When picking an image for a trope, it is possible that the image is not actually an example of the trope. And in several cases, this is perfectly fine.
Most importantly, readers are assumed to be unfamiliar with whatever work the image is from. That means that if a picture looks like a good example, but fans of the work know it is technically not, or it gets retconned or subverted later in the work; then it can still be a good image! The reverse is also true; if an image requires knowledge of the work to understand it in the first place, then it is usually a poor choice.
For instance, if in issue 4 of a comic, Repus Oreh dies on-panel; then in issue 7 it is revealed that this was actually a hologram made by his mad scientist friend, then panels from issue 4 can still serve as an image for Death Tropes. Although fans of the comic know that he didn't actually die in that scene, most tropers or readers will not know, and need not know.
There are some other cases where the images doesn't portray the trope. Sometimes the image is a Visual Pun or other joke. Other times the trope is too NSFW to portray normally. Other times it's a trope involving plot or characterization that's hard to portray in a picture. Numerous examples are listed below.
This doesn't refer to images that are poor quality, or which barely represent the trope. If the image is completely inaccurate, you should go to the Image Pickin' forum. All the images here are deliberate examples.
Don't confuse this with The Treachery of Images. In many ways, this is the opposite of Just a Face and a Caption.
Finally, if an image is technically not an example, please resist the urge to point out on the page (or even worse, in the image caption) that it doesn't "actually" illustrate the trope. If you believe some image is bad, take it to the Image Pickin' forum; don't write underneath that it's a bad image.
See also, This Index Is Not an Example, for Trope Namers.
Examples
- Accentuate the Negative: A diacritic above a film negative. The caption complaining about the Visual Pun is an example, however.
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: It's a picture of a large cock. "Cock" being the other word for roosters, mind you.
- Black Is Bigger in Bed: A straight example is blacklisted thanks to the Content Policy, so we have a black obelisk being bigger instead.
- Blaming "The Man": The image is of a character literally named The Man, rather than the ambiguous authority figure referenced by the trope.
- Camera Tricks shows a camera juggling chainsaws, not creative ways of manipulating the camera or viewing frame in media.
- Canon: A giant cannonnote , not something that counts in a work's continuity.
- Cold Sniper: A sniper in the cold, not an emotionally distant sniper.
- Complete Monster: A complete pack of Monster energy drink, not a heinous villain with no redeeming qualities.
- Dethroning Moment of Suck: Has a picture of a castle on fire, not the worst moment of a work.note
- Dead Horse Trope: Literally beating a dead horse is not a tropenote , just a punny illustration of the phrase from which this form of Playing with a Trope derives its name.
- Dead Unicorn Trope: Actual dead unicorns aren't tropes at all, much less ones that got widely parodied despite never having been played straight.
- TropeCo.Flying Brick: A real flying brick is a Superhero that combines Flight with Super Strength, not an actual brick with wings.
- Glass Cannon: A literal glass cannon image because you can't really represent someone having strong attack powers and weak defense powers with a single image.
- Going Cold Turkey: An image of a turkey in the snow, not an attempt at avoiding an addiction.
- Hardcore: Instead of something extreme or intense, it's a picture of an avocado core that is impossible to cut.
- Hentai: As actual pictures of hentai are a no-no, the image is a picture of a hen wearing a necktie.
- The Internet: As the concept is impossible to illustrate properly, the image is a wall of stacked cylinders as a reference to the Internet being described as a series of tubes.
- The Internet Is for Cats: The trope is about cat-themed content on the internet, not about cats browsing the internet.
- It Tastes Like Feet: Depicts someone eating a literal foot, instead of comparing a food's unpalatability with something no sane person would have eaten/tasted.
- Kangaroo Court: A kangaroo as a judge presiding over a courtroom. As the trope refers to unfair judicial processes, there is no way to show it literally that would not just look like a courtroom.
- Knight in Sour Armor: The trope is about a cynical hero. The picture is a knight figure crafted from lemons (thus wearing actual sour armor).
- Kudzu Plot: It's an actual picture of the Kudzu plant, not a plot that doesn't resolve its questions.
