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 You Know That Show and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Villainous Wastefulness
Is there a trope of wastefulness as a villainous trait? if there isn't I'm planning on creating one. Examples from fiction include:
- In Toriko, characters who waste food or kill animals without eating them are always villains.
- In Yogi's Gang, there is a villain literally named "Mr Waste" who actively goes out of his way to be wasteful; he has a giant machine that can instantly create any item out of resources, and he ends up exhausting multiple islands' worth of resources with his wastefulness.
- In Captain Planet, the villain Hoggish Greedly is meant to embody the evils of overconsumption and wastefulness; his evil plans usually involve exhausting resources in unsustainable ways, such as cutting down entire forests, killing endangered animals, destroying ecosystems etc.
- In DuckTales (2017), Flintheart Glomgold wastes tons of money trying to one-up or kill Scrooge. Unlike the comics, in which Glomgold is only slightly poorer than Scrooge, this incarnation of Glomgold is much poorer than Scrooge as a result of the former's wasteful spending.
Literally punching Cthulhu in the face
What I'm wondering is, do we have a trope for when a villain either not given to physical combat (because they're a chessmaster or a puppetmaster or whatever) or so magically or eldritchly powerful that physical combat is generally irrelevant, suddenly has to deal with someone punching them in the face or otherwise subjecting them to a physical beating?
The examples I can think of are when Holmes and Moriarty end up duking it out over the Falls, or when Fin Raziel just hauls off and punches Bavmorda in the face in Willow.
Edited by Robbery
Design swap
What do you called when a character uses design A in his initial appearances in one installment in a game, then switched into design B in later installments, but after that during another installment, he's in design A again?
Falsely Credited
This would probably be more of a Trivia item than a proper trope, but do we have anything cataloging when someone is credited for something they did not work on? I know this has been rather common in music over the years (e.g. Sepultura, Nirvana, Judas Priest, Bon Jovi, ect.) but I imagine undeserved credits have been given on Films and for TV before as well.
Prequel-induced plot hole
I wonder what would be the super-trope to Already Met Everyone, essentially where a prequel (or anything that shows the past, such as a flashback) does something that appears to contradict the current timeline and introduces a plot hole. For example:
- A character accomplishes a prodigious feat, and it is heavily implied (if not stated outright) that they were the first to do this. Later, a prequel shows that there were many others who have already accomplished this.
- An object (such as a weapon) is found or created, and everyone is amazed at how unique and wonderful it is. Later a prequel shows that many more such objects exist. (This one would be a Uniqueness Decay, but I'm asking specifically when this happens due to a prequel.)
- Conversely, a character is shown not having a certain skill or certain information, but a prequel establishes that they should have that skill or that information.
Essentially, an episode that shows the past appears to introduce a plot hole.
Working Class People are Comedic
Working-Class Hero discusses how, in past centuries, "Lower middle-class and working-class characters are either supporting characters or they are confined to comedies", and while the focus on wealthy characters is already seen in Cast Full of Rich People, I wonder if we have a trope for working-class people being relegated to comedy and comedic roles, which was definitely a thing in the past. Is this a trope here?
Again, But Bigger
Ice Age: Continental Drift: In one scene, a hyrax blows on a small shell-horn that sounds like a cavalry trumpet. When Captain Gutt laughs at this, the horn-wielding hyrax swaps out the shell with another one that is nigh-identical save for being bigger than the hyrax, which produces a deep, bellowing tone akin to a war-horn.
The Inverse of Outdated By Canon?
So I know the page for Outdated by Canon has Ascended Fanon and I Knew It! as contrast tropes, but is there any outright opposite trope to this in the sense of a fanfic using some fanon that the official work would later confirm? The example I got is from this JJBA fanfic:
- The original version of Star-Crossed Crusaders (which also adapated this fangame) went with the interpretation that Part 6's ending where Parts 1-5 still happened the same as they did in canon and it's only Stone Ocean's events that no longer exist. Then, the anime would imply this with the final episode's credits sequence, which shows the setting of the Part's ending after showing moments from the previous five parts.
I know this is inherently a case of Heartwarming in Hindsight, but I did notice that despite being a trivia trope, the Ascended Fanon page does have documented Fan Works where similar things happen. Though before I checked that, I thought Ascended Fanon only applied to non-Fan Works.
Edited by BriefCasey795
What's the trope for Darth Vader/R2-D2 amnesia?
In the early parts of the series, two characters meet. The characters act like this is their first meeting. The story treats it like its their first meeting. The story continues to treat these characters as though they have no history at all prior to meeting each other in the early part of the series.
