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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openUndesired reunion
A character unexpectedly meets a person from their distant past, where their previous encounter had been at best awkward.
openMacGuffin combo
When several Mac Guffins are brought together, something happens, or new powers are unlocked
Possibly distinct from Dismantled MacGuffin in that in this case, the individual Mac Guffins aren't necessarily pieces of something. Individually, they may be pretty useless or can actually do something.
- The Infinity Gems from Marvel. Individually, they give the wielder control over a certain element. When put together with an Infinity Gauntlet, they give the wielder control over the fabric of reality itself.
- The Mon Mon Items from Mon Colle Knights, when brought together, can be used to create "gates"
- The Omega Keys from Transformers: Prime. By themselves, they're just keys, but they can be linked together to produce a map to the Omega Lock.
openLanguage Trope
Is there a trope for when a fictional language is a real language by a different name? The writer uses a real language as a stand-in for a fictional tongue.
openManufactured world
Character lives in a manufactured, simulated, or otherwise contained setting.
For example, in Dad, Dad has claimed that his entire town is inside a place called the "Facility". He has free reign to leave, but doesn't have to, because everything is in the Facility. It's also all redundantly named, with the characters living in a Neighborhood in Town, going to Work, eating at Restaurant, living next to Neighbor... it's a very artificial environment, though a functional and large one at that.
Edited by WarJay77openConvenient childless couple
Magical babies are always found and adopted by childless couples who just so happened to be in the neighborhood
openRecursive Ownership
I feel like we have this already, but I forgot the name.
It's something like "this guy's servants have servants" or "this guy has a pool inside his pool".
openTrans Women Characters With Lower Voices Than Cis Characters?
There's this entry on You're Under Arrest! and I'm curious if it should be moved somewhere else:
- Anime Accent Absence: Variation. In the English dub, Aoi has a naturally feminine and high pitched voice. In the original and the Latin-American dub, her voice is a bit lower than the other girls.
openBacklash Hype?
Is there an opposite trope to Hype Backlash? Something that fits the situation "I liked it just fine, but then I saw people hating on it, and now I would die for it"?
openBreaking up the couple in the sequel Film
What is the trope called when they Break up the romanitcs leads in the squeal, You know like in ghostbusters 2,Star wars the force awakens,Bridget jones's Baby
openRe-using a character Literature
In The Two Noble Kinsmen Shakespeare uses the legendary Theseus and Hippolyta as characters, and they also appear in A Midsummer Night's Dream. But there's no sign that the Theseus and Hippolyta in one play are the same characters as the ones in the other play—they're just two different portrayals of a couple of mythological people. Is there a trope for that?
I know that we have Reused Character Design, but I'm not sure that this is it, since it's not a character design, but a character, who wouldn't necessarily have been played by the same actor, or have worn the same clothes (and possibly the same wig) in both plays.
Also, maybe the fact that Theseus and Hippolyta are pre-existing fictional characters plays in. (While they might have had some sort of real-life basis in real, historic figures, the mythological versions that formed the basis for Shakespeare's characters must be said to be fictional.)
Edited by MichaelKatsuroopen I Didn't Do It For You. I Did It Because It was Right.
A character, and only him, finds out and that his high school crush has been kidnapped. Though he has justifiably cynical reasons not to save her, he does not because he still loves her but because he knows he'll eventually regret not doing so.
openIgnorants are intellectuals' prey
Do we have a trope about an idea about how ignorants are at the mercy of the intellectuals? I'm thinking society-wide but it may also happen between individuals.
openFrom Cute to Badass
Easily described with Squirtle's evolution path; Squrtile = Cute, Blastoise = Badass.
openStaircase of family photos
Some conveniently placed family photos hanging on a wall for a character to look wistfully at as they pass
openNot so rational after all Western Animation
What do you call the trope where a character thinks that they are the rational one but aren't really as rational as they like to believe that they are?
openImplied Window Escape
A character is startled by a noise in a room and when investigating it, find the room empty. But there's an open window, usually with wind blowing the curtain dramatically to emphasize it, implying someone was in the room but sneaked out via that window.
Do we have something like this?
openKid-friendly adult work
Do we have a trope / audience reaction for "works that is marketed for adults but have little to no adult content"? I've seen people use What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? to describe this phenomenon, even though it's a completely different trope.
openUnknowingly Similar Timelines
What would the trope be for this situation:
Timeline A is known to the reader (be it history or a canon work). The work focuses on Timeline B, which happens much the same as A but for different reasons (due to event X). A character comments that if X hadn't happened, things would have been much different, when the reader knows this is not the case.
In this case, an Alternate History where the US wins the battles of Midway, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima thanks to nuclear-powered giant robots, culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki being nuked not by planes but by said giant robots walking into both cities and detonating their reactors, followed by Japan's surrender and post-war reconstruction happening much the same as in Real Life. A Japanese character tells the inventor of the robots that "if you hadn't brought in giant robots, the war would have gone entirely differently for us".
Edited by Chabal2
A character, though American but has parents are from another nation, pretends not to speak English and only his parents' native tongue. Suddenly, another character, who is billingual, tries to speak to him in that language. The former is understandably shocked.
Edited by JC96