Follow TV Tropes

Following

Misused: Sneeze Of Doom

Go To

To-do list:

    Original post 
Sneeze of Doom is a trope about poorly-timed sneezes causing mayhem, such as giving away the position of a hiding character, or dropping something fragile. The title is vague, though, as "doom" can mean just about anything. I noticed the discrepancy first with the video examples, many of which are just about strong or violent sneezes, rather than badly times ones. This trend continued into my Sneeze Of Doom Wick Check, which did have 32% correct usage, but a 56% misuse rate when the four misuse folders were combined. The quick results were:

  • Correct: 16/50, or 32%
  • Dangerous: 13/50, or 26%
  • Loud: 2/50, or 4%
  • Silly: 8/50, or 16%
  • Other: 5/50, or 10%
  • ZCE: 6/50, or 12%

So, while Sneeze of Doom does see a lot of correct usage, it also sees a lot of incorrect usage. However, in this case I do think powerful sneezes (which is the biggest misuse category) is worth being its own trope, and that a trope for "silly sneezes" could be something too. My idea is:

  • We make this one the trope about dangerously strong sneezes, which seems to fit the title better.
  • We split off the current usage under a new name, and perhaps split off the other concepts as well. Whether this is done in a sandbox or through the TLP doesn't matter, but I do think we, at the very least, have enough examples for the current definition to avoid yarding that one.

Wick check:

Sneeze of Doom is supposed to be about sneezes that come at inopportune moments, but the title could be confused for dangerous or violent sneezes, or any other time a sneeze causes a problem.

Wicks: 50/50

  • Correct: 16/50, or 32%
  • Dangerous: 13/50, or 26%
  • Loud: 2/50, or 4%
  • Silly: 8/50, or 16%
  • Other: 5/50, or 10%
  • ZCE: 6/50, or 12%

  • Total Misuse: 56%

    open/close all folders 

    Correct (Poorly timed sneezes) 
  1. Animation.Happy Heroes: Subverted in Season 13 episode 2. Happy S., Smart S., and Careful S. don bee costumes to infiltrate a hive of giant bees, and as they approach the hive a leaf passes by Happy S., making him sneeze and lose the head to his costume. Bee guards outside the hive notice the costume's head and think it's the cut-off head of an actual bee, too panicked to notice the Supermen who just beat them up and enter their headquarters.
  2. Anime.Love Live Superstar: Subverted in Season 2 Episode 4. As the girls of Liella! were hiding from Mei (since they were spying on her), Ren's hair tickled Kinako's nose causing the latter to sneeze, signaling their location and letting Mei know that they are there. Or it should have been, but it turns out that Mei has terrible eyesight and dismissed it.
  3. Characters.Solar Ash: The Gnathia Squad perished in the midst of their search for the First Citizen because midway through his field report, the squad leader sneezed at the most inopportune time, when he and his team were attempting to lift their ship over their heads effectively enough to unwedge it from out of a tower where they crash landed.
  4. ComicBook.The Snowman: Narrowly averted; James and the snowman are playing in James' parents' room when the snowman starts to sneeze, but they manage to get out of the room before it can wake the parents. Narrowly averted bit aside...
  5. Fanfic.Odd Squad Vs The Laser Chickens: In Olympia's book, Otis's sneeze ends up giving him and Olympia away to Symmetric Al, as well as ten other villains that he brought with him. The same thing happens in the real world, only with Oprah in place of Olympia and Otis telling her that he's been fighting off a cold and that's why he's sneezing.
  6. Fanfic.The Detective And The Diplomat: The whole mess starts out from Stibbon sneezing on the last syllable of an incantation.
  7. Film.Quick: When Myung-shik is trying to defuse the bomb, he sneezes at the wrong moment and cuts the wrong wire, which accelerates the countdown.
  8. Funny.Hey Arnold: Bob falls asleep and wakes up with a nasty sunburn. Two paramedics lift the chair he's on, but one of them sneezes and they drop him. Cue Bob screaming in agony.
  9. Literature.Doom: Bill Ritch sneezes while the gang is trying to sneak around the spidermind's army.
  10. PlayingWith.Human Ladder: Defied: Dirk: "No way that we do this. I know how this goes. Everything will seem fine, but then someone will sneeze and we will all come painfully crashing down!"
  11. Recap.Duck Tales S 2 E 1 Time Is Money: When the gang hide behind mushrooms from the large creature, it is revealed that Launchpad is allergic to mushrooms. Fortunately, the boys stop him from sneezing and blowing their cover. Unfortunately, Scrooge sneezes instead.
  12. Recap.Family Guy S 8 E 11 Dial Meg For Murder: What gives Luke away when he hides out in Meg's bedroom closet.
  13. Recap.HTF Get Whale Soon: Right after Russell manages to light his one match and prepares to light the fire that will allow them to escape from the whale he and Lumpy are trapped in, Lumpy sneezes, putting out the match.
  14. TheMatrixFilm.Tropes P To Z: During the crawl through the walls in the big escape scene, Cypher gets some dust knocked in his face and lets go of one of these, alerting the police to their location. It's possible this was deliberate.
  15. VideoGame.Toe Jam And Earl: Though it's incredibly rare (As in, once every few games), ToeJam and/or Earl may randomly sneeze while sneaking, alerting any nearby enemies to their presence.
  16. Webcomic.Kroko Comics: Otto and Kroko painted themselves and pretended that they were statues, thus avoiding a Ninja who wants to hunt Kroko… but a feather makes Otto sneeze, which alerts the Ninja.

