The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Find a Trope:
openNo Title Literature
A story starts off, with say, the Zombie Apocalypse, and everything seems to go PERFECT. And considering the situation the characters are getting and finding stuff with ease that they normally shouldn't given the setting. (A car, running HOT water, food, etc.) Then, as the story goes along, it gets worse and worse (obviously) until finally it really feels like the Apocalypse.
So, is there a trope for that and or just the first part?
openNo Title Literature
Is there a trope for when there is a talk often before or after the climax where a person who is 'in on everything' explains what's going on to the protagonist. For example when Dumbledore in 'the Order of the Phoenix 'says 'I'll explain everything'
openNo Title Literature
quoting from The Commies Made Me Do It:
> In The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lady Marguerite Blakeney (an intelligent, beautiful, sophisticated yet naive young woman <!—there's got to be a trope name for this—> who is unhappy in her marriage)
I'm sure we have that one but I don't know what it's called either...
openNo Title Literature
I am looking for a trope in which a character is mistaken for a god. I could have sworn I saw one somewhere on the Wiki, but I can not remember its name.
openNo Title Literature
I'm thinking of a trope that's like a cross between the Idiot Ball/Smart Ball tropes and the Author Avatar. The idea is that occasionally the author possesses a character in order to spout off about something that the author finds deep and significant. Unlike the Author Avatar trope, it doesn't necessarily happen to the same character every time. It's something like "Author Megaphone" or "Who's Got The Anvil" or something like that...
openNo Title Literature
Is there a character trope for a shy girl with a troubled past? I mean like, something bad happened to her or she's hiding something and now she is uncomfortable around people. I'm thinking that this would be common for romance novels, where the male protagonist has to show that there are good people in this world as they fall in love.
openNo Title Literature
Is there a trope for the kind of Exposition that plays with Show, Don't Tell by showing a character in a typical day and then telling (usually through the character's inner monologue) how it's usually a lot worse. Mercedes Lackey likes this one to set up the utter wretchedness of her protagonists before they're swept off to a life of adventure — things are hard, but at least it's not _______ (winter; the rainy season; a particularly bad day; a day when Dad comes home drunk; etc.)
openNo Title Literature
It's something like Spoiled by the Medium or so (not Interface Spoiler, but its very close). It's that one where you're reading a book and you know how much of the story is left because of how many pages there are so you know that the ending is coming soon, etc. I can't seem to find it.
openNo Title Literature
Is there a category for deadpan badass. That is, when someone does something incredibly badass and accompanies it with a calm, casual remark to show how simple this is for them.
The example that brought this question to mind is from Sanderson's Mistborn: After their superdestructive fight and just before Kelsier chops of the inquisitor's head with an axe, he says simply, "I'm glad you talked me into this."
So, is there a name for this, should there be a name for this? It's not badass boast, and that's the closest category I've seen.
openNo Title Literature
I'm pretty sure I've stumbled across it before; I'm looking for the name of a trope where a character within an established fantasy setting will deny the existence of another stock fantasy element for no particular reason, only for it to bite them in the butt later. For example, you're reading through an urban fantasy novel brimming with vampires 'n whatnot, but when presented with a series of grisly murders with a suspiciously large canine in the vicinity, the main character believes that it clearly can't be a werewolf, 'cause that's just silly! Fast forward to the final act, and a big, furry lunatic is nipping at her heels. Any suggestions?
openNo Title Literature
Rahan and Tarzan bring up a problem for linguistics in say 30.000 BC which Conan and Lord of the Rings for their part have solved.
In Lord of the Rings, everyone speaks Westron because the continent is colonised from Numenor. In Conan everyone speaks whatever they speak because the continent is colonised from Atlanteans. Same idea actually. But not very absurd.
The absurd idea is one which comes into play for Tarzan and Rahan, where on general evolutionist lines the stone age is supposed to have been diverse small populations. I am not sure about Cave Bear series, I think they do include linguistic problems.
Can I name the trope:
If You Are Stone Age, You Speak Pal Ul Don?
Btw, how do I name a trope?
openNo Title Literature
I stumbled on the pages for Anthony Winkler and his novels and whoever wrote them used the term Fantastic Racism to refer to real-life racial conflicts. Thus, I had to delete a bunch of examples, but I wondered if there were any tropes dealing with race that might allow some of the example to be added back in under the correct trope.
openNo Title Literature
This is a repeating theme in mythology: a human (usually a woman) is created by magic or the gods but they forget to give it some vital function such as morality, wisdom, patience or caution. Human naturally does something horrific because of this lack. I can't think of the trope title for this.
openNo Title Literature
I'm looking for that trope for Beautiful Dead Women. It's a romantic image used a lot in Victorian literature. The best example I can think of is the Lady of Shalott. It was also kind of parodied in the poem "the Leper" by Charles Swinburne. I don't think it counts as a Lost Lenore, because it's not necessarily a dead woman in the eyes of someone who was in love with her.
openNo Title Literature
In Tales Of MU, the golem Two is named such because the runes on her forehead resemble the word. It's not treated as a joke in-series, so is this an example of Punny Name or something different?
Edited by WillbyropenNo Title Literature
What's that trope for when that bad guy who's been chasing you the whole time turns out to be *GASP* your relative, and the villain knows it. It's not Luke, I Am Your Father, because that's not your father, that's your sibling, and it's not Everyone Is Related because the fanfic I'm adding the trope to has already shown that most of the main characters are unrelated.
Edited by dragonKhorse
Is there a similar trope to Narrative Profanity Filter, only it's masking out disturbing events instead of swearing (e.g. a long sequence of Cold-Blooded Torture which is detailed enough to give you the general idea but avoids being too specific)?