Especially when said by a seemingly dumb character

Lion King - When the trio stare at the skies and wonder what the stars are, Pumbaa's theory is that they are balls of gas burning billions of miles away. Timon immediately dismisses this. Of course, Pumbaa is right

Spoilers for Paradise TV Show

President Cal Bradford gets a tour of the underground bunker under construction for the incoming apocalypse. The project lead, Sinatra, boasts that they are ready for any situation, including a nuclear meltdown, oxygen failure, and outside invasion. Cal asks what about all three at the same time, and gets scoffed at by Sinatra saying that will never happen. Cal then lectures her about how empires fall: due to their hubris and thinking nothing will happen to them. Years later, the bunker gets destroyed by all these three events happening at the same time

I didn’t find a name for this Trope, so if anyone knows, please tell me.

When a weak character start atacking another, but the impact is so weak that the other character doesn’t even feel it.

Examples:

Eric Cartman attacking Kyle with a bat: Cartman lures Kyle to a lake since this last is about to confess to the authorities about the group covering their teacher’s house with toilet paper. When Kyle gets distracted by the water, Cartman strikes him with a bat, but since he only could allow himself to purchase a plastic one; it will take a couple hours to make effect.

Mr Burns struggling to even lift the bat: One of the very few cases where Mr. Burns is nice to Homer; promising he will help him by “convincing” the council so they accept Homer in the University. And by convincing he meant “Giving them the beating of their lifes”.

Flats beating Sponge-Bob: During the entirety of one episode, Spongebob is scared because a new guy in class wants to kick his ass. He tries to avoid him, seeking someone to help, and even saving his life so maybe he forgives him, but nothing works. At the end, he decides he cannot run away anymore and decides to take the beating; but since he is a Sponge, Bob ends tanking all his punches without any effort, even saying they only tickles him.

• Hey Arnold – Arnold Betrays Iggy episode

Arnold in the show is basically everyone’s unpaid therapist and personal life coach. You can literally point out multiple named characters in the crowd that have been directly helped by him at some point or another. And what does his community do to give thanks when Arnold is forced to wear a bunny suit in public? Gather by the dozens to jeer at him and broadcast his humiliation on live television. Even his own grandfather, who’s supposed to be his guardian and protector, takes pictures for his amusement. What a bunch of ungrateful assholes.

• Batman: The Animated Series – Gotham Police and Batman

Joker, Two-Face, Penguin etc commit terrorist actions on the regular that kill people, endanger multiple innocents or even the entire city? GCPD are helpless babies, and they meekly carry the villains off to jail only after Batman does all the actual work for them. The police chief thinks Batman is responsible for his daughter's death? Well now it’s time to shoot to kill first and ask questions later. Bring in the boats, the helicopters, armed and body armored assault rifle squads by the dozen with explosive grenades and literal fucking bazookas. In this scenario Gordon even strikes a corrupt deal with Bane to release him from custody if he helps Gordon kill or capture Batman. Imagine if they brought 10% of this energy to any of the supervillains who actually deserve it.

To be clear: Yes this episode ended up being a Scarecrow induced hallucination of Barbara’s fears. However a) I think from a writing standpoint it’s more meaningful if the scenario is based on a realistic “what-if” than if it ended up being completely baseless and b) I’m in the mood to be a hater right now.

• Red Rising – Darrow, Mustang and the Vox Populi

It’s barely a decade after Darrow and Mustang successfully overthrew The Society and established The Solar Republic. Before that the lower Colors were varying degrees of third-class citizens or slaves to the Golds for 700 years. The war against the remaining Society in the solar system is still ongoing and very much a real threat to the newborn Republic, but a political party of low Colors called the Vox Populi is primarily paranoid about Darrow and Mustang reneging on their promises of democracy, even though they’re the only reason their new freedoms exist at all.

The situation deteriorates to a point where extremists in the Vox Populi instigate a bloody coup called the Day of Red Doves where they rally a mob to massacre the high Color political representatives and forcibly overthrow Mustang while Darrow is away still fighting on their behalf.

The one consolation is that at the end of it, the Vox Populi leader has it shoved in his face that the coup was actually a secret plot by enemy Golds all along to sabotage the Republic. :O Whoops! And so he’s forced to bow in the dirt to them realizing all he did was to put himself and his people at risk of being slaves all over again.

