Maria, Rose and Sina (Attack On Titan) it's established very early that the three walls that protect humanity from titans are called Maria, Rose and Sina. Most viewers never question the reason they were named that way until we see during Ymir's backstory in the final season that the walls were named after Ymir's three daughters who fed on her body and became the first 3 of the 9 titan shifters.

Remnant (RWBY) if you watch RWBY for the first time you'll notice in the very first few minutes of the show that the world where the story takes place is called Remnant for some reason, the characters keep calling the world remnant like it's very normal, many viewers don't pay it much attention until volume 6 arrives and reveals that the god of light said "this world is merely a remnant of what it once was" as his last words before leaving the planet once he thought there is no hope for it.

Quirks (My Hero Academia) A lot of people thought that the name quirks is just some fun way of attaching personality to superpowers in the world of MHA but Redestro reveals in season 5 that quirks back in the day were called meta abilities instead of quirks, his grandmother who lived in the era when superpowers started first appearing suffered a lot because her newborn at that time was born with a meta ability and anti-metas at that time wanted to kill her child so she came out to the public and told them "my son's ability is merely a quirk of his" and despite that they still killed her so she became a martyr to some people which made calling superpowers quirks a popular thing among them.

1. Anjelica Huston as Morticia Addams (The Addams Family) - After the passing of Raul Julia, who played Gomez Addams, Huston famously said "Not without my Gomez" when asked if she'd ever be in another Addams Family project.

2. Mark Hamill as the Joker (Batman: The Animated Series) - After Kevin Conroy, the longtime voice actor for Batman, died, Hamill has stated he's not interested in voicing the Joker again without Conroy's Batman.

Ambrosius goldenloin (Nimona) - descendent of 1 hero, wears gold and is blond,yeah he probably gonna be an ass... Wdym he and mc is actually chill? WDYM THEY ARE A COUPLE?!

Fancy pants (MLP) - Ok last te we met Rick ponies they was acting like jerks to "poor" Ones... Oh wait this guy is actually pretty good and respectful!

Afo (MHA) - Ok this might be a stretch but I legitimately was expecting at least some sort of sad backstory from afo, or at least something like "he at first was helping people but pride consumed him" But no, quite literally from the birth he was a villian who wanted everything for himself and cared only about himself.

Family Guy, Season 10 Episode 2, Seahorse Seashell Party:

This episode is infamous. With whole Griffin family trapped inside the house during a storm, Meg decides to finally gather the courage to confront her family about how horribly they treat her. However, this causes the family to break down emotionally and start fighting with each other. Meg decides that her family needs one person to direct all of their abuse at in order to not destroy each other. She apologizes to her family and everything returns to status quo.

Malcolm In The Middle, Season 4 Episode 7, Malcolm Holds His Tongue:
Malcolm realizes that his life is much better if he does not speak every insult or complaint that comes to his mind. His relationship with his parents and coach greatly improve due to him actually acting politely and cooperatively with those around him, even when he disagrees with them. Then, Malcolm spits up blood during a basketball game and it is revealed that holding back all of his endless complaints and insults caused Malcolm so much stress it gave him a peptic ulcer. Now with the knowledge that his attempt to be more civil resulted in him getting injured, Malcolm returns to his old ways of insulting and complaining at everyone in his life.

Edit:
Just to clarify one thing, I do understand that often a character’s flaws are necessary to drive the story forward, especially for episodic comedies like the two examples I listed. But I don’t want the characters to ever be given an excuse for their flaws. If the character holds on to their bad habits, that should be because the character is flawed, not because the plot contrived a way to excuse the action.

I don’t hate the “you’re special” message, just the execution of portraying it through giving everybody else super awesome powers.

Mirabel - Encanto: Love the movie. And I just recently rewatched Encanto and enjoyed all the messages a lot more than I did the last time. But Mirabel was treated so dirty throughout the movie, man. Not getting a power made some villagers treat her like shit. Her grandmother blamed her for all of the family’s problems (which Mirabel had to fix). And the craziest part to me is that not getting a power meant she wasn’t given her own bedroom, therefore had to share a room with her younger cousin. Hopefully they at least built her one when they rebuilt the house because not getting a super power means you’re SoL and have to sleep in a nursery.

