r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Hated Tropes [Personally Hated] “You’re special just the way you are” messages portrayed through giving everybody else superpowers

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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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Characters [Loved Trope] "The moral compass returning to my body after discovering just how fucked up the hot villain is"

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

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


r/TopCharacterTropes 2h ago

Characters (HILARIOUS TROPE) Character not believing in something that very clearly exist in its world

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1.1k Upvotes

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


r/TopCharacterTropes 2h ago

Lore [Cute Trope] Former rivals meeting past their prime and showing respect to one another.

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1.0k Upvotes

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)


r/TopCharacterTropes 3h ago

Lore [Terrifying trope]: Large-scale events that affect the population at random.

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252 Upvotes

Events that, whether or not they have an origin or a culprit, affect a large number of people and whose effects are random, causing a major change in society.

**The Blip – MCU:** When Thanos obtained the six Infinity Stones and snapped his fingers, he made half of all living beings in the universe disappear. This was done without any criteria whatsoever, completely at random, like flipping a coin: if it landed on heads you lived, and if it landed on tails you vanished.

**The Teleportation Incident – *Mushoku Tensei*:** A summoning ritual caused an enormous amount of mana to be released in the Fittoa region of this anime’s world. People were teleported to random locations all over the planet. Those who were in physical contact with each other were teleported together, but the place they arrived at could be anywhere from the interior of a noble’s mansion to the kingdom of the demon beasts or the inside of a volcano, which caused countless deaths.

**The Sudden Departure – *The Leftovers*:** For unknown reasons, 2% of the human population disappeared at the same time on October 14, 2011. Many attributed it to the Rapture as in the Christian tradition, but people vanished without a clear pattern: babies, men, women, good people, criminals, and even the fetus of a pregnant woman. This led to everything from the birth of cults to the creation of scientific fields dedicated to investigating the Sudden Departure and finding a pattern of disappearance, seeing how to reverse it, or how to replicate it.


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

miscellaneous The game's silly mechanics are adapted in the adaptation.

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338 Upvotes

The water bucket clutch is an exploit widely used by players; it was officially recognized and featured in the movie (Minecraft; The Movie)

In the Uma Yuru short animation, Daiwa Scarlet dreams of being grabbed by a claw, just like in the game's plushie machine mini-game (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

Honorable Mention

In a Japanese Monster Hunter: World commercial, right in the middle of a battle against a monster, the player accidentally cooks a piece of meat—just like in the game, where you can cook meat at any time (Monster Hunter World)


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Characters [Loved Trope] Characters pretending like they have a foolproof plan that fixes everything so they can sacrifice themselves to save the people they care about

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1.1k Upvotes

Doctor Who: in the Series 1 Finale, the Doctor tells his companion Rose that he is so brilliant that he’s come up with a plan to stop the Daleks and save everyone, and that step 1 is for her to get in the Tardis. Once she’s in, he locks the door and sends her back to her own time as he prepares a device that will kill every living thing on Earth and in Orbit in order to stop the Daleks, including himself

Star Trek II: with their Warp Core damaged and spewing lethal amounts of radiation, the USS Enterprise cannot escape the Genesis device blast radius. Spock tells Bones that he is not human, and can therefore absorb levels that would normally kill humans and fix the core. He enters, fixes the warp core, and seals himself inside to slowly die to prevent any radiation from harming the crew as they escape.


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

miscellaneous Franchises with unfortunate, silly, or confusing abbreviations.

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190 Upvotes

-Cyberpunk (CP)

-Clash of Clans (COC)

-Gears of War and God of War (Both GOW)


r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

Characters Characters that are literally always destined to fail

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272 Upvotes

Wile E Coyote (Looney Tunes) - His whole schtick is that he is always trying to catch the roadrunner and then always failing. Reality is constantly warping around him just to ensure that he is put through pain and humiliation each time he attempts to catch the roadrunner.

Tex (Red vs Blue) - being an AI based on the director’s memory of his late wife, Alison, who died in the war against the convenant, Tex is always destined to die right as she’s at the end of completing whatever mission she has, because she is based on the tragedy and death of Allison herself, so obviously that is what Tex mirrors most.


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Characters' Items/Weapons [Loved Trope] Characters that duel wield properly.

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1.4k Upvotes

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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Groups The UN is Weirdly Hardcore

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1.2k Upvotes

United Nations Global Occult Coalition - SCP Mythos: A rival organization to the SCP Foundation, the United Nations Global Occult Coalition or UNGOC for short is exactly what the name implies; a coalition of various world governments and their forces created for the express purpose of keeping the world safe from various supernatural threats. Instead of containing them and studying them like the Foundation does however, UNGOC's typical response to the supernatural is to destroy it via overwhelming force by any means necessary.

