Plot elemek Flashcards
The Hero Dies
A protagonist’s ultimate sacrifice.
Oops. Spoiler.
Audience expectations are that The Protagonist has Plot Armor. But like most audience expectations, some writers like to subvert this. Which leads to the trope title; although it is not quite Exactly What It Says on the Tin since The Protagonist does not have to be a Hero Protagonist for this trope to apply, and this trope does not apply if The Hero is a Hero Antagonist. As long as they don’t end up bringing the hero back later, this can also be a good way to show that Anyone Can Die.
When this happens in the middle of a work, make sure not to confuse this with Our Hero Is Dead, Disney Death, and Not Quite Dead. However, it can use a different protagonist afterward, either through Take Up My Sword or switching perspective.
When this happens at the end, it is one of the main causes of a Bittersweet Ending or Downer Ending. This can mean that The Bad Guy Wins, or it can be a Heroic Sacrifice.
Of course, sometimes the hero’s dead from the very start of the story; in that case, see Dead to Begin With.
Obviously, since this is a very specific death trope, expect many unmarked spoilers below! That being said, it’s also possible that examples may involve subversions or multiple protagonists.
Adult Fear
Threats and fears that most adults would be concerned about in real life.
Adult Fears are about the things mature, well-adjusted adults generally are concerned about, as opposed to supernatural or far-fetched fears: the safety of their children, the safety of their neighborhood, the fidelity of their spouse, the loyalty of their friends and coworkers, being able to pay their bills, etc. Rule of Scary is needed to get from concern to real fear, but Willing Suspension of Disbelief must be maintained for effect. To an adult (especially paranoid fathers), kids being preyed upon by pedophiles or sociopaths is scarier than kids being preyed upon by a Xenomorph. Outliving your children in general might be the worst fear of this kind.
The audience reaction is still to be scared, but this trope plays down the shock factor of more fantastical horror and plays up the relative realism of more mundane threats.
Can have political purposes as well as entertaining ones.
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
A major attack on the good guys’ home base.
Ah, the Heroes R Us HQ. For some heroes, it’s the place they eat, sleep, and generally live their lives; for others, it’s a great place to kick back, relax, and have wacky hijinks with their friends while on downtime; and for everyone, it’s the perfect place to run to after a failed mission, or at least an especially difficult one. After all, you gotta have a place for your heroes’ R&R, and what better place than your very safe and secure Home Base, right?
Cue explosions, warning klaxons, and many “This Is Not a Drill” announcements. Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb, indeed.
For shows featuring a Super Hero team, a military group, a secret service, or anything else that requires a Mission Control to operate, an attack on their headquarters is a great way to increase drama and tension. When an ordinary mission is botched, the heroes still have some place to return, lick their wounds, and plan their next encounter; but if they lose their homebase? Big morale crusher right there. Not only have they lost a safe haven and one of their biggest resources, but for many heroes, their very home as well.
If it gets destroyed while the heroes are out (or worse, despite their best efforts), have fun Watching Troy Burn.
This situation is when The Mole frequently surfaces. You can also expect the story’s Supporting Characters to have their own (freaking AWESOME) moments, typically tied into their position - the agency’s weapons guy will break out the big gun, the university physics professor will cobble together a death ray while the math teacher calculates firing solutions, the magical gardener will animate the topiary animals, etc.
Naturally, this is a great excuse to Trash the Set. If the attack succeeds and the base falls, it could create a Shocking Defeat Legacy. Compare with Die Hard on an X, where at least one character is left to fight back after the initial attack, win or lose. See also The Siege, Protect This House. When the heroes pull this on the villain, it’s Storming the Castle. If the destruction is upgraded to the entire city or country, this may be a Throwaway Country.
Often occurs at the beginning of videogames where you must fight Back from the Brink.
Arranged Marriage
Forced marriage. Angst/Comedy/Drama ensues.
An Arranged Marriage is, quite simply, the idea that someone is going to choose your spouse for you.
In most instances where a formal Arranged Marriage is introduced into a plot, it will become a source of tension and contention. Most people don’t really want to marry a total stranger (much less have sex with them), and if that total stranger turns out to be a complete rogue and a cad, it may be necessary for the heroes to spring into action and rescue the hapless member of their group who is being forced to walk down the aisle. (Of course, being Big Damn Heroes, they’ll have to do so in the most overblown and dramatic way possible.) Sometimes, the person in the arranged marriage takes matters into their own hands and becomes a Runaway Fiancé.
Conversely, an Arranged Marriage can be used as a technique to lock the hero and heroine together so that their disputes can not end with one of them washing his/her hands of the other.
