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 the Trope Launch Pad.
Find a Trope:
openNo Title Literature
Back Turned to the Audience
I'm looking for a trope where there's an image where several characters are shown, but one character has their back turned to the reader for the purpose of foreshadowing.
openNo Title Literature
What's it called when a character gives a press conference and they feel like they've supported their cause but then the media takes it and paints them as a horrible, evil person? The specific example I'm thinking of is from Little Brother, when M1k3y gives the press conference and the headlines afterwards are:
- XNET LEADER: I COULD GET METAL ONTO AN AIRPLANE
- DHS DOESN'T HAVE MY CONSENT TO GOVERN
- XNET KIDS: USA OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO
openNo Title Literature
I'm not sure if this is something that would already be listed as a trope, but it feels like it. In the book Sophies World, there are several instances where Alberto tells Sophie about a person from history and each time it's a woman, and Sophie is convinced that that's why she can't find entries on any of them in her encyclopedia. The trope in this would be either something about how women are insignificant [which struck me as a possible title], or another possible trope could be a situation in which you look through an encyclopedia or other reference work and it seems to have everything except what you're looking for. So are either of these existing tropes?
openNo Title Literature
You have two groups of people who are separated by differences that to an outside, objective observer are totally arbitrary (e.g. one group is red, the other blue), but which both groups are convinced opposes them entirely and eternally, even though they're really identical. It's a parody of partisanship and group identity.
I'm specifically trying to remember a specific literary/proverbial example of "black x and white x," where x is some nonsense name that isn't coming to me. It's driving me nuts.
openNo Title Literature
You have two groups of people who are separated by differences that to an outside, objective observer are totally arbitrary (e.g. one group is red, the other blue), but which both groups are convinced opposes them entirely and eternally, even though they're really identical. It's a parody of partisanship and group identity.
I'm specifically trying to remember a specific literary/proverbial example of "black x and white x," where x is some nonsense name that isn't coming to me. It's driving me nuts.
openNo Title Literature
Is there a trope where in science fiction/fantasy, a mundane word is capitalized to make it significant? Such as The Sharing (from Animorphs), the Smoke (from the Uglies), The Maze, Variables, The Scorch, The Trials, The Flare, The Bliss, The Gone, The Safe Haven (from the Maze Runner), and The Scratch and The Reckoning (from Homestuck).
openNo Title Literature
Is there a trope for "Burly Detective Syndrome"
, when the narrative avoids using a character's name by using character tags?
openNo Title Literature
What was that trope where, if you write yourself into a corner and cant figure out how to progress the plot.... "Have some guy with a gun burst through the door". Essentially making a new character that inexplicably has a way to advance the plot to its next point?
openNo Title Literature
What's the trope for when an author creates a secondary character that the audience is clearly intended to dislike or dismiss...but the secondary character is much better developed, more plausible and more likable than the main characters? I've been thinking of it as Accidentally Awesome, but there's no trope with that name.
openNo Title Literature
A character sees something peculiar, asks another character (who's plausibly more knowledgeable in the area) about it. The exchange goes into detail about the weird thing, to the point where the first character asks what it is and the other reveals that he has no idea. Is there a trope for this?
openNo Title Literature
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)?
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 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
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.

A character does an Internet search on supernatural creature (usually a teen girl searching for info about what species the hot guy in her school might be)... shows in a lot in bad YA fiction -Twilight, Fallen, Hush Hush, etc.