Basic Trope: People abuse others after being abused, which perpetuates the cycle of abuse.
- Straight: Alice abuses Bob, which leads Bob into abusing his best friend, Charlie, who eventually abuses Danny.
- Exaggerated: Alice beats up Bob, which leads to Bob beating up Charlie, who then beats up Danny, which leads to Danny beating up Eric, and so forth...
- Downplayed: Alice abuses Bob, which only impacts his relationship with Charlie.
- Justified: Being abused can cause a person to find an easy target closest to them.
- Inverted: Alice treats Bob kindly which leads to Bob treating Charlie kindly, and the cycle of kindness continues.
- Subverted:
- Alice abuses Bob, and just when you think he would take his frustrations out on Charlie, Bob gets his revenge against Alice.
- Bob abuses Charlie, and Charlie looks like he's going to take it out on Danny, but then Charlie instead angrily chews Bob out on it.
- Double Subverted:
- ...He then repeats the cycle as he angrily yells at Charlie for no reason.
- ...Bob decides to target Danny instead, who then abuses Eric.
- Parodied: The characters are children. Alice hits Bob on the arm. Bob does the same to Charlie. Charlie does the same to Danny, and so on.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice abuses Bob and Billy, but while Bob abuses his best friend, Charlie, Billy gets his revenge on Alice instead.
- Averted:
- Alice abuses Bob, and Bob abuses her in return.
- There is only one abuser.
- There are none.
- Enforced: The audience has been complaining that Bob is too dislikable for his abuse of Charlie, so the writers add in a scene that explains why he does it.
- Lampshaded: "See? When you do a shitty thing to one person, you do a shitty thing to everyone!"
- Invoked: An evil deity gave humanity the tendency to target those who are weaker than them all for his amusement.
- Exploited: Alice is aware that when she abuses Bob that he will abuse Billy. But it's the only way for her to extract a toll on Billy, without Charlie being aware of her abuse.
- Defied:
- Research uncovers the cycle of abuse, therapeutic interventions are set to break the cycle.
- Bob had Alice abusing him, and so he now goes out of his way to be Nice Guy and even a Friend to All Children.
- Discussed: "If you keep abusing Bob, he might abuse Charlie next!"
- Conversed: "In fiction, everyone who was abused turns into an abuser themselves."
- Deconstructed: Everyone ends up abusing each other, thus making the world (or at least the local area) a horrible place to live.
- Reconstructed: Abuse being a Vicious Cycle make it possible to fight against it by breaking the cycle. It may not work all the times, but each time the cycle is broken means less abusers down the line, and The Determinator is dead set on making that happy ending a reality.
- Implied: Bob is seen looking miserable and beaten-down before he abuses Charlie, but it's not explained why.
Back to The Chain of Harm