- LEGO Genetics: The trope is about the simplified nature of genetics in media, while the image is a LEGO replica of a DNA strand.
- Locked Pages: The image is a giant padlock, not a page that is locked.
- Magnificent Bastard: There is an image of a bastard sword on the page. The trope is actually about a charming schemer who thinks on their feet.
- Mauve Shirt: Just a mauve shirt with nobody wearing it, not a Red Shirt with enough characterization to make them stand out.
- Necessary Weasel: Shows an actual weasel, not an illogical trope considered vital to a genre.
- Paper Tiger: Shows a game card with an actual tiger made of paper, not someone who is proven to be weaker than first looks would hint at.
- Permanent Red Link Club: A picture of Link in red clothes, not a page this wiki has purged forever (besides, that would kind of defeat the purpose of the club).
- Power: Usually does not involve a button that turns something on or off.
- Purple Prose: An image of a purple feather quill, as opposed to an excessive use of florid, nigh-indecipherable writing.
- Put on a Bus: Being written out of the show without being killed off usually does not involve an actual bus.
- The Bus Came Back: Likewise, returning to a show doesn't typically involve departing from an actual bus.
- Bus Crash: Offscreen deaths do not normally involve a literal bus crash.
- Long Bus Trip: It's about characters who depart the show for long stretches of time, not lengthy buses.
- Put on a Bus to Hell: It's about being written out of the show in an especially mean-spirited way, not about taking an actual bus to Hell.
- Put on a Prison Bus: It's about characters being written out of a story by being arrested, and doesn't necessarily involve an actual prison bus.
- Sacred Cow: An actual sacred cow, not a work that no one dares criticize.
- "Seinfeld" Is Unfunny: It's literally "(an) old hat", not something that was once considered trendsetting before it loses that appeal after being imitated so often.
- Sinkhole: Shows cars collapsing into a hole on a street, rather than a misused Pot Hole.
- Sock Puppet: Sockpuppet accounts on forums and wikis are usually not controlled by actual sockpuppets.
- Sour Grapes Tropes: The index is about tropes demonstrating that what you desire doesn't always turn out well. The image is a literal picture of grapes.
- Square Peg, Round Trope: Since it's impossible to actually illustrate trope misuse without using a lot of text, the image just shows a square peg being pushed into a round hole.
- Straw Fan: A hand fan made of straw instead of how the makers of a work view the Unpleasable Fanbase.
- Teeny Weenie: Since a straight example would be NSFW, the image is of some miniature hot dogs instead.
- Übermensch: A joke based on Friedrich Nietzsche's memetic appearance and Superman's transhuman nature. The canonical Superman follows a conventional good/evil morality, he does not transcend societal norms to create his own.
- Undead Horse Trope: A skeletal horse isn't really a trope, much less one that's seen as clichéd to the point of frequent parody but somehow without the death of straight examples. Though it might fall under Horse of a Different Color.
- Walking Spoiler: Jason Fox's costume will spoil the heck out of the other characters, sure, but FoxTrot is too light on plot to have any characters that would spoil it.
- The War on Straw: It's a picture of a literal strawman. The Strawmen referred to in the trope are fallacious arguments or stereotypes made to make the Author Tract look better in comparison.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It's a picture of a mouse, not a plot point that isn't resolved.
- Writer's Block: It's a block that you put on your desk and you can't write anymore! ...at least according to Calvin. The actual trope is about the phenomenon where writers can't think of material.
- Adapted Out: Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Film is indeed absent from Monty Python and the Holy Grail aside from the gag depicted in the image, but he is not based on anyone from the Arthurian Legend, nor is he meant to reference characters who dont make it in to adaptations.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Jim Stark is portrayed as violent and menacing, if not downright villainous, in promotional posters for Rebel Without a Cause, but in the film, he's actually a sensitive, kindhearted boy; Judy becomes attracted to him because he's kind to her.
- Assimilation Academy: The sequence shown is actually a fantasy of the main character in The Wall. While he doesn't have many fond memories of his school years, it was not outright totalitarian.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The image is a real public safety poster that unintentionally looks very sinister.