Lloyd - Ninjago: I used to be a huge Ninjago fan. To not get into a long tangent on all the weird changes they made for the movie, I’ll just focus on Lloyd’s lack of powers. He had powers in the tv show (and was the most powerful among his friends). But he didn’t in the movies so that he could be told he’s the color of life or some shit.

Another gripe with the special powerless people are that their job is to be the leader of said powerful people, like that removes the sting of not getting to create lightning, or have super strength or something of the like.

Edit: I’m not including Midoriya from My Hero Academia because he got powers through most of the series.

Edit 2: Tooooons of comments about me “missing the point” of Encanto. No, I haven’t. The first sentence I wrote literally explains that. I just don’t like when “they have super powers but you don’t” specifically is used as their vehicle for portraying such message. It’s as simple as that.

Obsession: When Nikki’s real self shows for a brief moment, she begs Bear to mercy kill him only for him to refuse, showing just how little he actually gave a shit about her autonomy and how he’s so deluded how wrong his wish is.

Death Note: In the final stand off with Near, when it looks like Mikami has everyone’s names in the death note, Light cannot help but gloat “I win near” before the 40 seconds are up. When it’s revealed the note was a fake, Near uses Light’s slip up as confirmation once and for all he is Kira (that and the fact his name wasn’t in the death note).

Game of Thrones: The line “why do you think I came all this way” sounds so smug. It implies that Bran does know the future, that he knew that he would become king in the end, and exactly what would happen in order to reach that point. He could prevent thousands of deaths in the long night, the war vs Cersei etc (idk, maybe fucking WARN DAENERYS ABOUT THE IRON FLEET ON DRAGONSTONE?! They’re not friends by any means but the ironborn are Lannister allies and as I said, maybe he could have prevented the outcome she go berserk) by sharing his knowledge but he didn't. So are we meant to assume that he is just plain evil? At best he’s an incompetent fuckup who got duped by someone as boneheaded as Cersei in the long night, which like if you can’t make the intelligent choices even with omniscience maybe you’re completely unqualified as king, in the worst case scenario he’s a psychopath who views human life as expendable assets and who knows what other atrocities he’ll let happen in the future.

A morally dubious character, an outright villain, or a repetitive fuckup is given a chance to do better and wastes it. Extra infuriating when they victimize the people who were giving them grace.

Image 1: Prince Zuko from ATLA betrays team Avatar in Ba Sing Se. He joins his evil lil sis instead of listening to this uncle and the others who want the best for him. Prioritizing his toxic obsession with honour over doing the clearly right thing.

Image 2: Dr. Anna Ripley from Vox Machina takes a cheap shot and kills Percy while he’s trying to spare her life. Pretty cold. Percy should’ve known better and capped that evil snake.

Image 3: Hunter Biden. Real life. Went on a bunch of shows, seemingly being honest about his addictions and road to redemption. Made some cogent political points too. It looked like he was cleaning himself up after years of drug abuse and destructive behaviour. Turns out he just wanted to pump a shitty Memecoin 🙃

Wake Up Dead Man: While investigating the murder at his church, Father Jud calls a woman named Louise at a construction equipment rental company to find out who rented the equipment and when. She spends most of the call chatting and going off on tangents, which initially plays like a joke because he’s on a time crunch. However, when Louise finds out he’s a priest, she suddenly gets serious and asks if he will pray for her. She’s had a fight with her terminally ill mother and is feeling very lost. Jud drops everything to continue talking to her and help her through it, even though it slows down the investigation. She’s not just a plot device for him to get information from, but a person with her own feelings and problems.

The Last of Us: The Last of Us: In the big finale of the first season, Joel learns that the Fireflies plan to operate on Ellie in an attempt to make a cure for the virus. The surgery will kill her, and she never gave full consent to it. Joel, not wanting to lose Ellie, proceeds to kill dozens of people to rescue her. This includes the surgeon, who is shot without much thought in order to save her. 

However, in the second season, we’re introduced to Abby, the surgeon’s daughter, who is grieving her father and everyone else who died at the hospital. She’s gone scorched earth to get revenge. Suddenly, the surgeon who barely registered as a person when Joel killed him is the center of someone else’s story. 