    Powerful/Violent/Dangerous sneeze 
  1. Dies Differently in Adaptation: n Hoffmann's story, the Mouse Queen is killed when Drosselmeyer's nephew accidentally steps on her and impales her with his shoe's pointy heel. This same mishap transforms him into the Nutcracker. In the 1973 Russian version, the king douses her with pepper, making her sneeze so hard that she explodes (this is the Weaksauce Weakness of all the mice in this version). And in The Nutcracker Prince, she's crushed by a column that Drosselmeyer's nephew knocks over – basically the same circumstances as her original death, but a bit less graphic.
  2. Animation.Treasure Island 1988: When Billy Bones sneezes, expect some property damage.
  3. Characters.Ferdinand: When trying to hide in a china shop of all places, Ferdinand's face gets dusted by the elderly shopkeeper, causing him to sneeze and make the shopkeeper go flying out of the store's front window and break all the china inside. More about the sneeze being violent than poorly-timed.
  4. Characters.Ruby Gloom: She is prone to these. She can sneeze hard enough to de-rail a train.
  5. Characters.The 7 D: One of his trademarks, of course. Occasionally the other dwarfs weaponize it — the heaviest things that can't possibly be moved fly away when Sneezy sneezes. He weaponizes it himself in "Take Your Pet to Lunch Day".
  6. ComicStrip.Dogs Of C Kennel: Will sneezes so hard that he blows his nose clean off in this comic.
  7. Fanfic.Nurse Jet: Jet's sneezes send him flying and hitting his head on everything.
  8. HappyTreeFriends.Tropes G To Z: Giggles has one in the Valentine's Day Smoochie that blows her brains out the back of her head. The blood forms the shape of a heart on the wall behind her.
  9. Recap.My Little Pony Tales S 1 E 2 Too Sick To Notice: Baby Pony's sneezing breaks Bon Bon's mirror and destroys a pillow, sending feather flying everywhere.
  10. VideoGame.Chuzzle: Clicking a Chuzzle enough times will cause it to sneeze its fur off.
  11. WesternAnimation.Foofur: When Fencer gets a nasty cold, his sneeze breaks a stepladder support.
  12. WesternAnimation.Hot Stuff: The caveman was so freezing cold that his sneezes shook the entire earth.
  13. WesternAnimation.Lumber Jack Rabbit: While Smidgen sniffs a hole in hopes of detecting Bugs, the latter, who really is in that hole, tickles the dog's nose with a feather, causing Smidgen to stand up (sucking up Bugs into his nose in the process) and sneeze, propelling Bugs into Paul Bunyan's cabin and into a moose call horn.

    Loud Sneeze 
  1. LuminescentBlush.Fan Works: In sister story Let Me Warm Your Heart, Narcis blushes even redder when he's embarrassed over his loud sneezes
  2. Recap.We Bare Bears S 4 E 42 Tabes And Charlie: Although Tabes' phone doesn't wake the wolves up, Charlie's sneezing does.

    Magic/Odd/Silly Sneezes 
  1. Genre Blindness: Combined with a dose of Wrong Genre Savvy, Clark often gets confused by normal superhero tropes. For example, when he catches a cold and gains super sneezes, it does not occur to him to weaponize them until the more Genre Savvy Chloe points it out. A shoehorned wick and nothing more than "sneeze powers"
  2. The Nudifier: By the time of UQ Holder!, Negi's Sneeze of Doom vaporizes the clothes of any living thing not protected by Anti-Magic within a mile radius.
  3. Characters.Toxic Crusaders: It's his power to be capable of powerful sneezes.
  4. Characters.Yokai Watch Brave Tribe To Charming Tribe: Whenever he sneezes, deadly thorns will shoot out of him.
  5. Fanfic.The Weed: Inverted and combined with Noodle Incident. Apparently Tarnish once turned Discord into a model citizen for a month after sneezing.
  6. Funny.OKKO Lets Be Heroes: Much like the character he's based on, Combo Breaker has guns in his butt. Which accidentally go off when he sneezes.
  7. Series.The Young Ones: Whenever Neil sneezes, something explodes.
  8. VideoGame.Reus: The Forest Giant will use a hand to comb it's hair (which is made out of forest, or sneeze a whole bunch of leaves out.