- Blind Weaponmaster: Demon Hunters in Warcraft aren't actually blind. They replaced their eyes with demonic orbs of fire that are actually better than normal vision. They wear blindfolds optionally and only as a courtesy.
- Bollywood Nerd: The character in the image is actually a nerd from an Indian movie and not just a stereotypical nerdy Indian from a Western work.
- Boomerang Bigot: The image comes from a scene in 30 Rock where Tracy Jordan is dressed up as Hitler for a sketch in the Show Within a Show TGS With Tracy Jordan. The character himself does not exhibit any particularly racist traits.
- Bulungi: The Wakanda that's shown in the page is actually just a façade to maintain its isolation; beneath it, Wakanda is actually the most advanced country in the world because of the Unobtanium deposits they're sitting on.
- Casting Couch: The comic that the panel comes from is a subversion. The producer just makes the actress carry some boxes to help him move.
- Color-Coded Secret Identity: The Shinkengers are color-coded, but they don't have secret identities.
- Critical Existence Failure: Two images from The Blues Brothers, a non-interactive film, are used to illustrate an "alive" character and "dead" character in the video games that this trope.
- Crying Wolf: In a straight example, the boy would've learned An Aesop about lying when he tried to tell the truth and no one believed him. In Oglaf's version, he was always lying and the villagers kill him because he's annoying.
- Dad the Veteran: The dad in this poster is not an example; the propaganda here is "when all the other lads have stories of heroism for their kids and your kids ask you for war stories, how well is 'Daddy was a coward' gonna play?" However, it does a marvelous job of showing the cultural assumption of that era that most men of child-raising age would be veterans—in this case, of World War I.
- Demoted to Comic Relief: Lord Hater was already a Laughably Evil villain who actually becomes more prominent to the story in Season 2.
- Deployable Cover: In Heroes of the Storm, Tassadar's Force Wall stops enemies from walking past, but they can shoot through it just fine. It's used to trap enemies rather than hide behind.
- Did They or Didn't They?: In Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says, the audience knows that the characters didn't have sex (they did take photos of simulated sex poses for art reference), but the characters speculating don't know that.
- Domesticated Dinosaurs: The dinosaurs in Dinotopia are sapient beings and live as equals with humans in a multi-species society. However, at first glance, the image shows people riding around on decorated and tame dinosaurs, which visually fits the trope.
- Evil Costume Switch: The second Mary Marvel in the evil costume is from a Mirror Universe, not Mary herself after she performed a FaceHeel Turn, making it closer to Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains.
- Expansion Pack World: While it looks like new continents were being made up for World of Warcraft, Northrend, Pandaria, and the Broken Isles were all established locations in Warcraft III. They just weren't accessible yet, and therefore had no reason to be on the map.
- Eye Recall: The panel order is reversed from what it is within the episode of Mechamato. The shot of the flashback zooms out from within Mara's eye.
- Fake Ultimate Mook: Brock had his Onix pretend to faint in order to rake in money from the bets that the audience placed against Squirtle. However, in the game the comic is based on, Brocks Onix is an actual example.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: The image references the infamous Stella Liebeck Hot Coffee Lawsuit which, contrary to popular belief, was actually completely legitimate, as the spilled coffee gave her severe third degree burns to her nether regions that required medical attention and severely impacted her quality of life.
- Giggling Villain: Cronus from Class of the Titans usually gives a full-blown Evil Laugh rather than just a giggle. In fact, the picture itself (from S1E2) is just the first frame of a scene of him laughing.
- Glass Weapon: The sword in the image, Callandor, is actually made of clear crystal instead of glass.
- God of Evil: There is no single god in Warhammer 40,000 who embodies evil, although all but one of them (Isha) are Jerkass Gods. Khorne is a Chaos War God who also embodies positive traits such as strength, victory, and courage just as much as he does senseless violence and carnage.
- Gun Nut: Frank Castle (aka The Punisher) isn't really a gun fanatic — his true passion is killing criminals, a task for which guns are, obviously, very useful tools. As a former Marine with no superpowers, they show up more often in his stories than most Marvel heroes (although he's also killed people with knives, his fists, a bear, explosives, big rocks, cars, a fat man...).
