Basic Trope: A character (Always Female) becomes a nun.
- Straight:
- Alice trains and takes vows to become a (Catholic) nun.
- Mei becomes a (Buddhist) nun.
- Exaggerated: Although ostensibly Catholic, Alice trains and becomes ordained as a priest, even though in Real Life, the Catholic Church does not ordain women as priests.
- Downplayed: Alice goes to the convent as a guest for a time.
- Justified:
- Alice feels that she has received The Call to be a nun.
- Alice is trying to escape an impending Arranged Marriage, or an abusive marriage already in effect.
- Alice has been raped, and in her society is considered Defiled Forever; becoming a nun gives her some dignity back.
- Alice is considered "troublesome," and her family has her Locked Away in a Monastery.
- In Alice's society, women aren't ordinarily given a real education, which is something she wants.
- Alice has been divorced or widowed, and this is seen as more respectable than remarrying in her society, and also gives her some security in a world where there isn't a real retirement plan.
- Alice doesn't want to be married off to some guy she neither knows nor loves, and doesn't want to risk Death by Childbirth (or isn't interested in having children at all), but the only alternative to marriage and being used as a Baby Factory that's open to women in her society is becoming a nun.
- Alice is dedicated by her parents as a nun, in order to give thanks to their god(s), or as a form of penance. In other words, it's a less violent/more symbolic version of a Virgin Sacrifice.
- Inverted: Sister Mary Sue decides that being a nun isn't all she thought it would be (or she wishes to marry), or is in the midst of a Crisis of Faith and so decides to leave the convent.
- Gender Inverted: Bob becomes a monk or a priest.
- Subverted:
- Alice becomes not a nun, but a Miko. She's not In It for Life, she can eventually marry, and she can own property.
- Alice is only hiding in the convent in disguise, to escape her Domestic Abuser, or perhaps as a spy.
- Double Subverted:
- In a setting where Nuns Are Mikos.
- But then decides that she likes it there, and that she'd like to be a nun for real.
- Parodied:
- Alice becomes one of those Naughty Nuns, or is just Nun Too Holy.
- Alice is becoming an Old Maid, and decides to just quit the dating scene forever by becoming a nun.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Alice does not become a nun.
- There are no nuns or monks In-Universe.
- Enforced: Rule of Drama
- Lampshaded:
- "Dating sucks! Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead and become a nun!"
- "God has called me to become his servant. It's time for me to join this community that will allow me to live in prayer, meditation and virtue as I would like to."
- Invoked:
- Alice ponders what to do with her life, and considers becoming a nun.
- Alice experiences The Call to be a nun.
- Exploited: Alice, a spy, hides out in a convent.
- Defied:
- Alice decides that she wants to own her own property, and to eventually marry and/or have sex, and so decides that being a nun just isn't for her.
- Refusal of the Call.
- The abbess or Mother Superior denies Alice entry into the convent, or even refuses to take her on as a novice or postulant, because she can see that Alice isn't in it because she genuinely feels called to be a nun.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
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