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.
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openSucks at arguing
A character tries to argue a point, but is so bad at it that he ends up defeating himself.
For example, Bob tries to argue with Alice (who has Lack of Empathy) that empathy is a good thing. When she asks him to describe it, he says it's something that lets you feel other people's pain and suffer when they do, which prompts Alice to very reasonably state that empathy is certainly not something she wants if it causes her more pain.
openMeta Examples Of A Work Being Overshadowed By A Similar Work
This example from Days's YMMV page use the wrong trope. Is there a better trope, besides Dueling Works, for when a work is overshadowed by another trope?
- Overshadowed by Awesome:
- The anime, while unable to achieve the popularity of Haikyuu!! or KurokoNoBasuke, did help to improve the sales of the manga. It is also the produced in 2016, the same year that its creator would later make Yuri!!! on Ice and In This Corner of the World.
- For the manga, it has several strengths that would make it stand out compared to the others (most prominently the protagonist joining a powerhouse team and not the underdog, and the unusually warm relationship between Kazama and Tsukushi), but that alone wasn't enough to keep people hooked, especially since the series displayed many of its strengths too late, found Tskushi too wimpy to root for at the start and its anime series being underfunded. Thus, while being rather successful in its magazine and genre, it falls behind compared to the big leagues for the time period in the likes of Haikyuu, Kuroko no Basket and Yowamushi Pedal.
openYou are not the first
A character with a certain role discovers that they were not the first person in that role, and their predecessors failed, are dead, and/or are otherwise gone. Sometimes there's a deceitful mentor figure who manipulates the character into filling said role, without telling them about their predecessors. Sometimes overlaps with There Is Another, Hero's Evil Predecessor, Precursor Heroes, Eternal Recurrence or The Bluebeard.
Examples: (SPOILERS)
- Ego in Guardians Of The Galaxy pretends like Quill is his only son, but in fact he had countless children and has been killing them after they failed to inherit his Celestial powers.
- Neo in The Matrix learns he is not the first The One.
- Daughter in I Am Mother learns that there were two other Daughters before her, who were killed by Mother for failing their "exams".
- A variant with Sam Bell in Moon. He knows there were previous employees at Sarang station, but he later learns that all of them were *him* - they're all clones.
- The Doctor in the Doctor Who episode "Hell Bent" learns he was not the first person to find themselves in the mysterious castle and try to escape. Similar to the Moon example above, he and his predecessors are all clones.
Edited by phalanxopenManmade Devil
The Devil, God of Evil or other cosmic menace was created in some way by mortals, usually to give reason for why evil exists. Examples include The Idea of Evil created from man's desire to explain suffering, Slaanesh being born from the Eldar's excess, Angra Mainiu being made The Scapegoat of a God of Evil by the citizens for an explanation for evil, The Robot Devil built to punish bad robots in Robot Hell
Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93openChristmas' First Family
Stories dealing with the family of Santa Claus or characters of his extended family beyond the missus. For example Fred Claus being about Santa's less successful brother Fred
openLooping Location
Is there any trope for a location that just keeps looping? In an unnatural way? For example, Bob ends up in a surreal place where, upon opening a door, he just keeps getting sent back to the room he was just trying to leave, and even if he can get out of the room, going down the hallway will just lead him back to the start of that same hallway, and so on. Would definitely be a subset of Eldritch Location, but I think it's common enough and unique enough to be it's own thing; seen in works ranging from Mario to Tribe Twelve...
openMissing Trope for Unsung Heroes Videogame
I've been looking for a trope that best describes a hero who's sacrifice/contribution/etc. goes unnoticed, or treated as irrelevant compared to a greater or more widely recognized heroic figure. The closest any trope comes to it is Hero of Another Story, which doesn't fit the example that I'm thinking of.
For context: In chapter 16 of Valkyria Chronicles 4, Raz volunteers for what he knows will be a suicide mission. But the player must choose a second character to die with him.