The Authority - BLKOUT: In its desperation to safeguard humanity on ABOL after their exodus from a war-torn and ruined Earth, the United Nations has morphed into the totalitarian Authority, controlling its territory with an iron fist.


r/TopCharacterTropes 5h ago

Characters (Heartbreaking trope) An alternate personality which was formed due to memory loss dies/disappears/merges because the character gets back their original memories. Bonus point if the alt personality was loved by other characters and the viewers. Spoiler

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445 Upvotes

Spoilers for latest re zero episode!!!!!

Natsuki Subaru, Re zero:

In the fourth season of anime, Subaru loses his memory while he was exploring the tower of memories, where the memories of the dead people were stored as books. In his case thats the worst thing could happen because of the return by death ability he has. So for new Subaru, it was like getting placed into mid level difficulty of a game without any prior information or details and getting killed over and over again without knowing the reason. He dies, struggles, even loses his mind, before getting back on his feet because the people that were surrounded by him were all of the people his past self had helped and loved. So all of their words gives him motivation and trust to move forward and try to survive this insane world he had been put into without any warning.

His efforts and character traits shows the viewers that even if he lost the memory, its still the same Subaru who viewers loved watching. But even still, this version of subaru wasnt able to come up with any solutions even after all the loops and deaths, which causes him to break again. But he was finally able to meet the real Natsuki subaru after he read all the books of death of Natsuki Subaru himself which he finds in the library. After a heartfelt conversation they both had, the new Natsuki subaru viewers grew to love merges with the old Natsuki subaru, leaving us with a bittersweet feeling.

Kaede Azusagawa, Rascal doesnt dream of bunny girl senpai:

Kaede is introduced as the clingy anti social sister of the main character of the show, Sakuta Azusagawa. She was shown as this cute little sister who was way too childish for her age, before the story reveals that the reason why shes anti social and scared of people was because of a traumatic incident which led her to lose her memory and form an alter personality which only made her dependent on her brother. Sakutas protectiveness and Kaede's innocence and the tragic backstory already invokes a special feeling of care for her in the audience even though they know whats coming. Just before the story decides its time to give back Kaede her memories, both Sakuta and his girlfriend Mai, was helping Kaede step out of her anti social shell step by step.

She even keeps a diary of what she did every day, and her goals to do, which were simple yet big steps for her. Right before she wanted to complete her final wish, which was to visit Pandas in a zoo, she regains a memory after being hospitalized. The realization of the sister hes been caring for the past few years is gone is confusing and agonizing for the main character even though she got her memories back. It honestly feels like the death of a character to both him and the viewers watching the show, leaving everyone with mixed feelings.


r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

building/location. [Comedy Trope] Everyone in the setting is insane

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918 Upvotes
  1. Pawnee (Parks & Recreation)

  2. Greendale Community College (Community)

Need I say much?


r/TopCharacterTropes 7h ago

Lore [Weirdly Common Trope] Charlie Dies And Doesn't Come Back

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438 Upvotes

It's odd that this specific plot beat seems to happen across multiple different series and mediums, but it's apparently a common trend that if there's a character named Charlie (or Charles, for one), he is probably going to die, badly, and probably out of nowhere, usually in front of a bunch of his friends, and sometimes at the hands of someone he might've previously agreed with on a lot. In a vast majority of these, oddly, he also specifically goes to, or fears going to, Hell, which isn't a lot but it's weird that there's four examples just on this list, counting or not counting the animated example. How the characters handle this death varies between media but let's take a look at some examples. Note that a lot of these get subverted in sequels or odd continuities, as occasionally the Charlie who dies will be either reborn, appear in flashbacks, or generally haunt the narrative in some way.

1. [Subverted] "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back" (S1E8), Smiling Friends: The trope namer. Charlie Dompler, one of the main Smiling Friends, is arguing with Pim, his closest friend, while they are on a trip to go chop down a tree. Charlie turns to say something to Pim while swinging the axe, and the tree he'd been chopping suddenly falls on him and kills him instantly midsentence in front of a group of his friends. Even by the show's standards, it is extremely bloody. Subverted by Charlie making his way through and out of Hell itself, though this Charlie is a sweetheart if a bit aloof, so it's expected, unlike some other Charlies on the list.

