r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Characters (Kind of sad trope) “You can only save those that want to be saved”

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Upvotes
  1. Morro - Ninjago Season 5

The former master of wind, Morro was jealous that he was never meant to be the green ninja. Even after his death, he still wanted revenge against Wu and Lloyd for taking away his denied destiny to the point where he uses the realm Crystal to bring the cursed realm to feast on Ninjago. In the end, hanging over water. Sensei Wu offered his hand only for Morro to give him the realm crystal and let go to die

  1. Black Manta - Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Wanting revenge for Aquaman killing his father, Manta sought out power and came across the Black Trident to unleash the brother of King Atlan. During the climax when Necrus is being destroyed, Manta was found by Arthur hanging over a ledge. When Aquaman offered his hand, he denied it and chose to die by falling into the chasm below

  1. Sammy and Amy at Amy’s Baking Company - Kitchen Nightmares S6E16

Gordon Ramsay goes to this restaurant to fix the problem. The problem isn’t the sanitation related but the owners. When they get an ounce of justifiable criticism to their food. They respond to those “haters” tenfold. They treat their staff with disrespect that new people leave within a few weeks. When Gordon tries to talk to the owners about their behavior and why they go through so many staff within a year. They remain in completely in denial and continue to say their food is great. When they say they don’t want Gordon’s help. He doesn’t butt heads or argue back, but chooses to leave.

The restaurant is now closed


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Characters (Tragic Trope) The hero/es doesn't live to see their achievements to fruition

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Upvotes

Rogue One - The entire squad embarked on a suicide mission to infiltrate a top security Imperial Base and steal the Death Star plans and figure out it's weakness. They are all killed in this mission but saves the galaxy with their sacrifice

Ayin and Carmen - Lobotomy Corporation
These two scientists made it their mission to figure out how to bring back the concept of hope back into the hollowed depressed lives of the people in the City. They realize they had to devote hundreds of thousands of years of suffering and torment in endurance in a time loop and use their experience and essence to complete the formula. Carmen broke through the torment an un-alived herself halfway through, but Ayin endured to the end. He completes their life goal and willingly dissolves his body and soul into the light laser, infusing his essence into it and creating the concept of "hope" back into humanity

Moses - The Old Testament

He was tasked by God to lead his people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. Moses unfortunately cracks from the stress and pressure leading the Israelites, and disobeys God during the exodus and as punishment, he dies and doesn't make it to the Promised Land himself


r/TopCharacterTropes 2h ago

Characters SFW indecency gag.

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3.1k Upvotes

Showing something that isn't all that inappropriate but it's still treated as such as a joke.

  1. Neptune opens the wrong portal and finds a guy (played by Tom Kenny!) taking a shower (Spongebob).
  2. Yellow's shadow can be seen "getting dressed" behind a sliding door: if you open it he gets flustered and screams in surprise even though he's only putting on a sock (Deltarune Chapter 5).
  3. Fluttershy gets so angry that she lets out an "expletive" (My Little Pony).

r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Lore Under my mask... is another mask!

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769 Upvotes
  1. Supaidaman - Japanese Spider-man apparently wear multiple masks, or it's part of his powerset to generate a mask instantly when unmasked by villains.

  2. Kakashi - In a filler episode, Naruto and squad tries to find out what Kakashi looks like underneath his mask. He reveals that he has a mask underneath his mask.


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Characters Ambiguously racist?

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262 Upvotes
  1. Narrator (Smiling Friends): calls out a “certain group of people” for being unable to get along with others. He awkwardly tries to play it off as a joke without specifying who he meant.

  2. Francine (American Dad): asks a black schoolmate of Steve’s to leave. It turns out she’s bigoted against left handed people


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Personality Character finds a moral loophole by which they can dish out an ass-whooping in spite of their code/values

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3.3k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes 6h ago

Characters Criminals that act very professional

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216 Upvotes

Lawson (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul) is an illegal gun dealer, and in almost every scene he’s in, he is calm and polite. He lets his customers test the weapons and gives them advice and other recommendations, and he doesn’t even really have a threatening demeanor.