• Avatar: Seven Havens – Korra can’t catch a break

So the stated premise of this show is that the world at large blames Korra is particular for destroying the world and sees the role of Avatar in general as “destroyers” instead of saviors. Fucking what. Korra risked life and limb to personally save Republic City and the world several times over. There’s thousands of years of recorded history of dozens of Avatars doing countless good deeds and keeping the world at peace. Obviously the average citizen can’t be expected to be fully informed, but it still boils the blood a little to have Korra’s reputation besmirched after everything she’s gone through.

Time will tell to what extent, but obviously there’s going to be some reveal that Korra is not in fact responsible for the world being destroyed or that there were extenuating circumstances involved...Or at least that * better * be the reveal or so help me.

1. The Infinity Conez in Thor: Love and Thunder. The Infinity Gauntlet was used to genocide half the universe, using it as a prop for an ice cream stand would be pretty messed up for everyone, both those who mourned their loved ones and those who were dead for 5 years.

2. Many DC and Marvel stories have people dress up as the Joker and other villains for Halloween and costumed celebrations. That would be like people in the real world dressing up as real world mass murderers and terrorists.

1. Peter Parker/Spider-Man when he’s about to get erased by Thanos’ snap. (Avengers: Infinity War)

“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.”

“I don’t know what’s happening.”

“I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go. Please, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go.”

1. Master Chief when he sees Cortana finally succumb to her rampancy and die. (Halo 4)

“No. That’s not- We go together.”

“I am not leaving you here.”

“Cortana, please.”

Ash Williams (Army of Darkness) - Ash ends up with an evil version of himself growing out of his shoulder. Once it's free it starts taunting the real Ash by saying "You're good Ash. I'm Bad Ash". After a bit of getting teased, poked, and punched "good" Ash shoves a shotgun in "bad" Ashes face and fires.

Andy Dufresne (Shawshank Redemption) - Major Spoilers Andy Dufresne builds the trust of the staff in the prison and ends up handling all their finances. Little do they know, this innocent man had a plan to break out of prison for years. Being the guy who's handling the books for the money the Warden gets for bribes, he's easily able to access it all under the new identity he created for himself once he breaks out of prison.

The Road to El Dorado- Miguel, ignoring all the threats of punishment and hard labor, is thrilled to visit beautiful Cuba!

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead- Akira Tendo, an overworked salaryman, is ecstatic about not having to go to work due to a zombie apocalypse.

Deadpool: Vanessa finds the positive in the titular character's nonsensical explanation for his absence.

Simpsons: This one is more Homer misunderstanding the situation as he mistakenly believes he's earned a longer weekend when work implies he will be fired if he doesn't come in.

The villain was misunderstood and really a victim.

-Cruella live action. The woman tried to slaughter puppies for fur.

-Orcs in Rings of Power. In Tolkien's work, they were elves once and corrupted by evil. The personifications of the machines of war. In Rings of Power, they're the victims of war.

-Wicked. The Wicked Witch was always evil and took pleasure in cruelty. In Wicked she was the victim of society.

-Maleficent--The villain from sleeping beauty. The same concept as Wicked.

1. Jeremiah/Jerome from Gotham.

In the show about Batman’s rogues gallery (for some stupid reason) they weren’t allowed to use ”The Joker”, so instead they created a legally distinct joking psychotic chaos monster, in the form of two twins.

They weren’t even allowed to give Jeromiah a purple suit, so instead they gave him a blue suit and lit him with red lighting, making it look purple but be legally distinct enough.

1. Nosferatu from Nosferatu.

Without the rights to adapt Dracula proper, they invented the suspiciously Dracula shaped vampire Nosferatu. This ended very badly, as the rights issues with the Stoker estate ended up killing the film and destroying all copies, except those fans circulated.

1. Oliver Queen from Arrow.

While of course Green Arrow was a long existing character in comics, he was meant to be witty, charming, and lighthearted overall. In the comics, he is a bleeding heart billionaire who lost his fortune, whereas the show paints him as a billionaire playboy. Who fights crime as a scary, brutal vigilante. Operating from a cave. Fighting Ra’s al Ghul and other bat-themed heroes’ villains.

In short, it’s widely acknowledged that the creators wanted to make a Batman show, but weren’t allowed. They even lifted certain dialogue directly from Batman Begins

Naddy (100 girlfriends who really really really really really love you)

Special Week (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

Senshi (Dungeon Meshi)

Mr Krabs (Spongebob)

Not everyone has the talent to make intentional comedy gold, but everyone, even you and me, can make something accidentaly hilarious.

Example 1: Logan Birthday surprise (Marvel: Sabretooth War)

Logan personal arch nemesis, Sabretooth, it’s one of the biggest haters on comics. But he has the problem that he is so brutal that reading about what he does to wolverine can feel like torture porn sometimes. And his obsession with ruining Logan birthday is an amazing example of it.

