Basic Trope: A person belongs (quite literally) to their loved one.
- Straight: Bob and Alice are romancing, with Bob doing anything she orders him and happily declaring that he's her property.
- Exaggerated: Bob is Extreme Doormat who lets Alice do anything - anything - with him out of his love for her.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is somewhat submissive to Alice, but not too much.
- Bob is in love with Alice and considers himself duty-bound to serve and support her.
- Justified:
- Alice is a supernatural who enchanted Bob to feel like this to her.
- The two are explicitly in a BDSM relationship where Alice is the dominant and Bob the submissive.
- Bob was literally made as a training boyfriend by Alice's Mad Scientist father, but Alice refused to break up with Bob afterwards.
- Alice saved Bob's life, so in addition to being in love with her, he feels that his life now belongs to her.
- Inverted: Bob considers himself an owner of Alice, much to her dismay.
- Subverted:
- Bob acts to Alice as an Extreme Doormat and proclaims that he belongs to her. When questioned about it, he reveals that he does it, because Alice is dangerous and he fears for his life.
- Alice and Bob have never even met one another, and therefore have no real relationship.
- Bob calls himself Alice's property. Alice is weirded out and tells him to stop.
- Double Subverted:
- With time, however, he falls in love with her.
- Alice commits herself (or is told to) keep herself "pure" and passively wait for her One True Love to find her and marry her, however long it takes, the idea being that even so much as kissing before the wedding day would constitute adultery on Alice's part before she's even met this hypothetical future husband.
- Parodied: Alice literally bought Bob from a pet store for dominaters and dominatrixes, with him being a dog boy to boot.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob always seems to cheerfully obey Alice's wishes and likens himself to her property, but slips up he's terrified of her. Yet when asked for clarification he explains he's just terrified of losing her love, genuinely being madly in love with her. Nonetheless when they break up Bob practically celebrates, except it turns out to be his Evil Twin who wanted to ruin Bob's life. Even then...
- Averted: Bob is a Celibate Hero.
- Enforced:
- For the writer, feeling of belonging to somebody is a personal kink.
- "Our network's primary viewers turns out to young women, so rewrite Bob to be Alice's strongly supportive boyfriend instead."
- Lampshaded: "I could do anything for her!"
- Invoked: Alice intentionally Mind Rapes Bob into this state of mind to use his devotion to her.
- Exploited:
- Big Bad uses this to make a Sadistic Choice for Bob between his sister, Betty, and Alice. Betty will be repurposed into his wife if Bob saves Alice instead.
- Emperor Evulz focuses on corrupting Alice to his side, knowing The Chosen One Bob will abandon the quest if Alice commands him to.
- Defied: Alice breaks up with Bob, because she doesn't want their relationship to be a slave/master one.
- Discussed: "Don't you think that Bob might be a bit... too devoted?" "Hey, better than being an ignorant brat who thinks Alice is his property."
- Conversed:Claire: Doesn't really make a lot of sense for Alice's character to be fine with that.
Charlie: She's super hot, and Bob obviously seems terrified of losing her love if he doesn't submit himself to her. One obedient boyfriend is better than a bastard one after all, so why would she complain? - Implied: Bob is mentioned to have this kind of relationship in the past with his ex Alice.
- Deconstructed: Bob acting like he's the property of Alice is because he's utterly terrified she's out of his league. Alice, on the other hand, has been presented no reason to think this is unusual behavior for him. Thus, she starts panicking whenever he acts more assertive, thinking he's bored with her and their mutual misunderstanding just fuels the issue.
- Reconstructed: Bob finds it easier just to be an obedient boyfriend, as he's less likely to unintentionally hurt her that way. To his credit, Bob explicitly tells Alice this, so she understands when he's being more assertive that he isn't growing disinterested in her.
- Played For Laughs: Bob constantly wears a dog collar and in general plays up a BDSM image, being blatant but cheeky about his intense love for Alice.
- Played For Drama:
- It's shown how feeling like somebody's property destroys Bob's psyche and leads to his estrangement from his friends and family.
- Alice is arrested or killed or otherwise removed from Bob's life. The rest of the work details how hard it is for Bob to move on from her (or if he's even able to).
Back to Property of Love.
