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openRandom adventures
Is there a name for when the plot of a series consists of (mostly) random adventures that are usually not interconnected?
An example would be the early seasons of Adventure Time before the Story Arc set in
openDisease motif
A character or force within the story is an allegorical representation of a certain disease or illness. I've checked Motifs, Animal Motifs, and Body Motifs and none of them make mention of this.
Examples:
- Xenomorphs from the Alien series resemble not only parasitoid wasps, (which would be Animal Motif, not this trope.) but also a virus attacking and hijacking a cell in order to produce more copies of the virus.
- Karkat from Homestuck represents the "cancer" zodiac sign, and as a pun on the name he is associated with both crabs and literal cancer. Additionally, the "tumour" Karkat introduces into the human universe manifests as Bec Noir, who throws the entire universe Off the Rails and later destroys it, then "metastasizes" by travelling to the troll universe.
- In Adventure Time, the corruptive effect that the Ice Crown has on Simon Petrikov is evocative of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
- In The Matrix, Agent Smith calls humanity a virus, but ironically behaves like a virus himself, developing Clone by Conversion abilities and swapping out his Sinister Shades for a pair that resemble capsids.
- In the 1986 remake of The Fly, Word of God is that Seth Brundle's transformation represents the aging process, but critics have also compared it to AIDS or a degenerative disease.
- In The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa's sudden and inexplicable transformation into a giant cockroach is often interpreted as representing some sort of stress-induced mental illness that renders him unable to work or appear in polite society.
Edited by phalanxopenFinal Boss Escape Sequence
Suppose you defeated the final boss (or not), now you have to also escape the dungeon. Maybe it's because the dungeon you're in is crumbling away and it'll kill you if you stay, or the final boss is still alive, but can't be damaged unless you traverse to something that can finish off the boss.
Examples:
Ocarina of Time has you escaping Ganon's castle as it's collapsing
New Super Mario Bros. Wii has you trying to escape from Bowser to a big red button which will drop him into an abyss
Edited by Devan2002openHeat vision
The ability to detect other creatures through infrared vision (sorry for the crappy description). Do we have this one?
openA Specific Cycling Scenario
I've seen this trope occur a few times, but the one that comes to mind immediately is seen in The King, the Mice, and the Cheese. To summarize the story, the king's palace gets infested with mice, so he gets some cats to dive the mice away, but then the cats become a nuisance, so he gets dogs to get rid of the cats, but then the dogs become a problem. This repeats with lions, then elephants, before the king finally drives away the elephants by bringing back the mice.
I know there are stories with a similar plot, to the point where The Simpsons spoofed it via a conversation. When Bolivian tree lizards invaded Springfield and decimated the pigeon population, Skinner reveals how the town will handle the lizards if they become a problem themselves through a series of contingency plans: they would wipe the lizards out with Chinese needle snakes, then send in snake-eating gorillas if the snakes themselves become a problem. The spoof part comes with how they'd take care of the potential gorilla infestation: simply wait until winter, when the gorillas die from the cold.
Edited by NESBoyopenWorks originally intended as part of one franchise, eventually get reworked as stand-alone media
Works that come to mind:
Die Hard: based on a novel that was a sequel to the novel The Detective, and was thus originally intended as a sequel to the movie adaptation of that novel that starred Frank Sinatra; eventually, that fell through, and the screenplay was reimagined as a possible sequel to Commando starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; eventually, that fell through as well, and in the end we got the 1988 movie starring Bruce Willis that kickstarted a franchise of its own.
Final Destination: originally pitched as an X-files episode, but that was never made and eventually a new horror film franchise was born out of this.
Warcraft: Originally intended as a videogame based on the Warhammer universe, due to copyright issues got rebranded as Warcraft and would soon become one of the biggest videogame franchises in history.
A specific case would be Fifty Shades of Grey, that started out as a Twilight fanfic, then got rewritten as an unrelated franchise.
To a degree, I'd say Stallone's Cobra would also fit here - Stallone was a contender for the role of Alex Foley, and he modified the screenplay for BHC to the degree where it started to resemble what would eventually become Cobra; not sure how it also claims to be based on the novel Fair Game, though.
