Is this an example?

From WesternAnimation.Rudolph And Frostys Christmas In July:

• What Happened to the Mouse?: Even though the special clearly takes place in the same continuity as Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, with many callbacks to it, there's no sign or mention of the Winter Warlock. Despite the fact that his magic might have been useful against the similarly-powered Winterbolt.

In many stories, some characters enter the story, serve their role and move on without any fanfare. If they have served their purpose and exit the story, then it's not a What Happened to the Mouse? situation just because there isn't some final "where are they now" information given. This trope is for cases where a character simply disappears without reason or acknowledgment by the rest of the cast.

Thoughts on what to do with this example?

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

The second sentence for With Catlike Tread does state it's "when a potentially deadly and effective strategy is ruined (or logically should be but comically isn't)" - examples where it's obvious only to the player and succeeds despite all logic are just as valid.

Would the part about "comically isn't" still apply if it isn't intentionally played this way? It seems to me like many of the entries are only interpreted as such when they're actually just the game being fair to the player.

The Patapon one in particular is described as being obvious because the speech bubbles of the hiding characters appear on-screen (in-universe the speech bubbles arent visible to anyone) and some parts of the hiding enemies sometimes poke out of the grass (your own units can employ this tactic the exact same way in one mission, and it is still not Played for Laughs). Overall it's just a way to warn the player "Enemy units will jump out at this point, watch out!".

bruh.

In cases like that I would assume they're intentionally invoking the trope for the purpose of conveying information to the player. I also feel there's an inherent silliness to someone trying so poorly to be stealthy and succeeding anyway, so yeah, I'd say it still counts even if it's not the specific joke a work is trying to make at that moment.

I understand. Thanks for the clarification.

bruh.

Reposting this post because it's been about two days with no answer.

Cruel Twist Ending examples in Inside No. 9 need to be checked because the examples are mostly "This character doesn't deserve this" and there's no explanation of how. Its Recap episodes' versions of these examples aren't better either. Whoever wrote this is either new or doesn't understand this trope.

• Cruel Twist Ending:
  • "Sardines". Certainly one of the people in the wardrobe deserves what's about to happen, and arguably a few others, but most of them don't.
  • "The Harrowing." Unlike other episodes in the series, Katy does nothing to deserve her fate; she's chosen as Castiel's host because Hector and Tabitha feel that her strength of character will help to keep the demon contained.
  • "Cold Comfort" has two cruel twists in the ending, and Andy doesn't deserve anything that happens to him either.
  • "The Devil of Christmas". Kathy in the movie certainly deserves a nasty death, but the actress playing her probably didn't.
  • "Misdirection". Gabriel avenged his grandfather's murder by killing Neville's wife Jenny and framing Neville. Right at the end, we find out just what the detectives saw in the safe...a razor blade covered in Jenny's blood. While Neville certainly was a douchebag, Jenny is an innocent party.
  • "Mr King". Alan winds up as a ritualistic sacrifice, just like his predecessor, through no fault of his own.
  • "Paraskevidekatriaphobia". Gareth's wife is run over by a car literally the day after he overcomes his phobia.
  • "Love is a Stranger". Jai, a man with a severe facial deformity, uses a mouse emoji to hide his face and lies that his (non-existent) kids were messing around with his phone. Vicky tells him to show his face and he gives her his number before the chat ends. He comes to her house for a date...and not only does the date go horribly wrong when Jai tries to kiss Vicky, but he finds out the hard way that she is the Lonely Hearts Killer when she murders him with a hammer.

What are your thoughts?

“What is that? It's The Unknown!”

Most of those are ZCEs. I'm not entirely sure which of them count and which wouldn't (I've seen some of those episodes but not all of them, kind of went off the show); if anything most episodes of the show have a dark twist ending, but they probably wouldn't all count. Episodes generally have varying levels of foreshadowing, Asshole Victims and twist weirdness. As per usual with this trope, full spoilers: (these are just my opinion, not a full attempt at a write-up)

• Sardines: The majority of the episode consists of people at a party playing a game, although mentions are made to previous child abuse that happened at the house, which was hushed up. At the end of the episode, one of the characters turns out to have been the victim under a false identity, and traps every other character (one of whom is the perpetrator) so they presumably burn to death.
• The Harrowing: A girl is employed to look after an old person / their house for the night, and invites her friend over to join her. Some way into the episode there's a twist where it looks like the old man is not infirm, but being held against his will. Then there's another twist where it turns out the old man is actually possessed by a demon; the couple who employed her and her friend all conspired to bring the girl to the house to be a new host for the demon due to her "strong sense of character" and at the end it seems like the plan completely succeeds.
• Cold Comfort: The episode takes place in a call center for a crisis helpline. The main character takes a call from a teenage girl which turns out to be a fake messing with him. He's then rude to an old lady who calls, and discovers that after that call the old lady takes her own life. Nearer the end it transpires both that the fake teenage girl was actually his manager, and that she told the old lady's son where they work. The episode ends with the lady's son pulling a gun on the main character.
• The Devil of Christmas: This one I'm most confident about. Most of the episode seems to be a director's commentary on a 70s horror movie about Krampus. Near the end of the in-universe movie, the woman who turns out to effectively be the villain gets a karmic death. The twist of the episode is that this is actually a snuff film, and the presumably completely innoccent actress was murdered for real as part of the making of the film. The episode is also revealed not to have been a director's commentary, but a police interview. Many viewers and critics really liked this twist, but others (myself included) found it to be unnecessarily cruel and to not make much sense if you think about it hard enough.

