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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openLight is Lawfull/ Dark is Chaotic
I've heard of the tropes "Light is not Good" and "Dark is not Evil" before, but the more I think of it, I realize that light and Dark are more often depicted as Lawful and Chaotic than other things. And yet, I can't find these tropes.
Edited by RvanopenCharacter Reveals Trait of An Unreliable Narrator
An Unreliable Narrator will depict themselves and other people through a lens heavily distorted by their own perceptions and intentions—hence why they're "unreliable." Thus, many things the Unreliable Narrator make you believe about them are not true. Do we have a trope for when another character says something within a work that reveals something about the true nature of an Unreliable Narrator?
An example of this would be an Unreliable Narrator painting themselves as a calm, composed person—but then a character states offhandedly in the work that the aforementioned character is a Nervous Wreck.
openYou're Not Supposed To Enjoy It
A character is forced into what should be an unpleasant dilemma, but it turns out they're fine with doing what was supposed to be the most painful option. Worse, they're actively enjoying it.
In this case, a European time-traveler ends up as an ambassador to Japan at the beginning of the Christian repression, where the shogun's soldiers force suspected Christians to stamp on an image of the cross. Not only does the time-traveler willingly do so, he escalates by continuously going above the requirements every time he goes through the checkpoint (dropkicking it, smashing it with a hammer, pulling down his pants and preparing to piss on it before being interrupted, etc.). One day the order comes that the character is dispensed from this particular act, to his obvious disappointment (it's shown he was hauling a small cannon for that day's desecration).
openSwastikas are treated as evil in works set before the 1930s
What the title says, what's the trope for when a swastika is treated as a symbol of evil or villainy when the work is set in a time period before Nazis existed?
openA Trope that involves a power that you have but cannot actually use.
I want to find a trope about a power that you cannot actually use. For example, you might had been found the legendary greatsword, but you cannot use it since it's too heavy, or you didn't remember how to use the power at all. Basically the power is here but it's dormant and you can't use it.
openProduction Trope? Live Action TV
Trying to find a trope for a work page here (actually, Series.Panorama and Series.Police Camera Action)
On an episode of Series.Panorama made in July 1998 focusing on a social issue affecting British society, which aired in November 1998, it features footage from August 1998 and October 1998 (from camcorder footage), but the setting of the episode is clearly focused on July 1998 and CCTV footage from the era dates it back to that time.
On an episode of Series.Police Camera Action which was made on 21 July 1997 (it shows in footage on the show itself), and the episode is set around that date as an Extremely Short Time Span (but aired in March 1998), it features footage of a police chase involving a Volvo car from 24 August 1997.
Would this be Anachronism Stew, or is there another production trope involved?
It can't be Period Piece, as that's for dramas, isn't it, and Unintentional Period Piece doesn't really apply, so what trope relating to chronology does fit these two examples?
I don't want to get this wrong on the work pages themselves.
Edited by Merseyuser1openVillain's Cold Open
Similar to the Batman Cold Open, a villain is introduced during something terrible and often visceral to establish how dangerous they are. Whether it's standing over a pile of bodies, cold-blooded torture, or simply obliterating everything in his path.
openFoodshadowing
- A female character spots her boyfriend hugging another woman and is quite envious. She returns to where they are eating dinner, fake smiling at him. So, when he looks away, she glowers at him as she breaks a couple of bread-sticks with her hands.
openSpecial items for special events
A character or group of characters get a new item/outfit only used within the special introducing it.
Edited by Crossover-Enthusiastresolved Touch to Activate Power
A character has to have physical contact with something in order to use their powers. Usually a brief touch is enough. For example:
Uraraka from My Hero Academia has to touch objects to use her gravity powers on them.
Shigaraki (also from MHA) has to touch people with all five of his fingers in order to disintegrate them.
Soifon from Bleach has to touch someone twice in the same spot to instantly kill them.
Jaune from Arc of the Revolution has to make physical contact in order to amplify the Aura of someone (unlike in canon where he can do this from a distance).
Matthew from Weight of the World has to touch someone in order to erase their memory. His brother has to have physical contact with technology in order to manipulate it.
Gambit has to touch objects to turn their potential energy into kinetic energy. Rogue can copy people's powers by touching them.
Is there a trope or TLP for this? I know Touch Telepathy and Touch of Death exist but there does not seem to be a trope for other touch-activated powers.
Edited by EmeraldSkyopenUseful Idiot
Is "useful idiot" sufficiently separate from Unwitting Pawn to be its own trope?
Basically, instead of being manipulated by a chessmaster, the useful idiot falls hook, line and sinker for the villain's PR, defending him via Activist-Fundamentalist Antics without any interference necessary from the villain (meaning there's nothing that connects the two). This makes him more prone to Break the Believer and Contempt Crossfire when the villain's actions are revealed.
openConfusing Terms
What trope would cover the terms for generations getting mixed up? For example, lot of media get millenials and Generation Z confused.
openNo Title
I've noticed a lot of media features high schoolers (or younger) sexting and such without any repercussions. For example, one had a thirteen year old send a boy a nude photo, he posted it online, and all that happened was bullying. That seems unrealistic due to it being illegal. Would that be categorized under a trope? Artistic License – Law?
Edited by Pichu-kunopenWait for it!
Alice tells Bob to do something when she gives him the order. Bob, however, jumps the gun and tries to do it before she tells him to, and she makes him stop and wait for the order.
openAdaptation trope? Live Action TV
Do we have this one?
In a Literature.Jack Reacher-type universe that forms an eight-book series of novels, Alice and Bob are basically good characters and Nice Guy and Nice Girl, respectively.
When it's adapted into a television series, Alice and Bob become Con Man characters who aren't evil, and still Nice Guy and Nice Girl, yet in the source material they were never con men/con women.
Is there a Media Adaptation Tropes or some other adaptation trope for this?
Edited by Merseyuser1
A work is censored/banned (or requested to be censored/banned) due to content that simply isn't there. For example, a work may be accused of containing "sexual content" when there is none whatsoever, and one can only assume this stemmed from implied romantic interests within the work.
This is different from a work being censored/banned for something most people consider silly, because even if you consider it silly to ban the work on those terms, the Moral Guardians may be right about the content being present.