    Other 
  1. Playboy Bunny: When Negi discovers Chisame Hasegawa cosplaying as "Chiu", she's in a Bunny Girl outfit. And he drags her outside in front of the class, to her great embarrassment. Of course, it gets worse when the costume doesn't survive a sneezing...
  2. Recap.Animaniacs Episode 63: Buttons gets caught in an octopus' tentacles when he rescues Mindy from said octopus. Buttons then tickles the octopus' nose so said octopus will sneeze and release him from its grip.
  3. Series.The Puzzle Place: The episode "Ben's Bad Hair Day" subjects Ben to this when his brothers' attempt to give him dreadlocks like Leon's goes horribly wrong. He tries to hide it from his friends with a Brown Bag Mask at first, but the bag flies off when he sneezes, revealing the mess.
  4. VideoGame.The Sims 4: In the Jungle Adventure pack, a Totecallam Watcher Relic with a common crystal will afflict a contagious Curse of the Ancients that will cause affected Sims to randomly sneeze, interrupting whatever they were doing.
  5. WesternAnimation.Rango: After tricking the hawk into barreling straight into a soup can, Rango stealthy tiptoes away. And steps on a twig. Not even a sneeze

    ZCE 
  1. Characters.Looney Tunes Intro Bloopers: Whenever the Nyan Cat or the NBC Peacock appears.
  2. Fanfic.Forsaken: Keep Entei away from freshly-purified waters when he’s got a cold.
  3. Pantheon.Ruin And Destruction: Mentioned in a bio without explanation
  4. Series.Rentaghost: Nadia Popov. See Random Transportation above.
  5. WebAnimation.Fun With Cobra: Cobra's sneezes become this to anyone who's unfortunate enough to be around her when her nose feels the urge.
  6. WesternAnimation.Wunschpunsch: The episode "Achoo!".

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 24th 2023 at 11:26:28 AM

Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
#51: Jan 8th 2023 at 1:39:45 PM

Triple-posting to say that I'll just move those entries plus any wicks I come across to Nasal Weapon. I've started taking a crack at sorting wicks.

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#52: Jan 8th 2023 at 1:42:05 PM

Has anyone worked on either of the two description-drafting sandboxes? I didn't forget about them; I just haven't felt like working on them (and I'm not the best at writing descriptions if I don't have much of a starting point).

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
WarJay77 Big Catch, Sparkle Edition (Troper Knight)
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
#53: Jan 8th 2023 at 2:40:01 PM

The descriptions seem passable to me.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#54: Jan 8th 2023 at 11:57:24 PM

I'll see if I can move them into place later. I just got out of bed a bit ago.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
#55: Jan 9th 2023 at 7:22:48 AM

Alright, I made the final changes regarding on-page content that I'd been meaning to do (fixed a folder on ITS sandbox, removed some ITS content from SOD sandbox, moved SOD attacks to NA). I'd say they're good to move.

Edit: Also, I moved the Playing With page content just now to PW/ITS. Should the PW/SOD page be cut or simply overhauled if enough brains join forces to generate new ideas?

Edited by Yindee on Jan 9th 2023 at 10:45:44 AM

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
#56: Jan 11th 2023 at 4:59:50 PM

Double-posting to update: I've gotten through chunks of the wicks and rewrote the SOD Playing With page to reflect its new definition.

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
#57: Jan 22nd 2023 at 2:59:50 PM

Update: Made description changes, am doing more cleaning. Only got a couple of the larger namespaces left. Will watch the video examples for sorting them.

To be moved to ITS:

  • The Grinch and Cindy Lou
  • Austin

Potentially move to Nasal Weapon:

  • Henry's Sneeze (The train conductor times Henry's sneeze to blow soot onto some boys throwing stones from a bridge.)

Edited by Yindee on Jan 22nd 2023 at 6:46:47 AM

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#58: Jan 24th 2023 at 9:27:04 AM

Main.Ill Timed Sneeze and the revamped Main.Sneeze Of Doom are now live. Here are the wicks; I previously made Sandbox.Wicks Of Doom to keep track of cleanup, and it looks like some cleanup has already been done.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Twiddler (On A Trope Odyssey)
#59: Jan 24th 2023 at 10:57:39 AM

On Ill-Timed Sneeze, I changed "Sneezes" at the start of the description to "Sneezes and coughs" to make it clearer that coughs can be included.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#60: Jan 30th 2023 at 9:35:21 AM

This one's done, so locking up.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Add Post

Trope Repair Shop: Sneeze of Doom transplant
4th Dec '22 8:52:18 AM

Crown Description:

Consensus was to do a Trope Transplant by splitting off the current definition of Sneeze Of Doom (poorly timed sneezes causing accidents or other problems) under a new name. What should the new name be?

Total posts: 60
Top