- Hollywood Tourette's: The letter in the image is written by Cartman, who was faking having Tourette's. The episode itself actually depicted Tourette's Syndrome quite accurately.
- Inappropriately Close Comrades: There is Unresolved Sexual Tension between them, but Jack O'Neill and Sam Carter never actually dated during the course of Stargate SG-1 (aside from alternate universes and the like).
- Injured Limb Episode: While it certainly looks like an example, Angelica from Rugrats was only faking her broken leg.
- Knocking the Knockoff: It's a joke comic by a freelance artist. The 2000 AD creators have never officially insulted the Batman Who Laughs for obviously copying Judge Death, only referenced him neutrally in a Shout-Out.
- Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: The image depicts the "Lava Lagoon" stage in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. The catch is that, despite the level's name, the "lava" is actually implied to be super-hot water instead, since it can be turned into normal water with Clapper's help. Other levels in Crocodile Cauldron have actual lava which isn't depicted this way.
- Lipstick Lesbian: In Mulholland Dr., Rita (the woman on the left) dumps her girlfriend for a male director, which implies that she's more likely bisexual.
- Loony Laws: Though they are initially believed to be laws, the signs in the strip are quickly revealed to actually be loony curses.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Minority Report does contain an actual Lotus-Eater Machine in the Cryo-Prison for pre-crime arrestees, but the image actually shows a different virtual reality machine that paying customers enter voluntarily for a brief period.
- Mama Bear: Ripley is not Newt's mother. She is, however, very caring of small children, and very deadly when one is in danger.
- Must Have Caffeine: Fry isn't usually a huge coffee drinker. He just was doing a stupid Self-Imposed Challenge to drink one hundred cups of coffee in a day, and was too jittery to react to the fire by that point.
- My Future Self and Me: The future Stan Marsh turns out to be an actor hired by his parents to keep him off of drugs.
- Napoleon Delusion: Bender didn't really think he was Napoléon Bonaparte, he was merely pretending to be so he could get away with a crime on grounds of insanity.
- Not Screened for Critics: Penny Arcade was making fun of Kevin Smith's quote that Jersey Girl was "not for critics", meaning that he thought they wouldn't like it, not that they wouldn't get a private screening.
- One-Hit Kill: The image is of the "Bloody Mess" perk from Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. Said perk doesn't actually let you kill enemies in one hit; rather, it gives you bonus damage and makes death animations gorier, regardless of whether the enemy was defeated in one hit.
- One-Scene Wonder: The image is a poster highlighting Christopher Walken's tendency for that kind of scene-stealing small part. However, the picture of Walken is taken from The Rundown, where he has a large role as the main villain.
- Otaku: The image is a sight gag from an episode of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, illustrating what the character in the image imagines an otaku looks like. Sasshi, the aforementioned character, is not actually an otaku, nor does he look anywhere near that disgusting in any other scene.
- Panty Shot: The trope is about panties being shown to the audience for fanservice, but showing that is a no-no on TV Tropes, so it instead shows another character getting an eyeful of a girl's panties.
- Plant Aliens: The Pikmin are from Earth in the distant future.
- Pretentious Pronunciation: The gag from A Christmas Story about a character mispronouncing "fragile" was because of his own ignorance, not because he was trying to be pretentious.
- Quicksand Box: Mass Effect, despite its scope, has well-defined goals and quests.
- Recycled with a Gimmick: Angry Birds Space is not a rip-off or case of Follow the Leader, it's a direct sequel by the creators of the original game.
- Required Secondary Powers: The image is a subversion, showing the Bulk lacking the "required secondary powers" to lift a giant robot without sinking into the ground.
- Roman à Clef: Despite the text claiming otherwise, Fargo is entirely fictional.
- Salt Solution: The Bakemons are a complete inversion. Although salt is never used as a weapon against them, they would logically have to be immune if they're using it to make their victims more appetizing.