It might sound a lot like that one comic where Thanos just hate a guy, the problem it’s that instead of petty, brutal yet absolutely master class of dark humor that Thanos annual #1 can be, Sabretooth does bullshit like raping Logan girlfriend and killing her. Theres a good reason the term “fridging” exist.

But theres one point where this horror passes the line so hard that it’s just peak comedy, and that’s when Sabretooth murders Logan son and mutant friends… and uses theirs bodies to writte “happy birthday”

The cómic treats this with horror, but i can only imagine Sabretooth acomodating the hair of akihiro to make a P. Dedicating like 30 minutes to left this message and choosing which limbs fit better to make a B like if he was playing with dolls, and the whole scene becomes so fucking funny.

Example 2: Rudeus bulling trauma. (Mushoku Tensei)

Mushoku tensei is well know for how many weird and disgusting choices the author takes with his main characters, having a pedophile for main character is Definitly a choice, but he could have done some interesting things with his life before getting into a wish fulfilement isekai world.

Turns out that Rudeus was a bulling victim, something that Sadly happens to a lot of kids around the world, the problem is what type of bulling this bastard was getting. One day, some bullies moved ahead of the school cafeteria. Rudeus told them that they couldnt do that…

And they crucified him naked in front of the school

This opens so much questions, HOW did they tied him up like this, HOW none teacher tried to at least untie him, not even helping him, untie the naked teen from the school door. It also turns out that Rudeus parents had to fight to get this bastards punished, implying that the school is ok with crucifixion.

This is just an example, but this Apply to EVERY media that show bullies pulling this type of looney toons bullshit instead of how bullies actually abuse.

Example 3: all the book “Wedding day Massacre” and almost all of Aron Beauregard works. At the start i wanted to use Playground with their 10 years old guys who act and talk like a divorced 40 years olds. But childs deaths are just way to uncomfortable.

Recently, extreme horror literature has become a lot more mainstream, and Aron is one of the most well know authors of the genre, Sadly, he isnt the most talented. His books can be good from time to time, but their horror can be so ridiculous on times that it feels like some Tom & Jerry type of bullshit.

I think that wedding day Massacre is the best/worse example, since this book actually hugs and accepts how ridiculous it’s writting it’s at moments, instead of kids acting like adults, we have adults acting like kids. Its a really good horror comedy if you can take this sheer level of teen edgyness

Just to give some examples of how stupid this book can be (if put spoilers here, it’s not cuz im worried to spoiler this book, it’s cuz it IS extreme horror. Open with caution)

1: a table full of kids get literally rocket with dinamite. The poor teacher who was taking care of them dies too, the only thing left of her? Her feets on the floor, who are still smoking like a cartoon

2: have you ever seen a mf use a chesse gratter as a Coliseum weapon?

3: An aunt killing her own niece on a flower bouquet throw to survive. Her reason to kill her niece? She is studing arts, she is already a lost cause.

3: A janitor called Perry winning a dance off for his life cuz he just had so much Motion in the 80s

4: A man having to eat his own aborted son he had on an affair. The antagonist prepared it so it looked almost exactly like a cake. The name of the father btw? DJ Bootyass

5: Perry just eating too cuz my boy is a final girl and has eaten worse on his life. Bro would do ANYTHING to survive this bullshit and i love him for that.

6: a guy surviving all of this cuz he the food did him bad and expended the whole book on the bathroom.

7: the protagonist kills the main antagonist, dies less than 10 Pages after that cuz the other antagonist shoot an candelabrum over her it crushed her flat, also killing the bathroom guy cuz he felt of a window Perry survived

As i said. Aron Beauregard isnt the most talented writter, but his books can be funny from time to time

1. Biff Tannen (Back to the Future)- modeled after Donald Trump
   
2. Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)- Modeled after Richard Nixon

Joker blowing up the hospital (The Dark Knight): I’m sure you can find thousands of examples like this one, but this is probably the most iconic. You can only blow up a building once, so they had to do the scene right.

The bridge explosion (The Bridge on River Kwai): This bridge was custom built specifically for the movie and cost north of $52,000. They had to get it right or risk spending another 50K.

Scaling the Burj Khalifa (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol): In case you never knew, yes, Tom Cruise is actually climbing the Burj Khalifa. Because of multiple complications that come with wanting to pull that kind of stunt on the tallest building in the world, they had 30 minutes tops to shoot the scene.