Then later, flashbacks are shown which reveal that the characters actually do know one another, and at least one of the characters (if not both) should recognize the other. Sometimes accompanied by an "Oh yeah, that was you!" moment.
I'm thinking specifically of The Seven Deadly Sins, which is filled with this sort of thing. Nobody seems to remember one another until they are introduced to each other on screen.
Okay with being mocked, but hates friends being mocked
Is there a trope for when a character has no problem being mocked, bullied, harassed themselves, but can't stand see the same thing happening to their loved ones. A common line for these types of characters is "You can mess with me, but don't you dare hurt my friends," or something to that affect.
Delusions of Reciprocation
Is there a trope where an Abhorrent Admirer, Stalker with a Crush, Casanova Wannabe, etc. is convinced that the target of their affections returns their feelings even when said crush explicitly rejects and/or avoids them? Some examples of this trope would be...
- Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, who belives that Belle, the one woman who isn't attracted to him, is just her Playing Hard to Get.
- Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia who thinks that the Waitress's rejections are the result of her teasing him rather than genuine disinterest.
- Tatewaki Kuno from Ranma ½ who thinks Girl!Ranma and Akane are under a spell by Boy!Ranma rather than being genuinely annoyed by him.
Suspiciously Specific Wording
In Outer Wilds, Feldspar is stated in a museum exhibit to be the "first Hearthian to be intentionally launched into space", the joke being that someone felt the need to specify "intentionally". Is there a trope other than Noodle Incident that this fits?
Edited by Viira
Losing Ace in the Hole
Bob's best argument for whatever cause he's defending ends up being the one that causes him to lose.
Say Bob is a 20-year old campaigning for the local school to teach creationism instead of science. His best argument at the PTA meeting is that his mother and father are brown- and red-haired and he's a redhead, which shouldn't be the case according to genetics, and therefore Science Is Wrong. Cue a lot of awkward coughing among the older PTA members who remember that 20 years ago, the local mailman was a ginger...
Bob's mother confesses that Bob is indeed the mailman's son, she gets a messy divorce from Bob's dad, the school gets increased funding for its science teachers, and Bob is left humiliated by the entire ordeal, all because he submitted an argument he thought was unbeatable.
Edited by Chabal2
Rich, but can't touch their money
Is there a trope for when a character is wealthy on paper, but can't actually use their money. For instance, the money is in a trust fund that they can't touch until they reach a certain age.
Edited by SharkToast
Constant love conquests
Is there any particular trope where a character, usually The Casanova, is constantly getting new partners, but take the whole excitement from the conquest itself, rather than building any lasting relationship, quickly dumping their new partner and looking for another target? Or The Casanova itself has that baked-in? The example I'm thinking about is a female version, so you can probably see the problem.
Edited by Tropiarz
No final boss fight Videogame
Is there a trope for when a game which does have boss fights in general (so no Life Sim, Sports Game etc.) does not have a final boss fight at all and the game just ends? I know there is No Final Boss for You, but it has the constraint that it's up to a player's decisions in the game that the actual boss fight is denied to him. I know of two games which fit this description, the Ice Age 2 PS 2 game and, more recently and way more notably, It Takes Two.
Thank you in anticipation!
"Odd one out"
Is there a trope for characters who are described as "oddballs" or "the odd one out" and depict such behavior, but not ostracized by others like what All of the Other Reindeer portrays?
Edited by ilovewildkratts1
Indirect Death
A character dies while engaging in some activity which is thought to be the cause of death, but these turn out to be only indirectly related.
For instance, there's a Darwin Award winner who went to her neighbor for amateur liposuction surgery and died. Meatgrinder Surgery was not involved, she actually died from an overdose of anaesthetic.
Similarly, Alice has a deathly allergy to seafood and dies at the All-You-Can-Eat-Shrimp-Shack (she was run over by a drunk driver), Bob was known to be with his girlfriend when he died (it's not Death By Sex, he tripped and fell down the stairs while both were still fully clothed), etc.
Edited by Chabal2
Revenge From Entitlement
Is there a trope that involves a character whose desire for revenge is based on entitlement rather than any actual wrong being done against them? Some examples of how this trope might work...
- A creep who wants revenge on their crush for rejecting them.
- An Attention Whore who wants revenge against their crush for rejecting them.
- A Sore Loser who wants revenge on their opponent for beating them in a fair competition.
Action scene intercut with dramatic scene
An action scene and dramatic scene are put together to increase the overall tension.