A common tactic is for the daughter of a wealthy but common family to be matched with the Impoverished Patrician, for his title: Nobility Marries Money. Occasionally, it’s the other way around, with a titled daughter and a moneyed son. Families may even pledge infant children in marriage pacts that cannot be concluded until many years later.
The Arranged Marriage is not to be confused with: a Childhood Marriage Promise (whereby a prepubescent couple voluntarily pledges their own non-legally-binding, future troth); a marriage which may arise out of convenience; or a marriage that arises from some kind of cultural mistake. For clarity’s sake, the Arranged Marriage trope will deal only with more binding, traditional types of unions.
See also Parental Marriage Veto, You Have Waited Long Enough, Old Man Marrying A Child, Homosocial Heterosexuality, and Marriage Before Romance. A Shotgun Wedding is a short-notice forced marriage. If someone agrees to an Arranged Marriage but loves someone else, Courtly Love may be involved. If the people doing the “arranging” in the marriage aren’t the parents, that’s a Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage.
Often involves Prince Charmless and Rebellious Princess. At least recently, one of the potential spouses was as likely as not to try to defy this. When the audience really doesn’t want this marriage, expect the Big Damn Heroes to show up right at the Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace line.
To see the types of follies and foibles associated with modern dating services, see Dating Service Disaster. Supertrope to Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
Very very much Truth in Television for most of history until around the Industrial Revolution and continues to be normal (and even preferred) in lot of countries today, though usually without so much drama. For example, most couples entering arranged marriage do not meet for the first time at the wedding or even at the engagement, as their families move in the same social circles. Likewise historically the couple-to-be often has some input in selection process. Its just that given the inheritance issues and long-term considerations do you really want to leave such an important matter entirely up to two hormonal youths? Contrast Marry for Love.
And I Must Scream
A
character is trapped and/or tormented, fully aware but unable to communicate their distress, without even a prospect of death to bring a foreseeable end to the suffering.
A character suffers from an extremely horrifying Fate Worse than Death. Suicide is not an option; even death never comes to free him from it. He is immobilized or otherwise contained, unable to communicate with anyone, and unlikely to be removed from this situation — not even by death — anytime in the foreseeable future. As the name of the Trope suggests, he can’t even scream in anguish, even though he would if he could.
This is often a variation on Taken for Granite in which the victim remains conscious, and the worst-case scenario for tropes such as Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere, Baleful Polymorph, Phantom Zone Picture, and Who Wants to Live Forever?.
Some other torture — eternal pain, seeing your worst fears forever, et cetera — may be layered on top of it, but simply being stuck like that forever can be more than enough.
Usually, when this arises, it is eternal unless he’s freed by outside forces, but a “mere” years-long or centuries-long fate is possible. For instance, a robot with a 100-year battery life, buried underground. In fact, this is a very common sci-fi trope involving artificial intelligences who are potentially immortal due to being made of software.
Sometimes appears as a Backstory, if a Sealed Person In A Can was aware while sealed away. Can overlap with Go Mad from the Isolation if the character’s separated from other people rather than among them but unable to interact.
Generally used two ways, either for horror, or as a way to defeat immortal villains
Awesome Moment of Crowning
I saved the world. King me.
This is when, at the end (usually) of the story, the main character or characters are crowned The Leader of the land they just saved. Reasons can vary:
The hero is part of the royal line, so this is done when the Rightful King Returns. There was an Ancient Tradition. The hero(es) defeated the old ruler(s), so You Kill It, You Bought It. It's part of the Standard Hero Reward. Their new king is always Offered the Crown. He retrieved the legendary Royal MacGuffin of Royalty. Finders Rulers, nyeah nyeah!
Sometimes, it doubles as a coronation wedding with a prince / Princess or the hero’s Love Interest, guaranteeing a Happily Ever After of Happily Married conjugal bliss.
Compare Knighting. Contrast Cincinnatus.
The title is derived from “Crowning Moment of Awesome”, the much-loved and much-missed Former Trope Name of Moment Of Awesome.
Awakening the Sleeping Giant
Someone attacks a supremely powerful neutral force, and they end up paying the price.
Everyone knows about the Big Good and the Big Bad, but what about the Even Bigger Neutral?
In most conflicts, there are a variety of neutral parties. From the Precursors to the Retired Badass to the King in the Mountain to the Hidden Elf Village, they always exist, and there’s usually one that can kick the shit out of both the other sides at the same time, using only a kitchen whisk and a sheet of tissue paper. But don’t bother asking them for help, because they will refuse to get involved.