- Scientifically Understandable Sorcery: The reason for how magic functions in El Goonish Shive isn't all that well understood, although the actual rules are. That makes it Sufficiently Analyzed Magic rather than this trope.
- Scunthorpe Problem: The sign in front of Scunthorpe is not censored, and it wouldn't be subjected to an automatic filter anyway.
- Shapeshifter Baggage: The image only discusses the trope by showing a giant shapeshifting monster being unable to shrink down to the small size of an actual human baby.
- Sinister Minister: While he is a minister, Jesse Custer isn't evil, but rather an Anti-Hero.
- Snuff Film: Because of how ungodly an actual snuff film would be (if it does exist), we decided to use a cover of a documentary film about snuff films.
- Something Else Also Rises: The Machine Robo image is an Accidental Innuendo, as Crane-Robo is not meant to be aroused in context.
- So Bad, It's Horrible: The Star Wars Holiday Special isn't usually considered horrible, and is on none of the subpages, but rather So Bad, It's Good.
- Spoiler Title: John doesn't actually die at the end of John Dies at the End.
- Stylized for the Viewer: We see a character's POV in which they see everything in a Super-Deformed art style. The trope is actually about what the characters see being different than what the viewers see, and the viewers are able to see the above.
- A Tankard of Moose Urine: With a name like Buffalo Butt, you gotta wonder — but that beer is in fact a microbrew, making it one of the better beers available.
- Unending End Card: The end card was unending in Panel de Pon, but the screenshot is from the localized version, Tetris Attack, which removed the trope while leaving in all the text referring to it.
- Wangst: The image is of Gantz protagonist Kei Kurono with tears streaming down his face. The scene follows the ending of the Buddha alien arc, where all of his teammates (including his childhood best friend and love interests) are horribly killed off. He's got every right to be upset and crying after that.
- Wasteful Wishing: Since one of the rules in The Wotch is that wishes cannot affect the djinn, Jason's wish to make the djinn a redhead
is not granted and doesn't count toward his three wishes.
- When Harry Met Svetlana: Elizabeth and Philip Jennings are both KGB Deep Cover Agents operating in the U.S. disguised as a normal married couple, not agents from different sides getting romantically involved.
- Wedding Episode: The Flash's wedding to Iris West ends less than a quarter of the way through Crisis on Earth-X. The real plot is an invasion of alternate-universe Nazis who happened to crash the wedding. And it technically took place on Supergirl.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Shows a Non Standard Game Over from Chrono Trigger displayed if the party dies to Lavos. Defeating Lavos and preventing The End of the World as We Know It is certainly possible, though, and in fact the main goal of the game.
- Animation Bump: Show Within a Show Dedede: Comin' At Ya! is Stylistic Suck because the townsfolk who made it don't have any animation experience, and the bottom image comes from a frame of said show where the animation suddenly becomes realistic and detailed.
- Behind the Black: Questionable Content depicts a subversion of the concept, since a straight use would be non-illustrative.
- Bile Fascination: Penny Arcade is making fun of claims that the negative reception of Tony Hawk: RIDE was caused by people deciding to hate it before they even bought it.
- The Butler Did It: The maid accuses the butler to get out of trouble for breaking a vase, not because the butler committed a murder.
- By-the-Book Cop: More a parody of the Cowboy Cop than the typical By-the-Book Cop.
- Darker and Edgier: The Smurfs have always been family friendly. This is a satire of The Dark Age of Comic Books.
- DarkerAndEdgier.Comic Books: Asterix is also parodying the Dark age.
- Designated Hero: The image comes from Terrible Writing Advice, a channel that parodies bad writing, including Designated Heroes.
- Dirty Communists: National Lampoon mocking terri-bad red scare plots, not a straight example of such.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Comes from a non-canon joke ending of Silent Hill 2, in which a Shiba Inu is revealed to have masterminded the game's events.
- Ethnic Scrappy: Chin-Kee in American Born Chinese is an intentional parody of every negative Asian stereotype ever. It Makes Sense in Context as he turns out to be the Monkey King, who deliberately put on this act to convince Jin Wang, who transformed himself into a white boy named Danny, to re-embrace his heritage.