Have we got anything like this on here? Thanks.
openHero & villain, same actor
Would it fall in any specific category when both the hero and the Big Bad of the story are played by the same actor?
openDisliked but Needed
People don't like it, but they have to have it for a cruical reason.
openRebels Pick Locks
Rebellious or otherwise sneaky characters know how to pick locks, with whatever object they have on hand. Where they learned this is almost never explained.
openUnusual motif?
Elena of Avalor has a weather motif between at least two people, Elena (rainbow/sunshine) and Esteban (storm). However, neither necessarily has powers relating to their motif (Elena does have light powers, but she also has a bunch of other unrelated powers; Esteban's Dark and Troubled Past involves a storm but he doesn't have powers over electricity or darkness).
openBroke the Synchronization
Everyone is saying a phrase all synced up, and then someone breaks it by saying the wrong thing or being off-sync.
openLong pronounciation
A character or a villain. Always pronounces "evil" where they have to say the "e"part in "evil" a little bit long,also some other words: "Behold my most eeeeeeeevil! creation,I will use this to destroy mankind and they will meet their doooooooooom!it certainly is eeeeeeeeeevil!",and is also accompanied by a dramatic background music.
openBook of Doodles and Morse Codes
Words in a book are sometimes shown and represented by just lines and dots.
openHeart of "Blank"
Is there any trope that deals with the habit of artifacts of power and other such important things being named "The Heart of _____?" Such as how W.I.T.C.H. used the Heart of Candrokar, the Heart of Zimballa, and the Heart of Meridian. Or how DC has the Heart of Darkness. Or how the new She-Ra presents the Heart of Etheria. Or how Grandia II had the more literal Heart of Valmar. Or even Yugioh infamous Heart of the Cards.
I've looked for such a trope, but can't find one, which seems odd considering how often "The Heart of..." appears in fiction.
Edited by AsherTyeopenBillionaire Villain
A villain who has a lot of money, either by having something like piles of gold or owning a place which looks very wealthy.
I.e. Bowser in Super Mario 3D World who has an entire amusement park, an expensive looking car, and other stuff.
Edited by Devan2002openFighting over the on/off switch
A battle between the hero and the villain over some sort of machine or magical ritual. When one character gets the upper hand in the fight they turn it off, when the other gets the upper hand they turn it back on. (Usually the villain is the one trying to keep it on and and the hero is the one trying to turn it off, due to Villains Act, Heroes React.)
openPsy Is Purple
Like with Gravity Is Purple and Supernatural Is Purple, this trope is about a specific element, in this case psychic power, being described with a purple theme and palette(or a color very closely related to purple like pink). A few notable examples of this are in Marvel comics, where psychics often glow in a pink-purple aura when using their powers(especially telepaths). Some of them(like Psylocke) even dress in purple to match. Another example of this is in Pokémon, where the psychic type’s main colors are pink and purple, which is not only reflected in psychic attacks, but also in a lot of psychic pokemon, whom are pink and purple(like Starmie, Mewtwo, Espeon, Grumpig, Musharna, Malamar, Mega Latios/Latias, etc...) too. A third example of this would be in the Kirby franchise, where the ESP ability’s icon is purple and the psychic enemies that kirby can swallow to get this ability are all dressed in dark purple cloaks.
Edited by MisterOMopenName change between alternate universes within a franchise Anime
The various universes that comprise the Mai Hime franchise share many characters, but often change at least part of a given character's full name, e.g. Natsuki Kuga and Shizuru Fujino from Mai-HiME are Natsuki Kruger and Shizuru Viola in Mai-Otome. What is the trope for this?
Edited by MarqFJA
A character that suffers all the misfortune that the story can give but instead of played for comedy, it is designed to horrify the audience.
Example Helen, a young girl of the Acolytes (Villain group) who can shapeshift and regenerate, always suffers being attacked throughout the story by the Indigo League. She horrifically survives being sprayed with bullets from a submachine gun, having parts of her body ripped, attacked with a fire ax, splashed acid towards her, and being blown apart with a crude bottle-bomb then caught on fire. No matter what, she survives with gruesome and grotesque injuries that will eventually reform and regenerate quickly.
What trope is this?