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:
openNo Title
In many a medium, I've noticed that sometimes a trope will be used multiple times, i.e Supernatural and Take Me Instead/Heroic Sacrifice, etc. It makes it become almost a, dare I say it... One trope pony. Any clues as to if this has already been done before, or if this isn't even really a trope? Thanks!
openNo Title
How about one for how, if a husband and wife adopt alternate identities for some secret scheme, they're likely to pose as siblings, or vice versa if a brother and sister need to take on false identities? It seems to be a common practice for duo fictional imposters, probably because it throws suspicious people (and readers) off their trail, while justifying any signs of mental/emotional intimacy between the two.
openNo Title
Is there a trope page for multiple mooks rebelling against a Bad Boss type of Big Bad? We have Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal and The Dog Bites Back, but they seem to cover only individual mooks or dragons betraying the Big Bad. What I'm talking about is a situation where the Big Bad keeps mistreating his mooks, and as a result many/all of them decide overthrow or kill him. It's not necessarily a Mook–Face Turn, as the mooks don't always turn to the side of good, they just want to get rif of a Bad Boss.
openNo Title
Is there a trope for when there are multiple possible events that may have occurred, but inevitably the most unlikely/kooky one winds up being true?
For example, in the latest episode of How I Met Your Mother, the gang were swapping stories of who was the biggest delinquent as a kid. The other characters make basic claims of delinquency, but Lily, kindergarten teacher and mother, basically says that she was an Expy of Omar from The Wire. Of course, her extreme claim turns out to be true.
openNo Title
Is there a trope for a character who is actively uniting tribal, or unorganized people under their banner? While it may often employ a Genghis Gambit the emphasis is more on a character unifying multiple factions under a single identity then the means of which they go about it.
openNo Title
What do you call it when you Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff" by mistake, but only because it looks almost exactly like a hippogriff? (Said animal would, of course, have all the biology and abilities of a pegasus, not a hippogriff.)
EDIT: Okay, let me rephrase that. XD
The animal in question is a pegasus. It has all the special pegasus spells. People (and/or the character itself) maintain the distinction that it is a pegasus, but it looks exactly like a hippogriff for whatever reason and does not have any of the special hippogriff abilities common to the series. And then somebody calls it a hippogriff by mistake, and is corrected because they were somehow supposed to know it was a pegasus.
This trope would probably apply to dragons more than pegasi. (For example, imagine what looks like a small, ordinary squirrel but can actually breathe fire and fly and grant wishes because it is actually a dragon. In this universe, anyone referring to it as a fire-breathing squirrel would simply be wrong.)
Edited by TAKUMIopenNo Title
Question. Not entirely new to the website, but really getting to know it now. What do you call someone or something that was never meant to exist? In the sense that the character just wasn't an accidental pregnancy, but rather their essence and/or soul was never meant to be. Is there such a thing? I might need to rephrase this ^^;
openNo Title Western Animation
Is there a trope for (usually in cartoons) a character having ridiculous multiple stages of masks or costumes?
Example: "Alice" pulls off a mask to reveal she's really Bob. But then "Bob" unzips a costume to reveal he's really Carlos. Then "Carlos" pulls off yet another mask to reveal he's really Dave.
openNo Title
Is this even a trope on the site? A trope similar to Oven Logic, in which ingredients (generally caffeinated or spicy) are treated as multiplicative instead of additive? For example, someone adds together [6 types of hot sauce/Mountain Dew, Espresso, and Red Bull], intending to make the [spiciest condiment/most energizing drink] possible, and it ends up [melting their tongue/sending them into Caffeine Bullet Time] even though it should only have the average of the [sauces' capsaicin/drinks' caffeine and sugar]?
The caffeine version is most common in New Media (especially works targeted towards gamers; PVP used to feature such a brew at least once a year), but the spiciness version is scattered throughout pretty much every genre I can think of.
Edited by JET73LopenNo Title Literature
It's a humorous situation that arises when, for example, a character is prohibited from encouraging a behavior he wishes to encourage. For instance, Vimes tells his men they are not allowed to purchase any blackjacks or coshes in a range of styles and prices from x store and he will not teach them a variety of useful moves if they ask him in person: obviously encouraging the behavior, but not quite breaking the rules.
openNo Title
Do we have a trope for a the type of plot where the story starts with the villain stealing a McGuffin and the Hero has to recover it, either as his primary mission or in order to save the day. I'm thinking of the Red Skull taking the Tesseract in Captain America The First Avenger, the nukes in Thunderball, that sort of thing. Basically the story is kicked off by the villain stealing something which needs to be recovered.
Edited by upupandaway42openNo Title
Is there a trope for when a character uses a 1930s-40s Walter Winchell-style rapid-fire voice with intentionally old-fashioned words and phrases?
For example, Conan O'Brien occasionally does this for comedic effect on his various late night shows, or oftentimes a character will do this to prove he/she is an Intrepid Reporter
Edited by drjdorianopenNo Title
Is there a trope for when a character, who, while quite attractive is not normally treated as Ms or Mr Fanservice gets an episode or scene where they are? Recent examples: Castle episode "Final Frontier" where the normally modestly dressed Alexis is seen walking around a sci-fi convention in a very revealing (extremely short skirt, Bare Your Midriff top) cosplay outfit. and the "Sex and Drugs" episode of Revolution where Charlie who normally wears jeans, vest and long sleeved shirt gets a Bathtub Scene and later wears a very nice dress
Edited by trickstersonopenNo Title Anime
I think the best way to put it is "too cute to be serious"
Example: Fruit's Basket, Tohru Honda (the main character) is told to be serious, and she tries so hard, but is simply too cute to be taken seriously in any capacity. If nothing else, her attempt at being serious only makes her MORE cute. This is common in younger (or previously airheaded characters) attempting to, for a moment, be serious.
openNo Title
Is there a trope for when a character says something that seems to contradict established continuity in a humorous way? The example I'm thinking of hails from Once Upon a Time in which Henry says that a Ruby is actually Little Red Riding Hood from the fairy tales, but that she's forgotten how awesome she is due to the curse that's removed people's memories.
Since the canonical version of Red Riding Hood basically got eaten by a wolf then cut out of its tummy by a woodsman, it's hard to imagine that particular version of the character as "awesome". But on the other hand, Once's version is something a little different.
Edited by Robotech_MasteropenNo Title Film
When the protagonist starts out gruff: unkempt, beard, long hair. Then is asked to rejoin life, society, the mission. So protagonist visits the steamy bathroom to give him/herself a haircut/shave/shower/etc. to not only clean up on the outside, but reinvigorate the inside and prepare for what lies ahead?
openNo Title Film
Retired protagonist reluctantly comes back into action for one last mission. Korben Dallas in Fifth Element. Is this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HesBack ?
The medium is Comic Book, but for some reason that's not in the drop down list. Anyway, The Dandy is closing down it's print edition and becoming online only. Is that a trope? I tried looking up digital comic, no dice. It'll be a download (it's already available though the iStore), so I wouldn't class it as a webcomic.