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:
openMorally Guilty
Bob's actions indirectly cause a disaster of some kind, but while everyone around him considers him guilty (and possibly even he considers himself guilty), legally he isn't responsible in any way.
A few cases in Sherlock Holmes:
- "The Cardboard Box" has a Woman Scorned (due to the attraction to her brother-in-law being entirely one-sided on her part) get revenge by interfering in her sister's marriage, driving the husband to drink and the wife to finding a lover, culminating in the murder of the lover and the wife by her husband. The husband is guilty and freely admits it, but it's made obvious that it's the sister's fault any of this happened in the first place.
- "The Priory School" has a kidnapping go wrong when a witness to the kidnapping gives chase and is killed in the attempt. The man behind the kidnapping is horrified, makes a full confession to his father and is sent out of the country, but the father begs Holmes not to prosecute him, agreeing that he is morally responsible, but not legally.
- "A Case of Identity" has a woman's stepfather impersonate her fiancé to ensure she and her income won't leave the family. When found out, Holmes agrees legally there's nothing they can do to him, but he threatens to give him a beating with a whip.
openDeliberate misunderstanding
It’s a form of trolling in real life.
Bob is pushing his little daughter Alice on the swing, and she’s had enough. She states, “I wanna get down now, Daddy.” Bob responds, “What did you say? You want to go higher?” And he pushes her higher for a few minutes, stopping just short of causing Alice to have a complete meltdown.
Later, Bob’s wife Carol wants to have a discussion about a problem. She needs real answers and real solutions, but Bob keeps turning everything she says into a joke. Soon Carol is obviously hurt and tells him, “For once I wish you’d take me seriously.” Bob again pretends he misunderstood. “Well, honey, I’d be glad to take you to the World Series, but I’m not sure I can get tickets at this late date.”
Other than the fact that Bob is an asshole, is trolling by this precise method a trope unto itself?
openwalking back on bogus claims
Is there a trope where someone makes an unsubstantiated claim but subsequently walks back on these to avoid being sued?
openIs there more to this besides Leaning on the Fourth Wall?
Looking for a trope that covers this line from The Magicians (2016):
To put it into context, the people talking are omniscient librarians who are observing/talking about the main characters and their plots, and the speaker is telling the listener (and the audience) that other characters besides the purported White Male Lead will be importantnote Indeed, this conversation is a Framing Device for an A Day in the Limelight.. It's Leaning on the Fourth Wall in that respect, but is there another trope for a work telling the audience to reconsider their knowledge of genre conventions and storytelling? (Like Snicket Warning Label, but not dour.)
Edited by SynchronicityopenSupernaturally Bad
A character is shown to be unbelievably bad at something to the point where supernatural assistance is brought in and the character still can't do it.
For instance, a nerd asking girls on a date has Cupid next to him shooting the girls full of love arrows and they still find excuses not to go out with him.
openFamily Crest
Is there a specific trope detailing — as the title implies — a family crest or coat of arms? (For instance, the direwolves for the Starks on Game of Thrones.)
openKick the Can
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick_the_can
A game simply about kicking discarded beverage cans and other litter. Often times, it'll be a game played by old people or adults, and kids won't understand the point of it. In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, middle schoolers Greg and Rowley attempt to play kick the can, but get bored after a few minutes and go back inside to play video games. In the Arthur episode "Some Assembly Required", Arthur recalls it as a game his grandparents played, and has a fantasy sequence where he runs up to a can on the street, kicks it hard... and then pauses, as if to say "Now what?" It's also referenced in The Simpsons through a script-only Deleted Scene.
openHeroic child of villainous parent?
Is there a trope for the heroic child of a villainous parent? I've found 'Like Father, Unlike Son' and 'Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter' but the former is really just about any opposing parent/child relationship and the latter doesn't really specify that the child is heroic. Is there a trope for specifically a heroic child of a villainous parent?
openFairy/Elf/Deity cannot lie
A trope where a magical creature cannot outright lie. You see this a lot with fairies and other fey folk not being able to lie but being masters of half-truths. Godly characters sometimes have this restriction as well (think of Doc Scratch in Homestuck who couldn’t lie but rarely told the truth.) I couldn’t find the trope searching through the Fairy, Elves or Truth and Lies indexes.
openAbseenteeActor Leading to Character Erasure/Retcon?
This probably applies the most to plays/roleplays/improvisational stuff. One actor/player is unable to join the play, probably due to sickness, and the main producer/writer is forced to retcon part of the story so that the character the sick person was supposed to play is basically written off.
openThrow the Dog a Moment of Awesome
A character who's been portrayed as weak or pathetic during a fight scene gets to do only one badass thing throughout the fight, often something that helps save the other badasses.
For example, the person that was meant to be Ron's actor in Kim Possible had been cowering throughout the fight. However, in the last moments of the battle, he manages to do a front flip and kick the gun out of the hands of the bad guy.
Edited by KingOfStickersopenBabysitters teaching child something inappropriate
Four-year old child fools his babysitters/father's employees into teaching him poker.
openConfirmation of Pureness
The Moral Event Horizon confirms the character to be irredeemable: The Confirmation of Pureness confirms the character to be incorruptible.
openHyped Importance, Leading To Nothing?
Is there a trope where a character is hyped to hell and back at the start/mid of the story, but by the end turns out to have done nothing or barely anything of importance? Almost like as if all this early hype was built before the rest of the story was actually written.
I'm just asking because I'm sure this is a thing, but I don't know what name it has.
openA concession trope
So, I'm working on finding more tropes for Le Mans 1955, which I just created, and there's one trope I think exists and would fit perfectly but can't find. Basically, it's when a team or person quits or forfeits a competition willingly before it ends, not as a rage quit.
openCharacter suddenly has more revealed about them? Live Action TV
What sort of trope would this be:
- In The Good Doctor, Dr. Morgan Reznick was largely The Spook until Season 3 episode "Sex and Death" which fleshed out her background and relationship with her family.
- In a Continuity Reboot of Grey's Anatomy, Amelia Shepherd shows up with no background or exposition and her past is a Mysterious Past other than she's the sister of Derek Shepherd. However, in Season 6, her backstory and motives are revealed via a Whole Episode Flashback after 5 seasons of her being The Spook.
openCharacter's biased retelling is juxtaposed with how an event actually played out Live Action TV
Is there a trope for when a character's biased retelling of a past event is played alongside, in flashbacks, clips showing what really happened, serving as juxtaposition for the retelling? One example is in Cobra Kai, Season 1, Episode 8, where Johnny Lawrence retells to Miguel the story of how his girlfriend left him for Daniel La Russo in the 80s. Johnny Lawrence remembers it as him "having a civil conversation" with her, and defending himself when Daniel attacked after being told to mind his own business. However, the interspersed clips show that Johnny was actually the aggressor in this situation, with Daniel being the one who has to defend himself.
Is there a trope for when one character leaves a trail of distractions in order to lead another character somewhere? The most well-known example I can think of is in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with the line of Reese's Pieces to attract ET. I checked the page, but I admit it was not an entirely thorough check.