That is, unless someone does something stupid or evil enough to repulse them. Whether it was the heroes or the villains, anyone who steps over some inexcusable line will invite their wrath, and this isn’t the regular Neutral No Longer give-the-other-side-some-reinforcements wrath … this is “we have an army of Cthulhu clones” wrath. Expect an Oh, Crap! from the receiving end if and when the former neutrals start whipping out the doomsday weapons. On the other hand, for the beleaguered side not subject to the proverbial giant’s wrath, this is a moment of celebration as they gain a powerful ally and they will fight alone no more.
There are two key points to look for before and after this trope comes into play.
Before: There is an established conflict, of any sort, between any number of parties, with a prominent neutral party that wishes to remain uninvolved. After: When the neutral party enters the conflict, it drastically alters the balance of power.
A Sub-Trope of Neutral No Longer and related to Heroic Neutral. May serve as a Deus ex Machina and/or Story-Breaker Power (and/or Game Breaker, if the work is a game) if the giant was an All-Powerful Bystander. Compare Default To Good. If the entity is an individual, then they won the Superpower Lottery, and it’s likely they are a Martial Pacifist. Compare Sealed Good in a Can, if the “sleeping” is in the character of an involuntary confinement and someone breaks the prison. If the neutral party is actually smaller than the two fighting powers, but still enough to alter the balance of power greatly, this overlaps with Kingmaker Scenario.
Sadistic Choice
Forced to choose one of two terrible choices.
This is a situation in which a character is presented with a choice, any outcome of which causes something bad to happen. It could be a hostage situation wherein, if one victim is saved, the other(s) die; or it can be a choice to save one’s loved ones or save the world. The hostage variant is often called a Sophie’s Choice, after that novel and film.
However it is set up, it presents a moral and/or ethical dilemma that will inevitably cost the character something that they hold dear unless they Take a Third Option. If the writers are as sadistic as the villain, no third option will be possible, and Tonight Someone Dies. This is guaranteed to set the Hero into Angst mode, and gives a villain optimum gloating time. Plus, it’s fun to watch them squirm!
Often the choices represent facets of a hero’s life that are in conflict, such as whether his loved ones are more important than his ideals/cause, whether he likes Betty more than Veronica, to what lengths he will go to conceal his Secret Identity, whether he is willing to kill to save something he cares about, whether he will betray his allies to save lives, or sometimes even whether his principles are worth his life.
When it’s a choice between two people, one or both of them will often encourage the hero to choose to save the other. This is also a good time for the villain to be Genre Savvy enough to put the hostages in separate Death Traps with a timer that guarantees that he can only save one of them. Many villains in this scenario are not above pulling a You Said You Would Let Them Go on the character once the choice is made, just to be a complete bastard.
Given it’s such a hard choice, it’s no wonder most good guys tend to Take a Third Option. It’s practically unheard of for a hero to actually make this choice, and have it carried through before either the villain breaks his promise or the cavalry manage a rescue. If the one offering the choice benefits regardless of what the chooser chooses, its a Xanatos Gambit. If both choices lead to the same outcome anyway, then it’s a Morton’s Fork.
Compare Friend or Idol Decision, Hostage for MacGuffin, Scylla and Charybdis, Take a Third Option, I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure. Contrast The Window or the Stairs. A classic Moral Dilemma.
Badass Army
This is where the Badass Crew is taken to the next logical step and turned into an entire army. The Badass Army is made of 100% badasses and there is absolutely nothing that can stop them short of overwhelming numbers or an even more badass Badass Army. There is not a single soldier who can not hold his own in a fight. They are likely to be super soldiers and have a high likelihood to have been raised in The Spartan Way. They will not use Hollywood Tactics like amateurs.
Count on them to boast many a Colonel Badass, and many more Sergeant Rocks. Almost always commanded by one or several Four Star Badasses.
The polar opposite of Red Shirt Army. A sub-trope of this, where an especially Badass Army is sealed in the can, is the Sealed Army in a Can. Proud Warrior Race Guy is another variant where a guy is from a culture that makes an unusually big deal about trying to be this. Usually an Elite Army. Compare Humans Are Warriors, where having a Badass Army is humanity’s hat, and with Men of Sherwood, a Badass Army on a smaller scale. Semper Fi is similar, but they are quick to inform you that they are not an army, regardless of the infantry, tanks, artillery, and attack helicopters that they use.
Bodyguard Crush
A bodyguard falls in love with the charge, or vice versa.
