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.
Find a Trope:
openThe old trope of a woman trying to calm a monster?
You know the one: Betty Ross trying to calm the Hulk, or that woman trying to calm King Kong. They are there as the Love Interest to a monster character.
What is the name of it?
openKilling Someone To Prevent Another Person From Talking?
It's like "He knows too much, so I'll kill his wife to prevent him from talking". Is that a thing?
open Unique ratings scale?
Do we have anything that covers reviewers who use a ratings scale other than the typical numerical, alphabetical, or star ratings? I'm considering launching a Trivia trope to cover the concept, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't already done before doing so.
openNever Trust the Anime's Opening Sequence Anime
It's like Never Trust a Trailer, but the thing is, the anime's opening in every episode contains a scene which does not actually happen in the entire series.
openWincing at another's pain?
Do we have this one? This is basically a reaction trope where we see one character wince at the sight of another's injury. Similar to Share the Male Pain except it can apply to any part of the body and is equally likely for women to wince as it is for men. This can be done for dramatic effect, to show that another character is empathetic or squeamish (or both) and/or how bad the wound is. It can also be done for comedic effect, with similar reasoning behind it (i.e. showing just how bad the injury is by having another character react to it) but played humorously instead. In some cases, it is the only indication we get as to how bad the injury actually is, doubling as a Gory Discretion Shot. Any help finding this trope if it exists would be much appreciated, thanks!
openWhat trope works for the audience reaction of finding a joke in bad taste?
Since Dude, Not Funny! is now In Universe Only, what other trope works for an audience, not the in story characters, finding a joke in bad taste? I want to know what trope name to use when complaining on the YMMV page about tasteless jokes a work did that I got annoyed by. I tried to list the following in the YMMV section of the film North under Narm, but that didn't work:
- Several inverted examples:
- Mr. Ho stating that his wife is barren to children is supposed to be funny, but instead it just comes off as Sick and Wrong. Making cracks about your wife being barren to children while she's standing right next to you is in poor taste.
- Don't forget that her name is Mrs. Ho. Isn't the irony hilarious?
- Kind of lampshaded by the dirty look she gives him afterward.
- We get a joke from North's first foster parents about the death of their son. It's suppose to be funny, but it just seems ridiculous for them to be joking about their own son's death. Saying the horrific death of your overweight son was a "mighty big loss."
- And to top that off, we then immediately get a happy-go-lucky, over the top musical number with the lyrics "We had a son who was trampled by a ton of longhorns!" What. The. Hell?
- The scene where the Eskimos exile their elders into icebergs. What truly makes it tasteless beyond belief is how this is pretty much treated as heartlessly as possible, with a guy hurrying people along. Apparently, saying goodbye to your grandparents you'll never see again is time-wasting...home.
- Several inverted examples:
Some jerk deleted this. If writing Narm and inverting it does not work, and Dude, Not Funny! is now in universe only, what do I list all of this under? It has to go somewhere, I'm not gonna take "no" for an answer. These examples and all the other Dude, Not Funny! examples that wee deleted from YMMV pages long ago when it became in universe only have to go somewhere.
openFrozen Enemy Platform Videogame
I dunno why I didn’t come here BEFORE using the launch pad, but eh.
Anyway, in the TLP, I proposed a trope called Frozen Footstool. It’s a subtrope of Helpful Mook, where you have to freeze or petrify an enemy before you can use it as a stationary platform. This would include the uses of the Ice Beam in Metroid, Ice Man’s version of the Ice Slasher in Mega Man: Powered Up, the Ice Whip in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, and maybe the Ice Flower in Mario. Did I just not find it under an obscure name in the wiki? I tried searching for “frozen platform,” and mainly got Slippy Slidey Ice World.
Edited by Voyd211openIn-Universe Examples of Demonic Spiders
Like in the series, there's this certain type of Mook that makes the heroes claim "Not these guys again!" whenever they show up.
openToo Much Power Videogame
I don’t know if this is a actual Trope or what would be a more fitting one altogether, but is there something like this?
