Basic Trope: A hallucination that gives important advice/information.
- Straight: Detective Bob begins hallucinating a pink Funny Animal hippopotamus named Oswald after going through severe trauma. However, Oswald ends up being very helpful to Bob and helps him solve a case.
- Exaggerated: Detective Bob hallucinates a whole group of Funny Animals who help him with everything he needs to do.
- Downplayed: Oswald doesn't give Bob much advice/information on his own, but helps Bob have an "Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!" moment when explaining facts of the case to him.
- Justified: Oswald is able to identify the details that Bob didn't pay much attention to at first.
- Inverted:
- Oswald is completely unhelpful.
- Detective Bob is the one giving advice to his hallucination, Oswald.
- Subverted:
- Oswald seems to be helpful at first, but it turns out that his advice is all Non Sequiturs.
- It turns out that Oswald is actually real, after Alice reveals that she can see him.
- Double Subverted:
- The Non Sequiturs have a coded meaning that makes sense.
- Alice was only pretending to be able to see Oswald.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: Oswald is able to help with some details of the case, but is completely clueless on other details.
- Averted:
- Bob doesn't hallucinate.
- Bob's hallucinations never help him in any way.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: "Let Me Get This Straight... you're getting your advice from a talking pink hippo that only you can see?"
- Conversed: "I don't think hallucinations are usually that helpful in real life. At least not mine, I hallucinated about my dead grandma chewing me out."
- Implied: Oswald is a case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane, as it's never specified whether he's just a figment of Bob's imagination or if he's actually real.
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