Modern beliefs in equal gender rights make the good old Rescue Romance trope somewhat difficult to play straight. However, there’s a question in the air… what if “that male” is either hired or honor-bound to protect “that female”? That wouldn’t be chauvinist at all - not only is the guy getting rewarded or paid (whether in money, benefits, rank raises, fame/reputation etc.) by his bosses or upperclassmen for taking care of the girl’s safety, but it fulfills residual Knight in Shining Armor imagery without causing eyebrow raising among the fandom.
If said bodyguard is a female who takes care of a male, she can keep her romantic feelings for her ward and show off her Action Girl skills constantly, which greatly decreases the chances of her being a victim of Chickification. Finally, this provides a good way to get a Chaste or Celibate Hero, who normally wouldn’t be interested in the opposite (or the same) sex into a position where their romantic feelings can be more easily played upon.
Sweet deal… or is it? This often conflicts with the protector’s sense of professionalism, especially if they’re a Battle Butler or a Ninja Maid. What happens if bodyguard and the liege’s relationship goes bad? What if the conflicts distracts the protector or if plans and orders coming from the bosses change…
A Bodyguard Crush is extremely common in Lady and Knight dynamics.
Variants include the protected having his/her crush for the bodyguard first, and the bodyguard being picked for the job because one of them has a crush. If the bodyguard seeks to protect a person because he/she has a crush on them, but Cannot Spit It Out, it’s a Declaration of Protection.
A subtrope of Unequal Pairing.
See also Subordinate Excuse, Poisonous Friend. Contrast A Match Made in Stockholm.
The Epic
An epic is a long story centered on a heroic character that describes a series of exceptional events, similar to and suggestive of epic poetry. There are numerous epics in fiction and storytelling. Epics are majestic depictions and capture impressive struggles, such as stories of war, adventures, and other efforts of great scope and size over long periods of time.
Form is mostly limited to literature and theater, and includes.
Epic Poem (also known as classic epic)
Epic Narrative (also known as modern epic)
Epic Movie (more broadly defined, includes film adaptations of the literary epic as defined here)
Some basic guidelines:
A longer-than-average story that... ... Is wide in scope (not just one battle or skirmish, but a country-wide/planet-wide/galaxy-wide war or catastrophe) and... ... Follows one hero, group of heroes or bloodline, who... ... Strive to achieve a particular goal or complete a quest, in the course of which they... ... Commit extraordinary deeds and... ... Have multiple (three or more) separate adventures in the course of their quest or journey.
The classic epics had their own guidelines:
Starting In Medias Res, usually later having The Hero explain via Flashback How We Got Here "Invocation of the Muse" (formally asking one of the Muses to help the author live up to the task of doing the story justice, or achieve whatever goal they have in mind for it) A trip to the Underworld
Can be divided into a few different subgenres. The divisions also come in two flavors, Form and Subject (may be subtropes/genres). Both forms can be divided by subject:
Heroic (one person, may include companions, but focused on the person) Familial (follows a particular lineage) and National (follows the history of an entire nation, not common)
Not to be confused with the modern bastardization of the term just to mean “awesome.”
This is a distinguishing characteristic of Space Opera and High Fantasy, in that both are the Epic versions of Science Fiction and Fantasy respectively.
Please do not add an example without ensuring that it first meets the criteria.
Generation Xerox
Kids act like their parents.
Yes, we know that Lamarck Was Right…but this is getting silly.
You see, not only has our hero discovered his Secret Legacy and realized that, due to his Superpowerful Genetics, he has inherited all of Mom and Dad’s abilities (including the ones courtesy of Charles Atlas)… he’s found out that he’s destined/doomed to live out a replay of their lives.
This trope takes “following in your parent’s footsteps” to a whole new level. The character hasn’t just inherited their parents’ character traits and superpowers — they’ve inherited their entire life story.
They will meet the same people their parents met, or, if this isn’t possible, they will have an equivalent. If Mandy’s best friend when she was a child was Polly the Soap Box Sadie, her daughter Mindy will befriend Paula the Soap Box Sadie on her first day of school. Sometimes it’s just a coincidence, where the child seems to gravitate towards the same type of people as their mom and dad were drawn to, but often the new associate will have some direct tie to the parent’s past (e.g. is the daughter of someone that knew the character’s mom).
Often, certain key events will happen exactly as they did in the past. Turn Out Like His Father is most likely to fail when crossed with this trope. In many plotlines, however, the outcome will change at the last moment since the hero(ine) has heard the story from their parents and has had the time to work out what went wrong and worked up the guts to change it. For example, if the hero’s dad fell out with his best friend because neither would apologize to the other, the hero will figure out that saying sorry is the best way to keep his own friendship going.
