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openSmall And In Charge
A person giving orders to or even chastising their subordinates is comically smaller than them. Often overlaps with similar size-disparity tropes like Huge Guy, Tiny Girl, Small Parent, Huge Child, Miniature Senior Citizens, Brains and Brawn, etc.
- In Lucky Luke, only one of Ma Dalton's children is the same size as her, but she still orders them around like small children.
- This line from Rugby Is Slaughter's analysis page:
It can be very amusing to see a pocket-sized referee call over the Captains, usually two men the size of small tanks, each of whom could probably rip him in half with only minimal effort, and give them a stern talking to while they stand looking thoroughly humble and contrite, mumbling, "Yes sir", "No sir", "Sorry sir", "of course, sir" and "won't happen again, sir."
- Schlock Mercenary: Cute Bruiser Chelle yelling at two elephant-sized subordinates.
openI don't need a guardian Film
A character tries to refuse protection from an assigned guardian (secret service, parent) only to later be attacked and in some cases saved by the guardian. Often times the protected character is comically mean to the guardian, and makes jokes at his/her expense. Despite this, after the guardian saves the protected, the guardian reveals a level of affection for the protected. This is not necessarily Bodyguard Crush. It can be a teenage girl that rebels from her parents and then regrets it, and maybe has to be saved by Papa Wolf. Often times, it's a president or official that doesn't want secret service in the way at an event, then of course, there is an attack on the president, or other principal.
Examples (Guarding Tess, The Diplomat)
resolved Picture + Picture = Reveal
A character realizes that two people are really one person or that two situations are connected by imagining two pictures in his/her head and then having them overlap with each other as a visual metaphor for putting two and two together.
openBall in the yard
A plotline or even just a minor character centered on that old neighborhood legend: go into THIS yard to retrieve a lost toy, and you'll never be heard from again. The plot usually sees one newbie kid kick a ball into Old Neighbor's yard, go get it (despite their fellow kids' fear), and discover that the reclusive old-timer is actually just lonely or cranky, and not a witch or ghost at all.
Sometimes subverted—she IS a witch but only to bullies, he WILL chase you off with a gun (for your own safety), etc. Distinct from a Fun-Hating Confiscating Adult in that the yard owner may or may not be intentionally keeping the lost items, and the trope is more about the specific situation than the elderly neighbor.
openForced to act ahead of time
A specific form, how The Plan can go off the rails: While the pieces are slowly moving into position, something happens that forces to either act things out immediately or abandon the whole effort; often an underling or ally jumping the gun (compare: Leeroy Jenkins), but outside effects can work too. Can affect both heroes or villains.
A prominent example would be The Lord of the Rings: After Aragorn revealed himself to Sauron, it put pressure on the latter to launch his invasion plans against Gondor right away.
Obviously a close relative to Spanner in the Works, but maybe there is something more specific for this case.
Edited by JerryopenAwful Wedded Life For One
An Awful Wedded Life where one partner is perfectly happy with the state of their marriage, at the other's expense.
e.g.
- Alice is a timid, mousy housewife married to Bob, a boorish dumbass who only sees Alice as free housekeeper and cook.
- Carl is Diana's Henpecked Husband, Diana being a domineering Straw Feminist who openly boasts of having housebroken Carl of his unpleasant habits like talking back, watching sports, wanting sex or going to bars with his friends.
resolved Only Using 10% of My Power
Do we have a trope about a character having performing incredible damage, and is revealed to have only been using a fraction of their strength.
open"Start from the beginning"
When a character is asked to "start from the beginning" to describe a situation but they misunderstand and describe the beginning of their life.
openInstant Rejection
A character, often one auditioning for something, is rejected immediately before they can even do anything- often based solely on appearances or minor quirks. Different from Terrible Interviewees Montage and Hopeless Auditionees because it's the judges who have the issue; the auditionees can't be horrible because they didn't even have a chance to be.
openhaunting the narrative
Based on the recent Overly Sarcastic Productions video.
Haunting the narrative applies if a story can't happen if the character is still around.
Their continued absence drives the narrative/plot.
They don't have to be dead (missing child stories are probably the best example).
Edited by DeMarquisopenSex Live Action TV
Forbidden fruit. Where the moral universe of the show means that eroticism can only be connected to wrongdoing
resolved Press jump to jump Videogame
I know we have this one, I just forgot the name. When a character in a videogame is teaching the player how to do something, they'll say "Press the a button to Y", or even "Press the Y button to Y", oftentimes (but not always) completely ignoring the blatant 4th wall break
openMultiple criminals committing similar crimes
Is there a trope where the cop is in pursuit of a criminal and finally gets his man, only to realize that there's actually someone else out there committing similar crimes that were attributed to the original criminal.
I'm not talking about a copycat taking over after the original criminal is apprehended, or the criminal being proven innocent because the crimes continue after he's captured. I'm talking specifically about both criminals being active at the same time but all the crimes being attributed to one.
Some examples include: US Intelligence thought they had captured their mole when they arrested Aldrich Ames, but eventually realized there was a second agent who had also been leaking information to the Russians, Robert Hanssen.
In Narcos, Officer Tapia goes through great lengths to pursue a man who has been preying on women near the Mexico/US border. He finally ambushes and kills the man, but soon realizes he was only one of several such predators.
openRobot with digital face
I've seen robots with digital faces many times before. Is this already a trope on the site?
- Pretty much all Bots from Astro Bot
- EVE, MO and BURN-E from WALL•E
- The Eilik Bots
in real life (looks very similar to Astro)
- BMO from Adventure Time
- Literally all Murder Drones
Yeah I see this a lot and it's not just robots with heads in the shape of TVs...
Edited by SleepingStarAikunoopenDoing the illogical thing
I read a page a good while back that was basically ‘examples of where doing the illogical thing is the right thing’.
There was a real life example of a fire at the back of a tram/train in the mountains where everyone fled upwards away from the fire but a group of firefighters led some passengers towards the fire, as they knew going upwards would mean exposing themselves to noxious gasses. The firefighter group got passed the fire and survived; the people who did the logical thing and fled away from the fire didn’t.
resolved Twins
Two characters (played by the same actor) being confused for twins, and then denying the fact.
I remember adding an entry to such a draft in the TLP, and I never got to bookmark it back then. I thought it might have been launched, but when I searched the "Related" pages of the show (Kamen Rider Den-O) that I wicked to the draft, I don't see any match.
openromance Literature
Class difference, he is a dragon shiftier, she is a normal human form a village, they were close friends as kids but were separated, she is sunshine and he is grumpy
openFire Fighting Failure
When an attempt to put out out a fire does nothing or makes it worse.

In the Steam Ages Part 2 trailer for Plants vs. Zombies 2: Reflourished, after the failures of Mechanic and Inventor Zombie, Zomboss gets angry and seemingly has an audible High-Pressure Emotion. The camera then pans to reveal its actually the overheating furnace of Furnace Zombie making the sound, who then blows up.