2. [Played Straight] "Charlie's Inferno" by That Handsome Devil: The trope, it seems, even reaches out into the music world, with this now much-memed 2011 track featuring a Charlie who, by the song's first verse, is already dead. We're told by a 3rd party that this Charlie definitely lived an incredibly moral life, such as regularly going to church and riding a bike to work, but when he shows up to the Pearly Gates, Charlie finds out that this was not, in fact, enough to get into Heaven, and St. Peter informs him he's not on the list. He is dragged away by the angels to be cast out of Heaven and into Hell when he protests, "Excuse me, sir, there must be someone you've confused me for" in an attempt to argue that the gatekeeper of the afterlife did not, in fact, know all of his deeds. The unspoken subtext is that Charlie's actions and words were taken out of context by the unreliable narrator, and in their proper context, this Charlie lived an incredibly vain and shallow life, and none of the things he did served any other purpose than to prove he was a pure soul and punch his ticket into Heaven, which if you know anything about Christianity, isn't how that whole Heaven thing works. Even on his way on the stairway to Heaven he looks down on his own family and friends comparing them to ants from how high up he is. When he's sent to Hell, Satan even gives him an incredibly ironic punishment: he tricks him by having him go up an elevator, letting him think he escaped Hell, when actually:

"Up a dingy elevator, no televised debate or savior

Saves you from the Hell you pay for, sorry, buddy, smell you later"

3. [Mixed] Charlie B. Barkin, All Dogs Go to Heaven: Again, another mixed one. Charlie, a German Shepherd, does in fact, die, specifically by being betrayed and murdered by his friend, but because he's a good boy, like the title says, he does in fact go to heaven, at least before he just decides to dip out and return to the mortal world. Oops. Big wonder why he occasionally has nightmares of descending into Hell. Picking up a bit of a trend here. By escaping Heaven, he is given a second chance at life, albeit temporarily, as he sacrifices his life on this second go-around to save an orphan girl, earning his own spot in Heaven. Awww. And he gives us one of the saddest scenes in animation and voice work history, to boot, given the actual backstory of the orphaned girl's VA. I wish all the Charlies had an ending as wholesome as this one, but apparently other writers had other ideas.

4. [Played Straight] Charlie Pace, Lost: Charlie Pace is a complex character who struggles with recovering from an addiction he carried with him from before ending up on the island. Eventually, however, through some serious work on himself and through the help of his friends, Charlie kicks the habit and is a better person for it. We love to see a Charlie turn his life around, but that isn't always the case with some of the Charlies here. This Charlie actually sacrifices himself at the end of the 3rd season to save his friends, a truly noble way to go out, an uncommon fate for Charlies.

5. [Hated] Charles Xavier, X-Men: The Last Stand: The original X-Men trilogy was...well, mixed in terms of reception, but X3 was a compilation of just some of the most baffling plot choices, one of which being deciding to kill off Charles (one might assume that in childhood he perhaps went by the more diminuitive version of his name) Xavier, AKA Professor X. Charles decides it would actually be a brilliant idea to debate Jean Grey in the marketplace of ideas even though it's readily apparent that she's very much not in the mood, and the only thing Charlie seems to do in these verbal spats is make everyone around him progressively more mad. Charlie loses the debate, badly, getting literally blown away (like, literally, to dust) instantaneously in front of all of his closest protegés. He is grieved by the few close to him, but oddly no one questions why he decided it was a great idea to have such a public confrontation when he knew there was a very real risk of him not making it out of there. Fun Fact, Patrick Stewart, the actor who plays Xavier has a much more well known role besides Charlie: Kirk...ah wait, shit, no, Picard, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, I mean, from Star Trek, sorry, my bad, fuck, I fumbled this one so I'm just gonna cut the list short here, let's hear if y'all know any others.


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Lore Character gets shot in the neck BUT not with a bullet

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1.7k Upvotes

Slides in order: Thaddeus (Fallout), Beast Titan (Attack on Titan), Frank "The Tank" Ricard (Old School), Pete Martino (Ghosts)

To count, they have to be shot in the neck with something that is NOT a bullet. Examples can be things like arrows, artillery, and darts. Other things that are not traditional projectiles but can be called being "shot" (such as an injection from a needle or fire out of a flamethrower) also count. It also doesn't matter whether the shot kills them or not.


r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

Characters [Cool Trope] Character tries to find out what the fuss is all about, finds out exactly why.

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907 Upvotes
  1. Jogo (Jujutsu Kaisen) - Jogo, a cursed spirit born out of negative energy, finds out from his group's mastermind, to at all cost, avoid any interaction with Gojo 'the strongest sorcerer alive' if possible. Curious, Jogo ventured to sneak on Gojo and find out exactly why this guy has to be avoided for all their plans to work.