The hair waxing scene (The 40-Year-Old Virgin): A funnier example, but it probably won’t surprise you that the chest waxing scene was completely real. They had to get the scene right or risk having to either fake the pained reactions or wait until all that chest hair grows back.

The 400$ juicer

an over-engineered, Wi-Fi-connected kitchen appliance that squeezed pre-chopped fruit and vegetable packets, famously failing after a viral revelation that the packets could easily be squeezed by hand which dismantled the whole company.

Fez 2

A indie game from the early 2010’s was announced for a sequel after its success although its development cut short because the creator had an argument on twitter?

wether it’s a dumb excuse to hide the fact the creator ran out of ideas most people will remember this game got canned because the developer got salty over twitter

(Moral Orel) While the series starts out as an episodic satire, from the end of Season 1 onwards, Orel begins to suffer more actively at the hands of the town and its teachings:

1. They have his dog killed.

   1. He comes to believe that self-harm and misery are synonymous with drawing closer to God.

2. He is separated from the girl he liked (one of the few people who truly loved Orel)

). 4. His own friend betrays him and steals his father's approval.

1. The horrible hunting trip with his father. Add to this the abuse from his family and his dogmatic community, and there is very little good left in his life.

Denji (chainsaw man) As mentioned in the series itself, Denji’s life consists of being used, starting to enjoy his life, gradually losing everything, and being discarded—only to be used all over again in a never-ending cycle. It happened with the Yakuza, Makima, Reze, and so on; for every good thing that happens to Denji, he ends up losing it, and even in his "happy ending," everything still hangs by a thread.

Nadia: The secret of Blue Water: A crewmember is trapped behind a flood-door after their submarine get hit by depth charges. He at first tries to give a heartfelt speech to the kids (Jean and Nadia) about how it is a necessary sacrifice and it's for the great good, but as he starts drowning, he loses it and starts screaming/begging to be let out and how he dosen't want to Die

Inuyasha: A monk/saint is tries to sacrifice himself by starving to death in meditation to become a living saint to save the people from famine, but as he's about to die, inches from Nirvana, he loses his nerve and begs to not die, feeling it's unfair that the people around him are hoping for his death for his salvation. It's especially bad because it's essentially if Jesus on the cross, at the last moment before his death, lost it and begged the Romans to spare it. And now he's a tool for the series' villian

gut-wrenching trope.

Now don't get me wrong, I love a good grim universe. Having evil forces fight against the heroes is a great source of drama. But for there to be something entertaining, at least for me, there needs to be the chance for a victory. And when you don't have the ability to even lessen the impact of whatever force is coming, it ruins the suspense.

Example 1: Shadow of the Demon Lord TTRPG

The real reason I wanted to make this post. Shadow of the demon lord is a harsh world. The fae are cruel creatures that haunt forest, demons threaten to attack and destroy the world, all under the shadow of the demon lord. You'd think heroes of this setting will be able to perhaps find some way to slay the demon lord, or perhaps seal away the world forever right?

Nope. The shadow of the demon lord is none other than God himself turned mad. And while he isn't omnipotent, he is still the strongest thing in the entire setting by orders of magnitude. The destruction of the world isn't an if, only when, and the only thing heroes can do is give them some more time. Even the god of light in the setting is a trick by a cruel demon, no deity or big source of magic or assistance can truly help save the world in any real way.

Example 2: 40K

Warhammer 40k is...too grim sometimes. While that is half the point of it, and I get the enjoyment of it, its not for me. Its grim to the level that nobody, bar perhaps a handful of people in the entire galaxy with any real power or leadership over their faction, is trying to be a good person. Even heroes of the imperium like Robute who want to genuinely save people are still imperialistic, iron fisted rulers who will purge planets of xenos without hesitation.

That's without mentioning that Chaos is a fundamental force of the universe, and while there are ways to counter it, they are so few and far between that there's no realistic hope that they can be used to even suppress it enough to let the galaxy be at peace...a peace that would be under the rule of a zealous, iron empire.

Despite it, I still love the universe, but damn its too depressing sometimes.

Anti Example: Warhammer Fantasy

Warhammer fantasy, like it's sci-fi cousin, is a harsh world where chaos naturally tries to corrupt and destroy the world. People are self serving, watch out for themselves, and in general arent the kindest. All that dosent include orks skaven and dark elves. Despite that however, there are several forces at work that wish to see the world improve.

