This Image Is Not an Example

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.

Images technically aren't even meant to be example entries—they're just meant to illustrate the trope at a glance. 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 Character Death. 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 (non-)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.

Examples

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Visual Puns

Accentuate the Negative: A diacritic above a film negative. The caption complaining about the Visual Pun is an example, however.
Auxiliary Laconic Trope Link: It's a bridge that isn't.
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 cannon^note, not something that counts in a work's continuity.
Cold Sniper: A sniper in the cold, not an emotionally distant sniper.
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 trope^note, 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.
Died During Production: A picture of a skeleton at a typewriter, not someone who actually died while working on a project.
TropeCo.Flying Brick: A real flying brick is a Superhero that combines Flight with Super-Strength, not an actual brick with wings.
Fragile Speedster: They're fast characters with a glass jaw, which is hard to distinguish from Catching the Speedster. Hence the picture is of a life sized glass sculpture of a motorcycle, symbolizing speed and fragility.
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 hard to cut.
Hentai: As actual pictures of hentai are a no-no, the image is a picture of a hen wearing a necktie.
Ironic Index: The photo depicts a literal iron, rather than an expression with the opposite superficial meaning of what was conveyed, as the latter might be difficult to visually represent in a single image.
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.
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.
Landslide Election: The trope is about winning an election by a massive margin. The image depicts Quentin Trembley winning by default due to a literal landslide killing all the other candidates.
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.
Mauve Shirt: Just a mauve shirt with nobody wearing it, not a Red Shirt with enough characterization to make them stand out.
Once Original, Now Common: It's literally "(an) old hat", not something that was once considered trendsetting before it loses that appeal after being imitated so often.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Not Really an Example

They might look like an example at first glance, but they really don't fit.