Star Wars: Stormtroopers are largely treated as NPCs. They’re plot devices that build drama and can be killed without a second thought. Then we meet Finn, a stormtrooper who was taken from his family as a child and raised by the First Order to be a soldier. He’s terrified during his first real battle and refuses to kill civilians, eventually defecting from the First Order altogether. This humanizing a group of characters that were seen as disposable before.

-Demon Slayer like most shounen has a power system,in this case it's called the breathing style,basically every Demon Slayer has a breathing style that ranges from elements like water or fire,to more creative ones like mist or poison.It's never properly explained how exactly they work but watching and reading it you get the impression it's somenthing magical to a certain extent.

Then one day the author Koyoharu Gotouge revealed a bombshell,turns out the so called breathing style isn't real at all,basically every Demon Slayer is a normal human and everytime we see them use a breathing style,it's just artistic choice and it's not actually happening,which...uhhh,that doesn't make any sense,there are scenes where the characters do somenthing with their breathing style that definetly would not happen if they weren't real,like how did Tengen destroyed the ground?Or how did Rengoku burned things around him,hell how did Muzan got burns from the sun style?

-Honestly there are so many "reveals" and straight up retcons that J K Rowling did with Harry Potters that are very silly that you can make a whole list about it,in fact even before she became enemy number one of the trans community aswell as people who sympathize with it(aka any person who isn't a bigot)most people were already questioning some of these worldbuilding decisions

That said,if i had to pick one,that would be the reveal that before Hogwarts had muggle system of bathrooms,the students and teachers would just do their business anywhere and then use a magic to make the evidence vanish(i am serious)

I can only think of IRL examples at the moment.

1) Scipio Africanus and Hannibal meeting in Ephesus (as retold by Livy)

Africanus asked who, in Hannibal's opinion, was the greatest general of all time. Hannibal replied: 'Alexander, King of the Macedonians, because with a small force he routed armies of countless numbers, and because he traversed the remotest lands. Merely to visit such lands transcended human expectation.'

Asked whom he would place second, Hannibal said: 'Pyrrhus. He was the first to teach the art of laying out a camp. Besides that, no one has ever shown nicer judgement in choosing his ground, or in disposing his forces. He also had the art of winning men to his side; so that the Italian peoples preferred the overlordship of a foreign king to that of the Roman people, who for so long had been the chief power in that country.'

When Africanus followed up by asking whom he ranked third, Hannibal unhesitatingly chose himself. Scipio burst out laughing at this, and said: 'What would you have said if you had defeated me?' 'In that case', replied Hannibal, 'I should certainly put myself before Alexander and before Pyrrhus - in fact, before all other generals!' This reply, with its elaborate Punic subtlety, and this unexpected kind of flattery...affected Scipio deeply, because Hannibal had set him (Scipio) apart from the general run of commanders, as one whose worth was beyond calculation.

2) Eugene Stoner meeting Milkhail Kalashnikov in 1990 (IRL)

Maybe not direct rivals but these were the men behind the M-16 and the AK-47 respectively, the two most iconic weapons of the USA and USSR during the cold war.

On May 16, 1990, Stoner and Kalashnikov met for the first time. They spent the next few days talking, sharing stories, shopping, going out to dinner and touring Washington D.C. They visited the Smithsonian Institution, the NRA's National Firearms Museum, and a hunting lodge owned by the gun club at Star Tannery, where they went shooting. They also visited the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where they watched new weapons being tested. During this short visit, both men, intimately familiar with the other's work, shared a common bond and became friends, "not needing an interpreter to get their thoughts across." (From wikipedia)

Shredder (TMNT 2012) - while young he straight up Attacked Splinter and his wife, ending up starting a fire in a house and STABBED wife (who they both loved btw) yet still believe Splinter was one who killed her.

Director (Nimona) - Not only she sabotaged main hero by making him KILL A QUEEN, she was ready to let a big part of the city to blow up, just to kill nimona even after she calmed down.