But after their inevitable deaths, Raz is the only one anyone grieves over and talks about how brave he was, whereas the one who died with him (and essentially made the mission's success possible) doesn't get mentioned even once.
openAlone in the Aftermath
Is there a trope for characters that survive a major or minor cataclysm, and a shot (or entire scene) shows them alone in the aftermath, often with dead bodies around? (Examples: Mycah in She-Ra after Shadow Weaver disappeared, and Van Hohenheim in FMA: Brotherhood, after Father wiped out xerxes)
openOne Casualty Is One Too Many
Nobody should die, no matter how great the cause is.
Edited by Andermannopenimmortal not invincible, bullet pan ricochet
Two things, are there tropes that specifically involve A: someone being immortal, but still able to be injured or sick, and B: using a frying pan or a similar object to ricochet bullets.
openGwen Stacy lives
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, La Prensa reprinted Spider-Man comic books in Mexico, translated to Spanish. They started printing them at twice the publication speed (2 issues a month), as it proved to be a very popular character, but then they get into a problem: they finally got up-to-date and had no more Spider-Man material to publish, which would force them to slow down and follow Marvel's publication speed (1 issue a month, meaning that their earnings would be halved). Instead of that, they asked Marvel for permission to create their own Spider-Man comics, so they could stay publishing 2 times a month. Marvel approved the sample work of Jos{e Luis Duran, and gave him and the writers full creative freedom.
Then, The Night Gwen Stacy Died took place. Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man's love interest at the time, was killed. But then, La Prensa took full advantage of their deal, ignored what had just happened, and made instead comics where Gwen Stacy survived the incident and married Peter. They kept doing this for 44 issues.
Which is the trope, YMMV or trivia page to explain this? It is not Armed with Canon, as those comics are clearly not canon, and not even published by Marvel (they have never even been published in English). But it isn't a fanfiction either, so it isn't a Fix Fic. What is it, then?
openVirgin Angst
A character is upset about the fact they're a virgin for whatever reason. May be because of Virgin-Shaming or they believe that A Man Is Not A Virgin, likely the reason for a Quest for Sex. For example, Yamada from B Gata H Kei and the protagonists from American Pie
open"Stay In/Get Out" Persuasion
What trope fits this?
- Honkai Impact3rd: near the end of Fu Hua's story, "The Forgotten", which takes place in her mindnote where she uses a special device made by Otto in order to find her old forgotten memories, a friend from the old days, Jixuanyuan - in her darkened form - comes to her and tells her to stay in order to preserve her old memories. Otto warns Fu Hua not to, because she'll lose herself if she does. After defeating Dark Jixuanyuan, she warns Fu Hua that she won't be able to access her old memories again.
openCustomization Weirdness Creep Videogame
I'm looking for a trope that deals with absurd character customization options.
Specifically, I'm looking for when this happens over a long period of time, months or even years. (EDIT: By happening over a period of time, I mean that the devs add more customization options over time, usually with holiday or general game updates.) The Demopan phenomenon from Team Fortress 2 is a great example of what I'm looking for. Rainbow Pimp Gear is related, though this isn't strictly because the stats are good; more like people being weird, for weird's sake.
Do we have this one?
Edited by TheAlbinoPrimidopenAfterlife Snafu
When something goes wrong with the laws and nature of the afterlife, such messing with the borders, the mechanics being messed with, or something screwing up the afterlife itself. Ex; Janemba warping Other World, the general saying of "Hell freezing over", The Saint Of Killers freezing Hell and slowing things down through The Power of Hate, arguably Christ' harrowing of Hell
openHistorical Importance Upgrade
The inverse of Historical Downgrade, when a Historical Domain Character is given greater importance or is more notable than what they were in Real Life.
openIrrelevant Prologue
Wondering if there's a term for when the prologue of a movie or TV episode doesn't actually contribute to the plot, but provides some mild humor before things start happening and allows cast members to have a Mandatory Line or two because they aren't otherwise needed for a while. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did this a lot, especialy in the early seasons.
Do we have a trope for creatures which are born from powerful emotions