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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openUnsolvable Mystery Misdirection Literature
A mystery story begins with something apparently illogical going on - readers get interested because they want to know how the writer is going to get out of that one.
But then it turns out the actual hook of the story is just a bit of misdirection by the villain, either to keep witnesses and the detective away from the real mystery, or to attract the detective's attention, because It's Personal between the two of them.
So, the solution to the mystery is, there was no mystery because it was all a hoax.
openBetraying a friend for popularity
A character, usually in middle or high school, turns on their unpopular friend in order to curry favor with the Alpha Bitch.
openBattle School War Sim
In a Military School, or maybe just a normal school, there's a war sim involving students fighting a mock war with some of them acting as generals or leaders. Usually the protagonist learns valuable lessons about war, or abuses the rules, or makes a crazy innovation, and usually they either win or do incredibly well. Examples would be all of Enders Game, Parts of Old Mans War and Red Rising, and parts of HPMOR.
openCutscene injury immunity Videogame
Is there a trope for when a character is seriously wounded in a cutscene but when it ends they play exactly the same? Like in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance when Raiden gets the crap kicked out of him by Armstrong but he's fine when the boss battle continues, or how in Spider-Man (PS4) Spidey's seemingly uninjured after the beatdown from the Sinister Six.
Edited by BobtheBoldoreopenKicked out of their house
Exactly What It Says on the Tin- A character is literally forced out of their home. I'd be surprised if we don't have it, but...do we?
openUsing something true as an excuse
Kind of like I Need to Go Iron My Dog except they do "iron their dog", but only to get out of something. Examples:
- In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard goes back to the Enterprise to get his saddle to get out of a boring party.
- In Monsters, Inc., when the Yeti sees Sully and Mike arguing, he awkwardly says, "Oh, would you look at that? We're out of snow cones! Let me just go outside and make some more." Then, in the next scene, we see that he really did make more snow cones.
openforged by holy steel but not powerful as rapier
a powerful weapon in story but in game it sucks
openAscended Parody
Sort of an inverted Parody Assistance, when the subject matter of a parody likes the parody so much they use it in their advertising. Subtrope of Approval of God, and related to Misaimed Marketing but this is a deliberate tongue-in-cheek decision.
I'm specifically referring to The Simpsons's parody of THX that was later repurposed as an actual trailer.
openRage against the monitor
What's the trope for when the villain is on a monitor taunting the hero and they get mad enough to shoot, smash etc the monitor (which isn't always a bad idea, as sometimes the villain can see through the monitors, and breaking one puts one of his "eyes" out.)?
opentrope for songs with lyrics that contrast with the music itself? Music
"knife" and "two weeks" by grizzly bear are big examples of this although they're about lying straight to peoples' faces and the breakdown of a relationship respectively they still sound "romantic"
openScary geography
Is there a trope for when geographical features deliberately look scary (such as an island looking like a bone or skull)?
openYou Thought They Disapproved For X, But Y IS The Issue
There is a gay couple and one of them is ashamed to present their family to the other one. A thinks it's because they're gay, but it's actually for another reason (race, family feud etc.)
openOpposite Character/Actor
Something like a supertrope to Mean Character, Nice Actor and its inverse, where an in-universe character played by an actor are complete opposites though not on a morality scale. e.g. Alice is The Lad-ette best known for voice-acting a Shrinking Violet, Bob has made several fortunes portraying characters in Perpetual Poverty, Charlie has several degrees in scientific fields but plays Dumb Muscle, etc.
Darths And Droids has Jim, a geophysicist with a tendency to play Idiot Hero characters, and Pete, a ruthless Rules Lawyer in-game and a subversion of Amoral Attorney in reality.
openThought the wrong person was on the phone
A person picks up the phone, makes a mistaken assumption about who the caller is, and says something embarrassing before realizing their mistake. For example, a person gets a call that they think is from their archenemy and screams "FUCK YOU!" before realizing it's their boss. A Discredited Trope thanks to Caller ID.
open"Nice" person who's only mentioned positively is actually evil
Alice often talks about her late father fondly, but when Bob brings him back to life Alice freaks out because as it turns out, Alice was just choosing to remember him positively and he's actually a massive jerk.
openIncreasingly painful attack
Encountered this in some video games, a possibly homing beam attack that deals more damage the longer the target is exposed to it.
openMutually Guilty
Two characters independently doing something illegal / immoral catch each other at it. Awkwardness ensues in that they can't berate the other as would normally happen if only one of them was guilty (although sometimes one does start chewing out the other before their hypocrisy is revealed).
For example:
- Alice goes to a speakeasy during Prohibition, telling her husband Bob she's going to visit a friend. Once there, she runs into Bob, who is just as mortified to see his wife as she is to see him there.
- Alice goes cruising singles bars despite being married to Bob. One day she sees Bob sitting at a table, clearly there to enjoy himself as well, and sits down at his table. She starts giving him a tongue-lashing for his infidelity, when the waiter drops by saying "Here's your usual, Bob. And yours, Alice." Bob suddenly looks a lot less guilty as Alice looks flustered.
openUsing a tape recorder for a decoy?
The character closes in on someone making noise, maybe even saying things like "he's right on top of me!"
They find the hiding person and it turns out it's just a radio, or a tape recorder, or something like that.
Seen It a Million Times, but can't seem to find it.
Edited by Mimic1990
Bob describes something he does. Alice describes the same thing in terms that are equally accurate but nowhere near as flattering. Bob says something along the lines of "well when you put it that way it sounds stupid!"