To a certain point, this trope can be a Justified Trope. If the parents send the kid to the same school as they themselves went to, then it’s not such a stretch to believe that the son or daughter will encounter the same people. If the parents kept in touch with their old friends, it’s not unlikely that the child will befriend the children of those friends. However, if the parents moved to a different country, assumed secret identities and tried to forget the past, only to have Junior come home from his first day of school announcing that his dad’s right hand man is his English teacher… that’s a bit more of a stretch.
Mentors who become parental figures will also tend to pass on their life story, although karma rather than genetics will be held responsible for the resulting deja vu.
Love Interests and relationships tend to get copied whole cloth as well. Whether it’s the descendants of two Star-Crossed Lovers or the child of the Official Couple from a Love Dodecahedron finding out they have their parent’s stable’s children gunning for them with cupid’s arrows.
And heaven help you if your parents/mentors made a mess of their lives, because guess what? Yup, that Fatal Flaw was hereditary too. Better get to work figuring out just how they screwed things up, because if you don’t, chances are the same tragedy’s going to happen again. And it’ll be your fault this time around, in which case you’ll have no choice but to pass the entire scenario on to your son or daughter and hope that they can Set Right What Once Went Wrong — a sort of generational “Groundhog Day” Loop.
See also In the Blood, Secret Legacy, Superpowerful Genetics, Legacy Character. Often this leads to Parental Hypocrisy. Opposed Mentors will have opposed students who will become mentors themselves etc.
Very often, the exact same actors will be used to portray the ancestors. The more distant they are, the more likely this is.
Lima Syndrome
Captors start showing empathy towards their captives.
Lima Syndrome is the phenomenon in which abductors develop sympathy for their captives, named after the abduction of the Japanese Ambassador’s Residence in Lima, Peru in 1996 by members of a terrorist group. Within a few days, the hostage takers set free most of the captives, including the most valuable ones, due to sympathy; and the ones who were supposed to kill the hostages in the event of an assault could not bring themselves to do it. It is essentially a mirror image of Stockholm Syndrome.
There are a number of reasons why this would happen. Maybe one or more of the kidnappers don’t agree with the plan, or they just don’t feel up to hurting innocents. Maybe the villain has decided that he doesn’t have the heart to keep his prisoner locked up. Or maybe he’s just doing what’s necessary, and generally feels bad about it.
This person is also likely to be the one in charge of tending to the captives, bringing them food or healing their wounds, and thus has a greater chance of developing an attachment and growing to actually care about their well-being. Alternatively, the captor could simply be a Minion with an F in Evil.
Or it may be that one of the prisoners is particularly prone to inspiring sympathy. See Pregnant Hostage for a specific example of this type of character.
In many stories, this type of behavior will often foreshadow a Heel-Face Turn. A captive trying to artificially induce this might use a Kirk Summation.
See Stockholm Syndrome for the reverse situation. The two may often go hand in hand if the feelings are mutual between the abductor and their captive. Any plot featuring The Svengali (for whom Lima Syndrome is effectively an occupational hazard) tends to have some of both.
Love Makes You Evil
Character does bad things in the name of love.
The Power of Love ain’t always a good thing.
How many times have we heard this? “I did this for you! So we could be happy together!” Love can be a strong motivation for good. But if you’re in a Love Triangle, or your loved one is dying of cancer, it can also be a great motivation for murdering the hypotenuse, making a Face-Heel Turn, embracing The Dark Side, selling your soul to the devil, raping your love interest, cursing yourself by opening the Tome of Eldritch Lore, up to causing The End of the World as We Know It.
This often happens when a simple love spirals into a dangerous obsession; the love goes out of control, becoming their number-one motivation beyond everything else, including their reason, morals and others’ well-being, and they self-destruct in the end. A common, yet, severe manifestation of this is usually cries of “If I Can’t Have You Then No One Will.” If both lovers follow the downward spiral, you may end up with Outlaw Couple or Unholy Matrimony.
Sometimes, it’s not quite “love” but the lack thereof that drives a rejected suitor to serve the Big Bad for revenge. The object of their affections will probably think whatever damage they cause is All My Fault.
Sometimes, the person who will go to extreme, evil lengths for love is a villainous Stalker with a Crush who has no grasp of the true concept of love, and emulates it as best he can. With knives.
Sometimes, it’s a genuinely well-meaning, severely Genre Blind Love Martyr who wants their beloved to be happy or protect them from their enemies, even if it means damning themselves in the process. They will hear endless rants of What Were You Thinking? before breaking out in cries of My God, What Have I Done? and dying nobly, using their last breath to assure their beloved, “I still love you. I always will love you.”