- Fan-Created Offspring: The original Sonichu from his eponymous webcomic resulted from an ordinary Pikachu absorbing too much Chaos Energy, not from Sonic and Pikachu reproducing as Books of Adam depicts.
- The Film of the Book: The Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic is mocking the practice of adapting books to film by depicting it as a grisly fate from the books' perspective.
- The Game Plays You: The pictured board game comes from a Fake-Out Opening in the Gravity Falls episode "The Last Mabelcorn". Dipper and Mabel are about to play it before getting interrupted, and the box is never even opened.
- Incestuous Casting: Not a real movie poster starting Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal as lovers, but a Cracked photoplasty.
- Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Tropic Thunder is mocking glurgy Inspirationally Disadvantaged works with its Film Within a Film Simple Jack, not a straight example (even if it still garnered protests among release for this).
- Invincible Hero: God-Man is a parody of overpowered heroes, not a straight example.
- It Can Think: The Critic is parodying the example from Jurassic Park. The Velociraptors did possess unusual problem-solving skills, but they weren't Wicked Cultured Evil Geniuses.
- Lighter and Softer: The real Diablo III is a fairly dark game. The logo was created by Blizzard Entertainment to troll their fans who thought initial screenshots "weren't dark enough". However, the game does include the hidden Lighter and Softer Joke Level Whimsyshire
.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Subnormality parodies the stereotype as part of a larger lampooning of marriage archetypes.
- Subtropes of Mary Sue:
- Black Hole Sue: Ensign Sue Must Die mocks the entire Mary Sue phenomenon, and Ensign Sue herself actually receives Character Development that turns her into a compelling character rather than having the plot bend sideways just to show how awesome she is.
- Common Mary Sue Traits: Not a serious character, but rather a Parody Sue.
- God-Mode Sue: God-Man is more of a Parody Sue.
- Mary Sue Classic: Head Trip making fun of Bella Swan (not actually intended for the original plot).
- Sympathetic Sue: Terrible Writing Advice is a parody channel, and thus this is more of a Parody Sue.
- Mascot Fighter: Comes from DeviantArt; there isn't an actual game pitting fast food mascots against each other.
- Mask of Sanity: Patrick Bateman is ultimately a parody. His mask of sanity is not convincing at all, but everyone around him is so self-absorbed that they never notice all his weird tangents about torture and murder.
- Meaningless Meaningful Words: Hiimdaisy is mocking Metal Gear Solid. The words make no sense, because they are meant to make no sense.
- Minus World: Despite its odd appearance, Level -0 in Stinkoman 20X6 is a Secret Level that was deliberately programmed and accessible without glitches.
- Misaimed Marketing: The image is a troper-made parody of the phenomenon. Slavoj iek's books have yet to be marketed to elementary school children.
- Playing the Victim Card: The image is parodying the chance cards from Monopoly. The actual game doesn't have a card that allows players to pretend to be a victim.
- The Philosopher King: Existential Comics parodies the idea of a Philosopher-King, since Plato turns out not to be a particularly wise ruler, who prefers musing over actual ruling.
- Puny Earthlings: Kang and Kodos in The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror II" only invade Earth after humanity has voluntarily dissolved its militaries and destroyed all its weapons, leaving them helpless against the aliens' arsenal of wooden clubs and slingshots. They flee the planet when one human thinks to attack them with a wooden board that has a nail sticking out of it.
- RPG Elements: Comes from a boss in Kirby Super Star that parodies the RPG genre — there are no actual elements of it present in the game, and in the Video Game Remake of the game, newly added text shown immediately after what's in the screenshot states that the Experience Points don't actually matter.
- Self-Fanservice: An image mocking the phenomenon, not a straight example.
- Stalking Is Love: The comic panel comes from a parody of Twilight; the book plays this straight.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: The image is showing how this trope could have been averted in The Dark Knight. However, Superman doesn't exist in the film's universe.
- Too Dumb to Live: The image comes from Scary Movie, which mocks the cliches of horror movies, such as idiotic victims.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The MAD writers are obviously spoofing this phenomenon; they do not genuinely think that Attack of the Clones is an allegory for the Second Gulf War.
