Basic Trope: Apologizing to someone in the most insulting way possible.
- Straight: Bob apologizes to Alice that she has no life and is a useless waste of space.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob apologizes to Alice by condescendingly saying he pities her for being so useless while mentioning all her flaws, finally encouraging her to end her life.
- Bob apologizes to the entire human race that they're all disgusting bastards who deserve to die painful deaths.
- Downplayed:
- Bob apologizes to Alice that she has bad breath.
- Bob apologizes to Alice for her being offended by something he said, and frames it to paint Alice as being oversensitive.
- Justified:
- Alice demanded an apology for a minor slight.
- Alice demanded an apology for something that wasn't Bob's fault in the first place.
- Alice is the one in the wrong.
- Bob is just a plain jerk who is never sorry for anything.
- Bob has a personality disorder and is either completely incapable of recognizing fault or is predisposed to see himself as the victim, so his apologies come from the place of someone who either doesn't think they did anything wrong or feels like they're being forced to apologize when the other person should be apologizing.
- Bob is firm believer of the saying, "Don't apologize unless you're actually sorry." He's really not sorry.
- Bob's apology was genuine, but he didn't think it through, so it came out offensive.
- Bob is a Complete Monster, thus Faux Affably Evil, and all of his apologies are just him faking remorse.
- For whatever reason, Bob is trying to get himself in trouble, and an insincere apology is the perfect way get punished.
- Inverted:
- Heartfelt Apology
- Flippant Forgiveness
- Bob thanks Alice in the most insulting way possible.
- Bob tacks an implied compliment onto his apology.
- Bob insults Alice in the most nicest way possible.
- Rejected Apology
- Subverted:
- Bob apologizes to Alice in an extraordinarily rude way, and Alice accepts it as a genuine apology due to the warrior culture of their homeland.
- After delivering his horrible "apology", Bob apologizes for his apology and gives a sincere one.
- Bob gives a horrible apology. He is then seen asking himself My God, What Have I Done? and delivers an Apology Gift to Alice.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice appears to accept Bob's apology as genuine, only to then give him a taste of his own medicine.
- He ends it with, "Now, go fuck yourself."
- The gift is a box of kittens. Alice is allergic to cats, and Bob knows that.
- Parodied: Bob and Alice live in a civilization of Proud Warrior Race guys who apologize by beating up the one they wronged to show how strong they think their victim is.
- Zig Zagged: It is ambiguous to tell whether Bob was being sarcastic in his apology or not.
- Averted: Bob gives a heartfelt apology to Alice.
- Enforced: "I don't want my Bob to feel weak when he apologizes. No wait. I'll have him apologize in a way that will piss the other characters off!"
- Lampshaded: "Is that what you call an sincere apology?!"
- Implied: We don't hear Bob's attempt at an apology, but it's pretty obvious from the fact everybody is even more outraged than they were a moment ago that it wasn't.
- Invoked: Alice knows Bob could never apologize to her sincerely, and has him do this to her when her friends are watching so that they all take her side
- Exploited:
- Alice knows that this is the best she'll get out of Bob, so she decides to either win his respect or drive him off by giving as good as she gets.
- Any admission Bob makes is treated as a I Never Said It Was Poison moment, giving Bob the worst of both worlds, he can't claim innocent and he isn't sorry either.
- Defied:
- Bob is about to insult Alice like this, then visibly calms down and offers a genuine apology.
- "I demand an apology, and I expect from you to at least try to fake being sincere. If you even think of trying to insult me one more time and add "I'm sorry" as a preface so "I won't see it coming", I swear I will fucking kill you."
- Discussed: "Geez, Bob, could you be a little less sarcastic with your "sorry" next time?"
- Conversed: "Do you wonder why some characters never ask for an apology? I can hardly imagine a more likely time for some caustic rejoinder."
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's decision to be cheeky in a moment when regret (even faked) would have gotten some heat off his back makes him lose his Last-Second Chance. Alice reaches her Rage Breaking Point and either storms off swearing she will never see him again as anything but an enemy or she does something in response that she (and Bob, although it's a big "maybe" on his end) will regret for a long time.
- Bob insults Alice with a fake apology...not knowing that Alice is an Almighty Janitor with far more pull than he has. She then goes out of her way to ruin his career.
- Played For Laughs:
- "I'm sorry that you're an insensitive ninny" or some other Big Stupid Doo Doo Head insult is used for the backhanded apology.
- The person being insulted a second time doesn't catches on that he's being insulted at all and acts like he got a true-blue apology.
- There is no backhanded apology — it was genuine, but something about the way it was phrased is reacted to like it was an insult because it was too eloquent.
- Played For Drama:
- This insult makes clear once and for all that Bob is a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk and utterly irredeemable. The standard responses soon follow.
- Bob uses his opportunity to make an apology to deliver a The Reason You Suck speech.
- Bob has a falling out with the group as a result of his flippant apology, and the next few episodes follow a separate plotline where he tries to earn their forgiveness.
- After Bob's "apology," The normally kind and level-headed Alice punches Bob in the face, kicks him in the balls, throws him out of a window and steals his shoes. Everyone, even Alice, is horrified by what just happened.
- Played For Horror:
- Bob uses his opportunity to make an apology to swear bloody and brutal revenge on whoever he's supposed to be sorry to.
- Bob uses his opportunity to make an apology to deliver a Breaking Lecture. His target kills himself afterwards.
- Bob uses his opportunity to make an apology to provide a Pre-Mortem One-Liner for a truly horrifing kill.
- The person Bob was supposed to apologize to responds to Bob's insult by murdering him in a horrifyingly brutal fashion.
- Bob bumps into Alice on the street, who proceeds to beat him to an inch of his life. Alice demands an apology, and Bob weakly gasps out "sorry for hurting your fists with my face" before dying.
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