fictional work continue to exist and function as they did previously, unless otherwise indicated.
- Dénouement: The events after the climax where the story wraps up.
- Emotional Torque: The capacity of a story to elicit emotion from its audience.
- Inciting Incident: The event in the story that sets the main plot in motion.
- Narrative Beats: Any event that changes the emotional direction of a story.
- Plot: A series of events that form into the storyline.
- Plot Device: Any thing that is important to the plot.
- Plot Point: Any event, character, or piece of information critical in driving the plot forward.
- Point of View: The perspective in which the events are delivered to the audience.
- The Protagonist: The principal character of the story.
- Rising Conflict: The tendency for conflict to escalate over the course of a story.
- Settings: Where a story takes place.
- Theory of Narrative Causality: The events in a story happen because the plot said they should.
Tropes that are more avoidable in theory, but are omnipresent in practice:
- The Antagonist: A character that is the direct opposition of the protagonist.
- Character Death: A character dies, usually as a way to move the plot.
- Character Development: A character changes as the narrative moves forward.
- Contrived Coincidence: 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.
- Dynamic Character: Characters that undergo development and growth throughout the story.
- Evil Virtues: For a villain to be effectively evil, they need to possess good qualities as well.
- Fire Is Red: Fire being red is universally acknowledged shorthand that makes it look more bold.
- Flat Character: Few minor characters display complex motivations and personalities.
- Fourth Wall: The implied barrier between the fictional world and the viewing audience.
- The Good Guys Always Win: Good triumphs over evil is the rule, not the exception.
- Happy Ending: An ending where nothing bad happens.
- Hero Protagonist: The hero is the principal character.
- Law of Inverse Recoil: Since live-action media uses blanks and flash paper to simulate gunfire (which have very little to no recoil) and other media often copy film and TV conventions, firearm recoil is usually non-existent unless it's being exaggerated for comic effect or the creators have Shown Their Work.
- Missing Backblast: Rocket-propelled projectiles will never cause any damage behind them when used.
- Nobody Poops: Going to the bathroom usually doesn't happen in fiction.
- Official Couple: Any romantic pairing established in the canon of a work
- One-Steve Limit: Characters in the same work will not share names, not even first names.
- Punchline: The part of a joke at the end where the humor comes from.
- Recurring Character: Almost every work that is either broken into or has separate parts has characters that regularly reappear.
- Rounded Character: Characters with complex motivations and personalities.
- Rule 34: If it exists, there's porn of it. And if there isn't, the following Rule 35 assures that porn will be made of it.
- Static Character: Characters that undergo no development nor growth throughout the story.
- Sympathetic P.O.V.: Used in any work where the Hero Protagonist is the Point of View character.
- Third-Person Flashback: 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.
- Time Marches On: The passage of time affects how stories are perceived in several ways.
- Villain Antagonist: The villain is also the main opposition.
- Water Is Blue: Water is easier to both animate and be seen by the audience when it is tinted blue.
Tropes that are omnipresent in specific mediums or genres:
- Background Music: Just about any audiovisual work will play instrumental music during most scenes.
- Black Dot Pupils: Most Comic Strips and Western Animation shows use black dots to represent eyes.
- Closing Credits: Almost every movie, TV show, or video game has credits at the end.
- Common Time: Far and away the most common time signature of music.
- Eternally Pearly-White Teeth: No matter the setting or time period, an actor's teeth will look pristine.
- Fantasy Gun Control: No matter how advanced a fantasy world is, firearms do not exist in it.
- Final Boss: Any video game that has some sort of story mode, arcade mode, or any game or mode that follows some sort of chronological structure will almost always feature this trope. After all, it has to end somewhere.
- Game Over: Any video game with a fail state will feature this trope.
- Hit Spark: A bright spark mostly used in animated works to highlight an impact.
- Infinite Stock For Sale: Video game item shops never, ever run out of stock.
- Player Character: Almost any video game that has characters in it will have characters that the player controls in some way.
- Prop: Works with live actors typically have physical representations of items they interact with.
- Shot/Reverse Shot: Filming dialogue between two characters filming each person individually from the other's point of view.