Frequently, the motivation for the sympathetic Fallen Hero to fall. The belief that, had he been a little less lenient, a little less forgiving, that special someone who was Stuffed In A Fridge might still be alive. Leading into Well-Intentioned Extremist territory.
An especially unpleasant extent of how Love Hurts and Makes You Crazy. Might start with, or end in, Destructive Romance. Since this is both a Love Trope and a Betrayal Trope, there will be spoilers. See Yandere for a version of this trope that is mixed with, or camouflaged by, Moe tropes. Contrast Evil Virtues, where a villain has love as a good trait.
Love Triangle
In love, two’s company; three’s a crowd.
A is in love with B, but B is in love with C, while C is in love with A. Well, that’s one of them. A Love Triangle commonly involves three people, love, and decisions. It can be dramatic, or it can result in Wacky Hijinx. Sometimes a fourth person is brought in to make it right, sometimes somebody might be kicked out. See Triang Relations for all the ways these three people can mess up their love lives.
Very common in Soap Opera.
Sometimes a Love Triangle can come to involve a fourth person, while still ultimately being called a “triangle.” But move complications that insist on widening it can be explored further in a Love Dodecahedron.
Compare Friend Versus Lover.
Love Hurts
Falling in love leaves you susceptible to the worst emotional pains.
Forget life-threatening superheroism, acting Too Dumb to Live, and Tempting Fate. The most dumb, insane and dangerous thing any hero can do in any media is… falling in love. Dare to love someone else and you set up yourself and your beloved for a plethora of emotional griefs. Love in Real Life is responsible for vast quantities of anguished poetry and tragic literature; factor in all the crazy stuff that happens on TV, and drama and disaster are practically guaranteed.
About to commit permanently? Look for an Anyone Can Die to put a permanent end to the Will They or Won’t They? issue. Forget to say goodbye to your beloved that one time? It’ll haunt you for the rest of your life. And let’s not forget that becoming emotionally attached to one person leaves you open to the stress caused by the villain abducting your beloved or them even being killed off senselessly just to shape you into the Anti-Hero out for Revenge, or at the very least a Heartbroken Bad Ass. Your love is hurt but alive? Don’t You Dare Pity Me! — they will shove you away. Or perhaps you’d be their Second Love — if only they and you didn’t think Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids!. Love will make your heart go soft and pitter-pattering into the path to be crushed by the cruel forces of fate against Star-Crossed Lovers. Small wonder that so many try to protect their loved ones by dumping them.
If you’ve got more than one love interest, you’ve got a headache-inducing Love Triangle or even Love Dodecahedron on your hands. Tread these waters very carefully, lest you be on the receiving end of a Yandere’s poisonous affections or a Tsundere’s Megaton Punch. Pick one lover and you can look forward to either a Thundering Herd of jilted rivals or the silent shattering of many other hearts. All in the name of comedy, you say? Comedy never became as twisted as it does when dealing with lovers crazy enough to beat down your door, commit trespassing, glomp you, and refuse to let go. And remembering the love interest anywhere you go makes it worse.
And heaven forbid if your love turns out to be one-sided. You’ll become a crazy Love Hungry psycho stalker if you don’t choose to nobly sacrifice your love. Sometimes you’ll even go all the way into a full-fledged villain with a grudge against humanity because humanity was not kind enough to let you have that one person. Sometimes it’s even your own creator who decides that you can’t get them because he couldn’t get her in real life!
Such a fragile illusion… Isn’t it?
In the right/wrong genre, even when you win, you lose. Little wonder why many a pessimist believes that “Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids!” and Love Makes You Dumb, and many a hero has chosen to be a Genre Savvy Celibate Hero.
Compare Destructive Romance, Hope Is Scary.
However, if you do manage to get it right, love can be the purest and most powerful thing in the world. Another way to resolve this is through Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends.
Contrast Happily Married. Unrelated to Lover Tug-of-War, even though that may also hurt.
Love Dodecahedron
The Love Triangle has metastasized.
Love Triangles are stressful and often heartbreaking. Add five or ten more people to the mix, and instead they become comedy: Characters A, B, C, and D all love character E, who might love any of them, but can’t commit for reasons of honor or basic wishywashiness. There’s also character F, who might love E, and whom he might love back, but they get on each other’s nerves so it’s hard to tell. Meanwhile, G is sweet on C while H and I both love A. Except on alternate Tuesdays, when H’s third cousin from Osaka expresses her intent to marry Character F’s dog, who has an odd thing for D…
You get the idea.
Many series have official diagrams so the fans can keep track of the Loads and Loads of Characters.