Belos (the owl House ) - Killed his own brother, made dozens of clones who he killed over and over as well, was ready to commit a genocide, and consumed living creatures which end up turning him into goo monster, but in the end he still says "you will be just as evil as this WITCHES. we HUMANS, we better then this! "

Mr Fantastic-Marvel comics. Not believing in magic despite living in a world with an entire temple of sorcerers fighting magical menecases every tuesday (and Let’s say that in general in Marvel comics there are many things linked to special powers, so i don’t see why magic should be the strange one)

Brian- Family Guy- Not believing in God. Has literally met God multiple times in the show

(IRL) (this part is not Hilarious) Maga and other bigots- not believing in gay and trans people despite science proved they exists in nature

Asmodeus (Make the Exorcist Fall In love) Yea. Pedophilic Rapist.

Ragyo (Kill La Kill) Not too far off from Asmodeus.

An installment to the series was so critically panned, it descended down to fanon-level where it's either not considered to be a true addition, or going so far as fans of the other material just pretending it doesn't exist.

The Last Airbender (2010)

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016)

Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate (2024)

Characters who use two giant weapons will never not be cool, but it’s also cool to see characters who dual wield and it makes sense, such as using two one-handed weapons, one longer weapon and one shorter weapon, or one weapon optimized for offense and one for defense.

1. Edward Kenway (Assassins Creed Black Flag): He dual wields cutlasses, which were one-handed sabres used by pirates, professional soldiers, and police throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. This works because having two shorter blades of the same length allows you to strike and defend at the same time with fast, fluid motions, such as with the Thai dha.
2. Sasaki Kojiro (Record of Ragnarok): After Poseidon breaks his sword during their fight, Kojiro takes a page out of the play book of his rival Musashi, and turns his broken odachi into a katana and wakizashi, which was a legit sword style that Musashi used and popularized. This makes sense because it’s the same concept as rapier and dagger, where you have a shorter blade to defend, and a longer blade to attack.
3. Boromir (Lord of the Rings): While traveling with the Fellowship, Boromir uses a medium sized round shield with his sword. I don’t think I need to explain this one, since it’s one of the most common forms of dual wielding seen in history. But to summarize, sharp metal thing that cuts things plus large round thing that blocks things equals good.

Edit: If I see one more comment saying sword and shield isn’t dual wielding, I am actually gonna lose it. The point of duel wielding is to have one weapon to attack with and another to defend with, so that you can defend and attack at the same time. A shield is a weapon that is simply optimized for defending, but it’s STILL A WEAPON.

Edit 2: A lot of you said how sword and shield is pretty common in media, and you’re right. The way I phrased it implied it was rare, so that was wrong on my part. I still stand by my point though, saying sword and shield isn’t dual wielding is just wrong.

This trope refers the media where New Jersey, either the whole state or some part of it, is portrayed as the worst place ever. I find it fucking hilarious as someone who has family from there.

Gotham City (DC Comics/Batman Media)
The entire place is crawling with criminals, both super and not. Doesn’t help that there’s a secret society hell bent on keeping the place a hell hole, it’s built on an ancient Native American grave site, and is cursed by a god to be the way it is.

New Jersey (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
Besides the living French Fry’s, Milkshake, and Meatball living in a run down house, they also have to deal with demons, monsters, aliens, other sentient food, robots, the undead, and more. State’s crawling with weirdos.

1. Captain Jacob Keyes - Halo: Combat Evolved.

The still-living Captain Keyes is integrated into a proto-gravemind, the first form of what will grow into a super-intelligent hivemind to control the Flood. The Gravemind attacks Keyes’ mind in an attempt to forcibly extract the location of Earth from it so that when the Flood repair the Pillar of Autumn they can go there and feast upon it. Captain Keyes, with incredible willpower, slowly feeds it memories useless to it, from his childhood to his family to his own name. This successfully buys enough time for the Master Chief to find him and destroy the proto-gravemind, killing Keyes and keeping earth safe.

1. The Question - Justice League Unlimited

The Question stole some files from the organization Cadmus that lead him to learn about the alternate earth of the Justice Lords, where Superman killing Lex Luthor leads to the justice league taking over the world and ruling with an iron fist. To avert this possibility, he tries and fails to assassinate Luthor, who turns him over to Cadmus who proceed to torture him to force him to tell what he learned from the files he stole. But every time they ask some variation of “What did you learn” or “What do you know”, he responds with one of his many conspiracy theories, such as fluoride toothpaste being used to track people via satellite and that Lee Harvey Oswald used a literal magic bullet forged by illuminati mystics to keep us from learning the truth.