(x7) I don't think that counts as What Happened to the Mouse? either because he didn't appear there at all, so I feel it can be removed for being a shoehorn.

The last one sounds valid to me since it involves a very mean-spirited Twist Ending. The others sound like misuse of Cruel Twist Ending to me though.

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Bumping.

I found this one YMMV.Ahsoka:

• One True Pairing: The Wolfwren is the most popular ship,to the point that the cast of the series supports this ship, and leaving Ezra to the role of younger brother. Yet, other fans feel Ezrabine is the more prefered pairing from a narrative standpoint due to Ezra's close relationship with Sabine in Rebels as well as a way to justify her obessive actions in Ahsoka, while also feeling Sabine would never fall in love with some one who tried to kill her multiple times, especailly considering her previous enounters with other Dark Side users like the Inquisitors, Maul and Darth Vader.

This mentions two ships and as such I don't think it counts as One True Pairing. Also, I don't want to sound rude, but does isn't this full of a lot of grammar errors?

Edited by Bullman on Dec 17th 2023 at 5:52:49 AM

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

From Wonka:

• Hate Sink: We can’t really hate the Chocolate Cartel due to their comedic quirks, but we can hate Mrs. Scrubitt and Mr. Bleacher. They are obviously intended to be as despicable as possible, as they constantly punish Noodle and their other tenants with a workload of debts and chores.

I really don’t think this works as both parties have their comic quirks and do some equally heinous things like the cartel almost kills our heroes at multiple points.

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Dec 17th 2023 at 6:56:14 AM

The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.

This was just added to Godzilla Minus One

• Top-Heavy Guy: Inverted; in a seeming effort to have Godzilla make less of a hash of the Square-Cube Law than he usually does, the monster has positively gigantic, broad feet and stumpy, wide legs with a taller, more slender upper half and tiny arms like an historical T rex.

Looking over page for top-heavy guy, it seems like this trope is a bit more specific than simply having a large upper body, so i don't think this counts as an inversion

Bumping this.

She/Her | Currently cleaning Char Clone

• Even Evil Has Standards: Seems to rely more on wanting to avoid conflict than any sort of personal moral code, so I'd say cut.

• Hero with Bad Publicity: Not familiar with the work, so this example is incomprehensible to me.

• Took a Level in Badass: Unsure if this counts myself.

back lol

Any input on the Godzilla example?

I've started watching Penthouse and I wanted to talk about one trope which would fit Joo Seok-Kyeong well,

Do you think she would count as a Like Father, Like Daughter trope because much like her father the villain Joo Dan Tae she would also bully, abuse and manipulate others (which in turn was because of Dan-Tae abusing her and her brother) And this just a discussion.

(I originally started this in the wrong forum area, this is the same question)

Edited by Rm74 on Dec 18th 2023 at 8:41:17 AM

I'm scratching my head at this Not Always Right story . It seems like perfect fodder for Failed a Spot Check, but where I'm confused is that the submitter sees that the customer does read the signs that say the restaurant is closed, but tries to get in anyway, and still asks the submitter "are you open?"

Does it still count if she read the signs? Is there another trope that fits this story better?

Does anyone else here actually know Fighbird beyond the "Is this a pigeon?" meme?

Maybe Can't You Read the Sign??

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From City-Building Series: Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's unintentionally educational, isn't it more Unconventional Learning Experience than Edutainment Game?

Edited by Diesel on Dec 19th 2023 at 2:42:14 AM

Found some more possibly misused examples.

GlassCannon.Video Games

• The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: Tita Russel is a 13 year old Gadgeteer Genius and The Cutie who has the lowest hitpoints by far and specializes in support using Abnormal Ammo from her cannon. She remains a glass cannon until The 3rd, where she creates her own Orbal Gear Mini-Mecha to pilot into battle.

Doesn't explain if she's strong but has bad health, just that she's a good support member.

TookALevelInBadass.Video Games

• The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: Tita Russel is a preteen Gadgeteer Genius who plays a support role in combat, being a frail Glass Cannon. Come The 3rd, Tita creates her own Orbal Gear Mini-Mecha over two weeks with her parents, which she can use if you bring her and Agate to her Moon Door.