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 don’t 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.
The Bad Guy Wins: This trope is a specific type of Downer Ending. While Hank Scorpio does win, he's not the antagonist of the episode, and the actual plot, the Simpson family being unable to adjust to life in a new city, is resolved happily by the end. The depicted image is just the punchline to a Running Gag.
Big Brother Is Watching: The image is a real public safety poster that unintentionally looks very sinister.
Bile Fascination: Tycho isn't buying Tony Hawk: RIDE to see how bad it is, the comic is making fun of claims that the game's negative reception was caused by people deciding to hate it before they even bought it.
A Birthday, Not a Break: The Birthday Boy acts as if he's celebrating the birthday party of his victims before killing them as his M.O, but there's no implication that it's actually the victim's birthday.
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 Vibranium deposits they're sitting on.
Calming Tea: Jack isn't preparing the tea for himself. He's actually preparing it for a monk who's assisting him in regaining his spiritual balance to get his sword back.
Card-Carrying Villain: Moe isn't actually a villain, and is always a sympathetic character even in episodes where he is an antagonist.
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.
Character Derailment: While Diesel 10 did become nicer in Calling All Engines, characters can only be "derailed" in the same continuity; his debut, Thomas and the Magic Railroad, is non-canon.
Color-Coded Secret Identity: The Shinkengers are color-coded, but they don't have secret identities.
Conveniently Close Planet: Shows a black screen with the real Earth and Moon to scale to demonstrate how the fictional depiction of celestial bodies' closeness is inaccurate.
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.
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Nixon: The image shows some made-up reindeer in addition to the real ones, while the trope is about a character misremembering the names.
Defcon 5: Shows the real-life Defense Readiness Condition numbers, not how they are often ordered in fiction.
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.
Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: Although Pearl is smitten with the mystery girl due to her resembling her late lover, their relationship is never followed up on after Pearl gets her number so the girl never advances to a love interest.
Dying Clue: Dustin Prince from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All did not write the message, it was written by the killer in order to pin the blame on someone else.
Easy Sex Change: Teddy in Dangerously Chloe did not go through a sex change in one weekend like he claims, he was under a Gender Bender spell and was using Implausible Deniability.
Evil Costume Switch: The second Mary Marvel in the evil costume is from a Mirror Universe, not Mary herself after she performed a Face–Heel Turn, making it closer to Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains.
Eye Recall: The actual scene in Mechamato is an inversion, as the shot of the flashback zooms out from within Mara's eye.
Gay Cowboy: Jack and Ennis from Brokeback Mountain are shepherds and (likely) bisexual.
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.
Impeded Communication: The "jamming" is actually of Spaceball One's radar dish, not its communications array.
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.
Journey to the Center of the Mind: The image is just a zany visual from the opening theme. While at one point her nightmare was investigated through a magical monitor, Syalis doesn't have an established Dream Land or Mental World.
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.
Lava Pot Volcano: The volcano in the image isn't an actual volcanic crater, but a prop used in a game show.
Light Liege, Dark Defender: The Phantom isn't Zelda's defender, but rather summoned by one of her attacks.
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.
Literal Genie: The genie in The Princess Planet isn't just Literal-Minded, but an outright Jackass Genie that enjoys twisting wishes as much as she can.
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.
Meat Versus Veggies: The scene from Peace on Earth uses the image of a conflict between meat-eaters and vegetarians to portray war as unjustified. The soldiers are not really fighting each other over dietary preferences.
Mental Monster: The fanart depicts a popular fan interpretation of Five Nights at Freddy's 4; however, there's no concrete proof in the game that the child is the one having the nightmare or that the nightmare is caused by the depicted prank. Future installments add more ambiguity, with many fan theories generally agreeing that this interpretation is unlikely the case.
Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: In Tai-Pan, May-May (the Chinese woman from the poster) is a manipulative, well-educated and strong-willed Dragon Lady, something that Dirk Struan (the white man) is fully aware of and adores in her, while unknowingly doing all her biddings. She quite literally strikes a submissive pose in-universe in the scene from which the poster image comes.
Minus World: Despite its odd appearance, Level -0 in Stinkoman 20X6 is a Secret Level that was deliberately programmed and accessible without glitches.
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.
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.
No Ending: On top of the fact that The Order of the Stick consists of several Story Arcs and would continue even after the end of Tarquin's, the nature of Tarquin as a Wrong Genre Savvy Control Freak means abandoning him without a satisfactory conclusion to what he thinks his story is makes a perfect ending to what his story actually is.
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.
One-Steve Limit: Since depicting a straight example would be nearly impossible, the image instead depicts an aversion. Ditto for OneSteveLimit.Comic Books and OneSteveLimit.Video Games.
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.
Princess Stories: Ralph Breaks the Internet features the Disney Princesses in an extended cameo, but the film isn't about them.
Quicksand Box: Mass Effect, despite its scope, has well-defined goals and quests.
Randomized Transformation: The transmogrification gun isn't random, it turns the target into whatever you're imagining. Calvin and Hobbes had gotten into a fight and were zapping each other repeatedly.
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.
Robot Master: The "Robot Master" is actually an actor named Donny Finkleberg, who doesn't really know anything about creating or repairing robots.
Roman à Clef: Despite the text claiming otherwise, Fargo is entirely fictional.
Romantic Ribbing: Despite the Ship Tease and Homoerotic Subtext between them, Ran and Moca are officially just friends and are not together romantically.
Scientifically Understandable Sorcery: The actual way magic functions in El Goonish Shive isn't very well understood, although it does have very clear rules that can be studied and manipulated. 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 defies 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.
Smart People Wear Glasses: Homestar Runner is The Ditz, and Strong Bad only gave him glasses because he wanted him to say something smart.
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.
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.
Stranded Invader: Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle is a benevolent alien that's trapped on Earth, not an invader.
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.
Sugar Bowl: While the Glade of Dreams from Rayman is a bright and surreal land, it is not exactly a happy-go-lucky place, as it is full of terrifying monsters, dangerous and dark locales, and is threatened by villains on a regular basis. Later games beginning with Rayman 2: The Great Escape would also shift away from the bright and colorful look of the first game in favor of a Darker and Edgier (but still surreal and fantastical) aesthetic.
Superman Stays Out of Gotham: The image defies the trope, showing what would have happened in The Dark Knight if Superman didn't stay out of Gotham. The film itself isn't an example either, since Superman doesn't exist in the setting.
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.
Teen Genius: Lunella Lafayette is only nine years old, making her a Child Prodigy instead.
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.
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.
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.
Word of Gay.Western Animation: Matt Brely's statement confirming Sasha's bisexuality was posted shortly after the Distant Finale aired, where there is an actual indication of her bisexuality via a sticker depicting the bisexual pride flag on her car.
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.

Parodies

These images aren't played seriously. Instead, they come from parodies.

