What they're about to do most certainly won't be peaceful or pretty!
This is a list of tropes about any form of violent conflict or acts of physical harm that are (deliberately) inflicted by one living being against another.
This is the inverse of Peace Tropes. Also see Injury Tropes, Bloody Tropes, Breaking and Destruction Tropes. This index is often (though not always) related to Death Tropes, which has quite a bit of overlap.
Tropes:
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Sub-categories and trope indexes
- Abuse Tropes: Tropes about the infliction of physical and/or emotional torment on other people (especially when the perpetrator knows the victim personally).
- Child Abuse Tropes: Tropes about children getting abused by adults or adolescents.
- Big Trope Hunting: Tropes about hunters/predators methodically chasing down, then violently capturing or killing, their quarry/prey.
- Choosing Death: Suicide is an extreme form of violent self-harm.
- Combat Tropes: Tropes about fighting between two or more combatants.
- I Have Your Index: Tropes about the abduction and kidnapping of people by force.
- Military and Warfare Tropes: Wars are the largest and deadliest form of mass violence between people.
- Murder Tropes: Tropes about people killing other people out of aggression.
- Public Execution: Tropes about the violent killing of captive people (especially condemned convicts) in front of an audience.
- Sexual Harassment and Rape Tropes: Tropes about acts of sexual violence that are forced on people out of ruthless lust.
- Terrorism Tropes: Violent actions that are committed in an effort to promote an extremist political ideology.
- Threatening Tropes: Tropes about intimidating people with threats of violent harm to coerce them into doing your bidding.
- A Tortured Index: Tropes about the infliction of painful injuries on people as a method of interrogation, punishment, or just plain sadism.
General/miscellaneous violence tropes
- Corporate Warfare: When regular nonviolent competition between rival mega-corporations aren't enough, they decide to take up arms and go to literal war with each other.
- Domestic Abuse: Violence between family members.
- First Rule of the Yard
- Homophobic Hate Crime: Anti-LGBT violence.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence
- Mob War: A violent conflict between rival criminal organizations, usually fought over control of territory or retaliation for previous violence.
- Mohs Scale of Violence Hardness
- Red Is Violent: Due to red being the color of anger and blood.
- Slapstick: Cartoonishly comedic violence.
- Violence Detector
- Violence Is Disturbing
- Violence Is the Only Option
- Violence Really Is the Answer: Someone rejects pacifism or following a more peaceful resolution to a conflict.
Physical violence tropes
- Armor-Piercing Slap
- "Be Quiet!" Nudge: Hitting someone to gesture that they should stop talking.
- Big Ball of Violence: Two or more people get into a fight and end up appearing as a ball of smoke with fists and feet constantly poking out.
- Bitch Slap: Striking someone across their face with a bare hand.
- Boom, Headshot!: Shooting someone in the head.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The adaptation has more violence than the work it is derived from.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Striking someone on their head until they die.
- Bully Brutality: The Bully inflicts extreme injuries on their victims.
- Chunky Salsa Rule: A video game goes for realism by having certain violent actions be as lethal as they would be in real life.
- Corporal Punishment: Inflicting painful injuries as a punishment for one's misbehavior.
- Dope Slap: Hitting someone for saying or doing something stupid.
- Double Standard: Violence, Child on Adult
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: When children's media shows someone suffering unexpectedly gruesome injuries. Often combined with Family-Unfriendly Death.
- Food Slap: Assaulting someone with a piece of food.
- Gasoline Dousing: Gasoline being poured onto a person or object and then being lit.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man
- Glove Slap
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Painfully torturing someone to force them to reveal information.
- Kill on Sight
- The Love Slap of Epiphany
- Ludicrous Gibs
- Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Someone receives a very severe beating.
- Police Brutality: When cops use unnecessary physical force against criminal suspects or innocent people.
- Pre-Violence Laughter
- Rugby Is Slaughter
- Shoe Slap: Assaulting someone with footwear.
- Tail Slap: A creature uses their tail to smack someone.
- Takes Ten to Hold
- Within Arm's Reach: During a fight scene, a character finds something in arm's reach that allows them to fight back.
- Would Harm a Senior: A younger person has no qualms with attacking elderly people.
- Would Hit a Girl: A male has no problem with harming females.
- Would Hurt a Child: An adult is perfectly fine with hitting children.
Psychological violence tropes
- Dead Guy on Display: Publicly showing someone's corpse to instill fear.
- Finger in the Mail: Mailing the dismembered pieces of someone you've kidnapped/killed to your victim's loved ones.
- Forced to Watch: Someone is forced to watch a violent act.
- Hannibal Lecture
- Insane = Violent: Being crazy automatically means you have no reservations towards harming or killing people.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure
- Make an Example of Them
- Scare 'Em Straight: Scaring people out of misbehavior by convincing them that horrible things will happen to them if they stray from the straight and narrow.
- Severed Head Sports: After decapitating somebody, throw and kick their head around to add further insult to injury.
- Snuff Film: A recorded film of someone being murdered.
- murder.com: A video of someone getting killed is uploaded on the Internet.
Violent characters
- Abusive Offspring: People who abuse their parents.
- Abusive Parents: Parents who bully their children, often violently.
- Ax-Crazy: A violently insane person who attacks everyone they see.
- Blood Knight: A character who really enjoys fighting other people.
- Proud Warrior Race: An entire society of people who enjoy physical combat.
- Colonel Kilgore
- Combat Sadomasochist: A person who enjoys both inflicting harm on (and receiving it) from other people.
- Cute and Psycho
- Dark Action Girl
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon
- Hair-Trigger Temper: A character who is ridiculously easy to get angry, often to the point of violent aggression.
- Hostile Hitchhiker: Drivers may pick up this suspicious stranger off the road at their own risk.
- Killer Rabbit: A cute creature that is still very violent and dangerous.
- Mad Bomber: Someone who plants and detonates explosives to blow up as much shit as they can.
- Monster Clown: An evil clown who is often homicidal.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The villain wants to wipe out all life in the world (or universe).
- Professional Killer: Someone who regularly commits murder as a paid job.
- Psycho Electro: A violently crazy person with electrical superpowers.
- Psycho for Hire: A hired thug who enjoys getting paid to hurt other people.
- Psychopathic Manchild: A violently insane villain with disturbingly childlike or immature tendencies. These types often treat hurting other people as some sort of game.
- Pyromaniac: Someone who loves to set things on fire or blow them up. May include a deadly desire to incinerate other people as well.
- Sadist: A person who really enjoys hurting people.
- Serial Killer: A murderer who gradually kills a series of victims.
- Serial Rapist: Someone who regularly engages in sexual violence as a sick hobby.
- The Sociopath: An individual who has no empathy for other people and has no problem hurting or manipulating others as they see fit.
- Sociopathic Soldier: A ruthless war criminal who has zero qualms over committing violent atrocities against enemy prisoners or innocent civilians.
- Spree Killer: A mass murderer who kills many people during a quick rampage.
- Torture Technician: Someone who is an expert user of tools that can inflict intense pain on people.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Mess with her significant other, and you're dead (or at least you'll wish you were).
- Yandere