To clarify, the core idea is that in a fight, a combatant that uses power, magic, or whatever else is given much more of it, to the point that having much more of that backfires. And that could mean they get defeated, killed, or probably explode in some way.
openCome closer so I can kill you?
What's the trope for when someone says, "I can't hear you, come closer" but they actually plan on killing the person. Common with animals who want to eat smaller animals.
open"Be careful what you wish for" actually turns out good? Live Action TV
What trope fits this situation:
Alice and Bob are having a romantic dinner, Alice makes a wish during the conversation and during it Bob says to Alice about her wish "Be Careful What You Wish For" and he expects it to Go Horribly Wrong. (I'll leave it to you to make a guess on what).
However, the wish that Alice made did not prove to have any of the usual consequences associated with Be Careful What You Wish For, and actually improved her life.
What's the trope for this?
Edited by Merseyuser1openAs long as it's survivable
I was playing Just Cause 3, and was in the middle of using the U41 cargo plane to airlift the Verdeleon 3 from it's warehouse near Falco Maxim to one of Mario's garages in Citade Di Ravillo* What do you think is faster, a 1-minute plane ride in open skies, or a 15 minute road trip along a route filled with trigger-happy soldiers?. After a bumpy landing in a wheat field near the main road that ended with the plane sitting with it's front landing gear hanging off a small (IE: 5' high) cliffnote there was a much bigger cliff in the way, so I couldn't land on the road, I managed to drive the car to the garage, then decided to try to bring it back where I found it as an additional challenge. So I drove the car back to the plane, hauled it back onto it's wheels, then blasted back into the air with the nitrous and headed back to Falco. However, as I came in for a landing, I failed to account for a pair of watchtowers on either side of the runway, resulting in the destruction of both of them, followed by the plane. After dusting myself off, I checked the cargo bay to see if the car was intact which, surprisingly, it was. So I dragged the severed nose away from the plane's body, ramped the car out of the front of the cargo bay, and drove it back with no trouble. Granted, there were now four of them instead of three, and one was slightly damaged, but at least it was still drivable. Long Story Short Both me and the car managed to survive not one, but two flights in a cargo plane with a nitro-boosted takeoff and a rough landing with nothing holding the car down, with the plane exploding at the end of the second "landing".
Edited by GofastmikeopenVery Bad Spy
Alice is spying on Bob and Charlie, a mole if you will. But then she is suspected. Charlie: You! Who are you really? Alice: Huh? Oh! Yes, I'm a spy! My name as Alice Smith, my ID's in my pocket if you need it, and my secret message is under my watch. I really should have thought of an alias, but I didn't. Charlie: Tie her up! (Thinking: Holy cow, that went way easier then I expected)
openFunny guy lands woman "out of his league"
Just what it says on the tin. Typically the woman is attractive and somehow specially skilled, and her love interest is somewhat more of an average Joe, but he's always funny. Others frequently question how they wound up together. An example that comes straight to mind is Wash/Zoe from Firefly.
openInterruption gag in comedic music? Music
Often in comedic music skits, one person just kind of does their own thing and become oblivious for several seconds of their own surroundings. For instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXhAz0DOpMU (~10:00, ~10:20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I (~2:30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8 (~1:25)
Is there a name for this trope?
openPrequel Flanderization
A character in a prequel shows severe Flanderization compared to their previous appearance. Since it happens earlier in the work's timeline, does that really count as Character Development?
Edited by Chabal2openIn-universe Backed by the Pentagon
Is there something like Backed by the Pentagon, but for in-universe projects? A private company's new technology is funded by the Defense Department for possible military applications, but isn't an in-house Pentagon project or expressly intended as a weapon or for the military exclusively.
I'm trying to build up the Reverie page a bit.
is there a trope for plots like the one in Mass Effect, Babylon 5, Star Trek Deep Space 9 or the expanded universe of Star Wars with the Yuuzhan Vong; when all or most powers including enemies have to left their differences aside to fight a common enemy more powerful than all of them combined? I know Enemy Mine exists but I think is kind of limited to people and not the same scale.
Edited by Luppercus