Alleged Lookalikes: Kermit and Fozzie are regularly noted to look nothing like each other, their supposed similarity coming only when both or neither of them are wearing a hat being part of the joke.
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.
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.
Creator's Culture Carryover: The image is clearly a joke; the creators do not think other countries' presidents and prime ministers are also of the United States.
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's always lying and the villagers kill him because he's annoying.
Darker and Edgier: The Smurfs has always been family friendly. The unofficial art used as the page image is a satire of The Dark Age of Comic Books.
Darker and Edgier.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 is mocking heavy-handed 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 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.
Heroic Sacrifice: The Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic is a parody of a heroic sacrifice that is implied by the comic's caption to be propaganda added by the dinosaurs after taking over the school board.
Incestuous Casting: Not a real movie poster starring 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.
Misaimed Merchandising: The image is a troper-made parody of the phenomenon. Slavoj Žižek's books have yet to be marketed to elementary school children.
Nostalgia Filter: The "Nostalgia Goggles" are just a satire of this trope and are not worn by anyone, real or fictional.
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.
Remember the New Guy?: Larry is a deliberate mockery of the network wanting the writers to shoe-horn a third character into the show. By the end of the episode, Brain promptly kicks him out of the group due to him having no role to fulfill.
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.
Ship Sinking: The comic is just mocking the concept, and since it's not canon, it doesn't qualify for the trope.
SNK Boss: The strip makes fun of how blatantly boxers in Punch-Out!! break the rules of boxing. In the actual game, Von Kaiser fights rather normally, and with Little Mac being the only playable character, the game doesn't have any competitive balance to break to begin with.
Thinly-Veiled Dub Country Change: The comic is in its original language and is mocking how Ace Attorney uses this trope.
Too Dumb to Live: The image comes from Scary Movie, which mocks the clichés of horror movies, such as idiotic victims.
Viewers Are Goldfish: Paranatural is making fun of overused flashbacks in shōnen anime.
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.

Zig-Zaggers

These images might have qualified at one point, but not another. It might be a case of Subverted Trope, Depending on the Writer, Unbuilt Trope or Zig-Zagging Trope.