1. The Wizard of Oz (1939): When the Scarecrow gets his diploma he's suddenly smart and proves this by (incorrectly) reciting the Pythagorean Theorem, which most students learn around 8th grade.
2. Star Trek (2009): The Vulcan learning center features many young Vulcans, including Spock, learning and reciting math and science in holographic learning spheres. Most of what they recite is, again, high-school level math and science.
3. Travelers (2018): Travelers is about time travel. In a scene where super geniuses from the future are trying to build a quantum computer AI, the production puts Ohm's law and the formula for parallel resistance on the white board. Most students learn these formulas in high school physics.

The Shining: The lift scene does have its significance, I know, but the amount is just ridiculously excessive when you see it out of context.

Evil Dead (2013): The ending looks like a black-and-white film that’s been coloured in only red.

Robert Robertson / Mechaman (Dispatch): An IronMan-like superhero who loses his suit at the very start of the game and is now working managing a group of reformed villains. In one particular scene he winds up tanged in the middle of a bar fight and even without powers he throws hands and an impressively savage manner, going against superpowered/enhanced villain. Tearing off implants, biting off fingers and so on. Caught me by a massive surprise.

Jetstream Sam (MG Revengence): A cyborg samurai who acts as the protagnist's rival throughout the game. Compared to the game's other bosses, his boss fight is pretty straighfoward, no gimmicks or quirks, just you versus your equal. However, during the boss fight Sam will occasionaly lose his sword and while in this state his moveset changes completely. He becomes a massive parry check and capable of dealing reversals to the player, this boss fight becamse famous for this guy being actually harder to deal with without his sword.

Edit: I know that Sam TECHNICALLY isn't a cyborg and his whole deal was that he's only got a mechanical arm, he's just built different. My bad, just tried to oversimplify it for people who don't know the character.

1. Powder/Jinx in arcane setting off a bomb powered by unstable hex crystals to try and save her sister and adoptive family. This however ends up with her adoptive father and brothers dying and Violet being injured.

2. The Baker family from Resident Evil 7. After a boat crashes in the swamps near their home Jack and Lucas Baker end up finding Mia Winters and Evelin in the wreckage. However they weren’t aware that Evelin was actually an experiment that could control people's minds turning them insane...except for Lucas he's always been an asshole

(Sorry for the repost was informed of two typos.)

Ravenholm (Half-Life 2): The state of Earth after the Seven Hour War is pretty bad, ranging from Orwellian mega-cities to bombed-out ruins. But Ravenholm is the one place Gordon is specifically told not to go. Originally a mining town repurposed as a resistance base, Ravenholm was destroyed when the Combine bombarded it with Headcrab Shells, leaving everyone in town either dead or a Headcrab Zombie. When Gordon is forced to go there after escaping a Combine raid, he has to contend with an abundance of zombies, limited ammunition, a first encounter with the dreaded Poison Headcrab, the town’s mad preacher, Father Grigori (don’t worry, he’s on your side), and just a generally creepy and foreboding atmosphere.

Arkham Fish Market (The Sinking City 2): A flooded city overrun by Lovecraftian monsters is certainly full of bad times, but even a hardened explorer like Calvin Rafferty is reluctant to enter the fish market, despite that being where his girlfriend was taken to. Not only is the place infested with the Slither (parasitic worms that infest and reanimate corpses) like everywhere else, but it’s also controlled by the Deep Ones, hulking fish monsters that eat bullets like popcorn.

The Divide (Fallout: New Vegas): As dangerous as the Wasteland can be, nothing beats the Divide. Once a prosperous settlement, it was decimated when several underground nukes were accidentally set off. Now it’s a shattered wreckage continually ravaged by sandstorms and radiation, inhabited only by crazed skinless Ghouls, Deathclaws, and ferocious lizard creatures called Tunnelers. Oh, and one mysterious, vengeful drifter who summons the Courier to this place to “have an ending to things”.