Basic Trope: A character is very territorial about where he/she sits.
- Straight: Bob orders Alice to get off his favorite cushion on The Couch.
- Exaggerated: Bob shoots Alice because she sat on "his" cushion.
- Downplayed: Bob prefers to sit in "his" spot on the couch, and if anyone else takes his spot he's visibly taken aback and hesitates before sitting anywhere else.
- Justified:
- Bob is The Captain, the king, the bishop, etc. and his seat is more than just a place to rest his rump; it's a symbol of his authority.
- Alice is a real slob, and Bob doesn't want to be sitting on the crumbs, spills, and dirt she'll inevitably leave behind 3 weeks later.
- Society is very hierarchical, and seating at a table is very important because it conveys social status.
- Bob has a mental disorder (explicitly named or hinted at) that makes routine and predictability very important to him. He literally can't relax if he's not sitting in his usual spot.
- Bob is a cat.
- Inverted:
- Bob encourages Alice to sit on his favorite cushion on The Couch.
- There's a particular chair Bob will never ever sit on. He refuses to explain why.
- Subverted: Bob yells at Alice when she goes to sit on his seat... but only because she nearly sat on the dog.
- Double Subverted: Later, we see Bob diligently training the dog to save his seat whenever he's not using it.
- Parodied: The cushion in question literally has Bob's name on it in flashing neon lights.
- Zig Zagged: Bob lets some people sit there, others no. His reasoning is a mystery.
- Averted: Bob allows Alice to sit wherever she wants.
- Enforced: The set is constructed in a Social Semi-Circle, and the cast have standard starting marks. Bob's territoriality is just a Lampshade Hanging.
- Lampshaded: "What the hell makes this your chair?" "It's the focal point of the room. If people were watching the sitcom of my life, they'd have a good view of me."
- Invoked: Bob has gone to some lengths to make one chair obviously the most inviting, and uses it as a Secret Test of Character; in his opinion, people who would go straight for the best seat in somebody else's home are selfish and untrustworthy.
- Exploited:
- Charlie tricks Alice into sitting in Bob's favorite couch in order to start a fight between them.
- A prankster doesn't want to embarrass anyone but Bob, so he puts the whoopee cushion where nobody else will sit.
- Defied: Alice insists that no chair is any more "his" than the living room itself, seeing as they share the house equally.
- Discussed: "Bob usually sits there. Is he going to go mental if he catches me there?"
- Conversed: "Why do Alice and Bobb always sit in exactly the same places? Do you reckon they have their names scrawled on the chairs?"
- Deconstructed: Alice's resentment gradually builds over Bob telling her where she can go in her own house. Bob himself is showing increasingly distressing signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but in her anger all Alice can see is that he's being a dick.
- Reconstructed: Alice knows Bob has OCD tendencies, and knows he doesn't mean to be demanding, so she accommodates him. She lets him know when his quirks cross the line into being unfair on others, though.
- Implied: If anyone is sitting in Bob's usual seat when he enters the room, they get up and let him have it. Nobody ever says anything about this.
- Played For Drama: Alice sits on the cushion as a show of defiance... and rips it. Cue Broken Treasure plot.
- Played For Laughs:
- The chair becomes the focal point of a This Is My Side dispute, and the room-mates' attempts to seize and hold it play out like a trench battle over a strategic landmark.
- Bob's cat claims his seat and hisses whenever he tries to remove her.
Back to This Is My Chair