The trope is about someone who isn’t combat oriented becoming more combat oriented (or at least stronger and braver). Not sure if someone, who was once a Glass Cannon (someone who is strong but has middling health), counts.

Accidental Pervert

• The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure: Lloyd, after The Stakeout to catch a burglar, forcibly seizes them when they attempt to escape, and he can't figure out why the burglar won't stop struggling. It turns out it's a Lady Looks Like a Dude situation and he gets chastised by his teammates, while the burglar holds a grudge.

Doesn't describe any accidental inappropriateness, to my recolcation, Lloyd was chastised for mistakingly thinking the burglar was a guy.

Edit: Found this example on YMMV.Touken Ranbu Musou which I'm unsure of:

• Esoteric Happy Ending: When you think about it, the game's Golden Ending loses its lightheartedness because Omokage is still trapped forever with no way to be reunited with the Touken Danshi outside of dreams. Mikazuki loves taking naps, which means Omokage will see him frequently, but what happens when he and the other Touken Danshi die? There's no way the Government of Time won't send the Touken Danshi out on more life-threatening missions now that they've defeated a near world-ending threat and (presumably) have gotten their Saniwa back, so there will always be a risk of Omokage ending up truly alone. And where the hell is Konnosuke?

Edited by Ayumi-chan on Dec 21st 2023 at 4:53:08 AM

She/Her | Currently cleaning Char Clone

Sweet and Sour Grapes: Although it's based on a true story, so possibly justified. Billi spends the entirety of her China trip painfully coming to understand as best she can that Nai Nai is terminally ill and their life in China is disappearing — but the epilogue reveals that the real Nai Nai is still alive today.

The Farewell. This isnt an example of this trope and it is also troping Real Life as well.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

VideoGame.Sonic Lost World has the following:

• Diabolus ex Machina: The Zeti's ability to manipulate magnetic fields to control Eggman's robots serves as a plot device, and to save the developers the trouble of designing new enemies.

There's some obvious issues with complaining and context here, but I don't think this is an example in the first place. This ability is established maybe a third of the way through the game, and while never specifically mentioned beforehand, it's made clear that Eggman can only control the Zeti because of a special item he has, so it's not like the fact that they have a power that can very easily be turned against him comes completely without foreshadowing.

Ever wanted to see the most inexplicably horrifying intro to a game ever?

Cut that as foreshadowed and the example is not about it coming out of nowhere.

• Beyond the Impossible: Terapagos can also drain the energy of Terastalised Pokemon, replenishing its own Terastal Energy barriers while forcing Terastalized Pokemon to revert prematurely.

I deleted this as it didn't explain how it was supposedly impossible per prior in-universe rules. They added it back as is citing "Up until now, we’ve only ever seen two ways of ending Terastalization: the Terastalised Pokémon being knocked out, or the battle ending. Terapagos’ ability to revert Terastalizations without either condition being met is quite literally unprecedented. Same thing applies to its ability to refill its shields - again, no other Tera Raid boss can do this."

This sounds more like Wrong Context Magic or Outside-Context Problem as it's not breaking rules just adding/working differently, correct? Or should this explanation be added to the BTB entry?

On WhatMeasureIsANonHuman.Literature:

• Warrior Cats: The cats never harm humans, instead opting to save them from danger at times. For example, in Warrior's Refuge, Graystripe realizes that humans find cats cute, and uses this to lure a toddler away from a pond that she nearly fell into. However, prey like mice and rabbits are slaughtered en-masse.

I don't think this counts because... they're cats. Of course they kill small animals but not humans.

I think this example still counts though the description badly explains why. Throughout the series, the cats are threatened by animals that aren't their prey, like badgers and foxes. They generally go out of their way to drive them out and be violent towards them. Humans are also threatening to them, with half of one of the arcs focus on how humans destroy their forest, leaving cats to die of starvation, and capturing them (to become pets, but from the cats' perspective they are just put into cages and never return). Yet despite this, the cats always go out of their way to resolve a problem with a human gently and non-violently, and are never seen attacking humans.

I feel a description framing it on that would explain better how it counts.

I mean, they see the humans as monstrous and weird, but the humans are also capable of treating them with affection. Neither is true about the regular predators, which the cats have no ability to reason with (well, unless you count Midnight or Millie and her dog-speak) but who they do understand as normal animals like them.

And was there not a whole subplot in one of the SkyClan books about the warriors going to battle someone's abusive owner?

In any case, it's not that the cats value human life over the lives of other creatures. They just don't often want to fight them, instead going out of their way to avoid them.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 21st 2023 at 12:00:19 PM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I need help deciding if this counts for Kids Prefer Boxes, even though it doesn't concern a kid:

• In the Saturday Night Live sketch "Protective Mom", the titular Latina mother tosses out some vegan sliders that her son's white girlfriend ordered for their dinner, then folds up the paper bag for reusing later. In the sequel, the son's new girlfriend brings a metal tin of store-bought cookies, which the mom empties to make room for her sewing supplies.