The Seven Basic Plots Christopher Booker uses this concept as his definition of the Comedy genre, only the point is that the Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends isn’t a shoehorn but the soul of the plot:
Start with at least 3 ideal relationships;
Each relationship is stymied because the people involved are:
1. Fixated on the wrong partners and oblivious to the good ones,
2. Failing to communicate, and/or
3. Suppressing their desires due to other factors (e.g., taboos, class distinctions, family pressures, etc.).
The Villain (or sometimes the Hero) is the source of the biggest road block, so
Make him repent (dramatically), and then
Everyone can cheerfully enter into the relationship they were meant to be in all along.
The Villain (or Hero) acts as a Fisher King, casting a darkness and confusion across all the relationships until his Heel-Face Turn, which frees up the main couple to get together and that, in turn, frees up everyone else.
The Love Dodecahedronnote is a superset of the following tropes:
The Unwanted Harem Love Triangle All Love Is Unrequited
Also, see Gambit Pileup, which is similar to this trope, but with gambits. Though Love Dodecahedra can be the cause of such pileups. The opposite of this is No Loves Intersect. There are three kinds of stable Love Dodecahedra: 1) everyone staying friends, 2) everyone marrying the hero, or 3) the hero abandoning his harem. Can also sometimes be resolved by Squaring the Love Triangle. Compare Dating Do-Si-Do, which is similar with the lots-of-tangled-up-relationships part but the relationships do not necessarily have to be in competition with each other. Tangled Family Tree can be considered a sister trope, and a Love Dodecahedron can turn into one of those if given enough time.
Murder the Hypotenuse
Character kills romantic rival(s).
Love Triangles are tricky business. Trust us, we’ve already done the math.
It can get particularly twisted when some sides of the triangle are completely one-sided. Bob is in love with Alice, but Alice not only fails to realize it, but is already in a relationship with Chris. This is a classic recipe for drama (or humor), but sometimes, it goes too far.
Sometimes, somehow, Bob gets the idea that Chris is the one in the way of Bob’s happiness with Alice, and if Chris were to somehow have an “accident”, then surely Alice would come to love Bob instead. It’s true — Love Makes You Evil.
Not always the best thought-out plan, no. Sometimes, Bob may not even consider what would happen if Alice ever found out. If this isn’t The Reveal for a Yandere, it’s still her most shocking moment.
Compare Opposites Attract Revenge. Contrast I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, which may be subverted into this trope, and vice versa. Also compare the Scarpia Ultimatum, where the threat to murder the hypotenuse may or may not be carried out. Contrast If I Can’t Have You, for when it’s the Cathetus (Alice, for those a little rusty on their geometry) that will be murdered. If this is done indirectly by setting the hypotenuse up to be killed, it’s either The Uriah Gambit (if Bob does it intentionally) or Death of the Hypotenuse (if the intent is limited to the author). Extreme Sub-Trope of Removing the Rival.
When the fanfiction writers do this, it’s Die for Our Ship. If the hypotenuse is a friend, it’s Friend Versus Lover. If the character kills him/herself instead, it’s Spurned Into Suicide.
Note that the triangle must be a right triangle for this to apply. If it is an equilateral triangle, Polyamory occurs, though if you have a Psychotic Love Triangle going on, things may still not end well
A character (usually a villain) sacrifices himself to advance his plan.
A character (usually a villain) sacrifices himself to advance his plan.
There are some plans perpetrated by a select few that involve the villain’s own demise as the finishing touch: A Plot-Triggering Death that is self-triggered. Naturally, any plan that involves the literal end of the world would finish off an antagonist as well as everyone else, but that’s usually a side effect. My Death Is Just the Beginning has it as the first (or one of the first) items on the Big Bad’s To Do list.
There are plenty of reasons for why these plans are drawn up. Sometimes it is to evade justice from the heroes; the villain knows that if he is successful, someone will want to take revenge. Perhaps the character doesn’t actually want to die, but knows that there’s no way around it if he wants to succeed. It could be a plan to turn The Hero to The Dark Side, or maybe the villain’s death is part of an overarching Gambit Roulette and it will set in motion events the heroes couldn’t possibly predict. Still, there are some bastards who just love to have the last laugh.
My Death Is Just the Beginning isn’t the sort of plot the average antagonist will use, as it requires a certain dedication to results over personal glory and power. Well Intentioned Extremists can drift towards plans of this sort, especially if they happen to be dedicated to the fulfillment of some lofty ideal. The Chessmaster has the sort of talents to execute this kind of scheme, and will opt to do himself in if the gains are substantial enough. A Magnificent Bastard will never use this sort of plan unless it also doubles as his Crowning Moment of Awesome.
