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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resolved No Title Literature
Character that Blends in physically but is bold and speaks their mind
resolved Fascinated by the Villain's Cruelty Literature
Is there a trope for this type of behavior - An Anti-Hero, or an ambiguous ally to the hero, is fascinated by how evil and inhumane the villain is. Often because this character is more interested in other aspects of the conflict with the villain than "being good".
For instance, a glory hog on the side of the heroes might be happy to find out the villain slaughter a bunch of innocent people because once the villain is defeated, his fame'll be even greater. Or, he's a psychiatrist who sees the villain's crimes as something worth studying, so the more there is to analyse, the better. Or even, the hero's a bored Smug Super who's excited an actually dangerous villain shows up for him to fight.
resolved Self-damaging attack Literature
Trying to find a trope for attacks that also slightly injure the attacker, a la Take Down in Pokémon. I looked at Self-Damaging Attack Backfire but that's not it.
ETA: The specific example I'm thinking of is new information about Lesedi Ingwe from Reign of the Seven Spellblades: she's a Kung-Fu Wizard Kick Chick who, it turns out, normally wears armor on her legs because otherwise she'd injure herself from the force of her kicks (apparently she lacks Required Secondary Powers). She takes them off in her fight scene in volume 10 to lose the Power Limiter, which ends with the flesh on her legs in tatters. I currently have the information listed as an inversion of Armed Legs.
Edited by StarSwordresolved shocked by bad language Literature
Do we have a trope for a character being shocked by another character's bad or uncouth language? I mean irrespective of whether they're a Sir Swears-a-Lot, this would be a reaction trope.
resolved "Story Breadcrumbs", but for literature. Literature
I only got examples about videogames, but books are my favorite hobby, so I need a trope which applies to them. The trope is this:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StoryBreadcrumbs
Edited by luigirovattiresolved Freudian marriage Literature
To quote a female character:
resolved A sequel to a previous episode in the same franchise Literature
A new administrator takes over a hospital, and clearly has a vendetta against the protagonist: he fires several of this docrot's friends and eventually this doctor himself. At the end, it turns out that this is personal revenge against the protagonist: the protagonist had previously discovered that the administrator's girlfriend had murdered a Serial Rapist, making it look like he died in a traffic accident. The accident, and the murder of the Serial Rapist, are covered by an episode in the same franchise.
resolved Rhinestone Switch Literature
A woman is given or lent a diamond, and cleverly replaces it with a rhinestone replica - when she has to return the diamond (like if she breaks up with the man who gave it), she keeps the real one and returns the replica.
resolved Jealous of affection shown to a pet Literature
I've looked at Envy and Jealousy Tropes, but I'm not sure what's the best match for seeing your crush stroke a pet that's on their lap, and feeling jealous of the pet.
resolved City-wide War Literature
Is there a trope for a "war" that takes place entirely in just one city? Like from Fantasy of Post Apocalyptic stories where two or more factions are struggling for control of one city, saying stuff like "They have taken over the lower east side, but we still have a few buildings manned" and whatnot? The idea being that there's different logistics than a regular war, with smaller armies, more worry about food, faster cavalry, et cetera...
I'm thinking in particular of that one episode of South Park where Cartman and Stan fight for control of the town in a post-apocalyptic scenario.
resolved "Oh, it's you." murder victim Literature
A mystery novel trope where the last moments of a murder victim interacting with the murderer (almost always with the words "Oh, it's you" to show that the murderer is someone they know and don't suspect) are seen by the audience, but without revealing who the murderer is. Only really works in novels where the voice won't be identified.
resolved Fix-up the Hypothenuse Literature
Is there a trope for a relationship dynamic where a character approves of or engineers a relationship between two other characters, so as to leave a fourth character single (and willing to settle)?
For instance, if both Bob and Charles have feelings for Alice, and Eve's in love with Charles. Eve might set up Alice and Bob, or help Bob out, so Alice is off the picture and she can have Bob for himself.
resolved Immediately Proven Right (SOLVED) Literature
A common gag in humor fiction is a character or the narrator saying one thing, and then another character proving them right, using the exact same phrasing. I've seen it a bunch of times. For instance:
- Narrator/character: Alice looked so hungry she could eat a horse!
- cut to Alice.
- Alice: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!
resolved Last-minute Princess reveal Literature
A story/fairytale about a prince who meets a peasant, they fall in love and he learns to look past class prejudices to be with her...then in the end it's revealed she's the lost princess from another kingdom. Convenient.
Genders might be inverted, too. Modern versions of the trope have the peasant/poor girl be revealed to be related to a rich family.
resolved Sickly sweet Literature
There's a character who has chocolate (sickly, vomit-inducing sweet chocolate) as his motif. This isn't used to make him cute; on the contrary, it's used to portrait him as disgustingly sweet, both in- and out-of-universe.
Character has tendency to distort most words he uses to sound "cute" (including his name, which now sounds just ridiculous), but achieves opposite effect. He tries to act "kind", but only makes people trust him less due to this "sweetness" hiding quite sticky personality. Even his body is literally made out of chocolate (long story), which characters in-universe find to be just disgusting.
And yes, he is a villain, though of a very low grade. Backstabbing, snitching and generally annoying.
While he is certainly Faux Affably Evil, what I seek for is something about his "so cute, it's disgusting" vibe, because it's really important part of his characterisation, and characters react to it with disgust in-universe even before he had a chance to betray anyone specifically because he is sickly sweet.
resolved Distopyan Flag Spam Literature
Is there a trope for when someone (often a Fish out of Temporal Water) travels to a place and sees creepy flags everywhere, which are a visual aid to the fact that the setting is a political dystopia? The flags can be replaced with the leader's portrait, too.
resolved Tricked into Investigating for Evildoer Literature
To paraphrase, I am looking for relevant TV tropes for the following situation a few of us had come up in a LARP recently (put it under literature because it feels like something that might happen as a plot twist in a book and didn't see a category quite fitting LARP):
A group of people breaks into the office of someone they suspect is a spy for a major enemy to the kingdom, looking for information, while one person plays decoy. The decoy gets identified as part of the group because one of them blurts out something blowing the decoy's cover of pretending to not be part of the group. The baddie lets the decoy leave with the group (knowing that their cover is blown)- for the moment.
Baddie then goes to the secretly invading group to let them know what happen. They hire a PI- who is generally a decent, "lawful good" type and cite the various minor laws the group of people that did the break-in violated, say the decoy was a co-conspirator, and ask the PI to investigate the decoy and find out who is linked to them and who might've been one of the intruders in the office. PI provides information on the decoy and identifies 2 other people.... and unwittingly ends up enabling the kidnapping and torture of the decoy and those two with their information, making the three innocent people trying to stop baddies victims of far worse crimes than the few they committed (breaking-and-entering, vandalism, theft, trespassing)
What trope or tropes is that?
Is there a trope where a book cover disguises the content of the work (on purpose), but doesn't fall under the precise definitions of Clandestine Cover, Book and Switch, or Covers Always Lie?
I'm trying to figure out where Transformers writer James Roberts' fan novel "Eugenesis" would go, with its classic lit parody cover: [1]◊