- Adaptational Nationality: Flintheart Glomgold plays up his Scottish heritage in DuckTales (2017), but is later revealed to actually still be South African as in the comics.
- AlphaBitch.Webcomics: While Pyper in Magical Boy started out as a bitch, she has a change of heart after being saved by the heroes relatively early in the story, and eventually joins them and becomes a target of bullying herself.
- Always Chaotic Evil: While all hyenas seen in The Lion King (1994) are indeed Chaotic Evil, The Lion Guard introduces good hyenas.
- Ambulance Cut: The SpongeBob SquarePants scene shown in the image is a Double Subversion. Mr. Krabs attempts to eat the rotten patty in order to prove that its still good to eat, and the scene cuts to a speeding ambulance - only for it to revealed that said ambulance was just a random ambulance passing the Krusty Krab, which Mr. Krabs remarks on. He then takes a bite out of the patty, and it immediately cuts to a sickly Mr. Krabs being rushed into the hospital.
- Animals Hate Him: The image is from the intro of Total Drama Island, the first season of the show, where animals generally get along well with DJ, and even within the intro, were perfectly docile around him until they got startled. However, the third season of the series, World Tour, plays this straight regarding the character.
- Anti-Hero: Whether Batman counts as an anti-hero varies depending on the writer and portrayal, with him being a more traditional hero in many incarnations.
- Author Tract: The Godless Communism does qualify as an Author Tract, but it is in fact an anti-communist message.
- Badass Pacifist: While Tank Man's actions weren't violent, we don't know if he was actually a pacifist, and it's not like violence was an option when faced with tanks.
- Celeb Crush: The first two characters are straight examples (Bruce Willis and Britney Spears being real people), but the third character has a crush on the WereGarurumon from Digimon Adventure, who's entirely fictional.
- Crapsaccharine World: While the Sunnyside Daycare Center starts off played straight, the ending makes it an actually happy place.
- Creating Life Is Awesome: While Jurassic Park starts portraying this idea by showing the wonder of dinosaurs, the park soon starts to fall apart when the unpredictable nature of the cloned creatures, the Velociraptors in particular, leads to tragedy. Overall, across the franchise, it is not the act of creating life itself that is bad, but only the act of arrogantly trying to control that life to suit particular needs.
- Creating Life Is Bad: This trope is present in the modern public consciousness and in some adaptations of Frankenstein, but the original novel never actually portrays the artifical creation of life on itself as evil, as it was the act of Frankenstein abandoning his creation and the rejection of humanity that drived the initially benevolent and well-intentioned Creature to villany and wickedness. Thus, the novel isn't exactly a cautionary tale about the dangers of creating life, but one about humanity's refusal in taking responsibility for its actions and ambition and arrogance over nature.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The cast of How I Met Your Mother doesn't usually perform the theme song; the image is from a single Special Edition Title in which they do. However, the show's creators are in the band that does perform the theme song, so the song is an example, just not in the way the image suggests.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Princess Luna used to fit the item, as she became extremely popular from her first short appearance in the second episode, and for the next few seasons she was relegated to small appearances alongside Celestia, barring one A Day in the Limelight episode. However, she became a more prominent character as the seasons progressed, getting more focus episodes, likely because of this popularity. The page image is from season 2, which is before Luna became more prominent in the series. Doubles as a visual pun, due to Luna's dark coloration compared to the rest of the characters in the image.
- Faux Horrific: Subsequent panels of this Gunshow comic show that the CD killed all the occupants in the car, making it an Artifact of Death.
- Hot-Blooded: Fate/stay night's Shirou Emiya isn't normally hot-blooded, but is very passionate about his cooking in the gag manga.
- Hot Sauce Drinking: The "hot sauce" in question is actually ketchup with a swapped label, done so Jackie and her son Tobias could win a competition without going through the immense pain of downing an actual bottle.
- Humanshifting: Elliot can only shapeshift into girls specifically (and has a hard time perfectly mimicking a specific person's appearance), making him closer to a Sex Shifter.