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.
All-Loving Hero: Nausicaa is a compassionate hero, but she is not entirely all-loving, as she downright slaughters most of the soldiers in a rage after they murdered her father.
Alpha Bitch.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, even becoming a target of bullying herself.
Alternate Continuity: For the most part, the Marvel Comics and Marvel Cinematic Universe exist as two separate continuities, with the latter being an adaptation of the former. However, there are some works, such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, that treat these continuities as existing within a single canon as Alternate Universes. The designations "Earth-616" and "Earth-199999" come from these interdimensional stories and refer to universes rather than continuities. The numbering is also inconsistent, as the main MCU is shown to be Earth 616 (sharing the earth designation as the comics) in films like Spider-Man: Far From Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, while it's designated as Earth-199999 in works made outside of the MCU (such as the aforementioned Across the Spider-Verse); see Alternate Universe.Marvel Universe for more information.
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 it’s 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-Advice: In the Swords strip the image is taken from, the adventurer mistakes the Sword of Truth for the Sword of Lies, so the trope doesn't really apply, the adventurer only thinks it does.
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.
Basement-Dweller: While Jenkins, the nerd in question, is repeatedly stated to have no social life, there's no implication that he still lives with his parents.
Being Evil Sucks: Dr. Robotnik's "realization" that his villainy is the reason for his lack of friends in "Season of Goodwill" is an Ignored Epiphany that goes completely ignored immediately afterwards. Otherwise, he loves being evil and the power that comes with it.
Brooklyn Rage: The character depicted doesn't actually come from New York City (or Liberty City rather), but the San Francisco analogue San Andreas. However, the stereotype is still very much present throughout Grand Theft Auto III.
But Not Too Black: In context, the black girl is actually editing her own picture to better fit Caucasian beauty standards; the white girl is likewise editing her own picture. We changed this in the Image Pickin' thread to get the trope across better. In other words, it is an example, but the context in the original South Park episode differs.
Celibate Hero: While Sasuke shows no interest in romance for most of Naruto, by the epilogue and Boruto, he is in a romantic relationship with Sakura and has a child with her in the form of Sarada.
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 was more ambiguous over portraying the artificial creation of life on itself as evil, as it was the act of Frankenstein abandoning his creation and the rejection of humanity that drove the initially benevolent and well-intentioned Creature to villainy and wickedness. Thus, the novel isn't exactly a cautionary tale about the dangers of creating life as much as it is one about humanity's refusal to take responsibility for its actions and ambition and arrogance over nature.
Critical Existence Failure: The Blues Brothers is not a video game, so the car does not have any hit points as the image suggests. However, it fits the trope aside from that.
Dead Guy Junior: Philip J. Fry was presumed to be dead by his family, hence why his brother named his son "Philip J. Fry" in turn. However, Fry survived frozen in a cryogenic chamber for a thousand years, hence why he's able to see his own dedication on his nephew's tomb.
Didn't Think This Through: The image from Super Mario Bros. 3 demonstrates a poor decision by the player, not by the character in-universe.
Disgusting Vegetarian Food: While the image looks like an example, Calvin's disgust for his mother's cooking is a Running Gag and he'd react the same way no matter what she made.
"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 a Season 2 episode, 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.
Exiled from Continuity: While the X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and Deadpool did qualify for years, Disney would buy 20th Century Fox and the film rights to those characters in 2019, bringing the once-exiled teams/characters back under Marvel's full control for the first time in years and allowing them to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which they have or are planning to).
Expansion Pack World: While it looks like World of Warcraft was making up new continents with each expansion, most of these areas had been established in Warcraft III. They just weren't accessible yet, and therefore had no reason to be on the map. However, all of those were examples in Warcraft III itself, and the Dragon Isles can be considered a straight example in World of Warcraft as they had only been given brief mentions before the ninth expansion.
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, Brock’s Onix is an actual example.
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.
Freudian Excuse: The validity of The Joker's past has been been called into question and acknowledged as contradictory multiple times. Whether or not The Joker truly has a traumatic incident that led to his descent into insanity tends to vary between works.
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.
Knight of Cerebus: Death does, in fact, darken the tone of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and Puss' panic attack in the third panel was caused by an encounter with him. However, it was not caused by the encounter in the second panel, which happened at the start of the film.
Lawful Evil: While he plays this straight throughout most of the plot, Darth Vader eventually ditches the "evil" part after he performs a Heel–Face 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.
Little Useless Gun: J certainly treats the Noisy Cricket like a little useless gun when he first gets it, but when he actually fires it, it blasts a hole bigger than him in the wall and knocks him flat on his ass. Which still makes it useless on a practical level, but not in the way the trope is typically about. Background materials also suggest that K gave it to J in an absurdly overpowered state as a hazing prank, and when used properly it serves its intended purpose as a holdout gun just fine.
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.
Not-So-Harmless Villain: Mojo Jojo is portrayed this way at times, but the image is not narratively an example, since the bottom image is set before the episode the top image is from.
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.
Out-of-Character Moment: While Jesus always teached His followers about the importance of forgiveness, peace and loving others above everything, he also heavily criticized the pharisees for hypocritically calling themselves followers of God despite refusing to give forgiveness to the ones who needed it the most and giving more value to material gains and ornaments than to the core of the message. The event in which Jesus shoos away tradesmen from a temple while accusing them of turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves only looks shocking in comparison to more modern images of Him.
Platform-Activated Ability: Shock Spring Jump is a perfect example of the trope in Banjo-Kazooie. However, the page image is from the titular duo’s appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in which the move is reworked to be usable regardless of where Banjo’s standing, or even when he’s midair.
Power Creep: Ice Rager is strictly better than Magma Rager, making it Power Creep in a literal sense. However, Magma Rager is a bottom-of-the-barrel card in Hearthstone and Ice Rager isn't that much better, and doesn't actually creep the game's overall power level.
Quintessential British Gentleman: While it's an Invoked Trope on his part, Sir Reginald Hargreeves isn't even human, let alone British, actually being an alien wearing a Human Disguise.
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.
Red Oni, Blue Oni.Comic Books: The image is taken from the 2005-6 Invincible Iron Man, where Dr. Strange occasionally shows up to give Tony exposition, but the two otherwise don't work together as Strange has his hands full with other things.
"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: Despite being the Trope Namer, The Smurfs has zig-zagged this trope starting in The '80s with the introduction of characters such as Sassette and Nanny Smurf. In particular, the image on the trope's page comes from Smurfs: The Lost Village, which initially plays the trope straight by having Smurfette as the sole female smurf, but then subverts this after introducing the whole tribal village of female smurfs.
- The Smurfette Principle.Live-Action TV: Penny was the only female character in the main cast of guys, until Bernadette and Amy joined in.
Snowy Sabertooths: The cold snowy weather Diego is dealing with is the result of an impeding ice age, not because he lives in a permanently cold climate, and the sequels do away with this entirely. However, he does interact with woolly mammoths, implying he does live somewhat far north.
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.
Stock Shōnen Rival: One of the characters shown 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.
Three-Point Landing: While Black Widow (and pretty much everyone in the MCU) has done a three-point landing before, that particular screenshot is of her standing up after sliding across the ground.
Token Good Teammate: While Flonne was initially the only one of the main characters to be a truly moral person, the Defenders of Earth later join the party, who similarly have a strong sense of morality.
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.
Vampire Vords: The vampire in the image turns out later to be just a normal guy shooting a very elaborate sleep medicine commercial.
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.
Virtue Is Weakness: Gilgamesh Wulfenbach here is complaining about how other people seemingly hold the attitude that virtue is weakness, rather than expressing the attitude himself.
Where the Hell Is Springfield?.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.
Xenophobic Herbivore: While the fear of "the other" is at play, Zootopia is more about how a crisis can create a fear that can be manipulated instead of a specific type of citizen (i.e., herbivores) always being naturally xenophobic.

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