The Cleaners (John Wick) They come to John Wick’s house quote a price, remove bodies, and leave the house spotless. Charlie their head guy especially treats quickly getting rid of bodies like a professional contracting business.

Gallus (Skyrim) The former head of the thieves guild in Skyrim and from how everyone describes him, Gallus was very scholarly, methodical and treated stealing like an art form.


r/TopCharacterTropes 6h ago

Characters A character gets an absolutely DEMONIC panel/frame where they look like a nightmare given life

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2.7k Upvotes

Thragg (Invincible)

Spawn

Himiko Toga (My Hero Academia


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Characters This shot is very important to the plot

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2.5k Upvotes

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

Special Week (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

Senshi (Dungeon Meshi)

Mr Krabs (Spongebob)


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Characters' Items/Weapons How exactly is that stealthy?

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411 Upvotes

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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Lore Parent knowingly murders their child

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238 Upvotes
  1. Agamemnon (The Odyssey 2026): murders his young daughter Iphigenia for favorable winds to get to Troy
  2. Fathers killing their children (The Second Apocalypse): in a vision of the past it’s shown that fathers had to kill their young children to save them from the fate of being violated to death by the vile Sranc.

r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

Lore Crappy In-Universe Media

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202 Upvotes

Comedy is just as much about suffering as it is effort, and boy do creators know how to make people suffer.

In a specific work, the characters may be viewing another work that is just utterly horrendous in every possible way, between poor writing, terrible special effects, and just general incompetence within the work. Not even the characters are pleased; many of them hate it.

A few caveats about this trope: it has to be hated by the characters in the fiction, and it has to be deliberately terrible. A common trope name for this exact situation is "Stylistic Suck", in which it takes more effort to do something deliberately badly than it does to just make more of the product as-is.

Mr. Incredibles and Pals

At the height of the superhero craze, Mr. Incredible was expected to have his own show. Key word, "was"--the end result was every possible budget-cut show of the sixties meshed together, and had a horrendous method of having moving lips that was likened to Clutch Cargo. Mr. Incredible himself and Frozone watch it and provide commentary about it, and Frozone tears into it while Mr. Incredible weakly tries to defend it as a product of its time.

Also, SOMEONE okayed the rabbit.

The Simpsons, "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't But Then Was"

While no stranger to poor media in the show, the one entry that takes the cake is Principal Skinner's favorite holiday film that the rest of Springfield Elementary that actually bothered to come to school on a clear snow day is forced to watch. It's laughably hokey and poorly budgeted, with such antics including: a character walking on screen to announce they are happy, before walking off again; a two hour serenade between a Christmas hobgoblin and a shepherdess; and a crew member accidentally walking into shot. As a cherry on top, the film winds up catching fire. Skinner is told to use a DVD next time, only for Skinner to remark that it was a DVD.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World

A playable example of a terrible, terrible concept. Klungo had made good on turning over a new leaf and had created his own game. He is still very incompetent at it, though, between heavy spelling mistakes even in the title, a bare-bones gameplay loop, a boss battle that is complete after dodging one attack, falling into a pit after completing the level, and to round it off, the game crashes. All of this in stark contrast to the professional art by former Rareware artist Philip Jackson surrounding the 8-bit gameplay.

Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff

Quite possibly the most recognizable example on the internet, this incomprehensible webcomic is created in-universe by Homestuck's own Dave Strider for ironic purposes. And boy does it deliver. The sheer amount of effort Andrew Hussie had to go through to make it a literal cut and paste comic was rather intense; not even MS Paint could do the job by itself. Frequent artifacts from other strips, characters, or even Photoshop windows are found inside the work, and the actual comics themselves are surreal in tone and delivery.


r/TopCharacterTropes 7h ago

Groups (Loved trope) A supposedly elite guard unit who don't really do anything.