- Ironic Name: While Courage does show a lot of fear, he overcomes it to stop the threat in every episode, so it's more like a Meaningful Name.
- Kid Detective: Conan Edogawa is actually a 17-year-old de-aged down to seven.
- Lawful Evil: While he plays this straight throughout most of the plot, Darth Vader eventually ditches the "evil" part after he performs a HeelFace Turn.
- Lawful Good: While the mainstream Superman usually fits this alignment, there are other versions that are more chaotic, and some that are downright evil.
- Loves Only Gold: Scrooge McDuck is indeed in love with gold and obsessed with being and remaining the Richest Duck in the World, but he also has a rigid moral compass and loyalty to his family and staff/friends. His Evil Counterpart Flintheart Glomgold is a straighter example.
- May the Farce Be with You: While the soundtrack of Scott The Woz's Borderline Forever references Star Wars in its cover art, the special itself isn't specifically a Star Wars homage or parody. The album cover is just playing off the Astral Finale.
- No Name Given: The Hiveswap Friendsim character pictured didn't have his name revealed in promotional material, but his name was revealed in the game.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Darkseid has varying motivations. While he is omnicidal in Final Crisis, most of the time he just wants to remove free will or take over the universe.
- One-Note Cook: Heidi can only serve burgers at first, but she gains access to a machine that adds fries early in the game. She also cooks lots of different dishes in the sequel.
- Power Creep: Ice Rager is strictly better than Magma Rager, making it Power Creep in a literal sense. However, Magma Rager is one of the worst cards in Hearthstone, so releasing a better version doesn't actually creep the game's power level.
- Random Drop: Like most enemies in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is indeed random what you get from a defeated Spiderchest. However, the pictured pie chart is completely false; it always drops something, but never Potions, Ethers, or the Infinity +1 Sword
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Fanart of both a straight example from Scooby-Doo and an inversion from Doctor Who.
- Sickbed Slaying: Elle Driver wants to kill the Bride in Kill Bill while she's bedridden and in a coma, but Bill calls Elle up to stop her because he considers such a method to be beneath them.
- The Smurfette Principle: The image comes from Smurfs: The Lost Village, which subverted this trope with a whole tribe of female smurfs. The trope was also played with in the franchise. The Smurfs (1981) originally had Smurfette as the sole female character, but with the addition of Sassette, the trope was subverted.
- Southern Gentleman: Big Daddy is a deconstruction; he may look like an archetypical southern gentleman, but it's just a superficial veneer that does little to mask his deplorable racism and elitism.
- Spare a Messenger: Kronar does initially let the guy in question get away, but it later becomes a subversion when he gets so pissed off at being mocked for being a "wimp" that he chooses to Leave No Survivors instead.
- One of the characters shown in Stock Shōnen Rival's collage is Takumi Aldini from Food Wars! who is a self-proclaimed rival to the protagonist, but lacks the skill, privilege and dignity to be considered as one by the narrative, and even the protagonist himself. He's only there to mirror Soma's inclusion on the Stock Shōnen Hero image.
- Tagalong Kid: The page image is taken moments before Steven breaks into a sprint to get in front of the group, foreshadowing his growth over the series from a kid that needs to be saved to a formidable and valued member of the Crystal Gems.
- Twofer Token Minority: Conway Stern was a Double Agent, and given that Archer said he wasn't circumcised, probably wasn't really Jewish. Later played straight when he loses both of his hands.
- Vanilla Edition: Blade Runner was the second DVD release ever after Twister, so being bare-bones was to be expected.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Subversion; Red Skull attempts to flee from Magneto, but the latter captures him before he can get away.
- Villainous Friendship: While Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide initially plays this trope straight, Wily and Eggman's friendship falls apart later in the story.
- WhereTheHellIsSpringfield.Western Animation: The pic comes from the first episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee, which leaves it unclear where exactly Brighton is, but later episodes confirm that it's near the Illinois-Iowa area.
- Word of Gay: While Dumbledore was initially an example of this, he was eventually made explicitly gay in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which is a canon work in the franchise.