Basic Trope: Lightning can do anything the writer wants.
- Straight: When Alice gets struck by lightning, she turns into two Alices.
- Exaggerated: In a big storm, Alice gets struck by lightning and turns into two Alices, the robot Bob was making gets struck by lightning and comes to life, Carol's dead pet mouse gets struck by lightning and comes Back from the Dead, and when lightning strikes a gravestone, the buried person's ghost rises.
- Downplayed: Lightning causes Alice to talk with a Motor Mouth for a brief while, but the effect is quick to wear off.
- Justified: Alice and the other characters live in a different world from ours, in which lightning has magic.
- Inverted: Lightning can't do anything. It can't even shock people.
- Subverted: It turns out it wasn't the lightning that duplicated Alice.
- Double Subverted: But then Dave's cat gets struck by lightning and suddenly can talk.
- Parodied: The weather forecast sounds like this: "Warning: Weather conditions are right for severe thunderstorms, so stay away from cemeteries as there's a chance the lightning could raise ghosts. Additionally, stay inside because you might get duplicated and keep technology inside because if it gets struck, there's a chance of it coming to life. However, it also brings pets Back from the Dead."
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes lightning and other electricity work normally, other times not.
- Averted: Lightning works normally.
- Enforced: The lightning-effect shots ate up a lot of the budget, so the producers are using it in as many ways as possible.
- Lampshaded: "This lightning sure is crazy!"
- Invoked: Emily, who has magic abilities to do with the weather or electricity or both, enchants the lightning to have magical powers.
- Exploited: After Alice gets duplicated by the lightning strike, both Alices work together to save the day.
- Defied: Mad Scientist Frank hatches a plan to reduce lightning's power to a point where it doesn't cause ridiculous side effects.
- Discussed: "How did lightning duplicate Alice?"
- Conversed: "Does that writer even know how lightning works?"
- Implied: Alice is seen being struck by lightning and in the next scene, she's two Alices, but it's never made clear if the lightning caused it.
- Deconstructed: The world spins out of control.
- Reconstructed:
- Storms aren't frequent enough for that to be too bad.
- This is a world where lightning is 'naturally' weird and/or with mechanisms to compensate for this.
- Played for Laughs: Everyone gets struck by lightning and something wacky happens to each of them.
- Played for Drama: The lightning causes a Zombie Apocalypse.
Back to Lightning Can Do Anything.