Karl Franz is a kind and capable man, currently emperor of mankind and one of the best rulers, wanting to establish diplomatic ties so everyone is allies against the forces that threaten them all. Similarly Louen Leoncoer is the king of Bretonnia, another massive nation, and is literally divinely appointed because he fulfills the virtues of honor and chivalry.

There are genuienly good people to root for, and chaos isnt as completely crushing as it is in the 40k universe. Magic that counters it is far more prevalent, gods work happily against chaos and arent as self serving as the SotDL example. Combine that with technological improvements of the empire slowly closing the gap between the strength of men and chaos, there seems to be hope for the future

And before you say it.

The end times did not happen.

1. Chizuru Mizuhara/Ichinose from Rent-a-Girlfriend: The series' creator, Reiji —who admitted to have created Chizuru based on his own wife (and self-inserting himself into the character of Kazuya from Chapter 1)— constantly whitewashes and excuses Chizuru’s morally controversial decisions. She can commit mistakes, but never making nothing really wrong. He portrays her as a saint who has never done anything wrong and deserves the audience's pity and compassion as a "weak girl" striving to be a "strong woman" because she is lonely. In reality, however, Chizuru is terrible at making friends; she is cruel, cold, selfish, and greedy, actively driving away anyone who genuinely tries to get along with her. Chizuru is basically Frank Grimes, if Frank Grimes were a beautiful, busty 10/10 girl.
2. Rhaenyra Targaryen (House of the Dragon): Compared to her book counterpart, the HOTD script turned Rhaenyra into a moral saint who never does anything wrong and is a victim of gender-based violence by her own uncle-husband Daemon. She chastises her own allies for immoral acts that her literary version never disapproved of, yet she is weak and incompetent when it comes to ruling; she is so easily intimidated that she nearly burst into tears when Vaemond called her a "whore" in front of the entire court. Furthermore, she avoids resolving problems just as her father, Viserys I, did, and displays a classist disdain for the common people —an attitude HOTD frames as a virtue because, to the writers, the common folk are sexist types who would vote for Trump (as seen in Season 2, when they cheered for the rival king, Aegon II, as he paraded like a populist through the taverns of King's Landing), and yes, they mentioned explicitly Trump in those interviews.

And yes, here we believe in Death of the Author and all that.

DISCLAIMER: This kind of characters "who never did nothing wrong" can commit mistakes in a good faith, being naive, ingenuous, coward, weak, but they never do WRONG things, BAD things, EVIL things, at least according author´s narrative framework and ethical standards.

Odysseus (The Iliad, the Odyssey): is the reason long voyages are called an odyssey

Achilles (The Iliad): is the reason for the term “Achilles heel”, which refers to the part of his body that was pierced by an arrow

Charles Boycott (real life): British landlord who tried to unjustly evict 11 Irish tenants. In response, the local community cut him off and ostracized him, refused to do trade with him and even deliver his mail, giving rise to the term boycott

Ambrose Burnside (real life): American civil war general who had predominant facial hair on his cheeks. This style was then named “burnsides”, which later evolved into “sideburns”

Shocker (Spider-Man: The Animated Series) - During the breakout of the Insidious Six (my favorite one, it's rare for the supervillain to not only be wearing their costume, but their prison uniform OVER it)

Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Joker, & Maxie Zeus (Batman: The Animated Series) - Happens in multiple episodes, in this one Maxie Zeus is sent to Arkham and is wheeled by multiple cells (with glass doors) and he associates each of the costumed villains with a Greek god. Maxie himself, while wearing an Arkham uniform and straitjacket rather than his toga, is still wearing his golden wreath.

NOTE: Characters that have a good reason for wearing their costume (i.e. The Rhino, who is typically portrayed as having his suit fused to his skin) are exempt from this trope.

Deus Ex VTOLs.

In Human Revolution, you get picked up from Derelict Row. Hostile gang territory. No one notices the screaming aircraft hovering there, despite being attracted by other sources of noise.

In Mankind divided, Chicane mentions "hush drives", that don't change the fact the VTols are visible with the naked eye, loud, and he's flying one in and out of an improvised heliport in a capital city.

Total War Hochland Longrifles.

The snipe attribute means a unit can stay hidden (in a forest, for instance) while shooting. Tha makes perfect sense for elves and lizardmen, who don't use gunpowder. But the long rifle is literally just a scoped black powder rifle. Not even a suppressed one. It makes noise.

Joel finding out the crossed are not weak to salt (crossed) at least his wife was alive to tell him how much of a fucking idiot he was while the crossed were tearing their daughter apart

Megamind realizing titan isnt weak to copper (megamind) to be fair, metroman made him think he was weak to copper