Basic Trope: The protagonist's best friend is fat.
- Straight: Mike has a best friend named Joe, who happens to be fat.
- Exaggerated:
- Mike's friend Joe is so fat that he has to be moved around using a forklift.
- ALL of Mike's friends are fat.
- Downplayed:
- Joe is a little tubby, but calling him "fat" is a bit of a stretch.
- Joe and Mike are just casual acquaintances.
- Justified: Friendship doesn't discriminate, and weight is no exception.
- Inverted:
- Mike, a fat protagonist, is friends with Joe, who is thin.
- Mike's Arch-Enemy is Joe, a Fat Bastard.
- Subverted:
- Joe seems to be fat at first, then later removes the fat suit he wore for a play.
- Joe throws off the Satellite Character part of this trope by becoming the protagonist of his own arc.
- Double Subverted:
- And then Joe's antidepressants begin slowing his metabolism...
- The thinner "Joe" turns out to be Bo, who does a a surprisingly good impression of his twin brother. The real Joe is fat.
- Parodied: Joe quite literally orbits around Mike.
- Zig Zagged: Joe's weight fluctuates throughout the series.
- Averted:
- Neither Mike nor Joe are fat.
- Both Mike and Joe are fat.
- Enforced: The author wants to present An Aesop about being nice to people regardless of their physique.
- Lampshaded: Joe introduces himself to people as Mike's Fat Best Friend.
- Invoked:
- Mike befriends Joe specifically to make himself look better.
- Joe plays this role for his troubled friends to help them remain stable.
- Exploited: Joe runs a business of sorts where people pay him to be their Fat Best Friend for whatever reason.
- Defied: Joe decides he doesn't need to be friends with Mike to validate himself.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "I wonder why the protagonist often has a friend who's overweight."
- Deconstructed: Joe gets teased a lot for his weight, and if Mike can't help but join in, the friendship can take a beating.
- Reconstructed: Joe and Mike are Vitriolic Best Buds, and jokes about Joe's weight are counterbalanced by jabs at Mike for other aspects of his personality.
- Implied: Mike mentions having a good friend who's overweight.
- Played For Laughs: Joe is the Fat Comic Relief.
- Played For Drama: Building on the Invoked variant, Joe learns of Mike's reasoning and it makes him doubt their friendship is genuine.
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