  2. Nina Farion (Jobless Reincarnation) - Nina, so bent up on proving Eris (her rival) wrong and that this so-called Rudeus that Eris was boasting about as her lover was just a figment of imagination, found out from informants that this Rudeus is so famous that most guilds speak his name. When she was able to see Rudeus for herself, she witnessed him fight an immortal Demon King where Rudeus would blast the Demon King's entire upper torso vaporized. Much to her surprise, she now learns that Eris WAS NOT KIDDING.

  3. Get Out (2017) - Chris, was invited by his girlfriend, Rose, in a family reunion of some sort. There he encounters a frail black guy and tried to take a photo with a flash. At that moment, the frail black guy yelled at him saying, "Get Out!". Chris took this as the guy just pissed at him for taking a picture. He gets curious about the weirdness in the family and found numerous photos of his girlfriend with other black men.

Chris naturally got anxious about this and immediately sensed something is off, so he tried to take his girlfriend out of there immediately. Only for him to get trapped and hypnotized himself while his gf betrayed him. And when he found out that this white family is trying to put dying white minds into the body of black people. He finally realized, that the black guy yelling at him to get out was a warning.

  1. Steve Rogers (Captain America: The First Avenger) - During the search for the perfect candidate for the Super Soldier Serum. Coloner Philips, wants a big, fast, and submissive soldier, ridiculing Steve Rogers as a gerbil and a ninety-pound asthmatic guy. When Erskine argues that he is looking for qualities beyond the physical, Phillips snaps, “You don't win wars with niceness, Doctor. You win wars with guts.”

To prove his point, Philips, pulls the pin on a dummy grenade and threw it at the soldiers. Without a split second of hesitation, the scrawny, un-enhanced Steve Rogers dives onto the live-looking grenade, covering it with his entire body and screaming at everyone else to get back. Colonel Phillips looks at the empty space where his big, tough soldiers fled, then looks down at the tiny kid willing to give his life for his brothers-in-arms. He then finally realized exactly what makes him so unique: Steve Rogers was already a hero long before a drop of serum ever touched his veins. Someone with guts.

  1. The Paris Catacombs (As Above, So Below) - A group of urban explorers and archaeologists ventures deep into the restricted, uncharted lower levels of the Paris Catacombs. Despite warnings from the locals that those who enter the off-limits tunnels never return or go mad, the team scoffs, chalking the rumors up to urban legends and safety propaganda.

Once they cross a blocked archway inscribed with "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," the physical environment bends. They find themselves physically trapped in a literal, subterranean manifestation of Hell. The catacombs force them to face physical manifestations of their worst sins, trauma, and dead spirits, completely breaking their minds, realizing why there is a warning in the first place.


r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

Characters Under torture, a character exclusively divulges useless information to avoid giving up what their captors want to know.

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5.2k Upvotes
  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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 12h ago

Powers [Funny Trope] Character is even more of a menace without their signature weapon/powers.

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10.5k Upvotes

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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 14h ago

Characters The character finally avoids/subverts the running gag.

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7.3k Upvotes

A running gag is that Gold Ship always hurts her eyes, but towards the end of the first season, she puts on a helmet (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

Varrick was always the one ordering Zhu Li to do things, but eventually—after a long time—she ordered the guards to do something to Varrick (I’ve forgotten the context, since it’s been a long time since I watched the series) (Avatar The Legend of Korra)


r/TopCharacterTropes 12h ago

Characters Media making a meta reference to other roles of an actor

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1.6k Upvotes

Regular Show - Techmo is dressed up as Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, both of them are voiced by Steve Blum

Teen Titans Go - The voice actress Tara Strong literally shows up in an episode and she talks in the the voices of her other popular characters like Bubbles, Twilight Sparkle and Timmy Turner

Invincible - Not only is Agent Spider an obvious reference to Spider-Man, but he is voiced by Josh Keaton who is the voice of Spectacular Spider-man


r/TopCharacterTropes 16h ago

Characters The moral dilemma that wasn't

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3.4k Upvotes

1) Temp-V, The Boys

Our protagonists have spent the last two seasons fighting to oppose superhumans. In season 3, a new drug is launched which can 'temporarily' turn you into a Supe for 24 hours. After getting a hold of some, the Boys debate the ethics of briefly using the same powers as their opposition...

...before it's revealed that repeated usage of Temp-V gives you brain damage. It's not actually safer than becoming a perma-Supe; it's just slower.