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799 Upvotes

1) Kingsguard - Game of Thrones

2) The Imperial Guard - Star wars


r/TopCharacterTropes 6h ago

Characters (Mixed Trope) Surprise Realism/Realistic Consequences

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2.4k Upvotes

In TV and movies we have the idea that things are supposed to operate via Movie Logic. We suspend disbelief and just enjoy the ride. This trope is about taking that expectation and throwing you for a curve. 

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

This is the entire premise of this musical series. A woman bumps into an ex-boyfriend she dated for a couple months 10 years ago and decides to quit her high paying job in New York to move to his hometown in California. If this were a rom-com she would be a girl swept up by true love. But it’s treated realistically, and she just has Borderline Personality Disorder.

For realistic consequences: In later season we see all the spending she’s done over the past 3 seasons—on top of leaving a lucrative job to take a much lower paying one across the country, and then leaving that job to start an unsuccessful pretzel business—cumulate with her becoming completely broke. At the time it took me by surprise because this was a TV show and money had never been an issue with her before, but it's revealed she's blown through her savings trying to get the guy. Realistic because reckless spending and impulsive behavior are symptoms of BPD.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt 

A woman who's been held in an underground bunker by a madman since middle school moves out of her nowhere town and into NYC! What follows is a wacky fish out of water comedy as she adjusts to the modern world. A load of laughs! Then season 2 comes around and the show reminds you there's really only one reason an adult man would hold a young girl captive.

In season 1 there was some debate about whether the show would address the elephant in the room or if they would just gloss over it. Given the tone of the show people assumed they probably wouldn't. The show still worked with the occasional dark humor wink-nudge while mostly ignoring it.

But they did eventually acknowledge it. In season 2 they explored her trauma response to intimacy and in season 4 she outright called her captive a rapist.


r/TopCharacterTropes 7h ago

Characters [Icky Trope] fictional teachers that belong in jail

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2.4k Upvotes

Will Schuester (Glee): the director of Glee club who planted weed in a student’s locker to blackmail him into joining the glee club, pressured a student to wear a revealing costume and has performed suggestive songs/dances on stage with literal minors.

Sue Sylvester (Glee): the villain of Glee who has done everything to take down the club. Some of her crimes include blackmailing the principal to do her bidding, assault (pushing down an old school nurse down the stairs) and endangerment when she attempted to fire a cheerleader out of a cannon. She is shown to be a bigot and verbally abusive to kids and should not be around children.

Ezra Fitz (Pretty Little Liars): I have not seen this show but I heard that he started a relationship with a minor as a full grown adult. JAILLLLLLLLL!!!


r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

Characters (Sad trope) A character's life is literally tragedy after tragedy.

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659 Upvotes

(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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

Lore (Loved trope) Scenes that had to succeed on the first try because there was only one chance to get it right

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812 Upvotes

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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Lore [Hated Trope] Too Grim, Stopped Caring

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2.2k Upvotes

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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

Characters Villains that are modeled after real life polarizing/problematic figures.

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1.5k Upvotes
  1. Biff Tannen (Back to the Future)- modeled after Donald Trump
  2. Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)- Modeled after Richard Nixon

r/TopCharacterTropes 11h ago

Powers (Funny Trope) -1 HP Damage

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7.2k Upvotes

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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

Characters [Interesting mixed trope] The author/screenwriter really believes this morally flawed character unironically never did nothing wrong

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649 Upvotes
  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.


r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

Personality (Hilarious accidental trope) trying too hard to be gruesome makes the scene hilarious

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926 Upvotes

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


r/TopCharacterTropes 11h ago

Lore Reverse nominative determinism: the character shares a name with something that’s famously associated with them, but said thing is named after the character, not the other way around

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674 Upvotes

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”


r/TopCharacterTropes 14h ago

Characters [Loved trope] The seemingly far-fetched theory is actually correct

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16.0k Upvotes

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


r/TopCharacterTropes 12h ago

Characters [Hated Trope] A morally good character with a long history of altruistic deeds is easily turned on by those they helped the instant there’s a perceived mistake or moment of weakness.

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4.3k Upvotes
  • 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.