This all depends on what the nature of death is in a series though. Media in which Disney Death is common, Death Is Cheap, or uses any death trope along similar lines that lessens the impact of a character dying is less likely to use My Death Is Just the Beginning, because the essential sacrifice is missing. Then again, that doesn’t stop some writers.
If done in a series in which Status Quo Is God, it may herald a Genre Shift, or will at the least be the climax of a major story arc.
Protagonists are also capable of doing this, but more often than not those are just undertakings that are considered suicide and not part of some master scheme. If anyone on the hero side pulls this off, it will probably be The Obi-Wan, complete with an Obi-Wan Moment.
Can overlap with Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred.
Compare Suicide by Cop, in which dying is the goal and not a step. It usually also makes Facing Death With Dignity a little easier. Also compare/contrast Thanatos Gambit, in which the villain or hero’s death is the final part of a complex plan. These two often overlap, though, due to the nature of both schemes. It can also overlap with Villainous Legacy. Take into consideration Nice Job Breaking It, Hero as well (when either the hero kills the villain without considering the consequences, or does it anyway despite the warnings of what might happen). Is frequently the motivation for/preceded by “Strike Me Down.”
See also You Cannot Kill An Idea and Inspirational Martyr.
Related to Failure Gambit. Unrelated to Xanatos Gambit because the planner’s death is a crucial element, and so if it doesn’t happen, The Plan fails.
Parental Abandonment
The character’s parents aren’t shown, or they’re dead.
A stunningly large number of heroes and their coteries are lacking in the parent department, either through death or in that they just aren’t talked about. Even if both parents are alive, they may well be emotionally or physically distant (although that’s just Parental Neglect). Everyone is, for the sake of the plot, Conveniently an Orphan, whether they actually are or not.
This is a very convenient way for characters to be able to run off in the middle of the night to fight Evil, get sucked into another world, etc. without having anyone responsible for them making a fuss. In fact, one of the first things a creator of stories about children or teens having adventures needs to do is explain a lack of parental involvement.
It also allows for the Ordinary High-School Student to be revealed as a super-powered demon fighter, or intergalactic being without the need for a messy Retcon answering the question an alert viewer would ask about why the parents didn’t know about this. It’s simply a case of the child following in their parent’s Secret Legacy.
Of course, if you go back far enough, you’ll reach a time when most young adults in Real Life actually were orphaned or abandoned. Adults died younger than than they do now, and people with chronic illnesses like schizophrenia or tuberculosis were often sent away from the family to recover or die. It was also easier to abandon a family, given the poor communications of the times and the lack of a police force. Because of all this, it’s quite common for a fictional character from the 19th century or earlier to mention being orphaned with no more emotional reaction than a shrug, since the experience was considered a normal part of real life. A good example is Jane Austen’s Emma, where the title character’s mother died years earlier, but is barely mentioned.
Note that the parents in question don’t actually have to die for this Trope to be in effect. Note also that in a few cases listed below, parents are hardly even mentioned — which makes things incredibly awkward.
If only one parent is missing or dead, then it’s a case of Missing Mom or Disappeared Dad. When several siblings lack their original parents, the first born will receive a Promotion to Parent. Parental Abandonment is also a leading cause of Dark Magical Girls. One standard method for achieving it is to make your characters Blitz Evacuees.
In families with servants, this can lead to the Old Retainer acting as a Parental Substitute. If they were traveling abroad when both parents died, the child may be Raised by Natives. If the parents die in the wilds, their surviving child may be Raised by Wolves. It is also possible the parents left them out there to die, expecting them to be a meal, not an adoptee.
When the parents had to separate from the child in order to protect it, this results in Moses in the Bullrushes. When the parents had to leave the child in order to give it “a better life”, then it leads to Give Him a Normal Life.
In animation, cases of parentis abscentia can be caused by budgeting; it’s cheaper to animate one character (usually Dad) than to have two characters basically doing the same thing.
Parental Abandonment is a common feature of a Dark and Troubled Past (though children lucky enough to find a Parental Substitute generally avoid such a fate). It is a common feature of a Tear Jerker.
It should be noted that parental abandonment does not always mean either or both parent(s) leaving, but also the child being ignored by the parent, knowingly or unknowingly.
May entail Tell Me About My Father. Or rarely, mother. For reasons of economy, the child is seldom interested in both parents. See also Parental Neglect, Hands-Off Parenting, Missing Mom, and Disappeared Dad. Parental Abandonment en masse may create a Teenage Wasteland.
Compare Free-Range Children when it’s the children who voluntarily go out on their own accord.
For the opposing extreme, contrast Meddling Parents, My Beloved Smother and Fantasy-Forbidding Father.