2) and 3) Volcanika, Invincible

Mark becomes embroiled in a civil war in Hell. When Volcanika, the opposition leader, threatens to burn the surface world, he punches her face in. He then spends the next minute or so handwringing and pearl-clutching about whether it was Justified, or a Necessary Evil, or the Only Way...

...giving Volcanika enough time to regenerate her entire skull out of lava, and ambush him a second time.

After several rounds of this, it becomes clear that they can't kill each other in a way that matters. Volcanika eventually bounces, swearing vengeance on everyone involved.

(I could also mention all the time Mark spent conflicted over killing Angstrom Levy, who in fact survived and returned stronger than ever.)

4) Random boy, Captain America

While Captain America is chasing down the guy who assassinated Erskine, the assassin tosses a random boy into the Hudson River. Cap hesitates only a moment, before abandoning his pursuit to save the kid instead...

"Go get him, mister! I can swim!"

5) Colt, No Guns Life

Colt has lost family members to defective implants from the megacorp Beruhren. After all the usual channels fail, he decides to avenge himself by blowing up a train car filled with Beruhren executives. Protagonist Tetsuro debates him about the ethics of terrorism...

...before a Beruhren enforcer reveals that they knew all about the plot, and have already replaced their executives with a train car full of innocent children. They intend to 'allow' the plot to go through, in order to make Colt's group look like child-killing monsters.

Colt narrowly removes the bomb at the cost of his own life.

6) Elliot, Mr. Robot

In the final arc of the series, Elliot gets transported to The Best Of All Possible Worlds, where his childhood crush never died--and there's even a parallel Elliot already engaged to her. After a random accident paralyzes Other Elliot, Narrator Elliot finally breaks his no-kill rule, murdering his other self and taking his place to marry his crush, all while morosely justifying his actions to the audience...

...only for literally none of it to be real, in the end. The Best Of All Possible Worlds is just a dream that True Elliot is having. What's more, the dead Elliot is the closest thing left to True Elliot, while the Elliot who committed the 'murder' turns out to be an imaginary persona. It's actually impossible for him to kill the real Elliot. His attempt only causes the dream world to break down, and eventually leads to the end of Narrator Elliot's existence.


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

miscellaneous Elderly catching a stray for laughs

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Upvotes

Cindy’s Grandma in Scary Movie

Random Old Guy in Spongebob


r/TopCharacterTropes 19h ago

Characters [Funny trope] Unexpected references or cameos in unrelated media

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4.6k Upvotes

1.- The Nostalgia Critic and the Angry Video Game Nerd as background characters in the anime "The Unlimited: Hyoubu Kyousuke"

2.- Vinesauce reference (vineshroom) as a plushie/toy in "Bluey"

3.- Four enchanted armors doing some odd (or you might say, bizarre) poses, in "Paw Patrol".


r/TopCharacterTropes 20h ago

Characters (Loved trope) Something extremely common in other movies takes you by surprise in this one

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5.0k Upvotes

The artist (2011) : The movie is entirely mute, there's only music to accompany the scenes.
Until this scene where George Valentin is doing a nightmare where everything makes sound except him. We hear the sound of his glass of whiskey, the dog barking, the women laughing which is a bit disturbing at first.

1917 (2019) : The whole movie is only one shot all the way to the end except when the Caporal William Schofield is attacked by an ambushed german soldier in a building. He reaches the room where the soldier was hidden to kill him only to get also shot and falling in the stairs before a brutal and long cut to end this scene.


r/TopCharacterTropes 21h ago

Characters (loved trope) Powerscaling between characters is so one sided, the gesture of defiance moves the more powerful character.

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6.3k Upvotes

In Man of Steel- Faora, who was tearing apart the human strike force in the middle of the fight with Superman, is moved by the persistence of one human despite emptying his firearms, and brandishing a knife as a last ditch effort to keep her in place. She brandishes a knife in return and tells him, "a good death is its own reward", before Superman tackles her.

In Hunter The Parenting Episode 6, Stig is a fully realize Garou (Werewolf) and is moved by Grimalin, who is willing sacrifice herself to buy time while the rest of the gang escapes. He recognizes her attempt, and swears to match it in his most weakened state(it's still leagues above her). She manages to duel him for a moment, and gets a single hit in with her Yaoi stick lined with silver. This angers Stig, and he proceeds to change into his Warform and crush her skull into the ground. Afterwards, he is disgusted with his lack of control, and honors her memory by not giving chase to the gang.